CS community meta discussion

Honestly, reading through these last few posts, I still don't see the point of creating a whole-ass launcher for Cave Story mods. I thought one of the main appeals of CS mods is that, being based off of a freeware game, you could just distribute the executable and everything and it would be ready right out of the box. You can't really get much more easy to understand than downloading a zip file and clicking on the program to run.

It fills a small niche for people that are either really lazy or in the dark when it comes to messing with files or filesystems.
Moreso if I actually bother improving the UX and add useful things like profile.dat management.

That aside it could also be argued that if enough people show interest in the concept there's more purpose to building an archival system that could be more easily integrated.



And otherwise the whole reason I made it back in '18 was "because I felt like it and it was kinda fun to make it".

 

Honestly, reading through these last few posts, I still don't see the point of creating a whole-ass launcher for Cave Story mods. I thought one of the main appeals of CS mods is that, being based off of a freeware game, you could just distribute the executable and everything and it would be ready right out of the box. You can't really get much more easy to understand than downloading a zip file and clicking on the program to run.

Let's not forget that existing mod executables vary from freeware to modified freeware to NX-engine to CSE2 to d-rs... this move would basically entail throwing out a good chunk of legacy mods, should the launcher choose to go for a patch-based method like Jade seems to be describing. Also, why a patch-based method? It's not like Nicalis is DMCAing us for hosting the original freeware version of the game, and even for CSE2, while they took down the source code, I have not seen a single instance of a mod that uses CSE2 being taken down even on that fateful day in 2020.

Plus, if we want to have our downloaded mods be up-to-date or showcase snazzy new mods, would a newsletter not suffice? Or, for mods you've already downloaded, an option on the website to be messaged each time an update is published?

There's no reason for Windows to have a start menu or a file explorer either while we're at it.

Steam too. Who wants to use steam. Nobody wants all their games in one organized place.

Edit:

 

The thing is, file explorerers have a lot more of a tangible benefit, because the alternative is using a freaking command line to manipulate your files. People were stoked to not have to look at a black screen and type abbreviations all the time in order to do anything, whereas the jump from "you can see your files and interact with them better" to "the application does everything for you" just isn't as widely appealing. Organizing mods is as easy as right clicking, selecting "New folder", naming the folder, and choosing to save your mods there. Steam goes above and beyond the bare minimum with its features for sure, but the vast majority of them aren't strictly necessary, like playtime counters, banners, etc...

We could be making a mod launcher with auto-updates and a store and a community page and Knuckles, but the fact of the matter is the people who would be interested in mods for a game most likely do not care about fancy applications, and they, more likely than not, know how to use a computer.
The Super Mario World hacking community is proof of this: last time I checked, there is not an SMW Hack Launcher, and people patch the game with LunarIPS and .bps files just as they have in 2014, but it still remains one of the largest and most prominent game hacking scenes regardless. Super Mario 64 hacks have been popular for a long time, and only recently have things like Parallel Launcher and Romhacking.com given players a way to go from a hack's page directly to booting it up in an emulator.

Bending over backwards to create the ultimate Cave Story mod hub program to appeal to a general gaming audience really should not be a priority in the discussion on how to revitalize the community, and especially should not be when we could be focusing on arguably more effective ways to grow the community.

 

Most other modding communities don't make programs like this because they're just not coordinated. You can ask developers in that community and they'd admit that to you.
We at the very least have developers here who are trying to find a way to get an integration between the two most important things to this already. So that's one huge barrier passed.

This isn't "The thing that'll fix cave story" dude, there's no "Thing that'll fix Cave Story" that's not how anything in a universe where entropy exists works.
The whole intent of getting several community projects and "things to ease the process of becoming a more involved fan / community member" to the forefront is to make it so people who are casual fans of CS can feel more involved in the developments of the community. Because again, the world does not exist on Discord and I think taking steps to connect these satellite communities and keep everyone sorta "in the know" of things going on and relevant to people in the community.

Web design, product design, game design, etc. Is all about conveying information to end users as efficiently as possible and this kind of structure will allow information to flow without people having to be forced into a discord, forum, or other social media community. It would aggregate stuff together and allow people to just focus on mods, which generally contain all of the in jokes of the entire community anyways so are good delivery methods for "what's going on".

 

At no point did I say we shouldn't move information off Discord. I completely agree that we should have a dedicated modding resource hub in a more available location. Nor did I mean to insinuate that you said the mod launcher in particular would be the silver bullet for getting attention back on the game. I was simply saying that your Cave Story Mod Launcher would be a lot of effort for something that really isn't neccessary, and isn't that much more convenient over downloading and opening the mods yourself. The effort would probably be better spent on ways to streamline the actual modding process itself, or expanding the scope of doukutsu.club/whatever it'll get renamed to/whatever it gets replaced by.

 

People who have a shortage of time (people with busy lives) ((actual consumer demographic that is most important)) generally tend to favor more convenient experiences.

Integrating a launcher into the site, doukutsu club, etc. would be the fastest way to just put a "click here to download the cs community launcher"
That means immediately the thing you find when you look up "Cave Story" immediately funnels you to a program that'd just be "Here's our recommended experience and here's all the mods you could ever want ever"

And while that would be able to be done through a website (i.e doukutsu club itself) I feel that just making a program to automate the process further would make it less of a hassle so the conversation just goes "Download the launcher from the site" instead of "download this mod from this link in this thread on this forum and extract it this way and launch this program and also there's a 90% chance your average CS noob will fuck that up"
Like to your average person who just wants to check out a game that's a lot simpler and a lot of people that play games these days are tech illiterate because more and more kids are growing up infront of chromebooks and ipads infront of windows pcs. So they're just not used to navigating the filesystem as much as our generation is. I know there's plenty of young people here that can do it just fine but more and more young people can't and that's gonna cause the ecosystem to kinda dry up after a while.

Edit :
It being an integration would allow all the sites to keep existing as is too and stop there being a black box there.

 

okay i'm very sorry for this but i'm still having some trouble understanding how exactly this launcher idea would differ from just downloading mods to your computer and double-clicking them (blame my utter ignorance of the modding scene because i'm not exactly into modding so i can't speak to it very well). Let's start with what exactly you envision for this project. What exactly do you expect to see when you open up this launcher? How do you search for mods from within the launcher? How do you view and engage in discussion on said mods? How do you browse between the various mods you have downloaded? And how do these actions within a launcher compare to or differ from the corresponding actions in a browser and/or a file explorer?

 

The launcher itself would be able to ping the servers for doukutsuclub, the servers for doukutsuclub would return basic data that the launcher could read to display a list of installable mods, "recommended mods", etc. These might need to be separate lists that way the servers don't get overwhelmed and so the organization doesn't suck. Ideally it'd just be "doukutsuclub the program"

From the launcher you'd be able to click on the mods displayed and install them. The launcher keeps the client-side download percentage updating, downloads the file from the doukutsu club server, then unpacks it into the user's preferred install directory for the given mod (which would probably default to a generic mod install directory)

For mods that work with CS+ it could potentially install by copying its files into the proper directories to allow it to function out of the box. So mods that support using CS+ assets like clownacy's and other stuff would benefit from it too. File browsing takes long times on low end hardware and a lot of people with lower income can't afford to replace their computers constantly and are stuck with old devices running hardware that was already on its way out of the market when it was manufactured. So manually going through these things on modern filesystems like Windows 10 and 11 becomes slow because these specific devices are designed around relatively recent SSDs (especially 11)

Newer windows versions are Just Slower and this has gotten so bad that it affects the rate at which people can navigate their own computer SUBSTANTIALLY on certain devices and it's a large part in why people don't migrate to newer versions.

The whole goal is to streamline the whole installation process, even if it's functionally doing the same thing, if the end user doesn't have to do it it's going to make it a lot easier for people who aren't familiar with CS's filestructure(s) and don't want to be bothered to learn those just to play mods.
It's a lot more annoying to do the whole "mods" thing given people are growing LESS familiar with windows as time goes on due to its current update structure and the fact that a lot of institutions have transitioned to chromebooks over thinkpads. The next generation of 12s will not be as familiar with the process and that's just where shit's trending.
And yes, there will still always be kids that do know how to do all the stuff we do but the goal here is to actually connect the community further, thus helping it grow faster by encouraging participation in one of the main cultural cornerstones of the community in a way that isn't demanding for casuals. That meaning people who only really play it on nintendo consoles but happen to have a windows computer, or streamers that want to make content on the game but want to use a port that gives them the experience they'd prefer the most.

 

ping the servers for doukutsuclub, the servers for doukutsuclub would return basic data that the launcher could read to display a list of installable mods, "recommended mods", etc. These might need to be separate lists that way the servers don't get overwhelmed and so the organization doesn't suck. Ideally it'd just be "doukutsuclub the program"

All this could be done within the website itself, no?

File browsing takes long times on low end hardware and a lot of people with lower income can't afford to replace their computers constantly and are stuck with old devices running hardware that was already on its way out of the market when it was manufactured. So manually going through these things on modern filesystems like Windows 10 and 11 becomes slow because these specific devices are designed around relatively recent SSDs (especially 11)
Newer windows versions are Just Slower and this has gotten so bad that it affects the rate at which people can navigate their own computer SUBSTANTIALLY on certain devices and it's a large part in why people don't migrate to newer versions.

Okay, this was news to me. But if your system is slow enough to affect file browsing, wouldn't that slowness also occur in the launcher? There's a more fundamental problem here that another program seems unlikely to solve.

The whole goal is to streamline the whole installation process, even if it's functionally doing the same thing, if the end user doesn't have to do it it's going to make it a lot easier for people who aren't familiar with CS's filestructure(s) and don't want to be bothered to learn those just to play mods.
It's a lot more annoying to do the whole "mods" thing given people are growing LESS familiar with windows as time goes on due to its current update structure and the fact that a lot of institutions have transitioned to chromebooks over thinkpads. The next generation of 12s will not be as familiar with the process and that's just where shit's trending.

Browsing through files is a pretty fundamental skill that you'd need to navigate any sort of computer. Even within the proposed launcher, how would you browse through the different mods you've installed? If you know how to do that, you'd know how to do it with a file explorer.

Not that there's anything wrong per se with a program like this! It just seems kinda unnecessary in my (admittedly uninformed) view.

If you're going ahead with something like this, maybe some inspiration could be drawn from an existing example of a unified media-viewing software, viz. the Unofficial HomeStuck Collection, which is essentially a custom browser in which you can read the webcomic HomeStuck as well as check out a bunch of peripheral stuff like related music and articles. (The single biggest reason for this being made was, I believe, the phasing out of flash and the subsequent need for replicating the original experience, which came in the form of an offline, preloaded-with-content, flash-supporting browser.) There are some fundamental differences, but it's the closest example of something similar I could think of.

 

Unfortunately people are becoming less literate with Windows because phones have replaced so much of their functionalities for your average consumer. Anyone who isn't working in the tech field likely would only use a computer for school and even that is becoming more and more skewed towards chromebooks just because they're cheaper and thus easier to distribute to people. BC all people need are "devices to browse the web" with how most digital stuff is today because zoom calls, school assignments, and google docs are still all that people really need in a decent amount of jobs. Hell even my job outside of Xysspon is entirely web based so I can do it on a chromebook just fine.

While I agree website stuff for this would be cool, hence why I suggested some updates to the main page of this site or the structure of the forums earlier in the thread. Mostly a news section. A news section would solve so many problems on its own but I think a launcher to supplement that would be the perfect match.

Having the launcher download and install it would allow it to be done in the background rather than as an active process so a system with shit read/write speeds would still deal with slow loading stuff but it wouldn't have to deal with all of the extra steps in-between as well as the lag caused by issues in each respective program's code that causes huge performance loss on lower spec machines (Most notable with chromium browsers, but the windows software introduces a lot of unnecessary wait time into the process)

The mods would be presented in a list format just about as the existing launcher is. Or a grid. The launcher Serena and Mint have is a good basis to work from as far as I can tell.
Icons are a thing mods have already so I don't see why generic icons couldn't be supplied for mods to use alongside their listing in the mod catalogue. Might require something to be done to render them in the program given how it renders most of its UI elements.

I need to emphasize for you though, the only reason I'm posting this is because I know there's plenty of people on this site who are much more qualified for this kind of stuff than me. Nobody has to do anything I say and the only reason I'm putting this kind of info out here is so someone who's interested in a similar subject later down the line can look back on this thread and see these things.
Not everything I say and do on the internet has to be a "I'm gonna do this thing" and that mindset is a bit assumptive.

Who capitalizes the S in Homestuck.

 

That's literally what a decompilation is. Just because they got the symbols (from an official freeware release) doesn't make it illegal.

I don't mean accurate to the game, I mean accurate to the source code. As in carbon copy, line-by-line. Most decomps can't or don't go that far, they settle for something accurate to the game instead. The end result is the same as if someone leaked Pixel's source code with the comments stripped out. Pixel's source code would be subject to copyright laws, same as any other written work.

 

Unfortunately people are becoming less literate with Windows because phones have replaced so much of their functionalities for your average consumer.

The fun thing about this is that the underlying reasons for this are an argument for having a launcher.

Almost nobody goes into the file systems of their phone or tablet anymore even when you download because that funny meme you just downloaded can just be send to your friend directly through your instant messaging app and hell these days everyone just shares links.
Instead a mentality that grew a lot on platforms like Android and iOS is that there is an app for everything.
Need to measure something? Want to use a platform without using your browser? You probably have an app to cover whatever you need.
I'm pretty sure there's still people that download apps to enable flashlight, take screenshots and read QR codes purely because they don't know phones now have that build in to the OS.

We're used to seeing people with decent PC experience here because we are a modding community and modding requires decent PC knowledge.
But there's plenty people (including lurkers) that would love these neat little things if it means streamlining the work between deciding to play a mod and actually doing so. I just have to actually make that experience and i'd rather focus on my mod first either way.

 

read QR codes

Man tho, I remember my previous phone, it did have a built-in QR code reader in the camera app, but one day, it stopped working entirely. All the other features on the camera worked fine, even with updates, but the qr code feature? Nothing. I had to install a separate app for that reason. Thank gods I don't have to deal with that now

 

I think we should delete the old wiki completely honestly so that the new one is easier to find. I genuinely think all of the information that is important is already on the new wiki and the old one sucks and will only make finding the better, newer one harder.

Just got an email this morning.
They said they won't close the wiki just bc nobody's using it and just because I, the person who has admin rights of the wiki, told them to close it...
What a shit company Fandom is.

Anyways Mint the transition to "over reliance on mobile stuff" isn't really going to stop Windows audiences from being a viable thing but isn't going to stop that specific archetype of user from existing either, as the people that use phones for everything these days tend to use computers the same way and the amount of people that do that is just going to go up. That said those same people probably wouldn't have used Windows much outside of Steam or the stuff that comes with stock Windows 10/11. Those "out-of-the-box" users are still important and I think approaching Freeware CS with a "CS Community Launcher" would, primarily, help that group of people.
Most CS players don't really interact with the community through forums or Discord or Reddit but will often lurk. A community launcher helps bridge that gap more in a way Doukutsu Club alone couldn't.

As far as I can tell those types of people actually make up the majority of the sales of Cave Story because otherwise CS's communities would be a lot farther along by now considering Nicalis does make substantial money on each new release of CS.

It's not like those people are a new thing really. It's moreso that the change in UI design standards has evolved and that's the MO people operate under now and going against the grain for the sake of it is like saying you wanna install Linux to run UE5 it's just not gonna get any meaningful results.
Work with the direction shit's going not against it.

 

Just got an email this morning.
They said they won't close the wiki just bc nobody's using it and just because I, the person who has admin rights of the wiki, told them to close it...
What a shit company Fandom is.

classic fandom. yes. let's let a wiki that's been festering in nothingness AND is on its way to be replaced by a better one stay on our site. we need all the WACKY AD REVENUE!! "pwease tuwn off youw adbwockew we'we just a small multi-miwwion dowwaw company we need to become a multi-biwwion dowwaw company uwu OWO pweeeeeease (pays google to shove FANDOM wiki to the top of the search results) whoopsie! OwO"

i fucking hate FANDOM

 

They said they won't close the wiki just bc nobody's using it and just because I, the person who has admin rights of the wiki, told them to close it...

Well, I'd say we turn that wiki into a shitpost once things are fully moved. The fandom pages for Minecraft had the pictures for every mob replaced with a picture of a donkey recently, especially when the wiki has moved to a much better place.

 

Alula and I briefly thought about vandalizing the old wiki to ruin its SEO too. But that's not really worked for a lot of other communities.
But a better way about going this is by making a Closure Petition Page on the Fandom page.
So I did that

Fandom is historically uncooperative but I think if enough people who've been involved in this fandom page in the past can get involved it would do us a lot of favors in making it not eat up SEO on the subject. After we've got enough signatures I can send another closure request to Fandom and they'll likely oblige.

Every Editor who has been involved on this wiki in the past would need to sign this page either by editing it or adding to the talk: page for the article.
This is so Fandom's staff will be able to understand that the intent behind this isn't "wiping this info off the surface web" but rather just the community moving.

I would tag all the editors who have been involved on the site but I don't wanna jump the gun on that and piss off @andwhyisit
The page of all the contributors can be found here:
https://cave-story-modding.fandom.com/wiki/Special:ListUsers?fandom=allow

 

Why not wipe all content from the fandom site and just leave a link in there directing users to the new wiki? Let fandom's seo work for you?

 

Why not wipe all content from the fandom site and just leave a link in there directing users to the new wiki? Let fandom's seo work for you?

Against fandom rules, they'll just revert it themselves and ban whoever did it.

 

Why not wipe all content from the fandom site and just leave a link in there directing users to the new wiki? Let fandom's seo work for you?

Hah! No. Fandom will obstruct you at every turn. They need your content to make money from ads. Do it enough times and they will just turn off editing for that page. You gotta be sneaky about it. Add content to the wiki and make edits as per normal, but at the same time swap out an internal link in the content with an external link to the same content in the new wiki.