Morrowind Modding Showcases - Channel News for November 6th

Greetings, as promised today we have a quick channel update and a review of what's coming down the line over the next week in terms of new videos. But first and foremost, Patreon subscribers, there's still a batch of pilot episodes waiting for you to vote on, and right now there's a bit of a tie, so we need someone to cast a vote one way or the other. You'll find those new pilot episodes down in the last news post. Also, there's a poll to decide what games we'll make new pilot episodes for, if you're a Patreon subscriber, please consider voting in that, since it'll determine if we focus on yet more Morrowind pilot episodes or doing something for other RPGs like Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallouts, etc... That poll will remain up for the foreseeable future so everyone will have a chance to vote, but the current batch of pilot episodes will be released, gradually, to the public starting sometime next week, so keep that in mind.

Anyway, with that out of the way, this has been a pretty productive week for the channel. Out of five videos that were supposed to be released this last week, four were released on time and one way delayed. Here's a quick review:

Tuesday - Channel News for October and November

Status: Released on Time

Wednesday - Oblivion House Mod Hunters - Episode 15

Status: Released on Time

Thursday - Morrowind Modding Manors - Episode 7

Status: Released on Time

Friday - Top Ten Morrowind Mods of 2013 - A Retrospective

Status: DELAYED (Current estimate is Monday, November 7th or
Sunday, November 13th)

Saturday - Morrowind Modding Showcases - Episode 54

Status: Released on Time

The only delayed video was, of course, the Top Ten Morrowind Mods of 2013 video, and that was due to time constraints with working on MMS Episode 54. It should be out this coming week at some point, hopefully.

In any event, here's this week's schedule for the next seven days in terms of new video content on the channel:

Video Production Status:

Morrowind Modding Showcases - Episode 55

Mod List: 80%

Video Recording: 25%

Scripting: 10%

Audio Recording: 0%

Audio Editing: 0%

Video Editing 0%

Estimated Release Date: November 12th

Top Ten Morrowind Mods of 2013 - A Retrospective

Mod List: 100%

Video Recording: 80%

Scripting: 30%

Audio Recording: 10%

Audio Editing: 0%

Video Editing 0%

Estimated Release Date: Either November 7th or November 13th

Morrowind Mod of the Month - April 2016

Mod List: 100%

Video Recording: 40%

Scripting: 10%

Audio Recording: 0%

Audio Editing: 0%

Video Editing 0%

Estimated Release Date: November 8th

Oblivion House Mod Hunters - Episode 16

Mod List: 100%

Video Recording: 33%

Scripting: 5%

Audio Recording: 0%

Audio Editing: 0%

Video Editing 0%

Estimated Release Date: November 9th

Morrowind Modding Madness - December Modding Competition Announcement Video

Competition Details: 100%

Script: 20%

Video Recording: 10%

Audio Recording: 0%

Audio Editing: 0%

Video Editing 0%

Estimated Release Date: November 10th

Oblivion Modding Showcases - Episode 5

Mod List: 80%

Video Recording: 50%

Scripting: 15%

Audio Recording: 0%

Audio Editing: 0%

Video Editing 0%

Estimated Release Date: November 11th

The biggest news in this line-up is, of course, the December Modding Competition, which we'll be hosting throughout the month of December. This is a very different type of competition from the Modathon though, instead of solo-modding this is a team-based competition where modders will form teams and square off to be declared the Ultimate Modding Champions as we close the year on 2016.

In order to make it to the top and be declared the winners, each team must survive a number of modding challenges. Each week of the modding competition will involve a new modding challenge and theme, and each team will have until the end of the week to release a mod of that theme. Generally speaking, these are mod category themes, so one week might be gameplay mods, another dungeon mods or quest mods or house mods or so on and so forth. The theme will only be revealed the day before the challenge starts, so each modding team only has a week to prepare, build and release a mod of their own making. With such a short window of mod development, teams will need to strategize, either join together and collaborate on one mod to get it done faster, or divide off and build individual mods to try and guess the upcoming themes ahead of time and get more mods finished.

Now this competition will be using a ranked scoring system with dual-weighted scores, including judge-based scores with three judges (60% of the weighted points) and popular vote scores (40% of the weighted points). At the end of each week, the judges and popular vote will score each mod over the course of the following week, and the results will be posted publically, so teams will know how they're ranking so far in the competition. The popular vote will be handled through the Bethesda Forums or Nexus Forums (depending on which is still alive in December) in order to avoid any vote-rigging, and the team with the highest ranked score by the end of the competition will be declared the winners. Each mod contributes a bit to the team's ranked score, so if a team has one fantastic mod, but didn't meet any of the other challenges, they could still lose the competition as a whole, hence collaboration and working together will be key to winning victory.

Modding teams can be composed of a minimum of two modders and a maximum of four modders, and ideally, you'll want to gather a team of modders from different fields in order to meet challenges. A quest modder can always come in handy, but what if one of the challenges is an items mod? Then you'll need someone who can make 3d models or new assets. Likewise, what if one of the themes is a gameplay mod? Someone who has a strong grasp on scripting and gameplay mechanics could really be useful. Whoever you pick to be on your team, you'll need to work together, collaborate, plan out your mods, and successfully release them on time in order to win and claim the top prize.

Obviously this is a very different style of competition from anything we've attempted so far, and if it's successful, we'll be making it an annual event to be held every year. Our real goal, of course, besides ending the year on a bang with a ton of new Morrowind mods, is to try and build up collaborative efforts between modders in order to hopefully encourage modders to create more team-based projects, and thus release bigger mods in the future. Modders do tend to be an antisocial lot, prone to running off and working on their own for long periods of time, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it does lead to smaller mods or more incomplete projects, and hopefully this will lead to more community collaboration and creative teamwork in the future.

We'll be releasing more details about the December Modding Competition, including prizes, in  the announcement video on Thursday.

Anyway, that wraps up everything I wanted to cover for this week. Tune in next Sunday for another channel news update report, and don't forget to vote!