DotA

DotA or Defence of the Ancients was so popular the genre it falls under is named after it. DotA started as a mod for Warcraft III Reign of Chaos by user Eul. The mod was inspired by the custom map Aeon of Strife for Starcraft. After the original map by Eul he did not update the mod at all, however the mod gained a small community and soon it became apparent that Steve Feak was leading the most popular version of the DotA mod. As DotA has gotten more famous it inspired a whole series of games. Steve Feak left the modding community of DotA and joined Epic Games and created the very popular League of Legends game. The marketing department for League of Legends coined the term MOBA or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena instead of calling their game a DotA. When Feak left user IceFrog took over and in true Valve fashion was hired and is currently working on developing DotA 2.

Pro Mod/Star Wars Galactic Warfare

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare is one of the greatest first person shooters of all time. It is one of my personal favourite games of all time and it won Game of the Year when it was released. The game was amazing and what I thought near perfect. That is until I was introduced to Pro Mod. Pro Mod took a very competitive multiplayer shooter and made it even more competitive. It removed perks and killstreaks and made many other tweaks that although kept the game the same, it completely changed how you played the game. It made the game insanely difficult and even more rewarding. Now Call of Duty 4 has seen its fair share of mods that changed up the game but none come close to the Star Wars Galactic Warfare Mod. From levels that looked like tatooine to blasters, to droids and even playable characters from the movies. The game even had redesigned killstreaks and looks and plays wonderfully.

Black Mesa

This one doesn’t really count as a Valve mod although it is a mod that recreates a classic and cult favourite Valve game, Half-Life. This mod took 8 years and boasts a team of 40 volunteers. The game is a complete remake of the original Half-Life. The remake was first started by two different teams that later combined to deliver this polished product. Black Mesa was also approved for distribution on Steam through the Steam Greenlight Program. The mod also won ModDB’s Mod of the Year for 2012.