Modding Advice
I’ve been making mods for Ares, Override, and other games since the mid-90s, and in that time I have learned many lessons “the hard way". Recently I got to thinking about what I’ve learned from all of this, and about what advice I would give someone today. This advice is primarily focused on creating and releasing large mods, though most of it can apply to mods of any sort. These concepts have been very helpful for me, and I hope they may benefit others as well. :)
- 🎨 Go for It!: Modding is fun and worthwhile
in and of itself, even if you don't plan to release anything. If you
feel like making a mod, or even just messing around with the tools to
see what you can do, I'd encourage you to give it a try. As long as
you're having fun, you're doing it right. :)
- ❤️ Love the Process: This is a video game. The point is to
enjoy it. Creating a mod typically takes a long time. If modding is a chore for you, and
you’re unhappy doing it, that'll drag you down for an extended time– and
it'll also increase the chances of you ultimately abandoning the mod. So approach
modding from a standpoint of enjoying the process, of having fun
building neat new things, and treat it as a long-term hobby.
This is the goal for what your modding experience should look like! :) - 🎯 Stay Focused: Often, when you get a new
idea for a mod, it’s really exciting, and you want to dive right in and immediately start building it. But after you’ve been
working on it for a little while, something else often comes along that grabs
your attention instead, and suddenly you’re tempted to set that first mod project aside and focus on this new thing; and then something else comes up
and interrupts that second project, and then another thing, and another.
This can be 100% okay, as long as you’re aware of what’s happening and
you’re okay with just having fun tinkering without releasing anything;
but if your goal is to actually release mods, you’ll have to make sure you stay focused enough to keep working on each project until it’s done.
- 🕐 Take the Time to Make it Good: It's almost always worth it to take the extra time to make your mod as good as possible. If you plan to release your mod, I'd encourage you to be ambitious about quality; challenge yourself to match the quality of EVC, Override, or Nova. This will take a more time than quickly rushing something out the door, but you’ll be really satisfied with the end result. As far as how to make it as good as possible, an approach I often use is this: first make an initial version, and then repeatedly review it and improve it until you can’t think of any more ways to make it better.
- 🗺️ Explore & Learn: Modding the EV series is part game design, part writing, part programming, part world-building, part science, part visual arts, part storytelling... etc etc. Each one of those fields is endlessly complex, and also worth learning in and of itself! Be ready to learn the things you need as you go. Research tutorials, articles, similar or related projects, etc. Ask the community about modding resources and tips. These things are not only enjoyable in and of themselves, but also they'll help you make the best mod possible, and you'll be learning things that will benefit you for the rest of your life. :)
- 📅 Keep The Size Manageable: Making mods
takes a lot of time. For example, Total
Conversion mods often take multiple years. The vast majority of Total
Conversion mods never get finished, because their authors either lost
interest partway through, or because something else in their life changed and they
didn’t have time for modding anymore, etc. Meanwhile, a
small-but-meaningful project may take only a few weeks, and can be
really fun to finish and share. So just be careful to make sure your
projects aren't too huge to finish. Err on the side of small, especially for your first few mods.
- 🧩 Release In Parts: As a safeguard for a large mod, and also as a way to keep your enthusiasm up, it can be helpful to look for ways to break it into parts, then build and release one part at a time. This gives you a quickly achievable target to work on at any given time, as well as more feedback throughout the project. It also ensures that, even if your project is never 100% finished, there will be some kind of playable version of it available to folks who are interested.
- 🔠 Stepping Stones: It can also be helpful to brainstorm different, smaller projects that will
help you get closer to completing your bigger project. For example, on
the way to Orion Skies I'm planning to build a galaxy generator, a
planetary graphics pack, and some standalone Lua plug-ins; all
of these will be directly used by Orion Skies itself. Any way to make
more small releases, while simultaneously getting yourself closer to
completing your big mod, can help energize you and will also guarantee
that something meaningful will come of your efforts, even if for some
reason you don’t end up releasing the final project itself.
- 🤔 Brainstorm Possibilities: It's also
worth it to take some time to brainstorm ideas for alternative ways to do things in your mod, and to really explore the possibilities for
what you could do. Doing this will lead you into more unique
ideas that have never been done before, and will give you a deeper
understanding of what will make your mod as good as possible, which will help you make the best possible version of your mod.
- 🧍 Independence:
There have been a few attempts, over the years, at large-scale mods made
by a group of several people. Often, these projects fail because of
group dynamics: maybe the members of the group end up strongly
disagreeing about what the mod should be like; maybe they end up having
some kind of personal conflict with each other; maybe some members lose
interest in the project; or maybe life happens and some members no
longer have time to work on it; etc. Be careful about depending on a group, because that opens
up the risk of failure from group complications. In the long
run, it’s often better to find ways to build the project by yourself, or at least to have a backup plan if your group runs into trouble.
- 💭 Adventure Into The Imagination: Years ago, a group of EVx modders created "The Non-Technical EVN Bible", a guide to making high-quality plug-ins. One quote from that guide has stood out to me ever since I first read it. The quote is from Martin Turner, the legendary creator of The Frozen Heart TC: "The game should be an adventure into the imagination. After five hours of playing, the player shouldn’t come away with sore eyes, a twitchy finger, and the feeling that they've wasted part of their life. Rather, they should come away with the feeling that their eyes have been opened to a wider world than they had dreamed of."
I've found the above concepts to be very helpful in my own work, and I hope at least some of them will prove helpful to other modders also. Whatever path you take, I wish you good luck, and happy modding. :)
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