Mod Management 101 - Are You A Leader?
Difficulty: Intermediate |
| Category: FPSB > Other/Misc | Author(s): rokusho |
This series of tutorials is not about how to make a Source mod, but is about how to actually manage a mod. Mod management is something that isn't well documented and so I hope to create these tutorials to help anyone considering or is currently managing a mod. Even though the Source engine will be used as the basis of the mod and it is assumed throughout this series, though almost everything said here can be transferred to any engine mod. I hope to pull together my past experiences of mod management and of being on mod teams as well as my education.
So with that out of the way, let's get moving.
Introduction
This tutorial looks at how to manage a Source modification. Making a Source mod isn't as simple as waking up one day and saying "I know, I'm going to make a mod today with X, Y and Z in it." Making a mod is not easy. Let me get that said now. It requires a lot of hard work, dedication and skill to do. The aim of this tutorial is to provide help on starting a Source mod and evaluating whether or not it has any potential and that you could be the best person to lead the team.
This tutorial already assumes that you have a decent idea for a mod with good potential to develop into a quality modification. As you may already be on a mod which is the brainchild of someone else. To begin with we will look at why you need a leader for a mod.
Why Do You Need A Leader?
A leader is simply vital for the survival and success of a mod. Some may think that all you need to do is set down a vision of what the mod is and hope that the vision of everyone else involved somehow magically aligns and everyone intrinsically knows what to do. This does not happen. Ever. A leader is needed to align the vision of the team and make sure everyone is doing what the need to do and when. A tall order, especially as most mods will have the leader playing a major role in the actual creation of the mod (mapping, programming, skinning etc).
A good mod leader needs to do a whole variety of jobs, the range of which may surprise some people. Firstly, the leader needs to make sure everyone has a shared vision of the mod, everyone needs to understand what the final result needs to be of the mod, far beyond that of saying "it is a multi-player mod with cool weapons and this and that and..."
Next, the mod leader needs to make decisions, there is going to be plenty of input from all members of the mod (and those who don't provide real input should be considered whether they need to be in the team at all). This input will lead to a lot of conflicting ideas, and a leader needs to make the hard decision of what makes it into the mod and what doesn't. You as a leader can very rarely make everyone happy, expect some people to be disgruntled with you from time to time.
A leader needs to be able to punish and reward, as well as be able to enforce the rules and timetables. Commonly mods do not usually have time restrictions on when things need to be done and I almost advise against it, especially early on in the development of a mod. But do begin to enforce one in the later stages (more on this later) of development. You will also need to hand out punishment, if someone breaks the rules (such as leaks the mod) it is best to punish them accordingly, usually the only form of real punishment is kicking the individual off the team, though consider using warnings. Reward is more important than punishment, thank those who have completed parts for the mod and give positive feedback (AKA positive criticism, if there is something wrong say so, but don't be harsh about it, say something like "Great map, though could you alter A, B and C").
Operations is a main issue for mod leaders, a mod can need a large amount of work that needs to be done and this takes time. (I am defining work as an individual component of the entire mod, such as one piece of work would be a single map, another would be a single weapon that needs to be modelled, UV mapped, textured and compiled) Make and maintain a list of things that needs to be done, what is being done, the progress of this piece of work and what is completed. Keeping track of what is going on is very important and this list needs to be continually updated and ideally in a place where all members can access it easily.
Communication is a vital skill needed, the team leader needs to know what everyone is doing and what progress they are making. Ideally an update once a week is desireable, though this may not be needed, as some pieces of work will take a long time to complete, some people may take sabbaticals (holidays away from working on the mod) and some may just be unavailable for some periods of time. Getting a good balance is necessary.
Now that we have explored a very limited and actually a very imperfect look at what a mod leader needs to do. Defining a good leader is very difficult and really, makes this section almost entirley worthless, so lets move on.
Are You A Leader?
Determining whether you are a good leader isn't as easy as taking a test, it is based on your past performance, what others think of you, what achievements the organization has made under your leadership. A good mod needs a good leader, without one it is doomed to fail.
You need to be intelligent and fully understand the scale and scope of making a mod. You need to be have skills and knowledge of the engine they are making the mod for. DO NOT ASSUME YOU CAN GET SOMEONE WHO DOES. This is a folly I have seen many many mods do before and have failed as a result.
You need to be mature, you can pretend to be mature, but you actually need to have age. Most of the good talent is over 18 and to be able to attract it, you need to be old enough and mature enough, otherwise these people will not respect you nor follow your lead. Maturity is important as running a mod is hard work and needs a mature mind as a result.
You need to be willing to invest time. Time in managing the mod, in managing the people, in communicating to the community as a whole. This all takes time and if you have a large number of already existing commitments then you may want to reconsider.
Don't worry about not being a good leader, you can try and get someone who is interested in the mod and pull them into it. However, this is unlikely,
Conclusion
This is actually a rather pointless tutorial, defining what makes a good leader is actually a very challenging thing to do, especially in Management Science, take a look on Amazon, you can see simply how many books there are available on the subject. Anyone has potential to be a good leader, just that some people have more potential than others. You don't need to be a great leader to lead a mod team, no where near the extremes as I have listed here.
So what was the point of this tutorial then, well, I hope to have stimulated thought, I hope I have got you thinking about whether you do contain the qualities needed to lead a mod. I hope that I have highlighted that running a mod isn't simple, it isn't a walk in the park and requires the right person, some people simply shouldn't run mods.
Next time, I hope to look at how to actually manage the mod, starting with the begging stage of actually getting it off the ground. So expect any really useful stuff to appear until next time. |
| Added: 3 months ago | Tags: management, mods, how to, mod, source |
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