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The Future of Mod Making
August 9th 2000, 09:51 MSD by andy One of our regulars, Chris "Mankovic" Stanley, has been giving some thought lately to the mod making community. Following his recent visit to QuakeCon, Chris decided to write about the subject for PlanetCrap... The Future of Mod Making I've been around the mod community for close to four years now, and things have started to change. PC games, and the tools used to shape them, are becoming more complex, both in scope and in application. With each new release we see a "ramp up" in the difficulty level associated with modifying a game's code and graphics. I got the idea to write about this from attending the Mod Makers Roundtable at this years QuakeCon. Early on in the discussion, topics centered around general problems that most of the teams present have encountered at one time or another, from getting new talent to maintaining focus on current projects. Enter John Carmack... Carmack sat in on the last 20 minutes or so of the roundtable and added some interesting insight on how Id Software views the mod community overall. The discussion turned to the tools used by mod makers, and how a company like Id could best serve the community. Carmack brought up the option of paying mod teams and then countered with the possibility of giving away the software tools as a means of support. The term 'professional' was even applied when referring to certain mod groups and the amount of skill and talent that is now required to produce a quality mod. After the roundtable, I was present as "Blix" from Team Evolve interviewed members of a certain mod team and asked why they chose to do what they do. Many of them expressed that they felt this was the only way to break into the gaming industry and saw no other way to make a name for themselves. Blix relayed some of his experiences with Team Evolve and offered some advice for those looking for the limelight in the gaming industry. Most of the team being interviewed were faced with a reality check they had not planned for, and I could see an ego deflation taking place as Blix explained the harsh realities of being involved with a commercial venture such as the Zaero mission pack that he was a part of. My personal view of the mod community is that the model now in place is best for the time being, that is: People will make mods for the games which they love to play, the cream of the crop will always float to the top, and those people responsible for making those mods will receive the much deserved kudos, as has been done in the past. My question(s) to the readers of PlanetCrap is this: As games get more and more complex, mod teams are faced with either packing up shop or hopping on the learning curve to become familiar with the new code and graphics abilities of a new and improved engine design. If the mod community is to continue to flourish, do they get paid for their work, considering the amount of skill that will be required in future games? Or do companies like Valve and Id bring in top mod makers as a part of their own collective and give them open access to the professional tools they use themselves? And most importantly, will those people who buy Quake4/5/6, etc, be able to walk into the community and make a mod without much effort? I'd like to think so, but I highly doubt it. |
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Topic: The Future of Mod Making
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Remember that the best mods are made not to be popular, but because the mod developers have a real desire to make something. Take CS for example - all along Mihn Le has said that he wanted to design a game that *he* wanted to play. That it became popular is both a blessing and a curse, but it was never his intention to become the biggest FPS online. What about Team Fortress? Again, this was designed so that the authors had a cool game they could play on a lan. It was never designed to be popular, just to be fun. I think that the grants for modmaking are a good idea on Valve's (and, I understand, on Epic's) parts, but it may give some people the wrong idea. There is a lot of complaining in the mod community that CS is *too* popular and thus lowers the amount of people who will play a different mod. While this is ridiculous logic in one sense (there is not a *finite* amount of people who play half-life), it is also wrong-headed. Mods shouldn't be about who is more popular, but rather about the makers wanting to make something fun that they themselves can play - anything else is icing on the cake.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Illbuddha Wrote: <quote>For example, if Epic was to make a deal with Gooseman to bring counterstrike2 exclusively to the "platform" of whatever their next game happens to be, a large portion of the CS crowd would buy the title for that reason alone. </quote> You really think so? I'd say this would be true only if CS2 were <i>exactly</i> the same as CS. Considering the amount of TF players who refused to play TFC because it 'sucked' (meaning it changed something they liked, and didn't want to learn to play differently), I wouldn't be suprised if CS players continued playing their preferred flavor (and driving HL sales) regardless of CS2's status.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#3</b> "PiRaMidA" wrote... <QUOTE>As for paying mod authors... Imho, that's a bad thing to do. Everyone should be doing it for fun, and if someone has some special talent he might be noticed and accepted in the industry. That possibility is a big enough reward, modding should not be centered around getting some cash, but it is a very good way to get known in the community, if of course you are above average.</QUOTE> I agree - getting payed to develope mods is only going t decrease the quality of mods. There was an odd experiment early on in cognitive science that showed that the more physical rewards you get for a task the less you see as you doing it for fun. The best idea is actually to give token amounts to mod authors. Thene these mod authors get some rewards that so obviously don't match the work they put in so thir minds convince them that they are doing it because they love it --> therefore better mods. I think goods/tools and possibly comps are the limit of what should be given<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#22</b> "asspennies" wrote... <QUOTE>While this is ridiculous logic in one sense (there is not a *finite* amount of people who play half-life), </QUOTE> actually - yes there is :P <QUOTE>Mods shouldn't be about who is more popular, but rather about the makers wanting to make something fun that they themselves can play - anything else is icing on the cake.</QUOTE> should but are ? I know of a few people who created mods simply so they could demo stuff to companies. Other people "mod" because of popularity/ego boost that it gives them (strangely they rarely complete something and if they do they will pimp it to you for the rest of their life). While there are some people who do it to make something fun - very few (at least in my experience) have that as main objective. <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#25</b> "RahvinTaka" wrote... <QUOTE> <quote>While this is ridiculous logic in one sense (there is not a *finite* amount of people who play half-life), </quote> actually - yes there is :P </quote> Ok, in the purest sense, yes, it is limited by the amount of people in the world, but, as evidenced by TFC and Counter-Strike, people will buy Half-Life just to play your mod, if it is good enough - And there are plenty of people who own Half-Life and do not play any of its mods. There's a much bigger audience out there then *just* the people who play Counter-Strike and TFC - in other words, you don't have to take from that audience to reinforce another. <quote>While there are some people who do it to make something fun - very few (at least in my experience) have that as main objective. </QUOTE> And that's the problem. If you make your mod with only the desire to be popular, it's simply not going to work. Period.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#3</b> "PiRaMidA" wrote... <QUOTE>As for paying mod authors... Imho, that's a bad thing to do. Everyone should be doing it for fun, and if someone has some special talent he might be noticed and accepted in the industry. That possibility is a big enough reward, modding should not be centered around getting some cash, but it is a very good way to get known in the community, if of course you are above average. </QUOTE> From a business standpoint, it might make some sense. A story from the dismal days of disco to illustrate. Many disos, in an attempt to be an exclusive hip place to be like Studio 54, would hire people to hang outside the disco behind the velvet ropes. The logic being that if potential customers saw a bunch of people trying to get into the disco, they'd think it was the in place to be and try to get in as well. So, if you're some new up and coming game, it might be good to hire the guys responsible for some of the more popular mods to make a version for your game, so people don't walk into the local PlanetSite and say, "jeez, this game is dead, let's go somewhere else." I... AM BAYTOR!!!!<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>dave__lister:</b> <quote>care to elaborate? what _are_ the harsh realities?</quote> The creator of the original game being obstructive - having to redo the <i>entire</i> texture set for a game, two months before shipping, because it looked a bit like the original's set. The publisher of the original game being obstructive and unreasonable. The publisher of the mission pack being unreasonable - having three months to churn out a <i>complete</i> add-on. Never seeing any money from the product. Need I go on? |
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<b>#24</b> "RahvinTaka" wrote... <QUOTE>The best idea is actually to give token amounts to mod authors. Thene these mod authors get some rewards that so obviously don't match the work they put in so thir minds convince them that they are doing it because they love it</QUOTE> Now I know what is the driving force behind planet* business ;) Let them believe that they are doing it for fun and no one makes money. Sure. Good dog. Here's your bone.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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TomC, are you referring to id in that last post ?? Just curious. A mod is the sum of its' parts, right ? So the success of a big mod, like Q3Fortress, or TFC is going to be based on its' models, maps, textures and code implementation, no ? If any of these aspects are below par, the mod will suffer overall. How much it suffers will depend on how important that aspect is to the mod. Models for example are (to a certain degree) luxuries, in that they don't have to be out of this world to do their job. Maps on the other hand are fairly important. Bad maps will undermine the mod completely. Code implementation is obviously crucial. I had a point with that but can't articulate it. Maybe someone else will. Ahem. deadlock |
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I'm surprised no one's talking about Gunman, the Half-Life TC that will be packaged and sold as a standalone project with Valve's full support. It even ended up on the cover of the last PC Gamer as one of five games that might save the PC market. http://gunman.telefragged.com/ I know this isn't bound to happen every time, and not every mod is liable to be this "professional," but not every game company is as cool as Valve, either. And I guess we'll have to wait to find out how good Gunman is compared to any other HL mod. |
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on a somewhat related topic: is it just me, or does it seem like often times when developers release editing tools for their games, the tools end up being buggy, broken, or crippled in some way? UnrealEd comes to mind first, but also one i remember in particular was the model viewer for the Heretic II tools. I emailed the contact person at the time (can't remember who...) telling them it just plain DIDN'T WORK and they mentioned something to the effect of "yeah, the older in-house version actually worked...sorry this one's so messed up." I assume that a lot of this may come from porting it to be usable on consumer-level machines, and not some kind of conspiracy to thwart MOD makers...i don't really know. any ideas? |
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I've mentioned this before but it seems more relevant on this topic. I'm part of a mod team for Shogo. The project is called Legacy of the Fallen:Resurrection. I'm doing the music and the sounds, and we have 2 other people to work on everything else. One thing I should metion before I go on is that Legacy of the Fallen was a mod started by a company that was going to sell it as an expansion pack to Shogo, and that company released some of their materials and source when they dropped the project. Anyway, we've been working for about 6 months now, in our free time mostly, and we're to the point where we have enough to release the game as a mod. Pretty much all we have left is to make the levels, and I need to start slacking off and do the music. The point of all this is that it doesn't have to take a terribly large team to make a mod in a decent amount of time. Sure, we did have a head start from the released materials, but if we didn't, we could simply go and get someone to model for us. As long as the group stays focused and doesn't set sights as high as John Romero did with Daikatana, then the group can get done quickly enough that they don't need financial compensation. <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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#24, Wasn't the best method to ensure reliable repetitive task performing in those types of experiments rewarding on a purely random basis? Heh, that's kind of what's going on now. |
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<b>#31</b> "J." wrote... <QUOTE>I know this isn't bound to happen every time, and not every mod is liable to be this "professional," but not every game company is as cool as Valve, either. And I guess we'll have to wait to find out how good Gunman is compared to any other HL mod. </QUOTE> I can remember a few mods for quake II that where sold as commersial products (not talking about extrimities here), not many sold all that well. Also about the tools being given to the mod autors, it's a nice start but isn't full infomation about how the game works (or at lest how the engine interfaces with the game logic) a much more important goal to have released publicly. It take some to learn this stuff and many are put off by this aspect. -- None-1a. Sure the spelling looks stupid, but how stupid do you look, after all your only argument is that I'm spelling poorly.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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35th! WHOOP! Sheesh, guys..hehe, have you always rushed to be the first poster? When did it first start?<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Haha, I wasn't even the 35th poster.... 36th, Whoop!<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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zaero wasn't a 'mod' like q3f, cs, was it though? it was a somewhat commerical product, to be sold in stores. (im sure i'll be corrected if im wrong) most of this bickering in the 'mod' community comes from all these fat american high school kids trying to play mr big dick game maker. not enough talent, skill, or desire to make a decent mod, compared to the first quake mods. Zoid had (has) the talent to make the maps, code the code, and just do it. nowadays you just end up with hanger-ons, 'webmasters', 'ideaguys', and thats why all these projects fall apart or come out and suck. too many people with their hands in the pie, but only one or two guys actually doing anything (like cs). and that is why laser arena rules. |
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Surely some kind of ( good ) free market economics type thingy is going on here. The games ( mods ) that are the most popular are popular because more people like playing them than other mods. If companies give money and dev tools to the individuals who made these mods, then surely we'll see more of these mods, and made faster. The end result seems simple and good to me, put in hard work, reap the rewards. And at the end of the day its how much fun I get from playing a mod not how much fun a developer had making a mod or his reasons for making the mod in the first place that matters the most to me. Any money grabbing bastards out there who want to make a mod that blows me away just to try and get some cash, you carry on, just make it fun for me. |
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<B>#23</B> Karl Palutke wrote: <QUOTE> For example, if Epic was to make a deal with Gooseman to bring counterstrike2 exclusively to the "platform" of whatever their next game happens to be, a large portion of the CS crowd would buy the title for that reason alone. You really think so? I'd say this would be true only if CS2 were exactly the same as CS. Considering the amount of TF players who refused to play TFC because it 'sucked' (meaning it changed something they liked, and didn't want to learn to play differently), I wouldn't be suprised if CS players continued playing their preferred flavor (and driving HL sales) regardless of CS2's status.</QUOTE> The classic TF crowd was a much more mature and discerning audience than your average CS player. You can read counter-strike.net's own forum for the proof of that hypothesis. I seriously doubt you could muster any type of consensus among CS players about CS2 boycott even if it was coming exclusively to the Messiah engine. (well... that might be overstating things) My point doesn't really hinge on current CS players migrating to CS2 on a different engine either... my point is that CS2 is destined to be more widely played than CS, as TFC was more widely played than TF. With that type of weight behind a mod, developers or publishers competing to get popular mod teams to publish to their "platforms" is an eventuallity. Smart mod teams might even work with agents over the next decade. |
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Not to pick on our #1 poster here, Jason Hall; but with three LithTech powered games which have never caught on with mod makers or with on-line players in a serious way, Monolith might be the type of company who should pay some mod makers to port their creations over to one of their games. Of course, that's dependent on them making a very serious effort to capture a part of the MP pie. A serious effort should include built-in bots for practice and solo DMers IMO. Not sure if they're spending that much time on MP with NOLF, but I could see Monolith using such a model to infilitrate the MP market in the future. I... AM BAYTOR!!!!<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Of course, charging $0.25 for downloading the most popular mod on servers [and less for the others in the top five] at any one time is a terrible idea .. <I>but</I> it would also get people to try more mods as soon as they come out so as to not need to pay the fee. Also, there'd be some incentive for mod makers. Hmm. Or something like that. |
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The main reason that Lithtech powered games haven't caught on to the mod community is because they don't sell. Quake 3 sold at least 10 times as much as Shogo. Shogo had 3 quality mods (so far): Bloodbath, Defending the Monolith, and Squishie. All of these kicked ass, but since there weren't any people to play them or to run servers for them, they went pretty much unnoticed. As for NOLF, no, the MP isn't gonna be a huge focus, simply because Monolith is doing what they do best first: A strong single player mode with a good story. There won't be bots shipped with the game, because this simply isn't that kind of game. There are supposed to be really cool MP modes, but SP is obviously the primary focus of the NOLF development team. Personally, I like it that way, but I know other people don't.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Illbuddha Wrote: <quote>With that type of weight behind a mod, developers or publishers competing to get popular mod teams to publish to their "platforms" is an eventuallity. Smart mod teams might even work with agents over the next decade. </quote> I agree with this to a point, but I think mod teams having 'agents' is probably going a little too far. If a mod team has that many companies interested in 'exclusive' mods on their platform, they can probably get a deal directly with a publisher and make an entire game (if they don't mind the higher risk/reward). Besides, even with CS (or whatever mod) 'exclusively' on Platform X, there will be copycat mods on every other platform. I'll concede that the quality of these mods will vary, and they probably won't be as popular as the original, though.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<B>#28</B><quote>The creator of the original game being obstructive - having to redo the entire texture set for a game, two months before shipping, <b>because it looked a bit like the original's set</B>.</quote> it seems odd to me, prolly cause i'm not in the know, that a 'commercial' project would fall subject to strong arming because a texture 'looks a bit' like and original. i would think a lawyer, who would obviously be consulted with in a commercial venture, would be able to easily stifle this. unless of course the textures were modifications of the originals, which of course would be stealing. wouldn't it? <quote>The publisher of the original game being obstructive and unreasonable.</quote> i guess this would need more detail to comment on. were they involved? did they view the 'mod' as theft of their product in part or in whole? did they feel that enough of their material was used to warrant a licensing fee? <quote>The publisher of the mission pack being unreasonable - having three months to churn out a complete add-on.</quote> a contract is a contract is a contract. if you state in contractual form 'i will create such and such a widget for x amount of cash', then you best believe your customer, the publisher, will expect their due. <quote>Never seeing any money from the product.</quote> what, no contract? <quote>Need I go on? </quote> prolly not. it almost sounds to me like a commercial venture like this would be viewed by a game developer as a groups' attempt to monopolize on their product and avoid licensing fees. maybe i'm wrong, l0rd knows it wouldn't be the first time, but these sound like harsh realities that could easily be avoided by incorporating sound business practices. after all, commercial means business. |
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illbuddah wrote:<quote>With that type of weight behind a mod, developers or publishers competing to get popular mod teams to publish to their "platforms" is an eventuallity. Smart mod teams might even work with agents over the next decade.</quote> This is exactly what I was thinking as I wrote this piece. I see this type of manuevering to be a somewhat legit bussiness model considering the amount of competition that is growing in the Multiplayer market, and it worries me. |
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Quake C and Worlcraft rocked. Where once there was an inclusive scene, raw talent, and leftfield ideas (QuakeRally!), the talent got hired (often at ION), the inclusivity diminised to those willing to brave Radiant/C++, and fewer groups were left merely remaking the same things the Quake pioneers, erm, pioneered. And occasionally something new jumps up. But what's the BIG THING recently? Quake III Rocket Arena? Or YET ANOTHER Team Fortress clone? :(<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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"I'm surprised no one's talking about Gunman, the Half-Life TC that will be packaged and sold as a standalone project with Valve's full support. It even ended up on the cover of the last PC Gamer as one of five games that might save the PC market." Anyone know the financial details of this? Does Valve get a royalty? Also, isn't anything Half-Life also based on an id engine, and wouldn't that mean that Gunman owes something to id? I guess Valve could be taking care any royalties owed to id, but if anyone has any light to shed on this, I'd be interested in knowing more. |
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<b>#46</b> "Mankovic" wrote... <QUOTE> This is exactly what I was thinking as I wrote this piece. I see this type of manuevering to be a somewhat legit bussiness model considering the amount of competition that is growing in the Multiplayer market, and it worries me. </QUOTE> Change is good. Competition is good. I don't know why this should worry you - the idea that small groups would start to make inroads in the PC industry "boys club" - in fact, I think it's exciting and refreshing.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#7</b> "Tom Cleghorn" wrote... <QUOTE>'Blix' </QUOTE> Sounds like one of Santas Reindeers, you know, the gay one.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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I find it interesting that people think Mods push sales. Isn't it the other way around, that a good-selling game drives mod development? I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if the initial game doesn't sell, no amount of mods will prop it up, and there will be little reason for more than the most devoted to develop mods for a game that isn't popular. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the vast majority of mods for Quake, Unreal and Half-Life? And that's about it? Three games... Maybe mods have helped sustain Half-Life (or maybe it was Sierra spending marketing dollars to keep it prominently on shelves, and putting out multiple editions), but what about every other Quake-engine game? They were all mod-able, and many didn't sell particularly great, hence there's few mods for Sin, Kingpin, Heretic II, etc. And all of the Unreal-based games, where are the mods for them? |
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<b>#21</b> "Andy" wrote this stuff" <QUOTE> <B>#20</B>, VeeSPIKE: <quote> <B>#Main Post</B> "andy" wrote this stuff" </quote> No. He didn't. :-) </QUOTE> Yeah I know but Cspy thinks you did, and who am I to argue, particularly that early in the morning. <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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As soon as money is involved, mods will be designed to be "popular" instead of just to do something cool. Is a company going to spend money on something that people may not want to play? Nope. |
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"Anyone know the financial details of this? Does Valve get a royalty? Also, isn't anything Half-Life also based on an id engine, and wouldn't that mean that Gunman owes something to id?" I don't think anyone, but Sierra's lawyers know the financial details of this. I'm certain we don't. But, yes, we will be getting royalties. Also i would like to say that Valve are some of the coolest guys in the world for giving a group of ameuters the ability to publish a stand alone product. Even if the worst happens and the game tanks, they have given all of us the abilitiy to break into the industry of our dreams. -ilian Programmer - RewolfSoftware |
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<b>#54</b> "ilian" wrote... <QUOTE>Also i would like to say that Valve are some of the coolest guys in the world for giving a group of ameuters the ability to publish a stand alone product. </QUOTE> I wouldn't. I say they saw a cool mod and are opportunists who are jumping on board, they have a hidden agenda.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Post <b>#53</b> by Steve Bauman: <QUOTE><i> As soon as money is involved, mods will be designed to be "popular" instead of just to do something cool. Is a company going to spend money on something that people may not want to play? Nope. </i></QUOTE> How would you know what people would play? If there would be a rule to figure that out, there'd be no shitty games which hold your interest for 5 seconds after install. :) Mod community is not limited by copyright restrictions and can steal (borrow) ideas from parallel mods, this is great when it's done in good friendly environment that mod scene once was (maybe still is, no idea), and very bad and unhealthy when everyone is rushing for being top, cause that's where the money is. We'll only see clones of the most popular mods. Who wants to go creative when there's an obvious success secret in CounterStrike, you just have to duplicate it, no risk taken? So as soon as money is involved everyone would be doing popular mods... wait, I think this is what you said. Now I am confused ;)<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Quote from 53 "Is a company going to spend money on something that people may not want to play? Nope." Why is that a bad thing? If I don't wanna play a mod because there's better mods out there, do you really beleive that I should care about the hip and trendy dudes doing something different just for the sake of doing something different? If something different comes around that rocks my gaming world, I won't hesitate to jump onboard and enjoy it. If the mods world turns into CS clones, I'll get bored of them and choose something different, but only because I enjoy it more. |
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#51:<quote>I find it interesting that people think Mods push sales. Isn't it the other way around, that a good-selling game drives mod development? I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if the initial game doesn't sell, no amount of mods will prop it up, and there will be little reason for more than the most devoted to develop mods for a game that isn't popular. </quote> Well, Half-life and Quake2 both sold a few copies based on the general popular belief (ie what Team Fortress Software said at some point in time) that Team Fortress 2 would be released as mods for them. Some people are also of the opinion that word of mouth on TFC and CS has sold a few copies of Half-life as well. I can't really come up with examples for any other games, though, because I haven't really seen a lot of good mods lately. Perhaps Quake sold a few copies based on the popularity of Team Fortress (much like CS and TFC now, there was a point in time where more people were playing TF than Quake, the game it was based on, online). Personally, I don't even care for CS, but then the popularity is there to support the claim that word of mouth on the mod may have sold a few copies of Half-life. There are certainly more people playing Half-life online now than when it was initially released (then again, that could be simply because the initial release had some shoddy netcode). |
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"The discussion turned to the tools used by mod makers, and how a company like Id could best serve the community. Carmack brought up the option of paying mod teams and then countered with the possibility of giving away the software tools as a means of support." You mean, like UnrealEd? Speaking of which, where in the HELL is the documantation for that damned thing? I can't do diddly squat with it, and I'd like to do my house, my friends' houses, the capitol building... one more reason I chose UT over Q3A (since they're really both the same fraggin' game). [1] Jason Hall "I'm sooo lame... Yes I know." Thank you, Mr. Hall, for another excellent quote I can grace my page with... [3] PiRaMidA "As for paying mod authors... Imho, that's a bad thing to do. Everyone should be doing it for fun, and if someone has some special talent he might be noticed and accepted in the industry. That possibility is a big enough reward..." As for paying webmasters... Imho, that's a bad thing to do. Everyone should be doing it for fun... As for paying msicians... Imho, that's a bad thing to do. Everyone should be doing it for fun... As for paying steel workers, carpenters, doctors... you get the idea. [10] Tom Cleghorn "As for the 'nasty falling out'... that comes nowhere near close to it. It was caused by certain people's idiocy and selfishness, and I'll say no more about it." Then you shouldn't have said that much. [24] RahvinTaka "There was an odd experiment early on in cognitive science that showed that the more physical rewards you get for a task the less you see as you doing it for fun." A physicist (sp) will tell you that "cognitive science" is an oxymoron (and that a chemist is a third rate physicist). They also refer to conciousness as "the 'C' word". Don't confuse anybody in the mental "sciences" wih a real scientest. The study you cite seems like it could have been valid on the face of it, but I doubt it. Reward has nothing to do wih it. My job was fun for years, but anything gets old. Nobody's paying me to do the Fragfest, but I'm burned out on it, it's starting to feel like a job and I'm getting away from it for a while before the quality sinks too far. The trouble with the mental "sciences" is no matter how careful the study, it all comes down to opinion and perception. You can't measure happiness or grief, or even prove their existance. I'd bet my donuts to your turds that there are nearly as many reasons for making a mod as there are mod makers. And if money somehow lessens the quality, how come the levels in Q3A or UT don't suck? [34] avixe "#24, Wasn't the best method to ensure reliable repetitive task performing in those types of experiments rewarding on a purely random basis? Heh, that's kind of what's going on now." If that was so, then it kind of reinforces my point, doesn't it? How long would you stay at your job if they paid you randomly? There were 34 posts at lunch when I yanked this off my PC at lunch -steve springfield fragfest |
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<b>#43</b> "Warmonger [AI]" wrote... <QUOTE> The main reason that Lithtech powered games haven't caught on to the mod community is because they don't sell. Quake 3 sold at least 10 times as much as Shogo. Shogo had 3 quality mods (so far): Bloodbath, Defending the Monolith, and Squishie. All of these kicked ass, but since there weren't any people to play them or to run servers for them, they went pretty much unnoticed. As for NOLF, no, the MP isn't gonna be a huge focus, simply because Monolith is doing what they do best first: A strong single player mode with a good story. There won't be bots shipped with the game, because this simply isn't that kind of game. There are supposed to be really cool MP modes, but SP is obviously the primary focus of the NOLF development team. Personally, I like it that way, but I know other people don't.</QUOTE> Well, both Shogo and Blood shipped with poor netplay, so whatever little buzz they could have gotten out of the gate was pretty much ruined immediately. KISS has suffered the same fate with no GameSpy support. Part of what I was implying was that if Monolith wants to break out of the MP shack they're currently in, they need to actively do something to help promote MP gameplaying. Bot-matches are one way. Simply adding bot matches onto an already robust SP game (ala Unreal) will do wonders to showing off the MP game--nearly everyone will play around with the botmatch on an Unreal or Q3 engine game, even if they don't like it. If it's got a neat little hook, people will search out servers to play on. So long as their netplay is up to snuff, they'll get some dedicated fans. A robust mod scene on top of this makes the game appear more much more alive and vibrant, causing a bit more excitement toward the game. Now, go take a look at the KISS scene. Fun little game, most people who aren't having hardware problems seem to like it, completely dead in the water as far as mods and on-line play is concerned. I know I've seen you around the KISS forum and you know that there's only the dimmest of talks about mod making. Very little talk about on-line play. I'm only hanging around until I get my KISS game resources finished and on-line, and then I'll be off to something else--I might check back from time to time to send people to the site where it's at, but that'll be the extent of my involvement in the KISS scene. That game's MP was just sabotaged by lack of attention by Third Law. Only id can get away with the mentality, "put a tool box out there and they will build it for you." For other game developers, you have to build it and hope you did a good enough job to attract the players. Monolith, to date, is horribly behind Epic and id in the MP wars, and if they don't answer with built-in bot support, the situation will probably become hopeless for them in the FPS MP arena. If they fund a few mods, maybe even ship them with the game or include them in a patch, they might be able to compete with the big boys in the near future. I... AM BAYTOR!!!!<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>Steve Bauman wrote in post #51:</b> <quote>I find it interesting that people think Mods push sales. </quote> Counter-strike has sold more Half-life copies than you think, I can tell you that much. I know *plenty* of people who have bought the game for that reason alone. Mods can drive sales after the initial release of a game and they come out. -- Dethstryk Damage Gaming |
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<B>#51</B> <QUOTE>I find it interesting that people think Mods push sales.</QUOTE> I bought my copy of Q3 for the mod scene ONLY. Isn't that why everyone bought it? ;] |
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<b>#62</b> "Illbuddha" wrote... <QUOTE> I bought my copy of Q3 for the mod scene ONLY. Isn't that why everyone bought it? ;] </QUOTE> I happen to like the plain vanilla deathmatch that everyone seems to love to hate. I don't understand why people are always saying that Q3 is bad because it didn't come with 3 million game types. Sure, having more is a good thing, but missing doesn't instantly mean the game sucks. Quake 3 is a awesome deathmatch game - just not much else. I think people are just pissed because they expected id to bring about the second coming of christ. I only wish that zoid's ctf maps came in the box, I can't find any servers using them. And what's up with bashing the curves? When I play other games now, maps look artificial to me because of the lack of them. Arches in particular look weird. Sure, they're uneccessary, but they provide a dramatic increase in the polish of maps. But instead, people seem to make fun of them - like they're uncool, or a dumb idea. "Ooooh, maybe I should go play quake instead ... it has CURVES!" Or how about this: "Q3's curves are just a hack." Hello! Of course they're approximated, it's not like you can render real curves using polygons, but they look darn close. If you hate them so much, just turn down the detail! Sure, they don't make or break the game. Maybe they're just jealous because their game of choice doesn't support curved surfaces. -Whisp |
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<b>#51</b> "Steve Bauman" wrote... <QUOTE>I find it interesting that people think Mods push sales. Isn't it the other way around, that a good-selling game drives mod development? I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if the initial game doesn't sell, no amount of mods will prop it up, and there will be little reason for more than the most devoted to develop mods for a game that isn't popular. </QUOTE> I think you're dealing with a bit of a Catch 22--a community needs a good game to be successful, and a game needs a good community to be successful. Now, when I first started playing computer games (circa 1997), I would bop around on the net, read reviews, visit a Planet site or two, try to get a feel for the games out there. If there was no community, then I would think, "there must be something wrong with this game." If there's the appearance of a thriving community, then "this game must rock." Of course, it didn't take me long to outgrow that mentality (thank you, Quake 1 for sucking so bad :þ), but it was definitely there in the beginning. I don't think it's a coincidence that these gaming communities start up way ahead of the game's release. That's the old hype machine going, and if a developer can create a buzz, then they deliver a game into an instant community. Hiring a few mod makers to get the ball rolling isn't too bad of an idea either. It's like the old adage, "no one puts money in a stopped jukebox." In that situation, the owner has specially colored quarters he puts in the jukebox to keep it on, encouraging the patrons to keep it going. Now, if a game sucks, then no amount of mod development will keep it going; but if it's got something a little special under the hood, this sort of treatment can get the ball rolling and help build it into a consistent seller for a few years. I... AM BAYTOR!!!!<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<i>#include "disclaimer.h"</i> Baytor (#64): <i>...a game needs a good community to be successful.</i> not necessarily. a game needs brand recognition, a good name, solid marketing, and/or an attractive price. it doesn't need a community at all to be successful. it helps, but it's not necessary. examples? four off the top of my head: Deer Hunter Who Wants to be a Millionaire Rollercoaster Tycoon Myst all sold over a million, none had a community. and on the other side of the coin, having a community--regardless of size--doesn't necessarily make a game successful. examples? glad you asked. System Shock/2 Dungeon Keeper Thief/2 so. be careful with those generalities. :)<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<B>#63</B> "Whisp" wrote... <QUOTE> "Q3's curves are just a hack." Hello! Of course they're approximated, it's not like you can render real curves using polygons, but they look darn close. </QUOTE> Curves do add some detail to architecture, but the trouble is, they really can be simulated using other engines. In many cases, it chokes the engine, but I've seen UT maps with some nice curves that run just fine. Of course, upon close inspection, Q3's curves have greater detail, but during gameplay, it's very, very hard to discern any difference. Another complaint with Q3's curves is clipping. Correct me if it's changed, but last time I checked, Q3 curves could only really be used for architectural decoration, as you partially clip through them. Building a curved surface on which you are supposed to walk is essentially impossible, then, because the player's bounding box falls into the architecture, leading to unseemly clipping. Don't get me wrong, I <I>like</I> the notion of tesselated surfaces and curves, but Q3's implementation just isn't complete. Curves aren't really curves in the world, they just get drawn that way. ~~ Ignie Ferroque, Ash. - "Non Facete Nobis Calcitrare Vestrvm Perinævm" |
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<b>#65</b> "crash" wrote... <QUOTE>not necessarily. a game needs brand recognition, a good name, solid marketing, and/or an attractive price. it doesn't need a community at all to be successful. it helps, but it's not necessary. examples? four off the top of my head: Deer Hunter Who Wants to be a Millionaire Rollercoaster Tycoon Myst all sold over a million, none had a community. </QUOTE> Well, we were talking of the FPS genre, and there have been very few games in that genre in the past few years which have been successful without a community--Jedi Knight comes to mind, but I'd be damned to come up with another example (unless I set the wayback machine and start delving into the pre-Quake games). <quote> and on the other side of the coin, having a community--regardless of size--doesn't necessarily make a game successful. examples? glad you asked. System Shock/2 Dungeon Keeper Thief/2 </quote> Well, we're getting a bit out of the genre there as well--do any of those games even have MP capability? Do any of them have mods created for them? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. In any event, community does not necessarily translate into success. PlanetBlood did a pretty good job of building one, but the release of the game pretty much killed that :) The same probably happened with Sin. Quake 2 and 3 both had a built-in community. Unreal was wowing them with screenshots prior to release, and it was released with a level editor, so it hit the ground running. UT built upon this existing community, and with actual good netplay out of the box, is looking to be more successful than the original Unreal community. Duke Forever should similiarly hit the ground running with rabid Duke fans just waiting for that game to come out. The release of Half-Life Day One set its hype machine running, and with its Quake based engine, many mod and map makers already knew the system, so it hit the ground running as well. There was a point once, but I forget by now. Guess I'm just disagreeing with you now :) I... AM BAYTOR!!!!<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#67</b> "Baytor" wrote... <QUOTE>In any event, community does not necessarily translate into success. PlanetBlood did a pretty good job of building one, but the release of the game pretty much killed that :) The same probably happened with Sin. </QUOTE> All of Rituals games deserve to get more mods than they did. The rotation in Quake still amazes me. ;) System Shock 2 is looking <a href="http://www.geocities.com/tft2000/stuff/shocked_medsci.jpg">FEARSOME </a>to edit. But that won't deter the smarty pants game designer types. <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Oh, yeah... the point. A game developer in the FPS developer really needs to do a few things to make sure they don't sabatage their MP and mod scene. 1) Make a good game--the fewer bugs the better. 2) Run the hype machine and make sure you've got some advance buzz going. Getting a GSI site helps. 3) GameSpy support (or similiar program) to make insure easy access to servers. 4) If your map making tools aren't already released, ship them with the game. 5) Bot matches (new requirement). Anybody with a UT or Q3 game engine will have it (unless it's SP only), so if you don't have it, you're behind already. Also, with UT it doesn't really matter if no servers are using a mod if they mod can be used within botmatch--eliminating some of that futility that mod makers feel if they don't see many mods being used on servers. Now, if you're KISS, you almost did the first one, didn't quite get there with the second one, and were complete failures with the last three. Now, if you managed to do all these, then finacing a couple of mods might be an easy way to push you over the top. It's not a recipe for success or anything, but it's what's necessary to be a successful FPS in this day and age. <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#61</b> "Dethstryk" wrote... <QUOTE> Counter-strike has sold more Half-life copies than you think, I can tell you that much. I know *plenty* of people who have bought the game for that reason alone. </QUOTE> Well, while your anecdotal evidence is fine, I'd need actual proof of that. I' guessing the majority of its sales occurred before Counterstrike even appeared, and there were spikes when "Game of the Year" edition shipped, Opposing Force appeared, etc... --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#26</b> "asspennies" wrote... <QUOTE>Ok, in the purest sense, yes, it is limited by the amount of people in the world, but, as evidenced by TFC and Counter-Strike, people will buy Half-Life just to play your mod, if it is good enough - And there are plenty of people who own Half-Life and do not play any of its mods. There's a much bigger audience out there then *just* the people who play Counter-Strike and TFC - in other words, you don't have to take from that audience to reinforce another. </QUOTE> yep but the problem is the lack of servers. Not that long ago there was only q1 and q2 servers on the net. At that time a variety of mods where around - all different and you could jump on which ever one you wanted at the time. Now everything is homogonised. ISPs can't afford to host a less popular server on the chance that people won't play it. Event thou I would hazard to guess about 90% of locals CS servers are persistently empty (even during peak times) that admins will not pull it down to put in another mod. Sad :(<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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