Class Based Modification

Class Based Modification Wikipedia article mockup
"Class based modification", known as CBM, YD Classes, or just "classes", is a modification for the Total Conversion mod Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch, running on the Zandronum engine port of Doom. The aim of the mod is to take as many important characters in the Classic Mega Man series as possible, and create a playable class out of them with certain creative liberties and design choices. While many of the classes use the prominent Robot Master boss characters in the series, there are many other extra additions that do not follow this criteria.

Created during the first few years of the MM8BDM community, CBM still is today one of the most played mods of this Total Conversion mod, and many other mods followed on the class-based approach, as well as different playable interpretations of the characters.

The latest observed version is v9fh, compatible with MM8BDM v6a, and can be downloaded here.

1. Etymology of the name

The name "Class based modification" is meant in a practical sense: its a class-based modification of MM8BDM, using the characters of the Classic series, their abilities and talents and motifs, to create playable stand-alone classes, unlike its base mod counterpart which is based on Mega Man's Special Weapons used throughout the series, adapted for deathmatch game modes and arenas. The name is not to be taken as a form of recognizable brand or thematic choice: the decission for this name was perhaps simply due to its descriptive nature, or due to it being the first mod of its kind during the time of its creation. The choice of filename reflects this simplicity and origin, as it goes by the naming scheme of "classes" instead of "CBM".

During the early years of the mod's popularity, the mod was mostly associated with its main proponent and first project manager, known as Yellow Devil back then, so it was called "YD Classes" in order to differentiate it from other mods. Over the years, the user Yellow Devil changed names to Maxine, and the name "YD Classes" fell in disuse. The community and the remaining developers then began adopting a shortened acronym of the mod's forum thread title: "CBM". It is still used to this day by the mod, though many of the offshoots to it instead refer to it as the core version.

2. Development & Design

The development of CBM has consisted of a project manager and a small team of testers and contributors. The project manager handles the addition, modification, or removal of new and old content into the main file, and the rest of the team assists the project manager in any of these tasks, as well as testing these new features. The development is private, with the project manager and the current development team members discussimg matters internally, and choosing new members to join the internal team.

The team takes public feedback both formally through public official chat clients, and informally through private and public discussions in many other platforms and ways. When an issue or proposal is discussed, the developers often take part in the discussion being had, which then take internally to consider and discuss in order to make a decission. For a period of time, CBM decided to partake in public beta testing, releasing builds for the community to try and to give more direct feedback on the final shape of a feature for its official release. Early in its history, CBM directly took public submissions for most of its classes, while the project manager and its team of developers handled the bugfixing and balancing of the submitted classes; this practice would quickly dropped given the volume of popularity it initially met, and in favor of purely internal development, which is the current method used today.

The design of the classes in CBM is difficult to identify, as the experience and discussion that influenced design expectations grew with time within the community, and greatly influenced the internal developers of the mod. Many classes are noted to be "simple but effective" by players, while others are more "intricate" or "complex"; some classes are more suited for certain specific purposes or role archetypes than others, while some are very generalist and versatile. This is due to the fact that CBM was never aimed to be used for a strict game mode or a specific set of objectives, therefore the classes submitted or designed are often geared more towards general playstyles than very specific roles.

Another design observation is character interpretation, where CBM classes choose to take source material from these boss characters, and adapt them into a playable form that blends creative liberties and character fidelity. Many other mods created after CBM would seek to create different interpretations, with some following the source material more closesy, while others focused more on class archetypes. Because of this loose approach on class archetypes and character sources, CBM is aimed for a more casual, objective-less experience, and is thus further developed and balanced around this notion.

3. Known history within the community

The project began as a proposal made by Maxine, then known as Yellow Devil, on December 25th 2010 as a forum topic on the Cutstuff Forums. At the time, the most popular mod played using 8BDM was Rage Roboenza. Many other users jumped on board with the idea of creating a class-based mod, so Maxine added a poll to determine which cast of the first six Classic series games would be created first; the MM3 cast won the first poll, and thus these were the first group of classes created and added into the mod, which saw its v1 release on February 21st 2011.

The mod instantly became popular within the early days of the 8BDM community, and a poll was created the very next day to decide the second batch of classes that would be added into the mod; the MM1 cast won the poll and were released on the v2 version, but inititally Timeman and Oilman were not part of this batch, and would be added in later versions. Of note is that, despite the release of each group of classes being determined by a poll, Maxine and other members such as arkman, Korby, Ivory, Mr. X, ice, King Yamato and Chimera Man, and others were already working in advance on classes from other different casts such as the MM5 and MM4 casts.

The MM5 batch would then see first release on the v3 version of CBM, after winning yet another poll post v2's release. The sharp increase in popularity and interest allowed for a large amount of classes and work to be done in the span of a few short weeks. The v4 release saw the addition of the most classes in a single version to date: the MM2 batch, the MM6 batch, and both Bass and Dr. Wily classes, with a later version adding the Mega Man Killers.

Most of the work was done by Maxine, who acted as the file manager for the project, while other community members contributed on their own or alongside Maxine herself. Some would contribute directly with code suggestions and graphical submissions, others would report bugs and suggest balance changes and additions. All of the community discussion during this time was through the Cutstuff Forums in public, and through Skype chats in private for Maxine's team. Both in public and privately, a lot of the discussion was concerned with balance and bugs yet to be fixed, which was a source of debate that ultimately led to much more refinements over the years, and continues to this day.

After the eventual release of v5 and v6, with the MM4 cast and the MM7 cast respectively, development slowed down considerably while the popularity of the mod only rose to become a dominant figure. The rapid weekly pace of version releases would become months of work that were filled with lengthy balance discussions in the interim through the forums and ingame, which would eventually culminate in periodic releases that consisted of bugfixes, rebalancing, and partial reworks of older classes.

The peak of CBM's development cycle can be identified as lasting between its first release in February 21st 2011, and the release of version v5b on May 14th 2011; it would begin slowing down to a bi-weekly, monthly, and then much longer up to over a year. Much of 2012 and 2013 were concerned with the addition of the MM7 cast, and balancing of old content. This can be attributed to lack of interest by Maxine, the stressful nature of balance discussion, and an overall decay in interest for the base 8BDM mod as a whole, which also slowed down in development time and release span at the time. During this downtime, the internal development team with some new additions such as JaxOf7 and Celebi acting as project managers, would work on the rest of the cast that the base mod added the content from their respective game much, much later: the MM8 cast was released on version 7, and for version 8 the MM&B cast and the MMWT cast were released, as well as partially the MM9 cast and some extra classes such as a reworked Alien, Rock, and Dr. Light in later releases.

Of note during this time is the return of Maxine to a more active role as developer, seeing a period of activity with public betas between February and August 2017, mostly concerned with further rebalancing and the addition of the MM9 cast and some extra classes. Version 9 would also be subject to public beta testing, all the way to March 2018, which saw the addition of a portion of the MM10 cast and the cast from the fifth Gameboy Classic game. After some extra revisions all the way to November 2018, a community split would happen that led to a more serious competitive approach on the CBM formula, with v9d ultimately serving as its basis.

While CBM would still receive an extra three updates, the community as a whole moved on to the Competitive CBM patch project, which decided to not keep up with its core version in further updates. This would lead to a sharp decline in interest on the original CBM version, and this was reflected in its two-year long hiatus of no updates whatsoever, Maxine and JaxOf7 leaving the project for good, and CBM's acting project manager Celebi going mostly silent, until it was internally decided by the rest of the still-identifiable team of developers to push for an extra update. CBM version 9fh is the latest observed version of the mod, on January 19th 2021. Most of the developers and contributors of CBM would end up becoming developers for the base 8BDM total conversion mod, as well as known contributors and community members to the successor of the CCBM patch, Gondola.

4. Known list of developers (programmers, testers, artists)

Maxine arkman Korby Ivory ice Mr. X Chimera Man King Yamato Bikdark Myroc SaviorSword JaxOf7 Celebi MusashiAA CutmanMike Muzaru Trillster Pegg Sir Anon Over-Clock

6. Known versions and classes added

ENGINE PORT VERSION | 8BDM VERSION | CBM VERSION | RELEASE DATE | CLASSES ADDED

===========MM3=========== Skulltag 98d ---   MM8BDM-v1c ---     CBM v1a (february 21 2011) CBM v1b (february 23 2011) ===========MM1=========== CBM v2a (february 28 2011) CBM v2b (march 02 2011) ===========MM5=========== CBM v3a (march 09 2011?) ===========MM2-MM6, MMK, Bass and DrWily=========== CBM v4a (march 19 2011) CBM v4b (march 29 2011) CBM v4c (april 08 2011?)-KILLERS CBM v4d (april 10 2011?) CBM v4e (april 17 2011?) ===========MM5=========== CBM v5a (may 12 2011?) CBM v5b (may 14 2011) MM8BDM-v2a/v2b --- CBM v5c (june 12 2011) MM8BDM-v2b ---    CBM v5d (july 20 2011) ===========MM7 + PU=========== MM8BDM-v2c ---    CBM v6a (september 17 2011) CBM v6b (december 20 2011) CBM v6b-Fix (february 19 2012) CBM v6c (april 15 2012) CBM v6d (july 05 2012) CBM v6e (july 30 2012) Zandronum 1.0 ---  MM8BDM-v3a ---     CBM v6f (january 09 2013) Zandronum 1.2 ---  MM8BDM-v3a/v3b --- CBM v6g (july 03 2013, has a v3b compat version) ===========MM8=========== Zandronum 1.2 ---  MM8BDM-v3b ---     CBM v7a (january 01 2014) CBM v7ah (january 07 2014) CBM v7b (april 16 2014) CBM v7bh (april 21 2014) MM8BDM-v4a ---    CBM v7c (august 22 2014) ===========MM&B + WT + MM9 + Alien/Rock/Ryu + Nitro?=========== Zandronum 2.0 ---  MM8BDM-v4c ---     CBM v8a (july 08 2015) CBM v8b (july 27 2015) CBM v8c (june 08 2016?) Zandronum 2.1.2 --- MM8BDM-v5a? ---   CBM v8d (september 17 2016?) Zandronum 3.0  --- MM8BDM-v5b/v5c --- CBM v8e (between february 2017 and august 2017, public betas, the mm9 dump) ===========MM10 and MMV=========== MM8BDM-v5b/v5c --- CBM v9a (tons of betas, between august 2017 and march 22 2018) MM8BDM-v5c ---    CBM v9b (may 27 2018) CBM v9c CBM v9ch (june 10 2018) CBM v9d (november 08 2018) CBM v9dh (november 25 2018) MM8BDM-v5d ---    CBM v9e (january 31 2019) CBM v9eh (february 02 2019) MM8BDM-v6a ---    CBM v9f (january 17 2021) CBM v9fh (january 19 2021)-LATEST

7. Trivia section

8. Gallery?

9. Sources