Red Orchestra is the award winning state of the art total conversion that pits players in scale combat of the most intense and grueling warfare in history; the Eastern Front conflict of World War II. Real missions set in real scale settings -- from elite tactical units vieing for control of strategic industrial assets in close quarter combat, to brutal heavy infantry assaults and bayonet charges to take tactical objectives, to heavy mechanized armor units battling for strategic control of entire cities in blistering exchanges of fire power -- Red Orchestra delivers unprecedented tactical realism of in epic scope -- on a human scale...

Report this article Mods of 2004

After 2 months, 8 thousand votes and 1.4 million mod profile visitors, the 2004 Golden Spanner Mod of the Year Awards have been decided, by you the visitors and gamers who know best. Read on for the results & analysis!

Posted by INtense! on Jan 5th, 2005 digg this super bookmark Page 1 of 15    
Article


In 2004 we decided to tackle a different angle when deciding the Mods of the Year. Previously, the staffers basically got together, listed their favorite mods and before we knew it ‘BLAM’ mod of the year was decided. This was much to the anguish and disappointment of you, the gamers and visitors who didn’t necessarily share our opinion and before we knew it we had a riot on our hands. Rightly so, we don’t know best you do as you are the people out there playing these mods day-in and day-out!

Therefore 2004 marks the first ‘Golden Spanner Mod of the Year Awards’ which is just a fancy name for ‘Peoples choice Mod of the Year Awards’. Whilst we don’t entertain any fantasies that these results will be to the liking of everyone out there, they were decided by 8000 different voters without our intervention or biased opinions AT ALL! But hey start debates / riots / arguments etc.. whatever you want because that’s what these awards are all about. Besides, mods wouldn’t get to where they do without constant shameless pimping so don’t stop now!

Results

As for the results, well they are largely what I hoped and expected as it seems the more active a mod the better its showing in the awards. This is how it should be too, furthermore it was great to see a good mix of mods from various games receiving awards which previously have been largely dominated by the Halflife engine mods!

The awards are divided into two separate categories been ‘Design’ and ‘Gameplay’. These are futher divided into the following categories of which the top 3 mods from 2004 will be listed on the following pages.

Design Awards

  • Best Player Models
  • Best Non-player Models
  • Best Level Designs
  • Best Website
  • Best Animation Set
  • Best Model Textures

Gameplay Awards

  • Mod of the Year
  • Best Upcoming Mod
  • Best Action Mod
  • Best Adventure Mod
  • Best Driving Mod
  • Best Puzzle Mod
  • Best Role-playing Mod
  • Best Simulation Mod
  • Best Sports Mod
  • Best Strategy Mod

Thanks

Firstly thanks goes out to the 8000 people who voted. Lets double that number next year! Kudos to Howling who created all trophy images mod teams are now showing off around the web. Also thanks to BlueWolf72 and BigBird who wrote a large part of this feature. Finally I'd like to thank ForK and frosty-theaussie who largely initated this competition and started the ball rolling.

Without further aimless banter lets get onto the awards!

Comments  (0 - 50 of 73)
San-J
San-J Jan 16 2005, 2:00pm says:

W00t! What an excellent feature! I love the looks of SC2.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Michael
Michael Jan 16 2005, 2:02pm says:

Congrats to all.

+1 vote     reply to comment
chis
chis Jan 16 2005, 2:02pm says:

leetcaxe

+1 vote     reply to comment
lillbrorsan
lillbrorsan Jan 16 2005, 2:02pm says:

Good job!

+1 vote     reply to comment
duckedtapedemon
duckedtapedemon Jan 16 2005, 2:03pm says:

Congrats!

+1 vote     reply to comment
Karuto
Karuto Jan 16 2005, 2:08pm says: Online

Congratulations to all of the winners!

Although, IOS should be #1 Sports Game. It appears people crowded around to vote RO for every award on here ;)

+1 vote     reply to comment
Sajt
Sajt Jan 16 2005, 2:23pm says:

Red Orchestra doesn't look like it has the slightest thing to do with sports...

+1 vote     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 16 2005, 2:26pm says:

As much as I love RO, I don't think there's anything to do with sports.
Unless there's some soccer mini game hidden in there somewhere...

+1 vote     reply to comment
Anubis612
Anubis612 Jan 16 2005, 2:31pm says:

congrats to all the mods featured here and especially to red orchestra the whole mod team and all of the ex devs (polygon merca jeremy) deserve praise for their work on ro and because of them red orchestra has gotten to this point. Once again congratulations to all mods and I myself am wondering why moddb counts ro as a sports mod lol

+1 vote     reply to comment
jacksonj04
jacksonj04 Jan 16 2005, 2:42pm says:

Red Orchestra won the Best Sports Mod award since its profile quite clearly stated it to be a Sports mod. This has since been corrected, but to adjust the votes would badly skew everything else. Sorry guys!

+1 vote     reply to comment
Aquilo
Aquilo Jan 16 2005, 2:47pm says:

Great article/awards :D
Strange that there were no roleplaying-mods though.

+1 vote     reply to comment
wilsonam
wilsonam Jan 16 2005, 4:17pm says:

Well, we're really sorry - RO was logged as a "Sports mod" sometime back in the dim and distant past. Since been corrected, but obviously too late for the comp!

International Online Soccer and Deathball should be read as being in 1st and 2nd places in their category, really...

+1 vote     reply to comment
wilsonam
wilsonam Jan 16 2005, 4:20pm says:

A quick correction from the RO team:

We have won the FPS prize for Phases 2, 3 and 4 of the MSU contest, plus some sound prizes - but not the whole thing! We wish :) But the winners haven't been announced on that one yet and we still have our fingers crossed!

+1 vote     reply to comment
[CC]Nimrod
[CC]Nimrod Jan 16 2005, 4:40pm says:

Congratulations to all of the winners, and Red Orchestra in particular! Like I said in my previous comment, this mod really stands out from other WWII games. I'll be sure to check out some of the other mods in those categories, some of them look really interesting. Once again, congrats to all of the modmakers - your creative products make the 'gaming industry' much more interesting and colorful. GG!

+1 vote     reply to comment
outlive
outlive Jan 16 2005, 4:56pm says:

no RPG's where nominated ?
you gota be kidding me !!!
i voted for a RPG, so the vote counts - and i think, a dozen other people voted for RPG's too
this spanner award thing is so stupid...even a WW2 mod got 1st at Sports (!!!!)

+1 vote     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 16 2005, 5:11pm says:

Galactic conquest didnt even get a mention. How on earth can people not even mention galactic conquest. its a damn travisty.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Ap
Ap Jan 16 2005, 5:17pm says:

On behalf of Game-Panel.com, we would like to congratulate all of the mods, we hope that with these awards and our sponsorship here, will help the mod community in receiving recognition on all the hard work that you do. Congrats to the winners, we will see you here again in 2005!

+1 vote     reply to comment
INtense!
INtense! Jan 16 2005, 6:10pm says:

bring on the riots and arguements i say :D happens every year, only this year i have to say the results reflect the voice of 8,000 gamers and i believe they got it all pretty spot on.

hopefully next year the results will reflect the voice of 16,000 gamers and prove an even more accurate reflection of everyones voice and opinion

+1 vote     reply to comment
ShortCutMan
ShortCutMan Jan 16 2005, 6:28pm says:

And also next year, people will have their profiles correct. :P

Congrates to Sven-Coop 2 and Red Orchestra for winning their respective awards, and also to all the other winners in the categories they were nominated for. Good Job guys!

+1 vote     reply to comment
mystery8
mystery8 Jan 16 2005, 6:57pm says:

Congrats to the winners and good work to the organizers. Didn't even know about UT2004's Utopia Online and that looks pretty cool. Pity Snow War HL didn't get mentioned, but the results leave me no reason to riot. Well, maybe just for the fun of it.... *grabs a crowbar & flame thrower*

+1 vote     reply to comment
Hp-P00nst3r
Hp-P00nst3r Jan 16 2005, 7:29pm says:

whats so great about sven coop for HL? I played it for awhile and it got repetitive really fast

+1 vote     reply to comment
Jimi
Jimi Jan 16 2005, 7:39pm says:

Woah! I'm surprised :D

+1 vote     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 16 2005, 7:50pm says:

Congratulations, but I still can't believe SS2845 lost to a graphics remake of SC! Nooo!!! Congratulations all the same. ^_^

+1 vote     reply to comment
AdrianShephard
AdrianShephard Jan 16 2005, 8:40pm says:

Congrats Guys. :D

+1 vote     reply to comment
ForK
ForK Jan 16 2005, 8:41pm says: Online

wow, not the results i expected but 'as voted by you!'

+1 vote     reply to comment
TwwIX
TwwIX Jan 16 2005, 9:25pm says:

fuckin lame
you people have no taste whatsoever

+1 vote     reply to comment
MaSaKaRi
MaSaKaRi Jan 16 2005, 11:29pm says:

Well, while the moddb team worked hard, i mean the following as constructive criticism:
1) you guys really should have noticed the Red Orchestra as sports mod thing. I don't agree adjusting anything would skew anything - RO should be disqualified from the sports category, and put in the action category instead, as it should be, not as first, but depending on it's votes.
2) what the hell is Xel'Naga Vengeance doing as the 3rd best RTS mod??? The Mod was closed down by the copyrights holders Blizzard, and never finished. That ALONE would be sufficient to desqualify it from the 2004 Mod Awards. I understand wanting fans to decide this, but one thing is being unbiased, another one is being unreasonable.

As understandable, since this is voted by fans, they tended to only care about the bigger mods, or be a bit weird. The three best websites are not bad, far from it, but they aren't anything special either. There are A LOT of better websites out there, i work at webdesign professionally, i do know what i'm talking about.
And since when does Cold War Crisis (best model textures) have better model textures than Forgotten Hope, Point of Existence, SS2845, or any major FPS mod for that matter??? The only reason they look so good from other Generals mods is because they're using skins with much higher resolutions than the other mods, which really taxes your computer, but of course that isn't taken into account in this vote...
The fan issues i can understand, there are weird choices here, just what people like (every half-assed Starcraft mod would make this list if it were up to the fans). But the two issues i raised above are the responsability of the ModDB crew, and should have been adressed prior to this.
Still, good job ModDB crew, here's to a great 2005 full of great mods! :)

0 votes     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 17 2005, 12:49am says:

I thought screwed up voting was just something that Florida was good at. The sports mod gaffe certainly showed a lack of professionalism but then to brush it off and not make things right?! Really invalidates your contest. Shame on you.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Aircraftkiller
Aircraftkiller Jan 17 2005, 2:41am says:

I didn't expect RA would take second place for level design, considering I did the levels for it, along with the buildings... Many thanks to those who voted for us!

+1 vote     reply to comment
routetwo
routetwo Jan 17 2005, 3:27am says:

It's a disgrace that IOS is put into second place by a WW2 mod to be honest.

+1 vote     reply to comment
ViperUK
ViperUK Jan 17 2005, 4:01am says:

So....2004 awards where the winner is not even in the right category :D

+1 vote     reply to comment
ViperUK
ViperUK Jan 17 2005, 4:04am says:

I think Counter Strike should have won the sports category...

+1 vote     reply to comment
PingKing
PingKing Jan 17 2005, 4:36am says:

This is fucking ridiculous. Where's the problem in just kicking Red Orchestra out of the competition since it's a freaking WW2 Mod. Is it so much work to set IOS as winner?

+1 vote     reply to comment
dfulcrum
dfulcrum Jan 17 2005, 5:17am says:

new HL2/HL mods cleaned up rather nicely.

great job to all the teams featured here.

+1 vote     reply to comment
maShine
maShine Jan 17 2005, 5:52am says:

no comment to the sports category
it is only shaming

+1 vote     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 17 2005, 6:25am says:

RENalert SUX, AIRCRAFTKILLER DOESN'T EVEN SUPPORT THE RENEGADE ENGINE NOW AND DISS's IT WHENEVER HE HAS THE CHANCE.
WHY SHOULD THIS MOD BE RELATED TO RENEGADE WHEN THE TEAM LEADER DOESN'T GIVE A STUFF?>???

DIE IN HELL ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

+1 vote     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 17 2005, 6:36am says:

Natural Selection > almost all commercial games and mods.

+1 vote     reply to comment
KleRoi
KleRoi Jan 17 2005, 6:42am says:

This is so stupid.... a worldwar2 mod in a sport competition... can't you just see that it's not a sport game? Is it so hard to understand it and to erase it from the competition? IOS rulez.

+1 vote     reply to comment
INtense!
INtense! Jan 17 2005, 6:50am says:

Ok you guys are right, and we have caved in to the pressure.. its just wrong to have Red Orchestra as best sports mod when it clearly isn't a sports mod at all...

hence the sports mod results have now been corrected and has made the top 3!! Furthermore, has been moved to its rightful category 'Action Mods' and given an equal 1st position with Sven-Coop!

+1 vote     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 17 2005, 8:06am says:

+1 vote     reply to comment
wilsonam
wilsonam Jan 17 2005, 8:21am says:

@ INtense: thanks for clearing that up for everyone, mate, and apologies from the RO crew for the misunderstanding! It was one of those dumb things that happen...

+1 vote     reply to comment
PingKing
PingKing Jan 17 2005, 8:42am says:

Thanks for doing the right thing and declaring ios as winner.

+1 vote     reply to comment
PingKing
PingKing Jan 17 2005, 8:43am says:

meant moddb of course :<

+1 vote     reply to comment
TheRambo
TheRambo Jan 17 2005, 10:15am says:

Congratulations to everyone !! :D Nice Work!!

+1 vote     reply to comment
MaSaKaRi
MaSaKaRi Jan 17 2005, 11:33am says:

Glad to see you guys came around, INtense. Nicely done :)

0 votes     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 17 2005, 1:26pm says:

Kind of nitpicking here but is mixing up mods with total cinversions really recognizing the work and quality thats put into these projects? No one is a bigger HL2 fan than I am but lets face it, voting HL2 Sven over the Starsiege TS as well as the W3 TS just screams popularity contest. The latter two have an enourmous amount of new assets made specifically for the game and implemented in such a way that its impossible to tell that these were done by "amateur" teams.

I think modding is evolving into its own sub-genres and perhaps we need to start recognizing that.

+1 vote     reply to comment
MaSaKaRi
MaSaKaRi Jan 17 2005, 1:58pm says:

You do have a point, but where do we draw the line? That's the issue here.
Furthermore, you have to realize "fan awards" are basically just a popularity contest, otherwise you wouldn't have stuff like Cold War Crisis winning Best Model Textures, or The First Tiberium War and Xel'Nagas Vengeance as the 2nd and 3rd Best RTS Mods. For example, PlanetC&C recently reviewed Tiberium War and they got 55% gameplay, 65% overall, and mine, for example, Capellan Solution, got 95% gameplay, and 85% overall.
People just voted on them because they are a mod of the original C&C (a big classic in gaming), and the other a Starcraft mod, which IMO should have been desqualified because they were closed down, and will never be finished. Like i said in a previous post, every half-assed Starcraft mod will make this list if it's up to the fans. These depend heavily on the base material (known franchises, for example).
It's great to see stuff in there like Ghost Ops, Natural Selection, HL Rally, and ZooW, just to name a few.

Bottom line, in fan awards you will get what's more popular (you see here mods based on Dragonball Z, Starcraft, Star Wars, WWII, Matrix). I don't consider these awards to feature the best modding has to offer, just the most popular. And as you know, sometimes what's popular is the best, sometimes it's just hype.
I don't want anyone to think this is a rant at any particular mod, i am just stating my point of view - the winners are to be congratulated, and winning this is great. Just don't read this thinking they are modding's "best of the best", because several of them aren't.

0 votes     reply to comment
Guest
Guest Jan 17 2005, 2:19pm says:

I probably shouldve read more closely. Wasn't aware that it was reader driven numbers. Given that, I'm surprised SS showed up.

+1 vote     reply to comment
INtense!
INtense! Jan 17 2005, 4:12pm says:
Quote:Kind of nitpicking here but is mixing up mods with total cinversions really recognizing the work and quality thats put into these projects? No one is a bigger HL2 fan than I am but lets face it, voting HL2 Sven over the Starsiege TS as well as the W3 TS just screams popularity contest. The latter two have an enourmous amount of new assets made specifically for the game and implemented in such a way that its impossible to tell that these were done by "amateur" teams.

I think modding is evolving into its own sub-genres and perhaps we need to start recognizing that.


This is a very real problem we faced / considered and as stated perfectly, a line needs to be drawn somewhere. In the end we decided to go with the feature you see here whereby people vote for mod of the year and also for different design elements (best models, maps etc..). This does mean that the competition largely ends up as a popularity contest, however to have sub-categories and break it down further would just result in an even more confusing system with 300 winners.

The aim of this comp was to recognise the best mods irrelevant of game, and i believe we have done that quite well.

+1 vote     reply to comment
BlueWolf72
BlueWolf72 Jan 17 2005, 4:13pm says:

We allowed you to suggest mods to us and we would select what we thought was good and bad and didnt have you the user vote. This was our first year doing that.

mods of 2003

Moddb.com

mods of 2002

Moddb.com

+1 vote     reply to comment
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[RO]Jeremy
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Released Oct 10, 2003
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