Hey folks, I'm thinking of slipping back into modding which I haven't done for the last 2 or 3 years (since oblivion first came out). I was wondering what are some of the more popular games being modded?

(Between this and my question about games thread I feel like Gold lol)

Half-Life 2
Unreal 3

Thats not really recent. Its over 4 years old now isn't it? I'd prefer something that I'll get into that'll last for a good long while, I'd rather not spend time learning something that'll be outdated sooner than later.

It's based on the Source engine, which will last for a good long while.

More like recent popular games to post concept art and weapon renders for 5 years before cancelling the project... for.

I'd also recommend UE3 but it still has some rather annoying ... "birth issues" that will probably be fixed in a few months or years. And it's not like the Source engine hasn't been updated many times in the past 4 years...

They release engine updates for HL2 like every 10 minutes.

All the neato torpedo episode 2 stuff is editable addable or whatever if you own it.

Yeah, your best bet is definitely the source engine

Not to mention that it runs a lot more games than just HL2.

edit: Also, Hammer is a good editor IMO.

Are there any interesting games on the way on the Source Engine? The last complete game I can conjure is Dark Messiah which wasn't all that, so I would image the modding community is pretty low. The other games I can remember was a bunch of semi-games bundled up in the orange box.

The Unreal engine sounds more like the engine for future games than Source does.

Of course the Half-Life setting does little to inspire me. I always hated the story and moreso the main character.

Edit TF2, that game is genius, and it will be around for a looooooong time.

Except that I just read about people pissing and moaning about how crappy the game had become.

Because they released an update that only affects one class.

After everyone has the achievements, it goes back to normal.

So are there any interesting, upcoming games using the Source engine? Has it been licensed for anything big?

Aren't they doing updates for each class eventually? So far they did medic and pyro right? People just like to ***** too much, I still think the game is fun as hell and I don't have any of the useful new weapons on either class.

I guess I've grown picky because really aside from TF2 and Dark Messiah nothing on that list even remotely interests me. (And Portal but thats more of a mini-game than a full game).

i may start modding the sauce engine when/if i get to uni

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Ah, Dark Messiah, I loved that game.
If Oblivion had combat like that it may not have been so omgboring.

Does anyone know if theres any mod community for Dark Messiah?

I willing to bet that modding will go on the decline years from now due to the simple fact that it takes much more effort and time to produce anything that's eye-catching or really deep in this day and age of demanding graphics and full powerhouse engines. All of a sudden, it takes months to model/texture weapons and simple objects, and it takes hours upon hours to make a detailed room look good. Really, the popular mods of these days literally have big "mod teams" to get anything done, so I can't imagine the effort it will take to produce anything significant upcoming years from now as one person when game development itself requires massive amount of work from hundreds of paid professionals. Although, by chance, maybe people will go "retro" and discover the fun of editing older games.

edit: Actually, come to think about it, it might not be so bad in the future. For example, engines like Crytek 2 come with a ingame level editor which would make things easier for average users.



Not really. Nothing really outside of Valve. The Source engine is already looking "outdated" if you compare the Orange Box games to other popular titles. Hell, it was showing its age when the first (released) version came out back with HL2. Fortunately people like Valve games, and if the developers used the same engine for Episode 3 despite what other current game engines offer now, I bet people won't mind too much. Something like the Unreal 3 engine is getting involved in licensing, not the Source no matter how much Gabe likes to stroke it.

You also have to consider that there are serious issues with the tools from the SDK for Source. As with new Valve games coming out, more and more technology is added to the engine and, the word is, the tools are simply not keeping up. I'm not judging from first hand experience, but I'm told of frustrations with how user-unfriendly editing with the Hammer is and how certain features of editing software would become broken when, let's say, new episodic content is released.

/rant?

Deus Ex!

...

Uh, sorry.

Supreme Commander. If I wasn't still working on the X-wing series I'd be working on that.

...after massive and all consuming "hard drive failure" of course.

Speaking of which, I got nifty news. My high-school buddy who used to be hired at Bioware (who was animator for Mass Effect (Marc-Antoine Matton)) was hired by Eidos Montreal to work on Deus-Ex 3.

I really hate the UE3 engine these days. It needs very sharp textures to look good and is a pain to get AA running on. Because of consoles, UE3 games usually have craptastic textures and horrendous post processing to cover it up. At that to the lack of AA, and I'll take the Valve's excellent art work and outdated engine over almost anything done in UE3

Using shady baby metaphors, I'd say UE3 hasn't learned how to walk yet. It's extremely bloated and besides certain fancier graphics, it's not really that much of an improvement of UE2.5.

Oh well. At least it's still using UnrealED instead of having a rather terrifying contraption that doesn't even have an in-editor 3D preview.

Force Unleash needs to be released on PC and made editable

It's not that it's bad, it's just that it was conceived for ultra high memory situations. - the exact opposite of what consoles have today. Well, I take that back. Who ever decided that AA is a minor thing that can be easily sacrificed is a freaking moron.

Its not new, and its not as popular as it once was, but alot of people have used it to do major TC type editing..

Sauerbraten AKA Cube.


Heh. Well I still play it anyway.

I vote ut3.
I've been mapping for it for a few months now and I love it.
No it's not perfect but it's quite alot of fun.

I used to map for HL2 back when it was possible to open .map files in hammer.
I would just do all the brush work in Radiant and open it in hammer but about 3 or 4 years ago valve broke that feature and, to my knowlege, it has yet to be fixed.
Also the fact that, because it's tied to steam, updates for hammer and the SDK are mandatory despite the fact that it's technicaly "unsupported".
*sigh [/rant]