Suggestions

[Lord Kodos]

LOL you kidding at the time the two best mods where p&n and the UM1.Also lol i had the idea for putting extras in first now whos the idea theif!Joking lol pretty damn funny how we think along the same lines,yet radically different at that...

[Nodachi]

I just don't understand why anyone would pay for a mod, regardless of how extensive it is.

What can you offer;

• New graphics - so what? If I were concerned about graphics there are plenty of other games out there. Besides, there's the Image Mod and all the different original shipsets out there. All for free.
  
• New components and facilities - again, so what? Anything you can come up with has to be workable with the existing game system. That means whatever you make can be done by someone else, for free.
  
• Background story (?) - We do that on PBW all the time, for free.
  
• Web support - How many other mods have web pages? Several that I can think of. Again, for free.

Look, I'm not trying to belittle your work, I'm sure you've worked hard on this. But so have many other modders on thier projects that they just give away for the enjoyment of the community. I thought that was what modding was all about, having fun and sharing ideas, not making money.
I think my biggest problem with a paid mod is this - Regardless of how much work you put into a mod it doesn't compare to the amount of work that went into developing and coding the game itself. To charge for a mod would be making money off of someone elses work, bottom line.

[Captain Kwok]

It is difficult to encourage people to pay for a Mod especially when they don't know anything about it before it's released. Perhaps give an overview of the Mod or at least part of the storyline.

Here is an example of paying for features:

The SIMS is a fun game and Users can create lots of skins and objects for use in the game. However, there are many websites where you must pay a membership fee for 30 days or so in order to download items. Ugh, I hate them.

[disabled]

Dont' remind me of the sims, I can rant on them. Don't forget Everquest, they are even worse!

[ June 16, 2003, 02:31: Message edited by: General Talashar ]

[Fyron]

-The Mod in itself
I don't see how your mod could be better than the mods already out there, or in development, and would therefore warrant paying for it.

-200+ Multiplayer maps
I for one am satisfied with random maps. And, I don't see how you could have 200+ truly unique maps with the SE4 system. They will either end up being repetitive or similar to the random maps.

-47 new race styles
I have at least 150 race styles that I have downloaded. There is no reason to pay for any more.

-Epic background story encompassing the history of the universe in campaigns and hopefully an ebook novel Version of that story.
This is one of the only two features that could possibly warrant charging for, but not with everything else.

-flash movies that would act as cutscenes after each scenario in the campaigns.
Cutscene movies after scenarioes are rather annoying. A lot of people I know just click escape when they come up.

-Desktop themes for the mod
Trivial feature.

-special websites dedicated to each race and contains expanded information on them.
Might be interesting, but could easily be placed on a free web server, thereby eliminating costs for you.

-special encryption prog for in-game Messages
Umm... I'm not sure what you mean by that exactly, but it sounds more like a hassle than a feature.

-music Cd of course!
IF this CD is entirely comprised of your own music, then you could reasonably charge for it. But, like the supposedly "epic background story", this should not be used to force people to pay for the mod.

Just because other people have charged for mods before for other games does not mean that it is right.

I am not saying that your mod will be a bad mod, but just that it couldn't possibly warrant charging money for. Regardless of your personal situation, mods are not objects to charge people for.

[ July 20, 2002, 20:19: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Captain Kwok]

I think a price of 3$ would be sufficient to cover shipping and CD costs and more likely to be successful.

Anyways - how the heck are you working on 47 race styles!!! Ugh...that's more than any one person could do in a couple of years!

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
-200+ Multiplayer maps
I for one am satisfied with random maps. And, I don't see how you could have 200+ truly unique maps with the SE4 system. They will either end up being repetitive or similar to the random maps.

This is actually a pretty good idea. I had planned on doing a premade map library to be included on the Gold CD in January. Unfortunatly I ran out of time with the work on the Devnull mod and my scenarios. I may still do one someday though.

The need for it is simply becasue SE4 doesn't do all that good a job of spacing empires out with the random maps. You can have a large map with 8 empires and you still might have 2 right next to each other. I am not sure why it is, but it's a fact. Making a custom map for each game is certainly an option, but it complicates things if the person making the map is planning on playing in the game.

If you have enough maps and name them genaricly enough, redundancy shouldn't be a problem. You won't be able to tell what map it is jsut from your home system. You could play the same map several times and wouldn't recognize it if you were starting in different places each time. Plus the more important thing is not what the map looks like, but where the other guy is, and you wouldn't have any way of knowing that, even if you did know the map for sure.

Geoschmo

[Fyron]

Possibly... but that doesn't justify charging money for it.

[Nodachi]

Nodachi, Even thought you didn't want to, you did - which is insulting.

Hadrian, I fail to see where anything I've said could be considered insulting. I beleive I specificly said that I'm sure you've worked hard on this. I have not criticized your work. I just pointed out that some of what you're doing will not be considered a big deal.

Now you also mis-read alot of the stuff I wrote.

No sir, I did not. I did not quote every "feature" because I did not see the need and I did not wish my post to be viewed as a personal attack (guess I failed there since you were insulted )

the meager wages I get out of sears and the fact my family is starting our own business makes money tight.

I feel for you, money is tight for a lot of us but when your hobby starts to interfere with your life or costing too much money you should either curtail your hobby or find a new one.

Now, throughout both of my Posts I have treated you respectfully. I have not attacked you or your work, I do not know you and I am sure you are a good person, so if you find this post to be insulting or an attack then you, my friend, need to get a thicker skin.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Possibly... but that doesn't justify charging money for it.

I don't think he has to justify charging for it. As long as he has permission from Sharpnel/Malfador to charge for it, which is fairly standard across the industry. And I seem to recall Richard saying that they would not have problems with it, assuming the quality was acceptable. Hadrian has already stated he would get their ok before he sold anything, so that's pretty much all he has to do.

Now, whether or not he will sell any is a totally different question. It is tough afterall to sell a product when your main "competitors" are giving it away. You have to make a compelling case that the quiality is way better than what they can get for free. If he does that, then more power to him.

Originally posted by Nodachi:
I have not attacked you or your work, I do not know you and I am sure you are a good person, so if you find this post to be insulting or an attack then you, my friend, need to get a thicker skin.

I have no comment on this, I just thought it was classic so I wanted to quote it.

Geoschmo

[ July 20, 2002, 22:25: Message edited by: geoschmo ]