“People accept only that person as their leader who is radiant with good karma.”
This little guide is for people new to making a modding team.
It's for people tempted to write something like this:
I've got a great idea for a mod :D
I Need:
- Programmers
- Character artists
- Mappers
- Voice actors
- Texture artists
- Sound engineers
- Animators
- Writers
- Video editors
- Web developer
It's a very tempting to ask for such a lot of people.
Lets look at the balance of that team request:
It is close to being balanced, i have a feeling Karma will not help this mod.
Lets look at another team request:
I've got a great idea for a mod :D
So far i've done:
- mod designs
- character designs
- map designs
- written the script for voice actors
- finished the story
- found hosting for the website
and would like some help with other things!
Strange, this request has focused on the work already done.
The balance of that team request might look a little like this:
It's all out of balance. Will the Karma come to this persons rescue? I think it might :)
When making a request for new team members, showing the work you've already done is a huge positive for prospective helpers.
“By the karma of good actions, some come to serve the leader.”
In the Moddb.com forums it was suggested i post this up as an article thingy :)
Umm, I am having a tough time fully understanding this article.
What about Karma?
You basically say, If you are going to ask for X amount of help, you should provide X amount of work done prior. This is a no brainer statement.
I fail to see the actual content. I find my self saying to myself "wtf is this guy talking about" when it comes to the word "karma." In fact, the name is almost misleading to the ModDBs known and often over used Karma system.
Good effort, but there are other "start modding the right way" article that get the point across much better.
The ModDB staff evidently liked it if they felt it could go on the front page.
I think he has a point.
"tutorial : a session of intensive tuition given by a tutor to an individual or to a small number of students"
This article is more of a single piece of advice than a tutorial. When I came to it I was really hoping it would be a piece about keeping balance in a mod team (i.e. picking a good blend of team members).
The 'karma' reference is ill-chosen. If you wanted a better name for it, it would be: Inspiration. Nobody wants to join a mod whose leader isn't inspiring, and the best way to inspire allegiance in others is to demonstrate tangible examples of your hard work. If your mod lead is working constantly, you will feel inspired to keep working too. If your mod lead starts to slack off, others will follow this person's lead.
Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this article! Short, sweet, to the point and very fun too! And I think it IS something that needs to be said from time to time. Too many startup teams sadly waste people's time by setting expectations and aims way too high, and expecting/demanding other people do the real work.
An article like this is a great, fun way of saying "maybe, you should make a whole bunch of stuff first, and the karmic reward of doing this will be that a few GREAT team members will join your mod and make it awesome!"
I found it too short. And thus, didnt explain the "karma" very well.
Almost everything you said was not anywhere in the article. You simply made assumptions as to what the writer was trying to get across.
Nice article, I liked it, like Wills said it is something that needs to be said. A lot of people expect others to pull most of the weight in mod teams sometimes.
Gah, the downvoters got me. Well, I guess when the summary says "simple" he means simple.
I still prefer a guide with more content. I guess Im just spoiled by reading NinjaDave's article on Moddb.com
short but interesting
strangely my own mod goes against this stuff and a variety of other stuff given as advice and development is still going on after more then half a yeah, but yeah some good points! The more you've done already the more likely people are gonna help you.
I think the gist of what this article is saying is that you shouldn't expect others to do all the work for you. People are more likely to help a mod that's well defined and already has some work done. The whole "Karma" thing is a little confusing, as that's usually a reference to a moral cycle. Here I think it's referring more to work balance. The idea being that if you do a lot of work on the mod other people will put in a lot of work too. Again, that makes sense. But on the other hand it can be just as destructive to a mod if one person is trying to do everything. Personally I'd say to the second help request “what's left?” as this mod's leader seems to be doing everything now. This can we wasteful as bringing in new people inevitably means new ways of doing things. I think there's some room for balance of a different kind those cases.
Ahh... That makes sense. in a unique kind of way. lol
Thanks for clearing that up.
There should be a consolidation project for all the articles on "starting a mod."
Oh... I see, thanks for explaining it. I didn't quite understand the article either.
So true.
Very nice, simple, and straight forward article.
This is only one piece of advice, when beginning modders could use several, but I would argue that the point made in this little article is the most important one for noobs to know. Modding is 5% thinking of cool ideas and 95% doing work.
Thanks for the feedback :)
I'll try to be more deep and thorough in my next works.
that karma work stuff is just what i am passing through with my team, i began with an idea of a game, but for some reason i can´t pass to them the same will that i have.
Thanks for the nice article post
thank you, now I see why noone helps my mod