How not to start a mod: a very good writeup by Aard and eihrul
on the forums, wikified here.
Compare it to
How to approach modding.
Okay, since this is coming up a lot lately, here is how to fail spectacularly with any particular modding idea:
Premises:
- Propose starry-eyed idea
- Ask for significant help to start the project
Conclusion:
The reality is of any volunteer project is: if the people you want to help are significantly more skilled than you, or just significantly skilled, they will be more likely to work on their own projects than bother at all helping you.
Why is this? IDEAS ARE CHEAP. EVERYONE HAS COOL IDEAS. But very few people have the skill to follow through with them. When they do, they're usually not very altruistic about using them for the good of someone else.
Leadership skills matter not for starting something. People won't take marching orders from someone they perceive as less skilled. Leadership only matters in the end game, when you have a lot of stuff to manage.
So what does this mean for someone wishing to start a mod or just volunteer project in general (one might say any non-commercial project, particularly open source ones)? It means:
YOU MUST BE WILLING TO DO THE MAJORITY OF THE WORK BY YOURSELF.
And when the critical mass of your project makes coming across it by accident via word-of-mouth unavoidable, then you'll start to get... a few, but very limited number of somewhat skilled people proposing to help. Very rarely, you might even get one or two skilled people.
So the breakdown (keeping in mind most statistics are made up on the spot):
Of your users, a very small amount will express interest in helping.
Of those, a smaller amount will actually TRY to help you.
Of those, a much smaller amount will be CAPABLE of doing what they're trying.
Of those, a much smaller amount will be capable of doing what they're trying to do WELL.
Scale all these on something of a low exponential curve. The bigger and more prestigious your project is the more the ratios will grow.
Consider the whole Cube/Sauer project: It is about 6 years old by now. It's been quite successful by anyone's standards as a game/engine project (millions of downloads, etc.), yet with even this project I can count the number of contributing artists (or programmers, for that matter) on one hand. (Level design has always been easier because this project was designed as the ultimate level design tool).
So if such a huge project gets so few contributors, even that many years in, why should your project get any right at the start?
Consider the mods that have been attempted for Sauer... there has been only one really successful one so far, AssaultCube, and that worked out because a couple very skilled people got together, managed to keep the same vision, and, more importantly, managed to keep determined enough to finish it, which wasn't easy from what I saw.
When you think you have something 80% finished, it's probably actually 20% finished. Finishing something and polishing it takes a
lot of determination, and usually isn't fun. it is WORK. Why do you think game programmers get paid like they do?
Any skill your mod requires you need to have yourself.
This includes C++ for gameplay changes, modeling and exporting for art, etc.
Similarly, this means that the less skills your project requires (e.g. a map or map pack), the more likely you will be able to finish.
Any project you do, plan to do it entirely by yourself.
Any people that will want to help you at some stage will be a bonus, but don't rely on it.
Present your project only after some significant work has already been done.
e.g. at the very least some levels. People may see your skill and determination, which makes them ten times more likely to participate. See, for example, what Acord did for a good way to start a mod (
Blood Frontier).
If you want to work on a mod, unless you are super skilled, it's better to team up with more skilled people and follow their lead than start your own.
Yes, it's attractive to do your own ideas, but there are a thousand times more ideas than means to execute them, so something has to give. Having made a contribution to a finished, polished project of someone else is worth so much more than a failed personal project.
This one goes not just for mods, but for anything:
Do not release screenshots, etc. until they are at least up to par with other good maps.
Do this test: Compare a screenshot of your map with the ones for the maps on the main sauer page. If your screenshot is the ugliest,
throw the map away and start again. Why would anyone have interest in a mod that goes backwards in terms of quality?