Poll Question 286 – Is it possible tell the nationality of a modder from their mod?

21st November 2012

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Back in 2006 I wrote an article entitled Cultural Influence of Stories and mods which discussed how some nationalities of science fiction writers tend to have general, underlying themes throughout their work.

I am resurrecting the idea for today’s poll question.

To be honest, I certainly couldn’t tell where a modder comes from based on their work in the modding community. Perhaps it is because mods are generally quite limited in their scope, especially if it is not a total conversion. It could also be that I am just not observant enough.

I think the concept holds true for full games but doesn’t really stand up in the modding community.

What do you think?

Time to vote


9 Comments

  1. Hec

    Well sometimes, I mean I have the strong feeling I can tell if a modder is russian, from their very peculiar mapping/modding style…

    I mean russian modders love to do bad voice acting in really “ordinary” mods, they allways feel a map as if they were constructing a total converssion project! they do voice acting in russian most of the time, and don’t care at all to put english translations for non russian speakers…., mm what else.., yep they use some wierd textures and their mods and maps feels so Soviet style, like if u were located in the very deep heart of eastern Europe, which sometimes I love…

    Non offense at all intended to russian moders, in fact one of my all time beloved HL1 mods is russian, I mean the Paranoia TC mod, I wonder why Phillip never released Paranoia for HL1 here in PP.com, that’s a very interesting mod…

    1. Ade

      I believe the reason of that feeling is partly due to HL2 being set somewhere in eastern Europe..
      I for one can’t tell nationality but I can recognize an author if I’m given a map pack and I’m a fan of that author 😀

      1. lj4linux

        pacat ca romanii sint orice altceva decit mapper-i/modder-i… 🙁

        1. Ade

          pai hai sa facem noi un mod 😀

  2. lj4linux

    Hec is (almost) right!
    Besides Russians (and French) is hard to guess the nationality of the mapper…
    NO OFFENSE AT ALL !!!

  3. Sometimes I think it’s possible but it’s hard to point out the exact nationality. Mostly, when the map is not set in a specific location you can somewhat tell the general area the mapper is from by their archicture.

    Over the years I’ve come to find alot of archictutural diferences between my country and others, and what would make sense in terms of a building for other people makes no sense at all to me.

  4. Anon_572035

    I agree about russian mods. I never liked all the talking, chit chat, story telling.
    I think I rememer only 2 French mods and both had no flashlight. Are sand lions from a certain nationality, or are they just regional,? I hate them werever they are from!(is that racist)?

  5. GoodGuyA

    A very thoughtful question. I would definitely attest that it is easy to tell where full-fledged games are developed (especially German ones) but mods? I think there is definitely a tinge of impression that I’m not sure is really segregated to a nationality, but rather universal of those who don’t quite understand the English language. This is not to say they are bad, and in fact I find there to be at least one really cool abstract design in mods like this, but I think it is easy to tell when the user doesn’t understand English that well. When they do, the line is far too blurred, I think.

  6. In certain instances I get a pretty good idea (sometimes its clear just from voice/text/) but its not a universal thing so with only a 2 question poll I cant give my answer. Spelling mistakes give away a lot but does not mean they are any country in particular.I spell things wrong all the time lol.

    Now if the question was “Can you tell the difference between a Croatian,Ukrainian,Russian or Chech mod” I would probably say no as they all sound similar when speaking I find

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