Research Project at MIT needs help from Civ3 Modders/Editors

[MITresearch]

Hello all,

I am a long-time Civ player who is currently doing research on user communities and innovations at MIT's Sloan School of Business. Those of you who have actively modded, added to, or extended Civ3 could help me with some of my research by posting replies in the next day or two to these questions:

1) How many hours a week do you spend modding Civ? Playing Civ?

2) Why do you do what is essentially free work developing Civ? Some possible answers might be prestige within the Civ3 community, enhanced enjoyment of the game, learning useful skills, entertainment, or hope of working as a game designer in the future (feel free to write your own, the more detail the better) Do you work on games other than Civ3?

3) Do you find modifying Civ3 to be easy or hard? Do you feel that the game designers encourage modifications, discourage it, or feel neutral on the subject?

4) Basic demographics: Are you under 20/20-30/30-40/over 40? Do you work in a technical field? What is your highest level of education? What country do you come from? How long have you been playing Civ3? What have you contributed by way of mods, ideas, etc.

I understand this is rough data, but it will prove helpful in shaping some future research. Fast replies are encouraged!

Thanks,
Ethan

Please note that the questions above have been refined somewhat since the original post! Thanks for your help so far.

[victorhadin]

1) Largely, entertainment and keeping me busy. I enjoy stringing together a project and seeing it come to completion and since Civ3 scenario developing is far more enjoyable than actual work, I find it an acceptable way of filling in my time. I get a lot of satisfaction when a project nears completion.

2) Easy enough, though I stay out of the more advanced areas of modding/ scenario development. I feel the developers have largely discouraged modding in the game, unfortunately, but are perhaps slowly making up for it.

3) Can't really say. I'm not that much of a regular here.

4) I'm aged 20 and I'm a student of Aerospace Engineering in Manchester University.

[Sheik]

I haven't released a lot of things mostly because they aren't good enough but I have realeased some maps and resources.

1. It is very fun and after you are done there is a sense of accomplishment. It is also nice to distribute your work for free because then others can add to it and release something even better. If everyone started charging for or not releasing their work we would have very small useless scenarios but if you can instantly get 90 new resources for your mod and use them for free you can create something great in less time.

2. Easy now but at first it was somewhat difficult getting a feel for the interface and remembering everything you have to do.

3. Not sure.

4. Under 20, I do not work, I am in a private high school, United States, I started playing about 6 months after it came out and started modding the first week, Some ideas, some resources, and a few maps.

[Zen]

Re: Research Project at MIT needs help from Civ3 Modders/Editors

1) Because it is fun/enjoyable to create things. Because I want to see specific things created and if noone else does it, I might as well.

2) Civ III is hard b/c it is not a "mod-friendly" game. I feel that the designers REALLY messed up here. Especially when compared to CivII, which was great. Civ III editing... I am not happy with it, and am actually currently seeking for some easy way to do a relations change for a scenario I am working on. NOTE: I am not a computer science major, nor can I code worth beans... so, for me, a simple user interface is needed. Even if it is just a txt file that I can alter through additions or deletions.

3) I don't post often. Most memorable moment... Winning the Civ II "Lord of the rings" scenario as Gondor... This is, in my opinion, the gem of all modding... I actually got the ring to mordor before Gondor was overwhelmed. For Civ III, my realization that culture is one ugly Mofo when trying to make a scenario. Culture going over map edges can crash the game... it took me a couple days to figure this out.

4) I am 23. Currently a PhD student in Biochemistry at Yale. I have little/no programming experience other than modding games like CivII, III, and Shogun Total War (I love txt files). I don't think I have ever officially put out a Civ scenario, but I have put out stuff for STW. I really wish that Civ III had been done a bit better so that I could put out my current scenario that I am working on... but unless you have 8 human players, or can prohibit certain diplomatic agreements between specific civs, I don't think it will be very good...

-Zen (Blade)

[Jaguar]

Zen, what residential college are you in?

[Bane Star]

Re: Research Project at MIT needs help from Civ3 Modders/Editors

1) Editing, Used to spend 25 or more on Civ2, Now for Civ3 PtW, I spend 10 or so, average. Playing Less (only to test the mod)

2) Game Design Practice is Up there, I edit/Mod many games for this reason, But Civ specific Reason is designing the game to run as a Background World developer for my roleplay game. Rather than designing every little detail for an entire world to set my roleplay world in, I'm merely modding the Civ Game to provide me with all the info I'll ever need. Roleplay Characters want to travel to a nearby city, Where is it? whats it called, population, trade, Is the price of Weapons high or low, what cultural differences are there, I could spend years doing this in R/L, but the modding the game for civ2 took only 2 months or so. Civ3, I've only started to mod, (was waiting for PTW and a few patches/updates before I decided to bother)

3) While the game designers had the idea that modding should be available, they were too narrow minded in thier ideas of what would be modded and what would be left alone. Modifiying tech/units/buildings is only the start of the Game design process, To use the Car Analogy: what I think we really wanted was a Engine and Shassy, and Everything else to be changable, but what we got was a Car with the chance to change the colour of the paint and add air-con or not.
Personally I'll still change everything that I can

20-30 Male, Currently English Teacher in Russia, Was Financial Planner in Australia, Playing since Civ1, and release date from each, Fantasy Mods and Ideas but Too big to post any of my mods. I'm a perfectionist.

[NeOmega]

1) I play maybe an average of 1 hour a week, or more realistically once a month. Also, now that my mod has reached playability, I have been playing it (my mod) more often. I mod at least 20 hours a week, usually closer to 30 or 40. A lot of that is staring at the screen and thinking.

2) I do it for free because I enjoy it. Prestige and all mean very little to me. What I really want is alot of people to play and enjoy it. That is my ultimate goal. allthough I do believe it could help me in creating a portfolio of work, were I to ever get the chance to be a designer.

When I was a kid, my friend had civ I on his computer, and I went home and made a board game version, with lego pieces as city and small square pieces of paper as units. I also recorded the history of the world, and played as all the nations once. This particular friend and I made many board games for eachother to play.

3) I think the modding is fairly easy... if you understand you cannot do the crazy and fun things you could do in Fantastic Worlds (a scenario editor expansion pack for Civ II). The graphical work is hard, and I don't really know how the developers could help that.

4) Male 26, live in Washington state, USA. 1.5 years of college. Carpet cleaner. Right now I am not even buying computer games because they will take my focus away from my mod.

[Immortal Wombat]

Does the CtP2 forum get this questionaire too, or is it only Civ3? CtP2's more moddable...

[MoonWolf]

Nice to someone research in Civ3. Would be a perfect job for me!

1) It varies a lot. Now I'm in a real kick and have been playing maybe 30 hours only the last weekend. Most of 1st of May I did some modding and my game now is actually a test of my mod. I guess I'll be playing quite a lot this week too....

2) I like to be creative! That's why I've also fallen for a game concept like civ; it's the building and new challenges everytime. Some time I might get an idea I would like to try out in civ, and the result is several hours with the game! I mod the game to make it like I want it to be. I feel my mod adds more realism and is more fun to play than the "vanilla" one.

3) It has been made easier with the editor (when comparing to civ2), but at the same it's also a bit more difficult than before as some features are missing like cheating, adding random events etc. Totalling up, I like the current version better when it comes to modding; it's made easier and most players can do at least some simple changes easily.

4) 23, Norwegian, male wolf, work in the IT-business (support ++). Think my highest education is called college in US English,Gymnasium in German (I was only supposed to work for one year after school...). I've been playing civ since I got it from a friend in '93 (ok, it was warez, but I didn't understand what that was then. And I've bought 2 or 3 copies of civ2! )

Hope this will help you... Looking forward to hear the progress in your research project!