Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: Mobius on May 29, 2009, 04:36:27 pm
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This may have been posted in FreeSpace Modding, but I think this was the right place to post it.
I noticed how the term "Mod" is being used for campaign releases. Most custom campaigns are released with modpacks of various dimensions, ranging from a few table edits to large amounts of new assets, but IMO the correct term to define a campaign, no matter of its modpack, is... campaign. When I read the word "Mod", I think of a modification to a game and nothing else. I think of a "I made this, it's up to you to use it". Most mods in circulation, in fact, have no plot... they consist in implementing a game with new stuff anyone can use.
This is not an attempt to put campaigns on a superior level by underrating the importance of custom ships, weapons, backgrounds and so on... this is just an invitation to use term "campaign" when it's supposed to be used. For instance, I don't see the point in calling "Mod" a campaign that is made of nothing but .fs2 and .fc2 files, without any kind of alterations to the main game settings. If a campaign is released with a consistent modpack, I think it should be refered to with the term campaign.
Just my thoughts.
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When you change a game to include your own content, be it media or levels, you are "modifying" it. Thus, mod.
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Yeah, I agree. Campaigns are anything with a series of missions in them even if they do contain mods.
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If it's just a series of missions I'd call it a campaign. But if it included table edits, new ships, new music, mod for sure. If it's new everything, Total Conversion/Mod.
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Think of it this way: When some newbie comes and announces his big new revolutionary installment to the FreeSpace series, the thread is usually called "Mai new campaign"...
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Think of it this way: When some newbie comes and announces his big new revolutionary installment to the FreeSpace series, the thread is usually called "Mai new campaign"...
I've seen a large enough amount of "mai nu mod" threads too.
I'd agree on the part that if the focus of the "package" is to provide a playable campaign, it might as well be referred to as a campaign. But, if the "package" contains any changed elements that can cause problems when installed in the wrong way (mostly tables, that is), the term "mod" should not be just dismissed altogether. It is a fact that a pure campaign containing only a campaign file and missions can be placed to \freespace2\ without any harm, whereas a campaign including custom contents breaks things and makes tech support people cry when placed to \freespace2\ .