I don't like players' consumerist attitude
I took up modding about a year ago. Made some things, started to make others. Like everywhere, audiences will like and not like. And if I make something very good, more might like than not, although the Internet is a breeding grounds for morons who'll give your project 1 star for who knows what moronic reason of their own and screw up your reputation. But all of that can be taken in stride with 5 minutes of meditation a day. What rankles me is the attitude of players, to mods and to expansions, for this game and for other games. I've seen it for Elder Scrolls mods and games, for Shadowrun, for everything that comes out...
It's an attitude of consumption. Players are just people, different people, but online a great many treat others' creations as something for them to chew on and gobble down and then ask for more. Ideas, creations are like porn to them. They download and delete in a blink. They have a million mods and expansions sitting on their machines, forming a nice background, like a minibar, and they think it's only natural that a million more should be out there - all of them free, of course. But when they can pay and decide to pay, the act only strengthens their conviction that now, at any rate, they have purchased the material like a hamburger. And, of course, they expect their hamburger to please the palate, otherwise they wonder loudly why it exists. They are generously accepting of many flavors: salty, sweet... even bittersweet, if there is under 0.5% of bitter. Truly, they think the world exists to titillate them.
There are other kinds of relationships between creators and audiences, like the model of art, which is not made for anyone's consumption but for the sake of beauty and the uplifting and freedom of the spirit. Blah blah, the consumers skipped the last sentence. They are too busy pleasuring themselves. And because they are only interested in the bits and parts that will rub their nipples and taste buds, they never see a complete picture of a project. Putting accents anywhere but on instant gratification is a complete waste of time with them. They are very tight-fisted with their time, too, and hoard it, as if it's some kind of supernatural currency they could buy the universe with if they were foolish enough for that deal. They only dispense the thinnest slices of their time, and they expect rivers of bounty in return for that magical Pringles. When they download a mod, they hardly ever do it because they've fallen in love with it; they only "try" things. They dip a finger and they lick it; if they like the taste, they might buy a little jar with their time.
And you better be grateful that you are bought! To be bought, preface every project with a sales pitch; the consumers like to be buttered up. Describe the perks and benefits in a bullet list. Ease of digestion is vital, because the consumers, like Twitter, have a built-in text length restriction. And, after all, they have already invested into a consideration of your humble request to please, please try this thing.
It's an attitude of consumption. Players are just people, different people, but online a great many treat others' creations as something for them to chew on and gobble down and then ask for more. Ideas, creations are like porn to them. They download and delete in a blink. They have a million mods and expansions sitting on their machines, forming a nice background, like a minibar, and they think it's only natural that a million more should be out there - all of them free, of course. But when they can pay and decide to pay, the act only strengthens their conviction that now, at any rate, they have purchased the material like a hamburger. And, of course, they expect their hamburger to please the palate, otherwise they wonder loudly why it exists. They are generously accepting of many flavors: salty, sweet... even bittersweet, if there is under 0.5% of bitter. Truly, they think the world exists to titillate them.
There are other kinds of relationships between creators and audiences, like the model of art, which is not made for anyone's consumption but for the sake of beauty and the uplifting and freedom of the spirit. Blah blah, the consumers skipped the last sentence. They are too busy pleasuring themselves. And because they are only interested in the bits and parts that will rub their nipples and taste buds, they never see a complete picture of a project. Putting accents anywhere but on instant gratification is a complete waste of time with them. They are very tight-fisted with their time, too, and hoard it, as if it's some kind of supernatural currency they could buy the universe with if they were foolish enough for that deal. They only dispense the thinnest slices of their time, and they expect rivers of bounty in return for that magical Pringles. When they download a mod, they hardly ever do it because they've fallen in love with it; they only "try" things. They dip a finger and they lick it; if they like the taste, they might buy a little jar with their time.
And you better be grateful that you are bought! To be bought, preface every project with a sales pitch; the consumers like to be buttered up. Describe the perks and benefits in a bullet list. Ease of digestion is vital, because the consumers, like Twitter, have a built-in text length restriction. And, after all, they have already invested into a consideration of your humble request to please, please try this thing.
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Comments
dude, make a fakcing mod first!
If I try out some mod/game and drop it after 1h because it is not fun to me this is basically equivalent to having wasted more than around 50 bucks. Because I value my time. If you want people to take the time to check the mod out, then yes, you should do exactly that. If you can't describe it well, you probably are not able to make a decent mod anyway. Even if it is decent, it might not suit me. I would also not go to a theater without reading what the play is about. Unless I am a fan of the director.
Please stop thinking of modding BG as some sort of high art, and expect us to "fall in love" with your mod. It does not bother me (why should it?), but it will make you unhappy.
Your problem seems to be that you at the same time wax about art for art's sake and wish for an audience. If you want an audience, then you also need to offer them what they want. And I can assure that many of the things we now consider to be high art (Shakespeare, Mona Lisa) where done by the artist for an audience, and it was what they wanted.
Now putting that aside I don't like how you insinuate that the players' time is unimportant. Baldur's Gate is an old game and most of its players are people who have to juggle between work, family and their other hobbies. Time is scarce and valuable so why should they spend it on things that don't interest them? It doesn't matter how much of a masterpiece you believe you have created, if you can't be bothered to make it appealing to others then they have no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt. You can get some leeway when you have proven yourself capable of releasing quality work but in your specific case, well, you haven't.
If you don't like it then tough luck I suppose, but ranting on how ungrateful players don't worship the altar your ~great art~ was made on won't endear yourself to anyone. This is primarily a player community after all.
Just mod the game how you want play it.
@chimeric You have to admit that there are mods and mods. Technical corrections and QLs is something on demand because we are all playing and you do not have to convince anyone that 999 arrows stack is better than 20 arrows stack (die hard oldfashionists do not count). While if you created new NPC - yes, you do have to convince someone to waste his/her time to try your creation on a risk of ruining their PT. Most of the people playing BG are not youngsters, time is precious and game-time is double so, not everyone will risk it. I'd consider it as fanfiction writing - truly a matter of personal taste and there are many people who never touch that kind of literature.
If you had good time creating your mod - you already got your satisfaction, praise from others is nothing more than icing on the cake. If you wanted to beat down someone's download record... Tough call and very unfair ground to begin with. Pretty sure you know all of this.
Realistic stats, roster updates, actual mask designs for goalies and up to date board/ice advertisements created a more realistic game and EA sales suffered from it.
On topic:
There should only be one consumer you should be worried about when making mods: Yourself.
If anyone else doesnt like them, that is their problem. People may however offer constructive criticism, which should be viewed as, "you are doing good, here is a way to do even better." Take those however you want.
- For customers, it means higher amount of quality content, but less time to discover it.
- For producers, it's access to better tools and tutorials, but also higher competition with their peers.
And as the time goes on, the situation is only gonna get more and more extreme. Perhaps you've heard about "indie apocalypse", how it becomes increasingly harder to make sales for indie one-man-team developers, - it's not limited to just games, it applies to everything, from books to mods.
That said, I do completely agree with majority here, that so long as you're free to put your work into public space, the public is also entitled to express opinions about your creation. I felt that way a decade ago, when I was just a player asked to GTFO when I offered opinion about someone's mod, I felt that way after I began making my own, and I still feel exactly the same right now. So, it's not necessarily a case of "you complain because you do nothing but consume in comfort, you'll change your mind the instant you try producing something", an argument I often saw used by disillusioned creators when dealing with unwanted criticism.
This is a little extreme an example, but let's say someone has erected a really ugly sculpture in my courtyard - he can rest assured I'll go get the neighbours and we'll relocate it to the nearest trash collector, or at least cover it in wraps. Because the courtyard is a public space and belongs both to none and everyone at the same time.
Things are askew.
@FinneousPJ , See, it's like this: some things are true, and others are not. Some people are taller, others are shorter. And some, in certain situations, are entitled whereas others are not. It's objective. Objectivity exists. Why? I don't know. I didn't make the world not democratic at the core. There is no logical justification why energy is life and entropy is death. It could as well be the opposite. And likewise it so happens that creativity and brilliance, in anyone, deserve recognition, and dumb, voracious indifference deserves nothing. I would agree with your last sentence if I didn't think it meant something like "it's a buyer's market." Also what you say about time being precious... Time is not money, you know? They've been lying to us about that for a few hundred years now. Your time is completely your own, and you don't have to juggle anything, unless you like juggling. Who put all those responsibilities on you? God? Time is not scarce either. You have all the time now that you will ever have, and just as you can't buy up some more, you can't lose it anywhere. Where would it go? You are your own time... Don't insult human nature, please! The consumer is not a paragon human being; what a funny thought.
But I've never demanded anything of my audience. I never expected them to react in any way except the way they truly felt about what I had created. If the response is positive, I feel good. If the response is negative, I change the content to make it more enjoyable. If the response is neutral, I try something new.
When people gushed over my first no-reload run, I decided to keep doing them. But when @Blackraven said the randomized no-reload runs weren't as interesting, I stopped randomizing my characters and did stuff I thought would be more entertaining. When people complained about my Link's Awakening hack, I changed the hack based on the complaints, and suddenly people started responding very positively--including the people who initially complained.
I'm happy if my audience is happy. So, I change my work based on what they want. Sure enough, they like it, they say they like it, and both of us are happy about it. It works.
The sad truth of life is that most people who change the world never enjoyed the fruits of their labour and sacrifice. You may create the Garden of Eden yet some degenerates will dishevel the place with their greed and ignorance; that is if you let them. If you want to change the world be the change you seek and be your own hero; life is always watching even if you nor anyone else is watching. A sacrifice for a dream is never wasted upon the soul.
If you have a passion then become a bastard and fight for it and never yield to the adversities of life. No one will hit you harder than life and only you can within your own heart give up on your dreams and likewise only you can live your dreams; no one else has your dreams they are yours! Life does not give dreams and passions to people without an opportunity for those people to rise and to become those dreams and to become those passions incarnate; to rise greater than one can even begin to imagine. To be worthy of a fulfilled life one must make themselves worthy and be willing to sacrifice everything for what they believe in. Hagakure, the way of the Samurai states to wake up everyday and accept and be at peace with death and to choose death at every opportunity when faced with the choice of live and death; if one wishes to live in battle one will die but if one knows that one is already dead then one will live. If you yield to life and give into the crush of failure and sequester your heart to mediocrity waking up in the morning only to lay down again at night; life will rightfully yield to you nothing. Yet if you are stubborn tenacious and dogged and grim you lose all of your terror of the opposition for what you seek and life seems empty and useless without it then by god only then will life yield to you everything.
I played nearly every BG mod under the sun and I appreciate the work and dedication gone into their creation.
I don't like all of them, and I often kick out a mod NPC if I'm disappointed. I can't expect that every writer fits my taste, just like I can't expect that they only play MY songs on the radio.
The bigger a mod is, the more chance there is, that nobody likes all of it. I love the old and new mega mods but
I accept that i won't like every single scene in them. Same with the romantic encounters or romances.
Modders can't expect to get much applause but I advocate that they (most of them anyway) deserve some respect and appreciation. It's their work that keeps the game alive and interesting, especially an old game after so many years.
In the same amount of time that it takes to write some silly posts (this forum is full of those), a player could give a modder some feedback. Not praise and jubilation or bashing, just feedback, hints etc. For me, to write a bug report is some kind of feedback as well: "I play your mod and I care enough to write about a bug."
Feedback is the coin the modders get paid with. Don't claim you don't have time for that when you have time to visit this forum and read the topics.
Recently, I gave up on caring if I was "The best" at it as I never will be (there are far too many better costume makers than I will ever be) and I am fine with that. There are moments when I will be doing something obscure or have some detail in a costume that I am proud of that will get noticed. Those moments are what I live for now. And if they don't happen, I am fine with that. I do it because I enjoy it. Sure, I want to get noticed. But more than that I want to just have fun with it.
If you think that there is too much consumerism out there, maybe (just maybe) your focus isn't what it should be. Do a thing like creating a mod (or cosplay) because you enjoy it, not because you live and die based on the feedback you get. The internet is capricious and fickle. People will knock something simply because they are in a mood or because of something wasn't the way THEY would have done it. That's on them. Don't base your self worth or creative ability on someone else. If YOU are proud of a thing, that is (or should be) enough.
And if you think that the BG community is particularly guilty, please check out the Elder Scrolls community or the Star Trek community (people HATE Discovery for no other reason than it isn't what they would have done).
Getting off of my soap box now.