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Video game modding

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For case modders, please see Case modding
File:GTA Vice City modding - 2004 Banshee by Suction Testicle Man.jpg
2004 Banshee car modification for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - replacement of original Banshee by Suction Testicle Man

Mod or modification is a term generally applied to computer games, especially first-person shooters and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public, and can be entirely new games in themselves. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, modes, textures, levels, and story lines. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions.

Games running on a PC are often designed with change in mind, and this consequently allows modern computer games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add an extra dimension of replayability and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Bethesda Softworks (the TES-Construction Set), and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.

Mods can significantly outshine or continue the success of the original game. Playing a mod might even become more common than playing the unmodded original. In those cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the un-modded game when talking about playing a game. In some cases the term vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla Battlefield 1942", for example, refers to the original, un-modded game. For vanilla games, prefix "v" or "V" is commonly used together with acronymed game title, eg. VQ3 stands for "vanilla Quake 3".

Recently, computer games have also been used as a digital-art medium. See artistic computer game modification.

Partial conversion

The term partial conversion is used to describe a type of modification that changes only part of the underlying game. Many computer games allow their players to edit how certain functions of the game works, such as weapons, sounds, enemy behaviour and levels. Editing some of these elements while leaving the better part of the original game intact is usually referred to as a partial conversion.

An example would be changing a conventional deathmatch game to behave like a capture the flag game. This could include new levels (maps) containing two bases, new 3D models for the flag and editing of game code to understand how the flag is supposed to work. But the rest of the game world remains the same as the original game. Team Fortress, one of the most popular mods, is a partial conversion of Quake.

Total conversion

A total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces 100% of the artistic assets in the original game, as well as a good deal of the gameplay. Many games provide players with the ability to edit the game's many elements, for example levels, sounds, enemies or weapons. Most modifications are limited in scope, resulting in a partial conversion. Total conversions are much less common, mainly due to the large amount of development and man-time needed to bring a whole project together. Often the goal of a group that sets out to create a total conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the need to replace the original content to avoid copyright infringement.

In contrast, partial conversions may add new maps, or models, skins, and weapons. Some changes may be even smaller, such as changing the variables for physics, movement, or weapon qualities. In the Unreal engine, these smaller changes are sometimes implemented as mutators which can be selected in the administrator menu. Other mutators not considered mods include those that provide anti-cheater, mapvoting, and zero ping (client-side hit computation) functions.

An example of a well-known total conversion is Counter-Strike, which is based on the Half-Life engine. Half-Life is a linear, single-player first-person shooter with some puzzle solving, where you take the place of a character named Gordon Freeman. The earth is under attack by aliens, and the weapons used to destroy them vary between real-world and experimental. In contrast, Counter-Strike is a round-based, multiplayer-only game, based on realistic settings between Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. Gameplay is centralised around goals of disarming bombs or rescuing hostages, and all weaponry is modelled on existing arms — including design, use, and sound effects. Practically the only thing that Counter-Strike has in common with Half-Life is that Counter-Strike originally required Half-Life to be installed for it to run.

A few Total conversions have managed to become stand-alone games. Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with the original game, if the engine becomes Free Software, the Total conversion can be playable without having to own the original game. A few examples of these include the Tremulous mod for Quake 3, or the Dday: Normandy mod for Quake 2.

Development

A great many mods do not progress very far and are abandoned without ever having a public release. One of the most famous vaporware mods was Star Wars Quake, which was never released despite six years of development. Some are very limited and just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content and gameplay extensively. A few mods become very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the rights getting bought and turning into an official modification.

A group of mod developers may join together to form a mod team. An example is Team Reaction, one of the most prolific mod teams to date, most notably known for QPong and Jailbreak.

Mods are made for many first person shooters, most notably the series based on Quake, Doom, Tribes, Unreal Tournament, and Half-Life. Real time strategy games such as Warcraft III, Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations and the Command & Conquer series also have many mods.

Among popular mods, none is more well known than the Half-Life multiplayer mod Counter-Strike, which was released shortly after the original game, and upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated servers. Counter-Strike is probably the best example of a modification that turns into a retail game.

Mods in general are required to be non-commercial (free) when they include any parts from another mod, or the main game, which by their nature they always do. Some mods become open source as well.

Tools

Mod making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating mods for a game. An early mod making tool was the Bard's Tale Construction Set, released in 1991, which allowed users to create game designs in that series. Much more successful among early mod making tools was the 1992 Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures from Strategic Simulations, Inc., which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that was launched with the Pool of Radiance game.

Later mod making tools include The Elder Scrolls Construction Set which shipped with Morrowind, the Aurora toolset which was included with Neverwinter Nights, and the Valve Hammer Editor which is used to create maps for Half-Life and its sequel, Half-Life 2.

Mod-Friendliness of Games

The potential for end-user change in game varies greatly, though it can have little correlation on the number and quality of mods made for a game. For instance the Creatures 2 computer game executable was essentially an interpreter for the in-game scripting language, and could potentially have allowed almost any 2d game to be build upon its basis. Other games, such as The Sims, will allow modification to certain aspects, such as adding new items and clothes, but not others, such as altering a character's skills or occupation.

In general the most modification friendly games will define gameplay variables in text or other non proprietary format files (for instance in the Civilization series one could alter the movement rate along roads and many other factors), and have graphics of a standard format such as bitmaps. Civilization 4 was the most open of all, letting the user make entire scenarios and whole new sets of rules through Python. Publishers can also determine mod-friendliness in the way important source files are available (some programs collect their source material into large proprietary archives, while others make the files available in folders).

Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications, but often require expensive professional software to make. One such example is Homeworld 2, which requires the industrial-strength program Maya to build new in-game objects. However, there is a free version available of Maya and other advanced modeling software. There are also free and even open source modeling programs that can be used as well.

For advanced mods such as Desert Combat, that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy to import models to, is of little help when doing research, modeling, and making a photorealistic texture for a game item. As a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and capabilities have a dominating effect on if mods are created for the game by users.

A game that allows 'modding' can also be called 'moddable'. IE: Oblivion is very moddable, because it comes with a great editor. Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some people released their own modifications nevertheless. This shows that the word 'mod' has been picked up into language and bent in all ways thinkable.

Portability Issues

For multiplatform games, mods written for the Windows version have not always been completely compatible with the OS X and/or GNU/Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the relatively smaller marketshare of alternate platforms. For example Battlefield 1942, ported by Aspyr for OS X had file access issues specific to mods until the 1.61D patch. Unreal Tournament 2004 does not have a working community mods menu for the OS X version, and until the 3369 patch had graphics incompatibilities with several mods such as Red Orchestra and Metaball. In additon, mods which are compiled into platform-specific libraries, such as those of Doom 3, are often only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development tools are often availabe only on the Windows platform - id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and Epic Games' UnrealEd being the most notable examples.

Mod teams which lack either the resources or know-how to develop their mods for alternate platforms sometimes outsource their code and art assets to individuals or groups who are able to port the mod. Some mod teams such as the ones for Forgotten Hope and Red Orchestra have hired Mac-specific coders and have even purchased Mac hardware for testing purposes. The mod team which developed Last Man Standing Coop performed an in-house port of their mod, but encouraged someone else to create a Mac installion/launching utility.

The mod specialist site for Macs, Macologist, has created GUI launchers and installers for many UT2004 mods, as well as solving cross-platform conversion issues for mods for other games.

Unexpected consequences of modding

In January 2005, it was reported that in The Sims 2 modifications that changed item and game behaviour were unexpectedly being transferred to other players through the official website's exchange feature, leading to changed game behaviour without advance warning. [1]

Example mods for selected games

Battlefield series

Since its release in 2002, Battlefield 1942 has spawned a large number of modifications, especially total conversions. Battlefield mods tend to focus on changing the theme and balance (such as more realistic) rather than changing the game mission (conquest game mode). The highlight of most mods are unique vehicles and their use. Only a few mod teams started to port their creations to the Vietnam game, which may be one of the reasons the game sold relatively poorly in comparison to Battlefield 1942. Tons of new ones are announced for the newest game Battlefield 2, and many of the older mods from Battlefield 1942 that were reluctant to move to the Battlefield Vietnam engine have decided to move to Battlefield 2 instead. (See List of Battlefield 1942 mods and List of Battlefield Vietnam mods for a longer listing.)

Doom and Doom II

Main article: Doom WAD

Mods for Doom and Doom II that add or modify game content are often referred to as WADs due to using the WAD file format. The idgames archive contains over 10,000 WADs created from 1994 to present.

There also exist several Doom source ports which significantly modify the Doom engine to add support for new modes of gameplay.

Doom 3

Although Doom 3's capabilities as a mod platform were somewhat overlooked as a result of the release of Half-Life 2 and its associated development tools, there are a few mods for the game worth noting. Classic Doom 3 is a mod which overhauled the original episode of Doom, Knee Deep in the Dead, for use in the Doom 3 engine. Last Man Standing Coop is a mod which adds cooperative multiplayer to the Doom 3 and Resurrection of Evil campaign maps, in addition to a custom game-type which re-creates the adrenaline-pumping gameplay of Doom and Doom II.

Grand Theft Auto Series

PC version GTAIII based game engines, including Vice City and San Andreas, are flexible enough that the modders can put high detailed cars, detailed character and larger maps (depending on PC computer and video cards). Modification was not easy and it required some skills to do it and any mistake could lead to some bizarre results or worse crashing the game. The mods range from replacing vehicles, character and buildings to a total conversion. Most of these mods are created independently and often made as a hobby so the quality may vary depending on author's experiences and skills.

Some of the examples are:

  • GTA: Myriad Island - It claimed to be the largest GTA mod and it comes with new maps and cars[2].
  • GTA: Long Night Zombie - Came earlier before Capcom's Dead Rising. It converts Vice City with an original storyline, turning pedestrians and gangs into zombie and eliminating daytime.[3]
  • GTA: Liberty City - (Not to be confused with Liberty Stories) It converts Vice City to GTA III using newer Vice City engine. The conversion replaced the lead character and maps while retaining the pedestrians and gangs. The improvement over the original GTAIII including better graphics and faster gameplay.[4]
  • Hot Coffee mod - The infamous mod that created controversy all over the world.

Half-Life and Half-Life 2

Mods range from simple mutators to total conversions that feature extensive game engine modifications, due in part to the remarkable flexibility of the games engines. Many mods have significantly different gameplay and features beyond thematic changes. (See List of Half-Life mods for a longer listing.)

Quake III Arena

Some notable mods for the Quake III engine.

  • Weapons Factory Arena - A Capture the Flag class-based modification, sequel of Quake II's modification Weapons Factory.
  • Loki's Revenge CTF - A team-based Capture the Flag modification and tribute to the popular Quake II modification Loki's Minions CTF.
  • CPMA (also referred to as ProMode) - A competition oriented deathmatch mod, adding the best elements from all the games of the Quake series to Quake III Arena.
  • Bid For Power - A Dragon Ball Z style martial arts combat game.
  • Reaction Quake 3 - A team-based total conversion, based on the popular Quake II modification, Action Quake 2.
  • Excessive Plus - All weapons mods excessive, turning each game into a crazy fragfest, including advanced new visual layouts, new gametypes and a new name code system.
  • Urban Terror - Team based combat with modern firearms.
  • Generations Arena - A class-based modification in the spirit of the original Generations mod for Quake II, which allows players to fight as a character from previous id Software games using its own weapons and more.
  • DeFRaG - A mod in which players can train their trickjump skills and compete in several kinds of parkour.
  • Epic - An excessive clone that allows admins to change weapon firing rate, damage, projectile speed and more while still keeping the look and feel of the original excessive.

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Reworks the siege game type into a class based, point allocation system. Features a totally reworked saber system, considered by many to be far superior to Jedi Academy's. Classes include Soldier, Elite Trooper, Jedi/Sith, Mandalorian, Clone Trooper, ARC Trooper, Droideka, Super Battledroid, Hero, Bounty Hunter and Wookiee. Featured maps include Duel of the Fates, TantiveIV, Jabba's Palace, Cloud City, Hoth and Tatooine.

Makermod- A mod desined by a player nicknamed Toast, this mod allows you to build and use cheats on an Multiplayer server. the building part of the mod is used for roleplaying, and making houses, ships, bars, jails, and other things. This mod can be unstable at times for it is still in the beta and is still being worked on.

Lugormod- A mod made by a player of unknown nickname, this has a money system and is good for rping. there is no real goal except to gamble and get credits. there is a building mod on it too, but only admins can build. Also, many players regard it as an inferior mod because it is very open to abuse and the concept is "Just plain idiocty" by some players because you have to "lame people for 5 credits."

Thief series

In Thief, mods come in the form of 'fan missions'. There are over 500 fan missions currently available. Most fan missions are original in design in regards to layout of a town, the landscape, buildings, interiors, the placement of characters and items and storyline. Many include objects, characters, music and special effects that are original with the fan mission authors. A typical fan mission will take up to 4 hours to play to fulfil the mission objectives, and they are usually replayable at higher difficulty settings.

Thief: The Dark Project (1998) has about 100 fan missions available. Thief Gold (an updated version of the first) has about 40 fan missions available. Thief II: The Metal Age (2000) has over 380 fan missions available. After the release of the third game - Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004), an editor has been released and already a number of fan missions have been created for that game as well.

A few examples of some of the best fan missions available:

  • Calendra's Cistern
  • Calendra's Legacy
  • Equilibrium
  • Gathering at the Inn
  • The Inverted Manse
  • Raid on Washout Central
  • Ranstall Keep
  • The 7th Crystal

For a complete listing of fan missions available, visit Cheap Thief Missions. To acquire all available fan missions without having to download them, check The Keep Of Metal And Gold.

Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic II

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KoTOR) modding began at the Holowan Laboratories forums, which are part of the StarWarsKnights.com site, by the end of the year 2003 when some users started releasing small mods using tools made primarily for Neverwinter Nights. On January 19, 2004, Fred Tetra, a professional software engineer and member of the StarWarsKnights.com forums, released a first version of KoTOR tool, a utility which made access, extraction and editing of KOTOR's textures, models, scripts, etc more accessible to the general public. Since then, the modding community got more organized, Kotor Tool has developed into a nearly complete toolset and others such as tk102 and cchargin have also created several utilities to add more possibilities to KotOR modding and making it appealing to KotOR fans of all ages and backgrounds.

KoTOR's override folder allows easy activation of these edited files because when those files are put into the override folder the folder (as the name suggests) overrides the games original files and uses the edited files if the file is the same name and type that the original is.

Some sample KotOR mods taken from different areas of modding:

  • Darth Revan Reincarnate by Lil'Jawa. While fairly basic, the was first mod publicly released for the game. The mod allows the player to begin the game as a Jedi and select his alignment. Several more developed mods released afterwards were based on this mod.
  • Talchia's hardcore mod tweaks the AI to make the game more difficult.
  • Holowan Plug-In by T7Nowhere: this mod is a compilation of many early Kotor mods made by different modders to ensure compatibility. It includes reskins, an arena for battles, recruitable characters, a few additions to the storyline and tons of new items.
  • Darth333's All-In-One force powers mod for KoTOR 1 is also a compilation of mods made by several modders but this time it includes new force powers and items.
  • Redhawke's Planet ORD Mandell adds a new planet and sidequest to the game.
  • Prime and bneezy's Imperial Stormtrooper Conversion mod transforms the Sith Soldiers into Stormtroopers.
  • The Ultimate Saber Mod for KoTOR 2 is a series of new lightsaber models and includes some mini quests.

A nearly exhaustive list of KoTOR mods sites, including modders personal websites can be found here. Several tutorials and most modding tools can be found at the Editing Forums at StarWarsKnights.com.

Total Annihilation

Total Annihilation (TA) is one of the most moddable games there is, with already over 2,400 custom units, one hundred mods, and a dozen custom races available for download. Some well-known TA mods and total conversions: (See List of Total Annihilation Mods for a longer listing.)

Unreal Tournament 2004

  • Alien Swarm - Top-down coop total conversion where a team of up to 8 marines battle their way through alien infested levels. Alien Swarm's fan community created a full expansion called The Telic Campaign, a mod of a mod.
  • Red Orchestra - Overall grand finale winner of the Make Something Unreal mod competition, a multi-phased contest with one million dollars in prizes sponsored by Epic Games and NVIDIA to foster the creation of mods. (Has now expanded into another game called Red Orchestra: Osfront being provided through Valve's Steam and still using the unreal engine.)
  • Killing Floor [5] - Horror Coop zombie shoot 'em up that brought attention to it for its very detailed environments.
  • UnWheel - This mod turns Unreal Tournement 2004 into a car game. The many gametypes included in this mod make it a must play. A very well done total conversion. [6]

Fox'ing

Some total conversions and mods based on copyrighted franchises, like Star Wars or Alien, caused their owners to take a harsh stance towards modders. The particular aggressiveness of 20th Century Fox in sending cease and desist mails to mod projects inspired a new verb: being foxed. Some strictly non-commercial mods appear to be tolerated, for example the Star Wars mods Galactic Conquest for Battlefield 1942, Warlords for Homeworld 2, and Troopers for Unreal Tournament 2004.

Modders

The term 'modder' is sometimes used to refer to a person who creates a mod, but also to describe those using mods. The latter is especially true in cases where someone in a multi-player game is using a mod to give them an unfair advantage. Examples might include an auto-targeting modification in a shooting game or a mod which allows the player to move faster than others. Such mods are generally considered cheating, especially if the match is ranked or will affect the statistics of the players disadvantaged. However some mods can have an effect on all of the players in a multiplayer game. Such mods give every player the same increase ability and/or extra item(s) and therefore is sometimes not considered cheating, although it is possible that only the modder would use the changes especially if the changes are subtle.

Modding Groups

"Modder"s often gather together to form modding groups, often working on more than one mod. Here are a few examples of modding groups:

Nuclear Winter Studios

Black Cat Games

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