Mod or
modification is a term
generally applied to
PC
games, especially
first-person
shooters,
RPG and
real-time strategy games. Mods are made
by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games
in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the
user to have the original release in order to run. They can include
new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels,
story lines, music, and game modes. They also usually take place in
unique locations. They can be
single-player or
multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the
underlying game are often called
partial
conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game
are called
total conversions and mods that fix
bugs are called
unofficial patches.
Games running on a PC are often designed with change in mind, and
this consequently allows modern computer games to be modified by
gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay
value and interest. The
Internet provides
an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have
become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success
of some games. Developers such as
id
Software,
Valve Software,
Bethesda Softworks,
Firaxis,
Crytek,
The Creative Assembly,and
Epic Games provide extensive tools and
documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential
success brought in by a popular mod like
Counter-Strike.
Mods can significantly outshine and/or continue the success of the
original game even when it is dated. Playing a mod might even
become more common than playing the unmodified original. In those
cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the
unmodified game when talking about playing a game. In some cases
the term
vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla
Battlefield 1942", for
example, refers to the original, unmodified game. For vanilla
games,
prefix "v" or "V" is
commonly used together with
acronymed game
title, eg. VQ3 stands for "vanilla
Quake 3".
As early as the 1980s, computer game mods have also been used for
the sole purpose of creating art, as opposed to an actual game.
This can include recording in-game footage into a movie, as well as
attempting to reproduce real-life areas inside a game with no
regard for gameplay value. See
artistic computer game
modification,
machinima and
demoscene.
Total conversion
A
total conversion is a mod of an existing game that
(usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the
original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some
cases creating a game in a completely different
genre from the original.
In some cases, the goal of a group that sets out to create a total
conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the
need to replace the original content to avoid
copyright infringement.
A few total conversions have managed to become stand-alone games.
Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with
the original game, if the engine becomes
Free Software, the total conversion can be
playable without having to own the original game.
A few examples of
these include the Tremulous mod
for Quake III Arena, mods
for Command & Conquer Renegade - Red Alert: Apocalypse Rising,
Red Alert: A Path Beyond, C&C Reborn, Battle For Dune; the
D-Day:
Normandy
mod for
Quake II, and Counter-Strike for Half-Life. Counter-Strike is notable as it has far
exceeded the popularity of the original game.
Team Fortress, one of the most popular
mods ever, was originally a
Quake
total conversion. It has been so popular that a sequel,
Team Fortress 2, has been
developed.
Similarly,
Trauma Studios, which
developed the popular Battlefield 1942 mod
Desert Combat, was bought by
Digital Illusions CE to work on
Battlefield 2. Both Desert Combat and
Battlefield 2 are in modern settings.
Total overhaul
A
total overhaul mod changes or redefines the gameplay
style of the original game, while keeping it in the original game's
universe or plot. This may include upgrading the graphics, adding
new models to replace the original ones that are in line with the
original game's plot, or changing the pace of how the game is
played. Total overhauls are usually combined with significant
add-on material as well.
Unofficial patch
An
unofficial patch can be a mod of an existing game that
fixes
bugs not fixed by an official
patch or that unlocks content present in the released game's files
but is inaccessible in official gameplay. Such patches are usually
created by members of the game's fan base when the original
developer is unwilling or unable to officially supply this
functionality.
Official status of mods
Due to the increasing popularity and quality of modding, some
developers, notably
Firaxis, have included
fan-made mods in official releases of expansion packs.
For example, in the Civilization IV expansion
Beyond the Sword: two
existing mods,
Rhye's and Fall of Civilization and
Fall from Heaven made their way into the expansion (the
second one through a spin-off called
Age of Ice).
Among the scenarios included in the expansion, the "external mods"
had the best reception: "
Rounding out BtS is a selection of
mods and scenarios. Some are the best of the mod scene,
others Firaxis designs. Sadly for Firaxis, it's the
already existing mods that shine - the excellent fantasy-set Fall
from Heaven, the intriguing, history-following Rhye's and Fall of
Civilizations, and WWII: The Road to War.
A number of fan-made maps, scenarios and mods, such as "Double Your
Pleasure", were also included in the Civilization III expansion
Play the
World.
Development
A great many mods do not progress very far and are abandoned
without ever having a public release. Some are very limited and
just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading
screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content
and
gameplay extensively. A few mods become
very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the
rights getting bought and turning into an official
modification.
A group of mod developers may join together to form a
mod team. An example is Team Reaction, one of the
most prolific mod teams to date, most notably known for
QPong and
Jailbreak.
Mods are made for many
first person
shooters and Real-Time-Strategies, most notably the series
based on
Quake,
Doom,
Chaos,
Total
Annihilation,
Rise of
Nations and the
Command & Conquer series
also have many mods.
Among popular mods, none is more well known than the
Half-Life multiplayer mod
Counter-Strike, which was released
shortly after the original game, and upwards of 1 million games per
day are hosted on dedicated servers.
Counter-Strike is
probably the best example of a modification that turns into a
retail game.
Mods in general are required to be non-commercial (free) when they
include any parts from another mod, or the main game, which by
their nature they always do. Some mods become
open source as well.
Tools
Mod making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating
mods for a game. Early commercial mod-making tools were the
Boulder Dash Construction Kit
(1981) and the
Bard's Tale
Construction Set (1991), which allowed users to create game
designs in those series. Much more successful among early mod
making tools was the 1992
Forgotten Realms Unlimited
Adventures from
Strategic Simulations, Inc.,
which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that
was launched with the
Pool of
Radiance game.
Later mod making tools include
The Elder Scrolls
Construction Set which shipped with
Morrowind, the
Aurora toolset which was included
with
Neverwinter Nights,
FRED and FRED2, the mission editors for
Freespace and
Freespace 2 respectively, the Obsidian tool
set for
Neverwinter Nights
2, the
Garden of Eden Creation Kit SDK for
Fallout 3 and the
Valve Hammer Editor which is used to
create maps for
Half-Life,
Half-Life 2 and various other games based
on the
Source engine (older
versions also supported the Quake engine).
There are also free content delivery tools available that make
playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates and
setting up the mods so that non-technical people can play.
Steam for
Half life 2 mods
is an example.
Game support for modifications
The potential for end-user change in game varies greatly, though it
can have little correlation on the number and quality of mods made
for a game.
In general the most modification-friendly games will define
gameplay variables in text or other non proprietary format files
(for instance in the
Civilization series one
could alter the movement rate along roads and many other factors),
and have graphics of a standard format such as
bitmaps.
Civilization
4 is the most open of all, letting the user make entire
scenarios and whole new sets of rules through
Python. Publishers can also
determine mod-friendliness in the way important source files are
available (some programs collect their source material into large
proprietary archives, while others make the files available in
folders).
Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications,
but often require expensive professional software to make. One such
example is
Homeworld 2, which
requires the industrial-strength program
Maya to build new in-game objects. However,
there is a free version available of Maya and other advanced
modeling software. There are also free and even open source
modeling programs that can be used as well.
For advanced mods such as
Desert
Combat, that are total conversions, complicated modeling
and texturing software is required to make original content.
Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the
original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the
differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total
amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy
to import models to, is of little help when doing research,
modeling, and making a photo-realistic texture for a game item. As
a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and
capabilities have a dominating effect on if mods are created for
the game by users.
A game that allows 'modding' can also be called 'moddable'.
The Elder Scrolls IV:
Oblivion as well as its predecessor
The Elder Scrolls III:
Morrowind are highly moddable, because the editor is
available to download off the internet.
Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some
people released their own modifications nevertheless.
Supreme Commander set out
to be the 'most customisable game ever' and as such included a mod
manager which allowed for 'modular modding' - having several mods
on at once.
The games industries are currently facing the choices on how much
they should embrace the players' contribution in creating new
material for the game or mod-communities as part of their structure
within the game. Some have openly accepted and even encourages of
such communities. Others though have chosen to enclose their games
in heavily policed copyright or Intellectual Property regimes(IPR)
and close down sites that they see as infringing their ownership of
a game.
Portability issues
For cross-platform games, mods written for the Windows version have
not always been compatible with the Mac OS X and/or
Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to
the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the
primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the
porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the
smaller market share of alternate platforms. For example
Battlefield 1942, ported
by
Aspyr for Mac OS X had file access issues
specific to mods until the 1.61D patch.
Unreal Tournament 2004 does not
have a working community mods menu for the Mac OS X version, and
until the 3369 patch had graphics incompatibilities with several
mods such as
Red Orchestra and
Metaball. In
addition, mods which are compiled into platform-specific libraries,
such as those of
Doom 3, are often
only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of
cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is
highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development
tools are often available only on the Windows platform -
id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and
Epic Games'
UnrealEd
being the most notable examples.
Mod teams which lack either the resources or know-how to develop
their mods for alternate platforms sometimes outsource their code
and art assets to individuals or groups who are able to port the
mod. Some mod teams such as the ones for
Forgotten Hope
and
Red Orchestra have hired Mac-specific coders and have
even purchased Mac hardware for testing purposes. The mod team
which developed
Last Man
Standing Coop performed an in-house port of their mod, but
encouraged someone else to create a Mac installation/launching
utility.
The mod specialist site for Macs,
Macologist, has created GUI launchers and
installers for many UT2004 mods, as well as solving cross-platform
conversion issues for mods for other games.
Unexpected consequences of modding
In January 2005, it was reported that in
The Sims 2 modifications that changed item
and game behaviour were unexpectedly being transferred to other
players through the official website's
exchange feature,
leading to changed game behaviour without advance warning.
See also
References
- http://rhye.civfanatics.net/pages/civ4-RFC-description.php
- http://kael.civfanatics.net/Ice.shtml
- http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=169292
-
http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/civilization-iii-play-the/4505-9696_7-30742336.html
- Flew, Terry and Humphreys, Sal (2005) "Games: Technology,
Industry, Culture" in Terry Flew, New Media: an introduction
(second edition), Oxford University Press, South Melbourne
101-114.
- Supernatural powers become contagious in PC
game by Will Knight, NewScientist, 7 January 2005
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
