Finding a mod team worth your while 101

[Hourences]

This is going to go a little off topic, sorry

Reply to the guy above

Long time ago mods used to be made by groups of people, friends, doing something they like together

Thats cool, I used to work like that, we made mods like that and they had great success. We didnt quit, we succeeded but we didnt had all the fancy names and titles. It worked cause you felt eachother, you were on the same line on what to make and how. No need for a lot of communication, it just flowed.

While nowadays theres a decent sized group that are wannabe crap. Look at the titles they give themself sometimes. Lead Material Artist ? Hell, we dont even had such person in my company, nor the in the last 2 I worked for but sure a mod needs one. Best one i came across till now was a mod with -9-members and the coolest name was "Senior Lead Project Manager"

Give me a break

You need 1 leader and thats it. You dont need to name people lead or whatever, itll only destroy the "group of friends" atmosphere, youre all equal. You dont work for a boss when youre in a mod, you work for the group project.

I already have to do all day long what my boss tells me, last thing I would want to do is listen to yet another boss who tells me what to do when I get home and try to do my hobby.

And then the names, Blabla Studios. Blabla Inc. Blabla Games, etc. They are just a team, nothing more and they make a mod not games...

Next, if you finally do apply to them they ask you to send trough your CV/Resume to a Jobs@whatever.com adress and they copy paste some fancy job requirements from a real company...

Its not a job, it doesnt pay, the resume stuff is utterly stupid as a simple mail would suffice already and the giant job requirements are idiotic and sometimes longer and more complex than those of real companies

If you do continue at this point youll be confronted with a "trying to be pro" thing. First of all youre getting a makeshift NDA, non disclosure agreement (like you would want to do anything with the ideas anyway + the NDA's they give are almost never legally correct so..) and after that you sometimes get a "real" contract (wooow)

Next to that they often try to chat cool and email cool. Perfect sentences, perfect english, giant email signatures (""""company"""" this, lead that, contact here) and nice "this email is confidential, do not blabla"

I dont even have an NDA where I work now, for all places I worked we never typed in nice english, we didnt had or barely have email signatures and neither confidential email crap...But hey, some mods seems to need it...

And thats what I mean with wannabe

Type of mods I would avoid at all costs..

And none of that happened a few years ago..

Yet lots of great and extensive mods were made back then

[FrieChamp]

All these (virtual) studio names for MOD teams also started to annoy me a couple of months back, but NDAs and contracts? lol I didn't know it has become this bad

This has to do with how the whole MOD scene is developing and how companies discovered MOD developers as main ressource for new talent and as a cheap, easy way to extend the lifetime of their products.

So while companies support MOD developers, the competition in the communities becomes bigger, MOD teams try to gather talent by acting mature and professional (just like a real company !!) to finish their project and most importantly to stand out, so they get hired.

I hope you see the connection, making fun games is not the main motivation for many people anymore, although I am sure there are still several projects in development out there, who just do it for the hell of it.

[Captain P]

It's funny... when you don't try to reach something but just do something because you like it, you'll have more chance to actually reach what other so desperately are after.

I noticed the company names and acting too. Sometimes it's even just one mapper who pretends to be a studio on his site...

And then those that try to license top-of-the-notch engines without any experience with releasing mods... or the kids 'that are going to create a MMORPG'...

[DelaZ]

First of all people with talent that are looking for a mod nowadays rate mods by there quality. Models, textures, levels... But also by the organisation. They want a good looking site, a perfect organisation, quality. There are 100th of mods out there, and people want some security when they dedicate their time and work to a project. They want to see some proves of what the team is capable of and they need to be confident. That's one of the main problems. People aren't confident in the mods anymore, and thats mostly because of the amount of mods that never saw the light and died. They want to know how things work, who is leading what etc.

I would say it's the not the mod teams but it's the guys looking for a mod team that expect this kinda things of the mod team. They want to work in a "proffesional" atmosphere... Also with the amount of mods it's sometimes difficult to find the right talented people. Lots of mods see eachother as the enemy and concurrents. If you want to attract some talent you simply need to have some nice looking presentation email or people aren't interested. Well that's what I have expierenced in the past when recruiting for Insurgency. Also with the amount of work becoming bigger and bigger we just can't work without somekinda organisation and departments. There is so much to be done and the quality has to be up to the expectations of the public and the guys looking for a mod team.

I have an example of someone on this very forums, who acted like really arrogant first time I emailed him... He wanted to know about our workflow? etc Who leads what. He expected us to change things in the team how they worked now... Actually he was asking us to change things for him. This is totally nuts, but sadly it's reality. People are so demanding. It actually became a bit crazy.

I don't say every guy I recruited was acting like that but I could perfectly name a couple of them. What I noticed is that real professional people who already work in the gaming industry are much kinder and less demanding then the wannabe ones (in the case here above that was no true )

Modding isn't just about the gameplay anymore. You almost need a real PR stuff going on. And this is kinda sad, because what really makes a game is the gamplay behind the graphics and the presentation.

I agree about the NDA and contract stuff though. I'm glad Insurgency doesnt have that bullshit. Although I got to be honest it was planned in the past. Because of security reasons. We already had someone hacking the ftp etc. I don't think it's very funny to have a guy leaking/deleting all the stuff and effort a whole team made.

Another thing, although we've had some of these things going on, the Insurgency team is one the closest team I ever worked for. We are all great friends and we never had any problem with any of the members. It's a really great atmosphere to work in and everybody knows everybody... And nobody get's bossed around. The "leaders" are mostly there to ask advice and to keep things moving when needed. It's not like they have more to say then someone else on the team. We have about 40 people in the Insurgency team, 20 of them really active. And I'm not saying this to attract more people or whatever, cause at this moment we don't need any more talent.

The two hardest things to find in a modteam are coders and animators. Without a good coder you're basicly screwed.

[Steppenwolf]

Delaz you better read our forums because we have a NDA at Insurgency And that is good so. It makes sure that the content that is produced by the members is 'property' of Insurgency. So if a member would left the Mod in anger he cant take his stuff and bring the whole project to fall. Its no problem to use it as reference or for portfolios tho.

I dont see this as a bad thing. The amount of work and time that is needed for a Mod specialy a Total Conversion is so HUGE that it would piss many many people off if a single person could destroy everything in a moment of anger.

[Captain P]

Friends. I think that's indeed one of the things that tend to be forgotten nowadays. I'm doing some modelling for a mod because their leader is a friend of mine and asked me to do some modelling. It's just the kind of things you do for each other to help each other out. No need for contracts or big showoffs and all. I know him and 'm confident he's capable of pulling that mod off, no matter how long it'll take him.

So, yeah, people lost confidence in mods and that's mostly to blame to the thousands of idea's and doomed-to-fail mods that pop up everywhere. I think it's twisting the original intention of modding. That's sad, because it's really all just for fun, isn't it? Ok, perhaps you see it as an opportunity to get into the industry but even then, you have to have fun doing it, otherwise I see no reason to get into the games bussiness.

Just my 2 cents.

[DelaZ]

I dont join something if it just looks good and pro, they need playable releases prefferably. Too many mods release great art work or maybe a playable demo but they never seem to find the time and effort after that anymore to actually make an entire mod out of it..

Since the last year or 2 its getting increasingly common to act like a company while theyre actualy just a mod. Absolutely horrible, last thing on earth Im going to join is a group of wannabes...

I agree that's the hardest part to do, make a mod out of the artwork. And even harder is make it playable and enjoyable without annoying bugs or unbalanced gameplay. At the moment Insurgency is actually in a transition were we are making a mod out of the artwork. Implenting all the gameplay/features stuff. But features don't make a mod/game. You still have to have the gameplay that glues all the features together to one mod/game. And from what I saw, it's very hard, but we're getting there.

Your second quote is hmm almost one of the problems. You don't want wannabes or guys acting pro and you don't want noobies. So what do you want? Something in between. They have to be a cool (small?) group of people making this mod. Preferable friends or people who know eachoter. And I'm sure thats possible but its really getting harder. If you want a total convertion using 100% custom content you got to have at least some organisation and at least some planning, and even with all that it's still hard. The Insurgency team was build up member by member. It's not like we suddenly had 40 members all together and no one knew eachoter. It's like a big group of friends that started small and got bigger.

To be totally honest I don't think Insurgency is working with a straight plan. It just gets build brick by brick and we work on it day by day. Certainly we have plans but those are stored in the back of our head. We all enjoy making this mod and we get motivated by seing other devs work.

[Steppenwolf]

In my opinion it is not possible to make a TC with just a couple of friends and for the pure fun. Such a Mod will fail nowadays. A lot of the moddingwork is absolutely no fun. It is real work that needs a strong character with the ability to hold the motivation level high over many months or even years. To handle this makes the difference between a mod that will be succesfull and a mod that will never see the light of day.

It needs at least a decent organization and people who are able to motivate each other otherwise people will stop to work when it comes to the not so cool tasks like fixing 300 texture files or unwrapping a dozen huge boring models.

More organization and a bit more professionalism doesnt mean that modding itself is less fun. For me personaly it makes more fun to work in a organized mod together with people who know their shit.

Its a difference tho between a Mod that only seems to be professional and a Mod that actualy has some (semi)professionalism.

I would always look who are the people that are already on the team. Are they known in the scene? Have they released maps etc already? Have they worked on released mods? It is very important for me that at least a few people know what it means to bring a project to a release. This is what strenghtens the convidence in a project.

When i started being interested in ins a year ago it was a big plus for the team that so many of them worked on Red Orchestra before. Otherwise i would not have applied for a position in the team although the artwork and website looked very nice already.

[Mr.Ben]

It's about two things: The leader and the teams ability to motivate itself.

KFS was a damn good leader for NW, and browsing the NW development forums gave you a hardon; you couldn't help but be inspired viewing some of the work on display and you'd run off and get to work yourself.

PS someone hire me I rock.

[RD]

is NW released yet?

[Skjalg]

PS someone hire me I rock.

With that that signature you probably wont get hired

I agree with alot of stuff that is in this thread, especially the part where some of you talk about the fact that mods really need organization. It's alot of work holding huge teams together and making sure noone strays from the project and/or runs off with shit. I think the reason things are as they are today is because mod teams have learned from past mistakes.

Some of you say that this is all sad that mod teams are trying to be very professional with contracts and all that, and I agree that it has been taken a little far. I agree to the naming stuff, "Senior Project Game Development Lead Designer" is quite funny But on big projects with 20+ people and different "teams" that work together it really makes it easier if theres 1 leader and say 4 liuetenants, and all the rest has to report in to their respective one, and they report to their leader. This also ensures that the mod can go on 24/7, and not just when the leader is awake

[Crackerjack]

Its all about the feeling, either you enjoy the theme, concept and ideas of the mod or you are doing it because you think its a popular mod and you want you name out there. When its the 2nd option the motivation slowly dissolves and you flake. Its honestly all about the feeling. Dont choose the 2nd one.

[Kalashnikov]

Small make-shift Non-Disclosure Agreements are part of almost all of the high-quality modifications out there. The big thing about NDAs and mods is that you can't freely show media outside of the development team without prior approval from everyone involved.

For example, with Black Mesa: Source, that is pretty much what our MNDA (Media Non-Disclosure Agreement) says. All we have is that, saying "don't release media unless the majority of the team thinks its ready to be shown". I constantly find many teams who have fully pleged, corporate NDAs and I am still bound by three or four, but modifications are, as the author of this thread said, meant to be fun. Many of our developers run free with the ideas of what they have and we communicate to put everyone else's ideas together into one.

Modifications today rely far too much on public interest to keep them going. Modifications such as Opposing Force continuations rely simply on that, which is why none of them have been successful thus far. With something like Insurgency, they want to make something they want to see, and it just so happens that a large majority of other HL2 gamers want the same thing: myself included. Fortress-Forever, another example of a modification that the developers WANT to make, and also, as a plus, that the community wants to play.

Either way, modification work is definitly not what it used to be: especially in the light of 1000 other modifications usually working towards the same things as yours. In todays world, along with Day of Defeat, Counter-Strike, et cetera: a lot of people want to make a mod and be bought by Valve: again this has changed the modding world. Especially more that (in my belief) 50% of today's professional game developers have come from the third-party world, many developers start young to be able to follow careers in the design world.

[Defrag]

It's about finding that balance between passion, fun and professionalism. FF now has 29 members, and we all get on with one-another famously. We've had our ups and downs, problem members (only two, both of which both left/were kicked) and disagreements about the way we work, but the fact is we're still here and we're still pushing on, making steady progress

I don't think a formal NDA (at least in the traditional sense) is required, but people should always ask permission before releasing media. Whoever stated that marketing the mod is now as important as the mod itself was correct (it's unfortunate, I agree). Mod-making is a lot more prevalent these days, so you're competing with a large amount of other mods. If you just beaver away and don't release media, then no-one will be aware of your mod.

Someone releasing their media when repeatedly asked to stop was the straw that broke the camel's back when we booted our first member many months ago (not to mention his horrible selfishness and inability to take constructive criticism on board). IMO it is FAR FAR FAR more important to have someone of slightly above average talent that is willing to learn, put the time in and remain loyal to the project than it is to get some hot-shot dipshit on board. We learned that the hard way with our first character modeler, but thankfully the damage was relatively light. In the meantime, rebo has evolved as a modeler over the last ~12 months with frightening pace, and we now have some excellent character models. Rebo is also an excellent team member when it comes to listening to constructive criticism and being motivated for the cause. He's the kind of member that many mod teams will overlook, and hire some guy that has a terrible personality and slightly more impressive models. Now we have the best of both worlds.

I would also advise people to TALK TO THE PEOPLE YOU WANT TO RECRUIT. I can't stress that enough. The second person we kicked out seemed very professional and a decent team-worker via his emails, but the moment he started work for us it became clear we'd made a mistake. The dude was arrogant (repeatedly stated that he was lined up for a job at Rockstar, yeah right), his models weren't great (1.4k for a set of shelves.. I managed to make the exact same set in 880 tris and I'm a newb), he had problems understanding simple specifications / instructions and he got stroppy the moment you criticised his work. His emails were not at all indicative of the type of person he was. He seemed to think he was above us, despite the fact he was just hired as a prop modeler. The final straw came when I was trying to explain some obvious points about functionality when skinning (i.e. don't just randomly add detail, think about the purpose of the object and also think about where it'd be damaged / worn around the edges etc) and he basically acted in a condescending manner towards me. Bad idea. I've got better things to do with my time than be chastised by some wannabe pro that can't even get the basics down. Anyway, it was our own fault for not speaking to the guy at length before recruiting him, as we would've no doubt spotted some warning signs. I think I had about three weeks of stress before we finally punted him. It just goes to show how much of a disruptive force ill-fitting team members can be.

As for the point about mods not requiring Lead titles, I disagree. Sometimes you need someone to take charge of a particular situation and perhaps put their foot down, or just provide guidance on an issue. If you have Lead titles, then people immediately know who they should turn to if they require advice or other information regarding their job. The project lead cannot handle everything, especially when it's a specialised subject. If your team is small, then it's probably not much of a problem as everybody knows their fellow peers very well. When you've got ~30 members, it becomes more necessary to have sub-management of most departments. E.g. if you have five modelers and three of them are spare to make some props, it makes sense to have the lead modeler assign tasks and keep track of each task's status and / or maintain a task queue so everything is organised and so forth. It's not about giving one's self some big-time Charlie wannabe title to seem important, it's purely a pragmatic thing (or at least it is for us). Obviously some people do just want to have a fancy title, but you can usually spot those people a mile off.

Randomish post, more on mod management than joining a mod but yeah.

[Hourences]

Well yeah, if your team is really big you need more than 1 leader but it must still strike a balance, the more leader crap the less friendly the environment imo, less group of friends feeling.

In any way, after a while there will always be people in the team who put in more time or have more knowledge and who will kinda turn in lead or senior or whatever and who people know they can turn to if they got a problem or a question but Im kinda against putting that in font size 900 on your site "dude x is lead y"

NDA's really are not neccy, we never had them a few years ago and no one leaked stuff back then either...ofcourse if you wanted to release something you should go ask permission etc but not with all kinds of paperwork..

And the NDA's arent even legal...nor would you get sued if you breached them, so whats the point ?

I dont even have an NDA where I work, its just based on trust, We're trying not to be too corporate so the work stays fun and thats good cause I speak out of experience that too a corporate workenvironment can be frustrating but yet some mods try to be exactly that..weird people

Some take it too far, its still for fun and a hobby and they are still just amateurs