2007 Mod of the Year Awards
Official
Welcome to Mod DB and the 6th Annual Mod of the Year Awards - the definative event that showcases the best mods and indie games in the world and recognizes the teams behind them. The MOTY is a tribute to the creativity, dedication & hard work independent developers put into creating unique gaming experiences that enable us to "play something different".
Over the coming months we will showcase to you the best mods and games in the industry. You vote for those you believe are worthy of recognition. At the top of this program sits the ultimate prize, the mod of the year award won previously by Natural Selection, Red Orchestra, PoE2 and Garry's Mod. Thanks to our sponsors, this year we have a few surprizes up our sleaves not to mention a slew of prizes for the participating teams.
From Dec 1st to Jan 1st, industry professionals, developers, gamers and the general public cast their votes to decide which mods define the cutting edge of interactive entertainment and which mod teams attain gaming celebrity.
Follow the links to join us on an unforgettable journey as we present the 2007 Mod of the Year.
Player's Choice Winners Showcase
After rounding out the best of 2007, we're ready to present the results.
Posted by stenchy on Jan 28th, 2008 Page 2 of 4
Event Coverage
A honorable mention is due to the mod Black Mesa which continues to poll extremely strongly year after year, but misses out on a place in the top 5 because you cannot win a spot in the best unreleased category twice.
5. Operation Black Mesa - Prepare to go back to Black Mesa... again. Operation Black Mesa is an extended re-creation of the popular Half Life add-on, Opposing Force. You'll once again be strapping on the boots of Corporal Adrian Shepard as you make your way through the revamped and albeit highly detailed Black Mesa Research Facility. Additionally, the team plans to add new areas and enemies to the fray so this unofficial redux has more to look forward to than just eye candy. It looks to be a promising effort from team behind Operation Black Mesa, which is why players chose it as there number five spot for unreleased mod of the year.
4. Mechwarrior: Living Legends - Looking at this mod makes one wonder, who doesn't like robots? The MechWarrior: Living Legends team hopes to satisfy your thirst for robotic destruction on wide open environments and look good while doing it. So far, the updates have been fast and furious, showing a number of fancy mechs armed to the teeth. Of most interest are the videos like the one below which show some of the environments where battles will take place. If MechWarrior is sure to take full advantage of all the features the CryEngine 2 has to offer, this mod won't be a disappointment. Players voted MechWarrior: Living Legends number four for unreleased mod of the year.
3. Barney's Tales - Did I say we were done with the Black Mesa Research Facility? Well, we aren't. This time you will be dressed in security apparel as you play the role of the infamous Barney from the Half Life series. Barney's Tales (formerly Blue Shift: Source) is an unofficial remake of the the last expansion pack release for the aging Half Life 1. This remake is expected to focus more on realism, using real-world US Army soldiers as a reference. Drivable vehicles are also planned. Together with other projects being developed out there, it looks like we'll be able to play through the original series all over again in the Source engine sometime in the future. To add to the lavishly detailed media they've already released, the folks over at Barney's Tales have put together an exclusive video sneak peak for us which you can look at below. Barney's Tales comes in at number 3 for unreleased mod of the year.
2. Jurassic Park - Jurassic Park the movie is one that sticks in the minds of many. It set a new standard and brought terrifying monsters to life on the silver screen; creatures that, long ago, actually existed. The Jurassic Park mod team has set out with the aim to capture the same magic that both the movie and book encapsulated and bring it to the CryEngine 2. In the mod, players will be put into the shoes of Dr. Alan Grant, paleontologist extaordinaire, as you make your journey to get off the island. Few games out there have been able to pull off dinosaurs convincingly so the team has their work cut out for them. However, from the concepts and renders provided so far, they have gained a lot of interest and seem to be off to a good start. As a treat, we have a first look at a fully textured Velociraptor for your perusal further down. Fans obviously can't get enough dinos and that's why Jurassic Park is the number two unreleased mod of the year.
1. Zombie Panic: Source - A zombie outbreak has made your town, with the exception of a select few, void of any life. All that remains are the undead and you, along with a few other survivors, have to fight them off with whatever means possible. What do you do? Do you stick together or fan out and search for ammo? The premise behind Zombie Panic is simple: survival. While the mod is available to download now, (it was unreleased before voting had begun, therefore in the unreleased category) it was quite apparent throughout development that this project would be one out of the many zombie survival mods out there to deliver the goods. Stunning visuals, eerie music and top-notch voice work help make the paranoia seem just a little bit too real. The more weaponry you pick up, the more you slow down- making you an easy target to munch on. The further a round progresses, the deeper the feeling of desperation sets in as you run thin on ammunition and the undead grow in numbers. Whether you're running away from the shambling hordes or hunting for players to tear limb from limb Zombie Panic delivers on all fronts. If you want a quick peek at the gameplay, check out the exclusive trailer below. Players hungered for a taste of Zombie Panic, more than any other mod, which is why it was voted as the number one unreleased mod of the year.
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© 2002 - 2013 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 2971 modders.
kinda sad the last 4 winners are all soldier shootbulletsetc warfare mods. ugh
indeed
it is hard to win with a 2 years old game
Congrats to all the winners and nice congrats to moddb for their fantastic job!!!
oh....and a biiiiiig thanks to all who votes for World of Padman...;)
Gratulations to all, except for Insurgency.
Congratulations to Insurgency team!
Great job from moddb, it is the best result of the year 2007...
It´s great.
Congrats to all.
Roll on editors choice!
jurassic park!!!
05:06 the title says "indepedent". is that meant to be independent.
oh man, that's a big goof, thanks for pointing that out - I'll be uploading a revised version. I blame lack of sleep putting this thing together.
Is that spelled right??
INDEPEDENT ??
yes :)
nah its Independent :P
Grats to the winners!
Congratulations to all winners from the Stargate : The Enemy Within Dev Team! Congrats Especially to BTRL who takes the Indie Category.! Well done guys! ;)
Also, Thanks to everyone who voted for SG:TEW and helped us into the Top 100..! Your support shall not go unrewarded! ;)
Congrats to all the mods who won, and to those who didnt, well there's always next year ;)
Keep up the good work everyone.
And there's the editors choice ;)
Congratulations !
How do the other mods listed on the top 100 find out their position/rank from the end results?
Just wanted to know where battlefield 40k came in the top 100 unreleased.
I 2nd that! Would be great to know how all Top 100 ranked! Hope the details will be published soon..! :)
Thx for voting us into the top 5 indie games ;) Gratz to all the winners.
www.worldofpadman.com
insurgency shouldn't have won...
Man, I really wish MINERVA had placed higher, but still, congrats to all the mods and mod teams that made it on this list!
RELEASE THE ACTUAL SCORES!
RELEASE THE ACTUAL SCORES!
RELEASE THE ACTUAL SCORES!
glad minirva got in the top 5, it earned it. good to see empires there too.
Why did Insurgency, which is in Beta 1 or 2, win best released game, while Zombie Panic: Source, also in Beta phase, win best game to come out later?
Zombie Panic was unreleased as of voting.
On behalf of the BtRL team, thank you fans and supporters and congratulations to all the winners.
The dedication, blood, and sweat put into all these projects are evident. Keep the faith alive in your projects! I look forward to playing these games. Need a breather before I dive right back into the work.
Once again thanks and congrats to all.
This makes the gaming industry a thousand times more exciting, awesome work
Oh, I forgot where the &$%@!^&$ is NEHRIM: At Fates Edge??????
I have a bone to pick.
Zombie Panic Source is released. And I have first hand experience that they were tricking people into voting for them in IRC by saying it was the download link on release day.
That's not right at all.
the plot thickens
that's LOW
They were unreleased at the beginning of phase 2 hence they remain in the unreleased category. Also a number of members alerted us to them essentially tricking users for votes prior to their release. Provided the votes are obtained from mod fans and are not spam / duplicate they are allowed. Having said this, we agree it was not in the best interest of the contest and investigated how many votes were obtained during this period. Even factoring these votes out they won, its a shame it happened, but they are still a deserving winner.
As for the multiple complaints on release day (the day before votes were finished) one mod said something stupid like "HAH not gonna release till you vote for us" which was QUICKLY corrected by every other ZP Developer there present for the release party. I had been up a good two days preparing for release. I made it clear I did not want anyone voting for ZPS that didn't want to vote for ZPS so don't let those who spread rumors take away our hard work :/
Excuse me? Lol what a load of crap. First of all there was no direct link to vote you had to scroll down list of games, select game, then select mod and vote. No one force anyone to vote for ZP:S and we couldn't have if we wanted to. Also the staff already explained we released after voting so we were not a RELEASED mod :P. Those of you who are bitter should watch the slander.
Tats...
Really I don't recall that but, every mod has it's retards so you can't exactly blame them mod for that
Thats a stock drumlooop from fruityloops lol
Aww I thought Infinity: Quest For Earth got top 1 in Indie games, but it didn't even make it to the top 5.
MOTY 2007, the abridged version
Top 5 unreleased;
5. Licensing rip-off*
4. Licensing rip-off*
3. Licensing rip-off*
2. Licensing rip-off*
1. Zombie mod
Top 5 released;
5. Licensing rip-off*
4. Guns and planes and tanks
3. Guns and planes and tanks with a twist
2. Guns and planes and tanks
1. Guns and planes and tanks
Seriously, add an originality category.
(*violate copyright law and moddb.com's TOS)
Why would anyone give this post negative votes? It's a list of factual statements. Are those mods listed "Licensing rip-off*" not licensing rip-offs? Is the mod listed "Zombie mod" not a zombie mod? Do the glut of war games not feature guns and planes and tanks?
If all top ten MOTY mods can be put into 3 very simple categories, don't we need something to support originality?
There are definitely some bound-to-be-Foxed-sooner-or-later mods in the unreleased mods category, but MINERVA?
Erm...
The only game it's using story and content from is Half-Life 2 - which it's a mod of. Thus such behaviour is specifically allowed, and even encouraged.
Plus, if it *was* an illegal mod, I think somebody at Valve would have told me on one of my occasional visits to their offices?
(buried)
Just because they are choosing not to take legal action doesn't mean that you're not violating the law.
And even if you got in writing it still wouldn't change the fact that you're capitalizing on the hard work of hundreds of highly paid professionals, their advertising campaign, and the inherent popularity of HL2. All reasons why I suggested there be an "originality" category for non-IP infringing mods.
What exactly is original?
I'll settle for calling anything that doesn't fall into those three categories as original.
And please, if you're about to say, "well your definition of 'original' isn't the same as everyone else's", save it; those three categories account for over 90% of the MOTY nominees, i.e., they are unoriginal.
Well to be perfectly honest it doesn't matter what the winners fall under as they were chosen by the majority of players "Players Choice". FYI Zombie Panic was the first MP Zombie mod and the first to include player controlled Zombies and other features that are only now popular with zombie mods. If you're bitter cause your mod or the mod you prefer wasn't placed, I don't see the point in complaining here or see what you're trying to prove.
Tats...
(buried)
Yes, of course anyone who complains is automatically bitter. There couldn't be a single legitimate reason to complain.
...Or no wait, could it be that I'm stating an obvious fact? That these mods are easily categorized and unoriginal? And that half of them are ineligible for voting because they violate copyright law and moddb.com's TOS?
Anyways, what's your beef? Are you angry because I called your MOD, ZOMBIE Panic Source a ZOMBIE MOD? I don't know what I was thinking. I must've invented the term "zombie mod" off the top of my head, since there certainly aren't enough mods featuring zombies to necessitate such a phrase.
mike why are you angry? people vote for what they think is fun. if you make an origional game but it's actually not as fun as the one where you run people down in a tank or get all sorts of realistic guns you've seen in movies, then people are going to vote for the one they enjoy the most.
and some of the games in that list ARE very origional, the gameplay of some of them is nothing like any other game or mod out today.
==============
is still want to know how many votes for each thing actually came in!
"mike why are you angry?"
Glad you asked. As a general rule, it's just in my nature, lol. But in particular, as is relevant here, liscensing rip-offs make me very, very angry.
Half of the mods here are being awarded cash and prizes for THEFT. They are relying on hundreds of highly paid professionals who have toiled for years to do their design and narrative work for them. They are relying on multi-million dollar multi-nationals to do their PR work for them.
This has THREE huge consequences that jeopardizes the true "make something different" mod community.
1. It discourages innovation.
2. It jeopardizes the "true-fan" mods by violating the unwritten rule of "you can use our IPs so long as you don't profit from your creation". By violating this unwritten rule, these mods may very well bring about a resurgence of C&D orders.
3. By capitalizing on a world-wide ready-made fan base cultivated by the hard work of others, these mods drain the modding talent pool and cannibalize the mod fan base. As a result, the few original, innovative games out there cannot recruit.
So in short I'm angry because half of the top 10 MOTY mods are unoriginal, and I'm even angrier because the other half violate the law, the "make something different" ethos of modding, moddb.com's TOS, and profit from THEFT.
mike, I don't know what you're on about...
i mean, please elaborate as to how empires is a licencing rip off? There arn't ANY other games out there in the same universe as the empires universe, and there arn't any commercial or modded games that are rts/fps hybrid and give players vehicles. I'm just picking that one because i know it's especially inventive.
have you even played the mods you're insulting, or just looking at the pictures and claiming that they suck.
"mike, I don't know what you're on about..."
Then you'll have to read my original post. I never said that Empires was a licensing rip-off or that any of the mods sucked.
You're welcome to assume what you want but I made my observation over the fact that you seem to be upset that people like these games (thus being chosen as top 10 by players) and that they're not completely original (as in they use themes that have been done before). I guess once it's been done there is no room for improvement, or that others can't make a version that fits their vision of it. As for calling my mod a Zombie mod... What else could you call it? City mod? Gun mod? I mean it has those too, where's the insult in that label? We started it so why shouldn't we improve on our own work?
Again i'm all for unique and original ideas (which I believe my mod is guilty of even if others imitate it) but your idea of what the modding community should do doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do. And this Award show is just as legal as donations so take a deep breath and spend all this wasted energy on making your mod worth playing, instead of trying to discredit modders and their work. And seriously? Zombie mod? lol
Tats...