There's about five of them currently out now. Haha, my memory did not serve my correctly. That's in the one I posted. But still, Yuna gets her summoner form and starts kicking arse. It's awesome. And cloud makes a cameo.believer258 said:
When Fans Outdo The Developer
- Thread starter Yassen
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Pft, why settle for mere texture replacements, when you can make something entirely new?Suijen said:
Here's a full conversion mod for Crysis (now only on Crysis Wars). Battle armour, tanks, 'Mechs, Aerospace fighters and VTOLS oh my!
Yes, that really is THE Duncan Fisher (George Ledoux).
Second on the list, The Dark Mod
A Thief-inspired mod for Doom 3. Sneak around, douse lights, steal loot, blackjack guards and have a taffin' good time.
Minecraft seems to fit here. The fans mod loads of cool stuff into the game, which Notch happily gives the thumbs up and incorporates into the game properly. Like the ambient lighting, and the wolves, and I'm sure many others. On the other hand, I'm not sure if all the mods together quite surpass all of Notch's work...
On the other hand, there's Garry's Mod, and all the things people have done with it.
On the other hand, there's Garry's Mod, and all the things people have done with it.
Something like that. Also they tend to have the kind of settings it would be relatively easy to insert a new character, species, place, whatever.Yassen said:
I agree, Mass Effect and Dragon Age in particular have some great fan-fics, but as with pretty much all things ya still gotta wade through the piles of trash to get to the good stuff.
Rome: Total War - The "Roma Surrectum" mod is by far the best I've found. It's a total conversion mod that turns Rome into a single playable faction, adds a metric fuckton of new units and buildings, expands the map and makes the whole game much deeper and more challenging. Fully accurate named and numbered legions after you trigger the Marian reforms too!
Silent Hunter III - "The Grey Wolves". A mod that adds a bunch of new ship types, improves the visual, damage and combat models as well as adding a bunch of cool (if often cosmetic) stuff to the game. Fixes some bugs and historical accuracy issues too.
X-Wing Alliance - "X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Project" is a purely cosmetic mod, but it replaces many of the default ships and objects with more up to date higher resolution ones. It also replaces the cockpits with "canon" ones. There's also a mod for XWA that does a total conversion and basically gives you the first 3 Tours from the original 1994 TIE Fighter to play on the (far superior) XWA game engine.
Silent Hunter III - "The Grey Wolves". A mod that adds a bunch of new ship types, improves the visual, damage and combat models as well as adding a bunch of cool (if often cosmetic) stuff to the game. Fixes some bugs and historical accuracy issues too.
X-Wing Alliance - "X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Project" is a purely cosmetic mod, but it replaces many of the default ships and objects with more up to date higher resolution ones. It also replaces the cockpits with "canon" ones. There's also a mod for XWA that does a total conversion and basically gives you the first 3 Tours from the original 1994 TIE Fighter to play on the (far superior) XWA game engine.
I can't think of much moments video game-related where fans have outdone developers.
I know there fanfics that based themselves around canon storylines with some twists on the author's part, and those were pretty good.
And I know a fair share of Fallout fanfics that do pretty well in basing itself on a game's storyline without just transcripting their playthroughs.
If it weren't for the fact this thread is on Gaming Discussions, I could tell you how quite a few fanfic author's wrote fics on certain cartoons better than the writers on a show's canon storyline.
I know there fanfics that based themselves around canon storylines with some twists on the author's part, and those were pretty good.
And I know a fair share of Fallout fanfics that do pretty well in basing itself on a game's storyline without just transcripting their playthroughs.
If it weren't for the fact this thread is on Gaming Discussions, I could tell you how quite a few fanfic author's wrote fics on certain cartoons better than the writers on a show's canon storyline.
Well, most of my fond memories of Bioware's Neverwinter Nights was on the Roleplay servers, not the main game. Was fun to not only be some evil baddie online, but to become THE evil baddie online was awesome. If not for a hugely poor choice by the DMs, would have just gotten better.
Blitzkreig mod for Company of Heroes. The most amazing mod I have ever seen. Adds tons of new command tree options, vehicles, and more importantly all weapons deal more realistic damage.
woah? my space pilots where are yah? freespace 2 mods! i except to see you jet pilots on this game, trust me if you ever wanted to get into space simulation this is the game to do it. the MODS are epic and no lie will take hours to download... worth every second of it. BTW go on the website and look for a easy way to install the mods, if you need help send me a message and i'll find the link for ye.
Nah, not really. I guess it depends on what the Developer set out to do, and what the modders set out to do, since they tend to have opposing viewpoints on what is GOOD in a game.
Odds are, if the game has a massive modding community, it usually means that a large portion of the playerbase likes the overall game experience, but disliked the developer's vision. A good game needs a good vision, and if you don't like the vision, then maybe you'd think the fanfic-tier stuff was good, but honestly, I have yet to come across a mod for a game that was better than the original, vanilla product.
Vanilla games are coherent, finished visions.
Mods are always critiques of finished visions, and often lack cohesiveness with the rest of the original game, which is important if we are to judge a game from an artistic point of view.
But hell, if you don't really care about graphics or immersion, go ahead and mod your game to hell. You might learn a thing or two about game design and/or programming while you're at it. But you'll never accomplish the developer's vision better than he/she did.
Odds are, if the game has a massive modding community, it usually means that a large portion of the playerbase likes the overall game experience, but disliked the developer's vision. A good game needs a good vision, and if you don't like the vision, then maybe you'd think the fanfic-tier stuff was good, but honestly, I have yet to come across a mod for a game that was better than the original, vanilla product.
Vanilla games are coherent, finished visions.
Mods are always critiques of finished visions, and often lack cohesiveness with the rest of the original game, which is important if we are to judge a game from an artistic point of view.
But hell, if you don't really care about graphics or immersion, go ahead and mod your game to hell. You might learn a thing or two about game design and/or programming while you're at it. But you'll never accomplish the developer's vision better than he/she did.
I wouldn't really say outdid the Devs. I think at least 50% of the work, if not more, the devs do is setting up the platform so the fans can mod at all.Signa said:
All the Bethesda games have huge modding communities, I don't really think that's a coincidence.
From the ease of creating your first mod, a small house or some god weapon, to the possibility of mods such like some overhaul projects and the script extenders I say quite bit of dev work was put into that.
There aren't many games at all where such things are even possible.
I've found quite a few excellent Mass Effect trailers/tribute videos on youtube. A couple in particular really stand out.
Firstly - this video called "Out Of The Ashes" by Saibecc1. Amazing scenes, all characters get time in the spotlight, tied together with a fantastic music choice. It all comes together perfectly.
Next up is a series of videos by Reclusiarch. All of his videos are outstanding, but the two Alexander Shepard trailers and his Tali tribute titled "Love and Loss" are the pick of the bunch. Love and Loss in particular is one of the most emotional videos I've ever watched.
I've also found a few fan fiction stories that are unbelievable in their story-telling. I found most of them through the Tvtropes website, they have a page dedicated to fanfic recommendations from almost any universe. I won't post a link for safety reasons but if your interested its easy enough to find.
The best story I have read is Razor's Edge by Tairis Deamhan, a Mass Effect 2 novelisation that does a better job of telling the story than Bioware (all respect to Bioware though). The best part of this story is (like the game) the characters, Tairis did a stellar job of keeping them similar to how they are depicted in game, but also giving them their own quirks as well. Garrus's betting ring is just one of many highlights.
Firstly - this video called "Out Of The Ashes" by Saibecc1. Amazing scenes, all characters get time in the spotlight, tied together with a fantastic music choice. It all comes together perfectly.
Next up is a series of videos by Reclusiarch. All of his videos are outstanding, but the two Alexander Shepard trailers and his Tali tribute titled "Love and Loss" are the pick of the bunch. Love and Loss in particular is one of the most emotional videos I've ever watched.
I've also found a few fan fiction stories that are unbelievable in their story-telling. I found most of them through the Tvtropes website, they have a page dedicated to fanfic recommendations from almost any universe. I won't post a link for safety reasons but if your interested its easy enough to find.
The best story I have read is Razor's Edge by Tairis Deamhan, a Mass Effect 2 novelisation that does a better job of telling the story than Bioware (all respect to Bioware though). The best part of this story is (like the game) the characters, Tairis did a stellar job of keeping them similar to how they are depicted in game, but also giving them their own quirks as well. Garrus's betting ring is just one of many highlights.