Welcome to the Mod Fidelity blog!
My name is Matthew Dryden, I am the project coordinator for Mod Fidelity. This blog will discuss the various different aspects of creating a mod from nothing and how to present it to the community.
Modular Combat: Origins
Today I’m going to discuss where Modular Combat got it’s start. One of my very first favorite PC games was Quake 2. I had been playing since 1998, but I always more interested in the mods that were being made for it.
It wasn’t long before I had discovered a mod called Vortex.
Vortex’s tagline was what really struck me: “It will suck you in.”
It was true; Vortex was my first exposure to an action game that had role-playing elements to it. There wasn’t much flash to Vortex, but it made for up it in gameplay. You could combine any amount of abilities and weapon upgrades without ever losing the speed that Quake 2 was known for.
I played Vortex for roughly 6 years, became an admin, helped out with the website, and watched the game grow and go through years of balance changes and drastic gameplay changes. The call for an engine change was a strong one, most thought that Quake 3: Arena was the idea upgrade, then Quake 4…but nothing ever came to fruition.
Bringing Vortex to Half-Life 2
I knew that I wanted to make a mod for Half-Life 2. The only idea that really stuck with me was making a spiritual successor to Vortex. I approach Scott ‘GHz’ Mirabito, who is the lead for Vortex Quake 2, and explained to him what I wanted to do. With is approval, I went to work on learning how to program for Half-Life 2 (C++ is the coding language, something I had zero experience in).
This went on for about a month. I had implemented the experience system following a tutorial on the Valve Developer Communty’s wiki. I had done a few other minor changes, but it quickly became apparent to me that I needed help.
This was where I met Winston.
Winston, as it turns out, was the one who wrote the experience system tutorial on the wiki, along with a lot of other neat little tricks that I had been implemented in to what would eventually become Modular Combat. We became fast friends and I asked him if he would be interested in this crazy little project that I was starting. Thankfully, for all of us, he thought it was an interesting idea.
What’s in a name?
I knew from the get-go that I didn’t want to recreate Vortex. The mod was created for Quake 2, every bit of gameplay was geared for the fast-paced deathmatch. What I wanted to do is take the idea of having an upgrade/customization system and fit it into the Half-Life universe.
This is where the idea for using the hazard suit came into play. The idea of using modules came from the original Half-Life game, where it was possible to attach a long-jump module to the hazard suit to gain extra abilities. Our original goals were quite simple: get an experience system in, add modules, and make AI monsters work in deathmatch.
The name wasn’t so simple. Here are just a few names that we went through:
- Vortex: Half-Life 2
- Vortex: HEV Mark VI
- HEVVI
- HEV Mark VI: Modular Combat
Thankfully, we came to our senses and shortened the name to just Modular Combat. With a new name and a few good ideas, we could take the general concepts of Vortex Quake 2 and really make them our own. We consider Modular Combat to be a large departure from Vortex Quake 2.
I hope you enjoyed the Mod Fidelity blog post. There’s a lot more to come!
Matthew Dryden
What side are YOU on?
(Special thanks to the Overgrowth team and Iiro Jäppinen for providing these nice icons!)