TTG_Monkeyz wrote

BackwardsModding wrote

TTG_Monkeyz wrote Lol friends yes i admit i have friends and also a girlfriend wich you dont and the only person thats backing me up wait.... there is no one backing me up cause i dont need them

i got friends to but my friends dont need to back me up like a **** < which your "Girlfriend" does not have. You can't call a blow up barbie you gf even if you think so.

Well that blow up barbie must have a heart and posable thumbs and walks around like a real damn person and u said i got friends backing me up theres no one here backing me up kid gtfo

then obiously you haven't read. kid honestly your thinking you better than me but your not because well you care about posts and reputation.. i dont.

Can A Mod Close This Please Its Really Irritating

Mini-FanBoy- wrote Can A Mod Close This Please Its Really Irritating

god stop trying to be a mod.

BackwardsModding wrote

Mini-FanBoy- wrote Can A Mod Close This Please Its Really Irritating

god stop trying to be a mod.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL HE ISNT TRYING TO BE A MOD HES ASKING A MOD TO CLOSE THIS U DUMBASS GIFTED CHILD

TTG_Monkeyz wrote

BackwardsModding wrote

Mini-FanBoy- wrote Can A Mod Close This Please Its Really Irritating

god stop trying to be a mod.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL HE ISNT TRYING TO BE A MOD HES ASKING A MOD TO CLOSE THIS U **** GIFTED CHILD

Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games (PC games), especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, and game modes. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs are called unofficial patches.

Games running on a PC are often designed with change in mind, consequently allowing modern computer games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay value and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Bethesda Softworks, Firaxis, Crytek, The Creative Assembly and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.

Mods can significantly outshine and/or continue the success of the original game, even when it is becoming dated. In those cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the unmodified game when talking about playing a game. In some cases the term vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla Battlefield 1942", for example, refers to the original, unmodified game. For vanilla games, prefix "v" or "V" is commonly used together with the game title acronym, e.g., VQ3 stands for "vanilla Quake 3".

As early as the 1980s, computer game mods have also been used for the sole purpose of creating art, as opposed to an actual game. This can include recording in-game action as a movie, as well as attempting to reproduce real-life areas inside a game with no regard for game play value. See artistic computer game modification, machinima and demoscene.

Contents [hide]
1 Types
1.1 Total conversion
1.2 Total overhaul
1.3 Unofficial patch
2 Official status of mods
3 Development
3.1 Tools
3.2 Game support for modifications
3.3 Portability issues
3.4 Unexpected consequences of modding
4 See also
5 References


[edit] Types[edit] Total conversionA total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

In some cases, the goal of a group that sets out to create a total conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the need to replace the original content to avoid copyright infringement.

Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with the original game, if the engine becomes Free Software, the total conversion can be playable without having to own the original game. A few examples of these include the Tremulous mod for Quake III Arena, A Path Beyond for Command & Conquer Renegade, the D-Day: Normandy mod for Quake II, and Counter-Strike and Frontline Force for Half-Life. Team Fortress, one of the most popular mods ever, was originally a Quake total conversion. It has been so popular that a sequel, Team Fortress 2, has been developed. Doom has also had its share of modifications, such as engine modifications like ZDoom and SkullTag.

Similarly, Trauma Studios, which developed the popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat, was bought by Digital Illusions CE to work on Battlefield 2. Both Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 are in modern settings.

[edit] Total overhaulA total overhaul mod changes or redefines the gameplay style of the original game, while keeping it in the original game's universe or plot. This may include upgrading the graphics, adding new models to replace the original ones that are in line with the original game's plot, or changing the pace of how the game is played. Total overhauls are usually combined with significant add-on material as well.

[edit] Unofficial patchAn unofficial patch can be a mod of an existing game that fixes bugs not fixed by an official patch or that unlocks content present in the released game's files but is inaccessible in official gameplay. Such patches are usually created by members of the game's fan base when the original developer is unwilling or unable to officially supply this functionality.

[edit] Official status of modsDue to the increasing popularity and quality of modding, some developers, notably Firaxis, have included fan-made mods in official releases of expansion packs.

For example, in the Civilization IV expansion Beyond the Sword: two existing mods, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization[1] and Fall from Heaven made their way into the expansion (the latter through a spin-off called Age of Ice[2]).

A number of fan-made maps, scenarios and mods, such as "Double Your Pleasure", were also included in the Civilization III expansion Play the World.[3]

[edit] Development This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

A great many mods do not progress very far and are abandoned without ever having a public release. Some are very limited and just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content and gameplay extensively. A few mods become very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the rights getting bought and turning into an official modification.

A group of mod developers may join together to form a mod team. An example is Team Reaction, one of the most prolific mod teams to date, most notably known for QPong and Jailbreak.

Mods are made for many first person shooters and Real-Time-Strategies, most notably the series based on Quake, Doom, Chaos, Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations and the Command & Conquer series also have many mods.

Among popular mods, none is more well known than the Half-Life multiplayer mod Counter-Strike, which was released shortly after the original game, and upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated servers. Counter-Strike is probably the best example of a modification that turns into a retail game. Another signature mod is Team Fortress, which was based of the Quake engine and became a whole series of games, such as Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and an unofficial mod made originally as a fan made sequel to TFC, Fortress Forever.

Mods in general are required to be non-commercial (free) when they include any parts from another mod, or the main game, which by their nature they always do. Some mods become open source as well.

[edit] ToolsMod making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating mods for a game. Early commercial mod-making tools were the Boulder Dash Construction Kit (1986) and the Bard's Tale Construction Set (1991), which allowed users to create game designs in those series. Much more successful among early mod making tools was the 1992 Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures from Strategic Simulations, Inc., which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that was launched with the Pool of Radiance game.

Later mod making tools include The Elder Scrolls Construction Set which shipped with Morrowind, the Aurora toolset which was included with Neverwinter Nights, FRED and FRED2, the mission editors for Freespace and Freespace 2 respectively, the Obsidian tool set for Neverwinter Nights 2, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit SDK for Fallout 3 and the Valve Hammer Editor which is used to create maps for Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and various other games based on the Source engine (older versions also supported the Quake engine).

There are also free content delivery tools available that make playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates and setting up the mods so that non-technical people can play. Steam for Half life 2 mods is an example.

[edit] Game support for modifications
An example of game modification in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: a 2005 Audi A8L W12 car. Real-life makes and models are not included in the game but can be created and added by modders.The potential for end-user change in game varies greatly, though it can have little correlation on the number and quality of mods made for a game.

In general the most modification-friendly games will define gameplay variables in text or other non proprietary format files (for instance in the Civilization series one could alter the movement rate along roads and many other factors), and have graphics of a standard format such as bitmaps. Publishers can also determine mod-friendliness in the way important source files are available (some programs collect their source material into large proprietary archives, while others make the files available in folders).

Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications, but often require expensive professional software to make. One such example is Homeworld 2, which requires the industrial-strength program Maya to build new in-game objects. However, there is a free version available of Maya and other advanced modeling software. There are also free and even open source modeling programs that can be used as well.

For advanced mods such as Desert Combat, that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy to import models to, is of little help when doing research, modeling, and making a photo-realistic texture for a game item. As a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and capabilities have a dominating effect on the number of mods created for the game by users.

A game that allows 'modding' can also be called 'moddable'. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as well as its predecessor The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind are highly moddable, because the editor is available to download off the internet. Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some people released their own modifications nevertheless.

Supreme Commander set out to be the 'most customisable game ever' and as such included a mod manager which allowed for 'modular modding' - having several mods on at once.[citation needed]

The games industry is currently facing the question of how much it should embrace the players' contribution in creating new material for the game or mod-communities as part of their structure within the game. Some have openly accepted and even encourages of such communities. Others though have chosen to enclose their games in heavily policed copyright or Intellectual Property regimes(IPR) and close down sites that they see as infringing their ownership of a game.[4]

[edit] Portability issuesFor cross-platform games, mods written for the Windows version have not always been compatible with the Mac OS X and/or Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the smaller market share of alternate platforms. For example Battlefield 1942, ported by Aspyr for Mac OS X had file access issues specific to mods until the 1.61D patch. Unreal Tournament 2004 does not have a working community mods menu for the Mac OS X version, and until the 3369 patch had graphics incompatibilities with several mods such as Red Orchestra and Metaball. In addition, mods which are compiled into platform-specific libraries, such as those of Doom 3, are often only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development tools are often available only on the Windows platform -id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and Epic Games' UnrealEd being the most notable examples.

Mod teams which lack either the resources or know-how to develop their mods for alternate platforms sometimes outsource their code and art assets to individuals or groups who are able to port the mod.

The mod specialist site for Macs, Macologist, has created GUI launchers and installers for many UT2004 mods, as well as solving cross-platform conversion issues for mods for other games.

[edit] Unexpected consequences of moddingIn January 2005, it was reported that in The Sims 2 modifications that changed item and game behavior were unexpectedly being transferred to other players through the official website's exchange feature, leading to changed game behavior without advance warning.[5]

In July 2007 CNET News reported that a Grand Theft Auto Mod video uploaded to YouTube contained a link to a malware website. When a viewer clicked on the link and downloaded the mod it infected their computer.[6]

[edit] See alsoAdventure Construction Set, one of the earliest games for which user-created content was widely made and distributed.
Fork (software development)
Level editor
Modding
ROM hacking
[edit] References1.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
2.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
3.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
4.^ Flew, Terry and Humphreys, Sal (2005) "Games: Technology, Industry, Culture" in Terry Flew, New Media: an introduction (second edition), Oxford University Press, South Melbourne 101-114.
5.^ Supernatural powers become contagious in PC game by Will Knight, NewScientist, 7 January 2005
6.^ CNET news 2 July 2007 Grand Theft Auto mod virus uses YouTube to spread[1]
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(video_gaming)"
Categories: Video game mods | Video game development
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Contact us
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games (PC games), especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, and game modes. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs are called unofficial patches.

Games running on a PC are often designed with change in mind, consequently allowing modern computer games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay value and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Bethesda Softworks, Firaxis, Crytek, The Creative Assembly and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.

Mods can significantly outshine and/or continue the success of the original game, even when it is becoming dated. In those cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the unmodified game when talking about playing a game. In some cases the term vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla Battlefield 1942", for example, refers to the original, unmodified game. For vanilla games, prefix "v" or "V" is commonly used together with the game title acronym, e.g., VQ3 stands for "vanilla Quake 3".

As early as the 1980s, computer game mods have also been used for the sole purpose of creating art, as opposed to an actual game. This can include recording in-game action as a movie, as well as attempting to reproduce real-life areas inside a game with no regard for game play value. See artistic computer game modification, machinima and demoscene.

Contents [hide]
1 Types
1.1 Total conversion
1.2 Total overhaul
1.3 Unofficial patch
2 Official status of mods
3 Development
3.1 Tools
3.2 Game support for modifications
3.3 Portability issues
3.4 Unexpected consequences of modding
4 See also
5 References


[edit] Types[edit] Total conversionA total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

In some cases, the goal of a group that sets out to create a total conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the need to replace the original content to avoid copyright infringement.

Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with the original game, if the engine becomes Free Software, the total conversion can be playable without having to own the original game. A few examples of these include the Tremulous mod for Quake III Arena, A Path Beyond for Command & Conquer Renegade, the D-Day: Normandy mod for Quake II, and Counter-Strike and Frontline Force for Half-Life. Team Fortress, one of the most popular mods ever, was originally a Quake total conversion. It has been so popular that a sequel, Team Fortress 2, has been developed. Doom has also had its share of modifications, such as engine modifications like ZDoom and SkullTag.

Similarly, Trauma Studios, which developed the popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat, was bought by Digital Illusions CE to work on Battlefield 2. Both Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 are in modern settings.

[edit] Total overhaulA total overhaul mod changes or redefines the gameplay style of the original game, while keeping it in the original game's universe or plot. This may include upgrading the graphics, adding new models to replace the original ones that are in line with the original game's plot, or changing the pace of how the game is played. Total overhauls are usually combined with significant add-on material as well.

[edit] Unofficial patchAn unofficial patch can be a mod of an existing game that fixes bugs not fixed by an official patch or that unlocks content present in the released game's files but is inaccessible in official gameplay. Such patches are usually created by members of the game's fan base when the original developer is unwilling or unable to officially supply this functionality.

[edit] Official status of modsDue to the increasing popularity and quality of modding, some developers, notably Firaxis, have included fan-made mods in official releases of expansion packs.

For example, in the Civilization IV expansion Beyond the Sword: two existing mods, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization[1] and Fall from Heaven made their way into the expansion (the latter through a spin-off called Age of Ice[2]).

A number of fan-made maps, scenarios and mods, such as "Double Your Pleasure", were also included in the Civilization III expansion Play the World.[3]

[edit] Development This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

A great many mods do not progress very far and are abandoned without ever having a public release. Some are very limited and just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content and gameplay extensively. A few mods become very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the rights getting bought and turning into an official modification.

A group of mod developers may join together to form a mod team. An example is Team Reaction, one of the most prolific mod teams to date, most notably known for QPong and Jailbreak.

Mods are made for many first person shooters and Real-Time-Strategies, most notably the series based on Quake, Doom, Chaos, Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations and the Command & Conquer series also have many mods.

Among popular mods, none is more well known than the Half-Life multiplayer mod Counter-Strike, which was released shortly after the original game, and upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated servers. Counter-Strike is probably the best example of a modification that turns into a retail game. Another signature mod is Team Fortress, which was based of the Quake engine and became a whole series of games, such as Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and an unofficial mod made originally as a fan made sequel to TFC, Fortress Forever.

Mods in general are required to be non-commercial (free) when they include any parts from another mod, or the main game, which by their nature they always do. Some mods become open source as well.

[edit] ToolsMod making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating mods for a game. Early commercial mod-making tools were the Boulder Dash Construction Kit (1986) and the Bard's Tale Construction Set (1991), which allowed users to create game designs in those series. Much more successful among early mod making tools was the 1992 Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures from Strategic Simulations, Inc., which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that was launched with the Pool of Radiance game.

Later mod making tools include The Elder Scrolls Construction Set which shipped with Morrowind, the Aurora toolset which was included with Neverwinter Nights, FRED and FRED2, the mission editors for Freespace and Freespace 2 respectively, the Obsidian tool set for Neverwinter Nights 2, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit SDK for Fallout 3 and the Valve Hammer Editor which is used to create maps for Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and various other games based on the Source engine (older versions also supported the Quake engine).

There are also free content delivery tools available that make playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates and setting up the mods so that non-technical people can play. Steam for Half life 2 mods is an example.

[edit] Game support for modifications
An example of game modification in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: a 2005 Audi A8L W12 car. Real-life makes and models are not included in the game but can be created and added by modders.The potential for end-user change in game varies greatly, though it can have little correlation on the number and quality of mods made for a game.

In general the most modification-friendly games will define gameplay variables in text or other non proprietary format files (for instance in the Civilization series one could alter the movement rate along roads and many other factors), and have graphics of a standard format such as bitmaps. Publishers can also determine mod-friendliness in the way important source files are available (some programs collect their source material into large proprietary archives, while others make the files available in folders).

Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications, but often require expensive professional software to make. One such example is Homeworld 2, which requires the industrial-strength program Maya to build new in-game objects. However, there is a free version available of Maya and other advanced modeling software. There are also free and even open source modeling programs that can be used as well.

For advanced mods such as Desert Combat, that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy to import models to, is of little help when doing research, modeling, and making a photo-realistic texture for a game item. As a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and capabilities have a dominating effect on the number of mods created for the game by users.

A game that allows 'modding' can also be called 'moddable'. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as well as its predecessor The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind are highly moddable, because the editor is available to download off the internet. Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some people released their own modifications nevertheless.

Supreme Commander set out to be the 'most customisable game ever' and as such included a mod manager which allowed for 'modular modding' - having several mods on at once.[citation needed]

The games industry is currently facing the question of how much it should embrace the players' contribution in creating new material for the game or mod-communities as part of their structure within the game. Some have openly accepted and even encourages of such communities. Others though have chosen to enclose their games in heavily policed copyright or Intellectual Property regimes(IPR) and close down sites that they see as infringing their ownership of a game.[4]

[edit] Portability issuesFor cross-platform games, mods written for the Windows version have not always been compatible with the Mac OS X and/or Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the smaller market share of alternate platforms. For example Battlefield 1942, ported by Aspyr for Mac OS X had file access issues specific to mods until the 1.61D patch. Unreal Tournament 2004 does not have a working community mods menu for the Mac OS X version, and until the 3369 patch had graphics incompatibilities with several mods such as Red Orchestra and Metaball. In addition, mods which are compiled into platform-specific libraries, such as those of Doom 3, are often only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development tools are often available only on the Windows platform -id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and Epic Games' UnrealEd being the most notable examples.

Mod teams which lack either the resources or know-how to develop their mods for alternate platforms sometimes outsource their code and art assets to individuals or groups who are able to port the mod.

The mod specialist site for Macs, Macologist, has created GUI launchers and installers for many UT2004 mods, as well as solving cross-platform conversion issues for mods for other games.

[edit] Unexpected consequences of moddingIn January 2005, it was reported that in The Sims 2 modifications that changed item and game behavior were unexpectedly being transferred to other players through the official website's exchange feature, leading to changed game behavior without advance warning.[5]

In July 2007 CNET News reported that a Grand Theft Auto Mod video uploaded to YouTube contained a link to a malware website. When a viewer clicked on the link and downloaded the mod it infected their computer.[6]

[edit] See alsoAdventure Construction Set, one of the earliest games for which user-created content was widely made and distributed.
Fork (software development)
Level editor
Modding
ROM hacking
[edit] References1.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
2.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
3.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
4.^ Flew, Terry and Humphreys, Sal (2005) "Games: Technology, Industry, Culture" in Terry Flew, New Media: an introduction (second edition), Oxford University Press, South Melbourne 101-114.
5.^ Supernatural powers become contagious in PC game by Will Knight, NewScientist, 7 January 2005
6.^ CNET news 2 July 2007 Grand Theft Auto mod virus uses YouTube to spread[1]
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(video_gaming)"
Categories: Video game mods | Video game development
Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from January 2011 | All articles needing additional references | Articles needing additional references from October 2008 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from August 2008Personal tools
Log in / create accountNamespaces
ArticleDiscussionVariantsViews
ReadEditView historyActions
Search

Navigation
Main pageContentsFeatured contentCurrent eventsRandom articleDonate to WikipediaInteractionHelpAbout WikipediaCommunity portalRecent changesContact WikipediaToolboxWhat links hereRelated changesUpload fileSpecial pagesPermanent linkCite this page
Print/exportCreate a bookDownload as PDFPrintable version
LanguagesCataleskyDanskDeutschEspaolFranaisItalianoNederlandsPolskiPortugusSvenskaTagalogThis page was last modified on 23 February 2011 at 12:35.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.
Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Contact us
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games (PC games), especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, and game modes. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs are called unofficial patches.

Games running on a PC are often designed with change in mind, consequently allowing modern computer games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay value and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Bethesda Softworks, Firaxis, Crytek, The Creative Assembly and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.

Mods can significantly outshine and/or continue the success of the original game, even when it is becoming dated. In those cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the unmodified game when talking about playing a game. In some cases the term vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla Battlefield 1942", for example, refers to the original, unmodified game. For vanilla games, prefix "v" or "V" is commonly used together with the game title acronym, e.g., VQ3 stands for "vanilla Quake 3".

As early as the 1980s, computer game mods have also been used for the sole purpose of creating art, as opposed to an actual game. This can include recording in-game action as a movie, as well as attempting to reproduce real-life areas inside a game with no regard for game play value. See artistic computer game modification, machinima and demoscene.

Contents [hide]
1 Types
1.1 Total conversion
1.2 Total overhaul
1.3 Unofficial patch
2 Official status of mods
3 Development
3.1 Tools
3.2 Game support for modifications
3.3 Portability issues
3.4 Unexpected consequences of modding
4 See also
5 References


[edit] Types[edit] Total conversionA total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

In some cases, the goal of a group that sets out to create a total conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the need to replace the original content to avoid copyright infringement.

Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with the original game, if the engine becomes Free Software, the total conversion can be playable without having to own the original game. A few examples of these include the Tremulous mod for Quake III Arena, A Path Beyond for Command & Conquer Renegade, the D-Day: Normandy mod for Quake II, and Counter-Strike and Frontline Force for Half-Life. Team Fortress, one of the most popular mods ever, was originally a Quake total conversion. It has been so popular that a sequel, Team Fortress 2, has been developed. Doom has also had its share of modifications, such as engine modifications like ZDoom and SkullTag.

Similarly, Trauma Studios, which developed the popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat, was bought by Digital Illusions CE to work on Battlefield 2. Both Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 are in modern settings.

[edit] Total overhaulA total overhaul mod changes or redefines the gameplay style of the original game, while keeping it in the original game's universe or plot. This may include upgrading the graphics, adding new models to replace the original ones that are in line with the original game's plot, or changing the pace of how the game is played. Total overhauls are usually combined with significant add-on material as well.

[edit] Unofficial patchAn unofficial patch can be a mod of an existing game that fixes bugs not fixed by an official patch or that unlocks content present in the released game's files but is inaccessible in official gameplay. Such patches are usually created by members of the game's fan base when the original developer is unwilling or unable to officially supply this functionality.

[edit] Official status of modsDue to the increasing popularity and quality of modding, some developers, notably Firaxis, have included fan-made mods in official releases of expansion packs.

For example, in the Civilization IV expansion Beyond the Sword: two existing mods, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization[1] and Fall from Heaven made their way into the expansion (the latter through a spin-off called Age of Ice[2]).

A number of fan-made maps, scenarios and mods, such as "Double Your Pleasure", were also included in the Civilization III expansion Play the World.[3]

[edit] Development This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

A great many mods do not progress very far and are abandoned without ever having a public release. Some are very limited and just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content and gameplay extensively. A few mods become very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the rights getting bought and turning into an official modification.

A group of mod developers may join together to form a mod team. An example is Team Reaction, one of the most prolific mod teams to date, most notably known for QPong and Jailbreak.

Mods are made for many first person shooters and Real-Time-Strategies, most notably the series based on Quake, Doom, Chaos, Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations and the Command & Conquer series also have many mods.

Among popular mods, none is more well known than the Half-Life multiplayer mod Counter-Strike, which was released shortly after the original game, and upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated servers. Counter-Strike is probably the best example of a modification that turns into a retail game. Another signature mod is Team Fortress, which was based of the Quake engine and became a whole series of games, such as Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and an unofficial mod made originally as a fan made sequel to TFC, Fortress Forever.

Mods in general are required to be non-commercial (free) when they include any parts from another mod, or the main game, which by their nature they always do. Some mods become open source as well.

[edit] ToolsMod making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating mods for a game. Early commercial mod-making tools were the Boulder Dash Construction Kit (1986) and the Bard's Tale Construction Set (1991), which allowed users to create game designs in those series. Much more successful among early mod making tools was the 1992 Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures from Strategic Simulations, Inc., which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that was launched with the Pool of Radiance game.

Later mod making tools include The Elder Scrolls Construction Set which shipped with Morrowind, the Aurora toolset which was included with Neverwinter Nights, FRED and FRED2, the mission editors for Freespace and Freespace 2 respectively, the Obsidian tool set for Neverwinter Nights 2, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit SDK for Fallout 3 and the Valve Hammer Editor which is used to create maps for Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and various other games based on the Source engine (older versions also supported the Quake engine).

There are also free content delivery tools available that make playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates and setting up the mods so that non-technical people can play. Steam for Half life 2 mods is an example.

[edit] Game support for modifications
An example of game modification in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: a 2005 Audi A8L W12 car. Real-life makes and models are not included in the game but can be created and added by modders.The potential for end-user change in game varies greatly, though it can have little correlation on the number and quality of mods made for a game.

In general the most modification-friendly games will define gameplay variables in text or other non proprietary format files (for instance in the Civilization series one could alter the movement rate along roads and many other factors), and have graphics of a standard format such as bitmaps. Publishers can also determine mod-friendliness in the way important source files are available (some programs collect their source material into large proprietary archives, while others make the files available in folders).

Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications, but often require expensive professional software to make. One such example is Homeworld 2, which requires the industrial-strength program Maya to build new in-game objects. However, there is a free version available of Maya and other advanced modeling software. There are also free and even open source modeling programs that can be used as well.

For advanced mods such as Desert Combat, that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy to import models to, is of little help when doing research, modeling, and making a photo-realistic texture for a game item. As a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and capabilities have a dominating effect on the number of mods created for the game by users.

A game that allows 'modding' can also be called 'moddable'. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as well as its predecessor The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind are highly moddable, because the editor is available to download off the internet. Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some people released their own modifications nevertheless.

Supreme Commander set out to be the 'most customisable game ever' and as such included a mod manager which allowed for 'modular modding' - having several mods on at once.[citation needed]

The games industry is currently facing the question of how much it should embrace the players' contribution in creating new material for the game or mod-communities as part of their structure within the game. Some have openly accepted and even encourages of such communities. Others though have chosen to enclose their games in heavily policed copyright or Intellectual Property regimes(IPR) and close down sites that they see as infringing their ownership of a game.[4]

[edit] Portability issuesFor cross-platform games, mods written for the Windows version have not always been compatible with the Mac OS X and/or Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the smaller market share of alternate platforms. For example Battlefield 1942, ported by Aspyr for Mac OS X had file access issues specific to mods until the 1.61D patch. Unreal Tournament 2004 does not have a working community mods menu for the Mac OS X version, and until the 3369 patch had graphics incompatibilities with several mods such as Red Orchestra and Metaball. In addition, mods which are compiled into platform-specific libraries, such as those of Doom 3, are often only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development tools are often available only on the Windows platform -id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and Epic Games' UnrealEd being the most notable examples.

Mod teams which lack either the resources or know-how to develop their mods for alternate platforms sometimes outsource their code and art assets to individuals or groups who are able to port the mod.

The mod specialist site for Macs, Macologist, has created GUI launchers and installers for many UT2004 mods, as well as solving cross-platform conversion issues for mods for other games.

[edit] Unexpected consequences of moddingIn January 2005, it was reported that in The Sims 2 modifications that changed item and game behavior were unexpectedly being transferred to other players through the official website's exchange feature, leading to changed game behavior without advance warning.[5]

In July 2007 CNET News reported that a Grand Theft Auto Mod video uploaded to YouTube contained a link to a malware website. When a viewer clicked on the link and downloaded the mod it infected their computer.[6]

[edit] See alsoAdventure Construction Set, one of the earliest games for which user-created content was widely made and distributed.
Fork (software development)
Level editor
Modding
ROM hacking
[edit] References1.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
2.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
3.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
4.^ Flew, Terry and Humphreys, Sal (2005) "Games: Technology, Industry, Culture" in Terry Flew, New Media: an introduction (second edition), Oxford University Press, South Melbourne 101-114.
5.^ Supernatural powers become contagious in PC game by Will Knight, NewScientist, 7 January 2005
6.^ CNET news 2 July 2007 Grand Theft Auto mod virus uses YouTube to spread[1]
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(video_gaming)"
Categories: Video game mods | Video game development
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Contact us

TTG_Monkeyz wrote

BackwardsModding wrote

Mini-FanBoy- wrote

BackwardsModding wrote

TTG_Monkeyz wrote WAHHH WAHH WAHH how about u suck my balls
and stop complaining cause last time i saw it says ACENSION GLITCHES AND TRICKS so we'll do whatever the **** we wont how about u get more post get gold and then maybe JUST MAYBE we might listen to you now gtfo

Rather not. btw wheres your gold ?

Mate Dont Mini Mod, Its Annoying... Let Them Be... The Always Fall Flat On There Face When People Dont Listen.

Looks like you already have

Lol, he dont gotta act like a mod hes already have more post then u do and he has gold kid gtfo

Gold. Gold Gold. do not careeeeeeeeeeeeeee.......

wOW KID U MUST REALLY FAIL I READ HALF THAT AND IT SAYS THAT IF A PERSON HAS MOD OR ACCEPTED BY ADMIN MAY SAY TOPIC CLOSED OR SOMETHING BUT IT DOSNT SAY UR TRYING TO BE A MOD WHEN U SAY CAN YOU GET A MOD TO CLOSE THIS NOW IF HE WOULDVE SAID " hey ima close this topic " now thats trying to be a mod kid now gtfo ur waisting my life : )

BackwardsModding wrote

TTG_Monkeyz wrote

BackwardsModding wrote

Mini-FanBoy- wrote Can A Mod Close This Please Its Really Irritating

god stop trying to be a mod.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL HE ISNT TRYING TO BE A MOD HES ASKING A MOD TO CLOSE THIS U **** GIFTED CHILD

Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games (PC games), especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, and game modes. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs are called unofficial patches.

Games running on a PC are often designed with change in mind, consequently allowing modern computer games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay value and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Bethesda Softworks, Firaxis, Crytek, The Creative Assembly and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.

Mods can significantly outshine and/or continue the success of the original game, even when it is becoming dated. In those cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the unmodified game when talking about playing a game. In some cases the term vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla Battlefield 1942", for example, refers to the original, unmodified game. For vanilla games, prefix "v" or "V" is commonly used together with the game title acronym, e.g., VQ3 stands for "vanilla Quake 3".

As early as the 1980s, computer game mods have also been used for the sole purpose of creating art, as opposed to an actual game. This can include recording in-game action as a movie, as well as attempting to reproduce real-life areas inside a game with no regard for game play value. See artistic computer game modification, machinima and demoscene.

Contents [hide]
1 Types
1.1 Total conversion
1.2 Total overhaul
1.3 Unofficial patch
2 Official status of mods
3 Development
3.1 Tools
3.2 Game support for modifications
3.3 Portability issues
3.4 Unexpected consequences of modding
4 See also
5 References


[edit] Types[edit] Total conversionA total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

In some cases, the goal of a group that sets out to create a total conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the need to replace the original content to avoid copyright infringement.

Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with the original game, if the engine becomes Free Software, the total conversion can be playable without having to own the original game. A few examples of these include the Tremulous mod for Quake III Arena, A Path Beyond for Command & Conquer Renegade, the D-Day: Normandy mod for Quake II, and Counter-Strike and Frontline Force for Half-Life. Team Fortress, one of the most popular mods ever, was originally a Quake total conversion. It has been so popular that a sequel, Team Fortress 2, has been developed. Doom has also had its share of modifications, such as engine modifications like ZDoom and SkullTag.

Similarly, Trauma Studios, which developed the popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat, was bought by Digital Illusions CE to work on Battlefield 2. Both Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 are in modern settings.

[edit] Total overhaulA total overhaul mod changes or redefines the gameplay style of the original game, while keeping it in the original game's universe or plot. This may include upgrading the graphics, adding new models to replace the original ones that are in line with the original game's plot, or changing the pace of how the game is played. Total overhauls are usually combined with significant add-on material as well.

[edit] Unofficial patchAn unofficial patch can be a mod of an existing game that fixes bugs not fixed by an official patch or that unlocks content present in the released game's files but is inaccessible in official gameplay. Such patches are usually created by members of the game's fan base when the original developer is unwilling or unable to officially supply this functionality.

[edit] Official status of modsDue to the increasing popularity and quality of modding, some developers, notably Firaxis, have included fan-made mods in official releases of expansion packs.

For example, in the Civilization IV expansion Beyond the Sword: two existing mods, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization[1] and Fall from Heaven made their way into the expansion (the latter through a spin-off called Age of Ice[2]).

A number of fan-made maps, scenarios and mods, such as "Double Your Pleasure", were also included in the Civilization III expansion Play the World.[3]

[edit] Development This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

A great many mods do not progress very far and are abandoned without ever having a public release. Some are very limited and just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content and gameplay extensively. A few mods become very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the rights getting bought and turning into an official modification.

A group of mod developers may join together to form a mod team. An example is Team Reaction, one of the most prolific mod teams to date, most notably known for QPong and Jailbreak.

Mods are made for many first person shooters and Real-Time-Strategies, most notably the series based on Quake, Doom, Chaos, Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations and the Command & Conquer series also have many mods.

Among popular mods, none is more well known than the Half-Life multiplayer mod Counter-Strike, which was released shortly after the original game, and upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated servers. Counter-Strike is probably the best example of a modification that turns into a retail game. Another signature mod is Team Fortress, which was based of the Quake engine and became a whole series of games, such as Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and an unofficial mod made originally as a fan made sequel to TFC, Fortress Forever.

Mods in general are required to be non-commercial (free) when they include any parts from another mod, or the main game, which by their nature they always do. Some mods become open source as well.

[edit] ToolsMod making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating mods for a game. Early commercial mod-making tools were the Boulder Dash Construction Kit (1986) and the Bard's Tale Construction Set (1991), which allowed users to create game designs in those series. Much more successful among early mod making tools was the 1992 Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures from Strategic Simulations, Inc., which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that was launched with the Pool of Radiance game.

Later mod making tools include The Elder Scrolls Construction Set which shipped with Morrowind, the Aurora toolset which was included with Neverwinter Nights, FRED and FRED2, the mission editors for Freespace and Freespace 2 respectively, the Obsidian tool set for Neverwinter Nights 2, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit SDK for Fallout 3 and the Valve Hammer Editor which is used to create maps for Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and various other games based on the Source engine (older versions also supported the Quake engine).

There are also free content delivery tools available that make playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates and setting up the mods so that non-technical people can play. Steam for Half life 2 mods is an example.

[edit] Game support for modifications
An example of game modification in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: a 2005 Audi A8L W12 car. Real-life makes and models are not included in the game but can be created and added by modders.The potential for end-user change in game varies greatly, though it can have little correlation on the number and quality of mods made for a game.

In general the most modification-friendly games will define gameplay variables in text or other non proprietary format files (for instance in the Civilization series one could alter the movement rate along roads and many other factors), and have graphics of a standard format such as bitmaps. Publishers can also determine mod-friendliness in the way important source files are available (some programs collect their source material into large proprietary archives, while others make the files available in folders).

Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications, but often require expensive professional software to make. One such example is Homeworld 2, which requires the industrial-strength program Maya to build new in-game objects. However, there is a free version available of Maya and other advanced modeling software. There are also free and even open source modeling programs that can be used as well.

For advanced mods such as Desert Combat, that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy to import models to, is of little help when doing research, modeling, and making a photo-realistic texture for a game item. As a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and capabilities have a dominating effect on the number of mods created for the game by users.

A game that allows 'modding' can also be called 'moddable'. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as well as its predecessor The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind are highly moddable, because the editor is available to download off the internet. Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some people released their own modifications nevertheless.

Supreme Commander set out to be the 'most customisable game ever' and as such included a mod manager which allowed for 'modular modding' - having several mods on at once.[citation needed]

The games industry is currently facing the question of how much it should embrace the players' contribution in creating new material for the game or mod-communities as part of their structure within the game. Some have openly accepted and even encourages of such communities. Others though have chosen to enclose their games in heavily policed copyright or Intellectual Property regimes(IPR) and close down sites that they see as infringing their ownership of a game.[4]

[edit] Portability issuesFor cross-platform games, mods written for the Windows version have not always been compatible with the Mac OS X and/or Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the smaller market share of alternate platforms. For example Battlefield 1942, ported by Aspyr for Mac OS X had file access issues specific to mods until the 1.61D patch. Unreal Tournament 2004 does not have a working community mods menu for the Mac OS X version, and until the 3369 patch had graphics incompatibilities with several mods such as Red Orchestra and Metaball. In addition, mods which are compiled into platform-specific libraries, such as those of Doom 3, are often only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development tools are often available only on the Windows platform -id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and Epic Games' UnrealEd being the most notable examples.

Mod teams which lack either the resources or know-how to develop their mods for alternate platforms sometimes outsource their code and art assets to individuals or groups who are able to port the mod.

The mod specialist site for Macs, Macologist, has created GUI launchers and installers for many UT2004 mods, as well as solving cross-platform conversion issues for mods for other games.

[edit] Unexpected consequences of moddingIn January 2005, it was reported that in The Sims 2 modifications that changed item and game behavior were unexpectedly being transferred to other players through the official website's exchange feature, leading to changed game behavior without advance warning.[5]

In July 2007 CNET News reported that a Grand Theft Auto Mod video uploaded to YouTube contained a link to a malware website. When a viewer clicked on the link and downloaded the mod it infected their computer.[6]

[edit] See alsoAdventure Construction Set, one of the earliest games for which user-created content was widely made and distributed.
Fork (software development)
Level editor
Modding
ROM hacking
[edit] References1.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
2.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
3.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
4.^ Flew, Terry and Humphreys, Sal (2005) "Games: Technology, Industry, Culture" in Terry Flew, New Media: an introduction (second edition), Oxford University Press, South Melbourne 101-114.
5.^ Supernatural powers become contagious in PC game by Will Knight, NewScientist, 7 January 2005
6.^ CNET news 2 July 2007 Grand Theft Auto mod virus uses YouTube to spread[1]
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(video_gaming)"
Categories: Video game mods | Video game development
Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from January 2011 | All articles needing additional references | Articles needing additional references from October 2008 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from August 2008Personal tools
Log in / create accountNamespaces
ArticleDiscussionVariantsViews
ReadEditView historyActions
Search

Navigation
Main pageContentsFeatured contentCurrent eventsRandom articleDonate to WikipediaInteractionHelpAbout WikipediaCommunity portalRecent changesContact WikipediaToolboxWhat links hereRelated changesUpload fileSpecial pagesPermanent linkCite this page
Print/exportCreate a bookDownload as PDFPrintable version
LanguagesCataleskyDanskDeutschEspaolFranaisItalianoNederlandsPolskiPortugusSvenskaTagalogThis page was last modified on 23 February 2011 at 12:35.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.
Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Contact us
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games (PC games), especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, and game modes. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs are called unofficial patches.

Games running on a PC are often designed with change in mind, consequently allowing modern computer games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay value and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Bethesda Softworks, Firaxis, Crytek, The Creative Assembly and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.

Mods can significantly outshine and/or continue the success of the original game, even when it is becoming dated. In those cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the unmodified game when talking about playing a game. In some cases the term vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla Battlefield 1942", for example, refers to the original, unmodified game. For vanilla games, prefix "v" or "V" is commonly used together with the game title acronym, e.g., VQ3 stands for "vanilla Quake 3".

As early as the 1980s, computer game mods have also been used for the sole purpose of creating art, as opposed to an actual game. This can include recording in-game action as a movie, as well as attempting to reproduce real-life areas inside a game with no regard for game play value. See artistic computer game modification, machinima and demoscene.

Contents [hide]
1 Types
1.1 Total conversion
1.2 Total overhaul
1.3 Unofficial patch
2 Official status of mods
3 Development
3.1 Tools
3.2 Game support for modifications
3.3 Portability issues
3.4 Unexpected consequences of modding
4 See also
5 References


[edit] Types[edit] Total conversionA total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

In some cases, the goal of a group that sets out to create a total conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the need to replace the original content to avoid copyright infringement.

Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with the original game, if the engine becomes Free Software, the total conversion can be playable without having to own the original game. A few examples of these include the Tremulous mod for Quake III Arena, A Path Beyond for Command & Conquer Renegade, the D-Day: Normandy mod for Quake II, and Counter-Strike and Frontline Force for Half-Life. Team Fortress, one of the most popular mods ever, was originally a Quake total conversion. It has been so popular that a sequel, Team Fortress 2, has been developed. Doom has also had its share of modifications, such as engine modifications like ZDoom and SkullTag.

Similarly, Trauma Studios, which developed the popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat, was bought by Digital Illusions CE to work on Battlefield 2. Both Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 are in modern settings.

[edit] Total overhaulA total overhaul mod changes or redefines the gameplay style of the original game, while keeping it in the original game's universe or plot. This may include upgrading the graphics, adding new models to replace the original ones that are in line with the original game's plot, or changing the pace of how the game is played. Total overhauls are usually combined with significant add-on material as well.

[edit] Unofficial patchAn unofficial patch can be a mod of an existing game that fixes bugs not fixed by an official patch or that unlocks content present in the released game's files but is inaccessible in official gameplay. Such patches are usually created by members of the game's fan base when the original developer is unwilling or unable to officially supply this functionality.

[edit] Official status of modsDue to the increasing popularity and quality of modding, some developers, notably Firaxis, have included fan-made mods in official releases of expansion packs.

For example, in the Civilization IV expansion Beyond the Sword: two existing mods, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization[1] and Fall from Heaven made their way into the expansion (the latter through a spin-off called Age of Ice[2]).

A number of fan-made maps, scenarios and mods, such as "Double Your Pleasure", were also included in the Civilization III expansion Play the World.[3]

[edit] Development This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

A great many mods do not progress very far and are abandoned without ever having a public release. Some are very limited and just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content and gameplay extensively. A few mods become very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the rights getting bought and turning into an official modification.

A group of mod developers may join together to form a mod team. An example is Team Reaction, one of the most prolific mod teams to date, most notably known for QPong and Jailbreak.

Mods are made for many first person shooters and Real-Time-Strategies, most notably the series based on Quake, Doom, Chaos, Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations and the Command & Conquer series also have many mods.

Among popular mods, none is more well known than the Half-Life multiplayer mod Counter-Strike, which was released shortly after the original game, and upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated servers. Counter-Strike is probably the best example of a modification that turns into a retail game. Another signature mod is Team Fortress, which was based of the Quake engine and became a whole series of games, such as Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and an unofficial mod made originally as a fan made sequel to TFC, Fortress Forever.

Mods in general are required to be non-commercial (free) when they include any parts from another mod, or the main game, which by their nature they always do. Some mods become open source as well.

[edit] ToolsMod making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating mods for a game. Early commercial mod-making tools were the Boulder Dash Construction Kit (1986) and the Bard's Tale Construction Set (1991), which allowed users to create game designs in those series. Much more successful among early mod making tools was the 1992 Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures from Strategic Simulations, Inc., which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that was launched with the Pool of Radiance game.

Later mod making tools include The Elder Scrolls Construction Set which shipped with Morrowind, the Aurora toolset which was included with Neverwinter Nights, FRED and FRED2, the mission editors for Freespace and Freespace 2 respectively, the Obsidian tool set for Neverwinter Nights 2, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit SDK for Fallout 3 and the Valve Hammer Editor which is used to create maps for Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and various other games based on the Source engine (older versions also supported the Quake engine).

There are also free content delivery tools available that make playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates and setting up the mods so that non-technical people can play. Steam for Half life 2 mods is an example.

[edit] Game support for modifications
An example of game modification in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: a 2005 Audi A8L W12 car. Real-life makes and models are not included in the game but can be created and added by modders.The potential for end-user change in game varies greatly, though it can have little correlation on the number and quality of mods made for a game.

In general the most modification-friendly games will define gameplay variables in text or other non proprietary format files (for instance in the Civilization series one could alter the movement rate along roads and many other factors), and have graphics of a standard format such as bitmaps. Publishers can also determine mod-friendliness in the way important source files are available (some programs collect their source material into large proprietary archives, while others make the files available in folders).

Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications, but often require expensive professional software to make. One such example is Homeworld 2, which requires the industrial-strength program Maya to build new in-game objects. However, there is a free version available of Maya and other advanced modeling software. There are also free and even open source modeling programs that can be used as well.

For advanced mods such as Desert Combat, that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy to import models to, is of little help when doing research, modeling, and making a photo-realistic texture for a game item. As a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and capabilities have a dominating effect on the number of mods created for the game by users.

A game that allows 'modding' can also be called 'moddable'. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as well as its predecessor The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind are highly moddable, because the editor is available to download off the internet. Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some people released their own modifications nevertheless.

Supreme Commander set out to be the 'most customisable game ever' and as such included a mod manager which allowed for 'modular modding' - having several mods on at once.[citation needed]

The games industry is currently facing the question of how much it should embrace the players' contribution in creating new material for the game or mod-communities as part of their structure within the game. Some have openly accepted and even encourages of such communities. Others though have chosen to enclose their games in heavily policed copyright or Intellectual Property regimes(IPR) and close down sites that they see as infringing their ownership of a game.[4]

[edit] Portability issuesFor cross-platform games, mods written for the Windows version have not always been compatible with the Mac OS X and/or Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the smaller market share of alternate platforms. For example Battlefield 1942, ported by Aspyr for Mac OS X had file access issues specific to mods until the 1.61D patch. Unreal Tournament 2004 does not have a working community mods menu for the Mac OS X version, and until the 3369 patch had graphics incompatibilities with several mods such as Red Orchestra and Metaball. In addition, mods which are compiled into platform-specific libraries, such as those of Doom 3, are often only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development tools are often available only on the Windows platform -id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and Epic Games' UnrealEd being the most notable examples.

Mod teams which lack either the resources or know-how to develop their mods for alternate platforms sometimes outsource their code and art assets to individuals or groups who are able to port the mod.

The mod specialist site for Macs, Macologist, has created GUI launchers and installers for many UT2004 mods, as well as solving cross-platform conversion issues for mods for other games.

[edit] Unexpected consequences of moddingIn January 2005, it was reported that in The Sims 2 modifications that changed item and game behavior were unexpectedly being transferred to other players through the official website's exchange feature, leading to changed game behavior without advance warning.[5]

In July 2007 CNET News reported that a Grand Theft Auto Mod video uploaded to YouTube contained a link to a malware website. When a viewer clicked on the link and downloaded the mod it infected their computer.[6]

[edit] See alsoAdventure Construction Set, one of the earliest games for which user-created content was widely made and distributed.
Fork (software development)
Level editor
Modding
ROM hacking
[edit] References1.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
2.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
3.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
4.^ Flew, Terry and Humphreys, Sal (2005) "Games: Technology, Industry, Culture" in Terry Flew, New Media: an introduction (second edition), Oxford University Press, South Melbourne 101-114.
5.^ Supernatural powers become contagious in PC game by Will Knight, NewScientist, 7 January 2005
6.^ CNET news 2 July 2007 Grand Theft Auto mod virus uses YouTube to spread[1]
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(video_gaming)"
Categories: Video game mods | Video game development
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Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games (PC games), especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, and game modes. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs are called unofficial patches.

Games running on a PC are often designed with change in mind, consequently allowing modern computer games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay value and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Bethesda Softworks, Firaxis, Crytek, The Creative Assembly and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.

Mods can significantly outshine and/or continue the success of the original game, even when it is becoming dated. In those cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the unmodified game when talking about playing a game. In some cases the term vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla Battlefield 1942", for example, refers to the original, unmodified game. For vanilla games, prefix "v" or "V" is commonly used together with the game title acronym, e.g., VQ3 stands for "vanilla Quake 3".

As early as the 1980s, computer game mods have also been used for the sole purpose of creating art, as opposed to an actual game. This can include recording in-game action as a movie, as well as attempting to reproduce real-life areas inside a game with no regard for game play value. See artistic computer game modification, machinima and demoscene.

Contents [hide]
1 Types
1.1 Total conversion
1.2 Total overhaul
1.3 Unofficial patch
2 Official status of mods
3 Development
3.1 Tools
3.2 Game support for modifications
3.3 Portability issues
3.4 Unexpected consequences of modding
4 See also
5 References


[edit] Types[edit] Total conversionA total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

In some cases, the goal of a group that sets out to create a total conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the need to replace the original content to avoid copyright infringement.

Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with the original game, if the engine becomes Free Software, the total conversion can be playable without having to own the original game. A few examples of these include the Tremulous mod for Quake III Arena, A Path Beyond for Command & Conquer Renegade, the D-Day: Normandy mod for Quake II, and Counter-Strike and Frontline Force for Half-Life. Team Fortress, one of the most popular mods ever, was originally a Quake total conversion. It has been so popular that a sequel, Team Fortress 2, has been developed. Doom has also had its share of modifications, such as engine modifications like ZDoom and SkullTag.

Similarly, Trauma Studios, which developed the popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat, was bought by Digital Illusions CE to work on Battlefield 2. Both Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 are in modern settings.

[edit] Total overhaulA total overhaul mod changes or redefines the gameplay style of the original game, while keeping it in the original game's universe or plot. This may include upgrading the graphics, adding new models to replace the original ones that are in line with the original game's plot, or changing the pace of how the game is played. Total overhauls are usually combined with significant add-on material as well.

[edit] Unofficial patchAn unofficial patch can be a mod of an existing game that fixes bugs not fixed by an official patch or that unlocks content present in the released game's files but is inaccessible in official gameplay. Such patches are usually created by members of the game's fan base when the original developer is unwilling or unable to officially supply this functionality.

[edit] Official status of modsDue to the increasing popularity and quality of modding, some developers, notably Firaxis, have included fan-made mods in official releases of expansion packs.

For example, in the Civilization IV expansion Beyond the Sword: two existing mods, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization[1] and Fall from Heaven made their way into the expansion (the latter through a spin-off called Age of Ice[2]).

A number of fan-made maps, scenarios and mods, such as "Double Your Pleasure", were also included in the Civilization III expansion Play the World.[3]

[edit] Development This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

A great many mods do not progress very far and are abandoned without ever having a public release. Some are very limited and just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content and gameplay extensively. A few mods become very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the rights getting bought and turning into an official modification.

A group of mod developers may join together to form a mod team. An example is Team Reaction, one of the most prolific mod teams to date, most notably known for QPong and Jailbreak.

Mods are made for many first person shooters and Real-Time-Strategies, most notably the series based on Quake, Doom, Chaos, Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations and the Command & Conquer series also have many mods.

Among popular mods, none is more well known than the Half-Life multiplayer mod Counter-Strike, which was released shortly after the original game, and upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated servers. Counter-Strike is probably the best example of a modification that turns into a retail game. Another signature mod is Team Fortress, which was based of the Quake engine and became a whole series of games, such as Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and an unofficial mod made originally as a fan made sequel to TFC, Fortress Forever.

Mods in general are required to be non-commercial (free) when they include any parts from another mod, or the main game, which by their nature they always do. Some mods become open source as well.

[edit] ToolsMod making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating mods for a game. Early commercial mod-making tools were the Boulder Dash Construction Kit (1986) and the Bard's Tale Construction Set (1991), which allowed users to create game designs in those series. Much more successful among early mod making tools was the 1992 Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures from Strategic Simulations, Inc., which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that was launched with the Pool of Radiance game.

Later mod making tools include The Elder Scrolls Construction Set which shipped with Morrowind, the Aurora toolset which was included with Neverwinter Nights, FRED and FRED2, the mission editors for Freespace and Freespace 2 respectively, the Obsidian tool set for Neverwinter Nights 2, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit SDK for Fallout 3 and the Valve Hammer Editor which is used to create maps for Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and various other games based on the Source engine (older versions also supported the Quake engine).

There are also free content delivery tools available that make playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates and setting up the mods so that non-technical people can play. Steam for Half life 2 mods is an example.

[edit] Game support for modifications
An example of game modification in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: a 2005 Audi A8L W12 car. Real-life makes and models are not included in the game but can be created and added by modders.The potential for end-user change in game varies greatly, though it can have little correlation on the number and quality of mods made for a game.

In general the most modification-friendly games will define gameplay variables in text or other non proprietary format files (for instance in the Civilization series one could alter the movement rate along roads and many other factors), and have graphics of a standard format such as bitmaps. Publishers can also determine mod-friendliness in the way important source files are available (some programs collect their source material into large proprietary archives, while others make the files available in folders).

Games have varying support from their publishers for modifications, but often require expensive professional software to make. One such example is Homeworld 2, which requires the industrial-strength program Maya to build new in-game objects. However, there is a free version available of Maya and other advanced modeling software. There are also free and even open source modeling programs that can be used as well.

For advanced mods such as Desert Combat, that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy to import models to, is of little help when doing research, modeling, and making a photo-realistic texture for a game item. As a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and capabilities have a dominating effect on the number of mods created for the game by users.

A game that allows 'modding' can also be called 'moddable'. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as well as its predecessor The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind are highly moddable, because the editor is available to download off the internet. Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some people released their own modifications nevertheless.

Supreme Commander set out to be the 'most customisable game ever' and as such included a mod manager which allowed for 'modular modding' - having several mods on at once.[citation needed]

The games industry is currently facing the question of how much it should embrace the players' contribution in creating new material for the game or mod-communities as part of their structure within the game. Some have openly accepted and even encourages of such communities. Others though have chosen to enclose their games in heavily policed copyright or Intellectual Property regimes(IPR) and close down sites that they see as infringing their ownership of a game.[4]

[edit] Portability issuesFor cross-platform games, mods written for the Windows version have not always been compatible with the Mac OS X and/or Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the smaller market share of alternate platforms. For example Battlefield 1942, ported by Aspyr for Mac OS X had file access issues specific to mods until the 1.61D patch. Unreal Tournament 2004 does not have a working community mods menu for the Mac OS X version, and until the 3369 patch had graphics incompatibilities with several mods such as Red Orchestra and Metaball. In addition, mods which are compiled into platform-specific libraries, such as those of Doom 3, are often only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development tools are often available only on the Windows platform -id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and Epic Games' UnrealEd being the most notable examples.

Mod teams which lack either the resources or know-how to develop their mods for alternate platforms sometimes outsource their code and art assets to individuals or groups who are able to port the mod.

The mod specialist site for Macs, Macologist, has created GUI launchers and installers for many UT2004 mods, as well as solving cross-platform conversion issues for mods for other games.

[edit] Unexpected consequences of moddingIn January 2005, it was reported that in The Sims 2 modifications that changed item and game behavior were unexpectedly being transferred to other players through the official website's exchange feature, leading to changed game behavior without advance warning.[5]

In July 2007 CNET News reported that a Grand Theft Auto Mod video uploaded to YouTube contained a link to a malware website. When a viewer clicked on the link and downloaded the mod it infected their computer.[6]

[edit] See alsoAdventure Construction Set, one of the earliest games for which user-created content was widely made and distributed.
Fork (software development)
Level editor
Modding
ROM hacking
[edit] References1.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
2.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
3.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
4.^ Flew, Terry and Humphreys, Sal (2005) "Games: Technology, Industry, Culture" in Terry Flew, New Media: an introduction (second edition), Oxford University Press, South Melbourne 101-114.
5.^ Supernatural powers become contagious in PC game by Will Knight, NewScientist, 7 January 2005
6.^ CNET news 2 July 2007 Grand Theft Auto mod virus uses YouTube to spread[1]
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(video_gaming)"
Categories: Video game mods | Video game development
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Intellectual giftedness is an intellectual ability significantly higher than average. It is different from a skill, in that skills are learned or acquired behaviors. Like a talent, intellectual giftedness is usually believed to be an innate, personal aptitude for intellectual activities that cannot be acquired through personal effort.

Various ideas about the definition, development, and best ways of identifying intellectual giftedness have been put forward.

Intellectual giftedness may be general or specific. For example, an intellectually gifted person may have a striking talent for mathematics, but not have equally strong language skills.

Intellectual giftedness is not the only form of talent. Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences proposes several kinds of non-intellectual "intelligences", such as bodily-kinesthetic intelligence and interpersonal intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a broad term for one type of non-intellectual intelligence.

When combined with an adequately challenging curriculum and the diligence necessary to acquire and execute many learned skills, intellectual giftedness often produces academic success.[citation needed]

There is also artistic or creative giftedness, which may or may not be combined with intellectual giftedness.

Contents [hide]
1 Developmental theory
2 Giftedness from a multiple intelligences perspective
3 Identifying giftedness
3.1 Overview
3.2 Definitions of giftedness
3.3 Identification methods
4 Savantism
5 Characteristics of giftedness
6 Minority students who are gifted in America
7 Twice-exceptional
8 Social and emotional issues
8.1 Isolation
8.2 Perfectionism
8.3 Underachievement
8.4 Depression
9 Professional attitudes towards giftedness
9.1 Genetics and intelligence
9.2 Talented students at the secondary level
10 See also
11 References
12 External links


[edit] Developmental theoryGifted children may develop asynchronously: their minds are often ahead of their physical growth, and specific cognitive and emotional functions are often developed differently (or to differing extents) at different stages of development. One frequently cited example of asynchronicity in early cognitive development is Albert Einstein, who did not speak until the age of four, but whose later fluency and accomplishments belied this initial delay.

In regards to this fact, psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker theorized that, rather than viewing Einstein's (and other famously gifted late-talking individuals) adult accomplishments as existing distinct from, or in spite of, his early language deficits, and rather than viewing Einstein's lingual delay itself as a "disorder", it may be that Einstein's genius and his delay in speaking were developmentally intrinsic to one another.[1]

It has been said that gifted children may advance more quickly through stages established by post-Freudian developmentalists such as Jean Piaget.[citation needed] Gifted individuals also experience the world differently, resulting in certain social and emotional issues. The work of Kazimierz Dabrowski suggests that gifted children have greater psychomotor, sensual, imaginative, intellectual, and emotional "overexcitabilities".

Francoy Gagne's (2000) Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT) is a developmental theory that distinguishes giftedness from talent, offering explanation on how outstanding natural abilities (gifts) develop into specific expert skills (talents).[2] According to DMGT theory, "one cannot become talented without first being gifted, or almost so" [3]. There are six components that can interact in countless and unique ways that fosters the process of moving from having natural abilities (giftedness) to systematically developed skills.

These components consist of the gift (G) itself, chance (C), environmental catalyst (EC), intrapersonal catalyst (IC),learning/practice (LP) and the outcome of talent (T).[3] It is important to know that (C), (IC), and (EC) can facilitate but, can also hinder the learning and training of becoming talented. The learning/practice is the moderator. It is through the interactions, both environmental and intrapersonal that influence the process of learning and practice along with/without chance that natural abilities are transformed into talents.

[edit] Giftedness from a multiple intelligences perspectiveMain article: Theory of multiple intelligences
Multiple intelligences has been associated to giftedness or overachievement of some developmental areas (Colangelo, 2003).[4] Multiple intelligences has been described as an attitude towards learning, instead of techniques or strategies (Cason, 2001).[5]

There are eight Intelligences, or different areas in which people assimilate or learn about the world around them: interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalistic, and spatial-visual. If the Theory of Multiple Intelligences is applied to educational curriculum, by providing lesson plans, themes, and programs in a way that all students are encouraged to develop their stronger area, and at the same time educators provide opportunities to enhance the learning process in the less strong areas, academic success may be attainable for all children in a school system.

Gardner proposed in Frames of Mind (Gardner 1983/1994) that intellectual giftedness may be present in areas other than the typical intellectual realm. The concept of multiple intelligences (MI) makes the field aware of additional potential strengths and proposes a variety of curricular methods.

Gardner suggest MI in the following areas: Linguistic, logico-mathematical, musical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic and existential.

Identification of gifted students with MI is a challenge since there is no simple test to give to determine giftedness of MI. Assessing by observation is potentially most accurate, but potentially highly subjective. MI theory can be applied to not only gifted students, but it can be a lens through which all students can be assessed. This more global perspective may lead to more child-centered instruction and meet the needs of a greater number of children (Colangelo, 2003).[4]

[edit] Identifying giftedness[edit] OverviewThe formal identification of giftedness first emerged as an important issue for schools, as the instruction of gifted students often presents special challenges. During the 20th century, gifted children were often classified via IQ tests, however, recent developments in theories of intelligence have raised serious questions regarding the appropriate uses and limits of such testing.[citation needed] Many schools in North America and Europe have attempted to identify students who are not challenged by standard school curricula and offer additional or specialized education for them in pursuit of nurturing their talents.

Because of the key role that gifted education plays in the identification of gifted individuals, both children and adults, it is worthwhile to examine how that institution uses the term "gifted".

[edit] Definitions of giftednessFor many years, psychometricians and psychologists, following in the footsteps of Lewis Terman in 1916, equated giftedness with high IQ. This "legacy" survives to the present day, in that giftedness and high IQ continue to be equated in some conceptions of giftedness. Since that early time, however, other researchers (e.g., Cattell, Guilford, and Thurstone) have argued that intellect cannot be expressed in such a unitary manner, and have suggested more multifaceted approaches to intelligence.

Research conducted in the 1980s and 1990s has provided data which support notions of multiple components to intelligence. This is particularly evident in the reexamination of "giftedness" by Sternberg and Davidson in their edited "Conceptions of Giftedness". The many different conceptions of giftedness presented, although distinct, are interrelated in several ways. Most of the investigators define giftedness in terms of multiple qualities, not all of which are intellectual. IQ scores are often viewed as inadequate measures of giftedness[citation needed]. Motivation, high self-concept, and creativity are key qualities in many of these broadened conceptions of giftedness.

Joseph Renzulli's (1978) "three ring" definition of giftedness is one well-researched conceptualization of giftedness. Renzullis definition, which defines gifted behaviors rather than gifted individuals, is composed of three components as follows: Gifted behavior consists of behaviors that reflect an interaction among three basic clusters of human traitsabove average ability, high levels of task commitment, and high levels of creativity. Individuals capable of developing gifted behavior are those possessing or capable of developing this composite set of traits and applying them to any potentially valuable area of human performance. Persons who manifest or are capable of developing an interaction among the three clusters require a wide variety of educational opportunities and services that are not ordinarily provided through regular instructional programs.

In Identifying Gifted Children: A Practical Guide, Susan K. Johnsen explains that gifted children all exhibit the potential for high performance in the areas included in the United States' federal definition of gifted and talented students:[6]

The term "gifted and talented" when used in respect to students, children, or youth means students, children, or youth who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities." (P.L. 103382, Title XIV, p. 3

This definition has been adopted partially or completely by the majority of the states in the United States. The majority of them have some definition similar to that used in the State of Texas, whose definition states

[The phrase] "gifted and talented student" means a child or youth who performs at or shows the potential for performing at a remarkably high level of accomplishment when compared to others of the same age, experience, or environment, and who
exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area;
possesses an unusual capacity for leadership; or
excels in a specific academic field." (74th legislature of the State of Texas, Chapter 29, Subchapter D, Section 29.121)


The major characteristics of these definitions are (a) the diversity of areas in which performance may be exhibited (e.g., intellectual, creativity, artistic, leadership, academically), (b) the comparison with other groups (e.g., those in general education classrooms or of the same age, experience, or environment), and (c) the use of terms that imply a need for development of the gift (e.g., capability and potential).

[edit] Identification methodsIQ scores can vary for the same person, so a person does not always belong to the same IQ score range each time the person is tested. (IQ score table data and pupil pseudonyms adapted from description of KABC-II norming study cited in Kaufman 2009.[7]) Pupil KABC-II WISC-III WJ-III
Asher 90 95 111
Brianna 125 110 105
Colin 100 93 101
Danica 116 127 118
Elpha 93 105 93
Fritz 106 105 105
Georgi 95 100 90
Hector 112 113 103
Imelda 104 96 97
Jose 101 99 86
Keoku 81 78 75
Leo 116 124 102
Many schools use a variety of assessments of students' capability and potential when identifying gifted children.[6] These may include portfolios of student work, classroom observations, achievement tests, and IQ test scores. Most educational professionals accept that no single criterion can be used in isolation to accurately identify a gifted child.

One of the criteria used in identification may be an IQ test score. Until the late 1960s, when giftedness was defined by an IQ score, a school district simply set an arbitrary score (usually in the 130 range) and a student either did or did not make the cut. It is no longer accepted today in academic circles; however, it's still used by many school districts because it is simple and not entirely without merit. Although a high IQ may have fallen out of favor as a measure to define giftedness, the fact remains that, if a student has a very high IQ, it is significant indicator, indeed the single most important one, of a students academic potential (Gross, 2004). Correspondingly, if a student scores highly on an IQ test, but performs at an average or below average level academically, this warrants further investigation. [8]

IQ test classifications vary from one publisher to another. IQ tests do not have validity for determining test-takers' rank order at higher IQ levels,[9] and are perhaps only effective at determining whether a student is gifted rather than distinguishing among levels of giftedness. The Wechsler tests have a standard score ceiling of about 160. This has prompted some authors on identification of gifted children to promote the Stanford-Binet form L-M, which has long been obsolete,[10] as the only test with a sufficient ceiling to identify the exceptionally and profoundly gifted, despite the Stanford-Binet L-M never having been normed on a representative national sample.[11] Because the instrument is outdated, current results derived from the Stanford-Binet L-M generate inflated and inaccurate scores.[12]

The IQ assessment of younger children remains debated. Also, those who are more gifted in areas such as the arts and literature tend to do poorly on IQ tests[citation needed], which are generally verbal- and mathematical-skills related.

While many people believe giftedness is a strictly quantitative difference, measurable by IQ tests, a number of people[who?] have described giftedness as a fundamentally different way of perceiving the world, which in turn affects every experience had by the gifted individual. This view is doubted by some scholars who have closely studied gifted children longitudinally.[13]

[edit] SavantismSavants are individuals who perform exceptionally in a single field of learning. More often savant and savantism describes people with a single field of learning well beyond what is considered normal, even among the gifted community. Autistic savantism refers to the exceptional abilities exhibited by people with autism or other pervasive developmental disorders. The term was introduced in a 1978 article in Psychology Today describing this condition.

[edit] Characteristics of giftednessGenerally, gifted individuals learn more quickly, deeply, and broadly than their peers. Gifted children may learn to read early and operate at the same level as normal children who are significantly older. The gifted tend to demonstrate high reasoning ability, creativity, curiosity, a large vocabulary, and an excellent memory. They can often master concepts with few repetitions. They may also be physically and emotionally sensitive, perfectionistic, and may frequently question authority. Some have trouble relating to or communicating with their peers because of disparities in vocabulary size (especially in the early years), personality, interests and motivation. As children, they may prefer the company of older children or adults.[14]

Giftedness is frequently not evenly distributed throughout all intellectual spheres; an individual may excel in solving logic problems and yet be a poor speller; another gifted individual may be able to read and write at a far above average level and yet have trouble with mathematics. It is possible there are different types of giftedness with their own unique features, just as there are different types of developmental delay.

Giftedness may become noticeable in individuals at different points of development. While early development (i.e. speaking or reading at a very young age) usually comes with giftedness, it is not a determinant of giftedness. The preschool years are when most gifted children begin to show the distinctive characteristics mentioned above. As the child becomes older, classes that are 'too easy' and emotional issues may slow or obstruct the rate of intellectual development.[15]

Many gifted individuals experience various types of heightened awareness and may seem overly sensitive. These sensitivities may be to physical senses such as sight, sound, smell, movement and touch. For example, they may be extremely uncomfortable when they have a wrinkle in their sock, or unable to concentrate because of the sound of a clock ticking on the other side of the room. Sensitivities of the gifted are often to mental and emotional over-awareness. For example, picking up on the feelings of someone close to them, having extreme sensitivity to their own internal emotions, and taking in external information at a significantly higher rate than those around them. These various kinds of sensitivities often mean that the more gifted an individual is, the more input and awareness they experience, leading to the contradiction of them needing more time to process than others who are not gifted.[16]

Hypersensitivity to external or internal stimuli can resemble a proneness to "sensory overload", which can cause such persons to avoid highly stimulating, chaotic or crowded environments. This kind of highly sensitive nature has also been called "overexcitability" by Kazimierz Dabrowski. Some are able to tune out such unwanted stimulation as they focus on their chosen task or on their own thoughts. In many cases, awareness may fluctuate between conditions of hyperstimulation and of withdrawal. (An individual's tendencies to feel overwhelmed is also affected by their extraversion and introversion.)

These conditions may appear to be very similar to symptoms of hyperactivity, bipolar disorder, ADHD, autism-spectrum conditions, and other psychological disorders, but are often explained by gifted education professionals by reference to Kazimierz Dabrowski's theory of Positive Disintegration.[17] Some researchers focus on the study of overexcitabilities. Overexcitabilities refer to ways people, both children and adults, understand and experience the world around them (Gross 2008). The more channels of overexcitabilities that are open to receive the information or stimulus, the stronger or more intense the experience is.

According to Gross (2008), an individual response to a stimulus is determined by his/her dominant overexcitability. Overexcitabilities are expressed in five dimensions: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional. These dominant channels of acquiring information differ by quantity in some individuals.[18]

[edit] Minority students who are gifted in AmericaWhile white students represent the majority of students enrolled in gifted programs, Black and Hispanic students constitute a percentage less than their enrollment in school.[19]. For example, statistics from 1993 indicate that in the U.S., Black students represented 16.2% of public school students, but only constituted 8.4% of students enrolled in gifted education programs. Similarly, while Hispanic students represented 9% of public school students, these students only represented 4.7% of those identified as gifted.[20] However, Asian students make up only 3.6% of the student body, yet constitute 14% in the gifted programs.

In their 2004 study, Addressing the Achievement Gap Between Minority and Nonminority Children by Increasing Access to Gifted Programs Olszewski-Kubilius et al. write that minority students are less likely to be nominated by teachers as potential candidates for gifted programs and, if nominated, are less likely to be selected for the program, particularly when such traditional measures as I.Q. and achievement tests are used for identification.[21]

This underrepresentation of students of colour in gifted programs is attributed to a multiplicity of factors including cultural bias of testing procedures, selective referrals and educator bias, and a reliance on deficit-based paradigms.[22] To address the inequities in assessment procedures, researchers suggest the use of multiple tests and alternative methods of testing, such as performance-based assessment measures (based on Gardners theory of multiple intelligences) oral-expressiveness measures as well as non-verbal ability assessments (such as Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Tests (NNAT) or Ravens Matrix Analogies Tests.[23]

Gifted students of colour experience success when multicultural content is incorporated in the curriculum and furthermore when the curriculum itself is designed to be culturally and linguistically compatible.[19] A culturally diverse curriculum and instruction encourages gifted minority students to experience a sense of belonging and validation as scholars.[24] Furthermore, the educator's role in this process is significant as Lee et al. argue that "[t]eacher awareness and understanding of students' racial and cultural differences and their ability to incorporate multicultural perspectives into curricular content and instructional techniques may counter gifted minority students' discomfort in being one of the few minority students in gifted programs.[24]

[edit] Twice-exceptionalThe term twice-exceptional was coined by James J. Gallagher to denote students who are both gifted and have disabilities.[25][26] People have known about twice exceptional students for thirty years; however, identification and program strategies remain ambiguous. [27] These students need remediation for their learning deficits and enhancement for their strengths to achieve [27]. Twice exceptional students are considered at risk because they are hidden within the general population of their educational environment, and usually viewed as either under-achievers or average learners. [27][28]

"Early identification and intervention is critical; however, giftedness in the twice-exceptional often is identified later than in the average population and is masked by the disability. The disabilities may include auditory processing weaknesses, sensory motor integration issues, visual perceptual difficulties, spatial disorientation, dyslexia, and attention deficits. Recognition of learning difficulties among the gifted is made extremely difficult by virtue of their ability to compensate. Some guidelines that help in identifying these students are as follows:

Exceptional vocabulary
Difficulty with written expression
Ability to understand complex ideas
Easily frustrated
Wide area of interest
Highly sensitive
Creative
Stubborn and opinionated
Specific areas of strength
Highly developed sense of humor
Curious and inquisitive [29]
[edit] Social and emotional issues[edit] IsolationIsolation is one of the main challenges faced by gifted individuals, especially those with no social network of gifted peers. In order to gain popularity, gifted children will often try to hide their abilities to win social approval. Strategies include underachievement (discussed below) and the use of less sophisticated vocabulary when among same-age peers than when among family members or other trusted individuals.[30]

The isolation experienced by gifted individuals may not be caused by giftedness itself, but by society's response to giftedness. Plucker and Levy have noted that, "in this culture, there appears to be a great pressure for people to be 'normal' with a considerable stigma associated with giftedness or talent."[31] To counteract this problem, gifted education professionals recommend creating a peer group based on common interests and abilities. The earlier this occurs, the more effective it is likely to be in preventing isolation.[32]

[edit] PerfectionismPerfectionism is another issue for gifted individuals. It is encouraged by the fact that gifted individuals tend to be easily successful in much of what they do.

Healthy perfectionism refers to having high standards, a desire to achieve, conscientiousness, or high levels of responsibility. It is likely to be a virtue rather than a problem, even if gifted children may have difficulty with healthy perfectionism because they set standards that would be appropriate to their mental age (the level at which they think), but they cannot always meet them because they are trapped in a younger body, or the social environment is restrictive. In such cases, outsiders may call some behavior perfectionism, while for the gifted this may be their standard.

"Perfectionism becomes desirable when it stimulates the healthy pursuit of excellence."[33]

Unhealthy perfectionism stems from equating one's worth as a human being to one's achievements, and the simultaneous belief that any work less than perfect is unacceptable and will lead to criticism. Because perfection in the majority of human activities is neither desirable, nor possible, this cognitive distortion creates self doubt, performance anxiety and ultimately procrastination.

The unhealthy perfectionism can be triggered or further exaggerated by parents, siblings, school comrades with good or ill intentions. Parents are usually proud and will praise extensively the gifted child, on the other hand siblings, comrades and school bullies will generally become jealous of the intellectual ease of the gifted child and tease him or her about any minor imperfection in his work, strength, clothes, appearance, or behavior. Either approachpositive reinforcement from parents, or negative reactions from siblings and comrades for minor flawswill push these kids into considering their worth to their peers as equal to their abilities and consider any imperfection as a serious defect in themselves. The unhealthy perfectionism can be further exaggerated when the child counter-attacks those who mocked him with their own weapons, i.e. their lower abilities, thus creating disdain in himself for low or even average performance.

There are many theories that try to explain the correlation between perfectionism and giftedness. Perfectionism becomes a problem as it frustrates and inhibits achievements.

D. E. Hamachek identified six specific, overlapping types of behavior associated with perfectionism. They include:

Depression
A nagging "I should" feeling
Shame and guilt feelings
Face-saving behavior
Shyness and procrastination
Self-deprecation.[34]
[edit] UnderachievementThere is often a stark gap between the abilities of the gifted individual and his or her actual accomplishments. Many gifted students will perform extremely well on standardized or reasoning tests, only to fail a class exam. This disparity can result from various factors, such as loss of interest in too-easy classes or negative social consequences of being perceived as smart.[35] Underachievement can also result from emotional or psychological factors, including depression, anxiety, perfectionism, or self-sabotage.[36]

An often overlooked contributor to underachievement is undiagnosed learning differences. A gifted individual is less likely to be diagnosed with a learning disorder than a non gifted classmate, as the gifted child can more readily compensate for his/her paucities. This masking effect is dealt with by understanding that a difference of one standard deviation between scores constitutes a learning disability even if all of the scores are above average. In addition, many gifted children may underachieve because they have grown to believe that because of their intelligence, things should always come easily to them, and thus may lag behind their non-gifted peers in the work ethic required to learn things that don't come immediately to them. One apparently effective way to attempt to reverse underachievement in gifted children includes educating teachers to provide enrichment projects based on students strengths and interests without attracting negative attention from peers.

[edit] DepressionIt has been thought in the past that there is a correlation between giftedness and depression or suicide. This has generally not been proven. As Reis and Renzulli mention,

"With the exception of creatively gifted adolescents who are talented in writing or the visual arts, studies do not confirm that gifted individuals manifest significantly higher or lower rates or severity of depression than those for the general population...Gifted children's advanced cognitive abilities, social isolation, sensitivity, and uneven development may cause them to face some challenging social and emotional issues, but their problem-solving abilities, advanced social skills, moral reasoning, out-of-school interests, and satisfaction in achievement may help them to be more resilient."[35]

Also, no research points to suicide rates being higher in gifted adolescents than other adolescents.[37] However, a number of people have noted a higher incidence of existential depression, which is depression due to highly abstract concerns such as the finality of death, the ultimate unimportance of individual people, and the meaning (or lack thereof) of life. Gifted individuals are also more likely to feel existential anxiety.[38]

However, numerous studies have shown that an active depressive state impairs cognition because it retards neurogenesis in the hippocampus.[39][40][41][42]

[edit] Professional attitudes towards giftednessGrobman discusses how some exceptionally and profoundly gifted individuals may unconsciously create deficits as a way of closing the asynchrony gap.[43] Certain researchers, such as Stephanie Tolan, postulate that the attribution of controversial disorders such as "ADHD" which other authors have argued has not been proven to exist by any means other than subjective behavioral analysis[44][45][46] to gifted individuals arises from a misguided tendency to pathologize that which we don't understand.[47][48] Tolan also discusses that identifying as attention deficient has become fashionable in young adults.[47] Although the diagnosis of ADHD is controversial, it is considered legitimate by organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics[49] and the American Medical Association[50]. Diagnostic criteria for ADHD have been established by the World Health Organization (in the ICD-10)[51] and the American Psychiatric Association (in the DSM-IV)[52].

[edit] Genetics and intelligenceMain article: Heritability of IQ
Intelligence, which is a major component of giftedness, is influenced through a complex interaction of combinations of many genes and many different environmental contexts.[53] Intelligence is a general cognitive ability that supports the fact that most reliable measures of cognitive abilities intercorrelate in some way. It is generally agreed that giftedness may have a genetic component.

Research on families has typically shown a correlation of about .45 in scores of g for parents, children, and siblings. Adoption and twin studies have also provided many valuable insights into the genetic component of intelligence. Studies of first degree relatives adopted apart show a correlation of .22, which is about half that of relatives who live together. Adopted children who are not related but reared together show a correlation of about .23 to genetically unrelated parents and siblings.

Heritability from adoption data is 44% for families, 52% for fraternal twins in a shared environment, and 72% for identical twins reared apart. The existing data for identical twins reared apart has been collected from studies conducted in adulthood and because heritability studies show that adults have higher heritability results than children, this number may be inflated.[53] The question of whether intelligence has a genetic component has been confirmed through numerous studies. More research is necessary to determine the exact processes by which genetic dispositions interact with the environment.

Some children are born with innately higher intelligence levels than others. These children are often labeled as gifted or talented. Many researchers have investigated the early characteristics of gifted children.[54] Hollingworth (1942) reported that 78 percent of the teachers agree that early detection of giftedness can be possible during early development. Children as young as preschool age tend to seek out highly stimulating environments. According to Raine, Reynolds, Venables, & Mednick (2002) increased stimulation seeking at age 3 years is associated with an increase in cognitive and scholastic test performance later in development. The advantages of identifying intellectual abilities of gifted children at an earlier age will allow educators to place them in the developmental classes that encourage and promote exploration in the domain of their giftedness.[55]

Tannenbaum[56] claims that the environment plays a major role in the nurturance of giftedness or higher intelligence. Giftedness and talent require a special environment just as special education would. The environment must be enriching and encouraging which will allow the child to mature through experience and exploration. The environment must facilitate creative activity in a developmentally appropriate manner which would call for classrooms to be designed for developmental levels as opposed to age or grade levelling.[55] This type of environment with differentiated learning could result from acceleration, lateral enrichment, and special grouping.[57] Also, a developmentally appropriate environment for the gifted child will reduce behavior problems among preschoolers due to an increased engagement and internal motivation for learning.[55]

Furthermore, it is behavioral exploration of the environment that is indicative of the childs intellectual ability later in life. The childs innate motivation to engage in physical activity (hands-on learning) marks a curiosity which motivates task persistence. The increased physical exploration in a social play environment and goal-directed behavior in the stimulating environment facilitate superior cognitive functioning.[58] In addition, gifted children will become high achievers when their interests are piqued by doing what they are innately motivated to do, empowering them to continue trying new skills.[55] Furthermore, when gifted or talented children are supported by educational staff, their community, peers and families, they have higher possibilities to develop their cognitive abilities.[55]

[edit] Talented students at the secondary levelWhat types of changes and support are needed to better enhance the development of talented adolescent students? Feldhusen (2003) addresses two major shifts in thinking needed to further the advancement of adolescents. Feldhusen proposes abandoning the program concept and the labeling of students as gifted. Programs are usually limited in time and are pull-outs that offer non-researched projects. The education of youth demands a wide diversity of experiences in accelerated courses plus extracurricular activities. Students may be served better when labeled talented instead of gifted. The term talent shows potential and suggests a developing ability.

Changes and support are embedded in Feldhusens Purdue Pyramid Model of Talented Development which facilitates learners in developing a personal strong foundation based on talented learners accepting themselves as legitimate human beings to the ultimate potential of realizing their commitment to the full development of ones ability and talent. Parent support is also critical in the development throughout the teenage years. Feldhusen stresses the importance of parental support. Parents provide financial and emotional support, guidance and motivation, and are a sounding board.

[edit] See alsoSocial emotional learning
Aptitude
Child prodigy
Gifted education
Heritability of IQ
Multipotentiality
Marland report
A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students
Davidson Institute for Talent Development
[edit] References1.^ Steven Pinker. "His Brain Measured Up". [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 12/4/06.
2.^ Colangelo, N., & Davis, G.(2003).Handbook of Gifted Education. Boston: Pearson education, Inc.
3.^ a b [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
4.^ a b Colangelo, N. & Davis, G. (2003). Handbook of Gifted Education.
5.^ Cason, K. (2001). Evaluation of a Preschool Nutrition Education Program Based on the Theory of multiple Intelligences [Electronic version]. Journal of Nutrition Education, 33, 161-166.
6.^ a b Johnsen, S. K. (2004). Identifying Gifted Students: A Practical Guide." Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc.
7.^ Kaufman, Alan S. (2009). IQ Testing 101. New York: Springer Publishing. pp. 151153. ISBN 978-0-8261-0629-2.
8.^ GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS. A Resource Guide for Teachers. Educational Services Division (Anglophone) Revised 2007 Department of Education, Government of New Brunswick, Canada.
9.^ Perleth, Christoph; Schatz, Tanja; Mnks, Franz J. (2000). "Early Identification of High Ability". In Heller, Kurt A.; Mnks, Franz J.; Sternberg, Robert J. et al.. International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Pergamon. p. 301. ISBN 978-0-08-043796-5. "norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the basis of empirical data of representative samples."
10.^ Freides, D. (1972). "Review of Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Third Revision". In Oscar Buros (Ed.). Seventh Mental Measurements Yearbook. Highland Park (NJ): Gryphon Press. pp. 772773. "The Binet scales have been around for a long time and their faults are well known. . . . Requiescat in pace"
11.^ Waddell, Deborah D. (1980). "The Stanford-Binet: An Evaluation of the Technical Data Available since the 1972 Restandardization". Journal of School Psychology 18 (3): 203209. doi:10.1016/0022-4405(80)90060-6. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 29 June 2010.
12.^ Perleth, Christoph; Schatz, Tanja; Mnks, Franz J. (2000). "Early Identification of High Ability". In Heller, Kurt A.; Mnks, Franz J.; Sternberg, Robert J. et al.. International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Pergamon. p. 302. ISBN 978-0-08-043796-5. "a gifted sample gathered using IQ > 132 using the old SB L-M in 1985 does not contain the top 2% of the population but the best 10%."
13.^ Feldman, David (1984). "A Follow-up of Subjects Scoring above 180 IQ in Terman's Genetic Studies of Genius". Exceptional Children 50 (6): 518523. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 8 July 2010. "Put into the context of the psychometric movement as a whole, it is clear that the positive extreme of the IQ distribution is not as different from other IQ levels as might have been expected.".
14.^ "Characteristics of Gifted/Creative Children". [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 2007-07-03.
15.^ Lovecky, Deirdre V.. Different Minds: Gifted Children with Ad/Hd, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits. Jessica Kingsly Publishers. pp. 2024. ISBN 1853029645.
16.^ "Experience and Processing: The Funnel and Cylinder Analogy of Giftedness by Shulamit Widawsky". [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] .
17.^ "SENG: Articles & Resources - Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration: Some implications for teachers of gifted students". [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 2006-09-17.
18.^ Gross, C., Rinn, A., & Jamieson, K. (2008). Gifted Adolescents Overexcitabilities and Self-Concepts. Journal of Gifted Education. 29, 4.
19.^ a b Taylor, Lorraine S. and Catharine R. Whittaker. Bridging Multiple Worlds: Case Studies of Diverse Educational Communities. Allyn and Bacon, 2003.
20.^ Ford, Donna and Tarek Grantham. "Providing Access for Culturally Diverse Gifted Students: From Deficit to Dynamic Thinking." Theory Into Practice. 42.3. 2003.
21.^ Olszewski-Kubilius, et al "Addressing the Achievement Gap Between Minority and Nonminority Children by Increasing Access to Gifted Programs Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 28.2 2004.
22.^ Frasier, Garcia & Passow. A Review of Assessment Issues in Gifted Education and Their Implications for Identifying Gifted Minority Students. The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented Feb. 1995
23.^ Lee, Seon-Young, Olszewski-Kubilius, Peternel. Follow-Up with students after 6 years of participation in project EXCITE. The Gifted Child Quarterly. Cincinnati: 2009. 53.2. p 137
24.^ a b Lee, Seon-Young, Olszewski-Kubilius, Peternel. Follow-Up with students after 6 years of participation in project EXCITE. The Gifted Child Quarterly. Cincinnati: 2009. 53.2.
25.^ Coleman, M. R., Harradine, C., & King, E. W. (2005). Meeting the needs of students who are twice exceptional. Teaching Exceptional Children, 38(1), 5-6.
26.^ King, E. W. (2005). Addressing the social and emotional needs of twice-exceptional students. Council for Exceptional Children, 28(1), 16-20.
27.^ a b c Krochak, L. A. & Ryan, T. G. (2007). The challenge of identifying gifted/learning disabled students. International Journal of Special Education, 22(3), 44-53.
28.^ Nielson, M. E. (2002). Gifted students with learning disabilities: Recommendations for identification and programming. Exceptionality, 10(2), 93-111.
29.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
30.^ Swiatek, M. A. (1995). An Empirical Investigation Of The Social Coping Strategies Used By Gifted Adolescents. Gifted Child Quarterly, 39, 154-160.
31.^ Plucker, J. A., & Levy, J. J., (2001). The Downside of Being Talented [Electronic version]. American Psychologist, 56, 75-76.
32.^ Robinson, N. M. (2002). Introduction. In M. Neihart, S. M. Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.) The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children. Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc. Lardner, C. (2005) "School Counselors Light-Up the Intra- and Inter-Personal Worlds of Our Gifted" as found on the World Wide Web at [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] .
33.^ Parker, W. D. & Mills, C. J. (1996). The Incidence of Perfectionism in Gifted Students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 40, 194-199.
34.^ Schuler, P. (2002). Perfectionism in Gifted Children and Adolescents. In M. Neihart, S. M. Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.). The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children (pp. 71-79). Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc.
35.^ a b Reis, S. M. & Renzulli, J. S. (2004). Current Research on the Social and Emotional Development of Gifted and Talented Students: Good News and Future Possibilities. Psychology in the Schools, 41, published online in Wiley InterScience.
36.^ Reis, S. M. & McCoach, D. B. (2002). Underachievement in Gifted Students. In M. Neihart, S. M. Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.). The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children (pp. 81-91). Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc.
37.^ Neihart, M. (2002). Risk and Resilience in Gifted Children: A Conceptual Framework. In M. Neihart, S. Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.) The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children. (pp. 113-124). Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc.
38.^ "SENG: Articles & Resources - Adolescence and gifted: Addressing existential dread". [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 2006-09-17.
39.^ Seed: The Reinvention of the Self
40.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
41.^ CJO - Abstract - Enlarged amygdala volume and reduced hippocampal volume in young women with major depression
42.^ CJO - Abstract - Quantitative MRI of the hippocampus and amygdala in severe depression
43.^ Grobman, J.(2006)Underachievement in Exceptionally Gifted Adolescents and Young Adults: A Psychiatrist's View. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education 17(4)199-210. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
44.^ Peter Breggin (February 2001). Reclaiming Our Children. Perseus Publishing. pp. 2122, 115116, 159162. ISBN 0738204269.
45.^ Grace Jackson. "A Curious Consensus: Brain Scan Proves Disease?" (PDF). [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 12/4/06.
46.^ Peter Breggin, Ginger Ross Breggin. "The Hazards Of Treating "Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" With Methylphenidate". [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 12/4/06.
47.^ a b Douglas Eby. "Interview With Stephanie Tolan". [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 12/4/06.
48.^ James T. Webb, Elizabeth A. Mechstroth, Stephanie Tolan (March 1989). Guiding The Gifted Child. Great Potential Press. ISBN 0910707006.
49.^ American Academy of Pediatrics. Subcommittee on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Committee on Quality Improvement (October 2001). "Clinical practice guideline: treatment of the school-aged child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder". Pediatrics 108 (4): 103344. doi:10.1542/peds.108.4.1033. PMID 11581465.
50.^ Goldman LS, Genel M, Bezman RJ, Slanetz PJ (April 1998). "Diagnosis and treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents. Council on Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association". JAMA 279 (14): 11007. PMID 9546570. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] .
51.^ ICD Version 2006: F91. World Health Organization. Retrieved on December 11, 2006.
52.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
53.^ a b Plomin, R., & Price, T. S. (2003). The relationship between genetics and intelligence. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (3rd Ed.) Handbook of Gifted Education (pp. 113-123). Pearson Education, Inc.
54.^ (e.g., Hollingworth, 1942 as cited in Sankar-DeLeeuw, N., (1999). Gifted preschoolers: Parent and teacher views on identification, early admission and programming. US: Roeper School Article Review, 21 (3) 174-179.
55.^ a b c d e Sankar-DeLeeuw, N., (1999). Gifted preschoolers: Parent and teacher views on identification, early admission and programming. US: Roeper School Article Review, 21 (3) 174-179.
56.^ (1996) In Colangelo, N. & Davis G. (2003). Handbook of Gifted Education (3rd. ed.). Pearson Education. USA.
57.^ (Tannenbaum, 1996). In Colangelo, N. & Davis G. (2003). Handbook of Gifted Education (3rd. ed.). Pearson Education. USA.
58.^ Raine, A., Reynolds, C. Venables, P., & Mednick, S. (2002).Stimulation seeking and intelligence: A prospective longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 663-674.
[edit] External links Look up gifted in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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TTG_Monkeyz wrote wOW KID U MUST REALLY FAIL I READ HALF THAT AND IT SAYS THAT IF A PERSON HAS MOD OR ACCEPTED BY ADMIN MAY SAY TOPIC CLOSED OR SOMETHING BUT IT DOSNT SAY UR TRYING TO BE A MOD WHEN U SAY CAN YOU GET A MOD TO CLOSE THIS NOW IF HE WOULDVE SAID " hey ima close this topic " now thats trying to be a mod kid now gtfo ur waisting my life : )

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Failure (disambiguation).
"Fail" redirects here. For the Irish Republican Party, see Fianna Fil.

Train wreck at Montparnasse, France (1895).Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to fracture of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of forensic engineering.

Contents [hide]
1 Failure in science
2 Criteria for failure
3 Types of failure
4 Commercial failures
5 Internet memes
6 More information
6.1 See also
6.2 Further reading
6.3 References
6.4 External links


Failure in scienceThomas J. Watson is attributed with saying "If you want to succeed, double your failure rate". Wired Magazine editor Kevin Kelly likewise explains that a great deal can be learned from things going unexpectedly, and that part of science's success comes from keeping blunders "small, manageable, constant, and trackable". He uses the example of engineers and programmers who push systems to their limits, breaking them to learn about them. Kelly also warns against creating a culture (e.g. school system) that punishes failure harshly, because this inhibits a creative process, and risks teaching people not to communicate important failures with others (e.g. Null results).[1]

Criteria for failureThe criteria for failure are heavily dependent on context of use, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. A situation considered to be a failure by one might be considered a success by another, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. Similarly, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation.

It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or heuristics, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.

Types of failureFailure can be differentially perceived from the viewpoints of the evaluators. A person who is only interested in the final outcome of an activity would consider it to be an Outcome Failure if the core issue has not been resolved or a core need is not met. A failure can also be a process failure whereby although the activity is completed successfully, a person may still feel dissatisfied if the underlying process is perceived to be below expected standard or benchmark.

1.Failure to anticipate
2.Failure to perceive
3.Failure to carry out a task
Loser is a derogatory term for a person who is (according to the standards of the observer) generally unsuccessful.

Commercial failuresA commercial failure is a product that does not reach expectations of success.

Most of the items listed below had high expectations, significant financial investments, and/or widespread publicity, but fell far short of success. Due to the subjective nature of "success" and "meeting expectations," there can be disagreement about what constitutes a "major flop."

For flops in computer and video gaming, see List of commercial failures in computer and video gaming
For company failures related to the 19972001 Dot-com bubble, see Dot-com company
See also Vaporware
Box-office bomb
Internet memes"Epic fail" redirects here. For the House episode, see Epic Fail (House).

Adaptation of above image illustrating an Internet meme"Fail" is the name of a popular Internet meme where users superimpose a caption, often the word "fail" or "epic fail", onto photos or short videos depicting unsuccessful events or people falling short of expectations.[2] In July 2003, a contributor to Urban Dictionary wrote that the term, "fail," could be used as an interjection, "when one disapproves of something," citing the example: "You actually bought that? FAIL." This most likely originated as a shortened form of "You fail" or, more fully, "You fail it," the taunting "game over" message in the 1998 Japanese video game Blazing Star, notorious for its fractured English.[3][4][5] There is an entire Internet site dedicated to "fails" called Fail Blog.[3] The #fail hash tag is used on the microblogging site Twitter to indicate contempt or displeasure, and the image that accompanies the message that the site is overloaded is referred to as the "fail whale".[6]

Failboat or consignment of fail is a popular macro series, featuring images of cargo vessels tipping over or shedding cargo, with captions such as 'the failboat has arrived', or 'all aboard the failboat'. The original vessel whose image was used was the MV Cougar Ace,[7] although the Ital Florida, the MV Napoli and even the SS Normandy, sunk at her berth in New York harbour, have appeared.

The term "miserable failure" has also been popularized as a result of a widely known "Google bombing," which caused Google searches for the term to turn up the White House biography of George W. Bush.[8]

More informationSee alsoCascading failure
Debugging
Fail-safe
Failure analysis
Failure mode
Failure rate
Forensic engineering
List of military disasters
List of railway disasters
Market failure
Murphy's law
New product development
Non-event
Planned obsolescence
Power outage
Product
Product management
Single point of failure
Structural failure
System accident
Tensile strength
White elephant
Further readingPerrow, Charles. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. New York: Basic Books, 1983. Paperback reprint, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-691-00412-9
Sandage, Scott A. Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-674-01510-X, ISBN 0-674-02107-X
References1.^ [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
2.^ "Memes Help Keep Internet Interesting.". [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . March 22, 2008. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved August 9, 2009.
3.^ a b Zimmer, Ben (August 7, 2009). "How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection.". New York Times. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved August 9, 2009.
4.^ Schofield, Jack (17 October 2008). "All your FAIL are belong to us.". The Guardian. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved August 9, 2009.
5.^ Beam, Christopher (2008-10-15). "Epic Win". Slate. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 2009-08-21.
6.^ Malik, Asmaa (24 April 2010). "Joy in the failure of others has gone competitive". Montreal Gazette. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 21 May 2010. [dead link]
7.^ "Failboat". Know Your Meme. rocketboom. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved 12 September 2010.
8.^ Mikkelson, Barbara; Mikkelson, David P. (August 13, 2007). "Someone Set Us Up The Google Bomb.". Snopes.com. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Retrieved August 9, 2009.
External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Failure

Designing Building Failures
Know Your Meme: FAIL
Zimmer, Ben (August 7, 2009), "How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection", New York Times Magazine, [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] .
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