Mod making over the years has...

I believe it got harder, to much competition and mods are not well known.

I think it's a bit easier, there are definitely more tutorials out now, and larger communities where you can ask questions for things that have no tutorials.

I think it really depends on what sort of challenge you want to set yourself and your team. Easy these days to do a simple mod, but a vast challenge to do a mod that will be remembered and played by a large number of people. A simple mod would be one which uses all of the textures, models and audio in the original game with no further additions, a complex mod to the stage of doing a total conversion, so it depends on the goals set. If everyone wants to out do each other, modding is very difficult due to the incredible talent producing mods, but, if someone just wants to make something they are happy with and have learned something along the way, it is equally rewarding.

Modding as we know it most likely won't survive past this generation, things have gotten incredibly harder. We face the same issues that developers have, needing huge teams...when in the past a handful would do the same. Unfortunately we can't throw vast amounts of money at teams, we can't hire more producers to manage things.

Additionally, the huge need for talent in the industry has many teams having key members get hired by companies prior to release...many HL2 mods simply were too good (graphically) for their own good.

Yes it is harder, and the talent is disappearing far faster than previously...this is why we haven't seen any super-popular total conversions like in the previous generation.

I believe it all depends on what your planning on doing. If its something more complex and strange then there wouldn't be that much documentation on what your after. I believe what smurfbizkit is saying, modding is something your not supposed to spend money on, the idea is so that it would be a free activity that would A: get you that job or B just make you feel like a god among men. Nothing should get harder everything should get easier. Even more so mods today that are the same standard as a few years ago wont even get looked at.

So i say harder.

It's gotta be easier there are so many more resources and support now. It may be harder to become known these days but I think that is slowly getting easier with some of the changes moddb is making. :)

I think a lot of stuff has gotten easier, like the amount of mod support a game has. Some games now are actually designed to be mod-friendly. However, games are a lot more complex, so I thnink everything's about the same.

Harder. Even if there are more tutorials and such you need to do a lot more to get a mod off the ground. Where in the early days some work on maps some models with some modified skins and a bit of code work has been enough you have now to deal with utterly complex mapping, tricky model rigs, physics considerations, tons of textures to get a simple entity in game and heavy code work. Furthermore people expect more which increase the required work.

I'd say the tools are easier, but the content needed are heavily dependant on a skilled artist and there's way more that needs to be done.

I can only speak from my own disciplines, but I'd say it's about the same when it comes to using tools and creating: there's more detail to worry about, but at the same time it's easier and quicker to create it with modern tools and processors. The process only becomes genuinely harder when we aim above our means!

Definitely gotten harder, I think. Theres too much of a focus in game engines on high production value and engines simply aren't really designed to be modder friendly. The things that we worry about - ease of getting content in game and things like that - haven't really evolved between now and years ago, and with content thats getting ever more complex, its definitely made things more difficult.

Its easy say. It definitely got harder. Sure the tools are by far the easiest to use nowadays, but the ability to make original material is getting harder. Being able to create models that are on par to the games the mod is running on are rare.

it has become a lot easier, i would not have been able to start modding a few years ago because of missing tutorials and(cheap/free)tools.
for a beginner with no experience in modding, it was a lot harder to get started.

As an earlier poster said below, the success of a released mod comes down to how well it designed and marketed to players. There are so many high quality games available today, both professional and mod-based, that your game really needs to stand out.

There are ever-expanding opportunities to promote your mod - websites like MODDB, on Steam (if on HL2), in magazines and other gaming websites.

Also, I think this year has been difficult for mod makers. There have been so many high-profile games taking player's attentions. I think 2008 will be a much better year for mods as a lot of big projects are refined and released.

Too often I think mods are designed by highly technical people (mod makers) who forget that whilst the majority of their potential audience might be heavy gamers, few will be mod makers themselves. They see the project as 'their own' and refuse to budge on issues which would give the mod a broader appeal. I know this from first hand experience, working as a PR leader on a BF2 mod for about a year, and from playing a lot of mods.

A good recent example I think is the Forgotten Hope 2 mod for Battlefield 2. The game has been hugely hyped, but failed to live up to a lot of people's expectations, with the number of active players rather small. I believe the team failed by blindly trying to recreate their original game despite the fact that people wanted a WW2 mod for BF2.

I would say it seems to have gotten harder. Many mods die, and many more get a release out only to abandon it after a period of time due to lack of interest on the part of the players. This is especially true with multiplayer- when Dystopia was first released it had a faithful following but now, after the long-awaited 1.0 release, you'd be hard-pressed to find more than a few servers.

Another problem is the difficulty in creating resources. Half-Life 2 is 10 times harder to code for than Half-Life 1. Textures and other visuals must be of higher quality to meet the standards of current games- and there must also be a lot more of it. In Doom, it was usually acceptable to use maybe about 20 or 30 textures and you could crank out a map in about a day if you had any talent, 15 minutes if you didn't. But in this era of 3D mapping it takes so much more work to even construct a simple square room and texture it, let alone create any sort of detail.

I can def vouch for the guys making total conversations. WE had a 7 member team and the amount of work that was required during the 6 months we had First Contact: Planet Fall was incredible. Until there is a change in the speed of which we can produce models and wrote code can be reduced...the ability to do substantial modding is going to disappear.

Also dont forget that there are more and more really GOOD multiplayer games, so mods just dont compete with other mods on the same engine but also tons of other games and their mods. Yes the tools have gotten easier and better but still people expect top class graphics so really its the same or more workload anyway. And unless your mod is really really fun/innovative its mainly going to be judged by its graphics (sad but true).

its obviously harder, try mapping for liero and then mapping for source and you are going to see the difference

I believe "promoting" a mod has only to do with getting help to a certain extent. If you have a good product word will spread from within the community

I think this poll is a no brainer realy, as of course moddings got harder, this is due to the fact that games getting more complex & sophisticated due to gamers demanding more realisum.

Indeed it's hard. At first modding was just a case of changing sprites and textures back in the DooM world but now in the Next-gen world you can create every nook and cranny in every kind of detail, creating 110% realistic physics and models which is now makin many expert modlers cry.

Well, for example, one could probably make a TC of Wolfenstein in a month or so. Now, not even a TC of HL2 or UT3 will take at least 6 months.

I think it has gotten harder for another reason, commercial games are coming up with alot of really big ideas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Big_World, En.wikipedia.org). That it has become a little daunting for mod-makers to come up with original yet relativley simple to execute ideas.

I don't think much has changed, some parts have gotten easier, some have gotten easier, it's always been like that whenever new games are released.

Games do have gotten more complex and the existance of many similar mods does make competition!
Of course it's not the competition for money, it's the competition for quality. Aren't you under stress, guessing if it's something better, when you see another team doing almost same thing?

Well, the amount of stress is very individual, but it is something either way.

Definitly is harder.Too many games.But ther still excelent mods like Shockwave(Zero Hour),New race mods(Dark Crusade),Lots of good mods for UT2004,HL2.....

My view is that it's not necessarily the competition, but the time it takes to make a modification.

If it takes two-three years for your average total conversion/behemoth add-on modification to take out (Think of Half-Life 2 modifications) that are still incomplete, then there really isn't any competition to think of because it will take the better guys a possibly longer time to come out.

Think of this; a great game is made way back when, and a mod is being developed for it. All of the hardcore gamers for this mod anticipate it so much. Years and years and years go by, and the technology and whatnot runs out of the league, and maybe five-six years go by before a finished version of the modification comes out. Only those hardcore fans will be the likely candidate to download.

That's the problem we face now - it STILL takes time for these quality mods to come out, but the developers generally aim for a shorter construction time for the release of these mods, so they are racing against time and their fanbase/loyalty. It's pretty much "the guy that releases the mod first wins for now, but the next guy in line will have just as great of a chance of a hit as the first guy, etc," so everyone wins. But they don't win. Why? The mods are likely to be incomplete and lacking art, crash all the time, or generally lack in every aspect.

As modders, we want our mods to come out at a reasonable time; as players, we want those mods to come out at a reasonable time. But do we really want to stop for a second, think, and realize that this product just isn't ready to see the light yet? I'd rather sacrifice a few dozen (or even a few hundred) likely candidates to download my product and not realize what it was perceived to be due to shoddy scripting, textures, animations, and voices.

Modders have to keep it up with the game developers.So their mods can be played in order to do that they need to use advanced technologies which are expensive(economically) and hard to develop.So my decision is "Gotten harder (more complex games and competition)"

I'll agree that modding has become easier with better tools, but I'll disagree that it out ways the huge difficulties created by the requirements of having better looking content. A 500 polygon character model with a 512x512 texture just doesn't cut it anymore(unless we're talking about rts games :P)

It definitely feels the same to me.

Harder modding for newer games? 'tis true.

Plus not everyone can get the tools necessary. Mostly why I keep to my Half-Life 1. The level of detail is good to me and I'm an old-skooler anyhow.

Even though, it is exciting to see the graphics and have them at disposal, but making your own packs can get costly on both time and file size, also difficult to drop it off on the internet.

is Mangopork the only one with sense here?

Guys. Modding hasnt gotten any harder. Your EXPECTATIONS OF YOURSELF , and where you feel the bar is for quality, in particular respect to graphics, has.

I see so many mods that do little more than release 9 000 000 polygon models every week for a year, and then give up. Why? Because in their fervor to rub shoulders with Crysis, they forgot that without actually making a functional prototype first, and THEN worrying about visual fidelity, they are doing themselves a great disservice.

It's easy to get discouraged when you notice that your mod doesnt live up to the visual quality of Call of Duty 4, or doesnt have the AI of F.E.A.R whatever. Get over it. Stop crying, and start making intelligent, streamlined, SIMPLE mods.

I think there should be a modding competition where people try to *intentionally* make the ugliest, most retro looking mods, but as a condition, these mods have to have rock solid,enjoyable, and replayable gameplay.

And yes, this is coming from an artist.

From a mapping standpoint, it has gotten easier depending on which editor is used. I'm not familiar with coding though, but with more complex engines, I assume it's more difficult.