Mod fans need to know that hassling mod makers, who do this for free, really can't handle constant harassment from their fans.

A list of things that drive modders crazy:

Fans that think that their opinions are more important than others. In JKA's case, this is normally the so called "competitive" JKA gamers that think their opinions somehow are more important than the "casual" players.
Using the wrong form of communication to get more "direct access" to the modder. I know you think your idea is brillant, but that doesn't mean that you should spam the modder's mailbox with emails about it.
Directly asking the modder to make their mod more like ___ Mod.
Any sort of negative feedback that isn't constructive, especially when something is a WIP. If it's a beta, chances are that we already KNOW that something is broken or sucks.
Repeating stuff that has already been covered by someone else. Continuely asking for release dates, betas, etc, is just wasting the modder's time, which could be better used actually modding.
Any sort of demands, period.
Asking modders to join your mod, which it only has a bunch of "idea" people and no actual modders.
Asking for tech support not directly related to the modder's mod.
Posting innane questions in totally unrelated threads where you happen to see the modder post.
Asking the modder to teach you how to mod.
Offering to help with the mod and then not delivering.


The above has resulted in countless modders quiting projects and/or communities so, PLEASE, try to avoid doing them. Thanks.

I'll post some ways how to have a positive influence on modders when I have time later.

This means find the correct forum/thread to post questions/suggestions/WIP's/etc in.

Nothings worse than a threadjack.

I thought about moving this to General Editing, but it's more directed at the "general public" so I'll leave it be.

Good ideas!

Before any of you pipe in thinking this is a flame, it's not.
This is the opinion or view if you will, of a person who plays the game and how some of these guys (mod makers) come across.

jk2/ja mod makers = drama queens, and razorace is almost as bad as the guy from the old jk2 duelers mod who posted his entire life story everytime some one called him a naughty name.

I'm serious guy, you do realize you are doing nothing more than making a few minor tweaks here and there to a game that has pretty much been ignored by every part of the gaming community?

Yet you always prance around spouting off things like "so and so magazine (forgot the name) should have consulted me first I could seek leagal action for copyright violations!".

Dude, are you such a self absorbed fool that you can't grasp the fact that the you should be jumping up and down in joy that anyone took notice of the work you did?

You think the minor tweaks you are doing to a damn near dead franchinse can compare to the work done by these mod teams:

www.urbanterror.net)

www.dayofdefeatmod.com)

www.counter-strike.net)

http://www.microprose.com/games/tacops_pc_action/)


Yet you run around trying to make it seem like the things you are doing are on par with actual mods, here is a tip: they are not.

You make minor changes to game very few people care about, take what ever attention you can get and be glad you get it.

And maybe, just maybe, try to not "look down" on all the "little people" for a change.

You are just as much of a "small fish in a little pond" as the rest of us when you think about what the other true modders are doing out there in the great big wide world of modding.

... So who's going to have the honors of cross referencing the IP so we can see who is going incognito?

Originally posted by Rad Blackrose
... So who's going to have the honors of cross referencing the IP so we can see who is going incognito?

No kidding.

Anyway, one of those points seems to be a common misunderstanding. I never said that I wanted to take legal action against PC Gamer UK. That was just something other people in the thread stated. If you don't beleive me, check the logs.

I was thrilled that PC Gamer UK felt that my mod was cool enough to be featured on their CD. Sure, I was a little offended that they never contacted me in advanced, but the situation was resolved.

After talking to the guys at PC Gamer UK, they explained that their CD guy had recently left the mag and hadn't gotten everything done before they did their last issue. I even got a subscription to the mag and a copy of the issue in question. (Score!)

---

A large majority of your arguement seems to be that "Your mod isn't CS so you're nothing". Well, why should I care?! If I was even remotely interested in making something "popular", I'd definately do something for a more popular/better engine, like UT2004, which I might add, is the boom-diggity.

However, I'm not doing this to be popular, even inside the smaller JK2/JKA community. If I was, I'd have created an admin mod that give admins OMG AWS0M3 P0w3rZ!!$!#! and probably do a release every week no matter what progress I've made.

I'm doing simply because I love Star Wars and wanted to learn about modding in the process.

Sure, I'd like to have my mod be popular, but it's not the purpose of the project. As such, taking crap from fans is not something I'm interested in messing with.

---

In addition, I'm only one man, I can't even remotely expect to be able to come out with the quantity of changes like the bigger, more well-known TCs with 20+ member teams. But does that mean I can't do a mod? No.

---

I think I've been fairly good about not being a senseless prick when people pull any of the crap I mentioned above. Whenever I shoot down ideas I give a reason, I answer all my email/IM messages, and I take part in a vast majority of the forum posts. Hell, I've even written numberous tutorials for the community.

But everyone has their limits, and that's why I'm trying to address this issue now before it starts effecting my modivation to continue modding like in the case of ProMod, AotC TC, and even OMNIMod.

His IP is unique.


I dunno darth, all the "mods" you mention are similarly themed (multiplayer focused tactical ops) except for DOD of course (WW2 infantry themed).

Does a mod have to be a tactical ops Total Conversion in order to be good?

So far nobody has made a tactical ops or WWII based TC for Jedi Academy, does that mean this is a "dying franchise"?

You're entitled to your own opinion of course, I'm just curious as to your rationale.

There are many types of "mods." I'm curious if you consider only TC's to be mods...

Or are you saying that a mod maker needs to be selling his mod and having it packaged with magazines in order for it to be considered a success?

If that's the case it'll never happen, because due to the strict liscense that LucasArts holds, they don't usually get together with mod makers to help them market their mods commercially (especially with Star Wars games).

I'd like to add another one to your list, razorace, some morons on pcgamemods automatically rate a file a 1/10 without downloading or checking it out in any way just automatically rating a file a 1 because it's there. Disrespecting a modders hard work like that is counterproductive and will , no doubt, result in fewer released mods.

Yes, could I speak to the drugdealer of the house please

Didn't realize you'd been in a mag Raz.

Well, I've heard game developers say it before, making mods is best done for "generic" popular games, like the Sims, UT, Q3, etc.

Heavily Themed Liscensed properties like Star Wars will tend to attract mod makers who wish to make mods that go along with the theme already established.

So JA modders will tend to make Star Wars themed stuff, EF modders will make Trek related stuff, etc.

So you're much more likely to see a Star Wars mod for UT2k4, rather than an Unreal2 mod for JA.

Originally posted by Mercenary
I'd like to add another one to your list, razorace, some morons on pcgamemods automatically rate a file a 1/10 without downloading or checking it out in any way just automatically rating a file a 1 because it's there. Disrespecting a modders hard work like that is counterproductive and will , no doubt, result in fewer released mods.

Reminds me of the people on Amazon.com who give a game 5 stars and a review before it even comes out (even before they could have theoretically warezed it and played it early).

There's no way to stop people from posting bogus reviews like that, but at least companies like Amazon should just cut it off and say you can't submit a review until the product is actually AVAILABLE (unless you can prove you're a press agent who's played the final version).

Originally posted by Mercenary
I'd like to add another one to your list, razorace, some morons on pcgamemods automatically rate a file a 1/10 without downloading or checking it out in any way just automatically rating a file a 1 because it's there. Disrespecting a modders hard work like that is counterproductive and will , no doubt, result in fewer released mods.

Its a big problem, I hope we can shoot it down in flames. There are a lot of idiots out there, some of the same RazorAce mentioned I would imagine. I don't expect to be 'fireproof' as a guy who edits stuff, I expect to recieve criticism, some of which won't even be constructive, some of which will be from people who clearly can't tie their own shoelaces just yet. I don't think editors should be treated as some kind of walking deities by everyone else, but just because you make something in your own free time for others doesn't mean you should recieve really hateful abuse either.

It certainly seems true that is widespread popularity for your work is what you are after, JA is not a great game to mod. If you post about a JA mod on a general game editing site, you soon find the number of people even remotely interested in the game is fairly low - wheras most people would have say CS or Q3 or whatever. I don't think that makes it worthless, its certainly not the editing communities fault, its just there. I actually think because of the SW lisence and such, the JA editing community is very strong considering the size of the gaming community that goes with it.

Also consider that the bigger the "modder/modding" fanbase, the more idiots you'll have.

CS has a HUGE number of whiners, n00bs and cheaters in it, if message boards and chat rooms are any indication.

It's become a cliche in fact, to make fun of the people in that community for their constant complaints and cheat accusations.

So just being popular doesn't make you immune from this kind of stuff, always remember that.

The only reason any game company would still care about CS at this point is because they can sell the mod in stores and make $$$ (and I bet you anything the mod makers who created it aren't making the lion's share of those profits).

Originally posted by Kurgan
(and I bet you anything the mod makers who created it aren't making the lion's share of those profits).

I believe it was 40% of the profit.

Wonder how much that amounts to?

For me, since JO, it's been about putting myself in the SW Universe and going to those fantastic and mythical places i imagined going since i was a kid and making them a virtual reality with the mods and such. Now we have the power to do it and a lot of guys have some really great mods, some not so great but still cool. The point is, modding shouldn't be about popularity, it's about creating cool locales and universes and sharing them with the community and thus giving others great ideas to expand upon and getting others to create those ideas.

And i have played CS, DOD, etc. they are great mods, but i think they reach a wider audience because they don't really tackle a niche genre like SW does which is why i think they are a lot more popular, whereas the SW community is smaller, albeit a very strong community.

Well that's the thing, are there more Star Wars fans or more people who like to play Cops & Robbers with games like CS?

; )

You know, Dessert Combat for BF 1942 became one of the most popular mods for BF1942 in its .1 Alpha, and one of the most popular mods in the world by the time it got to it .7 Beta. You can releace Betas, you just have to put enough content in them to make them interesting.
If they're truly open betas and not demos, you will get alot of community trust and support.

Well, no offence to Desert Combat, but the main reason that they're so popular is because they were really the first mod for a very popular game. They grabbed the ball and ran with it.

such a shame too, as the galactic conquest mod is actually quite good as well but not as popular, kind of what you would like to see in the new galactic battlegrounds game coming out. I'd like to see if someone can do a BF: Vietnam star wars mod, that would be sweet.

Well, I don't think any of the other very popular mods are done yet, but many consider them even better than DC, and some are just a popular. BF 1942 TC didn't have closed beta's and demos. They releaced Open beta's alongthe way to, show the community what they had, and to see what they they thought. Well, those TC's are successfull and None of JA's or JO's have been put out besides some very small demos, thats amounted to a small mod anyway. So i'm going to let the evidence speek for it self. If your more open and friendly to the community you have better chance of suceding. As far as I can tell the majority of the JA cummunity seems to be content with building 50,000 duels levles and letting it go at that.

For me it just seems that after playing a game like BF: 1942 and now BF: Vietnam, the duel, ffa, and all that in JA just pales in comparison. Sure the ease of building levels and such is an advantage over those games, no doubt but the scope of the BF games and the gameplay itself is so much better that it's hard to go back and play JA MP which is why i never really got into it. It really is a shame that we don't see more JA SP campaigns, though as JO had some awesome stuff with even less customability than JA. I just think a lot of people were let down on the limitations of the engine and JA itself that they, including myself, were somewhat disillusioned about mapping. But hopefully battlegrounds or Republic Commando will be easy to mod for as well and will change a lot of people's minds, or maybe someone will be able to figure out the JA code (a longshot, i know), we'll see.....

Originally posted by Obi_Kwiet
So i'm going to let the evidence speek for it self. If your more open and friendly to the community you have better chance of suceding. As far as I can tell the majority of the JA cummunity seems to be content with building 50,000 duels levles and letting it go at that.

*Cough*MB2/OJP*Cough*

Yes those are good mods. These are people who are making decent mods among the hundreds of people who do "Small fast paced duel levels" and "This is my reborn re-skin..." The majority of the JA community just don't make anything worth dnling.

Originally posted by Obi_Kwiet
Yes those are good mods. These are people who are making decent mods among the hundreds of people who do "Small fast paced duel levels" and "This is my reborn re-skin..." The majority of the JA community just don't make anything worth dnling.

Well, it could be that many of the good level editors aren't making multiplayer levels at all, but making singleplayer (or Siege, for that matter) levels, eh? Singleplayer (or Siege) levels take far longer than multiplayer levels (except Siege) and often aren't known of until they're released...there may be more things out there than are currently visible...

Originally posted by Obi_Kwiet
Yes those are good mods. These are people who are making decent mods among the hundreds of people who do "Small fast paced duel levels" and "This is my reborn re-skin..." The majority of the JA community just don't make anything worth dnling.

Well, I think that applies to every game community.

That's all true but if you take a look at the showcase forum you'd see that there's about 99% more MP work being done as opposed to SP. Bummer.

Originally posted by Tyler_Durden
That's all true but if you take a look at the showcase forum you'd see that there's about 99% more MP work being done as opposed to SP. Bummer.

Well, I don't know about other singleplayer level editors, but I have only once posted screenshots and info of my level, and that was last year on commandchamber.net. I know Anthony's working on a level, but he hasn't posted anything about it in ages.

Soon enough, the modders will be gone for this game.

I'm afraid i have to agree, but i think they'll just go on to mod for battlegrounds and republic commando when they come out, i will:D . But as far as the community dying altogether, i don't think so.

Originally posted by Tyler_Durden
I'm afraid i have to agree, but i think they'll just go on to mod for battlegrounds and republic commando when they come out, i will:D . But as far as the community dying altogether, i don't think so.

Nah, first off, you're assuming they won't suck and will have good mod support. Secondly, neither game has playable Jedi, which is the main draw for most people.

True.

I like the example of the JK/MotS community.

From February 1998 until well into March 2002 (with the release of Jedi Outcast), JK1 was the ONLY game that let you play with Jedi online, so it was heavily modded in that period.

People still mod for it, but it's not as big as it was during that period. This and the fact that so many of the Star Wars games released between JK1 and JK2 just weren't that good or lacked editing completely (exceptions being games like XWA, but again those didn't have Jedi).

So yeah, if it's unique, it'll last. Until a "JK4" type game comes along (in other words a product that does most or all of the same things as good or better than the previous game), JK2/JA will live on...

I'm just one editor but I have to admit, I don't see much attraction in making a level that I know will only get downloaded by a few hundred people. That's just me though, some people make levels for their own creative forfillment and that alone, and I can only admire such people. Like you say though, JA will always have its fair share of SW fans playing it until a real sequel comes out.

Gabrobot, its true that some of the best level editors don't even mention projects until they are nearly complete (for JO SP that was true of Colloseum, Lighthouse, Resurgance and Takron-Galtos for starters), thats always nice to know, the idea that you may just get amazing bits of editing seemingly out of nowhere. I am dying to see that level of yours, btw :)

Funny that modders feel harassed by "their fans", lol. Since Darkforces I have never seen a mod in this community that was worth downloading or playing it. There have always been three categories of "big" mods in the JK community.

1. Buggy and unplayable
2. Entirely off topic (Sorry Kurgan, hehe)
3. Announced in a pompous way but never finished

There have been some nice gameplay mods, though.

I beleive that's mainly due to uncontrolled egos and creative differences.

Originally posted by Tyler_Durden
That's all true but if you take a look at the showcase forum you'd see that there's about 99% more MP work being done as opposed to SP. Bummer. That's definitely how I feel. MP stuff is fine, but in the end I am using the maps to play bots (or SP NPCs). It is a change, but it is still just playing bots. Apart from a select few, I found very few custom maps online when I used to play MP regularly. Now I only download the really good maps, because frankly otherwise I'll never use them.

SP maps just provide such a better gaming experience for me...

Originally posted by Kengo
I'm just one editor but I have to admit, I don't see much attraction in making a level that I know will only get downloaded by a few hundred people. That's just me though, some people make levels for their own creative forfillment and that alone, and I can only admire such people. Like you say though, JA will always have its fair share of SW fans playing it until a real sequel comes out. But you are a great editor ;)

I have nothing to base this on, but I think that some SP levels would garner a lot more downloads that the current MP stuff...

Originally posted by Kengo
Gabrobot, its true that some of the best level editors don't even mention projects until they are nearly complete (for JO SP that was true of Colloseum, Lighthouse, Resurgance and Takron-Galtos for starters), thats always nice to know, the idea that you may just get amazing bits of editing seemingly out of nowhere. I am dying to see that level of yours, btw This is so true. There have been several time on pcgamemods where I have said, "where the hell did this come from?" Every now and then something amazing comes out that I have no idea was in development. That always gives me hope for the future :)

Its dead; its been dead for a long time.
It died on 09-17-2003. With the fall of JO.
We just never noticed and got used to the Evil MP Admin mods like JA+ v2.0 (which for full discloser I must say I use on my server).
I will still try to map and I will still try to mod, but I assum mine will be of the 3rd type of "big mod".