I really thought hard about putting UT99 or 2003 on there. It would have been #6. Oblivion was contemplated, too. But Morrowind is (by fairly general consensus) a much better game than oblivion, so I thought TES was best represented by its (so far) crowning achievement.
The only problem I had with UT99 et al was that every mod, everything for it never actually changed the game or its gameplay - it was, above all, a deathmatch competition and that's it. Nothing wrong with that, and there are some hella fun mods that go with it...but one of the beautiful things about each of the games I listed is that the starting premise is barely recognisable by some of the mods out there. The fundamentals of the game change underneath.
That being said, it's still a very worthy addition to the list.
Originally Posted by Zurechial I know this all seems horribly ungrateful, because at least the NWN toolset and TESCS are better than nothing. Don't get me wrong, I love to see the developers encouraging the mod community, but I'd rather they provide the actual tools they used to make the game, than dumbed-down versions with an easier learning curve and limited capabilities to appeal to modding newbies, and then claim that their game is 'moddable
Umm, TESCS is the program they used to make morrowind (along with third party programs like 3D Max). They originally weren't gonna release it but near the end of Morrowinds development, they thought "Hey lets chuck the CS in there for some of the modders life a little easier" and didn't expect it to be so popular with the "noob modders"
I don't see the problem with needing 3rd party programs to add more stuff in anyway, all other games need that.
You do get some big projects with morrowind, but because of the shear scale of the game, it's very difficult to make a full mod. CS? Thats easy, new textures, a couple of new maps, done. To create an entire new world for morrowind takes hundreds of man hours and isn't possible unless you have a very well organised mod team.
That game is/was soo famous. Software for creating awesome maps. Even mods came out of nowhere. At the moment there are alot of weird mod servers like BunnyTracks or some kind of monster mods.
I believe Unreal Tournament '99 is still one of the best FPS online games and also very very moddable.
Originally Posted by Emon There's a very big difference between the most moddable games and the most modded.
if you want to argue it that way, then all you need to edit the thirdwire series is reasonable understanding of photoshop or gimp (in order to save as .tga) and notepad (the rest of the stuff is all done with .ini files) and most of the heavy lifting for the more complex stuff (like weapons) is already part of a weapon editor made available by the developer. The model flight characteristics are also in .ini files, but the models themselves are easily made in blender (freeware) or gmax or the like. with all these files you would think the size would be rediculously large; but this is not the case. I've packed mine with 40+ new aircraft, redone terrain, and 400+ new weapons; yet the folder size only approaches 5GB. by contrast, when you do the same to CFS3, the CFS3 root folder starts to equal roughly 14GB.....
Originally Posted by CardJoe One word: Freelancer.
Big agree here, but Freelancer is often overlooked in general. Fantastic game though. Also agree with Total Annihilation.
Going by units sold is a little silly, considering that gaming was still kinda a nerd niche when Quake was released. Half-life had a lot more hype going for it and is arguably a better game, but that doesn't make it a better moddable game.
I would've swapped quake for #1 with half-life for #3, reason being that quake pretty much defined the game-modding genre. Doom perhaps defined map making, but Quake set the ball rolling (hard) on mods.
Quake 2 also had a number of underrated but very unique and awesome mods, such as Generations, Gloom, and of course the venerable Action Quake 2. Action Quake 2 remains wildly superior to even the vaunted Counter Strike: Source -- though CS:S is closer to AQ2 than CS1.6 was.
i read 2 pages of moaning to try and find out what that stupid avatar was about and no one answered anyone elses questions?! wtf is it about... it's not even funny.
What about Starsiege: TRIBES? Most had quickly forgotten about it as it was released right around Half-Life. I've played it more than the original CS. The included map maker was easy as pie to use and the scripting was a cake walk. There were dozens of mod running on servers and each with thier own tweaks making every game different.
Originally Posted by DougEdey I personally think UT99 was one of the most modded games, so many map-packs, skins, add-ons were released that it was unbelievable.
Especially ChaosUT
THANK YOU
i almost fell off my chair when i saw morrowind and maxpayne on that list instead of UT99 !
I have 574 maps of UT99 on my hard drive... and that's only those that i have actually played !
The article absolutely stole the top 5 picks right out of my head! Bravo telepathy!
**edit: the included Dungeon Master/scenario editor included with Neverwinter Nights shouldn't really count (why not include Starcraft, then?). NWN shouldn't be on the list; UT and Second Life deserve recognition.
Originally Posted by Bluephoenix Second Life doesn't count as the primary content is mods, not a full game (or really a game) with secondary content as mods.
I interpreted the topic as content-inclusive, following the trend of referrals of custom maps as being valid in the wake of total conversions. Good point, though.
ok, i need to issue an apology here - Total Annihilation should TOTALLY have been on this list. :D Horrible oversight on my part.
UT99 fans, keep tryin - but I'm still at a loss where anybody changed the game into anything other than UT99 with different weapons, gravity, etc. :) I hardly consider a new map or set of weapons to be earth-shattering...what did it bring that was original or totally different from its boxed game?
Not trying to be argumentative, but that's what *I* looked for when making this list. I'm not saying it doesn't deserve a spot, because I think it's up there - but I don't see how UT99 modded is anything...well, more than UT99. So show me!!
although to my knowledge it has never been fully modded I was surprised at WoW and it's robust modding and gui customization support, I quite literally could'nt play my character without a few basic mods, but it really allowed individuals to regear the way the game was played. I don't know another MMO or RPG with such a degree of freedom in gui modding.
kudos to half-life I still bust out worldcraft at lans and recompile my old cs maps for kicks, I wish speedball caught on more, it was one of my favourite maps
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The only problem I had with UT99 et al was that every mod, everything for it never actually changed the game or its gameplay - it was, above all, a deathmatch competition and that's it. Nothing wrong with that, and there are some hella fun mods that go with it...but one of the beautiful things about each of the games I listed is that the starting premise is barely recognisable by some of the mods out there. The fundamentals of the game change underneath.
That being said, it's still a very worthy addition to the list.
it is a damn virus. :p
Umm, TESCS is the program they used to make morrowind (along with third party programs like 3D Max). They originally weren't gonna release it but near the end of Morrowinds development, they thought "Hey lets chuck the CS in there for some of the modders life a little easier" and didn't expect it to be so popular with the "noob modders"
I don't see the problem with needing 3rd party programs to add more stuff in anyway, all other games need that.
You do get some big projects with morrowind, but because of the shear scale of the game, it's very difficult to make a full mod. CS? Thats easy, new textures, a couple of new maps, done. To create an entire new world for morrowind takes hundreds of man hours and isn't possible unless you have a very well organised mod team.
That game is/was soo famous. Software for creating awesome maps. Even mods came out of nowhere. At the moment there are alot of weird mod servers like BunnyTracks or some kind of monster mods.
I believe Unreal Tournament '99 is still one of the best FPS online games and also very very moddable.
if you want to argue it that way, then all you need to edit the thirdwire series is reasonable understanding of photoshop or gimp (in order to save as .tga) and notepad (the rest of the stuff is all done with .ini files) and most of the heavy lifting for the more complex stuff (like weapons) is already part of a weapon editor made available by the developer. The model flight characteristics are also in .ini files, but the models themselves are easily made in blender (freeware) or gmax or the like. with all these files you would think the size would be rediculously large; but this is not the case. I've packed mine with 40+ new aircraft, redone terrain, and 400+ new weapons; yet the folder size only approaches 5GB. by contrast, when you do the same to CFS3, the CFS3 root folder starts to equal roughly 14GB.....
Big agree here, but Freelancer is often overlooked in general. Fantastic game though. Also agree with Total Annihilation.
Going by units sold is a little silly, considering that gaming was still kinda a nerd niche when Quake was released. Half-life had a lot more hype going for it and is arguably a better game, but that doesn't make it a better moddable game.
I would've swapped quake for #1 with half-life for #3, reason being that quake pretty much defined the game-modding genre. Doom perhaps defined map making, but Quake set the ball rolling (hard) on mods.
Quake 2 also had a number of underrated but very unique and awesome mods, such as Generations, Gloom, and of course the venerable Action Quake 2. Action Quake 2 remains wildly superior to even the vaunted Counter Strike: Source -- though CS:S is closer to AQ2 than CS1.6 was.
Tools provided with the games with huge community's and online guides on how to do things..
Make something Unreal contest anyone? Whole games being made of mods, such as Red Orchestra?
*baffled*
THANK YOU
i almost fell off my chair when i saw morrowind and maxpayne on that list instead of UT99 !
I have 574 maps of UT99 on my hard drive... and that's only those that i have actually played !
beat that max payne !
**edit: the included Dungeon Master/scenario editor included with Neverwinter Nights shouldn't really count (why not include Starcraft, then?). NWN shouldn't be on the list; UT and Second Life deserve recognition.
http://mlsg.club.fr/UnrealTournamentLogo.jpghttp://www.brandsoftheworld.com/brands/0015/1150/brand.gif
AMEN!
tho the games listed in the top5 are some of the better games out there along with their respected mods, but I'd liked to see TA in there
Second Life doesn't count as the primary content is mods, not a full game (or really a game) with secondary content as mods.
note how Brett put Half-life up there instead of Counterstrike.
UT99 fans, keep tryin - but I'm still at a loss where anybody changed the game into anything other than UT99 with different weapons, gravity, etc. :) I hardly consider a new map or set of weapons to be earth-shattering...what did it bring that was original or totally different from its boxed game?
Not trying to be argumentative, but that's what *I* looked for when making this list. I'm not saying it doesn't deserve a spot, because I think it's up there - but I don't see how UT99 modded is anything...well, more than UT99. So show me!!
kudos to half-life I still bust out worldcraft at lans and recompile my old cs maps for kicks, I wish speedball caught on more, it was one of my favourite maps