The Future... How to best transform new modders into valuable members?

[Epistolary Richard]

From this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=70145

How to best transform new modders into valuable members?

The mod community, as all communities, relies on a steady influx of new members. For the modding community, however, young and keen members only become truly valuable after they have developed some of the technical skills needed to become useful modders.

How to best make a useful modder from a new member is an issue that has been around since the very start and it's been one that we've looked to address through tutorials and guide and fora where modding questions can be asked and mods can be developed. However with the release of M2TW there will be an unprecedented new wave of members attracted by the press and publicity of a new game. And some of these will be interested in modding.

Given the presumption that it's good for everyone to have a large number of useful modders and that the quicker they become useful the better - the question is what more can be done to help them (and everyone else) up the learning curve for modding M2TW as quickly as possible?

[Dol Guldur]

Very well organized forums - neither too complex nor too broad - plus good moderators plus well-categorized accessible tutorials are probably the most important things to exist. The Org has this down fairly well though perhaps the tutorials need to be more noticeable.

Modders tend to help each other out on forums more when the game is first out but as time goes on the pressures of completing mods increase and the good modders cannot spend so long answering questions etc. So when M2TW comes out I suspect we will see more involvement from the more experienced as well as the stampede of new would-be modders ;)

[Epistolary Richard]

Experienced modders not hanging around on the fora as much is inevitable, but it is still a concern. To bring along new modders you need a mix of experience on the forums at any one time - otherwise newcomers have to spend time reinventing the wheel.


In terms of categorising tutorials - the Org does have generally good tutes and the ability to organise them. The only problem on that score is the 'gaps' that emerge. Many times have I seen a basic question being asked and thought 'surely there must be a tutorial explaining this' and checked and there wasn't.

I realise that there will always be gaps as people write tutes on their own fields and what personally interests them, but it's also that there's no real acknowledgement that that gap exists in our 'modding library', so to speak. Knowing that a tutorial in your topic doesn't exist, might even spur modders to fill in the holes.

[shifty157]

Writing a tutorial can take alot of time and it isnt exactly the most enjoyable thing to do. Especially when you could be getting more work done on your mod instead.

[snevets]

My offer still stands: No experience but interested in RTW modding? Join Hegemonia, I'll make you into an expert in three months by making you do increasingly difficult menial tasks and writing you obsessive amounts of tutorials.

[Encaitar]

The setup in the Scriptorium with categorised tutorials, etc is excellent. I particularly like how they tend to include links to the research threads and/or more advanaced threads too if you want to chase up the issue further (or have some additional research that you want to add to the topic).

The R:TW Modding forums here have developed quite substantially from when they started. Initially iirc it was just the two sub-forums (what is now 'Modding Questions', and the Forge), which meant that all sorts of discussion and information got mixed up and hard to find. Now whenever I need to find something, it's a lot easier. And it's also easier to keep up-to-date too, as I can better judge which threads I might want to read (because of the seperate sub-forums), rather than having to check out all/most of them.

[Epistolary Richard]

Writing a tutorial can take alot of time and it isnt exactly the most enjoyable thing to do. Especially when you could be getting more work done on your mod instead.

That's not really the most positive way of looking at it. Doing a good tutorial can take some time - but take for example the adding new units for beginners tutorial I wrote. I didn't discover anything included there, I was one of hundreds of people who could have written it - it came long after such knowledge was widely known in the community - but it feels good that it's gotten over 13,000 views and that it's still quoted when people ask questions in this area (though it still does have that enums stuff in that I really should remove...) There's a satisfaction in having completed something well that's inherent whether the piece be a mod or a tute.

Tutorials have also changed the face of the modding community - our TCs would be nothing without the tutes on editing buildings, vegetation and skies that have been posted. The field of scripting was barely touched upon before tutes were written for it.

In my opinion to develop a new modder into a good one instead of a bad one (shame we don't have a Darth Vader smiley) the best way is assigning him a personal tutor.
The best way would be to communicate via chat and/or PMs in an environment where the pupil can ask the tutor anything they like. The tutor should, whenever possible, give quick answers, and if need be, explain it to the unexperienced in easy words
This of course means a major time commitment for the tutor, so this can only happen inside a mod team and if the elder and potential pupil like each other (because you are more likely to spend time doing stuff for people you are fond of).

Tutor relationships have been tried in the past. I agree mod teams are the easiest forum for them - but still tutors suffer from the fact that they have to invest their time in up front, and then have to rely on the tutored to stick around long enough to make the investment of time worthwhile.

What do you think about creating a tutorial request thread for M2TW where, if you discover one of the gaps you mention, you can request that a tutorial is written about it, or it is fitted into another tutorial. If anybody has the time to do that then, they have a number of topics they can write about.

I think that's a good idea as long as it's couched in the right terms then I could be a benefit.

I personaly find the scriptorium a little annoying to use
Personaly I think for MTW2 it should be devided up into a few catagories - ie units, scripting, maps, ect.
thats just my 2 1/2 cents though

Have you seen the Tutorials database - it seems to do what you want.

Not entirely sure, apprenticeship / guidance from mod team alone makes anyone good modder, it will probably make you good text 'cruncher' which helps others out, but if you're entirely told how to do things, then you just follow existing paths. There's something to be said for attempting to do things on your own, getting into a huge mess (ok as far as possible with help of tutorials etc), and having to hunt bugs etc., might not actually make you a good modder but it does eventually make you a good bug hunter!

Actually IMO I would have thought it would be the reverse. Text crunching can be picked up pretty easily from tutorials as it tends to all be logic. But the more 'arts' side of things such as making models and textures, benefit far more from 1 to 1 tutor-like relationships where feedback can be given directly on creations.

there often seems to be knowledge within mod teams that doesn't get shared with community until mod is released - partly understandable, no one wants to stick their neck out and say 'hey this works' until its tested, and sometimes mod may want to keep 'secret weapon' quiet....

I think that can be true and it can be for a few reasons - the first is that a mod doesn't necessarily want to shout out about the technicalities behind a feature, second it actually takes some effort to explain this properly and then answer people's questions and the third is that sometimes I think sometimes mod team members simply aren't aware of what is generally known in the community - therefore when they make a discovery they're simply not sure whether such a discovery has been made before or not.

Technicalities can normally be reasonably inferred by other modders in that field - for the second and third heads they would both be helped by trying to keep greater links between mod teams and the wider modding community after the first splurge of research is done.

[Thorn Is]

Have you seen the Tutorials database - it seems to do what you want.

oh more proof im an idiot
well im learning
not doing much on rtw just learning
hopefully ill be able to do something once mtw2 comes out
the engine looks like very simular

ThornIs
Is all Ideas and no talent

[Makanyane]

But the more 'arts' side of things such as making models and textures, benefit far more from 1 to 1 tutor-like relationships where feedback can be given directly on creations.

Ok, I'd agree with that, hadn't been thinking in those terms as I haven't seriously been involved in graphics /3d.

sometimes mod team members simply aren't aware of what is generally known in the community - therefore when they make a discovery they're simply not sure whether such a discovery has been made before or not.

I'm sure that's true, and also discoveries get 'found' discussed in questions etc then lost in depth of threads if no-ones made tutorials - stickies etc. For MTWII does that provide a case for moderators / assigned members being responsible for a sticky / scriptorium section on relevant topic (units, map, ai, etc..) that either compiles or provides links to discoveries discussed elsewhere (and yes I know that would be a pain to maintain - but if we're talking about the optimum solution....)