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A General Guide For Mod Creation
Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Kieron Gillen has combined and updated a series of guides he wrote for getting into the development of game mods. He provides a detailed explanation of the process from concept to reality as well as a look at some of the obstacles you're likely to run into. Quoting:
"First thing is that it really is work, and should be planned as such. As I've said earlier, you really need to be aware you have to sacrifice other elements of your life to get it done. If you just rely on your free time, the Mod will fail. You may find it helpful to actually time-table periods when you can do stuff, in the same way you would book a regular evening class. If every night you put aside a limited amount of time to do work, you'll make steady progress. This is considerably healthier than the boom/bust approach which most modders will follow. But - y'know - most people on your team will move on a cycle of massive productivity followed by long fallow periods."
I believe that was called "tracking" and one who did tracking was called a "tracker".
How we know is more important than what we know.
Cheeky Bstard!
"To be honest, 5 years is too long for a free mod to be in development."
Sorry, I would wait 5 years for a mod if it is that good. Some mods take some game worlds by storm, and become The definitive Expansion pack, i.e. Ledgends of Arana, started as a mod, now its the Definitive expansion pack, and ... IT IS STIL PLAYED. ( Dear god Space Siege is a bitter disappointment )
Quake 3 has a LOT of good mods. I play the Helms deep one from time to time, but still, I am looking for one with a sci-fi story line.
"I would suggest moving your code over to be a mod for a game like counterstrike..." There are still quite a few people on Quake 1, and Starcraft.
Put your stuff out for critizsm, so that people can give you feedback.