Slashdot Mirror
The Mod Squad
Devil's BSD writes "Popular Science has a new article in this month's issue about gaming mods. It contains a nice history of mods, touches on mods for the Big Three gaming systems today (as well as those for computer games), and a beginner's guide to mods. Interesting, but not much new for the l33t h4x0rs out there though."
The PS author and editors blow it big time when they outright claim that all games are devoid of standard copyright protections against modification/alteration/derivative works. The blanket statement of "Although modifying began among hard-core hackers, it's not illegal." is just flat wrong, except where game publishers openly invite this activity.
What amazes me is that people (myself included) still play the origional QuakeWorld Team Fortress (now days you HAVE to include "QuakeWorld" in the description as there's an entire generation who equate "Team Fortress" with Team Fortress Classic and know nothing else - damn kids). That alone shows the amazing draw to a good mod. If it wasn't for the easy modification of Quake, it would have burned through its cycle years ago - and computer games tend to have an amazingly short burn cycle.
Before someone says it - QWTF is dying. Yes. Its been dying for years now. Its like the classic Monty Python scene.
"I'm not dead yet!"
"Wait a minute. He says he's not dead yet."
"Well he will be in a minute."
QWTF is just about to the point where it goes "I feel happy!" and then meets with a sudden ending at the end of a club (some claim that such a clubbing was attempted by Carmak's releaseing Quake source code and the rampant cheating that followed). But right now - its not QUITE dead yet.