Why Fun/Crazy Mods Suck

[Syntac]

I'm sure most of us agree that so-called "fun" mods suck. But why is this? I found myself wondering that exact question a few minutes ago. In this post, I will attempt to outline the reasons.

They badly represent Tremulous as it was intended to be.
Tremulous's standard gameplay is the way it is for a reason: the developers spent a great deal of time finely tuning it to be as balanced as possible. Most crazy mods throw this out the window by adding a slew of misfeatures without pausing to consider the consequences. Sure, they're fun — but only if you're on the team with the lion's share of "improvements".

They add nothing new.
Some purport to add revolutionary features. Do not be fooled. These mods merely twist what's already there into a semblance of novelty. If you're going to code something, either do it well or don't do it all.

They have some truly stupid commands.
Yeah, I know, randomly using !drug on poor innocent newbies is hilarious.
NOT.
!drug, !smite, !slap, !credits, and so on are completely useless. Go on, convince me they have a legitimate purpose. I dare you.
*cricket noises*
That's what I thought. These are the kinds of things newbie modders write as practice. They have no use in the real world (inasmuch as Tremulous can be considered "real") other than to allow admins to abuse their powers by a) giving themselves an unfair advantage or b) giving others an unfair disadvantage.


Feel free to tell me if I've forgotten something.

P.S. Please, please do not start bashing fun/crazy servers. We all know they suck; you need not reiterate it.

[lol]

do you consider the human vs human mod and the bot mods bad?  I personally like them a lot.  The human vs human is good for that day when you dont feel like biting humans or shootin dretches.  and the bot mod can be really fun if you get a good team that works together.  Those are the only X servers I like though.

[Overdose]

I think slap is quite useful for getting players unstuck, it's just so simple.

But I think you forgot one thing in all your reasoning, though you mentioned it in the title. These crazy mods are fun, even if only for awhile they liven things up from the daily grind of 1.1.

I'd also like to point out that most of the servers with these so-called mods stay quite populated. Now I'm not condoning the idiocy of <insert server here> but it would seem to me that if something is so bad that maybe fewer people would play it. Or maybe it's just that those mods suck in your opinion? I'm not trying to start anything, just pointing out what I discern to be obvious.

[Hendrich]

Agreed, I see fun/crazy servers as more of a novelty, its something thats supposed to be enjoyed for awhile but not meant to be taken seriously as a mod. Tired of normal Tremulous? Go play on of those mods, preferably drunk and waste the night away.

But Overdose is right, they stay populated for a reason, I'm guessing because its strangely addictive to do amazing shit you wouldn't normally do and be like this deity. 

[Syntac]

@lol

Bot mods are good if implemented properly. So far, most [or all] of the current bot systems are not fully mature. I would love to see this in action in the future.

HvH can be fun if [as above] done right. Assuming it doesn't kludge over the existing system by, say, providing an option to spawn as aliens and then telling you it isn't allowed (this sort of thing is highly unprofessional); then yes, I think this would be an interesting gameplay modification to try.

@Overdose

Such mods do liven things up, can't argue with that. But it pains me to see people fucking around with tremulous.h without giving thought as to how it'll affect the balance. I suppose my main argument is against reckless coding (CUI: Coding Under the Influence).

Not entirely sure how to respond to your last question. Part of me wants to say "these mods absolutely suck and that's a fact!" and the other "well, I think they suck, but some people might not". I suppose this is a matter of taste.

Perhaps people play on these servers because they make it easier to seem skilled? Getting kills in vanilla Tremulous is damn hard when you're up against more experienced players — rather like a bell curve. Fun/crazy mods make said curve quite a bit shallower. Example: You can just whip out a lucifer cannon and shoot at people from afar with bolts that are, for all intents and purposes, hitscan. (I believe X had or used to have this.) You don't need to be close to fry their asses. With firepower like that, tyrants don't stand a chance, whereas in normal Tremulous, they're matched evenly with a luci/battlesuit-equipped human.

I notice you said !slap is useful for getting players unstuck. Can you give me an example of a scenario where this is the case? I have never, ever encountered such a situation. Not to say you're making baseless claims or anything like that, I'm just a little dubious.

[Overdose]

CUI: Coding Under the Influence).

That made me laugh hysterically.

I rarely play vanilla Tremulous anymore, I played it for 2 or 3 years and now I just find it boring. The mods give me something to do while I patiently wait for 1.2 

I completely agree with you about being harder to play against skilled players in regular Trem. Though I would say that tyrants and luci's aren't quite as even as you say, I think tyrants are somewhat overpowered. But certainly more balanced than X as you pointed out.

I use slap all the time, people usually get stuck as goons in between slanted pillar-type things like those on Arachnid2. Occasionally people evolve too quickly or in a bad spot and need a push to get out such as at the top of the mountains on Karith Station. I know there are more but of course now that it matters I can't think of any.

[Syntac]

I use slap all the time, people usually get stuck as goons in between slanted pillar-type things like those on Arachnid2. Occasionally people evolve too quickly or in a bad spot and need a push to get out such as at the top of the mountains on Karith Station. I know there are more but of course now that it matters I can't think of any.

Huh, then perhaps I've just been lucky.

The problem with !slap is that it can be abused. A better solution would be a similar command that only works if the target player is actually stuck. Then they could just do /unstick and all would be well.

[Overdose]

Huh, then perhaps I've just been lucky.
The problem with !slap is that it can be abused. A better solution would be a command that works similarly but only works if the target player is actually stuck.

That seems difficult, how would you determine when someone is stuck? If someone were to make slap only do 0 damage that would probably work nicely. I know on the Nuts server admins aren't allowed to use slap on themselves, it's coded into it not just a rule.

[Hendrich]

If someone were to make slap only do 0 damage that would probably work nicely.

Yep, indeed. I'm in the alien base, bursting tubes faster then a $25 whore, then all of a sudden the admin decides to slap me silly all over the place. Yea it doesn't do any damage, but that doesn't mean its still not exploitable. The contributing factor to abuse problem is not only the commands, but the admins themselves.

I'm wondering if theres a function whereas the game knows when a entity (whether be it player or object) is clipping outside the barriers of the map. A feature like that is in the game Half-life.

[Syntac]

There's a command like 0-damage !slap, it's called !poke if I remember correctly. The problem is not so much the damage as the impact: you can still wreak havoc on other players, for instance by making them hurtle around until they slam into something and die (at least for humans). I have no idea how to code a system that determines whether someone is stuck, but I'm sure it's possible.

[Hendrich]

Oh ID Software, you cards. Of course you didn't need such a feature, you weren't like putting monsters in a map like how Quake is supposed to have.

By the way, is [A] still has those RPG elements in it? Does anybody find that even fun?

[lol]

 

@lol

Bot mods are good if implemented properly. So far, most [or all] of the current bot systems are not fully mature. I would love to see this in action in the future.

HvH can be fun if [as above] done right. Assuming it doesn't kludge over the existing system by, say, providing an option to spawn as aliens and then telling you it isn't allowed (this sort of thing is highly unprofessional); then yes, I think this would be an interesting gameplay modification to try.

well xservers pbot mod is very good.  Although some of the maps for it suck. ATCS definitely does it justice and can make for a good game if you have nothin to do. and thier h vs h server is best one ive seen.

[Syntac]

Hmm, I may try them sometime, if your review is that glowing. Be aware however that these are not "crazy/fun mods" as such, so they don't really belong in this thread.

Let's get a nice, fun [, calm] debate going!

[Urcscumug]

I'd also like to point out that most of the servers with these so-called mods stay quite populated.

That's not exactly saying anything about quality, merely about quantity.

I think it's the same differences as between reading fine literature or taking in art of any kind, and taking in the "fast food" of entertainment. The vast majority go for the second option to various extents. That's because learning to appreciate the finer touches is an aquired taste.

Trem is a very complex game. It may not seem so at first glance but it is. I've seen magnificent ("epic") games... but it's taken me a while (and a great teaching environment) to learn to appreciate them. Had that not happened, I may be also be one of the people content to play on the "fast food" servers.

Some mods are useful, when used properly. Such as bots, which can be used to train basic FPS skills and basic Trem strategy. I'm curious if you have visited the Wrath Newbie server. If not, take a couple of hours someday and go for a full map rotation, in particular the predefined scenarios that involve attacking an all-bot base. They teach people to work together, to go for certain goals, what equipment/aliens are useful for certain purposes, to rationally approach a base attack, to learn the quirks of human/alien structures etc.

[your face]

If you think the balance mod sucks, then you fail. :C

[Annihilation]

Oh ID Software, you cards. Of course you didn't need such a feature, you weren't like putting monsters in a map like how Quake is supposed to have.

By the way, is [A] still has those RPG elements in it? Does anybody find that even fun?

I found that server terribly annoying, an FPS can't be so solidy morhped into RPG wihtout a lot more alterations than that server provides..  It takes maps and maps of constantly losing and banking evos until you have enough evos to stand a chance against the players who have been there.  I see guys who have banked so many credits, they can walk into alien base, get trappered, get surrounded by 3 rants, and walk out of it alive and raked in quiet a few kills/replacement creds.  Getting to that point takes ages, and no serious tremulous player is going to bother spending that much time losing to people who already banked up a shitload of credits in order to play effeciently, especially since once you have enough banked credits you can buy hp/ammo and just go in with near infinite levels and kill an entire base in one rush no matter whats happening to you.

Essentially, an FPS like tremulous is supose to revolve around skill, and that server is almost entirely revolved around free time and patience instead.  Meaning 8 year olds who play 15 hours a day could slaughter the shit out of people who have been playing this game for years.  Which defeats the entire point of the way tremulous is "supose" to be played.

[Overdose]

I found that server terribly annoying, an FPS can't be so solidy morhped into RPG wihtout a lot more alterations than that server provides..  It takes maps and maps of constantly losing and banking evos until you have enough evos to stand a chance against the players who have been there.  I see guys who have banked so many credits, they can walk into alien base, get trappered, get surrounded by 3 rants, and walk out of it alive and raked in quiet a few kills/replacement creds.  Getting to that point takes ages, and no serious tremulous player is going to bother spending that much time losing to people who already banked up a shitload of credits in order to play effeciently, especially since once you have enough banked credits you can buy hp/ammo and just go in with near infinite levels and kill an entire base in one rush no matter whats happening to you.

Essentially, an FPS like tremulous is supose to revolve around skill, and that server is almost entirely revolved around free time and patience instead.  Meaning 8 year olds who play 15 hours a day could slaughter the shit out of people who have been playing this game for years.  Which defeats the entire point of the way tremulous is "supose" to be played.

I agree with you except for that last sentence. Doesn't defining how something is supposed to be played and shunning all other interpretations sort of defeat the purpose of open source?

[Amanieu]

The main issue with mods is that because autodownload is disabled by default in 1.1, if you want to make a mod that actually gets played, you're pretty much forced to make it server-side only. This means that you can't do cool stuff like adding a new class, new weapons, etc. You're pretty much reduced to making some server-side hacked up mod in which you try to cram as much stuff as 1.1 compatibility allows.

[Winnie the Pooh]

Mods are fun once in a while. The biggest thing I dislike about non-pure mods is their non-pureness. It's not official. It's not the real deal. It's not original material. It's just a twisted version of what the original developers built. Although it obviously takes some skill to code, it seems like the people who thought of [whatever mod(s) we are talking about] were lazy people who didn't want to learn tremulous the way all the pros did. They wanted to skip to the fun part: killwhoring. This is definitely fun, but killwhoring is the reward of hard work (eg. earning credits/evo's). The people who play these mods are skipping the hard work that we admire good players for, and are using what seems to be a perfectly balanced system (almost) in a way that "disrespects" the hard work that the developers accomplished, like balancing out the weapons/classes. Now to me, taking it easy and killwhoring for fun without earning it - once in a while -  is a good thing, and is fine on occasion. You can't say that you haven't had your days where you just can't get your aim on, you can't dodge correctly and you can't adjust for lag. These are the circumstances under which I most often go to unpure servers. I go there to have fun. If earning creds and being patient for games and games, all to no avail, isn't working for me - isn't letting me have fun - I'd much rather go to a modded server and enjoy my free time and have fun. So like I said: going to a modded server is fun on occasion. Just like some of us who have a good, balanced diet sometimes cheat and eat junk food, it's okay to play modded/unpure servers once in a while. The annoying thing is, many people make these servers their default. It's a matter of laziness/selfishness. This bugs me, but there's not much that I can do about it, so I just live with it.

[Annihilation]

I found that server terribly annoying, an FPS can't be so solidy morhped into RPG wihtout a lot more alterations than that server provides..  It takes maps and maps of constantly losing and banking evos until you have enough evos to stand a chance against the players who have been there.  I see guys who have banked so many credits, they can walk into alien base, get trappered, get surrounded by 3 rants, and walk out of it alive and raked in quiet a few kills/replacement creds.  Getting to that point takes ages, and no serious tremulous player is going to bother spending that much time losing to people who already banked up a shitload of credits in order to play effeciently, especially since once you have enough banked credits you can buy hp/ammo and just go in with near infinite levels and kill an entire base in one rush no matter whats happening to you.

Essentially, an FPS like tremulous is supose to revolve around skill, and that server is almost entirely revolved around free time and patience instead.  Meaning 8 year olds who play 15 hours a day could slaughter the shit out of people who have been playing this game for years.  Which defeats the entire point of the way tremulous is "supose" to be played.

I agree with you except for that last sentence. Doesn't defining how something is supposed to be played and shunning all other interpretations sort of defeat the purpose of open source?

No, but crazy fun mods are not tremulous, and they show up in the tremulous master list.  They are a branch off after there is such huge gameplay alterations.  Open source is so you can take and interpret things how you want, but if you take something to the extent of changing the entire basis of gameplay you are not modding the game, you are using the games engine to create a different game.  I don't think we should shun them, but I do think they are not purposeful to the developement of the actual game.

[Syntac]

Mods are fun once in a while. The biggest thing I dislike about non-pure mods is their non-pureness. It's not official. It's not the real deal. It's not original material. It's just a twisted version of what the original developers built. Although it obviously takes some skill to code, it seems like the people who thought of [whatever mod(s) we are talking about] were lazy people who didn't want to learn tremulous the way all the pros did. They wanted to skip to the fun part: killwhoring. This is definitely fun, but killwhoring is the reward of hard work (eg. earning credits/evo's). The people who play these mods are skipping the hard work that we admire good players for, and are using what seems to be a perfectly balanced system (almost) in a way that "disrespects" the hard work that the developers accomplished, like balancing out the weapons/classes. Now to me, taking it easy and killwhoring for fun without earning it - once in a while -  is a good thing, and is fine on occasion. You can't say that you haven't had your days where you just can't get your aim on, you can't dodge correctly and you can't adjust for lag. These are the circumstances under which I most often go to unpure servers. I go there to have fun. If earning creds and being patient for games and games, all to no avail, isn't working for me - isn't letting me have fun - I'd much rather go to a modded server and enjoy my free time and have fun. So like I said: going to a modded server is fun on occasion. Just like some of us who have a good, balanced diet sometimes cheat and eat junk food, it's okay to play modded/unpure servers once in a while. The annoying thing is, many people make these servers their default. It's a matter of laziness/selfishness. This bugs me, but there's not much that I can do about it, so I just live with it.

Agreed! You are wise master.

[Hendrich]

The main issue with mods is that because autodownload is disabled by default in 1.1, if you want to make a mod that actually gets played, you're pretty much forced to make it server-side only. This means that you can't do cool stuff like adding a new class, new weapons, etc. You're pretty much reduced to making some server-side hacked up mod in which you try to cram as much stuff as 1.1 compatibility allows.

Also in the default client, downloading mods is a bitch to do because it takes do damn long, and I find it unnecessary for newbies to search and learn about getting a better client where it should've been there in the first place. Even with the warning messages in some servers, people tend not to download it anyways because its such a inconvenience.

I mean goddamn, why don't the devs just stick TremFusion or something, anything in there to replace the shitty 1.1 client, I fail to see their reasons not doing so.
/rant 

[Winnie the Pooh]

Agreed! You are wise master.

 

Also in the default client, downloading mods is a bitch to do because it takes do damn long, and I find it unnecessary for newbies to search and learn about getting a better client where it should've been there in the first place. Even with the warning messages in some servers, people tend not to download it anyways because its such a inconvenience.

I mean goddamn, why don't the devs just stick TremFusion or something, anything in there to replace the shitty 1.1 client, I fail to see their reasons not doing so.
/rant 

One thing that we could do is stick some kind of menu in there that retrieves all the currently available mods from [whatever server] (Including Tremfusion). Nobody is going to download this seperatly, so our best chance would be to get it in the 1.2 release.

[Urcscumug]

No, but crazy fun mods are not tremulous, and they show up in the tremulous master list.

If that's the problem then let's have game type server markers or something like that. Filter the server list by type and let people play what they want.

@Winnie: that kind of attitude smacks of "the Devs delivereth pure Tremulous directly from God and all shall play it as such". Which leads to the death of Trem sooner or later.

How? Because it is an unnatural attitude, one that tries to deny realities. Reality is that OSS offers anybody a chance to contribute and make what they wish of the project. Such an attitude will fork the Trem client, the Trem server, will clone the master server and will break the Trem community in a thousand pieces which may or may not recover. Historically, such break-ups usually don't recover.

Besides, evolution is good. 1.2 and TremFusion are evolution, and they are arguably the "good" kind. But who's to say which is good and which is not? How about letting everybody have their fun as long as they don't do any harm? OK, some mods are stupid and favored by seemingly imature individuals. So what? It's not like anybody forces you to play them.

I say, enable downloads, make it possible for extensive modifications to reach the client, apply a game type marker so you can filter for it in the server list, and then just live and let live.

[Kaleo]

I think the problem is that people aren't putting enough thought into mods.

Take a look at [InsertRandomFunModeHere] and then take a look at Relimination or something similar. Relimiation had considerable amounts of thought put into it. Risujin put lots of thought into that to make sure it would work with Tremulous, and it did. He spent time developing it so that it was balanced and fun. The same is (hopefully) happening with The Unvanquished. There are constantly balance changes and new ideas being introduced so that when the final product is release it is (near) flawless.

[Urcscumug]

I think the problem is that people aren't putting enough thought into mods.

That goes without saying.

But it seems that this discussion is more about something else: should the not-so-well-thought-out mods be "punished" in some way? Eliminated? Who wants to be part of the jury that will decide which ones? I don't and I've pretty much summed how I feel about it earlier.

[mooseberry]

Mods are fun once in a while. The biggest thing I dislike about non-pure mods is their non-pureness. It's not official. It's not the real deal. It's not original material. It's just a twisted version of what the original developers built. Although it obviously takes some skill to code, it seems like the people who thought of [whatever mod(s) we are talking about] were lazy people who didn't want to learn tremulous the way all the pros did. They wanted to skip to the fun part: killwhoring. This is definitely fun, but killwhoring is the reward of hard work (eg. earning credits/evo's). The people who play these mods are skipping the hard work that we admire good players for, and are using what seems to be a perfectly balanced system (almost) in a way that "disrespects" the hard work that the developers accomplished, like balancing out the weapons/classes. Now to me, taking it easy and killwhoring for fun without earning it - once in a while -  is a good thing, and is fine on occasion. You can't say that you haven't had your days where you just can't get your aim on, you can't dodge correctly and you can't adjust for lag. These are the circumstances under which I most often go to unpure servers. I go there to have fun. If earning creds and being patient for games and games, all to no avail, isn't working for me - isn't letting me have fun - I'd much rather go to a modded server and enjoy my free time and have fun. So like I said: going to a modded server is fun on occasion. Just like some of us who have a good, balanced diet sometimes cheat and eat junk food, it's okay to play modded/unpure servers once in a while. The annoying thing is, many people make these servers their default. It's a matter of laziness/selfishness. This bugs me, but there's not much that I can do about it, so I just live with it.

What the fuck?

[Hendrich]

Moose, may you explain why you are bothered by his reply so the confused people (Like me) can understand why you're being so......general?

[Winnie the Pooh]

I was all like:
 
   Huh?
   /

[Jedarus]

What the fuck?

I thought his reply was perfectly coherent and reasonable, aside from the analogy of junk food.