I was looking at the OP of a thread I have going on another forum about a mod I'm working on and noticed that I have been working on this thing since Dec 2008 - I couldn't believe how much time has passed since I began.

Yet I know I am not the only one who has been working away on something for years there are a few here who have been working on mods for much longer or in Kateri's case supporting her mod faithfully for years.

If you have been working on something for a long time why not drop a comment in this thread as to why you have spent so long on a single mod - what is it about the mod that keeps you going?

If you are somehow who managed to release after a long haul let me know what life is like on the other side of the tunnel

Voted for a bunch of random junk lol, I guess you can say I've been working on a bunch of mods for years now, but in reality, I've only worked on them a few weeks total.

i've got one big mod. two midmods. plans for a few smallish mods setting around. and have spent most of my modding time lately working on skyrim, home of the nords. with that great team there. but eventually i will get my mods done. right now i just work on them when not doing interiors, or when i need a break from them for a bit. my big mod spectral isle i keep pluging away at because i got so much into. and it is starting to look cool. but that'll take years to release. bluewater outpost just need clutter and dialog. will get to that eventually. :tongue:

I haven't been modding long enough to be considered a "long hauler" yet, but I just realized today that I hadn't touched Morrowind or the CS in a month or more... I had hit a stumbling block with some script or another and left things as they were and forgot. Voted for a bunch of things...but I think scripting takes most of my time, and playing Morrowind or making another mod will be the "next up."

Got to get back to it if I ever want to see release!

I'm pretty sure that Morrowind Rebirth will take at least another year to finish.. so yeah, "long hauler" would be a pretty nice description :spotted owl:

I came up with the concept for my mod 5 years ago; forgot about it for a year; then rediscovered it a year later and thought the idea still sounded really neat. So I started modding. It's been 4.5 years now I believe.

Everything about my mod takes a long time: world-building, dialogue, quests, scripting, etc. - I've been doing it by myself for a long time now and have only recently been soliciting help here and there.

But it's going to get finished, I just need it right. Kind of like the work of art option, but it's going to get released if it's the last thing I do. Which it might be in the morrowind modding scene...

That's all I really do ! My first Morrowind project (A HUGE landmass) ate up about 4 years, however it never got finished (lost in old computer). Then when I got a laptop I decided to give it another shot. Spent two years on and off on another landmass mod, and already having past experience it went much faster. That got lost as well due to my laptop overheating and totally taking a poo.. My current project I've only spent maybe 4 months on (I have to switch off between this project and my Fallout 3 project so it was on and off) and it's already nearing completion! However I do plan on a few other landmass and/or huge dungeon crawls. So yep I'm a long hauler modder alright (Good thread btw ha)

About ever releasing it, I voted the work of art option... The deal is simply this... There's hardly ever more than a week that passes that I don't learn something new, or some better way to do what I've already done. When enough weeks go by, it becomes obvious that I have to start over, because there is no other way to erase what I've already done.

As to what occupies the time, you need an option of "all of the above", eh?

6 years before a release, and 3 years after... it doesn't get any better, I'm afraid.

So you have been working on your mod for a couple years - big deal. I have spent almost that much time not working on an update to Traveling Merchants. It has been nearly two years since I have opened the mod in the construction set. In fairness I should add that I thought I was still working on it when I shifted over to my update of Slave Escort, but since I completely changed the mechanics of the latter the former no longer depends on it. *sigh*

So I guess that means I have been working on Slave Escort for about two years. The mod is 'finished', but it is still being tested. Perhaps it will be available soon, but I have to say I enjoy the peacefulness of not being pestered with bug reports so we'll see. :whistling: Even if testing does not consume the majority of my time it sometimes seems like it. Since that is not a choice I will go with dialogue. Writing can be such a labor for me. I am continually rephrasing my work... and I make many mistakes, too. Just to give myself a break this winter I knocked out a couple game-play tweaks in as many months. One was just pure scripting... very relaxing - and much easier than designing and testing quests! It was nice to have a sense of accomplishment after wrestling with the same problems for so long.

I have other projects still mostly in the planning stages that are several years old now, and I think they will have to continue to age. After I am finished with Slave Escort I will likely return to Traveling Merchants. I think I had finished most of the eight new travelers, but I am adding more dialogue *sigh* and of course it will have to be tested *grumble*. So I give it at least a year.

:) I hear you - and have said those words too



You're like a phoenix rising from the ashes of their pc's - hope you've got good backup this time round



Hee-hee - sounds like how you mod Morrowind like i play it - start a character get to Level 10 - think I could do this so much better start a new character get to level 3 - think I don't like my character's face - start a new character get to Addamartus - get my buns handed to me by that fire throwing Dunmer - start again get a Nord and whip him - think to myselfI "hate playing Nords" go back to being Breton .... and so on....



Oh - I was hoping you would drop by but suspected you were still in the endless tunnel - at least you're driving the train



LOL - this thread is pulling out all the old timers - sounds like you have been doing some Dunmer dialogue lately - stupid swits - I had forgotten about Travelling Merchants - can you hurry up and finish that one please - not only do I want it in my game i want to enjoy printing off the scripts, pulling out my favourite chair, putting my feet up beside a fireplace and reading them.

Did you vote? I wasn't sure if you did as you must have invested some years in LGNPC as well.

It's good to see you are still lurking too - I bet you might tick Bethesda Forums as consuming some time For those who don't know cyran0 spent hours bringing one of my NPC's to life and was incredibly patient in trying to help me grasp scripting - I never knew the pain of testing so much before trying scripting.

There's still a few long haulers out there - I think it is impressive that people are so committed or is it just that we should be committed?

I haven't done much for Morrowind so I'll share my experience with Oblivion modding.

I finished my first small Oblivion quest mod in 4 months or so. The next one (Kragenir's Death Quest) I started in October 2006, released in August 2009, gave a massive update with more content in June 2010 (with some smaller bugfix releases before and after), and I'm hoping to get the final update with more bugfixes and some extras out this month, April 2011.

And then I want to be done with it, damn it. Has it really been 4.5 years already?

longest i've worked (and still worked on) a mod is... 8 months!!!.. way to long.

I have a 3 year old mod which is currently on hold, and I've been working on the Skyrim: Home of the Nords team for 2 years now as well.
Working with those guys has been a lot of fun, I wouldn't mind the project dragging on for quite a few years to come (which I'm sure it will).

Modding is a nice, relaxed hobby, I'll probably continue with it once my current projects are over.

I have a lot of projects I think could be better and I continue to work on. However, release early release often . IMHO "Done" never happens.

I got about 3/4ths way done on my trap expansion, but RL has been killing my freetime lately. Two jobs, student fulltime for computer programming, wife and two kids, and I've moved twice in last two months and will again in next month... yeah I've been busy.

ST the busy

Well now, my wonderful little mod http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=9108 has 2 years in it, but that is because Real Life got in the way, my life, family death (so sad) and the hard drive I was storing all my work caught on fire 3 times while I was working on this mod :flame:

But currently I plan on doing an entire TC. I am going to built a large scale 'Demo' city, show everyone that so that we have the basic mold of the mod and build a team to help me with it, although I can say it may not get done at all, b/c as of now there is no actually work, just paper plans.

And I also have my first Indie Game project that is about to consume my life on the horizon. Just need to finish high school, which is also big!

Started The Artificer's Hand in August 07 or 08 as a small shop that was supposed to have mines, grenades and a grappling hook and now its morphed into a massive city with so many things that I've lost count. Talk about freature creep .



Eidt: spelling.

Started my city mod - Firewatch - on Christmas Day 2005. That would make it 5 years 3 months 19 days old. I took about a 3 month break in '06 to play Oblivion, but have otherwise kept at this thing on a very regular basis (i.e. almost every day) for the duration. FINALLY slowed down a bit about 2 months ago (still not done though). I was beginning to feel like some sort of freak or lunatic for continuing on with it for so long... I may well be, but I'm very glad to find out I'm not the only one.

I was actually worried that by the time I finally completed and released my mod, all of my fellow modders who encouraged me and offered so much advice and assistance along the way would be long gone. Very happy to see that not all have moved on. Thanks Illuminiel for starting this topic. I feel a lot better about my obsession now.....

I voted to play TESVI Summerset Isle! And yes, world making does take a long time for the mod on which I am working; Pelagiad Expanded.

Essentially, to me, this translates as:

1. Yes, this year or next year.
2. No
3. No, also, I'm ignoring the actual question
4. No

Kinda too restricted for me to answer but I would go with something like "Yes, although not before 2 years..."

Yep, I just went with the first one myself.

Oh, sorry - I hadn't really thought about those who might have 3 or more years left to go on their mod - the second option was supposed to catch those who weren't sure whether they would release in the next 2 years but i should have worded it much better.

The art is never finished was really for those who just enjoy modding and find scope creep delays them from ever achieving release but it doesn't matter to them as happiness is the journey not the destination

When i first drew up the story line for Veloth's Child I tried to work out exactly what i could accomplish within 6 months and allowed myself another 6 months for lag time - i never expected to end up doing more than 2 years - scripting made me lose 6 months easy, and story creep took away another 6 months. So i started this poll wondering if that was what happened to others too - that they started a vision with an idea of how long it would take and then just sort of got svcked into the modding vortex?

Same here. Only after I scaled up I realised that what I wanted to do wasn't possible both in the engine's capabilities and time so I scaled it back by about half. Still taking eons, though .

Good grief is it 2 years already? I'm too emotionally involved with it to ever let it go.

Scripting, Dialogue, Quest/Level Design and World Making, puh that is a lot.

I'll play TES VII.