Thoughts on the modding community

[Epistolary Richard]

This is perhaps a strange question, but I still feel pretty new to the modding community and I wanted to find out a little more about how it worked. These are my impressions of the mod community to date and I would welcome corrections, emendations, considerations and opinionations.

In its widest sense, the modding community includes anyone who has edited their text files on their own, but more realistically it consists a smaller number of people who are active in developing modifications to the game either for public release or for their own personal preferences.

As I understand it, there are several different roles within the community, with the distinctions largely falling along the lines of the type of programme required to modify the game. So that broadly there could be considered to be:
Text Editors
Skinners & other graphic artists
Modellers
Animators
And also programmers who create the programmes that help the community edit the game, either by allowing access to otherwise inaccessible areas (such as Vercingetorix’s unpacker) or by making modifying the game easier (such as GodsPetMonkey’s Hadrian and Caligula).

These roles are by no means mutually exclusive, rather the reverse: animators tend to know how to model, modellers tend to know how to skin and pretty much everyone knows how to edit their text files. That’s not to say that any role is more prestigious or worthy than any other. It would take far more concern and skill to balance and adjust all the text files for an entirely new campaign than to simply do a shield swap. It is merely to suggest that, for newcomers to modding, there appears to be an obvious path of development from text to skins to models to animations, learning each new skill as you bump up against the restrictions in what you previously could modify.

So, as far as I can tell so far, these are the people that make up the community. The primary goal of the community is the production of modifications for the game, and to that end many different methods are used. Most modifications (especially, but not necessary the smaller ones) appear to driven by a single person, who either performs all the work themselves or who arranges and combines together work performed by other people made available to the public. These can be as simple as providing a new skin or unit, rebalancing the game, swapping units and so forth.

Mods with larger ambitions will perhaps have a team behind them, which could be a tight-knit largely static group who are all very familiar with each other or a looser conglomerate of modders who draw together because they are interested in contributing a single idea that has been proposed. Or somewhere in between.

And in order to help the production of these modifications, there exists several support networks, such as forums where modding ideas and research are discussed and other organisations that look to teach or provide additional resources to modders or help develop individual mods.

So, this is my broad impression over how things actually work. But I’d be interested into learning more of the detail.
For instance:
Are smaller, non-full conversion, mods such as rebalancing, unit swaps and new skins actually used much outside the modding community itself? Or do they tend to have to be incorporated inside a full-conversion mod in order to catch the public attention?

I’ve noticed that there are lots of new skins and associated models posted around, do these get widespread use or again do they have to incorporated in a larger mod? Or are most of these skins & models developed specifically for larger mods in development (either that the skinners are creating or have offered specifically to create) or are there a large number of skinners who develop their skins solely for their enjoyment in its creation?

Obviously, there are fewer people who are able to text edit, skin, model and animate and so these people naturally become more valued by mods in development, if for no other reason than if a mod doesn’t have any skinners/modellers/animators there are limits on what it can achieve. So are the people who (for want a better term) are the driving force behind the larger full-conversion mods able to fulfil most of these roles, or do they emerge as the result of other criteria?

And how do these larger mod teams operate? As is readily apparent on any forum, getting a consensus on anything with any group larger than one can be a challenge, how do they manage to ever release a finished product?

I know this is all somewhat discursive and open-ended, but I’d appreciate anyone else’s thoughts. Don’t feel compelled to reply to the specifics questions, they're just to get the juices flowing, rather I’d be interested in any insights into about the mechanics of the mod community itself.

[Myrddraal]

Well in my oppinion, modellers are prised. Simply because of supply and demand: new models are perhaps the most visible of ways to sell your mod to the public (everyone loves screenshots), and the number of modellers around is limited, partly because of the price of 3DS max ;( and partly because of the practice needed to become a good modeller...

[Stuie]

So are the people who (for want a better term) are the driving force behind the larger full-conversion mods able to fulfil most of these roles, or do they emerge as the result of other criteria?

And how do these larger mod teams operate? As is readily apparent on any forum, getting a consensus on anything with any group larger than one can be a challenge, how do they manage to ever release a finished product?

Well, I can only speak to how The First Triumvirate (TFT) mod operates.

For TFT, I wanted a different start date for the game so I just started modding away at the text files. The idea attracted others (from IRC chats and forum posts) and now I have a team working on more of a complete conversion than I originally envisioned. I'm still the final vote in any decision making (so concensus is not always necessary), but I let the team run with their ideas for the most part and only intervene when things seem to be going in the wrong direction. I would consider myself the "Project Coordinator" if you're looking for a term to use. My skills are solely around modding the map/text files - no skinning/modelling/animating/etc. The only reason I ended up in charge was because I had a vision and started working on it.

As for releasing the mod, an up-front determination of what is a "finished" product is extremely important. I could go on modding TFT for months and never feel finished and never release anything... but what good does that do for the community. I know people want to play mods NOW, or better yet, YESTERDAY. So once I knew that I would be releasing TFT for others to use, I made a decision to have two versions: First, a "lite" version that uses RTR assets only (no new skins etc.) that could be completed and released relatively fast; then a "full" version that would incorporate new skins, faction changes, new art, etc. etc. that would be built for vanilla RTW and required a longer development time. By releasing the "lite" version quickly, I gain feedback and help from the community that will make the "full" version that much better.

TFT doesn't have a "large" team, but even so, it all comes down to having one or two people coordinating all the work so that there is no duplication of effort and file versions are well managed.

[Sundjata Keita]

The way I see it there are several types of mods

-Full scale conversions

Major projects that explore a new era eg. Napoleonic, Medieval etc. and therefore must create a whole new set of models and layout but essentially keep the same basic game mechanics. Although they are not limited to the basic structure and often change game balance to implement new features, guns for example. These require a team that can communicate with one another to best fit the needs of the project rarther than the aims of one person. Sometimes large teams can build their own communities, for example the lordz

-Partial conversions

These are mods which stick with the same era but may have a different starting date and finishing date. Examples of these types of mods are TFT and the hun invasion, model changes are fairly low and these mods tend to rely on new skins to give a different feel to the game. These often incorporate new game balance and sometimes base mods

-Small scale conversions

Usually taken on by one person or a small team these change a few aspects of the game intended for personal use but are often shared with the modding community. Examples are making all build times 0 turns and editing the battles so they are longer.

-Base mods

These focus on a particular element of the game and modify the mechanics to provide a different gameplay experience. Examples are ZoR and the more than two turns a year script. These can be included in other mods and are aiming to be a help to the community (My Zulu mod will use both ZoR and the more than two turns a year script)

-Expansions

These expand on the current game or aim to make it better, examples are EB and RTR


There are also many differnt types of modders

-directors (organize a mod, however not limited to one per mod)
-modellers (shortage of these and essential to full scale conversions)
-skinners (also essential but a greater supply of these)
-text editors (edit text files for general use)
-scripters (very few good scripters however not as essential to most mods)
-historians (only needed for historically accurate mods, can often help several mods)
-animators (again very few but most modellers know how to do simple animations)
-media/graphics (most skinners are good with graphics but media and advertisment can be quite tricky)
-the community (essential to almost all mods they can contribute greatly)

There are other people that help out in mods as well providing research, doing the campaign map, web hosts etc. but I don't think that there is a set pattern to becoming any of these as I am a modeller and animator but can't edit text files very well.

As far as my Zulu mod operates, we all contribute ideas in our forum in a special bit for private development where members of the team can express their opinions. Once we decide that we are going to implement an idea we tell the community and see if they like it. I am the organiser of things and I do the modelling, animations and some skins but I have to rely on others and I think that's a big part of every team. You need a system to carry on the momentum and keep the mod alive. If you look at some of the mods on SCC, for example the American conquest, they are struggling because they have no modellers. I'm not saying it's going to die but now many of the modellers are comitted to other mods and only free up when their mods die. Of course there are freelancers as well who just do modding for the fun of it and whos models or skins can be included in big mods.

One idea of mine that got very little interest (none ) was to create a library of models and skins that could be put into different mods. I think this would help some mods by providing them with a couple of screenshots to get their mods off the ground.

These of course are only my views and certain mods may not fit into that mould