The modding era

I started experimenting with game modding in 2010, shortly after joining the World at War Tournament community. What initially began as an interest in understanding how games worked gradually turned into a desire to actually change things myself. I wanted to see what happened behind the scenes, how environments were created, how vehicles and weapons behaved, and how different elements could be modified to create something new.

At the time, our community was working with a mini-mod based on the work of the Forgotten Hope team. It was a great opportunity to experiment with different aspects of game development, especially because there was always something new to discover. None of us had unlimited resources or a professional development team behind us, but we had plenty of enthusiasm, a shared interest in historical games, and a willingness to spend countless hours figuring things out.

http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/

One of the first things I tried was level design, or mapping, as we called it back then. I started learning how to use the game's editor, experimenting with terrain, buildings, environmental objects, and the different tools available to create playable environments. One of my earliest maps was called Weserübung, inspired by the German military operation during World War II.

Creating a map turned out to be considerably more complicated than simply placing objects in an environment. I had to think about how everything fit together, from the overall layout and terrain to the positioning of buildings, roads, and other elements. I also began to understand how much time even relatively small details could consume, especially when I was still learning how to use the tools.

I particularly enjoyed creating environments that felt believable and had their own identity. Historical accuracy was important to us, but I also wanted the locations to feel interesting from a gameplay perspective. That meant experimenting with different layouts, trying to understand how players might move through an environment, and figuring out how the placement of objects could influence the experience.

Looking at these screenshots today, I can see plenty of things I would approach differently. Still, I remember how satisfying it was to watch an environment gradually take shape. Something that initially existed only as an idea was slowly becoming a place that people could explore and interact with. Even though I was working with existing assets and tools, there was a genuine sense of creation involved.

I also remember spending more than an entire week working on a cemetery near a town on the northern side of the island. It was probably far more time than I should have spent on a relatively small part of the map, but I enjoyed getting the details right. :))

Eventually, my curiosity moved beyond level design. I wanted to understand how the vehicles and weapons themselves worked, which led me to experiment with scripting and configuration files. Since we were working with a World War II setting, I was particularly interested in making their behavior as close to historical specifications as the game allowed.

This introduced me to a different side of game development. Instead of focusing primarily on environments and their visual composition, I was now looking at the rules and values that determined how things behaved. Vehicle armor, weapon characteristics, and other parameters could all influence the gameplay experience, and changing one value could have consequences that weren't immediately obvious.

What I found particularly interesting was the relationship between realism and gameplay. Historical specifications could provide a useful starting point, but reproducing them didn't automatically guarantee an enjoyable experience. There were always limitations imposed by the game engine, the available systems, and the way players interacted with one another. At the time, I was mostly experimenting and learning through trial and error, but those experiences gave me an early appreciation for the decisions involved in balancing different gameplay elements.

My curiosity also led me to experiment with 3D modeling. I spent some time learning 3ds Max and working with different models and assets, although I quickly discovered that certain parts of the process were much more challenging than others. Baking, in particular, was never one of my strengths. :))

  

    

I enjoyed the creative freedom that came with experimenting with different tools, even when the results were far from perfect. Sometimes I would spend hours trying to understand how something worked, only to realize that I had approached the problem in a completely inefficient way. Other times, a small experiment would unexpectedly teach me something useful that I could apply elsewhere.

I also spent some time experimenting with CryEngine, exploring its environment tools and trying to understand how different engines approached similar problems. I wasn't trying to become an expert in every discipline. I was simply curious about the different pieces involved in building games, and I enjoyed having the freedom to explore them without worrying too much about whether every experiment would lead to something useful.

Looking back, I think that freedom was one of the most valuable parts of the entire experience. I could move from level design to scripting, from scripting to modeling, and from modeling to experimenting with another engine, simply because something had caught my attention. Some experiments worked, others didn't, but almost all of them helped me understand a little more about the development process.

As the years passed, the community gradually became less active, while my own professional interests were moving in a different direction. By that point, I had already started working as a Game Designer, and around 2015 I decided to step away from my modding activities.

It was the end of an important chapter for me, but I didn't really see it that way at the time. I was simply moving forward, taking the curiosity and practical experience I had gained into a professional environment where the challenges, expectations, and responsibilities were very different.

The transition also made me appreciate how much I had learned from working on those small projects. I had experienced different parts of game development firsthand, understood some of the difficulties involved in bringing ideas to life, and discovered how much I enjoyed solving problems that required both creative and analytical thinking. I was still very much at the beginning of my professional journey, but those years had given me a foundation that would continue to influence the way I approached game development.

And, of course, it wasn't all about creating maps, modifying vehicles, or experimenting with development tools. We also spent a considerable amount of time simply enjoying the games together. Whenever we weren't preparing assets or organizing upcoming events, we would gather online and find increasingly ridiculous ways to blow each other up.

Looking back, those moments are probably just as memorable as the time spent working on the mods themselves. Beyond everything I learned about game development, I met people who shared my interests, worked alongside them on projects we genuinely cared about, and had a lot of fun along the way.

I didn't know it back then, but what started as a hobby would eventually become the foundation of my professional career in the gaming industry.