Max Payne :: Zen of mod-design

Version: 1.15

Content:

1. Reset Your Brains - this is no Half-Life
   • Copyrights
2. Making a MOD
3. Tell a good story
4. Closing words

Foreword

"A typical mod goes like this: you either get a new idea (5%) or "Like Counter-Strike but better" (95%). When the project has two members, at least the other one is the webmaster and at that point the MOD homepages are done.
Some sketches are put on the page, and the guy chosen as a gfx-artist manages to make one shotgun-model, while also doing the page design and logos; weapons are designed before the idea. And that's it. 99% of all MODs never gets done, and 90% of the rest are taunted or/and forgotten.
You should try your tolerance by doing at least one complete map."

-NNirvi, Pelit-magazine 2/2001 (freely translated by me)

This article is a simple piece of text how one should approach mod-making in Max Payne, you should not take this literally, but as a guide. I also tell about how you should organize and start work with a mod.

I want to emphasize that these are my own opinions, nothing more. You can decide yourself if you want to follow these guidelines or not.

So let's begin with a flashy starting sentence:

Reset your brains - this is no Half-Life

NO.

Max Payne is a single player game, and it should be treated that way. It's all about the plot and mood, not how many weapons there are, or how big levels. Of course they are an essential part of the mod, but they should not be the main point of it.

The original Max Payne features a film noir -story where a detective has gone undercover and then framed for killing his own boss. Wife and kid is dead and Max searches for revenge. Ok, maybe not that original, but RMD has done a great job with the graphic novel and (important!) ambient soundworld. The mood is spectacular.

The problem is, that every new singleplayer-mod has been announced, seems to have a common mistake; they all try to be Max Payne+. And this is due to wrong kind of approach to the world of Max Payne. Many many mods have the motivation of just "let's do a mod" and the mod is being done just for the Mods sake. And you start by designing enemies and weapons, while the plot and other plans are written on ten lines.

This is no Half-life. You cant throw in a couple of weapons and models (copied from some movie/tv-show) and perhaps some nice maps and rest assured that the multiplayer-community will dig it. Let's take a look at half-life mods for instance. There are tons of mods which are based on movies, tv-shows or other computer games, like for instance buffy the vampire slayer, or the matrix. I truly wish that Max Payne -modmakers wouldn't go this low, it kills all creativity to copy everything that has been already made and wish that fans of the shows would play it. The stupidest thing I know, is to make a mod of another game. I heard that someone is making a Hitman-mod for Max Payne. I mean, please, that is so unnecessary and uncreative. Why not play hitman in the first place?

Do your own stuff. Come up with something original and then PLAN it. And when the plan and design is ready, then you start making it. And during the making you need to stick to the plan. Don't add anything extra, just do what you initially intended. The most important thing (and the biggest problem also) is actually getting the mod out. The reason in failing in this, is usually that you don't plan it well enough, or not at all.

Copyrights

For instance there's coming a Matrix -game from Shiny Interactive. That means that all matrix-mods out there, which share the name of matrix, or have similar characters/textures/whatever, are violating Warner Bros's intellectual property. So, if your mod "Neo in a killing-spree" are enough famous, you might be contacted by WB's lawyers, and first, they'll usually just ask you to remove the mod. If you don't, it's gonna go ugly.

Another mod for Halflife (which old name i cannot remember) was basically Matrix in Half-life. They changed their name to "Existence" and also the whole idea of the mod. Reason was the upcoming Matrix-game. And that was a smart move. Because you'll be wasting loads of work, if you need to put your mod down just when you got it ready.

There's an option though, you could make a parody. That's approved.

Making a mod

Communication with team members is essential, and you need a visionary, a guy who has a clear idea of what the end-product should look like, and other members just have to cope with him. This visionary guy is the one who plans the mod and designs it, and he has to describe his vision as well as he can. Of course, he participates in mod-making normally too, making levels or models or both.

Now, in my opinion, there shouldn't be multiple visionaries, it always ends into a senseless debate of some ideological issue. There should only be one guy who says how it should look like, no more. Making a mod is hard work, make sure that you are up to it, and more importantly: Have time to make it. You can't make a mod 2h/week, it needs constant work, so you stay in touch with the idea and keep up the pace until first release is ready.

And don't go announcing the mod to the public until you have something ready. You are for the mod, the mod isn't for you. If you are planning on making a mod, plan it yourself, make a few level starts, and maybe some design graph and write a structure of the plot.

When you have some initial stuff ready, ask for other people to help you. Show them what you got and referate the idea. Pick only members you know that will help you. Ask them for something to show. It can be anything, as long as it's mod-related, it can be Half-Life levels or anything because the experience counts most. I'd rather choose a guy who doesn't know anything about Maxed (yet) but has a lot experience of designing levels to other mods, than a guy who hasn't ever done anything, but knows something about MaxEd.
Don't pick people who haven't ever done anything mod-related, just those who know what they are doing. It is very important to have a solid dedicated team. And you should keep it low; a team of 30 members just gives a message of poor communication and organizing.

A basic mod-team should look something like this:

• 1 Visionary/designer, also makes maps or is a coordinator(preferred)
• 2-3 mapmakers
• 1 particlefx/texture-guy
• 1 "coder"/coordinator
• 1 Artist for graphic novels (optional, you could also use in-game-clips)
• voice-artists (optional, you could also use subtitles)
• 1-2 Modelers/animators

The coordinator should also need to document all created stuff: levelnames, particlenames etc, so everyone understands where we are going. The coordinator is a very important figure of mod-making, and this is the guy who leads the things, he should handle the communication and inform all of important changes in the mod. He does the version control also. He's the orchestra leader, the man who synchronizes mod-content and makes everything work in harmony (I'll explain more of working as a coordinator in another tutorial).

And, unlike in Half-Life, you shouldn't have external map-makers. Everyone who participates in the mod-making, should be fully clear of what they are doing, and why. Maps are the core part of a maxpayne-mod; all dynamic content, ingame-clips and action is within the maps. Pay a lot of attention to the map-design. You should sketch the areas before-hand and make the textures, if possible, by yourself. Just get a digicam and off you go.

Tell a good story

Or you could do it the other way around, make the player work as a swat-teammember who needs to stop the terrorists but something goes wrong and you end up in a hostage-situation. Or maybe the player is the guy who covers bomb-defusers while they work. It's harder this way, because you can't come up with very original plot-ideas.

I suppose though that you got the idea: You are not just making levels with enemies, but a story. There needs to be a reason to kill those bastards, and make it a good one.

Closing words

note: if you want to comment this article, you can mail me.