Poll Question 090 - Is the lack of new mods due to episodic content?

Interesting article, it certainly puts some perspective onto Adam’s Episodic Approach. I actually think the problem is not the method, it’s the people. I know from my own experience that many mappers switch from project to project, each time scraping work on older maps. Before the Episodic approach got famous, many mapper would’ve to release the map as a single map, or as a whole map. With this method the mapper can now release the map as the first map in a series.
The problems arise after the first release, the mapper gets bored with his product and seeks another project. The mappers lack the abillity to work dedicated on their projects. Without such a dedication it is impossible to release a mod in the first place.

However, for modders that are truly dedicated such as Adam, the episodic approach is brilliant. The mapper is able to work dedicated on one piece of work and release it and then move onto the next. It speeds the development up because the mapper is no longer able to switch between working on maps, but rather forcing the mapper to be more dedicated.
This method should not be used by people who is not dedicated on a certain project, they should instead fall-back upon releasing single maps instead of full-blown mods, as everyone dream of.

I agree, the definition of the Episodes is wrong, the episode term is incorrectly used and that’s Valve’s fault. I fully understand why Valve called it Episode One, not Part One, because that’ll just confuse the customers. The problem is that the modding community learned the word; it sounds cooler than just Part 1. Because so many people use the word Episode while meaning Part, it’ll change the definition of Episode in the context of modding, thus making it fully acceptable to call fragmented mods for Episodes.

I personally, do not use the traditional single-release schedule that used to be common, where mods were released when fully done and the development was done in secretcy, nor do I use the Episodic Approach, because as Philip said, it do not work for all projects. I use another misnamed method: Demos (should have been called Betas or something clever).

Demos is my method of development. I use a fixed deadline set every third month, where I release all the gameplay that has been made so far. Think of this as semiopen playtesting. Why is this great for singleplayer mods longer than a few maps? Playtesting! Traditional mods betatest their mods very late in development. By releasing maps before they’re even close to the final version, it is possible to test gameplay and get feedback before the mod is finished, using that feedback the mod is much better at the next release.

As for the development, releasing a beta is a huge benchmark in development. As of my demo released a few days ago, I added two new maps in beta stage, but with fully playable gameplay, and so I’ve been adding 1-2 maps for each of my few lastest demos. So the method is clearly working.

The method has downsides too. The main problem is that players to get play your game before it’s finished. They may dislike it and decide to not play the final product when it’s done. However, players are going to play your mod sooner or later, so let’s make it sooner and then make it even better when we reach later, instead of just wait until later. I don’t believe in development in secretcy, so I publically make my mod available upon each release. I find smaller communities where the concentration of modding-related person is high, and then release the download link there. I however, do not promote my mod on ModDB and claiming that Rank 5 of 7000 means my mod is freaking awesome. No, that is not required. Only commercial games need to be promoted before release, in order to ensure sales. And if I did, I’ll have to spend amounts of my time on PR such as moderating my forum, banning the vast amount of idiots.
Therefore development unknown to the general public is bad, however using this method, development known to the smaller modding communities are used much better.

From my experience just a bunch of testers can provide very valuable feedback. I got somewhat 10-20 useful bunches of feedback upon each demo, and that’s more critisim than I can fix in just three months! Yet I keep improving smaller parts and adding new, as I watch my project grow towards the full-scale SP mod I’m dreaming of.

Therefore I find the demo-method I’ve developed much more useful than the Episodic approach, in terms of improving the mod faster and getting instant feedback, while still being able to use the good part of the Episodic approach, being able to work focused on smaller parts of a much larger project.

To return to the subject. Is the lack of new mods due to episodic content? As I previously stated, the problem is the community is unable to handle the method due to their own missing dedication. Because of this method, all those mods that previously was bound to die, will get around to the first release and then die. This makes it seem like the method is failing. But the method is not the problem, it’s the mappers. They are too undedicated to fully use the method.

What we need is a reeducation of the mapping community, people has to learn that they should work on a map till it’s done and then release it, learning from it’s release, instead of just scrapping the project and moving on, as I’ve done with so many.

I voted No to the poll, even though it may be related to the so-called lack of mods (Which I’m yet to actually feel, there are being released just as many quality mods as there was a few years ago). I just don’t see the method as the problem, the modders whom use it, is the problem.

I can say that episodic content might discourage mappers. When I saw the first trailer to episode 2 I thought that If I ever made a full production mod, I would want to wait so I could utilize all the new content released in it. For a mod team pulling together for a large project, the constant updates would make things difficult. They would want to use the newest content, since it might take years to produce, they might have to switch engines once or twice and go back to rework some of their finished maps. Obviously all this extra work would be discouraging. So I think Phillip has a point. Though I think that the episodes HAVE released enough new content to make people want to switch engines (but not enough to make it worth it) and that is whats discouraging, since what they make will quickly become outdated. If Valve released Half Life 3 there would certainly be a larger mod release rate, since people would feel more secure in making a mod for it.

If theres a problem, just mod Half life 2 and save yourself the trouble.

One of the biggest reasons too is the expectations that some of the community have. Some people expect mods to be as great as commercial games, and up the experience every time. Just as sortie even said, it’s really the people. Aside that EP2 and EP1 really just came out, it took a couple of years for Half Life 2 to be out and have a good mod pop up. In the time ahead, were likely to see a couple of EP1 mod’s, but maybe not any EP2. So far It kinda looks like I’m really the only one that’s going for making an EP2 mod. Content is wider now, So I can’t understand how’d that be an issue too just like sortie stated as well.

Is the lack of new mods due to episodic content?

Episodic content doesn’t alter the default content at all, so they are not related in my opinion. In other words, I don’t think that we would have more mods around if the HL2 episodes didn’t exist. I can see that It might delay some mods that decided to include the new content, but it shouldn’t affect other cases.
The real reason why there might be less mod releases is because reaching a quality standard for the Source engine requires an exponentially higher effort from map makers, material makers, modelers etc.
In the summer of 2006, I made a HLDM map in about 10 days. It took me 2 months to create the Source remake of that map, even though I imported all the existing geometry!
This slow pace of design makes it easier for modders to lose their will faster and give up.

MrTwoVideoCards Said:

There have been a few Ep2 mods released.

Sorry that came out wrong, what I meant was an actual mod based in the EP2 world, with the scenery and such. I haven’t really seen a mod stray that way yet.

This makes me wonder, how many HL2/episodes mods have actually been released from big mod teams? Apologies if that’s a dumb question, but all the mods that I can think of that I liked were done by either one person, or sometimes 2 or 3. I have no problem coming up with mods from big teams that were canceled, or have been in development for many years with no end in sight, but actual released mods?

Pace Said:

I’m not against episodic release for mods, becasue they are plenty of good reasons for doing it and I accept those. Not least being it has more chance of being finished that way than a larger mod.

Oh, well alright then. I just didn’t get that from the original article.

Pace Said:

ANother point is why can’t there be amatuer specialist? You make it sound like a dirty word. Being focused and professional, doesn’t mean you have to do things full time.

Well, I see better what you mean now, that in a large team you can have a guy who specializes in storytelling. Sure that’s fine, I just meant that I don’t see why in small mods (that is, most of them) it isn’t perfectly fine for one guy to do everything, including the story. This of course relates to my above question, as that’s been the case for all of my favorite mods. Maybe what I’m getting at here is that there’s inherent problems with large mod teams with lots of specialized tasks. It’s a structure that works for professional studios, but seems to be tougher for a mod team to pull off. (Judging by recent success rate of large teams.) As lots of people have pointed out here and elsewhere, trying to emulate professional games isn’t necessarily a good idea for mods.

Also, I don’t expect professional polish from mods, that’s what we’ve got professionally made games for. I do enjoy playing mods though because you get new and interesting ideas, other people’s vision and takes on a game, and also crazy ideas that wouldn’t survive a commercial release. People trying to be too professional I think takes something away from that.

I voted “No”.

Now, I haven’t read every post here, but the article only really seems to be taking into account released mods, and seems to be insinuating that development started and finished for the same game or episode.

Each of valves updates (not even just the major episode releases) causes modders untold hours of setback as they sort out new problems and try to comprehend why things are suddenly “broken”. In my opinion your “familiarity with the editor” argument doesn’t hold up in this case. Updates to the tools and engine have been more frequent in the EP1 - EP2 timespan than they were in the HL2 days, meaning more time spent troubleshooting. Additionally code is continually revised or re-written by Valve, leading again to time consuming tasks for modders who go far enough to use code. Just before and after the EP2 release, there was an update that made it impossible for many modders to compile models. So, you can see that even if a mapper can continue to work, that doesn’t necessarily mean a mod’s progress will be full steam.

I’m personally working on a mod that started before EP1 came out. That is, we started developing a mod for HL2. We updated the mod when the EP1 engine became available, and we updated it again to use the EP2 engine, though our mod will still only require HL2. Now, this is a case of Valve’s episodes causing delays to our mod while we update the versions and sort out new problems, and since we didn’t finish development of our first “part” before EP2 came out, we would count as one “less” EP1 mod, and one “more” for EP2. My point here is that we aren’t “making a mod for EP1″ or “making a mod for EP2″, though our mod will contain some of the features of those 2 episodes, such as HDR, dynamic and self shadows, and the new particle system. Instead we are making a Source mod, on the latest tech, with setbacks due to the difficulty involved in transferring to those new technologies. Our mod is delayed by it, yes, but it’s also going to make for a much better experience because of it.

As for why we are chosing to release in “parts” is because we are currently a 2 man team. My job is mapper, modeller, programmer, choreographer, texture artist, and general functional expert (setting up everything and tweaking the mod scripts can be it’s own job, depending on what you want to do). our first “part” is going to be short, but hopefully will attract people to take some of that work off my back. this is partly due to an anomoly in the source community, where for some reason we can’t seem to find people, but in every forum i’ve ever been to, people flock to these mods that are started by some first day modder typing something up like: “u play az Grodon FEERMAN who got beemd to teh future to fite in spaes” or, the obligatory “ok ppl, we r going to remaek blu shft but with new gunz and new lvlz, my job is teem leedr, so we need mappurz, codorz, and one wepun modler”. I mean, what is it about these horribly doomed projects that people flock to? but i digress.

I don’t think episodic content is causing there to be fewer mods released. I think instead that modding is being refined, and the unreleased mods that are worth playing (the ones that people put time into) are still being worked on.

Also, it may be useful here to distinguish between “mod” and “map pack” as they really are different endeavors, in terms of scope. But that’s a whole other article.