Would you mod console games if the platform was open like the PC?
with 10,607 votes
My biggest development challenge is
Poll started by INtense! with 2,977 votes and 74 comments. Browse the poll archive.
Hitting deadlines (409 votes)
Staying focused (1260 votes)
Learning the tech / art skills required (1105 votes)
Communication (lanaguge / timezone issues) (203 votes)
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I find out of all of them, staying focused and motivated is the hardest aspect. It's easy to lose faith in yourself if for example; your team members are inactive.
oh jeez, everything would be so much easier if i could just find a good team. one man can only do so much. so many of my projects have failed because i've lost contact with my team members or just the simple lack thereof. for example, my current mod is dead because i couldn't find people to help so i lost interest :(
Well this requires more focus and dedication, but just work alone and you don't have the stress of juggling a team, let alone juggling assets etc when you do it all yourself.
I find it much better that way anyway.
Of course if you find people out there who are just as dedicated as you are then you can form a really easy to manage team and have a great time getting work done, plus there is the whole team motivation factor which basically means everyone in the team encourages one another to get work done, and things are alot more easier, fun, and exciting.
But yeh...if you want to avoid the crap with teams, then you have to go it alone, however that requires alot more dedication and concentration/focus in order to learn the abilities in order to everything yourself.
Anyway...all of the choices listed have an effect on focus and concentration, and it works both ways...without the focus and concentration, it's hard to hit deadlines, learn skills and communicate properly.
well, yes, i could work alone, but that would greatly limit how ambitious my mod/game can be. if i'm doing a mod for a 3d game, i will most certainly need a team since i know nothing about modeling and texturing or even programming for a 3d environment. currently i've decided to start my own 2d game from scratch. since i do all the programming that should limit the number of people i need for a team to about 1 or 2 other people for the graphics. 2d is a much more manageable aspect for me to work in. plus 2d games are just plain awesome
Agree, idea realization in-game is exhausting process, and, by the time I've got in the middle of process, I start to get new, better ideas, that don't fit with previous ones...
I'll second that. An option "all of the above" would fit much better a lot of modders. Including me.
Have to agree with that. When somebody with a key skill becomes inactive its a real blow to the head. We have a great team, but staying focussed is hard when the mod tools are shite and the work is tedious.
that last one for sure. Drastically different timezones is the killer of my creativity-related communication, often leaving me to do more projects i can do with those I can actually communicate with
Why the hell did someone give this a (-)?
Definitely communication... If there was some common time that all could meet or even sit down and talk face-to-face, it would've made it more streamlined.
Instead, we end up trying to explain ourselves via abrupt episodes of the original ideas.
Communication is the largest roadblock, but none of the rest are easy either, that's for sure.
I tend to have problems hitting deadlines when I don't feel inspired about whatever I'm working on, it's an issue I need to overcome.
In my opinion it is the Timezone issues.
staying focused/motivated as danpearce had said is the hardest. Inactive members are one contribution (especially if it is in a field you don't know much about - and there is only so much you can do on a massive project on your own, in a realistic timeframe). However I think continued failing of features within the game or mod can also be quite a drag and people are likely to lose focus/motivation thereafter.
Staying focused for sure.
Hitting deadlines is difficult but I only work at projects were this topic is no so hot. The biggest challenge for me is learning the skills required when it comes to new tech or more detailed art for such insane engines like Cryengine or UE3. I have a real problem to create good looking textures for such games :/
Communication (language / timezone issues) wanna know almost every language so that I dont stand with some one and trying something stupid so he understand me and I understand him
In Indie-Game and Mod Development, deadlines are made by the author himself. They do (mostly) not have any commercial consequences (as for big companies), that's why I never set deadlines for myself - I announce release dates only when I'm sure the thing is done and all I need to do is some last optimizing.
I feel staying focused is extremely hard because high creativity means having nearly no limits of ideas... and not knowing which of those fit to the game and which not. There was a nice article about that here on ModDB, last week it was, I think.
Timezones definately.
God damn those time zones, I wish everybody just... lived in one massive tower block in one timezone.
Wouldn't that be quite a sight? xD 6.7 Billion People living in one tower lol
there was something like that on a comic called spirou et fantasio
a dictator named Z, controlled the time with a giant clock called horloge
destroying the difference between an hour & 100 years
Learning the tech / art skills in my opinion, quality is sometimes key so making your 'product' more appealing is sometimes difficult in comparison to others and keeping one step ahead is just that little bit more challenging.
Plus if your product is open source you wanna make sure you have the skills to keep your code clean so that others can read it.
Staying Focused... I cant seem to stay on a decent weapon, I end making some random over powered killeverythingonthemapatonce weapons.
Learning how to use the programs is very very hard, because everything is in english.
For me it's when i found a difficult glitch and i can explain it in my Mother Language, But cant find the right words in English...
And staying focused to watch for em its sometimes a problem...
To NeekoMasochist:
Just imagine the size of the tower XD
HeeHee "The Tower to god"
Btw when will it be fixed, so this bug doesnt show up?
I pressed Replay to comment and i ended up like a normal comment, I have Seen this glitch for a long time now!
My biggest development challenge is "staying focused". Whenever I'm developing something, there will be long breaks and then I start to work on my projects intensively - but only for a short time. I guess finding time for the project is the major problem. Sometimes I don't have motivation either. Another challenge comes from setting unreachable goals. I tend to add things (huge "improvements") to the to-do list before I can even complete the already existing ones. In conclusion, the biggest challenge is staying focused - in many ways.
Playing video games is the main distraction from actually making video games.
Yeah, and messing with the things you make, thats always fun... and QUITE a distraction.
Really, playing games are the main distraction from making games?
If i didnt play games, i sure as hell would have no interest in making them. The more games I play the more idea I get of what I want my games to be, and how I can make them better than most of the crappy games on the market.
Honestly, the reason people cant complete their mods these days, is because they require alot of knowledge and time and work, which most people cant spend all their time learning or working for free because they are trying to make money to survive.
But yes certain people with enough dedication and knowledge gained over decades of playing games, creating games, messing with art, programming, sound, level design, will have the know how to get the game done. Ive spent the last decade of my life making maps and small games and learning programming and art, and i did it for fun! I didnt do it for money, I didnt do it because i wanted to get hired by some tightwad who just wants to steal my money anyway! I DO IT FOR MY OWN PLEASURE.
To bad i cant be paid to make games, but hey ill find a job and just work on some stuff in my spare time, later on when im tired of working a 40 hour job Ill put those talents to use and come out with a game that people will be happy to spend their money on.
Until then, ill happily game most of my time away, because it makes me happy. Afterall thats why I am here, is to be happy. I just pray for everyone that our great worlds luxury's and pleasures wont be cut short.
I think "staying focused" is the FIRST challenge you encounter, not the biggest. Once you're able to focus beyond "OMG I have teh best mod idea evar", you come to find that the learning curve becomes your biggest obstacle (although that depends upon the scope of your ambition).
Staying focused on a project that's down to two people working on it. Blah
-> Hitting deadlines
I think the rest is just a question of leaking interest.
well hitting the deadline is a solvable issue,i mean u could just drink coffee and simply cut the sleep.but staying focused is the killer.i use music to stay focused but it helps just a little bit.
As a project leader myself I find the hardest part motivation, you need to somehow keep your team 100% motivated.
Giving them constant updates and telling them they are doing great motivates them to progress, work hard and continue delivering good work.
This is usefull because if you see their work that also motivates you as a leader to continue and put your best efforts into it.
I would put it down on artist skills. Dedication is usually not the problem but doing all alone is since no man is perfect in all fields required in game development.
I can't stay focused! D:
Like most people here, staying focused on a project can be really hard. Especially when I get a new game.
Focus is really a key feature fora project.
like me I already have a pile of unfinished projects that date to 3 years ago.
"Communication (lanaguge / timezone issues)"
Lanague...yeah... guess you've got some lanague problems here as well, huh? :D :D
Anyways, I can't really stay focused :) Working on so many projects is not that easy :/
1) It's a mod, you set your own deadlines. If you are unreasonably optimistic about what you can achieve then it's your won darn fault.
2) I find a monthly moddb news post is both a distraction and a motivator. It takes me away from working on the mod itself, however I find it motivates me to produce something each month to show our watchers. ( Duke Nuke'em Forever developers take note )
3) To run a one man mod you do need to learn a lot tech and art skills. New modders should realize early that you cant always recruit someone else to do parts of your mod for you (be it 2D,3D,Sound,Code,Admin) and you just have to jump in there and learn to do it yourself. More and higher quality documentation and tutorials can help with these kind of issues.
4) The Internet has brought us so many forms of communication, unless your team is REALLY widely dispersed this is not a major issue.
I would like to nominate a 5th issue:
5) Game / Engine updates (Steam!) that "move the goal posts" and break your mod. There is nothing you can do to stop them, no warning that they are coming and they can put you back months of effort. Grr...
lanaguge???
funny :D
my biggest problem is staying focused, I have days/weeks in which I'm very focused and get alot of works done, which is balanced out by days/weeks of barely doing anything(or sometimes even nothing)
I'm lucky to have such a good team working with me on Petrograd - they're all smart, dedicated and prompt with their work. The hardest thing for me probably is learning (and teaching my team) the CryEngine2 tech...we're kind of one of the 'pioneers' when it comes to high profile Crysis mods.
with most of the team at 5-6 time zones away from you, I'd say communication, but coordination inside the team can be sometimes quite an issue...
I find staying focused and committed to be the hardest for me.
All these people posting staying focused, for me it is the actual skill. I can spend hours upon hours attempting to understand programming, but it seems to never make sense.
or
trying to create a map. why would i make maps for myself and end up playing with no one. O_o
lol something happens to me. I not only do maps, but missions, too. And once they're released i hardly play them ever again (for fun, I mean. When I do is mostly to test a new feature or check for bugs...) but I think that's the beauty of it all...
Same here. I can stay focused. Its the learning what i need to do to mod the game. Thats my problem.
Although i have never really done anything officially, seeing as i'm completely new to this place, I'd just like to voice my opinions that i think of all the above, skills and focus are of the most importance. Skill because it generally dictates, more than anything else, the value and quality of the finished, product, and focus because well, you're not gonna do well if your interest isn't on the task at hand. Focus also affects meeting the deadline. As for timezones, i just think that it's a small roadblock that can cause a lot of problems if things aren't planned well, but can be overcome easily, if don'e right. Ah well, that's my first post right there, hope i'm not blaspheming ;)