Finding a mod team worth your while 101

[FrieChamp]

From their staff section:

Shame

Yaniv (unknown) Putting Warez on FTP

[marque_pierre]

I feel much more at ease then. Nice, solid, hard working people you can trust...

[marque_pierre]

Here is another question. Don't know if it just me or what, but there seems to be a lot of modding outfits that will ask you to use whatever you already have in your portfolio. Like reuse it in their mod. That's gotta give you a very patched and ragged mod, artistically. Anybody else heard of that?

[st0lve]

I would say no to something like that, but offcourse you can always remake it.

[RD]

Mods usually fail at level design. For me, level design is everything. You can have mediocre models and other visuals as long as the playability and level design is great. I don't really care about concept art as it doesn't really tell anything about the mod itself. Weapon models don't really tell much either. The two aforementionned are rather common as the main media content. Mods that have only such content to display will fail.

Both mods fail to show decent level design content. Judging by the previous work of the LDs for the first mod it will fail.

My opinion is exactly the opposite, and its free!! A good mod (multiplayer) is fun even in a hollow box with 2 players. The maps can add alot but the basics of the mod r more important. Then u build the map around it.

Ive mapped for 2 mods, leaded one and then refused hundred of thousands, because they were all going to die.

[Fletch]

Here is another question. Don't know if it just me or what, but there seems to be a lot of modding outfits that will ask you to use whatever you already have in your portfolio. Like reuse it in their mod. That's gotta give you a very patched and ragged mod, artistically. Anybody else heard of that?

I would say it's fairly standard for a lot of mods. Historically, mods were originally divided into two groups: total conversions (TCs) and partial conversions (PCs). CS and DOD would be TCs. They doesn't use any original HL content (well, maybe a few old textures in some maps). Rocket Crowbar and Sven Co-Op would be PCs since they use a lot of HL's original content.

It is really easy for PCs to use previously made content. Usually their mods simply overwrite previous code, meaning old maps would be compatible (i.e. you can use your HLDM maps for Rocket Crowbar and you can use your existing TFC maps for Wizard Wars). So mappers who already have solid content in one particular realm might be asked to package their maps with a mod like this. It's sort of a mutually beneficial thing. The mod gets some quick mod-specific content for their initial realse, while the mapper gets their map some more exposure with no additional level tweaks or compiles. The thing is, a lot of these types of PC mods will suck, so if you plan on doing this, make sure the mod doesn't suck ass.

Now, TCs are a different story. TCs usually need mod-specific content to make use of their gameplay and entities. In these cases, the mapper is going to have to go back and tweak their map to make it compatible. This is actually fairly common, even if some mappers have a bad view of it. Mappers tend to like this because it means they can inflate their resume with another map with little work involved. Mods still lke this because they can usually get some good looking maps for initial beta releases. The downside is that maps don't always port well between two different styles of gameplay.

For some historical perspective, cs_siege was originally a TFC Hunted-style map. It actually won second place in a PC Gamer contest if I remember correctly. Now when CS was coming out, N0th1ng ported it to CS and it ended up becoming one of the most popular maps for a hell of a long time. But you can still tell that the map probably wasn't designed for CS. Similarly, FLF was populated by "cs-reject" maps for the longest time. Most of the popular FLF maps were originally maps created in the old CS forums that never went official. FLF kind of acted like the minor leagues for mappers at the time.

So, no, porting old content is not out of the ordinary. It's been around since modding first started. But when deciding whether to port old maps, I'd say still apply the original rules. IF you think the mod sucks or will suck, then don't associate your work with it. If you think it's cool, then go ahead.

[marque_pierre]

Wow Fletch. Great history lesson! This is so interesting! For a newcomer to the scene, I had no idea about these things. I hope one day somebody devotes the time, effort and respect to the modding community to write down the history so far...

[Fletch]

it takes skill to be old and bored

[von*ferret]

Heh, flf_vogen was never a CS map ~ So not ALL of FLF"s maps were CS convertions. But what fletch says is true for the most part. My god though, my forest CS map was the BEST.

[JAL]

I´d say many mods die because of an immature mod leader.

[PS_Mouse]

Any comments on Terminus Discord? And yes, I am the team leader.

[JAL]

PS_Mouse that scary blade cat with a top hat gives you teh WIN

[Bluestrike]

I think a mod with a coder as leader has most chance of succes/getting completed, since he will know what he wants and probebly has a idea how to do it as well.

Without the code youre nowhere,

2nd comes leveldesign because code+map = gameplay

Then comes the other stuff whats baslicly fluff (no offense intented to people doing these jobs) and if the above is working out great u will attrack skilled people to do those 'looks'.

Just look at CS, Gooseman did code and models, and cliffe looked for some mappers and I liked the mod from beta 1.

Ofcourse having a theme/setting what attracks a large player base is a definate plus.

[kleinluka]

I´d say many mods die because of an immature mod leader.

That is true...on the other hand a mature mod leader won't get you any further if he lacks management and communication skills - he needs to be able to communicate those in a way that keeps the whole team motivated. It's not an easy task, especially not over the internet... that's why so many MODs fail.

You can have the best artists, modelers and designers on the team but without stable and capable management AND PROGRAMMING you are basically wasting your time

[hamst3r]

Once again I think it is all about leadership and strong teamwork. If a team does not have a good leader, the team has no real direction and will probally die off. Also wihtout teamwork disputes and stupid arguments will break up the mod.

Btw: Anyone know of a good mod worth joining :roll: