How healthy is the MOD scene these days?
polycounter lvl 15
Good day everyone.
I am curious what mod scenes are alive and kicking these days? I know of a few good games worth getting lost in for their editors and tools. I would love to hear from folks here of any other games I might be unaware of or forgetting which allow for great editing and expanding with tools from the community or developers?
I am also particularly interested in games that are very heavy on diffuse only texture art styles "no normals is good sometimes. And preferably something that already has a good art style so I don't have the urge to replace everything...
So here is a list of games I consider a good spot to start for modding. They all tend to be big games with a active player base.
- Starcraft2 "huge player base and good tools from developers and the community"
- Torchlight 1 / 2 "The original tools are amazing and I have great hopes for the sequel"
- Minecraft "Very large scene for new coded mods and texture packs"
- All Source games "Halflife 2, Team Fortress 2, Left for Dead"
- UDK "Not mods but great engine which many folks at polycount are addicted too"
- The Sims Series "Its huge from what I can tell. Not my cup of tea but still cool"
- Second Life?... Not sure how to classify this one but its totally customizable. Again never touched this one myself but thought I would mention it.
- Gears of War and UT3? "is this still alive or did everyone jump ship once they realized their mods could run stand alone in UDK?"
Regards!
"Skiffy the junkyard monster shuffles off into the darkness once more"
I am curious what mod scenes are alive and kicking these days? I know of a few good games worth getting lost in for their editors and tools. I would love to hear from folks here of any other games I might be unaware of or forgetting which allow for great editing and expanding with tools from the community or developers?
I am also particularly interested in games that are very heavy on diffuse only texture art styles "no normals is good sometimes. And preferably something that already has a good art style so I don't have the urge to replace everything...
So here is a list of games I consider a good spot to start for modding. They all tend to be big games with a active player base.
- Starcraft2 "huge player base and good tools from developers and the community"
- Torchlight 1 / 2 "The original tools are amazing and I have great hopes for the sequel"
- Minecraft "Very large scene for new coded mods and texture packs"
- All Source games "Halflife 2, Team Fortress 2, Left for Dead"
- UDK "Not mods but great engine which many folks at polycount are addicted too"
- The Sims Series "Its huge from what I can tell. Not my cup of tea but still cool"
- Second Life?... Not sure how to classify this one but its totally customizable. Again never touched this one myself but thought I would mention it.
- Gears of War and UT3? "is this still alive or did everyone jump ship once they realized their mods could run stand alone in UDK?"
Regards!
"Skiffy the junkyard monster shuffles off into the darkness once more"
Replies
Soon, Crysis 2 and Cryengine 3.
I'm only into the Source mod scene so I can't really comment on the others, but from what I do see on moddb it seems like Source is still one of the most popular if not the most popular. What are you looking mod? Do you want to make new maps or weapons or do a full conversion? It would be easier to suggest something if you were more specific with what you want to do.
(and soon Skyrim)
Now as for what I'm looking for, adding / replacing creatures or characters for an already fleshed out game world is the most appealing to me. Something with an art style in the lines of Diablo 3 or Allods online "Sick diffuse only painted art style like this for characters "Slipgate voodoo!"
Adding new levels or extending the environments for the new creatures and character to inhabit would be nice. This entry from the brawlers stages is a great style example! "Evil Minola..."
A more modern take on Hexen / Heretic FPS / 3rd person action games would be ideal. That or Diablo 3 with mod support... would have been awesome "dang you blizzard!" But I recall they wont allow for this unlike Starcraft 2. Could have been amazing especialy with the massive audience that game is going to gather around it for years to come.
I would have considered Oblivion if it had a more appealing art style... But way to shiny and abusing shaders. Something less involved from a gameplay standpoint also
Still looking...
"Skiffy the junkyard monster looks off into the distance and sighs"
I believe there was a mod for this some years ago-....damn i logged a lot of hours in heretic/hexen....
I agree. With the Unreal Development Kit, you can import all new, fresh geometry and quickly make a working walk through of your environment. Some simple Kismet tutorials and you can have something up and running in no time.
Modding rules, and takes you places, even up to this date. You just need to be careful which mod team you join, cos the vaste majority of the teams dream too high and the project slowly dies.
Still, if you're a tottal beginer, joining a mod team is a good experience, it will give you a glimpse of what it's like to work on an actual gamedev team.
Also, the most talented people I work(ed) come from the modding background.
If you really want to know how mods are doing, just check out moddb.
HL2 was popular on moddb BEFORE IT EVEN CAME OUT! Lots of dead ambitious projects always start up for it because there's some false sense of Source being the best easiest game engine there is in existence. There's less than 1% of them actually released in some form.
Free standalone games seem to be the new thing now, and unfortunately for both types, the more it parallels with Counter-Strike gameplay concepts, the more players. No one's doing it for creative opportunity anymore, just popularity. I mean, when's the last time something genius like "Superheroes Quake2" was ever coded?
In other games, the Quake scene recently gained a terrible trend of PSP modders cloning games (Halo, Halo, Halo, Mirror's Edge, Left4Dead, Call of Duty, Portal, Half-Life 2), but it's dying off now as those kids are getting out of high school, losing their 'pimpin mah PSP's shitty knockoff games for self-esteem value' motives. I guess the general consensus is that people value total clones more than something fresh. It's a bit of a shame because even MY q3 clone was on top of moddb's files list for years, with only a Black Mesa: Source video next to it (woo a HL clone) and Goldeneye Source.
So yeah this sucks but don't give up. but I'll say, Eternal Silence - the big scifi mod is a ghost town... guess you can't awp camp in space. Not even the convenience of Steamworks helped them much. modding is starting to look like the games industry.
</ASTUPIDLYSTRUCTUREDRANTDONEINTHEQUICKREPLYBOX>
Giving those assets more purpose in another game with an already set art style and game mechanics teaches you many other lessons. Especially if its of high quality and your working to make your additions to the game meet or surpass those of the original developers.
I come from the mod scene myself back like 11 years ago which then allowed me to move onto games. It was my "university / college" for games. When I hire artists that have a background in the mod scene they always surprise and surpass folks coming from schools that have game courses.
Its sad that more developers don't allow for modding of their games. I consider it one of the best places to start if you want to get into games personally and it fosters and inspires creativity for the community in general.
So besides Crysis 2 / Cryengine 3 SDK "like UDK" what other mod opportunities might we be forgetting?
"Skiffy the junkyard monster stares off into the distance"
It's a blast to be working with a team so dedicated to re-create such a great classic game... and it's also fantastic to have something so motivating and characters that I should be able to use when I finally get around to putting my portfolio site together. Nothing inspires me like the desire to see a character/creature I'm working on in the game engine. I love it.. and who knows, if I can keep it up and keep getting better and better I may just be able to turn this passion into an artist position at a game company.
most new games like cod or bfbc don't allow modding or make it a bitch to due, but on the other hand there is valve who has made a business of hiring on mod teams, examples being CS, TFC, and Portal, Alien Swarm and on top of this they have been supporting the community with tf2 alot, by putting peoples items into the game with updates and making peoples maps and environments part of the game too.
There are also teams that were previously mod teams who have started working on there own engines and making full games, like the guys who made natural selection.
and udk and cryengine have been making it a lot easier for presenting artwork and for small teams to make whole games.
so there are a lot of factors too it, but if your sticktly sticking it if mods are dyeing yes, at least compared to the old idea of a mod, and what was happening back in the quake, ut and half-life days.