4 ms·

Agree. I got into duke3d and shadow warrior mapping back in the day. The fact that these games weren't truly 3d mandated that you designed the maps 2d first, ie

Agree. I got into duke3d and shadow warrior mapping back in the day. The fact that these games weren't truly 3d mandated that you designed the maps 2d first, ie drawing the layout of the map top-down, and then switching to 3d mode and assign textures to walls and floor/ceiling, as well as adjusting their height. That forced you to approach level design in a specific way, it was easy to get into. When unreal was released I tried to create some maps for it, but was quickly overwhelmed. You're basically thrown into blender and supposed to construct a 3d world from cubes and other simple 3d shapes. I ended up with I think one and a half somewhat decent levels, but they still felt clearly inferior to any of the official maps.

hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
The complexity of modern FPS completely kills the modding possibility. I think DOOM3/Half-Life 2 is the last generation of engines that still allow a decent amount of mods (HL2 does have quite a few high quality mods), but everything afterwards is simply too complicated for hobbyists to compete with professionals.
- vkou 3y ago
  Skyrim is a counterexample, which is heavily extended through both an officially supported scripting engine, and unsupported code hooks.
  - hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
    I thought about this so I only mentioned FPS :P But still, even with the toolset Skyrim is still pretty time consuming to develop large mods. It won't be possible without its dedicated fans -- which is kind of ordinary for RPG but less for modern FPS.
- jamesfinlayson 3y ago
  I think Quake/Quake II/Half-Life were the last generation of engines where one person could easily understand the whole engine. Doom 3/Half-Life 2 are approachable too but require a bit more knowledge.
  - hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
    Unreal Tournament I also has a lot of mods so I'd extend the line to around year 2000. It is a bit unique as somehow the package includes all of the code of Unreal Gold (or something close) so modders can easily add single player contents. The editor is also far superior than the VB one bundled with Unreal I.

hnthrowaway0315 3y ago

The complexity of modern FPS completely kills the modding possibility. I think DOOM3/Half-Life 2 is the last generation of engines that still allow a decent amount of mods (HL2 does have quite a few high quality mods), but everything afterwards is simply too complicated for hobbyists to compete with professionals.

vkou 3y ago
Skyrim is a counterexample, which is heavily extended through both an officially supported scripting engine, and unsupported code hooks.
- hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
  I thought about this so I only mentioned FPS :P But still, even with the toolset Skyrim is still pretty time consuming to develop large mods. It won't be possible without its dedicated fans -- which is kind of ordinary for RPG but less for modern FPS.
jamesfinlayson 3y ago
I think Quake/Quake II/Half-Life were the last generation of engines where one person could easily understand the whole engine. Doom 3/Half-Life 2 are approachable too but require a bit more knowledge.
- hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
  Unreal Tournament I also has a lot of mods so I'd extend the line to around year 2000. It is a bit unique as somehow the package includes all of the code of Unreal Gold (or something close) so modders can easily add single player contents. The editor is also far superior than the VB one bundled with Unreal I.