Preface: This is a draft, and though it is near final it is not quite complete. Feel free to comment and make requests for changes. Without further ado, I give you..... *drumroll*
So You Want to Make a Mod?
If there’s one thing I’ve seen more often than anything else on these forums, it’s along the lines of “I’ve got this great idea for a mod, but I don’t have any idea how to do the things that need to get done, so will someone please join me and do this for me?” In fact, I posted my fair share of these threads when I was a newbie myself.
Well, I’ve got some good news, and I’ve got some bad news. The bad news is; no one is going to make your mod for you. The good news is; I’m going to share some tips with you to get your mod going, and perhaps even becoming a reality some day.
Disclaimer: This tutorial is not meant to be a step by step process, but rather a series of pointers and general concepts useful for getting a mod going, and keeping it moving. That said:
Part 1: The Bitter Truth
Perhaps the most discouraging thing about making games in general, is that the vast majority of them are never finished. Everyone is convinced that they have the best idea ever, and if they can just pull it off they’ll have the greatest game of all time. Unfortunately very few people have the skills, the perseverance, or the creativity to do everything by themselves, and even fewer have the leadership to gather others to them who can do the various tasks for them.
There is, however, a bright side to this truth. Making games, or in this case modding an existing game, is a lot of hard work, but it pays off in the end, and if nothing else teaches some valuable lessons on what works and what doesn’t. If you’re willing to stick with it, and actually get your hands dirty, you can pull it off, and make your great game, and everything that goes with it.
Part 2: Getting started
Well, if you’ve made it this far, you’re willing to stare that pain and frustration right in the face and keep on trudging through, right? Well, before we begin let’s go over a simple outline of what it takes to make a mod:
Concept & Planning
Initial Framework
Framework Evaluation
Recruiting & Team Management (optional)
Release Schedule & Revisions
Public Release
These are the basic components of any mod project, successful or not. Now let’s take a look at what they mean, and how to go about them.
Part 3: Concept & Planning
As you are coming up with your ideas, you must first ask yourself some questions. Are you making this just because you think it would be fun to make? Or would you actually enjoy playing it as well? Do you think others would enjoy playing it? Are you willing to do all the work yourself? If you don’t have the skills necessary are you willing to learn? Does the game engine you will be working with support your ideas? If the answer to this one is “I don’t know” you need to do some research before going any further. Imagine how much work you think it will take to complete this mod, multiply it by 10, is it still worth it? How about 100?
If the game doesn't support what you want to do, or you don’t have the skills to make it work, wait a month or two. In the meanwhile practice by making simpler mods, or working on other mod teams. Come back to the idea later to see your ideas are more doable. If all else fails you can work on ideas and apply them to another game or mod.
If you are happy with your answers to these questions, then you might just have an idea worth pursuing. If you are unhappy with these answers, you need to think things over again. If it is skills you lack, joining another mod team for a while is an excellent way to gain experience. If the idea itself is lacking, try thinking of more ideas to make it more fun and interesting. Perhaps the idea itself isn't as great as you thought at first. Don't give up hope yet, some ideas just weren't meant to be! Everyone comes up with several ideas that don't work for every single great idea.
It is also important to keep your vision going. If your mod idea keeps changing in the early stages, you might want to go back to the drawing board and do some more planning before going any further. Before you begin any work on the mod you should have a clear idea of what you are doing, and why.
If after all this your idea is still holding strong, or you’ve let it go and/or reworked it into something new that does add up, you are ready for the next step. Remember, all throughout the modding process, it is important to continually plan ahead, coming up with new additions and revising ideas that don’t work out over time.
Part 4: Initial Framework
This is where the real work begins. Now that you have an idea you need to figure out exactly how it will work. Lay out you plans in front of you, decide what needs to be done, and how you’re going to do it. Assume at this point that you will never have any help, and that you must do the entire mod by yourself. If there’s something you don’t know how to do, read up on it. It is safe to say that if you have no idea how something is done, you will most definitely have no clue how to assign the task to others if you recruit a team to help you.
What sort of mod is it? Is it a weapon tweaking mod? You can probably do this by yourself. All you need is a simple text editor and some patience. Is it a new race with an entire fleet of ships? You are going to need models, textures, Lua scripts, and much, much more. Can you do this on your own? You need to be able to before you can begin moving any further. This is not to say you need to be able to do these things well, or with any great degree of skill, but you at least need to be able to make a three dimensional object (be it a cube or a multi-thousand poly battlecruiser) and a texture (even if it’s just plain grey), and be able to get it into the game in a way that is playable. If you can do these things you will have a fair idea of what it will take to get your mod going.
Once you have the skills necessary you can fully lay out a plan of action. You will know what needs to be done to make your idea a reality, and have a better idea of how many people, if any, you will need to recruit. You will also have a better idea of whether this mod worth pursuing at any great length, or whether you need to go back to the previous step and think on it some more.
Before progressing, be absolutely certain what sort of mod you are making, why you are making it, and what steps need to be taken to complete it. It is also a good idea, but not necessary, to write down your plan so that you can look back on it later and keep yourself on track.
Note: If you haven’t already done so, this is a good time to get a thread going on the forums. Posting before this point means that you haven’t yet convinced yourself that the mod is a good idea, and you’ll have difficulty convincing others that it’s a good idea too. Now, however, you should have your ideas firmly in mind, and you should be able to successfully communicate them to others. Others will see how much planning you’ve put into it, and maybe even a little effort (perhaps you’ve made a couple ships, or scripted some new weapons onto existing ones) and will respond much more favorably.
Part 5: Framework Evaluation
This step is a short one, and should be repeated throughout the entire process. Take a moment to think about your mod as a whole. Is this plan one you still wish to continue? If so, does your current course of action line up with your original plane? If not, go back and look at your plan. It could be that though your idea is solid, you did not anticipate some steps that came up along the way. It could also be that you discovered your idea is not possible in the game engine you are modding. Revise your plan to accommodate these changes, and take a step back to look at it again. If the plan still makes sense to you and still looks doable, keep on moving. If not, it’s time yet again to reevaluate the plan.
Part 6: Recruiting & Team Management
This is the most difficult aspect of them all, yet is also the one most people leap into without a second thought! The most common mistake people make when tackling this step is the assumption that getting a bunch of people to help with their idea will make everything a lot easier. I hate to be the one to break this to everyone but… …they’re wrong!
First, decide whether you even need any help on the mod. The most successful mods are ones where the person who came up with the idea starts out by themselves and produces some truly inspiring results. People will flock to this sort of mod with little or no recruiting on the part of the mod founder. If you truly do not need help (very few of us can fit in this category) then you are without a doubt blessed with the distinguished privilege of being able to say to your hordes of would be team members, “No, go join some other, less inspired mod, and wait for my final release, there will be no beta! (RaWR, I rox0rz jooz sux0rs!)”
Unfortunately, few of us are this lucky. Most likely you will need at least a few members for your team, but since you know exactly what needs to be done at this point (you do, right?) and you know which parts you are able to do well yourself and which parts could use some extra work (right?) you should have a fair idea of what team members you need to recruit. Here are some pointers:
Do NOT make posts in the forums that say something along the lines of “WE NEED PEOPLE WILL SOMEONE COME JOIN MY TEAM? I NEED SOMEONE TO DO ALL MY WORK FOR ME CUZ I DON’T KNOW NOTHIN ABOUT THIS STUFF!!!” No one will join you, and most likely you will get flamed for your effort. Be polite and respectful, act with dignity, maturity and honor, and people will see you as more than some jerk who’s begging for help.
As far as I can tell, multiple recruitment threads don’t do very well. Most successful recruiting efforts I’ve seen have taken place within the main thread of the mod. If you feel the need to actively advertise your mod’s recruiting status, edit the title of your mod’s thread to contain something like “(Now Recruiting!)” or “Now Recruiting Texture Artists” if you want to be more specific.
A web site is a valuable tool in showing people what your mod and your team are all about. You can post work in progress images to show what’s been done so far, and even make your plans available for people to read. If people can see that your mod is going somewhere instead of being a bunch of idle speculation on the forums, they will be more willing to invest their own time.
Only recruit people who qualify for the position they are applying for. It sounds kind of harsh but it’s just like a real job, and takes almost as much work and dedication. If someone has absolutely no experience but still wants to contribute, point them to some tutorials, or offer them simpler tasks. On the same token keep in mind that most mods are not for profit, and unless you plan on paying your team members you cannot expect to get professional quality work in a professional timeframe.
Interview anyone who you are considering recruiting. Be sure that the people you recruit are team players who have an interest in seeing the project completed. People who join on a whim may also likely leave on a whim, or may even more likely do little more than post on the forums while producing nothing of any real value.
Some types of skillsets are easier to find than others. People with ideas are more plentiful than sands in the sea. People who are willing to test your mod are nearly as numerous. People who will test and give valuable worthwhile feedback are considerably less, and people who can actually help you make your mod are fewer still. People who can tweak the values of ships, their weapons, etc. are fairly common, though you can probably learn to do this yourself. Modelers are a dime a dozen, though finding the skilled ones who actually have time to do any work is like finding a needle in a haystack. Texture artists are about as common as magical pixies (thanks Evillejedi for that one hehe), and programmers that can actually change the way the game works or create new features are rarer still. If you need tool writers, well, give up hope now because you’ll never find them.
Assembling a team that is able to do everything you need with professional quality skill is near impossible, but most successful teams make do with considerably less, so don’t abandon your idea just yet.This is why you learned how to do everything before you got to this point, so you can fill in the gaps for your team where they are lacking. This should enable you to progress at an acceptable rate, and actually get something done on your mod.
Once you have your team together the task of managing it begins. If you thought finding your team in the first place was difficult, you’ve only just begun to experience frustration. Keeping a team moving forward (as opposed to backwards or apart) is a constant effort requiring discipline and patience beyond that practiced by shao’lin monks (or whatnot).
If you took the time to get a team of people together that have the necessary skills, and a positive team attitude, your project could well be destined for great things. A good team will manage itself. Most likely though you will eventually run into a point where one or more team members are no longer producing anything, or a person’s work has slowed to a trickle. Other times there will be conflicts between members that drive teams apart, and create lasting grudges that can damage the entire community, let alone kill your mod. The trick is to find the team that works well together in the first place. If you do not, it will take several times as much work to keep things moving along. Here are some pointers on things that can keep a team running smoothly:
Treat all members with respect. Listen to their ideas, don’t put them down, and basically treat them the way you’d want to be treated.
Facilitate communication between team members. Encourage members to share their ideas, perhaps even start a private forum so that members can discuss things outside of the public eye.
Allow team members to make suggestions that may or may not be contrary to the original plan for the mod. This doesn’t mean you’ll go against the original plan, but a lot of times team members will come up with ideas that make the overall product better. This gives members a sense of ownership over the mod, and gives them more incentive to get some work done.
To quote this article:
“Every team must ultimately have exactly one leader, and everyone on the team must know who that leader is with no ambiguity whatsoever. The leader sets the example that the other team members follow, and s/he must earn the respect of the team. When the team members no longer respect the team leader, the downward spiral begins. Respect cannot be coerced. It can only be earned.”
I can’t really say that much better than he did.
Deadlines tend to cramp team morale, but sometimes they are necessary. To make them a little more palatable you can assign deadlines that are less specific. “We hope to have a playable beta by the end of this month,” for example instead of “We need such and such ship done by the end of this week, and where are those textures, we needed them days ago!”
Remember that no one is getting paid for this project. I have lost track of how many times real life has interrupted my modding progress, it happens to everyone. Unless you start paying people enough to survive on, they cannot afford to put real life on hold, and you need to take that into account when dealing with productivity issues.
If you live in the same area as your team members, it is good to get out and do things together that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the mod at all. It builds rapport and also gives a sense of belonging to something bigger than a mod team. It grows friendships that extend beyond work relationships. If you don’t live in the same area (which is likely in an internet based team), it is still a good idea to play online games together. Find something that everyone shares an interest in, and arrange scheduled play times to get a break from tireless hours of working on the mod.
Teams are infinitely complex groups of infinitely complex individuals. There is no way I can cover everything that will come up in your team. You will find that no matter how much you plan, or how many deadlines you set, you will often see a lack of progress, members leaving, new people coming on board, etc. It is a dynamic process that takes more work than actually making the mod on your own, but can often be far more rewarding.
Part 7: Release Schedule & Revisions
With or without a team you’ve managed to get something put together. It may not be much to look at, but it’s something! Now you want to make it available to the world.There’s no right or wrong way to release a mod, but here are some things to keep in mind:
Try to assign version numbers to every release, and keep a log of changes known as a version history. This will help you keep track of what happened when, and where things got fixed, and where things got worse. It’ll also give your team and your adoring fans a clear picture of the progress you’re making. It doesn’t really matter how you do your numbering as long as it is consistent. Generally it is good to start with extremely small numbers, and plan ahead with the intention of raising the version numbers when certain goals are met. If you change the version number every time a change is made you’ll end up at version 20 before you even notice, and it won’t even be all that different from version 15.
Likewise refer to your plan and decide what steps come next. Make these goals clear to the team, and work toward them for your next release. These could include features added, or bugs fixed. This way when you release the new version you can easily tell everyone “This new release includes the following features, and we fixed these bugs as well!” It’ll also keep the team focused. The hardest part is coming up with the initial release. After that it’s a matter of deciding what to update.
The commonly accepted stages of software development are alpha, beta, and release. Alpha is usually done inside the team alone. Any testers at this point are team members and the files are not distributed to the public. Once the changes are stable and ready for testing you move on to Beta. At this stage it is acceptable to distribute the files to the public, and start gathering feedback and bug reports. Once you’ve ironed out most or all of the bugs and have the planned features (and maybe some extras) working properly, you can move on to public release. Most often the first public release is titled 1.0.
Part 8: Public Release
You did it! You’ve completed a mod! If your mod was something simple like tweaking the weapons on a ship, it probably didn’t take very long. If you created a whole new race it probably took months. Either way, you deserve some congratulations! Remember, even a finished mod is a work in progress. One of the most valuable resources in mod development is player feedback. Continue to listen to requests and bug reports and endeavor to make it more fun and playable. Take pride in the fact that you are one of the few people to ever make it this far, and have fun playing your newly completed mod.
Originally Posted by jpf190279
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