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I don't like players' consumerist attitude

chimericchimeric Member Posts: 1,163
edited October 2017 in Off-Topic
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.
PaulaMigrateverlaineWithinAmnesia

Comments

  • InKalInKal Member Posts: 196
    edited October 2017
    there was once this guy, a modder and he was like praying to God all day and all night: oh, Gawd, plz make the peoples love my mod, let them give praise and let them say how awesome I am for making it, oh Gawd plz, plz, pretty plz...day and night non stop. Silence and silence and silence...and! one day finally ! the clouds disapeared, the sun shined and the face of God appeared and the God said:

    dude, make a fakcing mod first!
    [Deleted User]ArtonaDJKajuru
  • WesboiWesboi Member Posts: 403
    No one will remember your mods in a month or so as pretty much nothing left to mod or change in BG series what hasn't been already modded considering the game is decades old.

    Just mod the game how you want play it.
    Mathsorcerer
  • MirandelMirandel Member Posts: 526
    InKal said:

    there was once this guy, a modder and he was like praying to God all day and all night: oh, Gawd, plz make the peoples love my mod, let them give praise and let them say how awesome I am for making it, oh Gawd plz, plz, pretty plz...day and night non stop. Silence and silence and silence...and! one day finally ! the clouds disapeared, the sun shined and the face of God appeared and the God said:

    dude, make a fakcing mod first!

    A very accurate description of some of us :|

    @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.
    ThacoBellArdanis
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    If you don't like the attitude of consumption then stop making things available for people to consume.
    MortiannaThacoBellArtona
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811

    I've been modding for over 20 years. I've spent thousands and thousands of hours doing mapping, coding, texturing, modelling, sound editing, everything. Modded every type of game at some point or another(except shitty sport games). And I've learned the secret to keeping it fun and staying sane is to NEVER RELEASE ANYTHING.

    Off topic a bit, but one of the reasons why EA's NHL series isn't available on PC anymore was their modding community made it moot to purchase the game every god damn year.

    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.
    FinneousPJMirandelArdanisThacoBell
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    edited October 2017
    What others haven't mentioned yet is that we live in the age of abundance, at least for digital entertainment. It comes with both advantage and disadvantage, both for customers and producers:
    - 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.
    ThacoBellKuronaMirandel
  • chimericchimeric Member Posts: 1,163
    edited October 2017
    Mirandel said:


    @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.

    Actually, I don't want to have 999 arrows in one quiver. Maybe 30 instead of 20, after that you lose a little gameplay element. And I'm not a die-hard old-fashionist. I'm not old enough to be old-fashioned. :D I just know that all these conveniences come with a price, and that there is a certain pace and measure and correspondence which if we violate or forget, we ultimately end up without enjoyment and running in circles. Call those laws biological or physical or supernatural, but they exist. And much of the fire and fury online only pretends to be high-quality content that @Ardanis talks about; actually I think quality is constantly being lost together with artisanship. Fantasy art of the last couple of decades, for example, is almost complete trash, because few young painters have had real academic education as draughtsmen and fewer and fewer know how to use real tools. They turn to digital cop-outs where you pour a Photoshop glow over some ugly anatomy stolen from the previous hack, add a superbig Blizzard sword and rush to start the next "project"... I don't think the consumerist attitude is because of too much high cuisine made too easy; I think it's because of struggling in a sea of slop, looking desperately for something other than bare bones and artificial flavors... Just see how overjoyed players get when they find something real - if they can notice and understand what they found, which is increasingly a problem. I could name a few games from the recent years that were brilliantly creative and deserved better than a... warm welcome. But that's all they got.

    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.
    Kurona said:

    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? ...This is primarily a player community after all.

    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...

    @ OP : So, now that you have issued a general call for human nature to change, now that you've demanded that respect and attention be given to you and your creations on your terms, what do you expect will happen?

    Don't insult human nature, please! The consumer is not a paragon human being; what a funny thought. :D The guy with the hamburger as the pinnacle of progress. Move over, Pericles and Socrates and Van Gogh and all those other people, famous and unknown, who have tried to bring something new into the world. Maybe some worked on a microscopic scale, too. They never made it into history books. Maybe their scene was very small and their efforts were also very small and obscure, but they added a little to human knowledge - or just invented something for its own sake, a brave tiny animal to run around... But I'll answer your question. You wanted to know why I wrote what I did? You can't imagine that it was for something other than self-aggrandizement, but I wrote it for the accidental stranger. For the wanderer who may not participate much, but just looked into this, drawn by the title, I wrote it. He, she, must exist as some fraction of a percent. Someone who would answer not like all of the people above, even the very reasonable Ardanis, but who would say: I know what you mean.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511

    Time isn't money, true enough; time is way, way more valuable.

    Yes, you can always get more money, but once time is gone it's gone.
    ThacoBellsemiticgoddessMirandel
  • WithinAmnesiaWithinAmnesia Member Posts: 958
    edited October 2017
    @chimeric Love has no basis without sacrifice. People most of the time are very mediocre at best in most things, and very few excel at anything. If you study a bit of history about the Roman Empire, mainly what some call the age of decadence you may find parallels with your frustration now to with the unappreciative population back then.

    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.
    cbarker15
  • ArtonaArtona Member Posts: 1,077
    It's quite a leap to start with ungrateful players who don't appreciate mods, and end up with Pericles.
    ;)
    BelleSorciereMirandel
  • Son_of_ImoenSon_of_Imoen Member Posts: 1,806
    Chimeric gets a lot of criticism in this topic, but I do love the prose of the OP. Agreeing or not with the meaning of the message, the wordings chosen are a pleasure to read, especially the imagery and symbolism.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    Time to find a cheap garret in Montmartre methinks.
  • tbone1tbone1 Member Posts: 1,985
    I never worried about reaction too much. If I created something on my own (short story, song, meal, etc) I did it to please me, not others. It’s gratifying when people like it, but I don’T do these things for applause.
  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    edited October 2017
    I'm among those who never published their *mods*, in my case little tricks and tweaks and an animal companion I made for myself and put into mod form so I can always install them on a new game.

    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.
    semiticgoddessStummvonBordwehrMirandelBleriot
  • chimericchimeric Member Posts: 1,163
    tbone1 said:

    I never worried about reaction too much. If I created something on my own (short story, song, meal, etc) I did it to please me, not others. It’s gratifying when people like it, but I don’T do these things for applause.

    It's not about applause. It's about impact. Yes, even in this micro world of ours.
    Balrog99
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    I wish I could click insightful, agree, and like all at once.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    Come on man. I want a mod that does everything I want, the way I want it, immediately and free! I just don't want to do any of the work. I totally have the right to bitch about it too!
    Redrake
  • RedrakeRedrake Member Posts: 426
    Balrog99 said:

    Come on man. I want a mod that does everything I want, the way I want it, immediately and free! I just don't want to do any of the work. I totally have the right to bitch about it too!

    You could also ask for damages (in cash) for each bugs you find.
    Balrog99
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    Balrog99 said:

    Come on man. I want a mod that does everything I want, the way I want it, immediately and free! I just don't want to do any of the work. I totally have the right to bitch about it too!

    On the other hand, it is not out of line to be critical of a mod, rather than simply accept it as given if it's not satisfactory. The author doesn't have to take that criticism to heart but like if you don't want to deal with possible critical reactions to your work, maybe you shouldn't put it out there?
    tbone1ThacoBell
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
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