What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

[|D|-Jaws]

I don't think this particular question has been asked...it's always been assumed. Well, I'm asking.

If we were to bring all great ideas into one mod, what would they be? What do the fans want in a BF2 mod? Simple skins, new textures, total conversion, new game modes, etc?

What makes some of you play mods while others don't?

does the inability to rank up keep you from playing mods?

Could the content of a mod outweigh the ranking system and if yes, what content does it need be?

I really wish I had the coding expertise to make this into a survey because I'm a firm believer in metrics.

[L3adcannon]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

I don't think this particular question has been asked...it's always been assumed. Well, I'm asking.

If we were to bring all great ideas into one mod, what would they be? What do the fans want in a BF2 mod? Simple skins, new textures, total conversion, new game modes, etc?

What makes some of you play mods while others don't?

does the inability to rank up keep you from playing mods?

Could the content of a mod outweigh the ranking system and if yes, what content does it need be?

I really wish I had the coding expertise to make this into a survey because I'm a firm believer in metrics.

-If you make it for a game that isn`t played by statwhores, who make up 90% of the whole playerbase and the engine doesn`t suck complete bawls.
-fast and fun (arcade + a tad of realism)

[AllFoamNoBeer]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

Thinking about what the community wants.

[Adamshannon8]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

umm, make it new, fresh and cool, w/ very little bugs.

[imported_Rhino]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

going by PR's, FH2's and DC's (in 1942) success, and the mods that didn't succeed so muhc I would really put the main element down to the mod needs to be vastly different in one way or anouther from the main game its being built on. This can be in content, or gameplay, or best, both.

PR has survived in the BF2 modding world simply because its gameplay is vastly different from the stock game, which has put off many users from playing it in the first place, but at the same time, the ones who have liked the gameplay stay because of it as the stock game dose not offer the same "needs" as such to some of these players. PR has also had and continually increasing its content to really separate it from the main game content wise too which only helps. The British Armed Forces really appeals to brit players, aswell as offer something different for other players to play with from the stock game.

FH2 and DC for 1942 mainly survived on lots and lots of vastly different content, with also mixing in many new gameplay features but for the most part keeping the core gameplay, although FH2 is quite alot more realism based than the stock game, it dose how ever still appeal quite abit to normal BF2 players and the thing it really only offers that is vasly different from the main game is its excellent content.


One of the biggest factors that not all mods can do which really helps with a mod, especially a new mod getting off the ground is a early release of the mod, aswell as lots and lots of regular small updates every few months. Having 3 or so releases a year really helps keep the established player base for the mod, as well as building on what it has. PR and DC for 1942 both have done this and came out very strong as a result. FH2 on the other hand could not do this since they needed to build everything up from scratch, although so did DC and DC's early releases where piss poor (so im told, i never played them ) but it established a player base and a dev team because of it. What might have been a better release strategy for FH2 would have been to maybe aim for a early release of FH2, with it only being infantry based with say only 5 maps, then build up from there, but to make the infantry on its own with all its hand weapons, new statics etc would have taken almost just as long anyways so its hard to say.

So ye, main points are really:

• aim for vastly different gameplay from the core game
• lots of good quality content helps "draw" the new players in, aswell as keeping the current
• regular small releases every 3 or 4 months to keep the player base happy and going

I think if any mod team dose all 3 points well then they should make a good mod for any game, providing they also have a appealing concept and all the other basics

[predragjanjic]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

beautifull maps


thats it for me and I know jaws can deliver in that area :thumbsup:

[sava700]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

beautifull maps


thats it for me and I know jaws can deliver in that area :thumbsup:

He's made a bunch of them..and for different mods, however jaws and I have discussed this before while running different mod servers that the player base isn't there cause of the stats that so many players "must have" therefore they won't play them...its a "must get my stat fix so I can't give up the time to play them" way of thinking.

Perfect example was those POE2 or DCON servers that were showing up "Ranked" in the server browser in which those were the ones that filled up quick all cause of that little ranked symbol. It didn't matter that Jaws had one of his awesome maps in rotation on another or anyone elses for that matter. Stats killed any chances mods will have or ever have unless EA for the sake of sticking to BF2 for a example, gives mods tracking on the Master Stat Server..which we all know will never happen.

Ohh and I posted once before in this thread but it would seem someone took it upon themselves to remove it when there wasn't anything wrong with it.
So I've added more content to this post with regards to my opinion which means just as much as anyone elses.

As for this:

Could the content of a mod outweigh the ranking system and if yes, what content does it need be?

There is no amount of content vs whats already been used which by far some of these mods are 10x better than vBF2, that will take the place of that must have "stat fix".

[DarQraven]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

Well, the elements of ranks and different gameplay have already been mentioned, but I think I could add to that.

I think the key to a successful mod is finding out what your target demographic is.
- What kind of players does vBF2 attract?
- What other games do they play?
- Why are they playing vBF2? What about vBF2 is it that attracts them?
- Could vBF2 be improved in those aspects?
- What is the core of vBF2 gameplay? (besides grenadespamming of course)

Once you can answer these questions you should have a pretty clear idea of how far you can take your mod away from BF2 and still have the playerbase interested.

What PR did correctly was add some of the realism that typical fans of the real-world tactical team shooter genre often crave, and that BF2 largely misses. It also shifted the focus of the game more to team coordination, as opposed to vBF2's brute-force approach which didn't really allow for creative tactics.
This alone had some of the more teamplay-oriented vBF2 players interested in the mod.
Still, the PR team was lucky. They're operating in a kind of niche where they can't count on tens of thousands of players looking for a mod like theirs, so their mod becoming as big as theirs was due to both good work and a good portion of having just the right idea at the right time.

On the other hand, the tons of mods that give you rocket boosters on your cars and rocketlauncher-miniguns and jetpacks and such didn't do quite so well.
They might be implemented perfectly and are pretty fun for a while, but fast-paced over the top shooters generally aren't the vBF2 player's thing.
If they were, they would probably be playing UT or quake or painkiller or something along those lines.
In order to really make a good fast-paced shooter, you'll have to change a lot of things. This in turn will make the mod so different from vBF2 that people will not really be able to recognize it.

The problem here is probably that the modders had a vision in mind for their mod, but it was a spontaneous idea that led to the vision instead of carefully planning your vision based on a core idea(Such as 'increase realism' , ' capture the flag mode' , or ' smaller teams + elimination '). There's nothing wrong with adapting your vision to what you can actually get out there and get players for. These people did not do that.

--

I think there's a very clear difference between making a mod and making an independent game in terms of how far you can go.
When making a new game, you can go anywhere, as long as you know what you're doing, your vision for the game is solid, and there's players interested in that sort of thing. After that it's just marketing your game in a way that's appropriate and that profiles your game as exactly what it aims to be; that reaches your target demographic.

When making a mod, you have to stay within certain boundaries that the original game set for you.
You can cross some of these boundaries, but not too many since that will disconnect it from the core game.
It's a psychological thing really; You're not playing *a* mod, you're playing a *bf2* mod.
--

Note I haven't actually made any BF2 mods before.
I have been active in a few UT04 and UT3 mod teams or at least in regular contact with the teams, as well as currently attending an industrial design education at Technical University Delft, so most of these points are based on things I learned from marketing and concept design courses. The basic ideas should still apply to video games.

[gazzthompson]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

its gotta have different gameplay from vbf2

[sava700]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

its gotta have different gameplay from vbf2

You can't change something someone is used to... its obvious that BF2 players do not like change. Take for example DC..was ok till they changed the jump height then they pissed off prob 20% of their player base. The jump height used to be the same as vBF2 and thats something players were used to.

[[GCA]Tim270]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

its gotta have different gameplay from vbf2

Agree, i mostly get a high from mods when there is different gameplay on the whole and/or interesting content.

[Irontaxi]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

agreed, something wholy new in experience is what im looking for...

as well as pushing the barriers of a particular engine in a meaningful way...

ubber rocket bomb tanks are fun for about 5minutes..certainly not more than a day..

Rhino makes a very good point about regular consistent releases...builds up the player base, builds up a forum base as well...

My personal pet peeve is lack of planning and how it can kill a mod.. also mods being feature driven and not really containing much new gameplay.

Ie...shiny tanks and guns but little else has changed will never impress me as a gamer...I dont know one gun from the other really so.....

[gazzthompson]

Re: What are the elements of a successful BF2 mod?

You can't change something someone is used to... its obvious that BF2 players do not like change. Take for example DC..was ok till they changed the jump height then they pissed off prob 20% of their player base. The jump height used to be the same as vBF2 and thats something players were used to.

personally i dont see the point of a mod with same gameplay but pretty models and skin ect, its got to have different gameplay to make it interesting