Setting up modding teams? And the difference between modding communities

I personally would like a thread/area where people could ask people to join their modding project incase they need help in some specific area they're not familiar with, or possibly join a modding team themselves.
This might seem like an absolute idiotic idea and should be buried under hundreds of tons of gravel, but I happen to have experience of this type of act happening before.

You see, I am a member of many different modding communities, Frictional Games forums, where I usually take my role as a simple level designer for a 3D horror-adventure game "Amnesia: The Dark Descent", these forums have a habit of people asking other people help for different things in their projects, that may range from scripting to voice acting a little kid.

I am also a member of Meteormods.com forums modding group and a highly ranked and appreciated modder. There I mod for a top-down shooter game called "Meteor" and at certain times, "Meteor 2".
The modding itself can be of two types; either regular modding, which basically means making new maps, a story, possibly a few new tiles, and such. And yes, the game does use a tile editor for level designing, unlike Meteor 2; which uses a sector-type level designing system. Then, there's the other form of modding, this is called making a total conversion. Some of you might've seen me using this phraze a few times when I'm seeking for an equivalent for a "total conversion".

So what exactly is a total conversion?, you might ask. As known in Meteor, or Meteor 2, it is making a mod without using ANY original content from the game, and making alot of new content manually, all by yourself. The sprites themselves are created with programs such as MS Paint, then converting them to .pcx format and configuring it inside the game. This takes tons of work since you must make a different image for every frame of movement you want for that specific sprite; say, if you wanted a tank to look like it was moving, you would need atleast 2 frames, AKA 2 .pcx files. .pcx files are small, pixel based image files that are created with extreme care, no mistakes are allowed. Transparency is made using a "magic pink" colour code. I, myself am currently working on a total conversion, I have wasted hours of work on it and it is still not complete, been developed for 4 years. So, that is what a total conversion is, or as known here, a hack, I suppose?

So now that we've come to an understanding between different modding communities, I propose a similiar style of establishing modding groups for people who are possibly seeking to join a project/get people in his/her own modding project for help in the development of it.

Thank you for your time
If you decided to skip my explanations, I hope you still managed to get my point.

 

So groups like Music Makers, Level Makers, Spriters, Assembly-ers, et cetera?

 

I would like to say that I am a good map maker, so yeah
I could make maps

 

So groups like Music Makers, Level Makers, Spriters, Assembly-ers, et cetera?

Well, yes.
For example, a person who is looking for a spriter in his/her mod project posts in that thread/area, a decent spriter spots the post, reads about what the mod would be like, gets interested, and then replies saying that he/she could do spriting for the mod project.

So then it's up for the project leader to choose which one of the volunteered people he/she would want, and when choosing one that seems what he/she is looking for, he/she would PM that person applying for a spriter's place, and so they would start working on the project together.

 

No offense but this community isn't really big enough. The amount of effort and delay involved in getting even a half-dozen people to submit one or two maps each with no graphical edits, no hacks, not even a plot required, was monumental. Do you know why Take 8 is named that? because it's the 8th attempt at making a collaborative mod with the community, and so far it's the closest any have come to actually bearing fruit. This is due largely in part to the fact that for Take 8, everybody's contribution was modular and nothing particularly relied on anybody else getting something done.

The scene here is just too casual for any kind of serious project to take off. As soon as something starts to depend on multiple people having made progress, then somebody disappears, work stalls, people lose interest, and the whole thing falls apart. We are way too flaky, as a group, for this to work.

 

I just don't see this happening anytime soon. Our community is rather small, unlike the Doomworld forums and the other two forums that you mentioned, where they just have many people that can work on mods. We have, at the most even though this may be a stretch, 50 active members per month, compared to the other forums that just have at least 100 to 150 active members. Let alone the 50 active members, even less of those can actually mod, and even less of those mod makers actually have the time to help.

So, en final, a singular modding group could work, but with minimal avail, and multiple modding groups would be unheard of around here.

Oops, I guess I was a bit to slow while posting there.

 

So I see.

Although Meteormods.com has less than 10 active members, it still manages to produce great TCs, (total conversions) and mods aswell. People simply team up after hearing a simple, great mod idea and start working on it together.

Then again, I might be underestimating the toughness of Cave Story modding, I personally think Meteor modding is quite simple, Meteor 2 is alot more complex than that, but it can still be handled after getting to know it.
I am quite sure that with some effort, we could all come up with great mods/hacks for CS.
It's only about filling a small template and seeing how many volunteers there are.

 

You know 'Total conversion' mods sometimes use assets from the original game. But if the usage is subtle, it's considered acceptable.

For videogame modding in general ModdB.com is my favorite site. I practically live on there.

 

I think that people who know how to do certain stuff could occasionally post materials for others to use like graphics/music/etc.

 

About forming modding teams it matters if you really know each other in real life not over the web. Yet i like the idea like if there were 4 people in the team 2 people could work on assinged maps and 2 people could work on scrpting!
BTW: I'd like to form a modding team on this fourum

 

I had this idea a while back, or something like it.
I think a forum category for begging would be interesting, but people can just do it in their mod's development thread. Alternatively they can just VM/PM someone they know who specializes in what needs done. It isn't really needed, and would probably provoke a lot of threads (*ahem*) asking for people to make their mods for them.

 

*Sarcasm*

I want to mak a mod wur Curly and like Chaco are moe gunslanger on a roadtrip to New Vagas. They meet lots of intersting peeple and take lots of showers togeta. MAAAKE THIS PLLEEEESE!

ps. must also have all the characters out of street fighters. and evangellions.

*Because most requests are this poorly written.

 

That is the best imitation ever. Only one correction. It is in bold.

*Sarcasm*

I want to mak a mod wur Curly and like Chaco are moe gunslanger on a roadtrip to New Vagas. They meet lots of intersting peeple and take lots of showers togeta. MAAAKE THIS PLLEEEESE!

ps. must also have all the characters out of street fighters. and evangellions.and the bad gaiz ur total duches cuz there bad.

*Because most requests are this poorly written.

But other than that, that's pretty much what would happen.

 

I suppose you could do it in your mod's development thread, yea.

 

It isn't really needed, and would probably provoke a lot of threads (*ahem*) asking for people to make their mods for them.

What is this
(*ahem*) you speak of?

 

So one day when i found out they where cave story mods i was mostly actteierd to the ones where the player was a mimiga.
i did like king`s story by Noxid but TOO MUCH BLOOD! then i played mimiga army it was Great.But im not safisfied yet. Heres what i want
1. Of crouse an Uniice sprie of an mimiga ( make the sprite from scarth not from any thing else)
2. An insterting plot
3. It cant have ANY THING to do with the good bad or hell ending
4. It could have ballos
5. No blood
6. Somewhat Chars related to Misery Barlog and the Doctor
7. The mimiga MUSt be a boy
*. It must take place in a world called the DataScape ( think about the name before you make it map)
Ill try all of your mods and see wich 5 come out the best 1st place shall... get my Ultimate Doukustu Trainer (only for Cave story) actaly no Doukustu Trainer for u
To GIRakaCHEEZER: Um... you can (if you want) or... find one. and...... so are you saying that this is pointless,and that when you said "So you're requesting that we all make mods in an attempt to please your wishes?" i kinda took that as an insult.And what made you start making WTFstory (the mod is awesome) maybe it was a request???OH...sry bout that /\ um to your question well i was saying if people would want that to and if some people would like to make a mod like that and in attempt to plz my wishes you dont have to do ALL of them just try to ya know...have fun with making it cuz there no new mod lately so i thought about it and thought i could ask for a new mod. its not a challange or anything...ok it is. so i want to see how good people are aat modding cuz im well...never made a mod or demo.
qUESTION 1 From:ComannderJersy: I know that just a demo at least -_-
To Yakkers: Thank god im not the only one O.O
To Linkruler: ... Wow that inspired me...alot ok ill try also is modding like video game progamming???
Ok! started modding!!!
*Bangs head on desk*
I AM BACK AND WOW IVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS MOD.
Ill tell you whats it about.
So you play as a mimiga Zak.
and you live in the bush lands.(In the DataScape
You have a michiane gun
and you haave a friend named Max.
thats all.

Read the bolded text.

 

I happen to think a Community Mod project WOULD work, But we'd need to start off with something small for our first project. We've tried doing big projects before and they slowly die out. If we did a small project it might just work.

A project what worked well on another forum I'm on is each member contributed a level/area and then at the deadline they were made into a game.. Not a game in the sense of storyline but a community level project where you play challenges.
A bit like the Hell Mod contest we had a while back but all in one mod.

I think that is the best way to start a community project, That way if someone doesn't meet the deadline its not vital because we will still have some submissions.
I for one would contribute If we did that and I'm sure other members would. We'd have to stick to using the preset tiles and sprites though as it may cause conflict when compiling the game..

Just an idea

 

A project what worked well on another forum I'm on is each member contributed a level/area and then at the deadline they were made into a game.. Not a game in the sense of storyline but a community level project where you play challenges.

Did you somehow miss Take 8?

 

Some how I probably did because Ive been away from the forums quite some time, So quit the sarcasm.