StarCraft mod

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A StarCraft mod is an actual MODification of the game. This is the case for any game other than StarCraft as well, for example Counter-Strike 1.6 (NOT Counter-Strike Source) and Team Fortress Classic were originally a Half-Life MOD, as they took the original Half-Life code and engine, and created new/different games out of it.

By these means a StarCraft mod usually has new graphics (sometimes including new characters, different buildings, and even new terrain types), as well as possibly new sounds, campaigns, and an ability to modify the very MOD itself (as has been my experience with some pre-BroodWar mods). BroodWar could be considered a "Mod" of StarCraft, except it modifies the game engine in a way that normal mods are not able to (adding new units to SC is not possible with 'normal' mods).

[edit] Early Modding

When StarCraft was released, a group of programmers who used to play and make modding tools for Warcraft II decided to work on modding tools for StarCraft as well. They were called Camelot Systems, with members taking Arthurian-inspired names, like King Arthur, Merlin or Sir Galahad. They were the first to make research into Starcraft data: both into resource files (known as DATs) and the very Starcraft engine itself (referred to as the EXE). They created the first format specifications (specs) for Starcraft, as well as their own file format for Starcraft mods, called CWAD. They gave inspiration to thousands of people to create their own customs. Many of the tools made by Camelot Systems are still in use today, such as ArrEdit, Stargraft or ICE.

The early days, the 'gold period' of Starcraft modding lasted for about 9 years, with many highly productive communities, crawling with very talented people, of which the major one was Campaign Creations, that gave birth to some legendary custom-made Starcraft campaigns like the "Legacy of the Confederation" series by The Oracle (Elye Clarke Sackmary), or the "Fall from Grace"-"Celestial Irruption"-"EDAST" saga by Desler (Marco Hernandez).

In 2000 its founders, King Arthur (Andy Bond), and Merlin (Cameron Buschardt) left Camelot Systems (Terroabite) to work for Blizzard Entertainment, the company that created Starcraft. The care over the community was transmitted to KramerBoy (Andrew Koltz), and then later to Gold Dragon (aka Veldhar[GD]).

But the 'gold period' was over, and the very CamSys community was slowly passing away, with no fresh blood to bring new life into it. The website and forum boards still existed, but only a handful of people remained to give advice to those who seeked it in the Camelot grounds. Finally, in July 2002, Gold Dragon decided to put an end to this slow agony of the once great community and to allow it to pass away while still in glory it once earned.

[edit] After CamSys

After Camelot Systems was shut down, newer tools were made slowly. Two of them, WinMPQ, and MPQDraft were updated, because their authors: ShadowFlare and Quantam (who also was a CamSys member) were still present in the community, and because they are used extensively not only in StarCraft's, but also Warcraft III modding. A new site, The Sovereign Modding Empire, was given the right to host all the old Camelot Systems programs by the original authors. These can be found at the CamSys page on www.smempire.org. From SME also originated MemGraft (created by DarkWizzard), a memory patcher application intended to work for later patches of the game (the old ones, uptil 1.07b were covered by CamSys's StarGraft tool).

[edit] Further Years

After an initial burst of energy and creative ideas, SME dropped into apathy and for long time the SC modding community was left without new tools. However, in 2005, BroodKiller came with an enchanced and much improved clone of Arsenal3 called DatEdit, which slowly, but steadily replaced its elder brother. Almost at the same time, DiscipleOfAdun commenced works on his own memory patcher, FireGraft, aiming at increased functionality and modding power.