New Release Of Best Mods + General Update

[Christian]

Hey everyone!

 

I wanted to announce a new release of Best Mods along with go over some general updates for the community. I also want to start making updates more frequently when I have time. It has been difficult to because I am building the services themselves technical-wise which takes up a bunch of my time already :(

 

Our Services

For the last few months, I've been conflicted on what to do with this community/project along with other projects I've been trying to start. My end-goal is to tie all of these services together to create something gaming has been lacking and contribute to a trend involving open source games with full modding support. I have a lot of great domains and social media pages that I want to transform into neat projects I believe others would enjoy and like when completed. I know I want a mod marketplace, community hub, and server browser, but I wasn't sure if these other projects should be their own application completely separate from The Modding Community or be integrated in some way. I've decided it's best to have the non-TMC projects become "services" to TMC. All services will eventually have full integration user-wise meaning information and authentication are synced between all websites.

 

With that said, all documentation, feedback, and communities for these services should lie on this website. 

 

Here is a list of our official services that is under this community (TMC).

 

Best Mods

I've recently released a new version of Best Mods which is a complete overhaul compared to the version before. This website is open-source here and primarily uses CreateT3 App which includes libraries such as NextJS, React, and a few others. It was a hard choice choosing between Laravel/PHP and TypeScript/CreateT3 App, but I'm tired of switching back and forth between the two. I'll likely use Laravel for other projects in the future, though.

 

 

My goal with Best Mods is for it to act like a Google for mods, but with upvote/downvote functionality along with allowing change requests. I want all mods to also be formatted universally using Markdown syntax for consistency.

 

We plan on implementing additional functionality such as the following.

 

• Mod Slide Shows.
• Comments.
• Change Requests.
• Mod Collections.

 

Our full road map may be found here!

 

We will be creating web scrapers to add mods from other websites and allow others to claim their own mods. We have removal forms in the case mod sources or creators don't want their mods listed on our website.

 

Best Servers

Another open-source website that will act as a global server browser and support HTML 5 games (games that will be rendered through the web browser itself). It will be based off of the server browser I was making for TMC shown below.

 

 

However, will adapt features from Best Mods and become its own application (including desktop/mobile applications in the future). With that said, I won't be using IPS 4 for Best Servers because it is too limited.

 

We will be providing an API for others to utilize to collect server information with in-depth filtering options. This will allow others to create their own server browsers using our API.

 

Gamecom

Another open-source website that will act similar to Best Mods, but for games and communities instead. With that said, this may transform into a game publisher at some point, but not for a while.

 

Games and categories will be used from Gamecom on Best Mods and Best Servers in the future.

 

NextGen Modding

These will be our open-source modding tools for popular game engines such as Unity, Godot, and Unreal Engine. We will be creating our own workshop tool called Foundry which will allow game developers to integrate a system for automatic download, mount, and installation of client and server-side mods .

 

Additionally, we will be creating our own mod installer/launcher implemented into our Pivot application.

 

Dodgeball: Uprising

This is our first open-source video game we're working on. We will be creating this game in Unity, but future games may be made with Godot once it's more stable/less buggy. Additionally, this game will serve as a showcase for our other services and will include HTML 5 support so users will be able to join and play on servers right through the web browser.

 

This game was inspired by the Dodgeball mod on Counter-Strike. Gameplay may be found below.

 

 

What's Next For TMC?

Other than continuing to develop our services and games, I believe TMC's current website/forum has a lot of potential for activity. We have solid branding/domains. Our search engine results look like the following at this time.

 

 

As you can see, there has been an increase in impressions recently. The more content the website has, the more this number will go up. I plan on becoming more active along with trying to find others who may be interested in writing guides/general posts on the website. I also plan on making some threads such as "Best Mods For Minecraft In Feburary, 2023" for example and link entries from Best Mods.

 

TMC will be hosting events in the future as well once we find somebody who can manage them.

 

Social Media

We currently have social media pages for TMC itself along with most of its services. Recently, I've been managing Best Mod's Instagram and Twitter accounts. We'll eventually develop a solid social media team that'll handle video creation/editing, graphic design, marketing, and so on. I'd really like our team creating gameplay videos of mods which are then posted on our social media pages linking the mod entry from our services.

 

Will TMC Has Its Own Marketplace?

Yes. Initially, there was confusion on my end because I wasn't sure if Best Mods would transform into TMC's official mod marketplace. However, since Best Mods is open-source, I believe it'd be best to leave that for the free/open-source mods and make TMC's mod marketplace focused on paid mods (either within our own games or games where we'd have approval). Free/open-source mods will still be supported on TMC's marketplace, though and perhaps integrated with Best Mods.

 

Conclusion

That's all I have for now. I will try to post more frequent updates to keep everybody in the loop. All of these services will take a lot of time to develop, but the it will be so worth it to everybody when they're made and utilized. I'm also in it for the long-haul.