Team Fortress has been around for over 16 years, when the original mod came out for Quake. Why is it still one of the most popular multiplayer shooters today? Tom Curtis identifies 5 things that are being done by Valve in the latest version of game, Team Fortress 2 (TF2), to keep it healthy and living. These include present day marketing techniques, like identifying a wrapper (brand) for each update that focuses on a specific character class, game mode or real world holiday, and letting that drive the design.
The other things identified by Curtis as the right medicine are from an older way of making games, and include staying close to players, design-driven marketing, and holistic development. These were no-brainers for studios like id Software who made Quake, the game which made the Team Fortress mod possible. An old interview about Quake with id Software CEO Jay Wilbur shows that they canned their original design (Thor-like guy running around with a hammer) and just made more Doom style play because it was more fun. Using what was already there and making it better is exactly what modding is about.
This same perspective can be found even before that in the original MUDing communities, the text-based RPGs on telnet, where a room could be created just by describing it. The code was freely available, and so every time a significant advancement was made, a new branch would be made in the codebase. Some players would start playing that particular version, and others would stay on the branch they were on. Some would do both. A quick count through the ASCII tables of Martin Keegan's Classification of MUDs reveals over 80 different branches of MUDs.
It is not a surprise that TF2 is free to play and always will be: this is another example of how Valve has embodied at least part of the old modding culture, and will probably contribute to the franchise staying alive for a long time. Perhaps the best example of modding, however, is right in the game itself. The medic character's update was launched last June, along with another big game update, as expected. His mechanic was simple enough: go around shooting your friends and hope to make them better. And then, every once in awhile, he releases an UberCharge, and the player gets a buff for awhile, such as invulnerability. Modding culture has worked the same way so far, giving titles a second wind or even a third when their publishers thought they were dead. TF2 is a long way from it.
Matt Jenkins
Matt Jenkins
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