Journal #7054
Posted 13 years ago2011-02-20 17:04:00 UTC
5 mods that people need to stop making
The 'Horror' Mod
Dark hallways, small quantities of weapons and ammo, cheap scare tactics. There are so many so called "horror" mods already out there and very few of them actually manage to pull it off. Far too many people are using darkness as a scare tactic, whereas for the most part, it is just annoying and disorienting.
The Zombie Mod
They Hunger did it well. They Hunger 2 and 3 got old fast. Every other zombie mod since then has been dire. Zombies are all well and good but there is little variety in the combat throughout. Slow shambling enemies make for slow shambling mods.
The engine upgrade / downgrade mod
Black Mesa looked incredible back in the day but now the level design is starting to show its age before the mod has even been released. Then there are the ones that go for the opposite approach. Take a new game and remake in for the old engine. The word 'downgrade' is rarely a good thing and more often than not implies that the 'latest' version is not stable enough to work with. HL2 works fine on it's current 7 year old. HL2 would not work fine on an engine that is 7 years older than that.
The Halo cross over mod
Nobody wants to play Halo in the Half-Life engine. Nobody wants to play Halo in the C&C Generals engine. Nobody wants to play Halo in the Homeworld engine. Nobody wants to play Halo on the GTA:San Andreas engine. This doesn't just apply to Halo, but it's certainly the most common culprit.
The "realism" mod
Mods that claim to bring realism to a game never EVER do. Real world weapons? That's a model pack. Better textures? That's a texture pack. Updated sounds? I... I have no idea what the hell that is, but it is not a mod. A true realism mod would make bullet impacts inflict more damage, resulting in instant death or bleed-outs. Health kits would be removed and instead, wounds would need to be tended to by a doctor / surgeon. Fall damage would result in broken / sprained limbs, reducing speed and inflicting pain damage the more you move around. All of this would make most games impossible. HL1 for example, Freeman would not be able to enter the test chamber because his suit is lacking a helmet. If he did, as soon as the experiment starts, he would drop dead of radiation poisoning.
There are probably more, but these are the main culprits...
tl;dr?
Don't FUCKING post then.
The 'Horror' Mod
Dark hallways, small quantities of weapons and ammo, cheap scare tactics. There are so many so called "horror" mods already out there and very few of them actually manage to pull it off. Far too many people are using darkness as a scare tactic, whereas for the most part, it is just annoying and disorienting.
The Zombie Mod
They Hunger did it well. They Hunger 2 and 3 got old fast. Every other zombie mod since then has been dire. Zombies are all well and good but there is little variety in the combat throughout. Slow shambling enemies make for slow shambling mods.
The engine upgrade / downgrade mod
Black Mesa looked incredible back in the day but now the level design is starting to show its age before the mod has even been released. Then there are the ones that go for the opposite approach. Take a new game and remake in for the old engine. The word 'downgrade' is rarely a good thing and more often than not implies that the 'latest' version is not stable enough to work with. HL2 works fine on it's current 7 year old. HL2 would not work fine on an engine that is 7 years older than that.
The Halo cross over mod
Nobody wants to play Halo in the Half-Life engine. Nobody wants to play Halo in the C&C Generals engine. Nobody wants to play Halo in the Homeworld engine. Nobody wants to play Halo on the GTA:San Andreas engine. This doesn't just apply to Halo, but it's certainly the most common culprit.
The "realism" mod
Mods that claim to bring realism to a game never EVER do. Real world weapons? That's a model pack. Better textures? That's a texture pack. Updated sounds? I... I have no idea what the hell that is, but it is not a mod. A true realism mod would make bullet impacts inflict more damage, resulting in instant death or bleed-outs. Health kits would be removed and instead, wounds would need to be tended to by a doctor / surgeon. Fall damage would result in broken / sprained limbs, reducing speed and inflicting pain damage the more you move around. All of this would make most games impossible. HL1 for example, Freeman would not be able to enter the test chamber because his suit is lacking a helmet. If he did, as soon as the experiment starts, he would drop dead of radiation poisoning.
There are probably more, but these are the main culprits...
tl;dr?
Don't FUCKING post then.
12 Comments
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It was a vlogging opportunity.
That's if you like to be called a vlogger :).
I may do this as next weekends vlog though, now that you mention it. Maybe then I could add it to MODDB as well.
Since you have a tidy desktop you could add a folder named "Ideas" in which you would write up your ideas (notepad, images, links etc) so you won't forget them. That way, by next week, you will be able to decide which ideas are good and which aren't.
When having an idea, you can't judge your own idea in the present very well so it's better to note it down and have a look at it later.
I imagined a mod that I want to create but I said this will be a very long term project. Initially I was excited about it and I gathered lots of inspiration links, photos of the place I will be inspired to create it.
Now that I read what you've posted, I'm thinking I will change a little bit the story. If this mod ever happens to see the light of the day, that is.
Halo? Halo Mods? Never played Halo actually. Am I missing out on something?
The Half Life franchise has used the same weapons and enemies for 3 games now, but the environments have been nicely varied and the key characters have real personality.
To be fair, the aesthetics of Halo still make it pretty unique in the face of countless brown war shooters. The Halo universe is also surprisingly deep if you read into it. I really try, as a Half Life fan, to see why the HL universe is so much better, but I just can't.
The biggest problem is that Halo only seems interesting if you read beyond the redundant games. I never felt like anything significant was happening outside of what my little master chief eyes saw. Half Life didn't give us so much direct insight into its universe either, but the games were still interesting standing alone. There's such a strong implication that "that important thing is happening over there, but you're also doing this important thing over here."
Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to derail things. Carry on.
It is great to see you have ideas to discuss, but we prefer if you can foster positive mod development instead of this negativity.