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MOD Summit at 1UP.com
Ford Prefect writes "One of the biggest things to happen to PC games in the last decade is the rise of the mod - the free modifications produced by fans. There's no denying their influence on future game development, but what do the developers of the original games think? 1UP.com's MOD Summit has the answers, interviewing major games developers, past modders who've made it big, and some of the current mod authors who make it all a reality. (Disclaimer: I was one of those interviewed!)"
...or is lars g. not coming off as the brightest light on the string here? his responses are so consistently several levels of sophistication below that offered by his fellow interviewees that it almost seems like he's dumbing them down, but that's giving him an awful lot of credit.
/. is what happens when geeks talk. get used to it.
Wow, I try to get to that and can't. It's already slashdotted and yet only three people have commented on it. It strikes me that Slashdot needs to have it's own internal caching system.
Anyway, I have to admit I'm particularly interested in what the designers think about it. Some games, such as Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights to name a couple I've played a lot recently, show that the devs honestly want to see their product become something bigger that what it started as. Morrowind, NWN, and many other such games that should be considered old still have active communities developing mods today (though, admitedly, a lot of people have slowed down on NWN due to the impending release of NWN2.) I doubt the devs originally planned for those games to still be selling in the stores today when they first released them, but, by allowing users to make what they wanted out of the games they took on a life of their own and those companies still get the occasional profit from it.
On the other hand, I see some games that show more of an unfriendliness towards modding. Some that make it nearly impossible to do so seemingly intentionally, and I believe I recall seeing one sometime in the past where they actually threatened a group that was writing a mod until they dropped the project (mind you, this was mainly because the game was so unmoddable that the only way to mod it was to hack it.) Ok, it's clear that some devs feel differently than others, but, I'm kind of curious how the majority overall feel about it. Do more hate the idea of something they've worked so hard on being changed by unsolicited people with too much time on their hands (not to mention that each game will have it's own set of bad mods and inevitably a nude mod or three, which is obviously inappropriate) or are more devs proud to see that their product is made so well that it can take on a life of it's own and, essentially evolve through the help of free fanwork so that it lives on long after the devs have given up on squashing whatever bugs may remain and shut the doors on the old dusty project for a new one?
The whole bit goes:
Even if you don't appreciate mods, there's no denying their contribution to future game development. True American icons!
(sorry sorry sorry... the blurb just put this into my head and I couldn't resist posting..)
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. - Will Duran
(Disclaimer: I was one of those interviewed!)"
I'd just like to say how happy I was today when I saw a reader at Eurogamer had pointed out that there's a release date for the next chapter of Minerva. The first was the most fun single-player mod I've ever played - hands down (and also one of the shortest, you seem to understand quality over quantity).
Gary's Mod is a good laugh, but Metastasis had me hooked and waiting in earnest for the next chapter.
For a second there I thought the title of the article was MOD PARENT UP! God I hate when people say that.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
No wonder nobody's gotten modded up the past few days. GD mods are all on vacation. Back to work mods! We don't not pay you for nothing.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Thanks. Ironically enough, it loaded almost instantly once I got home and saw your post. Don't know if the slashdot bomb finally settled or if maybe it was that connection where I was having troubles reaching that server for some reason.
Anyway, I'm glad to see that they seem at least mostly supportive. None in there exploded at the thought of someone modifying their content or anything. It all felt a little rehearsed to me though. I wonder how the greater majority of devs feel though. They just interviewed some people involved in some of the most recent most modded games, but, I still wish I knew better how some of them feel about those that were clearly not meat to be modded. Still, the more PR in favor of modding, the more future games will fully support it I would hope.
I have to disagree with LG about modding getting harder I must say. I played around a bit here and there over the years with various moddable games and I have to say that the skill level required for modding has actually not changed very much overall. From games like ZZT & MegaZeux which utilized ASCII art and OOP programming to todays games like Doom 3, the aforementioned Morrowind, and so on, I'd say the main thing that has changed is the amount of individual skill levels. For example, it's best these days to get someone who works with CAD a lot than to try to make your own graphics with no experience, but, back in the day of MegaZeux with it's loadable font ASCII art it still required amazing time and effort to make things have a clean good look. I've noticed a lot the sheer ease of doing things despite the complexity of game engines the last time I played around with Morrowind's toolset and tossed together my own little underground hiding hole (complete with persistant storage, training areas, and so on of course.) Morrowind had it's downfalls, but, it was no simple engine (one of, if not the first commercial game to make use of programmable pixel shaders in fact.) A little more recently I dabbled a bit in NWN's toolkit and it was simplicity itself to build the actual maps. Adding new graphics, writing up the code for scripted events or such, and adding other such content has definitely not gotten any harder. I'd say with more and more designing with mods in mind these days, modding has probably gotten easier.
If every company realized that modding is GOOD for games (generally, there are exceptions to the rule though), maybe we would have better mod support.
For example, better mod support for the Command & Conquer line of games would be GREAT.
As would better mod support for Rollercoaster Tycoon.
Some companies totally "get" modding (like ID Software, Epic and Valve and to a large extent Microsoft) and some sort of "get" modding e.g. Electronic Arts which kinda supports modding in Battlefield and The Sims and doesnt support it at all in any meaningfull way in most of their other games (for example, there is little to no official modding support towards the Command & Conquer line of games or Lord Of The Rings Battle For Middle Earth)
Then there are companies (like blizzard) that are downright hostile to modding (just look at how much trouble they have gone to to make the game data for Warcraft III, Starcraft, Diablo II etc hard to get at, not to mention the bnetd case)
I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Those double underlined adverlinks have to go. I will not even read your site any further, let alone click your ads, if I see them. They are a blight on your content: invasive, irrelevant and obnoxious. Please get rid of them. Thank you.
I agree, it's annoying!