with most vp mods its pretty much stick it in a mod folter and point to it with the launcher. unpacked mods like nukemod are more a drop the nukemod folder into the game folder (i set up the dirs for you just extract to freespace root). did you even bother reading the wiki, iirc it had a whole section on the subject.
There is a section on mod installation, but it only covers using the -mod feature in fs2_open with the MediaVPs, with the focus on full, complete mods (eg nukemod). In this case, the OP was talking about the standalone HTL Herc mod. I though I spent a considerable amount of time writing a page that listed all the directories, what file types went in each one, and what type of files each directory contained. I don't have a clue what happened to it; it's not accessible from the front page in a way that makes sense to me, and I can't find it via search. The search didn't turn up any pages like it, either. It may have been lost when we upgraded the wiki.
Not only that but part of the misunderstanding here is that the OP didn't even have to install the HTL herc in the first place, that's what the MediaVPs are for. However, starting from the front page of HLP, here's what I'd see myself doing (Assuming virtually no prior knowledge of Freespace 2, outside of the game):
(This became massive, as I went through the steps as I was writing it. It could probably be cut down, but I feel that the unedited aspect is valuable.)
1) I'd have to know beforehand that upgraded graphics for Freespace 2 even exist, and are worth searching for. That's a big step already; usually I check out screenshots of a program before deciding whether or not I really want to invest my time, and/or risk my system integrity. The better things look, the more time, effort, and risk I'll be willing to put into it.
Response: Absolutely dismal. For all the upgrades that FS2 has gone through, there's a very poor amount of screenshots anywhere. There are a few on the wiki, but those reveal very little. However, for the sake of the example, let's assume that I continue ahead.
2) At this point the first thing that would catch my eye would be the Freespace Upgrade Project, and the Freespace Source Code Project titles on the
main page. Unfortunately, these are both forums.
Response: By now, I'd say that my theoretical interest would strongly be in doubt. Not only is there no clear download link, but development is based entirely in forums. My experience has been that programs on forums are difficult to use, and oftentimes poorly supported, as evidenced by the lack of enough interest to create even one page providing the steps needed to install everything.
3) By now, my choice largely depends on how well informed I am. Assuming that I found the
wiki article with either my search for screenshots, or the wiki was on the path to reaching HLP, I'll probably know that I want to check out the Source Code Project. If I didn't read the article, "Freespace Upgrade Project" sounds much more like it'll upgrade the graphics.
Response: I don't see anything in the FSUP forums that would catch my eye. The only release thread is for the MediaVPs - and being a newbie to the community, I won't know what that means. It also isn't worded like a release thread (Yes, that is my fault
). The first thing I'll see is "Tiny Rerelease: FS2 Demo with SCP Enhancements New" - so I could easily draw the erroneous assumption that so far, only the demo has been updated. Or perhaps I'll see the HTL thread, and think that I have to update every model, individually, myself, and end up posting a thread like this one.
4) But let's assume that I (also?) thought to check the Source Code Project forums. The
release thread is more clearly denoted on the front page, so I'll probably head to that first.
Response: The first post is going to annoy me, because it's not intuitively organized and presented. It's difficult to skim it and understand what, exactly, I need to upgrade my copy of Freespace 2. Do I need OpenAL with Turey's installer? Does the first pack contain the enhancements? Does the installer click the movie? Regardless, the installer's going to sound like the least likely way of screwing up - so I click that, expecting a download link.
5) I run into
another thread, with slightly better formatting than the previous thread, but still with a lot of extra jargon that I don't understand and, for that matter, don't really want to take the time to understand.
Response: What are the MediaVPs? I guess they have some kind of enhancements, because the advanced pack says that they have some kind of enhancements. Is OpenAL required? This page says that it's optional. Why are launcher6.ini and fs2open_pxo.cfg listed, what do these do for me? What's Just Another Day? What's Freespace Port, don't I already have Freespace? Why are the cutscenes included, don't I have those already? Why is the Windows installer 20 MB - 19MB more than the Java installer, but not large enough to contain all the stuff listed. I don't know what any of this stuff does! I just want to upgrade the Freespace 2 graphics, goddammit.
6) However, the
Windows installer link looks promising. So despite not knowing what 95% of the stuff listed is, I'll probably click the download link. I get a ZIP file - vaguely annoying, I like things that I can easily install.
Response: What the hell are these files? I already have Freespace installed, so do I run the updater? Or do I want to run the FreespaceOpenInstaller? Figuring that it'll give me an error if I already have Freespace installed, I choose the installer.
7) Great, a console prompt. Fortunately, I'm computer literate enough to know how to use it. Unfortunately, I'm computer literate enough to know that it's not all that hard to implement a standard Choose Directory dialog box, and that dos boxes are usually a sign that the coder didn't want to spend the effort to write quality software.
Response: BOOM! What the HELL happened!?!? I just saw some text appear, and the program disappeared. Did it update my Freespace2 installation? Or did it crash in the middle? What the **** do I do now - is it safe to try and run Freespace2 to check if it's OK? Can I rerun the Installer, or does it generate some kind of files I need to cleanup? There's no readme included with the Installer, either.
By this point, I may just decide that it's time to give up or ask for help on the forums. Maybe it's not worth risking my installation and player progress. (Thankfully, I've been thoughtless enough to not consider whether or not there was a danger to any savegame files I might have, or this whole thing would be complicated by several extra steps as I searched the forums for "savegames".) In reality, all that happened was that I made a typo and the installer got pointed to a nonexistent directory.
8 ) But let's say I do try again, and get the right directory this time. I'm prompted for things that I only partially understand; let's assume that I choose to install pretty much everything, and I get it right. I'm probably going to err on the side of caution - although I'll still have questions like "Which do I install, MVE or OGG movies? Do I need either one?" Then the installer...disappears. Did it crash? Most installers tell me that they installed successfully.
Response: If there's no message or start menu entries, I'm not going to know which executable to run. I may try to run retail FS2 - the Installer didn't tell me to do anything else, and didn't make any separate shortcuts anywhere. I may assume that the lack of any message or shortcuts means that the Installer
didn't complete successfully, and try to run it again. The installer doesn't detect whether files have been installed already or not, so I could spend a half-hour needlessly downloading files.
If we assume that I actually do find the SCP Launcher, we can probably assume that I'll get everything set up and running, because the Launcher has a lot of basic config common to many other games. The command line options will probably give me some trouble, but the descriptions are clear enough that I can probably figure it out. That's an unsafe assumption for people who are used to choosing "High" "Medium" or "Low" settings, but by this point, they'd probably have given up already.
Summary:When I began writing this post, I assumed that it'd be relatively short and to the point and obviously demonstrate that their was a significant difficulty for newbies to get involved with Freespace. However, even assuming that I would have the technical skill that I do now, I still encountered significant (and wholly unnecessary) problems in upgrading Freespace 2. In addition, I also displayed a lot of unwarranted faith in the upgrade by installing it without question, even though I didn't have a clue if I could do what I wanted with what I was actually installing, thanks to the bizarre names, and lack of description thereof.
There are three principal things that would have greatly assisted me, which I left out.
1 - Reading the WIKI. I typically think of a wiki as a repository for encyclopedic data, eg Memory Alpha, Wikipedia, BattlestarWiki, etc. If I had checked the Wiki, the Getting Started link and Installation guide in there could have massively helped me understand what exactly I needed to do. They are also woefully out-of-date and undermaintained, and the sheer number of choices would probably leave me slightly confused. However, I chose to err on the side of not reading the wiki, because it's iffy as to whether a normal, non-technically oriented user would think to check it.
2 - Reading any other install guide. This is hopefully self-explanatory - nowhere on my quest for freespace 2 upgrades did I see anything resembling a proper install guide. As a member within the community, I know they exist - except I couldn't name how to get to any of them reliably, besides search (or the wiki ones)
3 - Visiting the Source Code Project Site. I could skip to about Step 6 because I include a link to the installer in the news post at the very top of the page. Not only that, but I would've understood what I was doing, because it explicitly states that it's a Source Code Project installer. (SCP = Source Code Project seems like a safe assumption to make) I didn't do this in the guide because I was focusing on HLP, since it's described on the Wiki as the main activity center of Freespace, and it seems like the likely place that most newbies would be directed to.
This small discovery may very well be the most important part of this post, because it shows just how much trouble can be saved simply by including a direct "Update Freespace" download link on the front page of HLP, with a readme in the ZIP that explains what to do (Or the download link itself links to a page that explains what to do, since most people around here seem to assume that nobody reads the readmes - which left me high and dry on step six.)
One of the criticisms I'm expecting is for somebody to claim that the only reason I had trouble is because I rushed through it all, and didn't take the time to understand what the MediaVPs were, and so on. I feel that that's unrealistic to expect of a normal user, especially if you assume that they don't know to assume the wiki. (There's also no MediaVPs page on the wiki, although there is a description in the FSSCP Introduction). There's also the aspect of advertising - even if we don't have a concentrated campaign, per se, anyone who values their time really has to be convinced that it's worth their time to learn about this community, and all its anachronisms. Screenshots are a good incentive - they look pretty! They also give an indication to the person of what they can expect to get. Most people, however, seem to find HLP thanks to nostalgia or the recommendation of a friend. Playing the game is an even better incentive - but unfortunately, it requires a considerable amount of correct assumptions to even get installed, and once installed, there's no sign of what you should do to actually play it.
