guest346: Almost everything in the above post is false, and sounds a lot like material reposted all over the internet about the mod years ago. If Twilight "should be considered the single most important, balanced & fully developed Upgrade to the original Total Annihilation anywhere", then 13 years of TA modding is in a truly miserable state.
As the creator of the Total Annihilation: Twilight mod, I would like to take this opportunity to answer a few of the statements made.
GameOver: "It isn't a variation of TA like many other mods"
guest346: Yes it is, it is based on AA, which is based on Uberhack, Unlike many other mods based on Uberhack, Twilight is hideous. Twilight also uses most of the same terrible units as every single unit pack from the 1990s.
TA: Twilight uses quite a few 3rd party units available in the community, but almost none of the units have been brought over and used as is. At the least, their costs, armor and firepower values have been altered to better balance and help them fit in with the strategic and tactical niches of the other units TA: Twilight offers. Some units have even had their weapons altered or changed entirely, so that they little resemble the third party units they originated from.
GameOver: "it is instead a full maturing of the game's development as you would have expected from Cavedog (it's creators) if they had kept updating it" "Plus, all of the new units are drawn & modeled and given sounds in the same style as the original game"
guest346: These statements are an insult to mods that actually strive to achieve Cavedog quality as opposed to downloading units that other modders have made and aggregating them. Twilight developers modeled nothing.
It is true that most of the non-original TA units that TA:T uses have had little done to them in the modeling sense by me. However, as mentioned above, each unit has been hand-adjusted to be as balanced, and useful, as possible. Therefore, to suggest that TA: T is just a collection of third party units all thrown together and then released with no effort is deceptive at best. Obviously, this balancing is a work in progress, and adjustments and fixes continue to be made, which brings us to the next point.
GameOver: "Plus! TA:Twilight is still being actively developed,"
Yes, it is. While you can debate the definition of "active development", the most recent version, TA:T v1.8, was released in January of 2010. Version 1.0 came out in March of 2007, and the earlier "Twilight betas" before that started in November of 2005. Granted, it doesn't always have releases every few months, but due to it being a project of mine I work on in my spare time, and having to compete with time spent on work, my family, and so forth, I'm doing the best I can.
guest346: While I applaud its balance based on years of playtesting, Twilight is quite terrible even for a community mod, it is a patch work of old and older units from an immature TA modding community back in the 1990s and early 2000s that do not have any unified design. Bershe, the Original creator of Twilight, which was named Absolute Annihilation back then, did not understand every step of modding process, and everything was taken from other third-party unit makers of the day, resulting in the cacophonous mix of random units. At some point he was banned from TAUniverse for inexplicably insulting half of the members there.
While I can't attest to the accuracy of the story of what the original creator of Absolute Annihilation (Which TA: Twilight descended from) may have done, claiming that TA: Twilight is "terrible" because of where it came from, instead of what it is now, isn't a very fair method of judging the mod.
guest346: Years after that incident he stopped supporting the mod, and the work was picked up by Twilight, who has even less working knowledge about modding TA,
I'm not sure what I am being compared to when it is said that I have "even less working knowledge about modding TA", especially given that even if I was completely ignorant when I started (Which was not true), I've been working on TA: Twilight for over 5 years, now, and have certainly learned quite a bit in that time.
guest346: which means there had been almost no fundamental changes to the mod in the sense of new content aside from notepad stat changes for years. and recently, there had been almost zero activity in the Twilight forums let alone any development of the mod.
The statement "almost no fundamental changes to the mod in the sense of new content aside from notepad stat changes" baffles me. First of all, stats, in the sense of unit costs, armor/speed/weapon/etc values, and so forth, are actually the most "fundamental changes" you can make. If I take the Arm Flash tank, and upgrade the model, it looks nicer, but the gameplay does not change a bit. If I doubled the cost of the unit, or cut the firepower by even 20%, you can bet there would be *substantial* changes to the gameplay (Not necessarily for the better, but just for the sake of example...). While I *have* made changes to models a few times, and have made other changes that are more "cosmetic" and more about looking nicer than affecting gameplay, the focus of the large majority of the changes I've made over the years has been to improve gameplay. Sometimes that is through toning down a unit that is too powerful, or strengthening one that sees little use. Other times it is noticing that there is a tactical or strategic niche that should be filled, and either isn't, or isn't very well, and adjusting a unit (Or adding a new one) to fit that role.
There were many units in original TA that simply didn't get built much due to their being inferior in almost all ways to other units. I've tried to make all the units worth building for one reason or another. Some are more specialized, and therefore not always the best choice, but they should still have times when they are a solid choice for building.
With regards to the forums, however, he is correct that there has been little activity there as of late. Over the years I've noticed that activity seems to come in waves, with people coming and going, and there are times when things are busy, and times when it's pretty slow. However, that is one of the reasons I try to continue to actively develop TA:T. Even during the slow times, people might download it and enjoy it, and there's always the chance of more people being introduced to it and things getting busier.
Finally:
guest346: There are mods on TAUniverse which are, in every sense, objectively better than Twilight in terms of original content, mechanics, balance, art, player base, and active development. So I invite you all to click on GameOver's Forum link and go to TAUniverse's index, there you will find some actual good mods which are actually active.
The first sentence is more subjective, since different people want different things in a mod. However, I definitely agree with the second sentence: You should visit TAUniverse and see all of the other mods there are available. Gameover seems to be very excited about TA: Twilight, and I'm happy that he enjoys it so much, but not everyone likes the same things, and while some of you might find it just as fun, or even more so, others of you may find that some of the other mods (And there are many!) at TAUniverse are much more to your liking.
I'll quote what another poster on the TA:T forum said to GameOver there, and my response to him, as I feel it is very appropriate here:
[i]
TA : Twilight is a good mod by my view,but you saying that TA : Twilight is the *only* important mod around there doesn't do other mods any justice. Here,alot of mods are equally important to consider,like the TA:Escalation which so far have done a pretty good job(continuing OTA looks and feel) and innovative features like shields etc,and Mayhem mod,which is pretty much an important mod(to me)
[/i]
Twilight-1: There are a large variety of mods out there for TA, some with radically different outlooks or goals, and some with similar goals, but still different ways of reaching them, balance and otherwise.
While I admit to being happy that you enjoy TA: Twilight so much, you'd be doing yourself a disservice to not try other mods out. Different mods focus on different things, and you might find another one even more to your liking. Then again, you might not, but least then you'll have a better idea of what's out there, and probably some good ideas that could be applied to whichever mod you *do* end up focusing more on.
Also, as many wise people have said previously, there's no reason you can't play more than one mod. Obviously, if you really prefer one mod to others, you might spend more time with it, but generally speaking, playing one mod isn't going to get you exiled from the community of another .
In any case, I apologize for the long-windedness of my response here, but I wanted to make sure that people judged TA:T on its own merits (Or lack thereof), and not just on what people said about it (either good or bad).
Come try out TA:Twilight and the other mods on TAUniverse (www.tauniverse.com) and see for yourself how much fun you're missing. :)
Thanks,
Twilight
P.S. Just a quick update. I just noticed that there's a good post on this forum listing a bunch of mods here:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/total_anihilation/top_ta_mods The Absolute Annihilation mod, which is basically what TA: Twilight descended from, is listed there. Development on AA stopped in 2005, and TA: Twilight carried on from there.
Anyway, definitely a good starter list for mods, so thanks to SirCabbage for that!
