84 replies to this topic

[Mbob61]

*is lost in amongst the several different points going around here*
On the point of public content, EC will soon be preparing a pack of all content we no longer use which we will release for people to use. At the moment our time is taken up by our beta but as soon as we have done that i will get the pack together and release that.
I do somewhat agree that ZH is a dying game and that interest in it is now starting to fail. However, if we can unite the community as a whole, with the release of 1-2 big mods, maybe the community can be revived...

Mike

Edited by Mbob61, 04 July 2010 - 17:16.

[Ion Cannon!]

Mbob61, on 4 Jul 2010, 18:16, said:

*is lost in amongst the several different points going around here*
On the point of public content, EC will soon be preparing a pack of all content we no longer use which we will release for people to use. At the moment our time is taken up by our beta but as soon as we have done that i will get the pack together and release that.
I do somewhat agree that ZH is a dying game and that interest in it is now starting to fail. However, if we can unite the community as a whole, with the release of 1-2 big mods, maybe the community can be revived...

Mike

While we may not be able to stop it declining somewhat, ZH is still one of the most modded games on moddb. Still I think it makes little sense to have so many splinters of essentially, the same community, but mergers are never easy and the whole thing about self importance and power comes into play.

I also want to make it clear I was not trying to shoulder all problems onto the admins, nor do I believe they can fix them alone. However I do believe admin laziness / lack of time is a contributing factor.

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 04 July 2010 - 17:41.

[Brad]

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

Evening all (afternoon actually). Interesting topic. I haven't posted around these parts for a while but this is worth digging my keyboard out of retirement for a moment.

First off don't think that it's up to the Admins to make things happen around here. There is a limit to what they can do, even if they were the most active sods on the internet. 5 people can't make a community do things. The community drives the admins to do things, and I don't mean "change this rule here, or do stop posting in SYD there". Members have never arrived here expecting to see what the Admins do. They come/came here for the mods. That has literally dried up in the last year, even with a small surge a while back. Now FS has barely anything to offer people who actually want to mod a 7 year old game.

Summed up rather nicely I think. An excellent point. Nothing much more I need to add to this.
So why do we stick with this seven year old game, when it's clearly doing nothing for our community. I have still yet to see an opposite point which I would deem to be a good one, really.

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

That brings me on nicely to the next problem. Modding and ZH. Face facts, it's niche and there but for the grace of God, dead and/or dying. It worked quite well back in this alleged "Golden Era", when the game was the latest and best RTS out there. The next generation of gamers would rather play other games and spend less time faffing around in the code to make the changes to a game, they expect the developers to do it. Source modding is fun, but there aren't many people with the skills to do it and even less genuine interest here to make it viable. The literal rock that ES/FS was built on is now buried beneath the sands of time and disinterest.

Yes. Yes, yes and yes.
It's clear that the golden age has past, the roots of our community have gone out of the interest of the majority of the internet, so why do we dwell on it?

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

There are a whole host of other issues connected with this including a lack of community content, a problem that one could quite easily point the fingers of blame at several members here for. The number of people that can and do are miniscule in comparison to the rest. Well the Admins could do x or y to generate some interest, that would be pointless given the fact that few play anymore and even fewer mod it.

So you're blaming us for our lack of interest in a hobby fit for the few?
Please, if I were interesting in modding Zero hour I would've done when everyone else was doing it, so I didn't get the hostile replies of what happens now.

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

Move on to something new? Pfffft, please?! ZH was the only game we all (99% anyway) have an interest in and all have a copy of. This community was and is a ZH one, but all these concerns stem from the fact that FS, along with a very small number of others, are riding on the back of an old donkey that really is on it's last legs. Although the FS policy was never to discriminate on the engine, there is not the same level of interest in non-ZH games as the numbers don't play them.

Only game?
Perhaps the longest surviving game, but no, not only game. We have many more which a large portion of us play/have played. Frankly I've played ZH or one of it's mods with barely ANY of you here. Granted I joined late-ish, but for a community interested in Zero Hour shouldn't I get to play with more than than just 8 (at the most). Half of you only played with people involved in your projects. I never saw the likes of you Wiz in a ZH game. Perhaps it wasn't your cup of tea, but then again you're arguing for it.

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

If FS is to continue it's life (and I hope it does), it needs more people to use it for what Chrizz intended it to be used for, ZH modding. More people need to take it up, try their luck, then try again. Whilst I was part of the Admins we talked and worked bloody hard trying to attract new talent to FS, but that was ultimately futile due to the fact that no new talent wants to arrive here with their game as all they'll get is lots of "nice work", "keep it coming" and the such like and no actual players of their games.

AJ has asked for people to come together and support FS, do it favour instead, open Finalbig, Gmax and Photoshop and make something new. It doesn't have to be the most original model on the planet, just make something, ask for some criticism, do it again, then release it to others to play around with. And whilst you're there, let others know how you did it so they can do the same.

For the second time, I, and probably many others, do not hold any interest in modding this game, that at most only a few people would play. Why should I have to mod a game outdated by seven bloody years? Oh, and don't tell me this is the kind of attitude keeping this community separated. Or broken. Or inactive. It's the people who cannot move on from this ancient software. Sure, there are diehard people who will play it for longer, but the community as a whole should move on.

Why should FS stay a C&C community? It is at heart I admit, and it is currently our main modding interest. But why? Those forums are not very helpful, from what I've seen.
"Good start. Do another." is the most helpful thing I've seen. You can't expect a flood of new modders if that's the best reply you lot are going to give.

Kris, on 4 Jul 2010, 14:07, said:

Tactical_person, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:42, said:

Quite frankly, am I the only one to think that the Command and Conquer modding community has already, well, died?
It is my opinion, really, that there are much more open and interesting games other than ZH (and the rest) to consider modding. Fair be it if you wish to imagine that the dead horse is still galloping, but really, it is indeed dead. Or at least dying. I really don't see a good enough reason to continue modding this series; personally I think that we, as a community, should move on.

Well, the reason it's "dying" is because the members of the C&C modding community became too competitive and greedy. Yes, there are better and more interesting games than Zero Hour. But that doesn't mean it's not worth modding it anymore.

Just look at Sim City 4 for example, it has the same age of Zerohour and yet people still comes in and makes mod or custom content for it despite it's age. The community also is thriving even though there are other city building games that are better than Simcity 4. Why? because 1): people in the community is helpful, 2): provides free tips to beginner modders, 3): provides free assets for the public, 4): they cooperate and share stuff from community to community and so-on. 

With that, they attract new members to the community to share stuff they made.

That was part of the reason. Not the whole reason. It may be worth modding to you, but many more people are interested in newer games, and the generations will pass us by.
You keep citing this Sim city community as being a long lasting one. Granted, it's still there. Granted, it's still going. But it caters for one game. FS does not.

Kris, on 4 Jul 2010, 14:07, said:

Now look at the community of C&C games, it's the exact opposite. Some people shoot down aspiring new modders because the quality of their content "sucks" or a "ripoff from other mods" and so on. Not only that, people hunt down aspiring modders who uses FREE public models for their mods (Reborn for example) and the lack of free assets for the public because the members worries about copyright "problems" which doesn't even make any sense since mods are free to begin with and in the past, forums within the community attack each other instead of helping each other out.

Not only that, if a mod dies, they take all the assets with them instead of releasing it to the community to atleast attract aspiring modders.

In the end, mean people + no stuff to attract new members = a community in dire need of CPR.


If we get our acts straight or something, the community might thrive once again. But i guess this is too late...but who knows? 

Yes. That is the state. Want change? Pft. Good luck with that. A simple disagreeing of rules led SWR to leave (I hold no disrespect or grudges against them, by the way. But this next part will sound like I do). Why? Because they disagreed. They didn't like what was happening. And instead of toughening up, and swallowing their guts, they fractured a good community. They acted against the ZH community, for their own purpose. Interestingly enough, at FS they got a lot more traffic (from what I see) than where they do now. And you think this community can be revivied?
Look at us all. We're all competitors, and speaking bluntly here, out of the 4/5 forums I've seen, only FS has been active to the public eye. Not the mods. But the community. it isn't Zero Hour keeping us here. Not anymore. It is the oppertunity to have a game of something else with people here. It is the opportunity to be part of this community.

Boidy, on 4 Jul 2010, 17:16, said:

Again, members here. But are not those members going away one by one? Isn't that why there is this trouble here? I love ZH too, just as much as the lot of you. I still want to see it more active. But this community is waning. We can try to postpone its diminishing, but expanding it just isn't incredibly realistic unless there is some way to totally revolutionize the game.

Summed up rather nicely.
You lot are too much of an optimist.

[Zhao]

Most of the reason i can't move on for ZH is that i dont have another 1k or 500$ to drop on a computer and i've tried games like MW1 halflife 2 etc etc, They just don't add up to how epic Zero hour can be.

[Brad]

Aaron:Wii, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:31, said:

Most of the reason i can't move on for ZH is that i dont have another 1k or 500$ to drop on a computer and i've tried games like MW1 halflife 2 etc etc, They just don't add up to how epic Zero hour can be.

Perhaps you don't, but there are many more people who do. Why should the community cater for the few who can't?
There are more people who would disagree with you than there are whom would agree.

[Ion Cannon!]

I don't think we need to stop catering for ZH. But I don't think having a splintered community helps either.

We had a good thing going with the game days, I expected someone to take over the L4D one when I went to university, but it never happened.

[Zhao]

Tactical_person, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:41, said:

Aaron:Wii, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:31, said:

Most of the reason i can't move on for ZH is that i dont have another 1k or 500$ to drop on a computer and i've tried games like MW1 halflife 2 etc etc, They just don't add up to how epic Zero hour can be.

Perhaps you don't, but there are many more people who do. Why should the community cater for the few who can't?
There are more people who would disagree with you than there are whom would agree.

Im pretty sure theres more then just a "Few"

[Kris]

Aaron:Wii, on 5 Jul 2010, 2:31, said:

Most of the reason i can't move on for ZH is that i dont have another 1k or 500$ to drop on a computer and i've tried games like MW1 halflife 2 etc etc, They just don't add up to how epic Zero hour can be.

Same here, i can't just dish out 100 freaking thousand Peso to build a pc that can play modern, better and graphics insane games smoothly. Heck, Zero hour alone still stutters on my PC even to this day due to my 2006-2007 hardware . 

Also, Zero Hour for me has that kind of appeal that you don't see in new games nowadays. I've tried abandoning Zero Hour twice in my life and just like a magnet, i'm still attached to it to this very day.


Not only that, some new games are not "newbie" friendly to mod. While Zerohour on the other hand is pretty much a limited (in mod features) sandbox that you can mess around with.

Like this :

[Wizard]

Tactical_person, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:04, said:

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

First off don't think that it's up to the Admins to make things happen around here. There is a limit to what they can do, even if they were the most active sods on the internet. 5 people can't make a community do things. The community drives the admins to do things, and I don't mean "change this rule here, or do stop posting in SYD there". Members have never arrived here expecting to see what the Admins do. They come/came here for the mods. That has literally dried up in the last year, even with a small surge a while back. Now FS has barely anything to offer people who actually want to mod a 7 year old game.

Summed up rather nicely I think. An excellent point. Nothing much more I need to add to this.
So why do we stick with this seven year old game, when it's clearly doing nothing for our community. I have still yet to see an opposite point which I would deem to be a good one, really.

It isn't that the game isn't doing anything for the community, it is that the community isn't doing anything for the game.

Tactical_person, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:04, said:

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

That brings me on nicely to the next problem. Modding and ZH. Face facts, it's niche and there but for the grace of God, dead and/or dying. It worked quite well back in this alleged "Golden Era", when the game was the latest and best RTS out there. The next generation of gamers would rather play other games and spend less time faffing around in the code to make the changes to a game, they expect the developers to do it. Source modding is fun, but there aren't many people with the skills to do it and even less genuine interest here to make it viable. The literal rock that ES/FS was built on is now buried beneath the sands of time and disinterest.

Yes. Yes, yes and yes.
It's clear that the golden age has past, the roots of our community have gone out of the interest of the majority of the internet, so why do we dwell on it?

Dwelling on it is what is happening now. Bemoaning the fact that FS, in turn with ZH modding isn't what is was, not the "golden age", but that it's popularity has wained. It's wained because people have stopped modding it. In turn the forums and the community have suffered from a lack of content. I wouldn't say people aren't interested in the game. People still play. Not in the numbers that have in the past, but they still do.

Tactical_person, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:04, said:

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

There are a whole host of other issues connected with this including a lack of community content, a problem that one could quite easily point the fingers of blame at several members here for. The number of people that can and do are miniscule in comparison to the rest. Well the Admins could do x or y to generate some interest, that would be pointless given the fact that few play anymore and even fewer mod it.

So you're blaming us for our lack of interest in a hobby fit for the few?
Please, if I were interesting in modding Zero hour I would've done when everyone else was doing it, so I didn't get the hostile replies of what happens now.

I am blaming everyone. Check the "Why are you here" topic. It's pretty damn blatant why everyone turned up. ZH mods. If you can't understand that ZH is the principle reason and quite simply the only game that we all share then you must be drunk.

Tactical_person, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:04, said:

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

Move on to something new? Pfffft, please?! ZH was the only game we all (99% anyway) have an interest in and all have a copy of. This community was and is a ZH one, but all these concerns stem from the fact that FS, along with a very small number of others, are riding on the back of an old donkey that really is on it's last legs. Although the FS policy was never to discriminate on the engine, there is not the same level of interest in non-ZH games as the numbers don't play them.

Only game?
Perhaps the longest surviving game, but no, not only game. We have many more which a large portion of us play/have played. Frankly I've played ZH or one of it's mods with barely ANY of you here. Granted I joined late-ish, but for a community interested in Zero Hour shouldn't I get to play with more than than just 8 (at the most). Half of you only played with people involved in your projects. I never saw the likes of you Wiz in a ZH game. Perhaps it wasn't your cup of tea, but then again you're arguing for it.

I am arguing for assisting the modding community. I never was much of a ZH MP gamer, that is obvious to everyone. The problem is, ZH is the only game that everyone who would take part in this discussion has. It's the only one that is modded by people we know and the only one that anyone here can speak with any authority on. Period.

Tactical_person, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:04, said:

Wizard, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, said:

If FS is to continue it's life (and I hope it does), it needs more people to use it for what Chrizz intended it to be used for, ZH modding. More people need to take it up, try their luck, then try again. Whilst I was part of the Admins we talked and worked bloody hard trying to attract new talent to FS, but that was ultimately futile due to the fact that no new talent wants to arrive here with their game as all they'll get is lots of "nice work", "keep it coming" and the such like and no actual players of their games.

AJ has asked for people to come together and support FS, do it favour instead, open Finalbig, Gmax and Photoshop and make something new. It doesn't have to be the most original model on the planet, just make something, ask for some criticism, do it again, then release it to others to play around with. And whilst you're there, let others know how you did it so they can do the same.

For the second time, I, and probably many others, do not hold any interest in modding this game, that at most only a few people would play. Why should I have to mod a game outdated by seven bloody years? Oh, and don't tell me this is the kind of attitude keeping this community separated. Or broken. Or inactive. It's the people who cannot move on from this ancient software. Sure, there are diehard people who will play it for longer, but the community as a whole should move on.

GL:HF with that then. I spent fucking hours and hours trying to get other mods to come here. Look how that turned out. I know of only ONE person from 4,994 that has even tried to assist in making more of other modding. The simple fact that you are very clearly missing out on, is that there is NO OTHER GAME that is played or in the collection of the community like ZH. You don't want to mod it, fine. Don't. There are others that might want to. Only 2 other games have even had any levels of success amongst FS in the last two years, L4D (which lasted less than a year) and TF2, which really isn't everyones cup of tea. Both are Source games and really bloody tricky to mod in comparison with Sage. However, my ultimate point is, you will get no where unless someone actually MODS SOMETHING. It's that fact that has seen the tail off of community driven content more than anything else. 7 year old, extremely playable game or not.

Fingers out of arses and make something rather than moan about what it is.

[Gen.Kenobi]

My 2 cents:

People here don't support newbies...every time you try to start something new, people go and bit your neck and take your work down.

[R3ven]

Gen.Kenobi, on 4 Jul 2010, 15:48, said:

My 2 cents:

People here don't support newbies...every time you try to start something new, people go and bit your neck and take your work down.

You are just sore because people criticize you because you have a new mod every other month.

[Zhao]

Gen.Kenobi, on 4 Jul 2010, 19:48, said:

My 2 cents:

People here don't support newbies...every time you try to start something new, people go and bit your neck and take your work down.

I don't mind quite honestly , i pretty much found out about fallout when i first joined those hamachi networks and they pretty much bag you for being a noob but if you can ignore it they will overall grow out of it, realizing you don't care.

[Ion Cannon!]

Gen.Kenobi, on 4 Jul 2010, 20:48, said:

My 2 cents:

People here don't support newbies...every time you try to start something new, people go and bit your neck and take your work down.

I have to disagree. FS does support newbies, however people have faults and don't have infinite patience. If someone dreams up a vastly ambitious project then expects people to join despite having no skills themselves, they WILL be criticised. If someone starts project after project after project, they WILL be criticised.

People want to help, but they're not here to make your mod for you, or to hold your hand the entire way. They're also not going to sugarcoat it, the general trend is that if someone keeps starting projects, they never actually finish even one of them.

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 04 July 2010 - 20:53.

[Libains]

Overdose, on 4 Jul 2010, 1:30, said:

I'm only posting here because Sean told me to. I don't really think its my place to comment but since he insisted:

If we made dialogue before shooting missiles there'd be a different situation.

I disagree, it is as much your place to comment, if not moreso than our current memberbase, considering you are a part of another modding community, especially with so much history with FS. Furthermore, perhaps dialogue should have been opened up sooner. A lot sooner. All I know is that we are both paying for the mistakes we previously made, and I am trying to correct these errors. You and Comr4de both know where I am on MSN and elsewhere, and I would like to talk.

Boidy, on 4 Jul 2010, 4:39, said:

tl;dr

But if I understand the gist, you are suggesting that mods benefit from such support as a giant community like FS under them? And from this it can be drawn that cooperation is always better than individualism.

Ronald Coase wrote a book on the theory of the firm, if I recall correctly from my research paper, discussing why firms form. Well, it makes sense, right? Pooling resources allows more work to be done faster and more efficiently. In the production of clothes, if all were focused on the individual, that individual would have to create the yarn, turn that yarn into fabric, and sew that fabric into clothing. But specialization allows individuals to focus on one area of expertise in the process. One man does this, another takes that and does something else, and passes it on to the next.

This theoretically would work with mods. You have the skinners, the modelers, the coders, etc right?

But what happens when you do this?

Everything looks the same. Because you have the same skinners working on 8 different mods, the same modelers on those 8 mods, et cetera.

I came across this issue when I was in my golden time of particle making. I noticed that my particle effects were often very similar in style and construction from one project to the next and thus I had the begin diversifying my effects so they did not look exactly the same from project to project.

Thankfully, it is fairly easy for one person to diversify his work. But managing this issue with multiple skinners each working on multiple projects? That's no easy task.

If not handled properly, and I seriously doubt many in the modding community are really ready to handle it, you end up with a big old melting pot and you might as well be producing one or two super mods, because when the ideas, the skin and model types, the effects, and all else become shared resources, diversity diminishes.

It's like owning a Versace shirt and a Prada shirt. Both designer shirts, both very unique. And then you go to Wal Mart and buy two different shirts.. and yet they both have that distinct Wal Mart feel.

Eh?

The flaw with your argument is what I initially looked at in my opening post. Individualism works in an environment away from the internet due to the inherent risk of going it alone. Your livelyhood, and way of life, are both at risk should you cock up in RL. This is the internet. Flaws aren't fatal, and thus people make mistakes. They go it alone and fail, but because the penalty is small, they persevere through bloodymindedness. Neither am I suggesting that mods merge. I am suggesting that the supporting communities do. Yes, resources would be shared moreoften. But no the mod teams would not be one team. It would function along a similar system of what we already have in place, allowing mods their own freedom, as is currently done.

n5p29, on 4 Jul 2010, 4:55, said:

agree that FS is the best place I can find for a community. there's something that FS have but not in other place.

for modding productivity problem, it's also a dilemma. we want the projects keep running, but maybe have lack of new breeds of modder (I see the most wanted is skinner), and the current modders are also can't be so productive because some real life problems or just too lazy to mod atm.

Jordan, on 4 Jul 2010, 9:58, said:

I can't think of any other really active modding communites for CNC series games, though I'm focused more on Zero Hour. Sleipnir's Stuff - the second-most active community I've seen - just died, CNC Den has never been very active at all for modding, Revora isn't terribly active either, and I can't really think of any other modding communities. Anybody know of any others?

I admit that the community quite dying, Deezire also now just hanged by some newbs and maybe have no more know-all people.
CnCMaps still active producing new maps (mostly for CNC3 and CNC4, but there's for ZH sometimes), it's also the place where Beng still around. at least the modding not really dead there, there's still people asking how to do things in ZH.

but from many dying communities, I see there's some potential new forums/places for CNC like C&C Reality and GRANS. they just need more publications and active members.

These new forums are not of any use to the community. They spring up faster than bunnies reproduce, and serve about as much purpose. Think of the good these modders from GRANS and Reality could do if they were united. But again, individuality results in rich, bloated community-providing services and awful communities.

Kris, on 4 Jul 2010, 5:20, said:

I have no any further comment as you guys already make good points about them.

Amdrial, on 4 Jul 2010, 8:30, said:

I once heard there was a discussion for the creation of a community model/texture pool for use by the mods of Fallout Studios, what, for example, happened to that plan? Did it get scrapped? Were there not enough people interested? Was its flame extinguished in the planning fase?

It wasn't scrapped, people are just downright greedy and always worries about getting "Credited".

Hunter, Fritz, Chrizz are the only people that i remember releasing really high quality models with textures for free public use, i've also done my fair share back then; After that, people just got greedy in sharing models or other assets.

If the people aren't greedy and fame hungry, that planned community pool of art assets would be still very active to this day.

Personally, we can really learn from the Sim City community, just look at simtropolis' "ST Exchange" alone and see the huge pool of seriously high quality mod and art assets available for the masses. Not only that, they also coordinate to other Sim city forums and share assets back and forth instead of competing each other.. If we do the same here, the Zero Hour modding community would be still alive and kicking just like the community of Sim City 4.

This is still in the works. It must be said that the response by the currently hosted projects was pretty minimal, and not quite what we had had in mind. What we really want is to take every damn mod there is, strip it down to the code and assets with the permission of the creators, and make it all available. ALL OF IT. We would simply be saving the new modders a step, and in turn, protecting modders' assets under a Licensing standard. If people could see that what we are offering to provide for what it is, a resource, and a cumulative one at that, then we may get somewhere. But this needs the support of all mods, at FS, and elsewhere. It just needs the initiative to commit to it.

JJ_, on 4 Jul 2010, 6:08, said:

Heh, AJ really make it sound like the end of Fallout, but perhaps it is, a slow, painful one. I'm just an ordinary idealistic teenager, and I do not have sufficient knowledge of how to lead, manage a community or of politics. But I can tell you what I think as a modder, who also mods at SWR. Indeed, a motivated and good leader is necessary. Frankly, SWR is crumbling simply because Hunter lost interest, and there's no one to replace him. I do not care anymore if I get fired for saying this, all I want is for Shockwave to be released so people are interested again, however one may argue such interest may be short living.

Mmm, that's all. I'll just sit at some corner and observe now. :3

I had intended to make what I said heard, and powerful, if a little tl;dr. SWR is not the only mod. Interest in ZH modding is waning, and it needs all the support it can get. I will give it 110% of my time and energy, but people need to understand that this has to be a collaborative effort that goes further than the boundaries of mods or websites.
Get out of that corner, I have bigger things for you lad

Kris, on 4 Jul 2010, 6:59, said:

JJ_, on 4 Jul 2010, 13:08, said:

-----

We should also do something like what the Isotx team did to MidEastCrisis 1.5:


http://www.moddb.com/mods/mideast-crisis/d...tch-for-modders

That pack is seriously useful for beginner modders.

Dutchygamer, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:12, said:

Jordan made a good point about linking forums. Myself, I have 2 main forums: Project Perfect Mod (PPM) for TS/RA2 modding, and Fallout for Generals modding. At PPM we also lack updates for mods, and we also have a cold war between 2 mods (won't mention any names, PPM members will know which mods I mean). In other words: it ain't just this forum that is dying, it's everywhere. C&C is dying because we are modding old games, and when old members leave, there ain't much new ones because they don't like the old C&C series (whether you like it or not, Generals is 7 years old now). The new games are too difficult for new ppl to mod, and they ain't as flexible as the old ones (no simple 'saving-a-file-and-your-mod-works', but 'save-your-file,-compile-it,-hope-you-don't-get-an-error,-and-hopefully-your-mod-works').
Another reason C&C modding is dying is the lack of connectivity between forums. Of course, PPM has the Revora network, but in essence it's all the same: only TS/RA2 modding. Likewise, Fallout also has its connections with other Generals/TW modding forums. The main problem here is that PPM and related aren't interested in Generals and onwards, and these forums aren't interested in RA2 and backwards. Another example from PPM: someone has posted some new RA2 mod idea he's been working on for several months. He gets 50 posts in a few days. I post my Generals mod in a similar way as the other guy, and I get 5 posts in the same amount of time. Coincidence? I think not.

Then maybe our issue here is that the communities could work better, together? I have often wondered why PPM and FS are not more closely aligned, we are different sides of the same coin, and I am well aware of the benefits we could bring to each other.

[Rich19]

If we want to attract new members, I'm going to suggest we drop the idea of having to focus on ZH. I also think that forcing people into things (such as resuming work on their mods, "learn source modding", or whatever else has been mentioned above) is a very, very bad idea. ZH is an old game, and the only people starting new mods for it seem to be the ones that have only just heard of the concept of modding (so they inevitably decide to do a TC, and completely fail as a result). Scouring ModDB for new ZH mods is at best going to bring a few new Masseys to the forum. C&C simply isn't the franchise it used to be, and modding any C&C games is starting to look like a bit of a dead end (I'd wager that most of this forum hasn't played C&C4 in a long time, if at all). Of course, that's not to say we should discourage any discussion of ZH/C&C. I just think that deciding "right, we're now a C&C community, so we need more C&C related things hosted here" is a bad idea. If we're going to host more C&C mods, make that decision due to their quality rather than their game engine (I'm also going to throw it out there that a decent proportion of the mods we currently have hosted here don't really deserve it).

I think a better way to encourage activity would be to choose mods we host based on quality rather than game engine. You're not going to get a 100% overlap with every person on the forums owning every game we talk about, but having a decent selection of games is fine. I don't play or even own DoW or MW2 whereas other people here do, but I don't really feel left out because other people play things like TF2 (and they used to play L4D as well).

There is another problem in that modding is rather a dying art - this applies not just to this community but all of them - and as a result I think we should look at using the server(s?) more. I hate to bring this argument up again, but using reserved slots rather than locking everyone who doesn't know the password out on game days would be effective. People are more likely to join an active server, and when they do they find a friendly community of FSers (who could perhaps make an effort to talk to these newcomers, and not argue about something trivial on the voice chat while playing ). Actually talking to people and specifically inviting them to join our community ought to produce good results.

Edited by Rich19, 04 July 2010 - 22:53.

[Wizard]

Can I just point out, that saying "lets not just be a CnC forum" isn't a solution in itself. Whilst I am not pointing fingers at people saying that you fail or anything like that, but just saying let's not be x anymore, doesn't solve the problem in anyway.

@ Rich, the only game server left is not going to be a source of anything for the community, beyond a Tuesday night frag fest. Sorry, it is a supplement to what is here already, not a reason to be here.

Oh and btw, there has never been any discrimination in regards to the hosting policy based on the engine of the game. It is indeed quite arguable as to whether there has actually been any official criteria for quality however. Although the staff have done there best to ensure the screening process was/is as fair as possible without becoming too elitist.

[Alias]

I think a less-effective but far more likely to succeed method is to get people not necessarily modding, but at least playing Zero Hour and some mods. I know it sounds incredibly cheesy, but a part of why I got really lazy while working with SWR mods (and some other projects in the past) was slowly seeing the community decay, it was worse with Shockwave as I was practically one of two or three active members of the mod team who actually played, so I could see it from the inside. People disappearing for no reason. Surprisingly, this is something we can all fix. I tried to get more people active in Shockwave, I did get around 6 people from here playing, with around 3 of them being people who hadn't played for a while. If we can get more people playing, it does give some impact to mods, even if only indirectly.

Next weekend I expect to see more of you.

Oh, and to a lesser extent, post more. The more posts there are the more the community thrives. Meaningful posts. Just a little word of advice. There was at least four to six pages of threads with new replies per 24 hours a couple of years ago, at the moment we're lucky to get more than one, two at most.

Edited by Alias, 05 July 2010 - 00:42.

[Zhao]

Alias, on 5 Jul 2010, 0:34, said:

playing Zero Hour and some mods.

I don't really care what the setting's are, Or what mod we play. As long as we get more fukkin people on.

Seriously, sometimes it does get tiring playing competitive all the time

Spoiler

Generaly i play competitive but i do like to stop the AI rarely but i can't find anyone to do that with anymore

Edited by Aaron:Wii, 05 July 2010 - 06:54.

[Rich19]

I might come along. Used to be fun doing 7 way FFAs.

[Nid]

Rich19, on 5 Jul 2010, 14:29, said:

Used to be fun doing 7 way FFAs.

*Holds for applause*

But seriously, this community thrives further than any of you can see, it is still very much alive after all, even if it's mods aren't.

The problem is that there are far more sufficient places for people to go to discover mods, to get their mods discovered, or to discuss mods. If you want a forum for your mod you can just get a free one anyway, but they will still get you nowhere.
That is why places like ModDB exist, it spawned from a time where mods were so segregated across the internet, inside pockets of different parts of the internet, pockets like the one you are browsing around now, and was made to bring all those people together.

Mod DB has become popular thanks to people like me, who love to have everything they love in one place. However, the one thing that ModDB lacks is a clear sense of community, because it is so vast. And that is the edge that these little pockets of the internet have over big places like ModDB, community.

The fact is, that nobody here has control over what anyone does on FS. People do what they like, and use the community as their friends, people to converse with, meet, share passions in gaming and the like. Yes, we are all here because of ZH, yes Zh is the root of all popularity for this forum, but is it the reason I am still here? No. I hardly touch the game any more. I'm sure the same is true for many of you.

What we have here is a community, and that side of FS thrives daily still, despite having lost SWR, a massive chunk of what we used to be. That is why I agree with what some people have said here. Why dwell on Zero Hour, if there are few people that play the game that often? I come here to play Dawn of War with people here, and sometimes TF2. We had a Left 4 Dead crowd too at one point, even BF2, and CoD4.

What we have on our hands is a community of gamers, but not a community based around just gaming. For instance, at one point we had a strong desktop artwork forum, Sig of the Week was flourishing. Artistic talent was popping up left right and centre with like likes of TheDr, Bob, Nem, Pav3d and Wizard always at photoshop, experimenting, learning, producing all sorts of artwork just for fun, for a hobby, and some still do (Mr. Productive).

The way forward for FS, is finding what we are, rather than what we used to be. It takes community input. As Wizard said, Admins can only help the direction that FS takes, not steer it completely, and at the moment, I think a lot of you here don't quite realise what this place has become.

EDIT: In the mean time, it may be a good idea to avoid letting people know that SWR has moved and taken Shockwave with it, it seems to be a good crowd puller here

Edited by nidmeister, 05 July 2010 - 15:30.

[Gen.Kenobi]

@AJ i applause your "project". If you need something from CNC Guild/Revora/GRANS or wish to talk feel free to mensage me.

@Huhnu and Aaron: For me modding is fun. It's not a hurry up project for professional carrer.
I mod what i want when i want.

Edited by Gen.Kenobi, 05 July 2010 - 23:31.

[Wizard]

nidmeister, on 5 Jul 2010, 16:29, said:

But seriously, this community thrives further than any of you can see, it is still very much alive after all, even if it's mods aren't.

I don't think people are criticisizing how the "community" is surviving. There has always been a strong connection amongst the members here, whether there is content or not. The problem is, will the community grow without something more? Otherwise FS is just going to become an ex-modfans-social-networking-and-gaming-site.

Quote

The problem is that there are far more sufficient places for people to go to discover mods, to get their mods discovered, or to discuss mods. If you want a forum for your mod you can just get a free one anyway, but they will still get you nowhere.
That is why places like ModDB exist, it spawned from a time where mods were so segregated across the internet, inside pockets of different parts of the internet, pockets like the one you are browsing around now, and was made to bring all those people together.

The size and scale of Moddb won't be matched or even half matched with the resources available. Heck, even with the funds I was prepared to pump in we would never have come close.

Quote

Mod DB has become popular thanks to people like me, who love to have everything they love in one place. However, the one thing that ModDB lacks is a clear sense of community, because it is so vast. And that is the edge that these little pockets of the internet have over big places like ModDB, community.

And it's this fact that FS has going for it. A more personal approach to modding is something that would stand out from the crowd that is Moddb, or indeed other modding related sites. There are other peers out there without the sense of community and helpfulness that you find here (even if there are instances of a lack of support for certain mods/people).

Quote

The fact is, that nobody here has control over what anyone does on FS. People do what they like, and use the community as their friends, people to converse with, meet, share passions in gaming and the like. Yes, we are all here because of ZH, yes Zh is the root of all popularity for this forum, but is it the reason I am still here? No. I hardly touch the game any more. I'm sure the same is true for many of you.

It doesn't stop FS from still being the place to come for ZH modding. There is nothing to stop what we can call the hardcore FS'ers from using this place as they do now, but it can still be what it was intended for and it can be that far easier then anything else.

Quote

Why dwell on Zero Hour, if there are few people that play the game that often?

It depends if you want growth of the active member base or just a continuance of the hardcore? I can count on one hand the number of people we have seen arrive to FS from gaming. However, there have been considerably more people arrive here, in the last year alone, that are still interested in modding ZH. The ratio of community:ZH reasons alone suggests that, logically, it's still the way to go.

Quote

The way forward for FS, is finding what we are, rather than what we used to be.

This was something that I and the other Admins gave far more thought to than you can guess. We even tried to shift the community towards gaming, the servers, news team etc. But again it boils down to as you have quite rightly said, what does the community want. I still think that ZH is going to be a far bigger draw than anything else any one can do or think of, and it would do it quicker to. Has the hardcore moved on? Almost probably. Have they moved on to something that will inevitably enlarge the member base? Doubtful.

Quote

EDIT: In the mean time, it may be a good idea to avoid letting people know that SWR has moved and taken Shockwave with it, it seems to be a good crowd puller here

*Facepalm*

[Dutchygamer]

AJ, on 4 Jul 2010, 22:06, said:

Dutchygamer, on 4 Jul 2010, 12:12, said:

---

Then maybe our issue here is that the communities could work better, together? I have often wondered why PPM and FS are not more closely aligned, we are different sides of the same coin, and I am well aware of the benefits we could bring to each other.

Well, that is what I wanted to suggest: PPM and FS could work together. Problem is, how to make them work together. As said, PPM is a bit hostile to anything newer then RA2/YR (except the Invasion Confirmed mod, but only because it remakes all RA sides). I may create a new thread about this.

[Wizard]

Affiliation would be a start. A forum for YR/RA2 could be set up here to redirect to PPM and vice a versa at PPM for ZH to FS.

[Zeke]

"Let's work together" - Nod Saboteur

Well I was planning to use quotes, but I got lost in the giant ocean of text. So I'll just add my random bits of opinion.

-@ Main Topic-

This is the best idea I've heard since well... EVER. This is exactly what the community needs right now.

-@ Public mod assets-

I actually have a lot of models I plan to release, just haven't got around to finishing them

-@ SWR Leaving-

While I respect their decision, they basically killed themselves when they left. People DID go to ES because of Shockwave, but they stayed because of the ES community. IMHO, the SWR forums has too much SWR, and almost no community.