Interview with Garry on Shacknews

[FrieChamp]

So what do you expect me to do now? List the MODs that took 3 years or longer to bring out a first public release and have little player counts today? There are many...

The difference is that if your mod sucks and nobody plays it, you can react and make the necessary changes after a couple of months instead of revamping it after 3 wasted years...or abandon it all together.

It's called prototyping

[FMPONE]

well its difficult to argue against prototyping, but the evidence suggest having a an actual publicly downloadable release policy of "release early, release often" approach doesn't do any better and in fact may do worse in practice than developing something of retail scope with Source mods.

all you need to do is consult the stats, as I did with my little chart

[Skjalg]

There are simply more advantages to releasing often.. the biggest one is, as most of you have mentioned that you can make lots of small tweaks along the way and make the game better and better all the time. The second biggest is probably the whole PR thing, you are always in the news' and people will mention your mod more often (new version is out!! orly?).

[FMPONE]

There are simply more advantages to releasing often.. the biggest one is, as most of you have mentioned that you can make lots of small tweaks along the way and make the game better and better all the time. The second biggest is probably the whole PR thing, you are always in the news' and people will mention your mod more often (new version is out!! orly?).

Or you're like ND or BM:S and make hl2.net or hl2fallout with 2-3 screenshots. Just a thought, hype matters :wink:

I think BM:S would have a much easier time getting media on one of the news sites than a "release early release often"er like say, Insect Invasion.

I also think that people like Valve should think a wee bit and take a look at the example they set with holding their newest sequel back for 2 years before they say release early release often.

[KungFuSquirrel]

Just like those dismal flops of Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat, eh? Or Natural Selection, that for months only had a hacked together technology release of only bare bones functionality and a couple partial texture sets? That drew far more people to the mod than a hushed team would have, and people even made up their own games with it while waiting for the full release (skulk racing anyone?). Those were the mods for Half-Life, and every one of them had at least some form of early hack of a release to start building interest, support, and even draw more talent to be a part of it. You can't just point to Dystopia and say "nuh-uh, look, the entire system is flawed" - if it didn't work for them, well, that's unfortunate for them but not an argument against the entire method.

Garry's mod is no more an exception than the widespread appeal of the Wii - it's simple, and it's fun as hell. Does anyone even remember the stuff randomnine did back in the day? Canned Tuna? Turbo, the snark racing mod? It's great when a big group of people get together and do something big and impressive, and I agree that it's shitty of garry to be taking potshots at mods, but people have got to stop treating every mod like it has to be a replace-every-last-bit-of-original-content re-invent the wheel retail-equivalent package in order to be worthy of play or respect.

I also think that people like Valve should think a wee bit and take a look at the example they set with holding their newest sequel back for 2 years before they say release early release often.

They already have, as I mentioned in my earlier post; they regret using the episodic term applied to the HL2 expansions, and 'release early, release often' does not hold true for retail products.

[Campaignjunkie]

Okay, define "failure." So they didn't become gigantic successes - not many mods do. They still have passionate fan-bases. Join any SourceForts server and try to learn all the advanced building techniques that have evolved. Watching that HL2 CTF video where Valve planted their own cheats in the code was also pretty entertaining. People still play Adrenaline Gamer.

I think the problem is that people are doing "release often" but not following up with "iterate." Okay, so the gameplay isn't interesting - the solution isn't a balance change or a new player class, it's a different set of rules and game modes... But then you risk upsetting the community that has stayed on since the beginning. In any case, I agree that none of this is as simple as Garry makes it sound.

And a BMS rebuttal (not speaking for the team though): I agree in principle with "release often," but I don't think we'll get much benefit out of iteration. We're basically just doing a facelift on Half-Life 1; there's not much gameplay to iterate and test. Plus, it's single player. People are going to play it once at most, and I don't blame them.

[FMPONE]

Just like those dismal flops of Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat, eh? Or Natural Selection, that for months only had a hacked together technology release of only bare bones functionality and a couple partial texture sets? That drew far more people to the mod than a hushed team would have, and people even made up their own games with it while waiting for the full release (skulk racing anyone?). Those were the mods for Half-Life, and every one of them had at least some form of early hack of a release to start building interest, support, and even draw more talent to be a part of it. You can't just point to Dystopia and say "nuh-uh, look, the entire system is flawed" - if it didn't work for them, well, that's unfortunate for them but not an argument against the entire method.

Garry's mod is no more an exception than the widespread appeal of the Wii - it's simple, and it's fun as hell. Does anyone even remember the stuff randomnine did back in the day? Canned Tuna? Turbo, the snark racing mod? It's great when a big group of people get together and do something big and impressive, and I agree that it's shitty of garry to be taking potshots at mods, but people have got to stop treating every mod like it has to be a replace-every-last-bit-of-original-content re-invent the wheel retail-equivalent package in order to be worthy of play or respect.

We're talking about Source mods. When you introduce HL1 stuff you dismiss the importance of hardware, which is foolish.

There are more than one variable, and your strategy HAS failed for Source.

Okay, define "failure." So they didn't become gigantic successes - not many mods do. They still have passionate fan-bases. Join any SourceForts server and try to learn all the advanced building techniques that have evolved. Watching that HL2 CTF video where Valve planted their own cheats in the code was also pretty entertaining. People still play Adrenaline Gamer.

I think the problem is that people are doing "release often" but not following up with "iterate." Okay, so the gameplay isn't interesting - the solution isn't a balance change or a new player class, it's a different set of rules and game modes... But then you risk upsetting the community that has stayed on since the beginning. In any case, I agree that none of this is as simple as Garry makes it sound.

I'd say having sub 100 players is a failure, because not only have you failed to reach alot of people but considering most of these mods are multiplayer only, you've not met your one and only goal of providing a game.

They don't have bots, of course, so if you load up an Insects Invasion and see no servers, you literally cannot play that game.

[Steppenwolf]

fmp is absolutely right. look how succesfull the mods are that released early.

ins would be in this list if we had released 1-2 years ago. Sure it took a long time but now we have a mod that we can build up on. Its still flawed in many aspects (bugs, missing stuff, balancing issues, annoyances etc) but its good enough that a shitload of people will download and play 1.2 when its out.

you gotta see that valve guys come from hl1 modding and this just wasnt the same. you could map a complete map in a month back in the days. Nowadays it takes 6 to 12 months or even more for someone who does it in his free time. And thats only one of many aspect for a complete mod.

The mod i worked on before Insurgency took 2 years to release. Many people thought it would be too late but still when it was released it was the most played mp mod for Call of Duty for a long time.

So from my personal experience with now two succesfull released projects i have to disagree strongly with the early release strategy.

It may work for just "mods". But nowadays it doesn't work anymore for more ambitious projects. A good thing takes his time.

[FrieChamp]

If your goal is to get on news sites, make art assets and build up your portfolio then by all means - take your time and make it look fucking fantastic.

If you want to develop a game that will make people not only pop in for the looks but also stay in for the fun, then go for the iterative approach. That is my last word on this...for tonight at least

[FMPONE]

They already have, as I mentioned in my earlier post; they regret using the episodic term applied to the HL2 expansions, and 'release early, release often' does not hold true for retail products.

It may work for just "mods". But nowadays it doesn't work anymore for more ambitious projects. A good thing takes his time.

I think these two points summarize the situation, a mod like Garry's mod which has no ambition of being a retail-competetive game in visuals or storytelling or gunplay etc etc can be developed for an engine like Source quickly because it (being a totally unconventional type of game) completely dodges what is for everyone else standard requirements.

On the other hand, you could never compare it with a Black Mesa Source, which Garry did quite mistakenly, because they have really nothing in common as games, either through development or when released. The people at Black Mesa have, no offense to Garry, alot more on their plate and a much higher expectation threshold in everything from visuals to gameplay to sound to code polish. Apples and oranges through and through.

That misunderstanding was Garry's error and as has been said, Valve's at one point too. But I am still proud of games like Insurgency, Nuclear Dawn, Black Mesa, Fortress Forever which prove that not everyone in modding is in it to make silly sand box games and remain dedicated to the goal of creating a retail-comparable game

[Bic-B@ll]

im sure hes talented and put a lot of work into it and such, but it's just kind of a crapshack where people do stupid bullshit, which im sure is fun for some, for five minutes, but that's about it. sorry.

[MrBaracuda]

Does anyone even remember the stuff randomnine did back in the day? Canned Tuna? Turbo, the snark racing mod?

BUT OF COURSE!

God I loved Turbo Taking my snark into the half-pipe like maps was great fun and with others even better.

[KungFuSquirrel]

I think a better comparison than player counts is who releases vs who doesn't. Yeah, sure, maybe the player counts aren't great, but they've gotten farther than most projects. That it's getting into late 2007, about 3 years past the release of HL2, and Insurgency just released as the first major mod release after 3-4 years of working isn't a good thing. How many projects have gone under in that same stretch of time that might have seen life in smaller, scaled-back, and/or incremental form?

Also keep in mind given that Insurgency just came out within the last month; it'll take a lot of hard work and dedication on the part of the team to maintain, let alone increase those numbers. While I hope you guys will be successful, it's entirely possible you may find in a few months to a year's time that INS is in a similar position as some of these other mods in the player base department.

And every generation is going to make it less and less feasible for "release early release often" to be a sane approach to game developement.

I think the opposite is true for mod development. The commitment required is skyrocketing beyond what most people can reasonably manage in a part-time situation. Small iterative projects are the way to go if you want to see the light of day without having to throw a huge team at it, which I also think is a terrible trend in modding.

In retrospect, I regret ever aiming for retail/professional standard with NW. We went too big too fast and couldn't hold it in the long run. Worst part is, if we'd just stuck to the initial plan I bet we could have had a pretty damn solid release in a much more reasonable timeframe. That was on a HL mod, too; that was easymode compared to what's out there now. Unless our tools take a huge jump in the near future (which they should for the sake of everyone who's ever had to work in a bloated dev team), it's just not reasonable and I think it really betrays the roots of what made mods mods. Steppen, that you accented a point by saying "just "mods"" is a very telling statement of how drastically things have changed in the wake of CS and DOD's success.

[Psyshokiller]

Wow. As I was reading that thread right after Frie posted it I absolutely didn't except it to turn into such a war. I noticed that lots of people around here bitch about other mods, why all the hate? It's hard enough to mod today and you all should encourage each other. The Doom3 community and mods help each other out alot either (yeah I know, it's way smaller).

I think it comes down to how the "iterative method" is approached.

You really need a strong design and plan there.

A first release doesn't have to be shitty at all (like CS or DOD have been). There is one thing that will keep players intrested in your mod, gameplay. If the gameplay is correct you won't need a ton of maps at first, also you won't need to have different player models for each class if you can seperate them by just a different texture. Sadly people nowadays tend not to try mods, that don't look ueber hot. Which means that the few assets used in the early version should be of high quality to prove that more good work can be excepted. Of course then, you need to keep it updated fast enough.

[MrBaracuda]

In retrospect, I regret ever aiming for retail/professional standard with NW

Excuse me, but what is "NW"?