Desert Combat Mod Developers Sign Commercial Deal

Ianing writes "Continuing the trend of developers supporting/hiring mod teams, Battlefield 1942 developer Digital Illusions has signed Trauma Studios, creators of the non-commercial Desert Combat mod for BF1942, to collaborate on Digital Illusions' series of Battlefield games." Blue's News adds that "The game involved is not mentioned, though Battlefield Vietnam comes to mind when reading that: 'This new collaboration is for one of Digital Illusions' previously announced projects'."

Comments

commercial or non-commercial

[Resnikov]

it will be intresting to see if the non-commercial Desert Combat mod becomes a commercial mod. Hope not.

Good for them, but...

[Universal Nerd]

I just hope they don't pull a 10ton (of Crimsonland fame) and sell out to start charging for the game.

Crimsonland was fun, but the paid version, from what I've heard, is nothing more than the free one with a few more guns.

Desert Combat is fun, REALLY fun!

Re:Good for them, but...

[sirvulcan]

they could do what cs done. Make a standalone ver and sell that but keep the mod for bf1942 free

Re:Good for them, but...

[American AC in Paris]

Crimsonland was fun, but the paid version, from what I've heard, is nothing more than the free one with a few more guns.

...nothing wrong with that! Crimsonland is a quality, free game. It obviously took quite a bit of blood, sweat, and tears to make, and 10tons certainly deserves financial compensation.

Instead of looking at it as "Why would I pay money for a weak little upgrade to Crimsonland", look at it as "I help support a really cool game and studio by giving them some money for a game I love; in return, they give me some bonus weapons!"

Making cool, freely-downloadable games is fun, but it takes a helluva lot of time, and unless you're on a trust fund, you need a day job to pay the bills. Enough people help fund places like 10tons, then more and more good, independent developers will be able to quit their day jobs and focus on making fun, interesting, free games.

Poisoning of Words

[Landaras]

Digital Illusions has signed Trauma Studios, creators of the non-commercial Desert Combat mod for BF1942

It is very sad how someone in a position of marketing power can poison how a word is used.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who was immediately reminded of these memos and press releases where MS tried to link GPL software with the misnomer of 'noncommerical.'

- Neil Wehneman

Re:Poisoning of Words

[antime]

What are you waffling about? Desert Combat is non-commercial. It is not open, it is not "free-as-in-speech".

If you keep finding yourself thinking about Steve Ballmer the problem lies squarely with you.

Re:Poisoning of Words

[Landaras]

I'm sorry, but you have missed the point entirely.

Ballmer and MS tried to equate GPL'd software (and similar) such as the Linux kernel, Apache, Mozilla, etc. with the term "non-commercial."

As you said, projects such as Desert Combat are non-commercial. I'm glad that the developers of it (who are obviously skilled) are finding some monetary gain out of this side project.

However, Linux / Apache / Mozilla, etc. are orders of magnitude more involved, valuable, and business worthy than projects such as this.

MS was trying to FUD them down to the same level. A non-Linux user who read this story who had only heard Ballmer's memos and PR would be more likely to equate Linux with Desert Combat.

It is that FUD that I am rallying against.

- Neil Wehneman

Re:Poisoning of Words

[antime]

No, you missed the point. There's nothing about Linux, Apache, Mozilla or any other such project in this story. Also, this is the games section, and if you'd keep your wildly off-topic drivel out it'd be much appreciated.

Re:Poisoning of Words

[Pvt_Waldo]

Non commercial just means it's not for sale.

Look Valve Software's at Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat games. They are "non commercial" and have been since the start of their creation. But they also are commercial.

Secret to breaking into the gaming industry

[MMaestro]

Make a free kickass multiplayer mod and then get bought out?

With so many big companies afraid to try out new ideas, it seems like independent developers and modders are the only ones trying out new ideas.

Re:Secret to breaking into the gaming industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Well yeah...the independent developers are the only ones who can afford to take big risks.

Re:Secret to breaking into the gaming industry

[mandalayx]

With so many big companies afraid to try out new ideas, it seems like independent developers and modders are the only ones trying out new ideas.

Welcome to the business world. Entrepreneurs come to mind here.

Still, it's a lot of work. I would guess that if you compared how much the DC guys get paid relative to the time put in, I'd guess we'd see less than minimum wage. But that's ok. The bottom line is that you've gotta love it. The passion shows in your product.

Re:Secret to breaking into the gaming industry

[MMaestro]

IMO, the amount of time the DC guys put into their work is just the tip of the iceburg. What about other expenses? I'm sure these guys didn't make this happen using 2 year old computers, using dial-up, and without causing their real life to falter (school grades dropping, decreased job performance, etc). Don't forget about bandwidth either (gotta host it somewhere in the beginning. As nice as people may be online, a mod like this no doubt sucked up some serious bandwidth to get this much attention.)

As for the business factor, I'd like to ask one simple question. Why not hire a bunch of low cost temporary developers (read : 99.9% of all mod makers) to make add-ons or expansions to their games? If the mod does well, the dev team gets a real bonus and possibly gets hired full time. Those who screw up get tossed. Either way the parent company, say EAGames, loses a few bucks (a couple thousand is pocket change to them) or they could make a bunch of money and a new source of good, proven developers. Worst case scenario : the company gets free advertisement as the press talk about the new idea.

Re:Secret to breaking into the gaming industry

[BTWR]

I think inherently, a hobbyist will do a better job than a worker.

Unfortunately, because of the success of CS and DC, there probably will be "mod-contracts" out, in a "make something cool by this Q2 deadline," which will NOT inspire CS/DC quality...

Re:Secret to breaking into the gaming industry

[mandalayx]

perhaps you can blend payment with results as judged by the community. say $10k to most popular MOD 1 year after game release. I think a great solution would be a contest... ...administred by diebold. just kidding about the last part =]

What a great mod!!!

[trompete]

Good for them. I've played that mod for a year, and I'm very impressed at what they were able to put out. Their mod was so good that EA tried to release their own mod like it (Secret Weapons of WW2) that sucked ass. Didn't a similar thing happen with CounterStrike and half-life?

Re:What a great mod!!!

[Lightwarrior]

How in the world do you equate staying true to the original game's concept by introcuding another battle front (post 1942 cleanup) and adding a "what if?" elemental to focusing on 1992->now military actions?

They're different time periods, they're different locations, they contain different weapons, vehicles, and concepts. The biggest improvements in SWoWWII were mobile spawn points and the "Destroy" objective.

Both of which were used in subsequent Desert Combat releases - which makes sense, since it's a mod.

HL & CS did have a similar situation to BF1942 and DC - in CS's case, it was packaged and sold as an expansion pack, despite the fact that it continued to be freely available on the internet. I'm curious to see if the same thing happens.

-lw

Re:What a great mod!!!

[Jackazz]

Actually Desert Combat had mobile spawn points first. I don't feel like looking for a link, but why don't you check out their websites.

I think Penny Arcade even talked about this...

Re:What a great mod!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The ships in the original BF1942 are mobile spawn points.

Menu Fix?

[TLSPRWR]

Great. There goes the hope of getting a menu fix patch for Desert Combat on BF1942 v1.6.19...

Re:Menu Fix?

[OutRigged]

They already announce that a fix, along with a slew of optimizations, would be released tomorrow (Friday, Feb 6th).

Re:Menu Fix?

[sirvulcan]

there is already an fix around that works fine

Re:Menu Fix?

[eddy]

What's wrong with the fix we have now?

Re:Menu Fix?

[TLSPRWR]

.. Backup files are important, alright kids? I accidentally overwrote the BF1942 menu.rfa in the 'Mods/BF1942' folder with this RFA file before realizing what I'd done... Therefore, I'm redownloading the 267mb upgrade just for that one file. Grah.. Always read instructions and always make backups and you to will be saved long FilePlanet wait times.

Choppers

[Xenolith]

If they do a Commercial Desert Combat game, I request that they make the helis more relistic to fly. If they use the Battlefield:Vietnam engine, they probably will be.

Re:Choppers

[GigsVT]

More realistic? I already thought they were pretty damn realistic.

They kick ass, once you learn how to fly them and get a good flightstick with twist yaw.

Re:Choppers

[whenyouargue]

Taking into account the lack of analogue for torque, i think the helicopters are excellent to _fly_, it's the landing that needs work since they tend to flip if you come down at an angle greater than 5 degrees

Re:Choppers

[OutRigged]

I find that it's much easier to control and fly the helicopters with the mouse/keyboard. It just seems as though my control is more precise.

Re:Choppers

[ZaMoose]

Agreed. I've found that joysticks and keyboard (ugh) controls tend to oversteer, while the mouse allows for easy and accurate control. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you've got it, it's incredibly easy and rewarding to pilot the helos.

I love annoying the living daylights out of the Opp players on El Alamein by repeatedly capping the north and south points from the safety and comfort of my Apache's pilot seat.

*grin*

Re:Choppers

[GigsVT]

It's easy to oversteer with the joystick, the key is to get one with a good twist function that has a large enough range of twist, and then learn to develop the light touch needed for stable flight.

I usually just leave the power at full unless I'm landing. A hover is pretty useless in an attack heli, since when you are hovering level, your weapons aren't pointed at the ground, so I've practiced flying around a target with the nose staying more or less pointed at the same spot on the ground.

Once you can take flags just by circling over them, that's game over for the other team. :)

One realism point I do want to see fixed is the negative thrust thing. A plane can't just spin the propellor the opposite direction and go backward, that part is highly unrealistic, and it does carry to helis too it seems.

It looks like they could fix that, after all, with the harrier jet, the negative thrust operates the VTOL function, which is pretty cool. I like hovering around and getting people wondering why that plane is hovering across the map. :)

Re:Choppers

[GigsVT]

Taking into account the lack of analogue for torque

What do you mean?

Re:Choppers

[whenyouargue]

from the people i know, most don't use a joystick for BF or DC, and even those that do don't use an analogue throttle control for the helicopter. i personally use the keyboard and mouse, and therefore have 'w' as torque control.

ordinarily, when flying a helicopter (or playing a helicopter sim), you'd require very careful control of the torque (which provides lift) to maintain a state of hovering, and to prevent loss of altitude when moving. using the very digital 'w' key, there is no chance to make the perfect balance between lift and drag that a helicopter needs to hover. instead, i amd forced to fly by either tapping the w key, so as not to create too much lift, or by holding it for a second or two before releasing. by using the torque in this manner, you basically point the rotor in the direction you want to move, and then pull yourself in that direction. it makes hovering and landing VERY difficult, but it's probably the most fun aspect of a game i've played in years

Re:Choppers

[GigsVT]

I see... I use a flightstick with analog throttle... But the thing is, I usually keep the throttle at 100%, unless I'm landing.

You might try that sometime. Basically you can circle and bank and maintain an altitide above a certain point. I'm to the point now where I can take flags by circling above them in the air at 100% throttle, keeping the nose down so I can see approaching enemies.

The goal is to keep the nose pointed at a fixed location, if you fight to keep the nose pointed in the same place on the ground, the necessary banking and yawing will keep your altitude at the same place too.

To each what is owed

[superultra]

I just hope they don't pull a 10ton (of Crimsonland fame) and sell out to start charging for the game.

Oh ok. So making money for something that you did well is "selling out"? Give me break. You want free stuff, go pirate. People who make good things should be paid well. The guys who made Desert Combat deserve this, and they deserve to be paid for what they've done. Your attitude is no doubt representative of a larger majority of people that will whine and bitch about how it'll cost money to play Desert Combat. If Desert Combat is "fun, REALLY fun!" then these guys deserve to be compensated for what they've provided, end of sentence, hands down, no questions asked. If you really respect what they've done in Desert Combat, you'd be more than happy that they've "sold out." I'm not aware of 10ton or Crimsonland, so maybe there's something else you're referring to. But if all they did is make something good and originally offer it for free, and then decide to make money of this; why is that bad? Would you do your job for free?

We should be thrilled that Digital Illusions picked these guys up. They're living the dream man. So suck it up, and smack down the $20-40 it'll cost for the Desert Combat expansion because you like it that much.

Re:To each what is owed

[realdpk]

I'm curious what this'll mean for those of us who donated to the Desert Combat team prior to the agreement. Would be nice to get a discount in any case, not that I expect it. ;)

I'm really looking forward to seeing what these guys can do when they have the actual SDK in their hands. They'll probably modify the hell out of it.. ;)

Re:To each what is owed

[BTWR]

If possible, I'd make your comment +6, insightful.

It's so cliche that anyone/any company who tried to make money, especially on something they used to do for less/free, is selling out. Are there evil corporations? Certainly. But are all corporations evil? Certainly not.

Re:To each what is owed

[PerpetualMotion]

I for one welcome our new DC/DICE overlords.

Sure they deserve to be compensated, but isn't the whole idea for one side to be the corprate people and the other side be community people, with, like, an SDK?

This infernal bonding only leads to the assumption that we don't need no stinkin SDK, the "best" mod has it, and since DICE will probally pressure DC to move to BF:V (a new DICE game--another 40$), BF1942 gets left behind and the community that fostered this mod and another 40 live mods get left behind.

Not Vietnam!

[Anonymous Coward]

They wouldn't strike a deal when they are just about ready to do their release. I'm guessing it's going to be EA's new subscription based WMD Hunt: The search for endless profits. It will take place on a desert battlefield and play will not end until the said weapons are actually found. EA believes a subscription-based game that never ends will be the key that fills in the question marks of the profit methodology.

Re:Not Vietnam!

[mwheeler01]

Yeah if Battlefield Vietnam is going to see the light of day within the next year they're well into the testing stages of development and there's not a lot for modders to do. Unless they just happened to hire the whole Desert Combat team as testers out of coincidence.

Re:Not Vietnam!

[Walker2323]

I was at EA Games in Burnaby, BC the other day, and they had a posting showing that BF Vietnam will be released on March 22nd.

Personally

[Lord_Dweomer]

As a big bf1942 fan and a DC addict (specially the new .6 release) I have to say that while I'm glad these guys are gaining industry recognition and financial rewards for all their efforts, I will refuse to purchase the mod if they decide to charge for it. I think they should follow the successful CS model of download for free, or buy the retail and pay for the convenience of not having to download it all.

But many good things could come of this. First, they can get much more optimization done on their mod because they'll have DICE helpin em out. Also, because they're actually getting money for this, they can work on it full time and hopefully we'll see new developments much faster than they currently are (and they're already pretty fucking fast compared to other mods, especially considering the quality of each patch so far).

The real issue

[MacFury]

People don't like to pay for things that they are used to getting for free. It's just that simple.

I would pay for Desert Combat just because I like it so much.

If DICE wanted to support Mods...

[PerpetualMotion]

they would release a goddamn SDK. Almost every suggestion/idea is shot down because of engine limitations. The mods out now are (mostly) skins and minor tweaks at best.
An artifical horizion is one of the most widely wanted features, and would be client side and probally optional, but hasn't happened because it wasn't in Vanilla.

Instead, they hire DICE, and will probally direct them to drop support for the BF1942 mod, and put their full attention onto their insiders copy of BF Vietnam, so people will have to BUY the next version of the MOD.

This isn't a good thing, its an evil corprate thing.

Soon to be most modded?

[xankar]

Battlefield will soon be the most modded game ever, most likely.

Why?
Battlefield is the first game that has an official Mod Developer's Toolkit.
It makes modmaking more accessible to the people who have great ideas but very little way to implement them.

Re:Soon to be most modded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever modded this informative must be on crack.