Hey Guys,

It's my first time posting here, I'm a long time fan of Polycount and it's fantastic community here, I just wanted to ask you guys your experiences with mod teams, since I know you a lot of guys came from modding background. I'd also love to hear on what made them successful and what to avoid.

I'm a recent graduate in Australia currently working as a 3D Artist at a studio called Catalyst Interactive in Australia that makes serious games for the military using CryEngine 3. Here's a link to my portfolio www.bugfush.com. Unfortunately the situation for the industry here down here in Aus hasn't been fantastic, so it's a bit of a problem in getting work that's not mobile gaming, although I like what the guys down down here, it's not I want to pursue exactly. I've worked with some mod teams before in the past, but unfortunately they've mainly fell flat for a number of reasons, ie; the leads of the projects suddenly disappearing off the face of the planet, having no real experience with programming or art, expecting to lead because he has an "idea" etc. These days, I try to be more cautious on who I do work for now, since time is precious & you really can't commit to doing pointless work for people. I guess I just want to ask the community here on their own experiences on what made the mod teams they worked on good or bad.

Thanks guys!

I was in a mod team... it's what launched me into 3D and helped build much of my skills. Unfortunately, the mod failed. It failed because of insane amounts of feature creep. Your mod team needs to establish clear, achievable, realistic goals. Otherwise, it can and will run itself into the ground by constantly changing the goals and repeatedly reinventing itself. The programmers will get frustrated about having to scrap things they worked on and start over so many times, and everyone else (including artists) will get frustrated with the lack of progress in other areas, despite the fact that they're doing their jobs. In the end the mod will never be done. It will be delayed over and over again and then die. That's what happened to us, at least.

If you find a team that is predominantly level-headed, mature people willing to spend the effort to make something cool, it's a fantastic experience.

If you discover you've hitched your horse to a bunch of megolomaniac 12-year-olds who spend their time making badly photoshopped banners and crappy websites before getting a cease-and-desist letter from 20th Century Fox, accepted practice is to duck out the back before the "mod-forum" meltdown.

Unless you can hitch your wagon to a mod that is already fairly developed or it's some project you really love, I would avoid it.

There's just no way to justify the gamble, your time is to valuable to waste it on something that will most likely fail.

Yeah I agree with DeadlyFreeze on this, you need to find a really serious and productive mod-team with everything sorted already otherwise it's usually not worth it. You can spend all that time without restrictions to level up your own skills and show everything off in your portfolio.

So yeah... only if you can find a really serious mod-team, well on their way. Showing proper gameplay footage of their content, not just ideas and concepts.

Thanks for the responses, really appreciate it! You guys are right, I think it is just pretty much trying to gauge whether or not they're actually serious about development, and whether they've got something like gameplay footage or something substantial to back them the credibility of their project. I'll definitely take this advice to heart when looking to join a team again.

even the most solid and serious looking projects are prone to major long lasting slowdowns and in some cases breaking apart.

When you got a bunch of volunteer people and each one of them has his life going on, it pretty much means some devs are inactive at any point in time. and in some periods all that inactivity piles up and causes a general lack of motivation.

Only thing you can do is to find a team that seems well organized and produces content with consistent quality, and hope that your guess is right.
There are projects that feel organized because of awesome art but once you get to see them from inside, it's clearly a directionless mess.

Try to find out how many long time members does the team have and if the project leader has some artistic or technical skillset.
if project has an experienced, dedicated core team, they are more likely to push the project through shitty times. as long as one of them can keep on producing and showing off high quality assets to the public, artists of similiar skill level will be drawn to the mod.

also, check if the leader has worked on something before. if he finished and released a project already that's obviously a sign of competence.

^ That's some great advance. I've been a part of so many mod projects in the past, and it all holds true. Another thing to look out for is a concept of scale and achievability. There are an awful lot of 'total conversions' out there that simply aim far too high to ever reasonably complete the project (Black Mesa Source is entering it's 10th or 11th year). If the game requires technical talent and doesn't have it, that can often also be a bad sign.

Also make sure the mod has at least one programmer already working on the mod, and not just a bunch of artists and 'game designers', who knows a bit of programming. Or else the mod has a big chance of just dying.

For a couple of months I was doing mod work for this group, but then I had to move house, which involved staying at my girlfriends house for at least 2 months while solicitors do what they do best. It was dead when I came back to it.

The problem I had with the mod was that the project leader thought the opposite way to myself. He seemed to think creating everything first before doing any engine work was the way forward, and while I was doing stuff for it, there wasn't any sign that any work on the game itself has been done. Maybe it's just me but I would've thought the art could come later. Props to the concept artist on the mod though, he did a lot of stuff, unfortunately the art side was the only stuff being done.

So my advice would be, try to see what they've done before joining, they should have something in-game to see and not just concept art.

Not exactly 'mod' experience, but if you get a bad egg on the team, someone who is not motivated and cannot work independently or collaborate well, he/she will unknowingly work to sabotage the project until it fails.

I made the mistake of trying to start a project with a programmer friend (since at the time I didn't program but could do the art-related work) and I thought we could tackle a small project given we both wanted to work on a game.

The thing is, some people just say and think they 'want to work on something'; in reality working on something is the last thing that they want to do, and they are going to shit on your project until it completely collapses, letting them flee back to playing league.

Often these people cannot seem to get excited for any project idea; they become a negative wall blocking progress. They will hate everything you suggest but will refuse to contribute any ideas/solutions/alternatives that they would find agreeable, and in the rare case that they do suggest something it becomes 'them versus you', they take it personally, clinging to wildly underdeveloped/misinformed ideas or ones that will produce a project that is destined to fail.

Just be careful on the types of personalities you bring to the project; the field of 'game development' tends to attract a lot of baggage.

I tried it once, I hated it because there was no clear art direction. They had this stupid system where everybody on the team had to give the OK for anything to go through. It felt slow and silly because most of the people on the team didn't have a clue.

I had the luck that both mods that i joined got released and were reasonably succesfull.
There are a few indicators that can tell you something about the prospects of a mod:
Is the leader just an "idea guy"? Then avoid at all costs. Ideally he's a hard working coder or artist with good communication skills and strong leadership.
Are the mods goals comparable to creating a AAA game despite only having a small team of amateurs? Then avoid. Most mods never see the light of day because the goals are completely unrealistic.
Check the portfolios and credentials of the team members. If they have already produced some nice art and maps and worked on an released mod before that's a good sign.
When all they have to show for are some ugly greyscale renders stay away. They don't know how to finish an asset then they absolutely don't know how to finish a mod.

Suppose you found a talented team and a promising mod then be ready to put even more hours and work in there then you anticipate at first. Working on a mod that will be released means to take responsibility. There will be times when development is slow, when the leader has a new girlfriend or important members get an industry job. If you want to see the mod released you must be willing to step in, work for two and if necessary take over the leadership. That's how it was for me when i worked on Insurgency. We didn't have enough env artists so i learned modelling and texturing. The leader was busy with college so i stepped in and lead the mod for a while even tho it wasn't my dream job at all. But in the end it paid off because we released despite all difficulties that we faced.

+1 about the leader, there needs to be someone actively giving orders, deadlines and kicking asses.

Originally Posted by Steppenwolf

I had the luck that both mods that i joined got released and were reasonably succesfull.
There are a few indicators that can tell you something about the prospects of a mod:
Is the leader just an "idea guy"? Then avoid at all costs. Ideally he's a hard working coder or artist with good communication skills and strong leadership.
Are the mods goals comparable to creating a AAA game despite only having a small team of amateurs? Then avoid. Most mods never see the light of day because the goals are completely unrealistic.
Check the portfolios and credentials of the team members. If they have already produced some nice art and maps and worked on an released mod before that's a good sign.
When all they have to show for are some ugly greyscale renders stay away. They don't know how to finish an asset then they absolutely don't know how to finish a mod.

Suppose you found a talented team and a promising mod then be ready to put even more hours and work in there then you anticipate at first. Working on a mod that will be released means to take responsibility. There will be times when development is slow, when the leader has a new girlfriend or important members get an industry job. If you want to see the mod released you must be willing to step in, work for two and if necessary take over the leadership. That's how it was for me when i worked on Insurgency. We didn't have enough env artists so i learned modelling and texturing. The leader was busy with college so i stepped in and lead the mod for a while even tho it wasn't my dream job at all. But in the end it paid off because we released despite all difficulties that we faced.

great advice. be picky and be willing to work like mad.

Originally Posted by Steppenwolf

. The leader was busy with college so i stepped in and lead the mod for a while even tho it wasn't my dream job at all. But in the end it paid off because we released despite all difficulties that we faced.

Unfortunately that didn't work on one mod I was on. The core leader got an industry job and could no longer lead the project. His fellow programmer didn't want to take over. So I had to.

It wasn't fun inheriting this project while attempting to get more coders and artists. While the original developers got new jobs or moved on. The day the project died was the day a meeting was planned and no one showed.

My advice? Find leads with consistent work already who aren't seeking a new job. Who have either already been married and settled down, or have no serious relationship going on.

Avoid students, people with or about to have fiances, and people who are actively seeking a career.

Just look at it as something fun to do that will result in portfolio pieces, if the mod actually gets finished that's an added bonus. I worked on more mods than I can count or even remember in the Quake 1 & 2 days, none of them ever got finished :P

Originally Posted by Steppenwolf

That's how it was for me when i worked on Insurgency.

That was an excellent mod, nice job! Us over at Fortress Forever were always sorta jealous of you guys getting a release spot on Steam ;-)

Justin totally has the right of it. It wont ever be a waste of time if, what you make for the mod your proud of and put it in your portfolio. Just make sure the team knows your intentions of showing off the work your doing, although i dont see many mod teams having issues with that.

Hey, thanks guys for the great responses I think that is a good attitude to take towards it when you're doing work for modding teams, just do it as a fun thing that will result in cool stuff to show in your portfolio, and if the game gets done, awesome!

Keep in mind that, depending on your role in the team, you'll likely also be doing lots of things that aren't much fun nor great portfolio pieces. But them's the breaks

I've tried both mods and indie game teams, and I personally feel that there needs to be two leaders for it to work. First, a Designer. This is the person who the project essentially belongs to - it's their baby. They are responsible for making the game fun. They're usually a strong programmer or engineer or both. The second is an Art Director. They might be the only artist on the project depending on the type and scope of the game, but if there is more than one artist it's even more critical for maintaining consistency in the art. The former calls the shots on mechanics, level design, etc. The latter makes decisions on aesthetics.

If either of those people aren't present and/or do not have some sort of proof (portfolio, etc) that they know what they're doing, I would pass.

We have a number of positions available on the cspromod. Check out the jobs page here. I can answer any question that you may have.

What Stepp said. I also started doing env work on Insurgency because we were short of env artists and because my PC could barely run the game back then :P It was a great experience and now I have the honor to work in person with some of the old school members of the mod.

One thing to expect when joining a mod, is that you will probably need to learn other skills to fill production gaps. That's a good thing. Always step up and take more responsibilities (if you can) and always try to deliver work on a constant basis. Nothing more annoying than members who promise a lot and never finish anything.

I worked on two mods, one of them got released (Insurgency) and another never saw the light of day (Citizen-132).

Although Insurgency set its goals pretty high, we always had a pragmatic approach to things. We were always iterating on maps and testing them early on. New code and weapons were added on a constant basis and and as soon as we moved to SVN we always had an up-to-date playable version of the game. Level designers had pretty precise list of assets needs for their levels, so it was just a matter of choosing what to work on.

Progress in a mod needs to be constant, otherwise team morale drops pretty rapidly. If the team is spending more time discussing design ideas than actually implementing them, then that's a bad sign.

Although the (very talented) team had awesome ideas for Citizen-132, we bit more than we could chew. We wanted to create a mod for HL2 before the game was even released. So when HL2 was delayed we split the team in two, one half working on a "demo" on the Half-Life 1 engine and another half working on a prototype version of the mod on the Far Cry engine. Of course neither of them ever got finished, even though we created a huge amount of content.

The team leader was just an ideas/marketing guy who would make infinite amounts of promises but never really did anything concrete for the mod. Anybody can have ideas, but implementing them is a completely different thing. We never really had playable versions of the game available at all times either.

Another thing to look for is if there are any experienced programmers in the project. An experienced programmer will know how to organize the mod's structure, provide playable builds etc... From all my experience in modding I can say that the biggest bottleneck is always coding, because artists are generally a lot easier to find.

All in all modding is a very fun experience if you join the right team with the right attitude. It's very saddening how the modding community is pretty much dead now

Hope that helps

Can I propose a different way to think about mods?

- You don't need a team to make a mod or a game. You only need as many people as you need. Sometimes that's just 1 person.

- You don't need to JOIN a pre-existing team. You can start your own project. Work on what you want to work on.

- Some projects don't need programmers. (90% of Half-Life 2 single player mods do not have custom code.) Other projects don't need artists or level designers. (To this day, Garry's Mod still ships with just 2 really plain maps with mostly stock assets.) You only need what you need.

- Some people make mods / games because they like to make them. They don't make them just to put something in a portfolio. Many have no interest in working in the game industry.

My recommendation would be to look for existing open-source games to join. There you can usually already download a working game which just needs help in the graphics department, so it is a pretty safe choice.

Disadvantage is that you will probably have to deal with not so great/unfinished tools (but this is something not too uncommon in the industry too) and you will not get experience working with a big name engine like UDK. However nowadays there are quite a lot of studios working with open-source graphics engines too, for example Torchlight was/is done with the open source OGRE 3D engine and knowing the insides of the Quake engines (now open-source) will probably not hurt either ;)

If you want I can point you to a few good examples, but even better would be if you had a look at the games presented on our blog: freegamer.blogspot.com
Or join our community of open-source game developers at freegamedev.net and have a look at the games we host.

Edit: Note however that most open-source games will require you to license your artwork under a creative commons license or similar.

Edit2: Opengameart.org is also a good place to get into contact with teams and releasing your creative commons licensed artworks.