beep beep cork2

This is actually somewhat deceiving.  

There have actually been quite a few single team mods like Maelstrom, Sins of the Fallen, Stars or even older stuff like Sins Plus, Mad Scientist, Bailknights, etc. The mods with active teams in sins (excluding playtesters) tend to range from 2 to 5 active team members. Even in those though there's usually one guy that drives the mod to a large extent.

I'd like to see ManSh00ter's creation too but will just wait to see if he decides to deliver anything or simply move on.

Here is the fact, i have followed this mod on and off for 5 years, in this time i have finished college and now currently working in my field of work since graduation. This is probably one of the best examples of vaporware next to blackmesa on the web. Really saddens me as I have pretty much given up all hope on this mod ever seeing the light of day.

If you want to see an even bigger piece of Sins vapor ware, check out Dawn of Victory.

Releasing early versions is always something I tell modders not to do. Quite frankly, it tends to butcher motivation. "Good ideas" are something modders are never short on.

However, it takes a special kind of devotion to bring a mod to completion regardless of your release ethics. It just so happens only the tiniest few of people have that kind of devotion.

The problem with mods never being seen as complete is unrelated to release schedules. It's something that most people will deal with regardless. However, generally most people have an idea of where something is "complete". Which bring us to one of the reasons why most people should completely ignore all outside input, and that is Feature Creep.

Feature creep is surprisingly difficult to manage. Knowing when to stop is an important skill, and knowing when to stop expanding concepts. Ideally, by the time a mod releases an Alpha, its features/ideas are already frozen and figured out and the developer knows exactly what he's going to be adding, when, and why, and doesn't need any further input. Otherwise he's just kind of winging it and this can spiral out of control in a hurry. Thus why mods just die out in a slow, agonizing, and pitiful manner.

Personally, I don't know any projects or project creators who have objectively finished a project they released early. Like, actually finished. Yes, this is based on personality, but most people building projects are doing it for hype/attention and are doomed to failure one way or another. Those building the projects for themselves will finish it either way, regardless if it takes years to finish it or not (for a game like sins, a TC really shouldn't take any longer than 1-2 years unless you're seriously schedule strapped or lacking in skills, in which case you're in trouble regardless). From my observations, many sins mods struggle to maintain stable production lead in the first place.

In most instances, releasing an alpha hurts you in that it will cost you motivation because you will only see another mountain ahead of you to overcome, and it hurts the fanbase because the fanbase only sees a shadow of what they hoped for lacking in virtually everything the developer hopes to create. Then they are stuck waiting for shallow incremental updates the developer has to worry about releasing instead of just sticking to his guns until he feels totally comfortable.

If you have the devotion to withstand the long crawl of incremental releases, then that's great. But it is something I will always recommend against, especially for new modders. It is harder to manage than you think, especially if your goal is indeed to reach a final release at all.

In fact, for most people, I recommend keeping public presence to an absolute minimum, limited only to research (e.g. asking for help doing stuff) and never talking about specific things until it's done. The sense of obligating oneself, either to releases or to appease others, as opposed to working for oneself's desire is a deadly enemy of motivation and personal stability. I will take my own advice and cease discussion of such matters. Let Allah decide what works for who.

We just want to steal your models Mansh00ter.  release an alpha demo. Heh Heh Heh.

Hey--I did put my strikecraft models up.  I think Myfist0 might have them still?

I also put up my small strike mod but Rebellion broke it and I never updated it.

Now--we need Mansh00ters models for study--ye-esss.

 I don't know any projects or project creators who have objectively finished a project they released early

Probably you do not know to me. I do not speak from SOASE but I have made many mods at very few time just because I did not make a impossible proyect, it is the key, at my opinion people should not make mods which they can not make. I say it because I have seen many people without skills starting big mod proyects and personally these imposible mods kill the mod communities.