*rant Time* Announcing Mods...
DOOManiac
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
in Off-Topic
*Disclaimer* I'm not pointing fingers, and I don't want the last few mods who "announced" themselves to think I'm talking exclusively to them (although it is probably enclusive). So don't take it personal, this is just a generalized thought.
What's the deal with all these mods announcing this and that? It seems nobody thought to actually get work done on the mod first, THEN go public.. No no, its gotta be "Hey I just had this idea! Design doc.. announce it.. design doc.. announce it.. oh i'm bad with word! *clicks add post*". Seriously, you usually don't see this in other areas. There is a lot of work done on games before they are announced. Movies are in at least pre-production before being announced (officially). And this is in a situation where there is $$ to back the claims too heh.
And what makes it even better is when a mod team is looking for coders, modellers, level designers, texture artists, and sound designers all at once. Even still just saying "well we got a great team but we need a coder" is really saying you have nothing at all. Mappers & modellers are really a dime a dozen, its really the coders that are hard to come by...
*end rant*
What's the deal with all these mods announcing this and that? It seems nobody thought to actually get work done on the mod first, THEN go public.. No no, its gotta be "Hey I just had this idea! Design doc.. announce it.. design doc.. announce it.. oh i'm bad with word! *clicks add post*". Seriously, you usually don't see this in other areas. There is a lot of work done on games before they are announced. Movies are in at least pre-production before being announced (officially). And this is in a situation where there is $$ to back the claims too heh.
And what makes it even better is when a mod team is looking for coders, modellers, level designers, texture artists, and sound designers all at once. Even still just saying "well we got a great team but we need a coder" is really saying you have nothing at all. Mappers & modellers are really a dime a dozen, its really the coders that are hard to come by...
*end rant*
Comments
/me drops DOOManiac from his list of cool people
<!--QuoteBegin--DOOManiac+--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DOOManiac)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Mappers & modellers are really a dime a dozen, its really the coders that are hard to come by...
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/me drops DOOManiac from his list of cool people
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To some extent, I agree with DOOM's statement.
Just by reading through the Mapping forum itself, there's at least a few dozen people trying out mapping for the first time. They asking questions, posting progress screenshots, and getting advice from the more experienced mappers. You'll always be able to find a mapper who's willing to help design maps for your mod, but they won't necessarily be as experienced as those with a half-dozen good-quality maps already finished.
I'm not sure if the same thing is happening in the Modelling forum as I've never even clicked my way in, but I can only assume so.
Sure, mappers and modellers are a dime a dozen, but the professional ones are rare. Just about anyone can attempt to do anything, but those who are experienced will be more frequently sought after.
<!--QuoteBegin--Ramses+--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ramses)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As you may or may not know, I'm german and therefore I regulary lurk in some forums of the german Half-Life modding-scene. I'm not an active member of this scene (I've never finished a level, nor released any textures or finished ANYTHING mod/map related).
Lately, I've noticed a (in my opinion) bad 'thing', I'll just call it "Semi-Professionalism". What this means:
There are many high-quality MODs out there, both singelplayer (Poke646, ETC, TheyHunger 1-3, USS-Darkstar etc. ) and multiplayer (CounterStrike [yes, it's still a mod and still good], DayOfDefeat, FrontLineForce, FireArms, Natural-Selection etc.). I call them "high-qualtiy MODs" because after I had played them, I thought they were of high qualtiy. There are also some not-yet-released MODs I would call high-quality (NightWatch for example) where I can only judge on screenshots and information from team-members.
One thing that can help a MOD is a bit of "professionalism". One thing that impressed me during the Natural-Selection Developement stage (or the time i saw of this stage) was that everything seemed more "professional" and "planned" to me than any MOD i had experienced before. Not only <i>seemed</i> it professional, also I could see results of this "professionalism".
Now the 'thing' that seems to become more regular in the german modding-scene (or maybe in the modding-scene in general, I only know about the german one) is that more and more MOD-Makers seems to become a bit 'megalomanic'.
This beginns with people calling themselves in their signature "Game Developer". I can agree that Flayra has all rights to call himself "GameDeveloper", but I belief sometimes it's just a bit conceited to call yourself "GameDeveloper" for making some web-graphics of a not-yet released Half-LIfe modification...
Then there comes the subject of PR (public relations). I admire MonsierEvil (the PR-Guy of Natural-Selection) for his great work, but some german MODs doesn't understand the meaning of PR. PR doesn't mean you have to inform every newssite about your great mod, 9 months before the first screenshots are available... It also doesn't mean you have to tell everyone how great your mod is going to be, because thats something THEY should think, nothing YOU must tell them...
And now to my biggest problems:
Some so-called Game Developers seems to think "Hmm, why don't we call ourselfe like some Company, perhaps 'Lalala-Entertainment' or 'BlaBLaSoft', that sounds cool and professional...". I agree, it <i>sounds</i> professional, but it isn't! I hate coming on a Website where the intro says "Welcome to ShitSoft. If you want to learn more about our upocoming projects, click ENTER" but when I click enter, I have to realize that they're just some 13-16 year old guys (mostly not more then two of 'em) who are going (they have NOTHING to put on this site) to make a Half-Life modification. It's just crazy.
Also, some mods that started out really well, become crazy somehow. I belief that Natural-Selection for example, or DayOfDefeat, have the potential to be ported to a more advanced engine and go retail. But even there I have some doubts. Now there are some (far too many in my opinon) german MOD-makers who either already BOUGHT A CHEAP ENGINE or are thinking about that. Sure, every MOD-maker would be happy if some company asked him about going retail, and I can understand people who are mapping for UT2k because they think HL is too old. But when a group of young people (mostly 16-20 in age) begin to invest in a engine with the <i>intention</i> of becoming a retail game, I feel that the real spirit of modding is gone. And also the relation to reality. These MODs I'm talking about are projects that aren't even in the playtesting-stage, they've some concepts, but nothing more! And still, they belief they're able to buy a engine, create a great game, find a publisher etc. I think this is a form of 'semi-professionalism'.
I mean the reason why someone make a MOD shouldn't be to become rich, it should be for the fun. Both for yourself and for the people who will play your mod.
----
Im 16 myself and looking around in the Half-Life community, I see many people you would call 'teenager' that are extremly talented.
My main concern with what I call 'semi-professionalism' isn't the product these mod-teams are working on. I've tried various mapping-projects (at least 2 HL-DM maps, 1 CS map and 1 DOD map) but I've lost motivation all the times. For example, I've a nearly finished Day Of Defeat map somewhere on my Harddrive. I had worked for several month on it, but then the release of Natural-Selection pulled me away, and now I've lost interest in this project. Sad but true. I've also tried modeling, but that seemed even more hard than mapping to me:(
Well, I just want to say I respect nearly all people who try such projects, and I've seen enough mature and talented teenager and far too many immature and untalented adults in this community to know what some 'teenagers' can do.
What concerns me is when a well-looking MOD takes itself too serious and think it must beat something, be it Counter-Strike or Poke646. People must realize that these aren't the norm.
You can't exspect to beat them. Sure, you can take them as a measure for your own work, but you can't just say 'Our MOD will be like Counter-Strike, just better! With better weapons, better maps and better models!'.
Another point that has (in my opinion) ruined some mods already. Some MOD-makers overrate their leading-abilities and start to expand their team limitless. Even 'big' mods like Natural-Selection (sorry for using NS as a referrence so often, its just so that I know more about it than about any other mod) have only a small group of people actualy working on it. Sure, they've many playtesters, contributors and so on, but the core team who makes all the decisions is small.
A bad example is a mod I've found (won't tell the name) with a team-description like this (okay, not exactly like this, but very similiar) :
Leader : ...
Co-Leader : ...
1. Lead-Mapper: ...
2. Lead-Mapper: ...
Mapper: ...
Mapper: ...
Mapper: ...
Freelance-Mapper: ...
1. Lead-Artist: ...
2. Lead-Artist: ...
Artist: ...
Artist: ...
GFX-Artist: ...
Concept-Artist: ...
1. Lead-Modeler: ...
Lead Player-Modeler
Lead Weapon-Modeler
Lead World-Modeler
Modeler: ...
Modeler: ...
1. Lead-Coder: ...
2. Lead-Coder: ...
PR-Manager: ....
Website-Artist: ...
Website-Coder: ...
Website-Admin: ...
These MOD-makers haven't realized that they're already bigger than some game-companys. But as soon as they need to make an important decision or meet a certain deadline, this team will just collapse. Either they will find out that half of their members have left without notice, or they'll begin to argue about every aspect of their mod.
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And BTW, I think this thread should be moved to the Discussion Forum before it becomes a "My Mod is different!---This mod sucks also!---CS Suxors!!!11!" type of discussion.
/me drops DOOManiac from his list of cool people <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
eek. That comes out sounding a lot worse than what I intended. :O
What I mean was, as far as numbers go, there are a LOT of mappers and modellers. GOOD mappers, like the NS, nightwatch, and AHL (Banana) mappers, are hard to find. GOOD modellers, like in NS & urban terror for q3, are hard to find. But modellers and mappers in general who do "decent-to-good" are quite easy to come buy. Also generally mapping/modelling isn't as time intensive (at least, its not spread out as much) as coding, and thus the mapper/modeller can work on more than one project at a time and still give good results. Thus, for a mod team it really isn't that hard to get mapping and modelling talent.
Programmers, on the other hand, are very hard to come by. Not only that, when a person rare enough to have the skill to do the mod, chances are they are going to want to spend their time on their own ideas, their own mods. Unless your mod idea strikes something with them and they fall in love with it, it'll be hard to find any coder. And that's for any coder, let alone a good one. Good ones are even rarer. They are almost always currently tied up in other projects and have no time for extra work, even if they want to.
Another thing, you can have mappers and modellers each working on their own stuff whenever, so you can basically have as many mappers/modellers as you want. But for a programmer, while I know there are source sharing solutions in the business world, these are hardly ever used in the mod scene. For mods, usually there is one and only one programmer. Sometimes there are two, but its rare. And I don't think I've *EVER* seen a mod with three or more programmers...
So please, don't take this rant as anti-modellers/mappers, because you guys are certainly just as important as the programmer. After all, if not for you guys (and gals) all the code the programmer writes would still look like crap. You add the artistic side of the game and make it come to life. There just happens to be a ton of you out there heh.
Well, this may be true for some mappers, but as you said, I think it depends on the result. Most of the Natural-Selection Maps for example took the mappers several months for finishing (although they were playable much sooner).
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And I don't think I've *EVER* seen a mod with three or more programmers...
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Unfortunately, I *HAVE* seen those mods. Believe me, most of them are doomed to fail.
I think the main problem is to get <i>good</i> teammembers for your mod. It doesn't really matter if you need mappers, modellers, texture artists or coders, the problem is to get someone good. Because if you're good, you are making your own thing most of the time.
aye, NS is the exception to the rule. :P