by marks on Thu Dec 29, 2005 3:17 am
Modding is hard. It takes stupid amounts of time, a huge amount of work, and in the end you are giving it all away for free. But bearing that in mind, would you say that it is worth it ? I would. Modding can be an extremely rewarding experience, both in the people you meet, the friends you make, and the experience you gain through working on one.
The majority of modders fall into 2 categories - those who mod for fun, and those trying to get a job in the gaming industry. I will say that generally most mods which are run by somebody who wants to make it for fun, will probably fail at some point or another.
Inevitably - if you want to work on a mod you have two choices:
Looking for a mod team to join/help
Rule number 1 in this situation which many people overlook - be very skeptical of any mod whose 'leader' has little or no discernable skills other than "designing the game" and "leading the mod". I can tell you from personal experience that they will 90% of the time have no idea what they are doing or how to organise a stag night in a brewery, let alone a multi man-year computer engineering project.
Whenever I am looking at mods, the first thing that I look for is not their website, nor is it their concept art - it is what actual content they have so far for their mod. Be it models or maps, characters or documented code; having something is better than saying "we're just starting".
Running your own mod
This I recommend only to people who really know what they are doing. People who understand how games work as a whole, not only their specialist section of it.
First of all, you're going to need a design document. No matter how good an idea you have, no matter how detailed it is in your head - if you do not have it down on paper in incredible detail then the talented people you are trying to attract will simply ignore you.
Running a mod is hard. Not only do you have to work more in the early stages of the mod than almost any other person - you have to motivate other people to work, you have to inspire the rest of your team, and you have to give them goals to attain. Running a mod is a mammoth task and a huge responsibility if you do it properly and it is not something easily dropped.
(A tip to mod leaders: Do not continually pester your members to see what they are doing - work takes time, and as a rule most modders don't have an abundance of time in which to work, even if they wanted to. Give them some space and they will work better)
At the end of the day, shipping a finished game whether it be a beta mod release or a AAA commercial title - its a damned nice feeling. Even more so when you see all these people enjoying what you spent so much of your time on. Just dont forget all the time and effort it takes to get to that point.
Last edited by
marks on Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:25 am, edited 3 times in total.