Looking members for hl2 mod

[Uncle Ho]

I wasn't trying to be a dick or anything with my previous line of questioning. Mapcore is full of very talented artists, many of them currently or previously working in the game industry. Nobody is going to join any mod team without there being some sort of core team established. If you don't have EXPERIENCED coders and modelers on board, the mod will in all likelyhood fail. Sorry. That's a fact of life.

Again, not trying to be a dick, just asking reasonable questions if you want help.

Well, out of curiosity, where do experienced team members come from? Don't you need to start somewhere? I've noticed that people don't want to help n00bs, but as n00bs stay n00bs, the numbers of them will only increase. You need to be able to help beginners out. I mean, think about Half-life, Valve was just some 3rd rate Washington game studio, what right did they have to do anything.

[Fletch]

Well, since you ask, here's your answer. The community breeds expereince. The best thing anybody can do when learning (whether it's coding, mapping, art, modeling, etc) is to start of getting a good grip on their skills and then trying to get a low level position on a mod. This means doing the shit work and helping out. Then over time, they'll be able to get some expereince and start moving up in skill and capability, eventually being able to work on some of the upper eschelon mods and possibly get a job doing this.

The problem is when you have mods (like many posted in this forum) that are start off and run from people who haven't worked their way up yet. They're at the bottom of the ladder yelling up at people asking them to come down. Hence why a lot of us tend to be..well... negative towards these people. It's great that they would like to start a mod, but there isn't a high likelylyhood of them succeeding. Hence why many people at MapCore are hesitant to join mod teams unless we personally know the people working on it or have a level of professional respect for them. If we joined every mode team with an enthusiastic leader promising that this will be the best mod ever, nobody would ever release anything because the mods always tend to fold.

But really, if you'd like to contradict my logic, feel free. Please avoid using any arguements centered around "being nice" or "this mod could be different" because those will just make me laugh.

Oh, and Valve wasn't a bunch of Newbs. They were formed with former game developers that had worked across many platforms and had some damn good resumes going in.

[JynxDaddy]

Fletch wins.

These threads make me sad.

[Uncle Ho]

Oh, and Valve wasn't a bunch of Newbs. They were formed with former game developers that had worked across many platforms and had some damn good resumes going in.

Ok, bad example. What about Counter-strike though, or DOD. Also, what kind of experience did Sam Raimi have when he made Evil Dead. I understand what you're saying, and I'll be honest, this particular project doesn't sound all that interesting to me. But what if writing is your area of expertise? What if concepts and story line are what you're into. I realize how arrogent it seems to have a n00b give you orders. I'll be honest, I'm probably not one to talk, all I've done are a few cruddy reskins for HL and MOH, anything else I ever tried to do was killed by viruses killing my hard drive.

[Fletch]

Counterstrike was created by two former members of Action Quake, one of the biggest Quake mods ever.

DoD was originally shit, cubed. When they got better coders on board, better mappers and artists came on board as well. Proving my model posted above.

If writing or coming up with good ideas is your talent, then you need to take up writing, not mod making. If you're truely interested in modding you need to pick one of the four basic categories (coding, mapping, 2d art, modeling) and make an attempt to learn. No mod will ever survive if the team members have to take commands from somebody who doesn't contribute anything beyond the storyline. First off because most people invovled will be between 15-25 year in age and have giant egos. Secondly because it's insulting to put 40+ hours into a map and have your leader spend 2 hours writing the plot. In the actual industry, all of the writers have a stable background in other aspects, usually level design since you can write and produce your own basic single player story once you get some skills in place.

[wacko]

I would have to agree with Fletch. The man has been in the industry and seen the internal workings of the process of getting into that industry. I think one of the core issues of Mod making is just what has been said here; is that by being in some mod you can get into the industry which is not always the case. You place DoD as an example but I will tell you they went through almost 4 different team changes. There main guy changed and I think there is only maybe 1 or 2 people from the original team there now. The reality is you have to work hard to get anywhere in this industry and to be honest not a lot of people get there.

It’s brutal and has no remorse for those who are not willing to work hard at what they do. I am sure those who are involved in the industry on this very forum will tell you that it was no walk in the park on them getting there jobs today.

[JynxDaddy]

Fletch is actually speaking the gospel of mod making. (And the game industry really)

[Uncle Ho]

DoD was originally shit, cubed. When they got better coders on board, better mappers and artists came on board as well. Proving my model posted above.

If writing or coming up with good ideas is your talent, then you need to take up writing, not mod making. If you're truely interested in modding you need to pick one of the four basic categories (coding, mapping, 2d art, modeling) and make an attempt to learn. No mod will ever survive if the team members have to take commands from somebody who doesn't contribute anything beyond the storyline. First off because most people invovled will be between 15-25 year in age and have giant egos. Secondly because it's insulting to put 40+ hours into a map and have your leader spend 2 hours writing the plot. In the actual industry, all of the writers have a stable background in other aspects, usually level design since you can write and produce your own basic single player story once you get some skills in place.

Yeah, they got better over time, because people joined.

Don't act that way about writing. A lot of mods and games have very little work put into writing, but a truly well thought out story takes time, especially if you want that plot to be remembered.

Also, what were Mark Laidlaw's gaming credentials? (seriously, I'm curious). Ok, anyway then, I guess I have to go prove you wrong on this one. I'm a writer/concept artist who's running a mod. Nobody on my team thinks I have a big ego.

Btw, I don't think we're talking about "the industry", we're talking about mods, amateur developement. Stuff made for fun.

[Merc248]

I think the whole fact that someone who doesn't contribute to the actual core development of the game is someone who is running the show isn't exactly someone who is commonly looked up to as a leader. Sure, Laidlaw MIGHT not have any real gaming credentials, but he also isn't the project lead of Half-Life or Half-Life 2. He is merely one of many who work for Gabe Newell.

[OL]

[Fletch]

First off I'm a Creative Writing major in college, so I'm not being dismissive towarsd writers. I write all the time. I submit work for publication. I'm not dismissing the craft at all. I'm saying the role of writing within mod is minimal at best. Yes, somebody is going to have to come up with the original idea or design, but you'll notice that in all the successful mods, that person also does actual work (mapping, coding, etc). A good idea is not enough to get the job done when it comes to making mods.

Secondly, people join when mods show promise. Before the first beta, DoD didn't show much promise. Hell, after the first beta it didn't hsow much promise. But as time went on the coders gained experience and got better adn they brough new coders on as well. Then the better models and texturse and maps came on board because those people knew that their effort wasn't going to waste. Mod's don't get better in a day. It takes months and years.

Marc Laidlaw was a sci-fi novelist for years as well as a writer for Wired before he joined Valve as a writer AND level designer. Again, thanks for proving my points.

I'm drawing lines between the industy and mod development because they are tied together. The successful mods are often the ones that are run like actual businesses. The ones that fail are run like high school clubs. but if you want to point towards just mods, let's look at the fact that the most successful single player mods that actually have any sort of plot are usually "written/designed" by the primary level designer (See all of Neil Manke's packs, POKE646, etc).

[McRouni]

I think you should continue your discussion somewhere else? Thank you!

[Duff-e]

dunno if i agree with that.....when you start off small time it takes you 3x as long to learn things and you end up learning to do them the wrong way....

[curman]

common on ride the train choo choo

[kleinluka]

Totally agree with Fletch in every way possible. Couldn't have worded it better. Thumbs up.

To give you a little insight on the ladder Fletch mentioned that people climb when they work in the mod community I'll write about the steps on my ladder that I climbed in the last few years...

I've been a member of the HL moding Community since 2000. I started doing game art for a racing game called Monaco GP Racing Sim 2 in 1999 by painting custom helmet textures. They were like 16x16 pixels and I made them in MS Paint. I decided I should try and climb up the ladder and I moved on to car textures which required more skill to make, later environment textures which were even harder to make. I also started using Paintshop Pro. I kept working on custom texture sets for that game for about 2 years, and as I strengthened my skills and got better and better I started getting a reputation in the community which was full of talented competition. People started e-mailing me, asking when my newest works would come out and they'd tell me how much they liked and appreciated my work. This was new to me, I thought all my previous works sucked ass. But suddenly I noticed that people began to appreciate the effort I put in, which motivated me to keep working. Simultaneously I got into level design for the HL engine and joined a number of mods that never saw the day of light. One of them I was co-leading, not having any idea what that meant of course. Suffice to say since all of the people on the team didn't have a clue what they were doing, including me, the mod failed. I did level design for about 2 years, all the while keeping to work on my texturing skills and finally making the switch over to Photoshop which offered me a broader range of toolsets and made texturing easier and more enjoyable. I climbed further up my ladder and started making contacts with people on the Day of Defeat team and was eventually offered to texture one of the official maps based on my PREVIOUS WORK that I showed to the people on the team. This resulted in my work for the first time appearing in a retail game in stores and me having my first shipped game under my belt. I kept working on side projects, joining different mods while still working with the DoD team and in early 2004 was offered a full-time position at Ubisoft. But it didn't stop there. I'm still working on climbing my ladder every day. As is everybody else in this industry.

Why am I writing all this? You were asking where experienced team members come from, and if they didn't need to start somewhere.

They do indeed, but they start with their own skills, and with that grow experience which eventually at a certain point leads to joining a mod team.

Good and successful mods don't just come out of nowhere because some random guy has a cool idea. Good and successful mods are made by people who understand what it means to climb their ladder, people who have climbed their OWN ladder high enough to try and take responsibility for other people's ladders. In a team.

My 2 1/2 cents.