Hmm, I get the impression that you feel we don't pay enough attention to your questions. Well, I think you've established the major reason for it. Unfortunately, we're at too early a stage to really have answers to most of these questions.
We have some rudimentary plans for modding, but most of the details will have to be worked out at a later stage, and it's all subject to change. Here goes, though:
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1. Is there gonna be a \0ad\mods folder? I know that models will be shipping IN .scn files, but what if you want to add a nation ?
Yep, that's the idea. Each mod will have its own folder. Mods can be archived into a modpack (all modded files compressed into a single file), which can then be distributed and just dropped into its folder to be picked up by the game.
Then at startup, you can specify which mods are enabled, and it'll refer to the files in the modpack in preference to the official ones. So no official files are modified, and most gameplay data can consequently be modded. Yep, including creating new civilisations.
You'll probably also be able to just drop modified "loose" files into the folder (using the correct directory tree), so you can develop quickly without having to recreate modpacks, although there are obvious security issues (we'll need to do a checksum validation, at least).
And of course, two players won't be able to play the game together unless they have exactly the same mods and patches installed.
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2. Is there a SDK (Or whatever its called) like in most FPS games?
Probably not an SDK in the traditional sense, but we'll give similar power through modding to change the game that our asset creators have.
A lot of game modification stuff will be built into the editors. Some will require a fair a bit of technical acumen (eg editing scripts or XML tables).
The general goal is to give modders as much control over "safe" stuff (ie gameplay adjustments that can't be exploited by maphackers to ruin online play for others) as we do. It might not always be easy to do, but we'll endeavour to document it all, even if we can't guarantee a fancy WYSIWYG editor to do every little adjustment.
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3. What do you think of 0ad modders?
We definitely intend to support them, and they're what will give 0 A.D. a long life. Although we have to do a lot of work on creating the game itself before we have much information about exactly how the game will be modded.
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4. Will modders gte some early Beta stuff? Like early Scn editor +++, so we can make the scn for the mod ready for 0ads release?
Possibly. That's not something that I can answer.
Most editors will be integrated into the game, so we'd pretty much have to distribute the game in order to distribute the tools.
And the game would be in a pretty rough state in early beta, which probably wouldn't correspond with our quality requirements for released material.
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5. How hard is changing the sounds?
Pretty easy. Say you wanted to run some filters on one of the sounds in the game. With any luck, you'd probably extract the audio file from the official game SFX packs, edit the file however you wanted, then create a new mod folder, create a directory tree that matches the location where the file would be if unpacked, and put the file there.
If you were going to distribute the mod, you could then create a mod pack from that tree using our utility.
When you start up, the game finds the mod, and you can choose to enable it. If enabled, it'll use that filtered audio file in preference.
Adding new ones would work on a similar principle. Of course, you'd need to specify places where the file was actually used (eg edit the attributes associated with an actor), and probably update an XML index of sound files to create a handle to it.
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6. Will Gameplay features be able to change?
Wouldn't be much point in modding if they didn't.
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7. How will you guys react if i want to make a Total Conversion mod? You know, change everything from Sounds, units and buildings, to some grapich and gameplay changes +++ ??
Gleefully. If we're putting those kinds of tools into the game, obviously we want people to use them. And TCs definitely make the most use of modding capabilities.
But hopefully the standard game will provide hours and hours of enjoyment before modding even becomes a necessity.
However, though I appreciate your enthusiasm, I would strongly recommend sticking to preliminary design and planning of your mod (if it's necessary to work on it all at such an early stage). You'll probably save yourself a lot of time in the long run if you wait and see what becomes available rather than building assets that might not be compatible with the end game (or might already be in the end game).
Since we won't ourselves know how a lot of modding aspects will work until we can implement them, and we certainly won't have those tools available for a long time, we can't give many clear answers right now either. Plans will change, formats will adjust.
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