World in Conflict Mod Kit

World in Conflict Mod Tools
Q&A with Nicklas Öberg and Thorbjørn “Tabu” Sørensen

What mod tools are included in the package?
NICKLAS: The tools that you will get in the package are WiCed, Showbox, Juicemaker, a GUI Editor and WinSDF.

How do you go about and use them? What do the different tools do?
TABU: WiCed is the level editor, and it pretty much works as a layout tool for creating maps. The Showbox is the tool that sets up the graphical elements. It takes care of sticking units, props, particles, unit states, physics, shadows and everything else together into a manageable file, so that it shows up nicely in the game.

Juicemaker is that last glue that keeps everything together. After you put your units through Showbox, it goes through Juicemaker, where you can set the unit’s health, weapons properties, team affiliation and so on. It’s used for other things as well, but I guess that’s the most common use. For people who just want to make a balancing mod, the Juicemaker should be enough.

Then there is the GUI maker. It’s pretty easy to master. It does what it does – it let’s you create your own user interface. And lastly, WinSDF is a program that unpacks the game files .sdf (kind of like Winzip, but for Massive’s own format).

What are the system and software requirements?
NICKLAS: The system requirements are the same as for World in Conflict. As for the software requirements, it depends on how ambitious you are! For total conversion mods, it’s very possible you will want to use some third-party programs, such as Lightwave, to make animations and models and so on. We ourselves used Lightwave, Modo and Photoshop to create models, animations and textures.

How hard is it to make a mod? Would you need a whole team, or can a single person make a mod as well?
NICKLAS: That depends on how much time you’ve got and how ambitious you are. It is of course possible to make a mod on your own, but I guess it always helps to have someone to exchange ideas with. We’re going to provide a pretty extensive mod documentation to help as well, which will make it a bit easier.

TABU: Yeah, once you have the tools you can go from a small-scale solo project that only takes one afternoon to a team project that could take several years to finish. For the bigger projects, it’s a good idea to have some sort of team to help you out. You could do a total conversion mod by yourself, but it’s a lot of work! Anyone who’s worked on a mod like that could tell you that it’s like creating a completely new game! Creating map, however, s is pretty easy, and the tools have support for Python code, so mapmakers are able to create new game modes and change the gameplay of the maps.

To what extent can I modify the game?
TABU: Some of the core game mechanics are pretty hard to change, but it should be manageable to work around them if you’re resourceful. Some of the hardest things will take a lot of skills, but that’s stuff like changing the game mode to something completely different, which I guess only experienced coders will try anyways. I’m looking forward to the mods that prove to have been difficult to do, that have demanded some creative thinking from the modders

Is there an official forum somewhere, where I can discuss modding and perhaps find people to team up with?
NICKLAS: We have set up a forum for map and mod making on www.massgate.net/forum.php, and a dedicated mod wiki. Our goal is to make it very user-friendly, so that everyone who’s interested in modding can talk to other modders to build a team or just exchange ideas.

OK, this sounds cool! Where and when can I get access to all the stuff I need to download?
NICKLAS: It’s coming very soon, and it will all be available from our official downloads page on www.massgate.net/downloads.php.