So i have noticed not only here but on other sites that have modding discussion that its for lack of a better word, dead! What do you think the cause is?

Is it the lack of developer support? publishers greed? or is it the direction the industry is taking by releasing less of a game and completing it via DLC.

Could it be that games are just boring now and have lost the lasting appeal? I remember back in v.cod where i must have spent hundreds of not over a thousand hours on that, and still play it to this day.. New games i feel get boring faster and due to that, i feel spending time modding them is well.. wasteful.

I love custom game content, and the good old days of custom maps, total conversions (remember them?) seem to be forever lost.. its a sad day

From the business aspect, I don't think they want the games to last past the prime. They want us to buy the new games. They want us to play the new games. They don't make money off the old games compared to what is made from new games. The turnover rate is worth more than keeping an old game around long enough where everyone is spending time on a game they can't make money on anymore.

What they don't understand is that, we will still play the new games, and when we get bored with the crap, we'll go back to the legendary games.

Maybe some day soon, we'll catch a break.

Game engines were growning in past years and sometimes they are too complex for one single person, people lost interest in making mods because alot ideas were used, i haven't seen death run in games other than CS/S or CoD4 aswell as i haven't seen good support for mods and maps in newer games.

As DeekCity mentioned, developers are more interested in making money than keeping their old games alive and modable, we all seen how developers ignored modding community in CoD, they also cloosed Wiki, god thanks for keeping ModsRespository Wiki online...

I haven't seen any new source code release, we stil have to live with 8 years old technology released under GPL, i also would like to mention that instead of it we can script some games but its not as powerfull as code.

Hhhm it's an interesting question. Is modding dying...maybe. I think it's a combination of a few things.

The first being that developers are moving away from making their games modable, in favor of the, to quote Stryder, a flash in the pan game, where they make as much money as possible then just want you to buy the next one. unfortunately a lot of the bigger companies are just making games to make money rather than because they have a great idea that they want to share.

Secondly I think it's due to what's actually available to us now. With releases such as the UDK, Unity3D and the Cry engine, the guys that would have been around the community making custom maps and mods are now making games instead. The big modders out there are now developers themselves.

I've also come across (Please don't anyone take this the wrong way) an unwillingness to move on to modding something else. Modding the original Call of Duty is awesome but isn't our whole thing about pushing the boundaries of what is possible, to move forward to create bigger and better things. Red Orchestra 2 and skyrim both put out mod tools recently...

Is it mostly developers fault?, of course. If they're not willing to give us tools then how can we be expected to make anything. It's also partly to do with the change in technology used. The engines that are being used to today are twice as powerful and twice as complex than they were back in the day. It takes a huge amount of time, resources and effort to create an SDK for a game now. Which is causing a lot of devs to opt out.

Is it because they're nothing worth modding anymore..maybe...Has the site become less active in the last few months...yeah. Do we have something new coming to the site soon that's hopeful going to liven it up around here...maybe...

On a side note, If anyone wants support for new games that are moddable, post them and we'll see about getting support added.

Mystic writes...

keeping it short. its all of that^

liltc64 writes...
What about end-user passion / drive.

I think you are partially correct Sparky - i believe the missing or dying passion that drove [not only] this community - combined with Welshy's comment regarding an "un-willingness" to move on has created a...void.

I fail to understand why companies [eg - like Treyarch] who have probably gleaned 90% or better of their mappers / coders / (employees) from the modding community, have not pushed harder to keep the modding of their titles alive.

What I am afraid we are going to start seeing is a similarity amongst ALL games, because the creativity base will now come from schools teaching the exact same thing to everyone - and that then spells a future of pong games (you can color it, you can make the paddles smaller, you can have multiple balls if you want to get really crazy - but at the core...they're still just pong) that will create lethargy among gamers everywhere.

Industry driven by corporate greed is the reason that we do not see mod support. Publishers don't want you making their game better - because they are the publisher...meaning no one knows better what you want than them (in their eyes). Publishers don't want you playing their game for years - they want you to buy the same game every year under the guise of being new (COD series take note).

I have fears that unsupported gaming is the way of the future unless someone decides to step up to the plate with their "big boy britches" on and tell the corporate execs that they WILL support modding (post sale) and that continued support of modding will drive the next BIG engine.

Valve decided to support their engine - and the HL & HL2 games are among the most WIDELY modded games in the world - with new titles being developed and sold from those mods to date (L4D is the most recent "mods gone wild!" title that I can bring to mind)

The Quake engine - is probably THE MOST modded engine, spurning all sorts of stand-alone titles (including the CoD Series)

Industry - DO NOT FORGET YOUR ROOTS - or your fans will very soon forget you!

This is a copy paste of a conversation in our clan forums I was having about pretty much the same thing:

Honestly I don't typically go backwards with games either, but I find it impossible along with a lot of others... to stomach the direction of these games lately. We have BF3 that was pretty damn rock solid at release, other then some occasional crashing and then once they began patching it, it turned into a pile of crap. I use to be able since BF2... to own people left and right in a tank and chopper once I mastered them. I was able to do the same with BF3, but with so many cry baby kids out there who want the quickest and fasted round possible... they all complain about everything under the sun either being over powered or under powered and EA/DICE ended up screwing the pooch and turning the game into a run and gun CoD Noob Fest.

MW3... not much to say about it really. Same poo-poo as MW2 and BO... though I will say BO wasn't all THAT bad. But the biggest issue I have with the CoD title now is that Infinity Ward, Treyarch and Activision have straight up given the PC Community the cold shoulder, even though if not for this community, the CoD title very well could have ended up a bargain bin game. No more mod tools or mapping tools and are only focused now on pushing out the smallest steaming pile of crap game year after year with not much new in the form of content and the little kiddies and the nieve... suck it up like its Gods Gift of games... when its quite the opposite. People need to step back and take a good hard look at the direction these games have gone the last couple of years and then attempt to take off their fan boy blinders and they might just see how shafted they are getting putting out $60 for games that clearly arent worth much for then $35 or so.

Take a look at CoD4 on GameTracker sometime... comparing this game to all the other CoD titles, including the newer ones like BO and MW3... CoD4 alone has more people playing it and more servers online and active.... then ALL other CoD titles... COMBINED!

I also think that by releasing tools, they are inviting us to take their game apart, legally... and possibly exposing things or ideas they want to be kept quiet, or for a time period.

Maybe since the COD series, they have realized that there is only one difference between us and them, and that is, money. Gamers who map and mod are not stupid, and can be extremely creative. We don't have the money to make our own games. Every mod is nearly a brand new game in itself. Maybe they are afraid of that. Maybe they would rather steal all the ideas from the community based on all the past functionality of mods or maps released for old titles.

Who knows. Maybe everyone is just bored with the current games out to Mod for because nearly everything had been done. I'm wondering if we should just wait and see what Respawn has to offer. Then make a final decision.

I see it as them cutting off their own nose to spit their face. And if this is how Activision, Trey and IW want to be portrayed, then so be it... cause as long as they keep treating us like morons after treating us with respect... I will no longer purchase their games. And sure I am only one person, but I also know Im not the only one who isnt buying their titles any more either.

Granted they will continue to get massive stacks of $$$ from their wanna be fan boys... but ya know... sooner or later even they will notice that everything they release is pretty much a reskin of the previous title. Its like a hamburger.... you can keep tossing on different toppings to make it seem different... but underneath its still a plain old hamburger and people will eventually get sick of it. And without mods and mapping ability... they lost their source for new ideas and also lost their pool of people to hire on to help them drum up fresh ideas.