PA Modding: Double edged sword?

I don't see Modding causing splits within the community to the extent that it becomes an issue.

When you consider that out of all game purchases for this type, only a small minority ever play a single game online, and out of that, only a minority dabble in playing with Mods and such. I'm hoping that with smart marketing and design and lots of other things like Mega games with 40 players, Galactic War and Clan Support, they can get more people involved online than before.

Honestly the more people you get involved up front, the less damage splintering can do long term. If you get enough people involved, everyone benefits.

Mike

This may or may not be an issue.

Perhaps as some have stated, the "law of the jungle" applies here. The best PA mods will serve to be the new online standard of competitive online multiplayer PA gaming.

The weaker mods and even vanilla PA itself may fade to relative nothingness as relatively fewer gamers play those versions.

Also, maybe the majority of PA gamers have no intention to play PA online against other players and will just skirmish the AI.

While I can see the attractiveness of playing PA or any game the "way you want it", there's something great to be said for a game that doesn't have an number of permutations. Gamers can look at any given unit and know it's strengths and weaknesses. Whereas with mods, a unit in one mod may have completely different attributes than the same-looking unit in another mod (assuming the unit even exists in another mod).

So what's wrong with the base game again? If you don't like mods then don't play them.

You're just being contrarian at this point.

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I also disagree that there's anything to be said for a game without mods other than it's got limited appeal and an even more limited lifespan.

That's if Uber drops the ball regarding their comments on supporting the game post launch.

Vanilla PA will change, will keep changing to the point that it will be as active as any given mod. Especially if Uber incorporates things from the community.

Mike

If you consider that each mod is basically a different game then this isn't really an issue. Everyone has to learn the units when they play a new RTS for the first time. Also units have in game descriptions and most good mods will have documentation.

This hasn't been an issue for FA and I don't think it will be an issue for PA. If anything it will make PA more popular. Counter Strike started as a mod for Half Life and is arguably the reason so many of us have Steam on our PCs.

That's what I'm hoping for from Uber. I hope they continue to keep vanilla PA as updated and current as any PA mod. If Uber can do this, then the online multiplayer PA gaming community can be united at least under vanilla PA.

If Uber can't, then a PA mod will probably supplant vanilla PA as the "go-to" version of PA (e.g. UberHack mod or TA-Bugfix mod vs. vanilla TA).

Again, I'm not overly concerned about PA's longevity or popularity. I'm concerned that there will be a large enough pool of online multiplayer gamers to choose from. I hope that PA's multiplayer gamer base doesn't devolve into having to pick from the same 15 opponents to choose from.

Counterstrike's evolving from Half Life is the example of "law of the jungle" at work. A mod supplanted the vanilla game as the "go-to" online multiplayer game of choice.

Perhaps the same will happen to vanilla PA.

I'm sorry to say that, i have the feeling you are trolling everybody on this topic. The mods will improve the game experience, it is obvious and many arguments have been mentioned.

So there is no point to question the "modability" of the game. Except if you like speak for speaking...

You are contradicting yourself here. First you don't care about PA being popular and then you do. Which one is it?

You just countermanded the the basis of your own argument. Is there a point you are trying to make you are you just confused? Because you are starting to confuse me a little bit.

A game doesn't have to be "popular" to have a large single unified pool of online competitive multiplayer gamers. There is a difference, you know.

For example, let's say Scenario 1 calls for PA having a total of 1000 active gamers but 10 equally popular mods, with gamers equally divided among the mods. Simple arithmetic shows that each mod has a pool of 100 players apiece.

Scenario 2 calls for PA having a total of 200 active players but only one version (vanilla PA). Simple arithmetic shows that there is a single pool of 200 players.

While Scenario 1 has PA being more "popular" by virtue of having more than 5 times the total players of Scenario 2, Scenario 2 is the better scenario if your priority is having the largest pool of online competitive gamers available to play against. My thread is about my concern that mods will jeopardize the number of available online multiplayer opponents, not the "popularity" of PA.

As for you thinking that I'm contradicting myself, I'm not. I've explained why as per my examples above.

Take an example, Far Cry 2, and examine:

Far Cry 2 didn't have modding support, the only mods people really used in the community were either painstaking Single Player mods, or editor hacks that allowed for maps without limitations. The biggest reason for no mods however is that any modding of the game files will tick off punkbuster and get your CD key taken away from you. The community stayed together a long time, but the reason was not because there were no mods... The reason was because the game allowed for custom maps (unheard of in FPS games). It had a system to deliver custom maps to your machine when you were ready to play them making sure that anybody could be on any server.

Take another example, G-Mod, and examine:

GMod is actually a mod of HL2... Unfair really since it's basically a game that uses the engine and content of all the source games. The game itself is rather bland and boring, basically because in order for GMod to really flourish you have to have user created Mods. The game allows you to join any server at any time, if you don't have all the models from owning the right games you get errors, but basically the server has a list of mods, and either allows you to download from their server or now even redirect you to a download server for the mods. This allows me to play a game of TTT (with custom weapon mods yada yada) then immediatly switch into a server that is basically what would happen when you play with TF2 Characters in a CS:S Setting/Gameplay. The game has the kind of Modding support people hope for. One where you can look at a list of mods to play on your own server or in single player right in the game, and if you join a game and you don't have the mod files the server can tell your computer what mods to download. No separation of players, besides players that only want to play one game type.

Sorry for a wall of text.

One final example, Modern Warfare 6, and examine:

I said 6 because it was funny to me, but you're probably wondering what modding this game has. Or how the lack of it is important to think about. Well, this one is tricky... because it's a prime example of dividing a community, but NOT with mods. But map-packs, the DLC you pay for from the manufacturer. This is a prime example of splitting the community; when you buy the base game you had a matchmaking process that would pit you against players that also bought the game. But then a map-pack came out, and two player bases were born (ignoring of course the already split community because of consoles) You had the first player base, or vanilla, that either didn't pay for the new maps and then you had the players that had the map pack. Modern Warfare 3 saw this issue and made it so you could go back and play without the map pack, but few players will until it's impossible to find a match. As more map packs came out you'd get more splits until the game died because you'd have so many playerbases that kept playing with the same 20 people.

Again, sorry for the wall of text.

But as you can see, a system that doesn't worry about the divide between vanilla and modded will split up the community and ultimately be its demise. However if we don't allow modding at all the game wont last forever because playing the same game for 10 years straight is probably the longest attention span I've ever heard of. You need balance, allowing modding using certain assets, but make sure that the game actually provides a seamless experience. This is not an easy task.

So your TLDR is basically "PA is screwed if they do and screwed if they don't".

I can agree with that.

I see how modding helps keep a game fresh. But I also see how modding will splinter a game's gaming base as lines are drawn and camps formed. Trust me, it WILL happen. Gamers are notorious for not compromising and wanting things done THEIR way.

Like you said, too much flexibility and freedom may not be such a good thing after all.

Quite correct. As such your concerns are unfounded.

Because switching between mods is impossible you know. Its not like any game has ever had a mod manager.

Not really. See above.

And you yourself have demonstrated that your concerns are unwarranted.

Are you sure?

Forgive me but you really have NO clue what I'm talking about.

TLDR is read it and you'll find the game that is best is GMod on the list.

GMod basically embraces modding with open arms, and makes it available to everyone playing without having to mess too hard with backend. In fact if you'd have read what I wrote instead of quoting my post which was already super long to begin with you'd probably notice that Modern Warfare was the worst, a completely unmoddable game that when it tried to add more content, it managed to destroy its community. Far Cry 2 still exists exclusively from user created content, so we know we can't ignore it, and GMod has been around forever because of all the Mods that are available for the game.

LOL wut? You really need to play more FPS games then. UT classic was doing this in 1999.

This doesn't really seem to apply to PA.

TA, FA, NWN 1 and 2, Half Life 1 and 2, and pretty much every game in the C&C series would disagree with you here.

While modding certainly helps a game's longevity it isn't strictly required. See Starcraft 1 and Diablo 2. However I generally agree with you here.

Yes designing a very good game is not easy.

I'm going to go ahead here and say stop feeding.

I don't think you have an clue what you are talking about.

Ah but who is being fed? Now that is the real question.

You're both as bad as each other, true

So, please tell me how large is the largest pool of online competitive gamers for GMod (the best on your list)?