Arkanepriest's blog

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Part One

Video Dialogue
Hello, this is Arkane Priest and this is part two of my blog on Modding in PC games. I’ve linked back to part one below this video in case anyone missed it.

Today we’re going to look at the game Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, and one of its most comprehensive mods, Firestorm over Kronus. We’ll look at the base game first, and then see what the mod has changed.

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade is a real-time strategy game, pitting players of one of several different factions against each other. Each faction has a variety of units that excel at different tasks, creating a classic strategy environment. The footage you see here was taken in-game.

Some of the problems associated with Dark Crusade are that there are several simple, one-minded strategies that dominate all others. This somewhat deters competitive gameplay, as it will essentially boil down into who is using the most overpowered strategy at a point. Another problem is the game’s fan-base, comprised of players of the table-top Warhammer community, was somewhat let down by the exclusion of some units in the table-top game. Misrepresentation of some units also caused somewhat of a controversy. It really left a lot of people saying “I could do it better”

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Passage is a game made by Jason Rohrer that, despite its simple graphics, can be interpreted in many different ways. I recommend you play it before reading these interpretations.

In the game, you begin player with an open, although slim view of the world. There is a sort of score counter in the upper right-hand corner. You can see much further to your right than you can up or down. You can move wherever you want within the world that expands down and to the right. A short distance from the beginning zone is a girl. If you choose to move to her, she'll find affection for you and stick with you until the end of the game. You can then move throughout the world. If you move directly to the right, you'll likely encounter the more new areas than if you went down, although if you go down, there are often star-like treasures. Moving to the right increases you score, while moving down or back to the left doesn't. While you have the girl with you, you get twice as much score from moving to the right.

This proceeds for some time. The player is free to explore the world, with his companion or otherwise. The player's and the girl's avatar will age as the game goes on, assuming more aged looks in phases. Eventually, if you took the girl with you, she will abruptly die, and the player will begin to walk very slowly with his head down, as if mourning. Shortly after, he too will die, and the game is over.

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It seems the right time to reflect on my past contributions to this fine blogging establishment, and make note of what's good, what's not, and try to remember what in the world I was talking about. I will observe this in the third-person, to avoid personal bias.

The first thing that I notice about this fellow, is that he seems to focus a lot on PC gaming. I mean, one of his blogs is named "Custom Content in Computer Gaming". A lot of his posts seem to pertain largely to PC games and what they're all about, including several repeated mentions (notable Dystopia). Perhaps it's justified in that such a game is worth mentioning in each different topic, but it stands that the rest of the gaming deserves an opinion as well. It's perhaps time for him to go outside his sphere of knowledge and comment on some new topics.

Also, he created "Part 1" of a blog entry (Custom Content in Computer Gaming - Part 1), then in his next blog wrote about something entirely different. Did he forget to write the second half? Is this divergent entry supposed to replace Part 2, or make the readers forget his promise of a Part 2? Will the critical public forgive him for this slight in continuity?

Those things aside, I think he's been able to keep on the topic he dedicates to once he's decided on what it is. His personal opinion doesn't come into play much, but oftentimes I wonder if he'd have any sources to back up those walls of text. It's arguable if any reasonable sources exist to be cited for some of these topics, but then, that's a topic for a non-reflective blog.

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One the most prominent aspects of modern computer gaming is the creation of custom content. Custom content is usually made by the community, and modifies aspects of a game that is already completed and released. There are several major categories for custom content, including visual adaptations, audio modification, and level or world creation. Oftentimes, these styles of content are mixed and packaged together to offer a completely new experience from the original game.

The term generally applied to such custom content is “mod”, a shortening of “modification”. (Although it is used in other senses, in this observation is only intended to include software modifications of computer games). It’s a common word in many major game communities, often used as a verb. A “modder” is someone who mods, naturally. The creation of custom game content has become a large part of many game’s communities, as some games are especially flexible in accepting user made content or mods. Skilled modders sometimes form Mod Teams, where they work together to create an especially polished mod. Some Mod Teams can produce a mod of nearly commercial quality, such as the mod Dystopia based on the Half-Life 2 engine. These mods replace almost all of gameplay from the game, essentially creating what could be called an entirely new game.

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