Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five things that I should’ve done while making rosters for various games.

Although my modding output has dwindled to sporadic releases over the past decade or so, there was a time when I was extremely active. Current rosters were my bread and butter, and as I’ve recalled in a couple of Wayback Wednesday features, I also created 1996 season mods for NBA Live 2001 and NBA Live 2004. Burnout put an end to my days as a prolific roster modder around 2013, but I did genuinely enjoy the creative satisfaction of modding for many years before that. As such, the lure has always lingered, and I’ve never wanted to completely shut the door on a return.

Indeed, I have released a couple of rosters for NBA Live and NBA 2K games since then. However, I’ve also had a couple of ill-fated attempts at updating NBA 2K11 for the current season, an idea that sadly fell through despite my best intentions. When I reflect upon my burnout, stepping away from roster modding, and my attempts to get back into the hobby, I can identify the mistakes I made, and what I should’ve done instead. From philosophical and strategic approaches to technical procedures, there are definitely things I should’ve done differently, and will certainly strive to do so with any roster projects moving forward. Here are five of the most important ones.

1. Chosen One Game (Or At Most, Two) To Make Rosters For

Towards the end of my run creating current rosters for NBA Live on PC, I maintained updates for NBA Live 2005, 06, 07, and 08 simultaneously. Even though I’d devised methods to create the updates in NBA Live 08 first and then convert them for use with its predecessors, it was still a ton of work. Because there were still a number of people playing those last four NBA Live games on PC – either because they preferred them or they discovered they couldn’t run NBA 2K – I felt a duty to keep the updates going. While this was well-intentioned, it heavily contributed to burnout. I took ages to get the 2013 roster out, and then consequently stepped away from roster mods for years.

Looking back, what I should’ve done was to pick just one game – or two at most – and stick to that. It’d still be a big workload and burnout was pretty much inevitable at that point, but I might’ve lasted a little longer. Had I just stuck to the NBA Live PC project for NBA Live 06, and maybe done a conversion for NBA Live 2005 – in other words, just updated the two PC releases that I liked best out of the last four – there’s a chance I could’ve maintained my enthusiasm, at least for a couple more seasons. Yes, anyone who preferred NBA Live 07 or NBA Live 08 would be left out, but trying to support games that I didn’t enjoy or play was destined to dampen my passion for modding.

2. Made Incremental Post-Draft Updates

I learned a lot from our founders, Tim, Lutz, and Brien; especially Tim and Lutz, as they were the big roster guys in the early days of our community. Unfortunately, one lesson that I failed to learn was the importance of incremental updates following the Draft, instead aiming to add the entire class of rookies in that first offseason release. In my defense, it was an attempt to avoid comments telling me that I’d “forgotten” to add this player or that player, despite the release notes clearly stating something like “first twenty picks added; more to come”. Suffice it to say that there was both internal and external pressure for every roster update to be as complete as it possibly could be.

To that end though, I fell into the same mindset that interprets “as soon as possible” as “imminently”, i.e. focusing on “soon” and not the important qualifier of “as possible”. If adding rookies in batches made maintaining the rosters easier – and in hindsight, it would’ve – then every release would indeed be as complete as it possibly could be, at the time. It’s easier said than done because I wanted to hold myself to a high standard, and at times there were competing rosters, but I should’ve just done what worked for me instead of bowing to the pressure. Incremental updates with clear release notes that I’d reiterate as needed could’ve made the rosters much less of a chore back then.

3. Used Placeholders & Outdated Art As Needed

Similarly, the desire to provide a complete, comprehensive, and authentic-looking roster overrode common sense when it came to missing artwork. Towards the end of maintaining current rosters for NBA Live, I did learn how to make some art updates, namely team logos and conversions that didn’t require much more expertise than re-sizing and re-importing textures. For the most part however, I was collaborating with other modders who were providing their work for inclusion in the rosters, in order to bring the game up to date. This was what we’d come to expect of current rosters, but as games grew older and modders moved on, it was harder to get all of those updates.

As with the post-Draft updates, I should’ve resisted the pressure and provided releases as a work-in-progress that would be updated with all the necessary assets as modders made them available to me. Outdated team art and placeholder faces would’ve drawn more complaints, but that’s just the way it goes as the community moves on from a game (and hey, if you want to lend a hand with the rosters by helping out with faces, jerseys, and courts…wait, where are you going?!?). Basically, as long as I remained motivated to create current roster updates, I should’ve been prepared to release them as-is, and copy and paste a stock answer about needing help to complete the project.

4. Devised Shortcuts That Don’t Compromise Quality

I’m leery of taking too many shortcuts when it comes to making rosters. Obviously, they speed up the process, making it more likely that a project will be finished. At the same time, anything that allows you to churn out roster mods very quickly is likely going to compromise their quality. Sure, you’ve just created a whole retro season mod or maybe even a couple of them in short order, but between attributes that are copied and pasted or just flat-out wrong, and potential technical issues with the process, there isn’t the same amount of care and quality as a “hand-crafted” roster mod. Not to get all pretentious here, but it’s like comparing a real artist’s beautiful painting to AI slop.

With that being said, there’s no artistic integrity in taking the long road unnecessarily; not when it comes to modding a video game, anyway. It would’ve been prudent, and possibly staved off burnout, if I’d devised some reliable shortcuts that made some of the arduous tasks quicker and easier, while still taking the time to add the necessary polish. I did do that to some extent, creating batch files for global updates and fixes where manually updating every single player would be needlessly, foolishly tedious. However, if I’d been able to devise some more methods that would’ve saved time and avoided burnout without cutting corners, I might’ve been modding more frequently.

5. Branched Out Into Projects Other Than Current Rosters

I’ve said this before, but it still holds true. As Dee and I have discussed on the NLSC Podcast, he correctly identified that one of the main reasons that my attempts to work on current rosters for NBA 2K11 fell through is because I’m not as enthusiastic about the current NBA. There are other reasons, of course. I did bite off more than I could chew there, planning and even teasing a project before I was completely familiar with some of the technical aspects and required workarounds of NBA 2K roster modding. Mind you, even after I figured those things out, I just wasn’t keen enough on today’s NBA – or NBA 2K11, to be completely honest – to tackle a current season roster mod.

What I should’ve done, whether it was for NBA 2K11 or another game I was moved to tinker with, was work on a roster that appealed to me. A throwback season mod, All-Time Legends squads, or maybe a collection of appealing retro teams like Dee’s Ultimate Classic Teams Roster, would’ve been far more sensible projects for me to undertake. The fact that I have been able to release a couple of minimalist rosters for old PC and even Xbox 360 titles is proof that if I branch out into other interesting projects for games that I actually want to play, and leave current roster updates for games I’m not playing to others in the community, I can still enjoy roster modding.

Roster modders, what is your process when working on projects, and what tips do you have for remaining engaged and efficient? Mod users, how do you feel about work-in-progress releases, if it means projects actually stand a chance of being finished? Have your say in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

The post The Friday Five: 5 Things I Should’ve Done With My Rosters appeared first on NLSC.