Voting over.
/waits with great anticipation but knows the fanboy mods (Black Mesa, I'm looking at you) will probably win it)!
Speaking of which, I must rant. The ModDB "top mods" system is completely flawed. The top 5 most clicked-on mods are displayed on the main page - the problem is, that results in more clicks, way, way more than the mod at #6, or #7. Almost the same 5 mods are on there daily, for no other reason than they're there. That in itself results is a massive wave of votes. Renegade-X posted some 3 updates during the voting process, peaking at over 1,100 hits in one day, but that wasn't even enough to break into the top 5 -some of which did not update ONCE during the voting process.
Just isn't fair.
Top 5 should be removed during MOTY in my opinion. /rage.
MOTY is a farce. For many reasons.
1. In 2006, DCD placed third in the standalone category according to total number of votes. After voting was finalized, and after winners were announced, NEW rules regarding eligibility were announced and DCD was DQed, only to be replaced by a licensing rip-off (whose creator is a personal friend of the staff). Which brings me to #2.
2. Licensing rip-offs. In 2007, 5 of 10 mods were licensing rip-offs. Of those 5, 4 broke copyright law, and incidentally, moddb's own TOS. But nothing rakes in eyes and ads like SW and Half-Life remakes.
3. Arbitrary rules. In addition to rewriting rules after voting has closed, this year's MOTY introduces the clause that to be eligible mods "must have made significant progress since last year" with the staff determining what constitutes "significant". Another example would be extending the voting deadline for MOTY 2008. Elsewhere you can cite the example of awarding top honors to recent remakes in a "nostalgia" category. The list goes on...
4. General lack of originality. This is the least of my gripes, but it is worth mentioning that of the 2007 MOTY mods, 4 of the 5 mods that weren't licensing rip-offs were of the guns and planes and tanks variety, with the "odd mod out" being a zombie shooter. Note that since I'd been harping on the fact that the moddb slogan of "make something different" was a laughable irony, they substituted it with "change the game".
Moddb is a great site, but MOTY is a joke. The staff likes to play king-maker.
I'm raging right beside you. Down with the system!
Thnx! For MOTY 2008 I should add a fifth complaint;
5. Money-backed "indie" games slumming it for the street cred and free advertising.
Any game, no matter how "indie" should be DQed if they are being funded through the development stages.
Light Spire isn't being funded, but they have been signed to use the FULL crytek 2 engine without Crysis or anything. That alone can make games 10X bter which imo makes it unfair against a lot of mods of a modding site competing against a full game that will cost us money. Compare Dark Messiah Might and Magic or Zeno Clash to every Sourcemod out there. They are full SOURCE GAMES and have been given the blank source engine from valve to make which is why their quality is so much higher then anything else on the engine. I believe light spire should have been DQ'ed for the fact that it wasn't a mod anymore, but hey, whats dev biasm for?
Getting access to a full license is unfair for everyone, its counter-productive, and I have no issues if such a project was DQ'ed. Unless of course Crytek released the full SDK for non-commercial purposes! But I can't see that happening!
No engine ever releases the full SKD. If you want it you goto get it signed off to you, and that's usually only for making commercial games (Something to sell basically). They can go so much further then conventional modders with the full untouched engine then engine run-off.
An indie game should either be a standalone of a mod, or a custom-engine. Not a professional engine as signed off to make and sell from the company themselves, that just gets unfair to the other participants in this contest.
How'd they get use of the source? Was it lent to them for a cut of potential profits or smthng? If so, I'd say that's the same as funding... curious.
nm, just read their page. Yeah, having access to the source code certainly "changes the game"!