Can you make an entire total converter mod by myself?

[2L8]

I've seen a lot of total conversion/makeover mods out there (Forested Winter, Forelli Redemption, San Andrius, the works) and I known that a lot of them have a team of modders behind them, so I thought to myself. is making a total conversion mod by myself possible? and if so, what are the throwbacks of it? 

[E Revere]

Making any game or mod by oneself is extremely tough and dilligent work. It's not impossible by any means. It is, however, very tough and time-consuming. You would have to slave over years (no exaggeration) making models, drawing textures, staring at codes all by yourself, which is hard enough when done by a team. Such efforts have achieved completion before, but have taken a course of many years, even as far as and over a decade. If you're ready for that, you should give it a try. But approach with caution and patience. If you have no prior modding experience, learning the methods alone might take you that much time.

 

If you're familiar with the Half-Life franchise, that has a lot of solo-made mods and games. But all the mainstream big ones took their creators a decade to finish. One of them is called Half-Life: Echoes. That's where I'm drawing the example from. And that is a franchise with an adept modding community. It has lots of up-to-date modding tools, an active playerbase, tons upon tons of guides and a renown for moddability as well as caring developers that still patch it. Engines used by GTA games don't have these luxuries. It would be a headache going through modding tools all just to get stuck around game versions and incompatibilities.

 

So yeah, bottom line is do as you like, but remember it's no easy task. You have to be willing to give a lot of time away and not even get compensated for it. Plus there's also the chance that R* sends lawsuits your way.

Edited March 7 by E Revere

[D T]

It's possible, but for the same amount of effort, you could develop your own game on Unity or UE5 and actually make money on it and/or build a portfolio that would aid you in joining the games industry. Modding is sadly a fool's game in this day and age.

[universetwisters]

6 hours ago, D T said:

It's possible, but for the same amount of effort, you could develop your own game on Unity or UE5 and actually make money on it and/or build a portfolio that would aid you in joining the games industry. Modding is sadly a fool's game in this day and age.

Idk man I speak from experience when I say that, depending on your scope, modding isn’t the worst way to go if your whole premise is just “gta but set in X” or “gta but you play as Y”

 

Like I get the appeal of making your own game, but there’s no need to reinvent the wheel nawhimean 

[Nicki]

21 hours ago, D T said:

It's possible, but for the same amount of effort, you could develop your own game on Unity or UE5 and actually make money on it and/or build a portfolio that would aid you in joining the games industry. Modding is sadly a fool's game in this day and age.

The perfect definition of work smarter, not harder

[Lioshenka]

It's absolutely possible, yes. You'll need about 3-4 years. The only thing is you'll need to be doing it full time, so no studying or other work.

 

1 years to learn modding and how the game is designed. 2 years to build map. 1 year to test and fix glitches.

 

Add an extra year for sounds, missions, things like that.

 

How do I know this? I made a lot of assets sufficient to cover about 20% of GTA SA map in 3 years, only spending a few hours a day.

 

 

Edited March 11 by Lioshenka