Modding Was Better When it was Underground

[MacCorp]

Modding Was Better When it was Underground

Before modding became mainstream, the movement was a little dirty secret. Once the gamming companies started to encourage the whole idea, the luster of the act of modding became dull and boring. Has anyone else noticed this?

[Kaftan Barlast]

You're a poopiehead. In ancient times, modding was awkward and hieously complicated and no mod ever became as good as it could have been because the devs never released their tools.

[alanschu]

I find modding communities to be so much better now.

 

You might get more ****, but that's just because more people are doing it. You get more gems too.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I would tend to agree with Kaftan and not MacCorp - modding is easier now than it has ever been in the past and, at least for me, retains it's allure.

[MacCorp]

I find modding communities to be so much better now.

 

You might get more ****, but that's just because more people are doing it. You get more gems too.

Yeah, that is a perk.

 

Undergound modding felt more personal, and it had this kind of 'exclusiveness' to the whole experience. It reminds me of how Heavy Metal went mainstream. Once the word started to spread, that little corner of the world was gone. Everyone started to jump aboard. People became possers, and stores opened to accommodate everyone.

Edited April 14, 2009 by MacCorp

[Deadly_Nightshade]

People became possers, and stores opened to accommodate everyone.

 

You will find "possers" in every group of people, nor do I think websites devoted to modding (the equivalent to "stores" seeing as mods cannot be sold) is a bad thing.

[LadyCrimson]

Having something feel more "personal" or more "exclusive" doesn't necessarily make it better for the community (or players). Modding shouldn't be some kind of exclusive club where only those with certain amounts of time or knowledge can enter - that could leave out a lot of people with possible good ideas but less time or technical abilities.

 

So I'd agree with Kaftan as well.

 

And as a player, at least, I appreciate that there's more mod options to pick from - meaning a higher chance of my finding something that I'd personally like, whatever my tastes. In the early days I hardly glanced at mods because I could almost never find what I wanted. Now I can usually find something. Or, if my desires are simple enough, maybe even do it myself.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Modding in the old days sucked, being a modder myself. You had a game that didn't have any tools to mod it with so there were amateur programmers who had to make buggy tools that crashed randomly. Installing the mods could be clumsy at best and at worst break the game. Thankfully modding is not underground any more and companies actually have tools that you can use to create your own mods.

[MacCorp]

Having something feel more "personal" or more "exclusive" doesn't necessarily make it better for the community (or players). Modding shouldn't be some kind of exclusive club where only those with certain amounts of time or knowledge can enter - that could leave out a lot of people with possible good ideas but less time or technical abilities.

That is what made computers and modding great. Since not many people could use a computer or mod, it made people more reluctant to get involved. That is also why I like MSVista. It brought the computer back into the hands of those who are tech savy.

 

Modders back in the day worked in smaller groups, and they didn't care about contributing to society. They were making a statement.

 

Modding in the old days sucked, being a modder myself. You had a game that didn't have any tools to mod it with so there were amateur programmers who had to make buggy tools that crashed randomly. Installing the mods could be clumsy at best and at worst break the game. Thankfully modding is not underground any more and companies actually have tools that you can use to create your own mods.

Doesn't that take away from the underground uniqueness of being a modder? When things were more difficult, modders and hackers were in a league of their own.

Edited April 14, 2009 by MacCorp

[Hell Kitty]

How awesome a modder feels about themselves is meaningless to gamers compared to whether or not they make something people are interested in.

Edited April 14, 2009 by Hell Kitty

[MacCorp]

How awesome a modder feels about themselves is meaningless to gamers compared to whether or not they make something people are interested in.

I think I get where you are coming from. Since modding is now considered an act of social contribution, modders should only be motivated torwards enhancing such a social construct (aka. the modding community as a whole). Instead of making mods for the sole purpose of self-fulfillment, they owe the community as a whole for their talents. Anything else outside of social contribution is considered futile and useless. Did I read that wrong? If I'm translating your statement correctly, I think the gamming community has missunderstood why modding was started. -and, why people do mod in general. Modding is driven by personal goals, which are motivated towards the act of self-fulfillment. If the modder releases the mod to the community, they are only doing it as an act of kindness. There are no laws that say, "You have to contribute your talents to society."

 

I hope I read your statement wrong. Please forgive me if I did make a mistake.

Edited April 15, 2009 by MacCorp

[LadyCrimson]

How awesome a modder feels about themselves is meaningless to gamers compared to whether or not they make something people are interested in.

I think I get where you are coming from. Since modding is now considered an act of social contribution, modders should only be motivated torwards enhancing such a social construct (aka. the modding community as a whole). Instead of making mods for the sole purpose of self-fulfillment, they owe the community as a whole for their talents. Anything else outside of social contribution is considered futile and useless. Did I read that wrong? If I'm translating your statement correctly, I think the gamming community has missunderstood why modding was started. -and, why people do mod in general. Its for personal pleasure.

If it's for personal pleasure that a modder feels like spending lots of time on a project, what concern/matter is it to them whether there's lots of people mucking around as well? That doesn't prevent the modder from continuing to work on their own "thing" to get their personal pleasure from achieving whatever it is they're trying to achieve with their mod project.

 

Modders back in the day worked in smaller groups, and they didn't care about contributing to society. They were making a statement.

And what statement was that? "I can figure out the coding and produce something from it with no help from the developers?" or "Developers shouldn't selfishly block their tools from people who want to alter the game for their personal pleasure?" (so they can then protest that too many newbie modders ruins the soup?)

 

I mean no personal offense, but that just sounds like an ego thing to me. Which again, if a modder wants to ignore the 'easy tools' and see if they can do it on their own "because they can/it is there" or whatever, with their own like-minded groups, as some kind of personal tech challenge, nothings stopping them, is it?

 

Edit: I'm sure it's personally frustrating if you feel it's harder to wade through and find those "like minded" type of modders to help you with something, but I don't see how that translates into "modding was better when..."

Edited April 15, 2009 by LadyCrimson

[MacCorp]

How awesome a modder feels about themselves is meaningless to gamers compared to whether or not they make something people are interested in.

I think I get where you are coming from. Since modding is now considered an act of social contribution, modders should only be motivated torwards enhancing such a social construct (aka. the modding community as a whole). Instead of making mods for the sole purpose of self-fulfillment, they owe the community as a whole for their talents. Anything else outside of social contribution is considered futile and useless. Did I read that wrong? If I'm translating your statement correctly, I think the gamming community has missunderstood why modding was started. -and, why people do mod in general. Its for personal pleasure.

If it's for personal pleasure that a modder feels like spending lots of time on a project, what concern/matter is it to them whether there's lots of people mucking around as well? That doesn't prevent the modder from continuing to work on their own "thing" to get their personal pleasure from achieving whatever it is they're trying to achieve with their mod project.

 

Modders back in the day worked in smaller groups, and they didn't care about contributing to society. They were making a statement.

And what statement was that? "I can figure out the coding and produce something from it with no help from the developers?" or "Developers shouldn't selfishly block their tools from people who want to alter the game for their personal pleasure?" (so they can then protest that too many newbie modders ruins the soup?)

 

I mean no personal offense, but that just sounds like an ego thing to me. Which again, if a modder wants to ignore the 'easy tools' and see if they can do it on their own "because they can/it is there" or whatever, with their own like-minded groups, as some kind of personal tech challenge, nothings stopping them, is it?

No personal offense taken. I opened this thread to get another person's perspective.

 

When modders created their tweaks an such, back in the day, the statement they were making was "I bought this from you, and I will do with it as I please." I don't think modding was entirely motivated by hackers with hightened egos, but the majority of them did have that type of attitude. What makes the underground movement more interesting is that it was all cloak and dagger. When a gammer wanted to do something more, outside of what is being provided, they would enhance the game to function a certain way. I think thats why people love cheat codes.

[LadyCrimson]

I always thought the average person loved cheat codes because they are lazy ... lol

 

I can understand the kind of statement/attitude you mentioned, but again, that's a personal thing and has nothing to do with quality of modding results or environment per se. As I said, one can still 'do with it as I please" if one wants to/has the abilities and it gives pleasure. The aspect you seem to miss is finding such people, perhaps?

[Deadly_Nightshade]

When modders created their tweaks an such, back in the day, the statement they were making was "I bought this from you, and I will do with it as I please."

 

There is still quite a bit of that, especially in the case of games that do not have official tools. I have used NWN and NWN .2da extractors on Witcher and Jade Empire files, extractors that are not official products or tools but are, instead, produced by modders for modders. Still, I would rather have more powerful tools, such as developer toolsets, as well as they enable more ambitious projects. Just compare KotOR I's selection of mods to NWN's selection and you will see why a toolset might be preferred.

 

A Witcher .2da file I was playing with (sadly all my Witcher work was lost in a system crash):

[Hell Kitty]

Instead of making mods for the sole purpose of self-fulfillment, they owe the community as a whole for their talents.

 

I wouldn't say that. I've been messing about with modding since Duke Nukem 3D, but I can count on one hand the number of times I've released anything to the public. Hell, most of the stuff I do I never bother to finish, I just do it because I enjoy it. I remember recreating locations from an old adventure game called Noctropolis* using my own textures and sprites, but even with all the hours I spent I never finished anything, it was just about having fun doing it. The joy of creation.

 

The enjoyment I get isn't based on whether the modding scene is huge or a secret, nor am I ever making a statement when I mod, I'm just amusing myself. I guess I can understand the desire to be part of some small exclusive group that few know about, but if modding was restricted to a small community who kept to themselves there is a hell of a lot of content I'd have missed out on. One of my all time favourite games is Thief, and without the editor from the developer I wouldn't have spent hundreds of hours on fan missions.

 

* I wonder if Deadly Nightshade ever played that, I think it would be right up his alley.

[Gorgon]

I think modders should wear sunglasses while they mod, so they can feel gangster lean.

 

yeeeah.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

* I wonder if Deadly Nightshade ever played that, I think it would be right up his alley.

 

I don't think so, but it's abandonware so I'll grab a copy and try it out - sounds interesting.

[Hurlshort]

This really just smacks of the whole "once something becomes popular, it becomes lame" ideology. I could understand this if there were no longer any great modding teams out there and it was just all hacks, but that's not true. JA2 v. 1.13 is the ultimate example.

[alanschu]

Agreed.

 

I find mods today tend to be of higher quality than back in the day. They also extend the lifespan of games, which is another plus.

[Calax]

So... am I reading this right in that the OP is saying that modding was better when it was only for the l33t crowd?

[Blarghagh]

That is what made computers and modding great. Since not many people could use a computer or mod, it made people more reluctant to get involved. That is also why I like MSVista. It brought the computer back into the hands of those who are tech savy.

 

What?

 

You're kidding here right? I am not tech savvy at all but I have no problems with Vista. In fact I find it easier to use than XP and even 98 were. Familiarizing yourself with a new User Interface that most people decided to dislike is about as tech savvy as putting up a christmas tree.

[Kaftan Barlast]

The only problem with the widespread modding we have today, is that there are so many bad and mediocre mods that its really hard to find the good ones. Which in turn means that it is increadibly difficult to "break through" with your mod, it can be the greatest thing ever, but you need people to play it for it to get noticed. And since you need to get noticed for people to download your mod, its kind of a catch 22.

[Rostere]

I both agree and disagree with the OP at the same time. While it might have been more easy for a modder to be proud of his work "back in the days", the end product (the mod) is what really matters. Games and mods are an artistic expression and to facilitate the process of their construction has to be a good idea. Saying otherwise would be like saying times were better when only a few could read and write. But yeah, I guess modders kind of lose some of their prestige when developers release modding tools.

[mkreku]

I understand what he's feeling at least, even though I don't agree with his statements. When I first picked up Gothic, it was an unknown franchise and it wasn't even released in Scandinavia. Playing Gothic and talking about it on different forums felt like being part of a small, almost secret, passionate group. As the Gothic franchise's popularity grew, that feeling became vaguer and vaguer and after a while it started feeling like any mainstream game (except when playing the game itself, of course).

 

I know it's incredibly silly to even think like that and I do of course wish Piranha Bytes all the success in the world, but sometimes I miss the "old days" of being part of the dedicated, "underground" Gothic gang.