Speaking With the Devs Behind a 7-Year Game Mod Project 100
Gamasutra has an interview with members of Off Topic Productions, the team behind the recent completion of The Nameless Mod, a Deus Ex modification that was in development for seven years. They talk about how they stayed interested in such a lengthy, unpaid project, and also how their vision for the mod shifted over the years as a result of experience and feedback.
"We estimate that we recreated everything we did during the first 2 or so years because we got better. The plot went through 4 revisions in the first year and was continually tweaked, expanded, and revised. Most of it also simply came about as we experimented with the game and the engine and grew familiar with what we could do — originally we were planning something even more open and free-form than we ended up with, but when we realized how fundamentally the game was built for a completely different type of structure, we reigned ourselves in and adjusted our design. ... Also, I don't know if you ever go back and read what you wrote 6-7 years ago, but in my experience that's a great way to embarrass yourself — I spent a lot of time rewriting old dialogue to be less embarrassing."
Ditto (Score:5, Interesting)
This is very true for me. Whenever I come back to very old code, writings, forum/newsgroup posts, emails or the like, I always can't help but feel bad. Sometimes I'll happen upon a piece of code, think to myself 'what was this idiot thinking' and then discovering it's my own code
It's good I guess, means I'm changing over time (here's hoping it's change for the better).
Wouldn't it have been better.... (Score:3, Interesting)
....to release version 1 rather than ditch it and start all over, then go for another game with their improved idea? Reading between the lines I'm guessing they realized the engine wouldn't let them do version 1 properly, so they had to rework it.
It really sounds to me like a case of being scattered at the start, not designing well, then realizing that you can't do what you intended waaaay later than they should have. That's fine. They're doing it for free after all, but it should not be hailed as a triumph when a talented team only produces one thing in 7 years due to having to rework things.
Anyway don't know if I'll ever play it but thanks for the game - we could use more and more good mods. It's one thing that makes PC gaming so much richer than consoles. (Yes I know consoles can have mods but it's no where near as easy).
Other long-in-dev mods (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard of other game mods that have taken that long. For instance, I'm fairly sure my copy of Half-Life: Game of the Year Edition came with an advertisement for the then-in-development Team Fortress 2 (and a copy of Team Fortress Classic in the box). In 1999.
The same Team Fortress 2 that came out using a different game engine (Source) and art style in 2007.
Black Mesa? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Marathon Too (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget the people of http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/ [tamriel-rebuilt.org] . They have been working on their project for the last 7 years and looking at the schedule I can safely say that this project will take some more years before for example the Morrowind mod is finished. But the team is persistent and I am patient.
Cheers for the tamriel-rebuilt guys!
Re:The three games I admire most (Score:2, Interesting)