Lack of modding has killed the hardcore PC fps

Warbie

Warbie

Warbie

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2003
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//old man rant

PC fps in the 90s were great. Wolfenstein and Doom started things, but it wasn't until Quake, and particularly the modding scene, that things really got exciting. My fave mod at the time was Team Fortress (first game to have headshots btw), which later led to TFC on the HL engine and then to TF2 on Source. I lost silly amounts of time to them all. Quake 2 turned up and, again, shed loads of mods with it. Jailbreak was my bag. That led on to RTCW (still the best) and ET. Years of my life accounted for here. Interestingly, the competitive side of ET, and with it the online community, was entirely driven by user made maps as the official ones weren't up to the task. And, of course, Half-Life. Counter Strike, DoD, the aforementioned TFC, and loads more. Infact, there are too many good mods to mention here - Unreal had a great scene - and everyone has their faves. This is what PC fps used to be. Either driven or created by modders, and I honestly feel sorry for those who missed it. And now that side of things has all but gone - and with it the hardcore fps.

This isn't an 'I'm too pro for Battlefield/CoD' thread. Accessible fps are fine. It's more of a look at what's missing today, which is pc fps with some meat to them. fps with learning curves. It's what fps fans want and as it was fps fans turning to mod making and mapping that drove the scene in the 90s, it's what we got. In abundance. We were spoilt for choice. These days we don't get dev tools and user made content. We get console ports of games designed to appeal to as many people as possible. To say the PC fps scene is a pale shadow of what it used to be is a massive understatement. Quite frankly, it's ****e now. And the reason for this thread and my frustration is I want an fps to get stuck into. Something that isn't ancient or a remake of an ancient game. And there's nothing. I literally can't find anything to play :p
 
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+1

I remember making loads of maps for Quake and using Ai bots and setting Waypoints. Then editing the text files which controlled how each one would "behave". Me and a friend would swap Duke Nukem 3D maps on floppy disks at school as well as Half Life maps.

The level creator for Half Life was amazing, so many tools and things you could do!
 
I've not played it but have seen gameplay/streams and Overwatch looks like it has a very high skill cap, there are very basic heroes like McCree who are braindead and accessible but there are also heroes like Hanzo who have insanely high skill cap and will be the most common hero picked in the higher 'ELO' or whatever, as good players will do insane things on him. a lot of heroes have Quake style mobility, rocket jumps (I think?) and wall bounces. It's the only decent looking FPS to come out in the past few generations imo.
 
I agree, the mp games that supported mods were the ones I remember to be good. Quake 2, crysis, COD4 all had mp maps made by modders.

The modding helped to build big communites, and made people feel like they had a stake and were part of something.
 
One of the greatest things about tfc was the ability to move around the maps with such variation, made for an awesome game.. My favourite game of all time.

Not played or seen much of overwatch, but is there that skill level along the lines say a tfc medic, or demoman. I would dearly love to play an fps again that had that in it's locker.

Agree on the mods though... quake/2 led to a golden age. Regular Lithium was fun along with ctf... my favourite being QPONG. Qpong is essentially what rocket league is today. Swap out the cars for people.. weapons hot on a BIG ball. Shame very few knew of it.
 
CoD4 was probably one of the last of the era of modding and 'hardcore fps'

Gamers are very transitory these days, hopping from one big release to the next. Communities and longevity doesn't seem to exist with games these days.

In part I think it's because of a combination of
  • Too many releases of similar games/annual derivations
  • Younger players who are less community focused/ephemeral in their affections
  • Devs/Publishers not allowing mods to push DLC
  • The popularity of consoles
 
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elrasho said:
+1

I remember making loads of maps for Quake and using Ai bots and setting Waypoints. Then editing the text files which controlled how each one would "behave". Me and a friend would swap Duke Nukem 3D maps on floppy disks at school as well as Half Life maps.

The level creator for Half Life was amazing, so many tools and things you could do!
Click to expand...

I think it was a modified version of Worldcraft by Ben Morris. I loved the Worldcraft editor and made tons of Quake maps just for fun.

I do miss mod community content but the reason we don't see it anymore is because the publishers/developers want to keep tight rein on their IP as they then can dictate as and when you receive new content (and charge you for it) and manipulate the market into towing the line with their annual release cycles.

Dare I say it - but you won't ever see the like of the old modding days again. Perhaps for games that are past it, but certainly not for current mainstream content.
 
The problem arose with the advent of DLC IMO. Publishers got greedy, and realising they couldn't monetise content that had been made by their customers, blocked it so they could release their own DLC maps or game modes.

At the same time this destroyed a lot of gaming communities, not just because the modders were disenfranchised, but also because you had servers you couldn't play on unless you had paid for the right DLC, which completely fractured communities.
 
HazardO said:
The problem arose with the advent of DLC IMO. Publishers got greedy, and realising they couldn't monetise content that had been made by their customers, blocked it so they could release their own DLC maps or game modes.

At the same time this destroyed a lot of gaming communities, not just because the modders were disenfranchised, but also because you had servers you couldn't play on unless you had paid for the right DLC, which completely fractured communities.
Click to expand...

+1. Pretty much a mirror of my own feelings on the matter.
 
I was going to disagree with but yea...

I remember running specialistscentral (the specialists mod was awesome) hosting thousands of mods, weapons, maps, player models etc, you just don't get that community any more!

Also I'm a jaded thirtysomething now :(
 
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Its not publishers/developers restricting modders that killed the scene, actually most do far more these days to try and lure them in as they are effectively free content generators.

Nope, the problem is that anyone with the skills to make mods is busy building IOS/Steam games and trying to make a career out of it.
 
I agree, I miss the mod scene, user made maps and Official map packs that were free. Used to play loads of obscure mods on MPZ (Multi Player Zone).
 
What about Arma, Project Reality and Squad. All three are fist person shooters with deadiecated moding community's.

Maybe it's the small scale gameplay and lack of content that limits the moding abilitys?
 
Some of the best game developers came out of the modding communities rather than people who went into video game development as a career.

These days even games you can mod tend to be mostly locked down with mods largely being simple script/config changes and/or exploiting flaws in the game or nasty hacks of data files rather than using a proper content pipeline.

Quake 2/3 and the modding/mapping community is still the pinnacle of gaming for me - I still like to sometimes jump into a bit of casual Quake 2 modding from time to time as I find it quite enjoyable.
 
Yes the big games now don't have a modding scene/custom maps but plenty do. My favourite FPS of the last couple of years, Red Orchestra/Rising Storm is well supported, they even added custom maps to the official game.
 
For quite some time when I got my first games-capable PC back in 1999 I only had maybe three or four games. But that was fine because one of those games was Half-Life and thanks to all the mods around at that time it kept me going on the gaming front almost single-handed for a few years.

Played over a dozen single-player mods/conversions - standouts including They Hunger I-III, Darkstar, Todes Angst, Poke646, Azure Sheep, The Challenger Deep, Timeline I-III, and... ooooh at least 10 more I'd guess.

Then of course, there was Counter-Strike.

These and another mod - Enemy Territory - accounted for a ridiculous chunk of (free!) gaming time. I still look back on those years fondly as some of my favourite PC gaming experiences, although I do wonder how well the quality of some of the mods would hold up to modern standards.
 
DLC addons for sale = why no modding.

why give people something for free when you can sell them it.

modding was very important.most of the best ideas come from it specially competitive fps its just the games are controlled by such big companies they don't want you messing with their brand money.

shame as it makes many fps games especially either too easy to play or boring after you done the normal rank up procedure.

cod 4 promod for eg is was miles better than csgo. look how csgo is now. just lucky there was nothing else comp wise apart from csgo at the time.
 
I miss home brew maps :( So much fun had back in the day.

100% agree about DLC, it's the killer.
 
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