Mod-to-mod online content trading? Thread

Hi all.

Consider a common problem: among mods of the same genre, such WW2, medieval, space, or ancient mods, (especially on the same engine) many features overlap and have to be completely independently developed by each mod team, often with few experienced, skilled people at the ready.

An 'ancient' mod (Rome, Greeks, etc.) for HL2 or BF2 will (usually) have to develop their own systems which rely on good coding: weapons modifications (proper curvature on missiles), vehicles, respawns, HUD, and the like.

Of course you also have the meat and bones of the mod: the art content. It bewilders me the number of M16 and MP5's (Popular modern weapons) I have seen as media from mod teams, which are all independtly sketched, modelled, skinned, animated, and coded, with varying degrees of success.

Whilst weapons are an easy aspect of mods to focus on, the number of other miscellaneous items and features which must be developed (especially for mods set in different eras to their original game) is also quite high.

I will get to the heart of my discussion: instead of mod teams independently creating every single map, sound, interface, weapon and the like, why not collaborate online? A mod team could request some kind of new melee system from another mod, or just a simple weapon model, or a sound. Obviously it would be up to the mod team whether to share their work or not. It could work on a kind of IP (Intellectual Property) trade system: my mod team whill exchange a weapon model for your high-definition recordings of the weapon, for instance.

With this kind of system in place we would:
- Fuel innovation, as less time would be required on the simpler, more basic aspects of the mod. For example, independent coders could create a totally unique mod without needing a dedicated artist.
- Improve release times: with part of the 'work' already achieved.
- Play higher quality mods: with only the best quality work being exchanged, and the more time available for their own creative work, modders can spend more time and effort on other mod objects.
- Ability for 'freelance modding'. Teams can request some kind of specific object or feature for their mod, such as a solution to a particular coding issue, a map, sounds or a weapon model. Instead of going through the sometimes bewildering process of joining a mod team you often know very little about, modders can contribue to the community at a more personalised pace which will obviously appeal to many, and act as an oppurtunity for a first introduction to the mod development. If a content contributor later finds they like the way a specific mod is being developed, they can present their work already accepted by the mod team, and join it officially.

Some may argue that 'all mods will look, sound and play the same'. I disagree. Weapon models can still easily be animated independently, and sounds can be modified by sound artist. Mod teams can be focused on how to use their mod assets intuitively, instead of simply having them there for the player to interact staticly with. The way mod teams integrate the individual components of each aspect of the mod into something playable will have the biggest effect on the quality and indivuality of the mod rather than who mapped what or who recorded which sound.

Of course, there are some potential issues with a new system and community revolving around sharing and trading:

- Credits. This should be a simple issue, just document who developed which specific aspect of the mod, or which 3rd party team was responsible for which background feature.
- Loss of independence? Some may feel that unless their mod is entirely created independently by their own team, it will be unworthy. If that is your view, don't engage in trading or sharing mod content.

Some kind of centralised community where this can be introduced would change the overall mod scene greatly. Modding would become more public, and mod teams could be involved in the co-support of a 'sister' mod, for example. Mods with similar themes could realise the greater ability they would have if they merged together, to complete a higher-quality mod.

It doesn't take much thought to realise I am suggesting MODDB integrate this. A place where mod developers can engage in the business of their mod rather than just posting news will, in my view, make MODDB a much more important and popular website.
Perhaps some kind of special forum, to faciliate mod content trading, with the physical transfer of content left up to mod teams.

This could possibly mature into a kind of game content 'stock' exchange. Clearly this is just speculation.
I have voiced my opinions and ideas. What are yours?

In many games mod development works exactly this way.

In Unreal for example any mod is decompilable so you can see how they did it and do it yourself.

In the Quake engine, where the engine source has been released, it is very common for modders to leave their projects open source (in fact all engine mods have to be), and it's considered notmal to allow people to use your models etc for their own mods if they ask, provided they give credit. There are also a couple of free model pages where people have made Quake models for public use in any mod.

Unfortunately, with many more modern engines the modding teams feel they are competing with each other, and so refuse to share content. This leads to an awful lot of mods not being finished for lack of one member.

I am behind this proposal 100%. I think by friendly, collaborative modding we'll see a lot more mods finished. Seriously, who can tell the difference between 2 MP5 models? Why not use the same one and change the skin a bit? I can guarantee that noone will notice the difference.

Happens this way in most of the smaller communities, where all the tutorials come out of big mods or modders.

sounds like you want to turn moddb into polycount

There is a massive amount of "free with regards" media out there, people use place holders all of the time, and many teams do release lengthy discussions on how to accomplish what they have. The problem is that as a game progresses, it should have original content, granted all of them use an m4 or m16, why not just use another model, well, the key is flow between them and saying it is yours. Also, creating the host of models for many games is often easier than programming for it, plus numerous features don't work well together just taken at hand and must be modified or built from scratch anyway. A few might hold it to themselves, but, that is sort of a self defeating purpose in the realm of mods, most don't just throw it out though until someone asks, and alot of people don't want to ask.

My mods currently linked with two mods, although we don't trade with one of them trading is thriving with the other. We swap skinning and mapping specialists for weapons and vehicle models.

It's happening alot more than people think, it's just that people are reluctant to tell the community "Oh we have the exact same weapons model as them, they have the same skin as ours but it's modified to suit their taste" as people tend to look down on it.

I still believe something like this could be successfully integrated into MODDB.

I definitely seeing this helping not hurting. Why not start your own site, organize assets by category (player model, bot model, Weapons---> WWII, Fantasy.

This would be great.

I'd rather have unique content for each mod, IMO.

CyanideCotdPnuts wrote: I'd rather have unique content for each mod, IMO.

Yes, we all would in theory, but in practice there are a lot of mods which don't have all positions filled. Isn't it better that we see more mods actually released, even if they don't all have totally original content? I'd much rather see that than yet more dead mods.

Exactly!! Just collating behind-the-scenes work, which the player don't see constantly (such as textures) would decrease the amount of time and 'needless' effort needed to create a mod.

With player models, sounds and textures already available for fair use, individual 'genius' modders can create awesome mods, which may not see the light of day if full-on mod team is required.

There are loads of material sharing sites out there; shaderlabs and polycount for two simple examples - it's just that many mods don't want to share their hard-worked material with others. Why should your team spend hours working on a perfectly produced model for example, only to have a small, totally noobified mod take it over and reimplement it in their own work?

If they trade something in exchange for it.

Perhaps, but I find it unlikely that two mod teams would both want two things the same in a suitable enough format to deal with the conversion between two titles; and if they are suitable for conversion between, why aren't they collaborating on the same project, combining the elements of either into the whole? It doesn't seem practical.

It's a great idea and it could work well for some aspects. Ambience Sounds, snippets of code, models and map textures would all work well and wouldn't make the mod too unoriginal. Whole maps, GUI (general 2d art) and model skins would be a different matter.

Under the surface items could be the same as long as the visible things are changed, for example.

A weapon model is shared, but each mod has a different skin.

Or, 2 mods have different maps but use some of the same textures.

It would be the same, but not enough for people to really notice any different.

And I do agree that mods should begin to trade pieces and even members on ocassion (like we're doing at the moment) as it's increased our production by around 200%.

I don't think it would be wise to upload all your mods content onto a site then everyone can take what they want however.. I think it should be done personally. A site would be fine but they would have to contact one another, exchange material/staff but that's as far as it should go.

I like the idea of every mod being unique but if your mod uses the same style, models, maps or whatever, I don't see any reason why the 2 can't share certain material.

ambershee wrote: Perhaps, but I find it unlikely that two mod teams would both want two things the same in a suitable enough format to deal with the conversion between two titles; and if they are suitable for conversion between, why aren't they collaborating on the same project, combining the elements of either into the whole? It doesn't seem practical.

You're saying you don't think 2 different HL2 mods might both want a similar weapon model? I think you're way off given the number of renders of identical looking mp5's we get on this site.

seeing the same content from one mod to the next is a real turn off, like the people who made public enemy using their weapon models in brainbread.. and its there own mod! nevermind seeing someonoe else's work just thrown into your own.. yes, it may be "more work" to get a model made from scratch. but if you are in the style of just halfassing absolutely everything then dont even bother. at least try to make your own material before just going to your favorite mod and snagging their models.. and seriously, give credit? i don't know about you, but credits.txt isn't appealing. and even if i was interested in who made it, the mod gets credit for looking good. not the people who make the models. open source is awesome. but taking models because you cant make your own or don't want to put the time and effort into making one is just silly.

Edited by (in order): ChrisPage, ChrisPage

We're not on about "Everyone posts a model or two, someone comes along and takes all the models, maps, textures, code on the site then use it to make their own mod" We're on about "Mods are short-staffed (lets face it, everyones short-staffed due to the amount of mods) so some people 'trade' items of which they can't yet produce put it in their mod until they can produce their own. In turn making mod production higher and giving the mod more life"

Theres some different views on it but the latter is what people are really on about.

I for one wouldn't take everyone elses content. I would only take what I would need to get started until I had the staff and resources to do my own.

I would only take what I would need to get started until I had the staff and resources to do my own.

you just shot yourself in the foot there.. if you are only using their models until you can make your own its kind of stupid to even bother.. and it also proves people dont want to learn anything new themselves. they just want to "get more staff" aka "have someone else make their idea come to life"..

pffft.. if thats what you mean by opensource then i hope this doesn't happen.. ive already seen enough mp5's and m4a1's.. at least have a different variation for it from game to game..

I shot myself in the foot? rofl.. Explain how.

You're just turning this into a flame war because people aren't seeing it YOUR way. Content trading is a good idea for mods in the early stages, I don't see how using someone elses models for example until you have your own is a bad thing. I also don't see how that means "people don't want to learn for themselves". If they're taking the model then working on that, to get their OWN content like I said, then they ARE making an effort.

This is my point though, what you're talking about is a resource sharing site - they exist already. Mod to mod content trading is something different, and impractical. Mod teams don't want to give other mods their hard work, and it's unlikely that they'll find something they want in return that's suitable. This is my issue, and I don't think it'll be resolveable.

I'm sure people can, in fact I know people with different mod idea's can trade goods.

I do it with WOTA mod, wanna say that we're not doing well because we swap staff here and there because we're short-staffed. Or that with a few weapons in our lists are the same, so we use the same model but a different skin. And this is wrong?

We do it very effectively and I for one don't care what anyone thinks. It can work if both mods make it work. I agree that not everyone can have items/staff who have the same interest and can always compliment one another with a few tidbits, I'm simply saying it can and does work if both mods make an effort.

WOTA is a post apocalypse mod and we're a realism war-based modification, both set in different times, settings, countries and histories.

And by the way, I do think a site won't work, as I mentioned before it would have to have more of a personal agreement to trade items. Letting some site do it will just allow the exact same stuff to pop up everywhere.

Nemor wrote: I shot myself in the foot? rofl.. Explain how.

You're just turning this into a flame war because people aren't seeing it YOUR way. Content trading is a good idea for mods in the early stages, I don't see how using someone elses models for example until you have your own is a bad thing. I also don't see how that means "people don't want to learn for themselves". If they're taking the model then working on that, to get their OWN content like I said, then they ARE making an effort.

if you are going to replace their models with your own content then why even bother taking their's in the first place? personally, id be happy to know someone used my work on smaller projects. but if i were to ever take on anything a little more serious id want my work to be my own. and even if it can be used in other mods. id hope those members would respect my wishes not to use them. i dont work several hours, modelling, uvmapping, skinning, animating, and coding weapons in so that some lazy modder can just copy it into their mod directory completly removing the whole idea of "modding" to begin with. if you dont want to work, dont mod.. simple as that.

I understand your views on "If you're going to go over it why bother" but it lightens the load and boosts team spirit I guess..

And that's your view on this whole concept, I wouldn't expect everyone to readily give out work that's taken them many hours..

It also prevents you from easily slapping your ownership rights to your media :/