Header based on a Community screenshot by RUSSTG44

Community members! It is time to talk about our mod competition.
We will start the competition today! The aim is to celebrate the best achievements in the Call to Arms - Gates of Hell community, brought to you by mod makers from all over the world.

History

In the development of Call to Arms - Gates of Hell we always wanted to make sure that modding would be as easy as we could possibly make it.
The result of our design choices is a moddable game, which is more extensive and refined in terms of mechanics than its predecessors. These refinements raise the bar slightly for mod creators, however with 300 mods available in the workshop right now, we think there is ample proof that it’s not really a problem for our modding community.
Last but not least, we decided long ago that we will provide for a modding SDK which makes modding more accessible and, importantly, easier. We have no date set for this to be ready, but it’s on our list and will let you know the timeframe as soon as we can.


Community screenshot by @Hamster

The competition

With this competition, we aim to put a spotlight on the work that is being done in the community. This is very important work, because - as we all know - there is no such thing as “too much content” for a game.
It’s time to put a spotlight on the best mods out there; this is about the rules and about how we plan to run the competition.

The “what” question

Mods in the workshop already should comply with certain rules. On top of that we have our own requirements for this competition.
Mods can be anything from custom maps, custom missions, custom mechanics, new units, skins or sounds, to bigger modifications combining one or more aspects.
We think it would be unfair to choose from November entries only; the competition is open for all mods that were made for GoH so far.
The prize for the mod, which is picked as a winner by Barbedwire Studios, is a key with early access to the next faction. On top, that one wins 2 keys of the next faction to give away to friends after release! If you made your mod with a team, the team can get the sum of 3 early access keys.
The winner will be picked by us, and the community winner (who gets a mention in dispatches) will be picked by you!
Both winners also get the “Master Modder” tag on Discord.

These are the requirements:

• Must be historically oriented (any historical era)
• Must be publically available in Steam workshop for the community
• Content must be original from the creator, or have permission from other authors to use their work and be properly credited. Using content from other games is only allowed for games made by Barbedwire Studios or Digitalmindsoft.
• Contains no nazi symbols or anything associated with war crimes

HD Link

The “How” question

First we need candidates for the title, for which we will use our website. When submissions are closed, the judging can start. The formal winner is elected by our panel of judges, which consists of developers, publishers and contributors.
The community winner will be elected by the community. This is the process:

• A competition page is opened on the Barbedwire Studios website
• Mod creators submit their candidate mod for review on our website
• A panel of experts reviews the entries and puts the best ones on a shortlist
• The same panel elects the best mod of the month from that list
• The shortlist is opened for public voting, which runs for 7 days
• The Master Modders are announced on Discord
• Both get increased bragging rights
• The Studio- appointed winner receives the winner’s keys
• Submissions close November 30, 2021, at 23:59 PST

We can imagine that people will start lobbying for their favourite mod now; that’s perfectly okay of course. However, when you visit the workshop, don’t forget to rate that mod you’ve been using for all those hours! It’s time to give something back to the people that have widened the scope of this game, because that’s what it’s all about.
In the meantime, you could join our Discord to make sure you don’t miss any of it.


Community screenshot by @Shadowstorm59

Did you know?

• We have added German spoken & moderated channels to our Discord server
• On Discord we will soon start publishing short developer briefs on saturdays
• The channel for the briefs is called “developer telegraph” and it will start ticking before 2021 is over

That’s it for the moment, thanks for stopping by & see you on the battlefield!