Do you prefer contract work or full-time for mods?

[v0rt3x]

Hi - just curious about this -

When people approach you for help on their mod - do you prefer being integrated fully into the team - for the duration of the project - or working as needed on / off?

[Jean Marcel]

It depends a lot. If you are a coder, you will need to work in the mod until the end. Model designers can do specific things for level designers, so they can work as third-party. As for the level designers, it will depend on the type of map. They can develop a standalone map for a multiplayer game or a full chapter for a single-player one. This may all work, but a solid team with every member knowing the objective of the mod will develop a much better game.

[Epifire]

Depending whether or not the mod uses all new assets or reuses them can kinda affect how that pans out. I think the model designer (not including character modelers) can come and go without having a damaging impact on the mod. Since you can point out what you want and have key people build them for a time I don't think that is so bad there. As long as you don't hire newbies that create bad, or glichy content that is the part that as I see, can go on and off.

Mapping and coding is a whole different part, mainly because those are the guys that set the standard and tone for most of what you see and do in the game. If you go switching them out, I think there can be inconsistencies in the overall level flow as well as the way the game plays. Because since people have their own way of making some thing, everyone has a small thing, or even a huge difference in the way the go about their work. Especially when it comes to programming, if you slot in a new guy to take over, he will not have much to go on for what the previous fellow was coding in.

So that is part of my take on how I see it.