[blackharted]

The Commander, on Oct 30 2010, 01:48 PM, said:

Last time I cheeked you couldn't mod games on consoles (example: mods for games that you can on the PC)

How gives a fuck about moding? I just want to play the damn thing! not waste countess hours fixing something that isn't broken.

BTW MusicallyInspired your wrong. I can't be assed to flame right now but I will.

[High Treason]

Modding is how most of your beloved developers started out and encourages more people to make their own games.

Duke Nukem is still around mostly because of it's modding capabilities. Didn't Valve start out as a bunch of modders? How about Gearbox? You need modding capabilities, without it, the industry will suffer.

[blackharted]

High Treason, on Oct 31 2010, 07:54 AM, said:

Modding is how most of your beloved developers started out and encourages more people to make their own games.

Duke Nukem is still around mostly because of it's modding capabilities. Didn't Valve start out as a bunch of modders? How about Gearbox? You need modding capabilities, without it, the industry will suffer.

Industry won't suffer just the PC "gamer" community.

[Kathy]

I prefer games, not platforms. And the platform I choose for those games is based on several factors.

Also, this poll is stupid.

[MusicallyInspired]

blackharted, on Oct 31 2010, 10:23 AM, said:

How gives a fuck about moding? I just want to play the damn thing! not waste countess hours fixing something that isn't broken.

BTW MusicallyInspired your wrong. I can't be assed to flame right now but I will.

No, I'm right.

Pikachu, on Oct 31 2010, 12:03 PM, said:

Besides, if we all had the money we'd probably buy all of them anyway just to say we had them (and for the occasional "must have" game on a rival platform).

Actually, I do have all 4. I'm a collector like that.

[Spirrwell]

Lotan, on Oct 31 2010, 12:43 PM, said:

Also, this poll is stupid.

The poll wasn't my idea, only the thread was, so that way we can discuss all this here without clogging up other threads. The poll was created by request.

MusicallyInspired, on Oct 31 2010, 02:22 PM, said:

Actually, I do have all 4. I'm a collector like that.

Me too, I have all four. I'd get the others if they weren't just rip-offs of other consoles, like the Zone 40.

[ReaperMan]

Spirrwell, on Oct 31 2010, 03:30 PM, said:

The poll wasn't my idea, only the thread was, so that way we can discuss all this here without clogging up other threads. The poll was created by request.

Why is there not a vote option for "neither" or "I don't give a shit"?

[The Commander]

Because there is no 3rd option, it's either one or the other or don't vote at all.

[Kathy]

ReaperMan, on Nov 1 2010, 08:54 AM, said:

Why is there not a vote option for "neither" or "I don't give a shit"?

Actually options like "whatever" would make poll even more stupid.

[MusicallyInspired]

If you don't care, don't click on the link to open the thread.

[Striker]

blackharted, on Oct 31 2010, 12:23 PM, said:

How gives a fuck about moding? I just want to play the damn thing! not waste countess hours fixing something that isn't broken.

Modding means everything to the industry, and gaming in general you little fucking shitstain.
I was going to let you off the hook because you haven't been that bad in the last little while, but as a mod developer myself, you've just really pissed me off with your abominably immense level of ignorance and stupidity.

Rant incoming....

The ability to mod games has brought fresh fan-made content, and longevity to many a title. You seem to forget what kind of board you are on here. This is a board for Duke Nukem 3D, a game well known for its modability. Look at all of the great Maps, Partial and Total Conversions there are for Duke. It's unbelievable, there's tons upon tons. Without that modability, the Duke Nukem community would have died out years ago.

Ever wonder why DOOM's community is still active? It's because its vast modding capability, its source ports, and the fact that there are so many amazing maps and TCs out there for people to play and share. Without it's source release, and if the game weren't so moddable, I think most people would have abandoned the game by now. Thankfully that isn't the case, and there are still tons of people playing it online, and creating all sorts of new experiences in the game that were never thought possible before.

If it weren't for modding, Valve wouldn't exist, nor would Gearbox or many other developers out there. That's how a lot of people get JOBS in the industry, by demonstrating what they can do through creating an excellent mod. For example, Tripwire, the developers of Killing Floor are now their own company, and are making good money, after their mod for UT2004 won a contest and went commercial.

Here are some more examples:

• Team Fortress started out as a mod for Quake 1, then eventually became a mod for Half Life. Then, it became a game all it's own based on the source engine as Team Fortress 2.
  
• CounterStrike was originally a mod for Half Life, then eventually got picked up by Valve, in which Valve hired CounterStrike's team to work for them. It finally went commercial.
  
• Gearbox's first titles were mods for Half Life turned expansion packs. Those are Opposing Force and Blue Shift. Our beloved Jon St. John provided his voice talent for Opposing Force as well.
  
• Garry's Mod is obviously a mod. It was created by Garry Newman, and it allows you to experiment with the physics of the source engine in a sandbox environment. It also allows you to create all sorts of amazing content for the game through the use of LUA Coding. It has become extremely popular, and thousands of people are creating videos using it every day. After GMod 9, Garry Newman was hired by Valve and now GMOD 10 is a commercial mod distributed through the Steam Content Delivery Service.

I, myself enjoy creating my own maps and game modifications, particularly for ZDoom/Skulltag, and Duke Nukem 3D. It's my way of expressing my creativity. There's just something awesome about being able to see your own ideas come to life in a game, after lots of hard work. I'm not particularly talented at creating models, textures, or sprites, but I love to write my own code from scratch, and I'm also good at creating sound effects that are pleasing to the ears.

I've learned a lot through modding, I'm in tune and have the mindset for this sort of thing. I also learn quickly, and I understand the basic concepts of programming, and game development. This is very important if I plan on getting a career in the industry. I'm willing to learn more, and I intend on getting a course in programming so I can increase my skill set and get the credentials I need to be hired.

(A WIP screenshot of a Skulltag Mod I've been working on for several years. The current map in the screenshot is a simplistic duel map for online Deathmatches.)

... end rant.

Now, will you please watch yourself before you go on as to say something as insipidly moronic as "Who gives a fuck about modding" ?
It means a million to gamers and the industry. Without it, many games wouldn't exist, nor would their communities.
But maybe you're just too much of a closed-minded blind console fanboy piece of dog shit to understand this.

Also, as for the platform I choose - PC, all the way. I don't mind consoles, and I own many a console myself, including the NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, GameCube, Wii, and the XBox 360... But as far as capabilities and enjoyment factor, PC wins. If you at least had an IQ over 50, knew how to build your own system intelligently with compatibility in mind, and had good internet and computer usage habits, you wouldn't have any problems. Never do I get any major problems or instability with my games, nor have I ever gotten a virus in over 3 years.

[Spirrwell]

Damn StrikerMan, perfectly said.

[Hank]

Aha! The official flame thread.

Console. Yes, I voted console. Let's see, I pick up, Wolfenstrein from last year I'm fine, I pick up Mafia II from last month, oops, get the latest Gforce Video Card. Yeh, right, I'll use ol' GTA and pretend I drive at around 1945, and Mafia II is stored for 2020 game use.

Those who think modding is key. Don't make me laugh.

I got now three engines so far. Havoc, NeoAxis and Eduke. Neither are simple to work for and with. So I got Irrlicht with Ogre, why, guess what they (Ogre) got plug-in, yes, for consoles. Yep. Even for Blackberry and the iPhones. Just a little discipline in keeping it simple, and you are ready to make games. Not the next Halo, mind, I'll leave that to the big boys. I'm small time, with other small time peeps hanging out.

[Radar]

Quote

Console. Yes, I voted console. Let's see, I pick up, Wolfenstrein from last year I'm fine, I pick up Mafia II from last month, oops, get the latest Gforce Video Card. Yeh, right, I'll use ol' GTA and pretend I drive at around 1945, and Mafia II is stored for 2020 game use.

Sure, I would have a console because their cheaper and you don't have to upgrade, but there are certain things I want to do on a PC too.

Quote

Those who think modding is key. Don't make me laugh.

Read post #42 of this thread.

Quote

I got now three engines so far. Havoc, NeoAxis and Eduke. Neither are simple to work for and with.

So? How come I can work with those without a problem at all? Its entirely your fault if you can't figure anything out.

Quote

So I got Irrlicht with Ogre, why, guess what they (Ogre) got plug-in, yes, for consoles. Yep. Even for Blackberry and the iPhones. Just a little discipline in keeping it simple, and you are ready to make games.

And who maintains OGRE? Are they not modders? Genius...

Quote

Not the next Halo, mind, I'll leave that to the big boys. I'm small time, with other small time peeps hanging out.

Exactly my point. You can't make the next Halo without some advanced knowledge, and the easiest way to do that is by getting into a community and learning to mod. Even if you go to school to learn all this stuff, prior experience in online projects is a big interest if your trying to get a job.


Console gamers = people who have absolutely no idea how the industry works. You just proved my point.

[Hank]

Radar1013, on Nov 1 2010, 03:44 PM, said:

Exactly my point. You can't make the next Halo without some advanced knowledge, and the easiest way to do that is by getting into a community and learning to mod. Even if you go to school to learn all this stuff, prior experience in online projects is a big interest if your trying to get a job.


Console gamers = people who have absolutely no idea how the industry works. You just proved my point.

Really? To make new models, characters, backgrounds takes a larger team, me thinks. Knowledge of what? Convincing poor souls to spend time on Maya and Photoshop? I read post 42! This is no shoe string undertaking. I got three artists and another programmer – that's it.

A challenge then, since you know the industrie so much, let's see who get's more downloads in a year's time.

Us with Irrlicht and Ogre for Blackberry and iPhone (console), vs you making an extension of Halo or any other modern game on PC.

[Radar]

Hank, on Nov 1 2010, 01:37 PM, said:

Really? To make new models, characters, backgrounds takes a larger team, me thinks. Knowledge of what? Convincing poor souls to spend time on Maya and Photoshop? I read post 42! This is no shoe string undertaking. I got three artists and another programmer – that's it.

A challenge then, since you know the industrie so much, let's see who get's more downloads in a year's time.

Us with Irrlicht and Ogre for Blackberry and iPhone (console), vs you making an extension of Halo or any other modern game on PC.

...

That doesn't change the fact that OGRE is maintained by modders. I take it you don't make your own "models, characters, backgrounds" judging the fact that you consider determined people who want to learn Maya and Photoshop to be "poor souls". Who then created those resources you use? The people who made them are people who know how to use Maya, a.k.a. "poor souls" in your book.

Though of course I have no idea what this project of yours is, so I don't know the details. Maybe I'm just making a stupid argument.

[Spirrwell]

Hank, on Nov 1 2010, 04:37 PM, said:

Really? To make new models, characters, backgrounds takes a larger team, me thinks. Knowledge of what? Convincing poor souls to spend time on Maya and Photoshop? I read post 42! This is no shoe string undertaking. I got three artists and another programmer – that's it.

Seriously? Coming up with all that doesn't take too much time, with one person it does, but even if you have just one other person, ideas can flow pretty easily. You don't need to have a very big team, sure it can get things done faster, but that's about it, any two people that have done some work in modding can make a really great game. I've done some work with eduke32\build, Unity, Blender, Misfit Model 3D, UDK, etc. They aren't that hard to learn, it just takes enough time and dedication. I mean, hell if it weren't for Quake I and the the Custom Team Fortress mod, I wouldn't be where I am.

Before I got together with those guys when I was about 8 years old, I wouldn't know a damn thing about C++, or all the other things that I learned because I met people who created a very great mod. That's when I came back to Duke3D (I knew about that since I was about four years old), and I started working and learning about how models worked, how level design worked. Finally, I figured out how to program in C++, HTML, (some) PHP, C# and now I'm learning JavaScript. I've done all this on my own. The only people I owe are the people who made the Custom Team Fortress mod from Quake, and the people who made all the tutorials and books for programming languages and such. Only two of my friends have programming knowledge, one of them only has knowledge of Game Maker, the other has done C++ with Direct3D. They didn't help me at all other than bouncing an idea here and there. 3D programming is pretty tough to learn on your own, so give some credit to the modders out there, because without them, a lot of people would be absolutely nowhere.

[Hank]

Radar1013, on Nov 1 2010, 05:22 PM, said:

...

That doesn't change the fact that OGRE is maintained by modders. I take it you don't make your own "models, characters, backgrounds" judging the fact that you consider determined people who want to learn Maya and Photoshop to be "poor souls". Who then created those resources you use? The people who made them are people who know how to use Maya, a.k.a. "poor souls" in your book.

Though of course I have no idea what this project of yours is, so I don't know the details. Maybe I'm just making a stupid argument.

True, I did not respond to that point. Those guys who make Ogre, are coding obviously on a PC. I am coding on a PC. Those making Ogre must have consoles in mind otherwise they would not have made the plug-ins for it. Since they allow for consoles, they, like myself, must test it on a console. While that is no proof that they prefer consoles it's a sign that they at least respect them.

Also, I spend a lot of time modding myself. I made twelve maps, four enemies, two weapons and twohundred+ tiles. It's garbage now, remnants from the old days of Duke. I'm proud of them, but the gaming world is quite alive without it.

To Spirrwell : I learned C++ and OpenGL from books and at the campus. Yes, there is open sources, but usually without explanation. Should my plans succeed, I owe a lot to a lot of people.

[Striker]

Hank, on Nov 1 2010, 03:39 PM, said:

Those who think modding is key. Don't make me laugh.

It is if the game is ever going to last. Without some ability to support user-created content, games can die rather quickly, and everyone just forgets about said game.
Now, it doesn't really count as modding, but Halo 3's forge added that much more longevity to the game. That's even on a console.

Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3 fully supports mods to the same degree as the PC.. well, almost, because of Memory Limitations.

And technically what you've describe in your later posts, are the same skills required for game modifications. Even some people in the industry work in small mod teams in their spare time.
Like this mod, for example: http://www.goldeneyesource.net
or this: http://www.hells-reach.com/

Ogre is not an exception. It's an open source 3D Graphics Engine, meant to be modified to anyone's will.

[Mr.Deviance]

Pc wins this war here and whoever needs arguments for why this is true is just a dumb person that needs to find this out by himself or be cursed to forever be ignorant and incapable of informing himself.

[Spirrwell]

Pikachu, on Nov 2 2010, 03:17 AM, said:

I don't really give a shit about this war, I play the 360 and the PC at my friend's house and I play the PS3 at the store and of course I play the Wii at home. I love them all equally. I just don't want any to be misrepresented like the Wii in the original post (which leads to people flaming for the wrong reason).

I said that the Wii had some good games, but not really good graphics capability. Its graphics card the ATI Holywood, is only clocked at 243 MHz, while the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are clocked at 550 and 500 MHz. I wasn't completely down-sizing the Nintendo Wii, I was just making the point that although it's a good console with good games, that it doesn't have as good of graphics capability as the PS3 and Xbox 360. The Nintendo Wii has its week points as well as the PS3 and Xbox 360.

[Radar]

I personally think consoles are the way to go. Developers hardly care about PC's anymore today. Most games are made primarily for the PS3 and 360, with the PC version coming 6 months later with a heap of glitches. The best experience in basically every game now-a-days is on a console. Not to mention consoles are cheaper and don't need to be upgraded every few years. Just simply buy a new console every 5 years and you don't have to screw around with anything. The PC will always be home for those few titles from the 90's and with modding tools, but for every game besides Source engine games, UT engine games, etc. I would go with a console.

[Spirrwell]

Pikachu, on Nov 2 2010, 09:25 AM, said:

I concur that the online is a genuine weakpoint, even though it's free outside the price of downloaded games. However I really don't consider graphics to be a valid argument in console wars, I buy machines for the games, not graphics. (And no, I'm not trying to justify my purchase of the Wii, I had an equal chance to get any console I wanted (this was at the point when they were all pretty much the same price), and I purchased the Wii over the othersbecause I like Nintendo-style games).

Having more power under the hood doesn't matter. It's how the graphics complement the game and enhance the gameplay experience, not just how good a system looks. I've always preferred good aesthetic design to high poly-counts because bad design is bad design even on the most powerful console/PC.

All this "whose system is more powerful" stuff is as useless as a dick measuring contest in a high-school locker room, and just about as mature. Gamers shouldn't even care about the shit, developers might because they actually make the games and need to know the tech specs but the primary concerns of a gamer should be "Am I having fun?" and "Was this worth my money?".

When you can't defend a system's games and have to resort to using tech specs in your battle, that is a sign you have lost.

Fortunately everything in this generation is pretty solid gameplay-wise, too.

You do make a valid argument, as the Atari Jaguar was the first 64-bit console, and it turned out to be a big let-down, but there are a few critics out there that like to size up every bit of console information they can get, which I should've known better than to put that out there in these forums, because of all the trolls.

[Hank]

StrikerMan780, on Nov 1 2010, 09:32 PM, said:

Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3 fully supports mods to the same degree as the PC.. well, almost, because of Memory Limitations.

... Even some people in the industry work in small mod teams in their spare time.
Like this mod, for example: http://www.goldeneyesource.net
or this: http://www.hells-reach.com/

Maybe it's my English.

I don't believe that the modding community drives the game industry, I think the game industry caters to the hard-core gamers, like myself, and guys like you. I hang out here, because there is no way to know everything. For example, the link you gave, I did not know Unreal is meddling with iPhone (iDevices), I thought their engine is a little to big. I also did not know that Unreal supports mods for Consoles. Actually until today, I was not even looking at anything from Epic.

Bottom line, I'm starting to see your point, but can't quite honeslty say I agree 100% with it.

[X-Vector]

That's a bit harsh on the PS3 owners, I'm sure not every one of them looks like an utter twit.