What do you think about the new features? (Spotlight, reviews, previews, interviews, ModTV, Modcast, etc.)

If you've got some suggestions on what you'd like to see covered, or how to improve everything, then by all means throw them at us. We're open to suggestions, criticism and ideas on how we can improve everything. Obviously we can't cater to everyones needs, but if theres something glaring that we've missed, or something that could be done better, let us know

well, i like/play doom 3, quake 4, et:qw, quake 1, quake 2, darwinia, defcon, stalker & keep an eye on indy stuff.

those aren't really popular here (mod/news wise) so there's not much to talk about. :) Well, there is, but most of those communities are tight-nit. I don't read about a lot of mod news with those games here(q1-4, etqw, doom 3) because info isn't posted on moddb. normally it's planetdoom/quake or doom3world. Lots of it is "small" stuff that people normally don't bother pimping to much. IE: Planetdoom.gamespy.com

it's nothing to do with the delivery, just the content. well, i don't listen to podcasts of any kind, that has nothing to do with the content. :D just something I don't do.

Well, it's true, the Source engine does seem to dominate this site. But honestly, it's the choice of the developer to create a profile for it's mod or not. My approach is to post the file to as many sites as possible. That's why I'm here, when I could have definately settled for only planetavp.com, or avp2files.com . This site does offer some extra exposure.

I never mentioned source (was avoiding that!), but you're 100% right. This is more like a source mod promotion site because of it's popularity. :)

Still, I belive that the main issue is that the modders do need to put more effort in promoting their work. And one example that comes to my mind is Europe In Ruins, that was featured in modcast #3. It's a Company of Heroes mod, so no Source engine there.
Perhaps it is quite easy to work with Source, and that's why a lot of mods have Source as engine, I honestly don't know.
However, I feel that if you realy have something to show and you want to be in one of them modcasts/ModDB TV stuff, you will end up there.

the spotlight and the modcast talk about all mods released who put work into making a decent news post. We cannot help thos who do not help themselves.

I'm sure you *could* help, but it "needs work". Some people are just too busy getting on with the coding/modelling/animating of their mod to keep their profile in the news. They could use the PR a feature or preview would bring in to expand their team, but they never get those opportunities because you never seem to go looking for those mods.

If you picked a few random mods that haven't posted and news in the last month or so, PM them, email them, post on the profile, visit their website, join their forum say "Hi! Here's you chance for a moddb feature. What have you got?". You might find a few zombified mods, but I bet you'd find just as many doing interesting stuff.

I'd like to see these moddb features used pro actively, to grow and bond together the mod community rather than boosting the already high profile of a few "super teams".

Needs Work.

I respect your opinion and the angle you're coming from, but from the staff's perspective it's difficult to find these mods without some sort of exposure in the first place. If you are a small mod and you yourself can't afford to spend time on PR stuff, recruit for someone who can. If you don't want to put the effort into getting some degree of exposure in the first place (regular Moddb profile updates is enough to at least let people know you exist), then you don't deserve the attention.

I think the moddb team are doing a pretty good job of helping some of the smaller mods, they've certainly helped us (Jailbreak) a bunch, it's not like we're especially high profile.

if mods do seek exposure then myself and the other staff are more then happy to help, all it takes is a PM to Stenchy or myself and if you work along side us we can help get your mod the attention you want. In fact I've been short listing some mods to get known through a new ModDB TV feature called Sneak Peek (shouldn't be hard to work out what that one is about). So just contact some people, it's all about putting yourself out there and putting some effort into making yourself known.

Yeah, there are just so many mods around that its impossible to go contacting every single one of them anyway. I agree with Crispy. All it takes is a little bit of effort on one developers part to put something together that looks good and its going to catch someones eye. If someone isn't willing to put in the effort to make themselves look good, I don't think its right for us to try and carry them.

Wraiyth, i'm not suggesting they visit each and every mod in person all at once, that would be madness. Just making it part of the routine running of the site to visit a random (quiet) mod once or twice a week would be enough to bring a few hidden gems to light.

It's not that I don't appreciate how much effort it must take just to maintain a site like this, but it comes across as rather arrogant as a news site to expect the news to come to you. Think the BBC just sits there waiting for people to tell them news stories? No. They have reporters looking for the news.

Strangely enough most news on the BBC almost certainly isn't found by investigative journalism. A lot of news is generated by tip-offs. I think I remember hearing that the major newscasters were slashing their investigative journalism budgets (perhaps because the Internet has provided a very easy method of sharing information).

If you write a newspost for a mod that you really want to be seen, it's merely a question of spamming all the news inboxes of the main online news portals, that's what they're there for. They need news that comes to them because it makes their jobs easier. Generally if you give someone the easy option they will usually take it. It's how life works.

'Sneak Peak' sounds like a step in the right direction.

I can't avoid the feeling that you may be missing my point. These hypothetical modders are already making the effort to mod, that they've taken time out to make a moddb profile at all is some PR effort (even if it's not a sustained effort).

Moddb staff actively seeking out news from such mods is really just meeting them halfway.

Too give you an idea, the staffers do put in quite a bit of work to the site. We do pm teams, we do ask them to fix up news posts, we actively seek new teams to do features on or get into the modcast. The thing is they either say "hell yea lets do this" and then that's all we hear from them or its no response at all. And believe me this is not just limited to small teams, the mod team behind AOC is one of the many extra content mod teams we endeavor to help out but they just never seem to come through, most of the time its to do with other things stopping them from helping out, or they don't want to work with us and make new content. These things don't come from nothing each video/modcast/preview/review has quite a bit of prep just to get mod teams wanting to put time into it.

To answer your question Moddb does go out on a limb trying to get the content for you guys, its up to the mod teams to want to participate in the whole thing. Sure we may miss a few but that's because we are doing other things as well (plus we are only human). And don't get me wrong I know where your coming from its frustrating to see only the larger titles on the front page (it only takes a splash of colour other then the text upon text that we tend archive), but be that as it may those are the teams that have the drive to seek out this exposure. It might seem like a big ask, to make a half decent news post after the months and months of work but its possibly one of the most important aspects of being a modder!

Sorry I have rambled :P

As being someone on the end of one of these emails, I can confirm this is what happens :)

ahah we would but the thing is myself and ryan are at 2 ends of the earth and all the interviewees are also scattered along the globe. Video just wont work.

In what way?

ModDB TV will have its own channel soon.

imho moddb should stick to just mods. every other site has stuff about the games themselves.

We are way ahead of you, we normally focus on getting the entire dev team in a game before we pass judgment.

thats great :)

Domipheus said: "As most of these mods are still in dev, it needs to be a 'to the future' type review, of what the team are trying to do, so organising it so there could be lots online at that point would be a plus."

I disagree with you there. Reviews shouldn't be previews. If something is getting reviewed on what's available, then that's all the review should be based on. But on the flip side, reviews shouldn't be on something that's still highly fluctuating. IE I would never review WoW for planetquake. It's no where near done & it hasn't been out long enough. If it was out for a few months & there's no other activity on it, then I'd assume it's a "final release" & review it. I'd try to review it as someone who wanted to play, wouldn't want dev interference. That's not what the "average player" gets, I don't want it.

Part of my review would be how easily it can be played. IE if it needs a server with 5 people to be fully enjoyed, i'll say that in my review. If I didn't get that many people & felt that was why it wasn't as fun, I'll say that (did it for the Airquake variant for Q3A. said 2 players sucks but more would be better. That team still felt that wasn't fair but hey, if I can't find a full server/fill up my own server then I use what I got)

You have a point, but then again one could say the review is to get a mod's name out there, to grab player attention and bring more people to the community. Its not fair to go on a new mod, which has enough features to do a decent review, if there were say 16 players on the server, but instead give it a damning one because the community was only in its infancy. No one likes playing on a server with no one else, when the whole point is for it to be quite busy :)

that's the thing, *I* wouldn't hold that against it. Others would (aka bad reviewers imho) The only reason I read a review is to see if it's worth playing. For mod's I read reviews for entertainment (hey, it's FREE, why not try it anyway) AND info. Reviews should be as objective as possible, previews can be laced with all the name drops & what not. :D

Nice one, tis a good review.