This is a belated piece. I meant to write a summary some months ago, particularly for the Chinese modders. However, drowned was I, in the difficult chapter. There were too much data, and too few words we were allowed to say. The original 14'000 words (already trimmed) was further reduced to 11'000 between Bonnie and I, and then 9'000 by William Bainbridge. Many iterations went between us, and I fall silent in areas outside of the book chapter.

Chinese are very concerned about overview of their community. This is a clear distinction with Americans, who are more concerned about protecting their own rights. Since my targets are the Chinese modders, I will attempt to write it in a way Chinese can comprehend.

My research started last April in 2008. We met first with AnduinLothar of now demised Cosmos Team. He was a student at our university. Cosmos Team was an important part of the modding communities in both China and the U.S. They were the first World of Warcraft (WoW) modding group. In the U.S., they were the first "real" community that were open to all modders. In China, early compilations were derivatives of Cosmos.

Community Spirit

AnduinLothar had been modding for many years, including Starcraft and Warcraft. For World of Warcraft, he had reached the highest level, and he was "looking for something else to do." This process of looking was also seen in other modders, such as Cogwheel. Cogwheel is one of the three authors of the book - "World of Warcraft Programming, A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons." We were intrigued. Why would someone wanted to look for something better to do in such a great game? Did he get sick of it?

The answer was never very clear to us. However, we knew that community is very important in the U.S. In Chinese societies (like China and Singapore), we often turn to the authority for solutions to social problems. Chinese want an authority to create mods for them, and to teach them how to mod. An Americans, on the other hand, join hands with others to become part of a community effort. They want to contribute to it, and in the process make themselves known. In his own ways, AnduinLothar helped documenting WoWWiki and converting the early mods into the new addon format. The development of WoWWiki was possible only with the help of a Blizzard developer called Slouken, or Sam Lantinga. Blizzard never officially supported modding. However, Slouken volunteered himself and gave his time to impart "inside" knowledge of how the APIs worked. He also helped set up the current addon format. The current format was in place in December 2004. Cogwheel was never deep into playing games. He liked to tackle hard problems in programming. He explored rarely used APIs and macros, and document them in the WoW UI and Macro Forums and other websites.

We need to stress that when an American joins a community, he is ready to contribute; because in the U.S., it is not acceptable to sit by and wait to be fed. Contributing is part of the American ethos, the code of conduct, and I think - "face"! Even though there is no such word in English, I think the closest I heard was "it doesn't look good on me [to sit by and do nothing]."

In China, we saw a different kind of community spirit - learning. "Learning" is a word not often heard in the U.S. It seems that it is bad to dictate what someone should do. Since learning often requires dictation, we did not hear the word very much. Many U.S. modders go into WoWWiki or the Forums on their own accord and extract the information they needed.

I think the Chinese borrowed learning from their cultural history; Chinese has a long history of learning. They already know the protocols very well. For example, what does a teacher means, what does a student do, and who has higher authority. We need to remember that online games come to China only in 2001, and WoW was the first game involving modding! The organization structure of learning was borrowed to develop China's first modding community--CWDG. The leaders in CWDG are also teachers. Members are learners. Such community setup is best suited for an unfamiliar activity.

Development

In the U.S., we saw a mostly linear development of the community--much like Hollywood movie! After Cosmos Team had documented a sufficient amount of API information on WoWWiki, the number of modders and mods increased. When enough modders were scripting the same types of codes, there was a need for standardization to save repeated work. That translated into WowAce programming framework. Modders who started WowAce, like Kaelten, were what I would say "second generation modders." Instead of focusing on first principles, they focus on improvements--faster and more effective. Xinhuan, CKKnight, and Kaelten are some of the second generation modders. Xinhuan was a Singaporean and modder for Omen3. CKKnight and Kaelten were working for Curse. CKKnight and Xinhuan often gave advice for modders how to improve on their codes. Questhelper was improved with the help of Xinhuan.

Together with WowAce, there were two important development. One was the localization app. Two was WowAceUpdater. Localization app simplified language localization. I believed that the app lowered entry barrier to modding. This was particularly true for the Chinese modders. WowAceUpdater allowed players to handle more mods, allowing U.S. players to transit from using compilation to individual mods. Compilations are not popular in the U.S. today.

Chinese development took another path. It began with compilations that emulated Cosmos. Also many of the major modding groups, such as BigFoot, WowShell, and YueGuangBaoHe, were supported by commercial companies. U.S. communities were not commercialized until around 2006, when their development had reached maturity. The ability of Chinese groups to commercialize early seemingly depended on re-engineering--a kind of learning. We mentioned that learning requires dictation--someone else to have done it before. The Chinese are therefore not organize to push the state of the art.

Chinese players also never seem to learn, even today, what is a mod. They know where to find mods - wowchina.com. But they have never ask: where did the mods come from? BigFoot and WowShell are the most well known among Chinese mods, and not known are the many independent mods they are made of.

Again, this was not surprising when we learned that modding came to China with WoW. Players take time to learn. Learning culture, a thousand years old culture, is there to ensure the Chinese are keeping up. In my opinion, CWDG has already done a great job.

Future Issues

on the day I am leaving Beijing to California, Simonw and I were talked about an issue which is personally more worrying. That is the seemingly inability for Chinese to work together, particularly across groups. We have not seen The9 (the Chinese distributor for WoW) reaching out to the modders (apart from BigFoot, because BigFoot's leader worked in The9 localization department). Blizzard, similarly, has yet offered help to the Chinese modders. Chinese, by nature, tend to stay close to people they already know. But for strangers, an aura of distrust automatically looms.

Since The9 was never a source of information, CWDG learn modding from WoWWiki; WoWWiki is populated by the Americans, so information flows across the pacific that way.

The Chinese modders also depend on other U.S. infrastructure, such as the WowAce. Of course, WowAce is popular even among European modders. Infrastructure is important to creative work. They help individuals to focus on creative work. But building infrastructure require collaborative effort. Imagine to have something like WowAce to emerge in China. BigFoot, WoWShell, YueGuang, CWDG, and other groups had to work together: That is unthinkable based on my current understanding.

While a genius can do amazing things, I reckon that a cordial community of ordinary people can achieve more. I do see a lot of hope in China, particularly after talking to Shining Gan of Wownei about the many 3rd party development teams emerging in China. Chinese technological groups are conjuring another age old culture--a sort of a family type bonding within technical groups. We may call such groups "core teams." "3rd party development teams" such as Wownei, consist of many members. But their success much rely on a small group of core members, each highly dedicated, reliable, as well as skilled in carrying out the group's duties. Core team members are unusually close to one another, even to the extent of sharing the same monetary account and knowing each other's taste for food! You do not see such phenomena in the U.S. Americans are much more private in nature, and they assemble and disassemble teams with few emotional residues.

If 3rd party development teams in China can develop protocols to collaborate in greater numbers, glimpses of hope will appear in China. Shining Gan said, "Even when business fails, the friendship still remains." This was the kind of attitude that needs amplify.

Finally, I felt that CWDG opened a new chapter in China's online world; it opened up modding and an open community concept. Despite its current difficulties, I believe that it has outperformed its circumstances. We do not need the types of U.S. modders like AudinLothar and Cogwheel in China. We need people like Simonw, YueSeLangYing, and Shining Gan. Because the future of China is built on its past. The drivers need to understand that past, in order to drive into the future.

The Chinese version of this writeup can be found in CWDG's forum. http://bbs.cwowaddon.com/redirect.php?tid=5824&goto=lastpost#lastpost