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Well I guess it seems a bit random but I wanted to know if their was some old game engine that some one could use to build their own small game/mod.

Games like these are just old games that I think would be cool to retro mod on my own...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonic_Trouble

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_3

So why do I want to randomly make a mod out of an old game engine? Well if it would be workable enough, that means most of it (from what I know of) would be more easier to mod in because of its older simplicity.

Now I might be dead on wrong about simplicty, but thats not my question, I just want to know is their some old engine that can be modded in, and be relativly understandable to use?

Half Life 1 has many mods and conversions for it, and 1000's of small mods. Maybe check that out.

Stalker Shadows of Chernobyl, this is pretty complicated but once you download the database extractor for it, all the files come out as tga's and bitmaps so you can do some skinning. And the script comes out as little parts that can be edited in notepad. That may be not what your looking for so sorry (this game is kinda new but easy to mod)

(Stalker SoC is my favourite game lol)

Others games -

Counter Strike 1.6 (runs the same engine as half life)
Fable
Doom 2 and 3
Battlefront 2 (ahaha lol)
Elder Scrolls Oblivion

The older you get in terms of release date, the less likely you are to have robust mod tools. Newer games (if they have mod support) will be the best choice for you if you're looking for something "easy."

OrangeBox Source (HL2Ep2, TF2)
Unreal Engine 3 (Unreal Development Kit, free)
Unreal Tournament 3 (uses UE3 but has the game tacked on, and less robust tools than UDK, 10$)
Unreal Engine 2 (don't use SW: Republic Commando though, its a crippled version in terms of modability)
Crysis (Its actually getting up there in age game wise, but has strong modding tools.


For most of these, it is recommended to use 3DS Max for model import/export and creation because of available plugins. Softimage 7.5 ModTools and 2010 have some plugins available too.

VF501 wrote:OrangeBox Source (HL2Ep2, TF2)
Unreal Engine 3 (Unreal Development Kit, free)
Unreal Tournament 3 (uses UE3 but has the game tacked on, and less robust tools than UDK, 10$)
Unreal Engine 2 (don't use SW: Republic Commando though, its a crippled version in terms of modability)
Crysis (Its actually getting up there in age game wise, but has strong modding tools.


For most of these, it is recommended to use 3DS Max for model import/export and creation because of available plugins. Softimage 7.5 ModTools and 2010 have some plugins available too.

Those are still pretty hard to mod, I've been modding counter strike: source and half life 2 for ages and they are 50x harder than battlefront 2. I think he ment something really easy to just open up and do.

Using all the steam tools like SourceSDK and Unrealdevelopment kit requires a real understanding.

The SourceEngine is not really newbie frendly(it took me ages to understand alone the 3d model compilation process). Softimage has official developer plugins for Source, dunno if Maya has one now(both are used by Valve). Alien Swarm has a very easy map editor in its own SDK(top down view with presets).

UDK(Unreal Engine) is a lot easier to understand(in my opinion) and has a way easier pipeline(you dont actually need a plugin; definitely not for static props, dunno about rigged objects).

Maveritchell wrote:The older you get in terms of release date, the less likely you are to have robust mod tools. Newer games (if they have mod support) will be the best choice for you if you're looking for something "easy."

I don't necessarily agree, but then again I don't disagree either. Counter-point: With age comes several community tools in addition to the default tools, and a larger compliment of tutorials by users. With newer games comes things like multiple texture layers, shaders, complex lighting etc that can be extremely daunting to a new stand-alone mod programmer. For example, if you wanted to build something using the Quake series technology, not only are there several hundred tutorials out there to do so, but the engines are all open source and have been updated by their respective communties.

That being said I try to fall somewhere in the middle. I look for a base engine or game that is between 5-10 years old. That way I have the experience of others to draw from, and I'm not required to learn all sorts of complex techniques to make my mod/game look good. With any mods I do I shoot for "last-gen" graphics. They're much easier to do, and weekend warriors like us don't have time to make things uber-pretty, so the focus should be on "decent looking" and "tons of fun".

I'll be purchasing a license shortly for TorqueX, which uses Microsoft XNA. Basically this means anything built in TorqueX can be compiled for both the PC and for the Xbox 360 Indie Games platform. But that's beyond what you want. For fun, smaller scale mods you don't need an engine that costs money.

Well to an extent the most easy modding (on my standards) is the Half Life series. I guess in most other peoples standards I am quite the opposite because I always felt that source modding is much easier than the zero engine, becuase of what I thought was more down to earth simplicity.

So I guess as far as that goes I am still looking to go a bit farther back than HL 2, because it is more newer than I would like in this aspect.

Maybe HL 1 is a possiblity and another one that I am not shure about since I just saw it but never played, was Thief.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_(series)

If anyone else knows about this games content and moddability, it would be great to hear about it cause I guess I must have liked the lighting effects that it seemed to boast when I reviewed it last.

Just searching for the most suitable game environment thats plyable enough to support a good mod.

Another game to add.

Fallout 3 (Oblivion also)

Gamebryo engine is easy to work with. The GECK tool for Fallout 3 is pretty easy to learn the basic stuff for. Scripting for it takes a bit longer but it seems to be a variant of C as far as syntax goes. Custom models are easy enough to drop into the game, just have to review the export methods and whats possible now.

Plus with New Vegas around the corner, much more fun is to be had.

VF501 wrote:Another game to add.

Fallout 3 (Oblivion also)

Gamebryo engine is easy to work with. The GECK tool for Fallout 3 is pretty easy to learn the basic stuff for. Scripting for it takes a bit longer but it seems to be a variant of C as far as syntax goes. Custom models are easy enough to drop into the game, just have to review the export methods and whats possible now.

Plus with New Vegas around the corner, much more fun is to be had.

I heard that there is tons of mods for fallout 3 such as adding new monsters from other games into the game (such as stalker mutants) using scripts, I used to script, I pre-odered game of the year edition so when I get my hands on it...