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        <h1><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i><a href="../../index.html">loonygames</a><br>
          <font size="1">a <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com">blue's news</a> 
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<p>&nbsp;</p>Vol. 
                2, Issue 11<br>
                February 7, 2000<br>
                </b>
              <b> 
                </b>
              
                <b><i>From 

                  the Mouth of Madness:</i></b></p>
                <b><i> 
                  Mods!</i></b></p>
                by 
                  Jason &quot;loonyboi&quot; 
                  Bergman</p>
              
              

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               Okay, 
                confessional time, ladies and gentlemen. I consider myself to 
                be the hardest of the hardcore gamers. Particularly when it comes 
                to first person shooters like <b>Quake</b> and the like. But, 
                the sad truth is that while I love these games to death...I just 
                don&#146;t play mods. </p>
              </p>
              There, 
                I&#146;ve said it...you can throw your tomatoes at me now. I&#146;ll 
                just sit here and take it. </p>
              </p>
              Okay, 
                now that you&#146;ve all gotten that out of your system, let me 
                explain myself. I love first person shooters. Heck, I played all 
                the way through <b>Quake 1</b> in single player. I love deathmatch. 
                I love multiplayer. I think out of the box, these games are great 
                (often flawed, no question, but great in their own way). Which, 
                I suppose, is one reason why I don&#146;t like mods. </p>
              </p>
              Mods, 
                for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is the moniker given 
                to user-made add-ons, or modifications, to these games. I respect 
                them. Lord knows, I respect that. I think it&#146;s amazing how 
                much effort goes into these things. I look at them in the same 
                way I do console emulators &#150; they&#146;re really cool, and 
                show the author is very, very skilled. But that still doesn&#146;t 
                mean I&#146;d rather play that than the original. </p>
              </p>
              There 
                are typically two kinds of mods: full blown total conversions 
                (TCs) and new multiplayer gameplay types. Completed TCs are few 
                and far between, since they require an incredible amount of work. 
                By definition, a TC is a total conversion. That means every level, 
                texture, character model and sound is completely original. At 
                any given time, there are hundreds of these things being worked 
                on. For various reasons, most of them will never be finished, 
                even the ones with the hardcore, dedicated developers working 
                on them. Why? Well, frankly, if they&#146;re that good, then they&#146;ll 
                end up working at a gaming company. It sounds ludicrous, but it 
                happens all the time.</p>
              </p>
              Of course, 
                the other reason is simply that people either get bored with the 
                project, or realize what an overwhelming task they&#146;ve created 
                for themselves. Or, as was the case with several large-scale projects, 
                they simply took too long. The day<b> Quake III Arena</b> hit 
                the shelves, there were a whole bunch of mods that either were 
                cancelled outright, or decided to attempt to convert their existing 
                work to the newer game engine.</p>
              </p>
              Then there&#146;s 
                the other type of mod, the one that&#146;s far more common, and 
                much saner. The new gameplay type, or &#147;PC&#148; for partial 
                conversion. These don&#146;t try and reinvent the wheel, they 
                just add something small and new to the game. They range from 
                the absolutely bizarre to really simple ones, like mods that tweak 
                the speed of the game.</p>
              </p>
              The problem 
                I have with partial conversions is that they usually end up being 
                gameplay types that didn&#146;t make it into the game for good 
                reason. They might be entertaining, but they&#146;re frequently 
                very unbalanced. There are some very popular mods out there that 
                are simply unbalanced, allowing one team to easily overtake the 
                server. Also, because these are significantly easier to make than 
                TCs, the level of quality is all over the map &#150; from retail 
                quality, to something that resembles the author&#146;s first programming 
                exercise. Again, there&#146;s nothing wrong with this, but it&#146;s 
                just not for me. </p>
              </p>
              What got 
                me thinking about mods as a whole, is the realization that while 
                there have only been a handful of mods for the <b>Quake</b> series 
                of games I&#146;d ever really spend any sort of time playing, 
                I&#146;m very impressed with the most recent batch of <b>Half-Life</b> 
                mods. Now of course, like any game, <b>Half-Life</b> has a whole 
                bunch of mods that are silly programming experiments. But, as 
                <b>Counter Strike</b> has shown, it&#146;s possible to create 
                an original game type that is addicting, and of the same quality 
                as the game itself. </p>
              </p>
              Now I&#146;m 
                not the biggest fan of<b> Counter Strike</b>, but I know a lot 
                of people (loonygames&#146; own Nick Ferguson for one) that are 
                completely addicted to it. Personally, I think it&#146;s fun, 
                but not enough fun to supplant regular deathmatch. But, and I 
                say but, I have to admit, it&#146;s very well made. It&#146;s 
                well made enough, that the most recent version of <b>Counter Strike</b> 
                was funded by Valve Software. </p>
              </p>
              Can you 
                imagine? Valve is not only actively involved in the creation of 
                mods, but in some cases, they&#146;ve actually funded them (<b>Action 
                Half-Life</b>, another extremely well made mod was paid for as 
                well). That&#146;s pretty significant. But, it would seem that 
                it has paid off. I know several people that ran out and bought 
                copies of <b>Half-Life</b> just to play <b>Counter Strike</b>. 
                The last time I heard someone buying a game just for a mod was 
                back in the days of the first <b>Quake</b>, when hordes of people 
                bought up the game in order to play a little mod called <b>Team 
                Fortress</b>.</p>
              </p>
              The very 
                existence of mods can extend the life-span of a game by years, 
                as the huge number of people still playing <b>QuakeWorld</b> has 
                proven. Valve is setting a strange precedent with their hands-on 
                approach to supporting mods, but the question remains...shouldn&#146;t 
                they be spending that time making their own games better?</p>
              </p>
              When game 
                companies get directly involved in the creation of mods, I think 
                a strange line is crossed. Obviously the mods themselves become 
                more polished, something that is much appreciated. But it raises 
                all kinds of odd issues. For example: will Valve be funding a 
                version of <b>Counter Strike</b> for <b>Team Fortress 2</b>? How 
                about <b>Half-Life 2</b>? (Should they ever officially announce 
                it, of course). </p>
              </p>
              <b>Unreal 
                Tournament</b> 
                shipped with a whole bunch of little &#147;mutators&#148; or mini-mods, 
                such as &#147;insta-gib.&#148; While these are appreciated by 
                fans of the various gameplay types, the more mods included in 
                a game out of the box, the more confusing it becomes to the newbie. 
                When I jump into an <b>Unreal Tournament </b>server, I have no 
                idea what I&#146;m getting into. It could be regular deathmatch, 
                or maybe Insta-Gib. Or something else entirely. It becomes terribly 
                frustrating trying to find a &#147;pure&#148; server with UT. 
                </p>
              </p>
              I don&#146;t 
                have any real answers to the issues raised here. I can&#146;t 
                claim to know all there is to know about mods, and of course, 
                I&#146;m ignorant in many ways. I respect mod authors, and I hope 
                there are plenty made for years to come. But personally speaking, 
                I think I&#146;ll stick to deathmatch and CTF. </p>
               </p>
              <i>- 
                Jason &quot;loonyboi&quot; Bergman is the editor in chief here 
                at loonygames.<br><p>&nbsp;</p> 
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Print CGI is 
  &copy; 2000 <a href="http://www.square8.com">Square Eight</a>. Used with permission. 
  Article is &copy; 2000 its original author. All other content is &copy; 2000 
  loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. You got that??</font></i></p>
 