A Chat with a Modder

We had a chat with a real-life modderto understand more about modder’s motivations.

In what ways do you engage with them beyond playing i.e. Map making, add ons etc?

 Depends on what game or what type of game it is: Counter Strike (first person shooter): I spent a long time modding or messing around with ai/bots/computer players, way points. Waypoints control where and how the ai react and move around a map, lets them know where ladders are and where to crawl, which places are good for hiding etc. Call of Duty (first person shooter). Played/modded a lot with the running code, the “rules” of the game. Being able to adjust things such as;

• Gravity; changing it from 0 up to impossible high (cant even jump). Being able to float around in zero g.
• Jump height; being able to change the height of player jumps
• Person size; size of people in relation to the map. Hahaha really tiny people or really big people – kinda funny.
• Run speed;
• Weapon damage; how much damage players take. Change anywhere from 1 shot kill to 100 shots to kill someone.
• Weapon force; change the force/impact of bullets (mainly how far bodies fly when killed)
• Weapon speeds; how fast different things shoot. Make a rocket launcher shoot 1000 times in 1 second. Kind of overpowered but very funny.
• Time scale; probably the most fun of them. Slow down time, making bullets, players, and all animations move really slowly. (Kind of like matrix.)

Most of these above things aren’t “easily” changeable or not designed into the game. really only way to do it is to host your own server and change the coding while playing. A lot of people would join the servers just for something “different” I count it as something that falls under the modding category. StarCraft Broodwar (SC1) Back in the old days when competitive multiplayer was not as big as it is now. Playing a lot of starcraf1 with friends, I used to make a lot of maps specifically for me and the friends I played with. Setting up long games gives us a chance to chat and play at the same time. StarCraft 1 & 2 have a MASSIVE potential for Modding and map making. People changing the rules and game types and unit types and even names. Taking a normal Real time stat. game (build up a base, harvest money, build army, attack enemy). Changing that to ANYTHING. Some mods even follow along movies and other games, zombie survival, some StarCraft mods following along the story of ‘dragon ball z’ Literally anything can be done. There’s a StarCraft mod for bejeweled where matching the symbols creates soldiers to attack in an kind of “tug of war” Another StarCraft mod called Auir chef. which follows along the show Iron chef. where each player runs around collecting ingredients to “make” different types of meals/foods. competing against other players points for meals. Starjeweled = http://www.differentvideos.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/StarCraft-2-StarJeweled.jpg Auir chef = http://rpad.tv/wp-content/gallery/starcraft-2-aiur-chef-dota-and-starjeweled/aiur-chef-1.jpg = http://sclegacy.com/features/blizzcon10/mapeditor/AiurChefHeader.jpg

What motivates you to mod?

Probably the main thing that motivates me to mod are the laughs involved. Taking some thing that someone has spent a LONG time trying to make it look realistic and act realistic and just blowing that engine out of the water. Like the above-mentioned things like zero gravity/low gravity, time changing, nothing like a map full of people floating around shooting everywhere just to laugh and mix things up a bit.

Have you always had the desire to make ‘mods’ or has it come about with the affordances of the games?

 Modding is not usually something that people desire to MAKE. Most people I would say play the normal game then might play a mod or two. Sometimes I just feel like taking it to the next step making something more ridiculous.

Do you customize your PC? How? Why?

Like most hard-core gamers our pcs are custom built. Rather than going to Harvey Norman and getting a package deal, we build ours up carefully picking and choosing parts to suit ourselves. – starting with the case, all the way up to the screen and the even to the mouse mat. Most people don’t even KNOW that there are gaming mouse mats out there, different sizes and surface types. Gaming mice also come in a lot off different shapes and sizes. Gaming mouse mat = http://www.clickyourshop.com/product_images/e/416/razer-goliathus-fragged-speed__88697_zoom.jpg First person shooter mouse. http://www.aeropause.com/archives/images/FG1000_04_b.jpg Real time strategy mouse (same as mine) http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Razer-Naga-Mouse_1.jpg Customizing PCs is MORE elaborate than customizing cars. There are 100 of 1000s of different parts and there are just as many different ways to put them together. My personal computer has 4 hard drives, 1 is a solid stat just for the operating system (Windows), 1x 500gig Hardrive for storage, 2 other faster hard drive for installing programs. The solid-state hardrive with windows installed allows my computer boot up in seconds rather than minutes. Installing programs/games on faster than normal hard drives allows them to start up and run faster than normal. And that’s just my hard drive set up. Not to mention ram set up motherboard type, hard drive control type cooling type, etc. At the moment im only using fan forced cooling, as I have no need to overclock my computer already runs everything with no troubles. No need to make it work harder.

Can you see yourself interacting on the same level with other media platforms like TV or film? Or is it a practice that only really works within the gaming industry?

 Im not sure I see how modding goes across to TV or media. At the moment I cant think of how it does? Am I missing something? I guess im looking at it in a different way. Games are made by developers, sold to gamers, same as movies/TV are directed/produced for viewers. The main word there VIEWERS. Meaning they are viewing rather than actually interacting with the media like a game.

Would you ever want to gain employment in gaming out of modding? If so/not why?

Im not sure there is even any employment possible for game modding. Modding meaning that you are CHANGING something that has been copyrighted and sold as a product. I do however hope one day to claw my way into the gaming industry. One of my idols being Frank Klepacki, just a guy, working away for a game testing company, stumbled into the “music” area of development. Starting writing down some tunes, he now writes ALL the music for the well-known command and conquer games. A guy that loves music and loves games, doing an awesome job too. Some of his music is awesome and even gives the “feel” of the game.