Battlefield Modding Tutorials BFMODS

What are players usually looking for in a Battlefield 1942 modification? What makes a specific mod a hit, i.e. Desert Combat, over another one? Share your thoughts here.

an original idea helps...but...well what makes 1942 great?

IMO...: Gameplay / vehicles-objects / maps / sounds / textures, etc etc etc.

So a mod has to have those things if its going to be well-received...

Desert Combat IMO is *the* best mod for 1942. It really feels like 1942, but just "modern day". Gameplay is unchanged really...the vehicles / objects are all great, the maps are good as well, and the sounds are great..from the weapons to the voice overs. The textures are great too.

Forgotten hope is a pretty big mod for 42. Personally I think it has most of everything, except for the 1st thing: gameplay. You really need a 40+ slot server to have a good battle. Of course they didn't want the feel of 1942..they went the "realism" route...which ruins it for me. The maps are good, except for maybe a few 'so-so' ones. There are some silly objects / parts of some of the maps though. The sound of this mod really falls short. It seems like they just went searching online for whatever they could find, no matter the quality. Most of the artillery guns sound like they're out of a movie from the 50's/60's (low quality audio). Same with some of the guns. The textures are really outstanding though.

Take a mod like Galactic Conquest (star wars mod). Its a VERY original idea...and a lot of the vehicles / weapons are done very well, with the sounds. Then again there some some parts lacking...be it maps or certain objects in the game. But hey, if you really like star wars, and battlefield 1942, you'll probably love this mod.

Just a couple of thoughts..

Scrap FH. Take BG42 . Their approach is not realism, but historical accuracy (sometimes goes hand in hand), but always put point on the gameplay factor, even if vehicles or weapons have to be altered a bit. Means you have all the cool historical stuff (and very very much of it!) and it's still playable, unlike FH which is more of a showcase mod if you have less than 40-50 players.

I think the main aspect of a good mod is they have a good concept. And stick to it. You have to do the same as game designers, try to enhance the immersion level of the game/mod so everybody can like it. How to do this? That's where there are hundreds of possibilites. Just look at what all the mods out there took for target. Interstate 82 (racing fun, 1980s), GC (space warfare, crazy ), FH (hyper realism), BG (historical accuracy), XWW2 (more variety, action gameplay).
Pick your goal, and then work your way there. Work your way there good, with smart changes and keeping immersion high.
A good mod doesn't even need to change many graphics or sounds or whatever, just fix some of the nuisances in the vanilla game or add some highly unique stuff codewise and you also get interest.
Of course the huge undertakings (mostly Total Conversions) like DC, BF1918, GC et al require changes to all aspects of the game, but also require huge manpowerhours of work, and often tedious and boring work too. That's why it makes more sense to bake small rolls, as we in Germany say, and develop something small and cool. Or do serverside moddings. Or go to the limit of mapside modding. Or just mod for the fun for it and for fiddling around in the engine, like most of us do .

There just aren't many BF42 gamers left that are looking for new mods. Most have found their favourite mods by now (well, the demand is low, the supply is high) and have no interest in testing out other mods. The only reason I myself am developing a mod for now over ~2 years straight is I have a steady demand base, as I'm developing for an online campaign project where we usually have ~12on12 (sometimes more, sometimes less) players which appreciate the work. Without that, I probably would have kicked BF42 goodbye some years ago. Playing public solo is annoying, playing vs bots...well...no comment. Even more so if you are used to high quality tactical combat which you have in such a project, both teams are 100% in Teamspeak channels and there really is a lot of commanding, reporting, requesting and manoeuvering to outsmart the enemy team.

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Kampagne XI - Vereinte Achsenmächte


xFire: wgpsenshi

I just love that tactical approaching to Battlefield. It's just a lot harder on '42 and 'nam then it is on BF2 or 2142. It's just so awesome sharing the information to own the enemy team.

Ahh yes senshi I forgot about BG!! I just went through the vehicle list. Sweet Jesus! They have everything. I'm downloading it now.

I don't remember if FH has it, but I didn't see it in BG...I would have made one by now if I knew how...and that is the bad-assery that IS the Landing Craft Rocket... I'd love to see this in-game.

You always can make suggestions to the BG team in their forums. Though they usually take vehicles which really can add to some maps they have. I think the LCT(R) would be a fun addition, especially to the Pacific island maps. Actually with the material you have in BG, it would be pretty easy to work that one out. BG does have LCTs, but only the "smaller" ones and only the real transport versions. But working that into a LCT(R) should be no biggie, some 3D-editing, coding some fancy launchers, (no, not 1.000+ like the real LCT(R)s ) and you are good to go. Even I would know how to go on about that.

And yeah, BG is awesome . That's why we'll use it soon in our campaign. But first the tedious work of calculating an appropiate modding list for all vehicles and prizing them right...well, how simple the times of good old BF42 Vanilla where . But they don't "have everything". E.g. the Italian army is very underrepresented, only 2-3 vehicles are Italian, I think. But well, even the BG team suffers from the sinking popularity of BF42 and loses team members to other games or - more often - to RL issues (marriage, studying, work, sickness...sometimes even death).

I suggest playing BG on the official server, gamedays are Wednesday and sunday 2000 GMT+1 . Though it focuses more on gameplay than FH, the "it rockz!" factor still is in exponential dependancy to the number of players

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Kampagne XI - Vereinte Achsenmächte


xFire: wgpsenshi

The thing about Battlefield 1942 that has always attracted me, is that Battlefield 1942 never overstays its welcome. BF2, a game which is by no means bad, secretly wishes it were realistic, and tries to be serious require a lot of teamwork. Battlefield 1942 however remains simple, and fun. There is no need in Battlefield 1942 to work with a team member; although that may win you the map easier, you can still hop on any Battlefield 1942 server and just have fun. Not to mention that thanks to the larger scale of Battlefield 1942 (Large Battleships, Great Maps), you get some of the most random and hilarious instances ever to grace a video game.

I can remember one time in particular playing on a Battlefield 1942 server called Berlin: Jeeps and Planes. In the early days it was an excellent modded server, with great admins and an even better clan behind it. Since that time It has lost all of its wonderful mods and its admins have become power hungry, and much, much younger, it really is a tragedy. Anyways, I can recall this moment in particular because I was playing with a good friend over Teamspeak, and me and her were having a lot of fun having a Bazooka duel (Thats the great thing about it, we didn't have to participate, we were free to do our own thing). At one instance she proceeded to try and ram me with one of the Black Medals that had been SSMed onto the server, and although it couldn't kill me it would disorient me pretty bad. As she came down the road and went off an embankment, I fired my bazooka at her hitting her and blowing her up, at which time her black medals dead body proceeded to keep moving forward and land on me. Both of us died laughing for about twenty minutes straight.

I've never had that kind of experience in BF2, I always end up exiting a BF2 match or mod angry because of the teamwork. DICE of any company should know that the average public player is not a good team player and that because of this, having an emphasis on Team-play is not the best idea. They leave no avenue for mods on BF2, serversidemodding has been all but virtually eradicated for that game and BF2142, so the lack of good SSM mods on BF2 is disturbing, no longer do we have the great days of servers like Jeeps and Planes. They also leave no avenue for fun, there is so much emphasis on the chain of command, and the teamwork, not to mention the experience hungry players that only care about rank, so that the game loses its fun factor, and becomes frustrating.

That is why I am so excited about Battlefield 1943. I downloaded this $15 dollar gem from Playstation Store, even if I was highly skeptical. I however, was proven wrong. DICE in a $15 DLC managed to make a perfectly balanced, very stylistic, and VERY fun game that would bring even the most die hard Battlefield 1942 fan to his knees crying. They focused on the Pacific maps which were the most popular in 1942, they removed the uneccessary and overwhelming classes like the medic, and they made each and every weapon PERFECTLY balanced to one another. If Battlefield 1942 were ever to be perfected, I say friends Battlefield 1943 is what it would look like. I just hope that DICE got the message from their experiment, with it quickly becoming the best selling PSN and Xbox Live arcade game to download in a single week, and now selling more than 1,000,000 copies world wide. If this isn't proof enough what the Battlefield fans want, I have no idea what is. We want a fun game, with easy modding capabilities and a plethora of tools, and we want it to be in World War Two damnit!

something that original but not retarded ,done and done

also cutting edge shit helps