Is it me, or do some people not "get" that FTB and its mods are free ?

[MoosyDoosy]

"Mod devs must give really good head if FTB doesn't ask them for mods."
I've actually seen this comment before (and am proud I started a flamewar over it as well as numerous others).

 

[Zenthon_127]

Totally agree with this post. My props to you sir.


On another note though, I do kinda feel like we're also getting a disturbing amount of the extreme version of your message as well lately, aka "you cannot criticize mods or packs at all because they're free", which in my opinion is equally destructive as people being entitled pricks. Just something I'd like to bring up.

 

[TheAbstractHippo]

"you cannot criticize mods or packs at all because they're free", which in my opinion is equally destructive as people being entitled pricks. Just something I'd like to bring up.

I agree. There IS that middle ground that is constructive criticism. It's a pretty slippery slope, though, sadly.

 

[MrCervelo]

I remember when there was a big delay for RP2 coming out, and I saw a certain amount of hate levelled at Eloraam about it. People were annoyed that she wasn't prepared to share her code, was slow in updating it etc. It was annoying that we were waiting on a single mod, but I recognised that she was doing it for nothing in amongst her job. It was also her baby, so I could at least understand why she didn't want to release it into the wild for other people to work on.

I also remember seeing a criticism of Azanor when he released (I think) TC 4, the fact that it made some pretty significant changes in the mod. The criticism was about the fact that at least in Vanilla MC, you could often just update your world after each release as there weren't changes along these lines.

From my own point of view, I really appreciate the effort that the devs are doing, and as a developer, I can also sympathise with them having to hold of the hoards of screaming masses who either demand their update now, or don't like the changes that they're implementing. I actually like the fact that some mods have changed significantly between their various version, I remember the first version of TC and it was pretty rough to use at times, especially with the whole flux vs taint liquid that you had to pipe around and store. In hindsight it was a bad mechanic and the rework of the whole mod has made it significantly better.

I'm never a fan of people who just say "Your mod sux" or equivalent. There are aspects of some mods that I don't like, and I just tend to work around them. I'm playing DW20's 1.6.4 pack atm, and I'm sure that there's some mods that I'm practically not touching, and others that I'm barely using. I know that this is covered in other threads, but I'm not a fan of the IC2 changes. JadedCat pointed out that it was just tedium upon tedium. That's also why I don't touch bees anymore, I can't be bothered trying to fiddle around with the different cross breeds to get what you want. It's kinda interesting at first, but quickly becomes boring as you're struggling to get an obscure cross breed and ending up with a worthless hybrid.

As someone who hasn't played Vanilla Minecraft for a few years now, I really appreciate the effort that the mod developers are putting in. The variety of mods make the game interesting and make it into a very different game compared to what Mojang/Notch originally built.

 

[SonOfABirch]

Have you been on Reddit?

Nope, cancer is bad enough in real life without having to visit a website which is 95% cancer.

 

[GreenZombie]

I remember when there was a big delay for RP2 coming out, and I saw a certain amount of hate levelled at Eloraam about it. People were annoyed that she wasn't prepared to share her code, was slow in updating it etc.

And how are we meant to feel about that now?

We don't have RedPower any more. And, if it had been released as OSS, we might. Its not fair to be rude to mod authors who donate their time, but for as long as they don't want to make their source available, we are being held hostage to their life and schedule. Which is where the bile and vitriol comes from.

OSS mods (such has buildcraft) have survived the lead developer leaving and rejoining. We can ask spacetoad how disempowered he might feel having others maintain his creation in his absence.

 

[Tristam Izumi]

Not agreeing or disagreeing, but we've had this portion of this discussion too many times.

 

[Enigmius1]

I'm curious as to what constitutes treating a mod dev like they're charging for their mod. Right now there's a very vague discussion going on that doesn't really do justice to any particular topic.

 

[SevenMass]

However, it still bugs me that some people apparently don't "get it" and they carry that self-righteous "consumer is king" mindset with them without pausing to appreciate that - besides the base MC itself from Mojang - the *vast* majority of their modded MC experience is provide gratis, built on goodwill and a belief in giving.

About that distinction you make between the "for free" stuff and the payed for stuff.

According to this issue of a philosophy based game show I like to follow:

It seems that even the commercial part of the gaming industry suffers so much from their fans that various people in it have quit their jobs and started working in an other industry instead because of it.

 

[iNd3x]

And how are we meant to feel about that now?

We don't have RedPower any more. And, if it had been released as OSS, we might. Its not fair to be rude to mod authors who donate their time, but for as long as they don't want to make their source available, we are being held hostage to their life and schedule. Which is where the bile and vitriol comes from.

OSS mods (such has buildcraft) have survived the lead developer leaving and rejoining. We can ask spacetoad how disempowered he might feel having others maintain his creation in his absence.

About redpower i like to take a hole other perspective, listen to this story:

You baked a cake. And we all love cake, right?
none the less it's a really good cake and you think that somebody should taste it. So because you live in a big city you go out on the streets and find some homeless people.
They got no cake. They got no home. You give them some cake, and they like it. You see they get happy, and you enjoy yourself.
Now the cake is gone, eaten. You decide to bake some more cake, and give it to more homeless people. You use some of your own time, and put some effort into something.
You quickly become known as the super duber awesome cake baker, and a lot of people come to your place to taste your cake.
But one day you get sick. What happens? Yup, you guessed it. There's no cake for all the people out there.

Now a question for you sir: "Could these people in any way demand your recipe for the cake?"

To be honest, IMO no. Why? because when someone makes something it's awesome. I love voluntary work. But at some point we have to realise that nothing's going to last forever.
And now to my point: Do you have a bed to sleep in? Do you have food? Do you have a life? -Yes you do, and you should be grateful(not saying you can't be already) and when things like the cake isn't being baked anymore,
you have to move on, or make a new recipe for a different but maybe better cake. Sticking to things that bother you is literally a waste of time.

Well, this was more or less a ramble, Chris Becke, this was not aimed at you, and i don't want to offend anyone with this, i simply think it's worth thinking about what we DO have, and not what we don't have. (sorry for any grammar mistakes)

 

[GreenZombie]

We teach our children to share. To draw inspiration from others. We are the products of our culture, of everything our brains have seen. Everything we are exposed to influences our own creative process. I find it shocking that anyone can create anything, and claim it wholly as their own - while its creation might be unique - its inspiration was everything that was freely shared that came before. And freely shared, it would become the inspiration for further creation.

So no, the cake story does not convince me. While I respect the rights of the cake baker to withhold cake - I do find the calculus interesting - a labour of love went into producing a thing that was shared, and would otherwise not have been had at all. But still, the claim that this piece of culture, not in perpetuity belongs to *that* person... that grates.

 

[iNd3x]

Hmm, it's quite hard to write something and make sure the reader gets exactly the message you wanted him to get...
I don't think you got my point or morale or whatever of the story, it wasn't about the cake at all, it wasn't about if the recipe should be given away or not. It wasn't clearly stated,(that's clear to me now) that i wanted to look at the mindset of the recievers of the cake. Why would they want this cake? Because it was good, not because they liked the baker. And even if they like the baker the cake would likely be the main reason to. This means that if the cake disappears all the good feelings about the baker would disappear along with the cake. And here's the problem. The people want the cake, not the baker. They want their own "satistfaction" they don't want to recieve and be glad for it. They seek their own fortune or happiness in the cake. It's a bright thing in a homeless' life to be given a piece of cake, but i think people forget where the cake came from, and even more importantly they don't think about if they even need the cake. Cause a bit of cake doesn't hurt anything, eh? But people nowadays are driven by this materialism, a want for more. But do we need it? no. Are there others that are worse positioned than ourselves? yes. Should we stop a minute and think about what we have? yes. Do we think much about what we have? no.

Basically the want for the cake is only an "overneed" we want something we don't need(I don't know a word for that) And that's where my brain says click. This focus on ourselves is damaging. We get a tunnel vision, and we lose focus on the other people in our lives. This is what i see when i look upon a lot of people in my everyday. I live in Denmark, a rich country in europe. If we got no job we're at no risk of losing our iphone or computer. Because the state has us covered. There's not a single poor guy in Denmark who doens't have everything he needs. Not saying that everyone is happy (Even though we are the most joyful country according to some research) Now with all this we still want more. A lot of people simply can't stop this hunger for more stuff. For a better television, a better couch or something. And it saddens me to watch this generation here growing up and to be honest being some ego centralised human beings.

I'm 18 years old. I live in this and this hunger for more or whatever you would like to call it is so arrogant and disgraceful. And that's the reasoning for me to say that the baker can hold the recipe back. The people don't need this, and if they truly wanted it they would go to the bakers house, knock at the door and ask if they could help the baker with her other doings.

 

[snooder]

About redpower i like to take a hole other perspective, listen to this story:

You baked a cake. And we all love cake, right?
none the less it's a really good cake and you think that somebody should taste it. So because you live in a big city you go out on the streets and find some homeless people.
They got no cake. They got no home. You give them some cake, and they like it. You see they get happy, and you enjoy yourself.
Now the cake is gone, eaten. You decide to bake some more cake, and give it to more homeless people. You use some of your own time, and put some effort into something.
You quickly become known as the super duber awesome cake baker, and a lot of people come to your place to taste your cake.
But one day you get sick. What happens? Yup, you guessed it. There's no cake for all the people out there.

Now a question for you sir: "Could these people in any way demand your recipe for the cake?"

To be honest, IMO no. Why? because when someone makes something it's awesome. I love voluntary work. But at some point we have to realise that nothing's going to last forever.
And now to my point: Do you have a bed to sleep in? Do you have food? Do you have a life? -Yes you do, and you should be grateful(not saying you can't be already) and when things like the cake isn't being baked anymore,
you have to move on, or make a new recipe for a different but maybe better cake. Sticking to things that bother you is literally a waste of time.

Well, this was more or less a ramble, Chris Becke, this was not aimed at you, and i don't want to offend anyone with this, i simply think it's worth thinking about what we DO have, and not what we don't have. (sorry for any grammar mistakes)

The problem with that analogy, and the thing that annoys many people about that attitude among devs and fans is that the players aren't homeless people. The mod creating a game isn't charity. It's not a needed service that the players would die without.

A better analogy would be if you decide to throw a party and invite all your friends. It gets to a regular thing with hundreds of guests and everyone starts counting on the twice-yearly bash. Then a day before the party, you just decide not to do it any more. It really is more than a little inconsiderate to do that without making any plans at all to hand off the party organizing to someone else. Even if the party was free, and you did all the volunteer work for it, at a certain point you made promises to other people who have their own schedules and plans. And when you promise to do something, and can't live up to that promise, it's not entitlement at all for other people to be peeved because they believed you.

 

[casilleroatr]

Hmm, it's quite hard to write something and make sure the reader gets exactly the message you wanted him to get...
I don't think you got my point or morale or whatever of the story, it wasn't about the cake at all, it wasn't about if the recipe should be given away or not. It wasn't clearly stated,(that's clear to me now) that i wanted to look at the mindset of the recievers of the cake. Why would they want this cake? Because it was good, not because they liked the baker. And even if they like the baker the cake would likely be the main reason to. This means that if the cake disappears all the good feelings about the baker would disappear along with the cake. And here's the problem. The people want the cake, not the baker. They want their own "satistfaction" they don't want to recieve and be glad for it. They seek their own fortune or happiness in the cake. It's a bright thing in a homeless' life to be given a piece of cake, but i think people forget where the cake came from, and even more importantly they don't think about if they even need the cake. Cause a bit of cake doesn't hurt anything, eh? But people nowadays are driven by this materialism, a want for more. But do we need it? no. Are there others that are worse positioned than ourselves? yes. Should we stop a minute and think about what we have? yes. Do we think much about what we have? no.

Basically the want for the cake is only an "overneed" we want something we don't need(I don't know a word for that) And that's where my brain says click. This focus on ourselves is damaging. We get a tunnel vision, and we lose focus on the other people in our lives. This is what i see when i look upon a lot of people in my everyday. I live in Denmark, a rich country in europe. If we got no job we're at no risk of losing our iphone or computer. Because the state has us covered. There's not a single poor guy in Denmark who doens't have everything he needs. Not saying that everyone is happy (Even though we are the most joyful country according to some research) Now with all this we still want more. A lot of people simply can't stop this hunger for more stuff. For a better television, a better couch or something. And it saddens me to watch this generation here growing up and to be honest being some ego centralised human beings.

I'm 18 years old. I live in this and this hunger for more or whatever you would like to call it is so arrogant and disgraceful. And that's the reasoning for me to say that the baker can hold the recipe back. The people don't need this, and if they truly wanted it they would go to the bakers house, knock at the door and ask if they could help the baker with her other doings.

I have been to Denmark, and I just wanted to say I really like it there. I live not too far away in England and about 150 years ago there were lots of people who also had plenty in life. They had gas heating in pleasant houses and disposable income to spend on a very large variety of consumer goods. These people wanted more though, and many devoted there considerable energy to achieving that. The history of my country has had its ups and downs since then but today, more people have more wealth, more comfort and more prospects. There are lots of reasons for why people are on average getting richer, too many to give detailed treatment on a video game forum (besides, my university days are a fair way behind me and I am under prepared for a discussion like this). I do believe though that having a bit of a materialistic attitude doesn't hurt because it drives us to make our lives nicer. I think it is apart of the "stay awesome" that @Tristam Izumi mentioned. So long as it is tempered by the "don't be a d*ck" attitude, a little bit of ego-centricity doesn't really hurt.

Besides if I am reading your final paragraph correctly you suggest that you have this hunger for more things too. But you seem thoughtful and considerate - just an example that being somewhat driven by materialism doesn't necessarily exclude being a good member of a community and it doesn't automatically make someone arrogant.

Also I read this article the other day, linked here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/techno...eople-try-not-to-say-these-five-things-to-us/

About halfway down it argues that the young generation of the day are always seen as self-centred narcissists, citing an article written for the Atlantic in 1907 which says "The rock upon which most of the flower-bedecked marriage barges go to pieces is the latter-day cult of individualism; the worship of the brazen calf of the Self." Perhaps some of the subjects of that comment would later fight in WW1, an act we do not usually associate with self-centredness (this might be a bit of a stretch. I think the max age of enlistment in the U.S was 35 during WW1 at the time and I don't really know that much about the U.S army from the period).

What I am trying to say is that I think that people are often overly pessimistic about society's supposed ego-centrism. Perhaps the abuse that some people meted out to Eloraam when she didn't update Redpower justifies this pessimism. On the other hand, Redpower inspired many people to make there own mods. There has been a flurry of creativity since 1.5, of people making mods to fill the gap that Redpower left and we I think we have a fairly robust modded minecraft environment as a result.

 

[casilleroatr]

<snip>

Sounds like the Great Gatsby a la minecraft.

Hey, will you still love RP2 when its no longer young and beautiful?

 

[iNd3x]

The problem with that analogy, and the thing that annoys many people about that attitude among devs and fans is that the players aren't homeless people. The mod creating a game isn't charity. It's not a needed service that the players would die without.
-snip-

Well, it wasn't meant as the cake would keep this homeless guy alive, but rather give him something more than he already had

I have been to Denmark, and I just wanted to say I really like it there. I live not too far away in England and about 150 years ago there were lots of people who also had plenty in life. They had gas heating in pleasant houses and disposable income to spend on a very large variety of consumer goods. These people wanted more though, and many devoted there considerable energy to achieving that. The history of my country has had its ups and downs since then but today, more people have more wealth, more comfort and more prospects. There are lots of reasons for why people are on average getting richer, too many to give detailed treatment on a video game forum (besides, my university days are a fair way behind me and I am under prepared for a discussion like this). I do believe though that having a bit of a materialistic attitude doesn't hurt because it drives us to make our lives nicer. I think it is apart of the "stay awesome" that @Tristam Izumi mentioned. So long as it is tempered by the "don't be a d*ck" attitude, a little bit of ego-centricity doesn't really hurt.

Besides if I am reading your final paragraph correctly you suggest that you have this hunger for more things too. But you seem thoughtful and considerate - just an example that being somewhat driven by materialism doesn't necessarily exclude being a good member of a community and it doesn't automatically make someone arrogant.

Also I read this article the other day, linked here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/techno...eople-try-not-to-say-these-five-things-to-us/

-snip-

The first thing you say is true, we need to set goals to get our society or country as a hole, moving. And yes, that requires that some countries are "more ego centralised" than others, but is that materialism at all? I would say it's a development for a country. As you state: "that being somewhat driven by materialism doesn't necessarily exclude being a good member of a community and it doesn't automatically make someone arrogant." And that's where i am trying to pull people towards. Setting a goal, but thinking about others in the process.

But what really grinds my gears is not the people who work with this, trying to think about others. The ones who fail and the ones who succeed. I only somewhat dislike the people that purposely prioritise them higher than others to earn something for them. uhm, it's hard to explain my thought about this because english is a foreign language to me, but the whole mentality about how you should achieve those goals, the way i can watch people in my class talking about nothing but themselves makes me kind of upset. I mean seriously, (you state you live in England) are any of us then allowed to say we miss anything? Honestly, in England and Denmark we live our lives really good. We have everything we need, and we still want the brand new iphone 6 when it hits the street, even though our iphone 5s works perfectly. Sometimes this mindset blows my mind.

I'm rambling again, what i think is important to focus on isn't the goals but how you achieve them, and the people who's in the process.

 

[MigukNamja]

Totally agree with this post. My props to you sir.


On another note though, I do kinda feel like we're also getting a disturbing amount of the extreme version of your message as well lately, aka "you cannot criticize mods or packs at all because they're free", which in my opinion is equally destructive as people being entitled pricks. Just something I'd like to bring up.

You can and should provide accurate and constructive feedback to the mod devs. If there's something clearly broken, report it. I never hesitate to report a bug in a polite manner to the mod devs through their preferred method of receiving bug reports.

However, when it's more subjective (opinion) than objective (fact) is when it gets hairy. I try to put myself in the shoes of a mod dev and think about what I would and how I would react if I received that feedback. I try to keep 2 questions in mind when providing constructive feedback to FTB, mod devs, or any other volunteer person or group in the MC modded community:

1. Does the mod dev, FTB person, etc.,. have the power to act upon my request or complaint ?
2. Have I kept my focus on the concrete (thing) and been careful to avoid the personal ?

A bad example of (1) is a too-vague complaint like "your mod sucks and should be more like X or less like Y"
A bad example of (2) is implying the person is stupid, lazy, incompetent, etc.,.

A good example of (1) is a feature that is inline with the spirit of the mod or a bug that has enough detail for them to fix it.
A good example of (2) is sticking to the facts and prefacing any opinion with a clear 'IMHO' or similar

Perhaps a more simple technique is thinking about how I would talk to said person if I was face-to-face with them. People are rarely rude face-to-face unless they are spoiling for a fight.

 

[Zexks]

I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I've modded a lot of other games that were all free as well and have never seen the kind of Authorship/Rights/Entitlement issues with mods in any other game as I have seen with MC. Could that possibly be why some don't 'get it'.

 

[Enigmius1]

You can and should provide accurate and constructive feedback to the mod devs. If there's something clearly broken, report it. I never hesitate to report a bug in a polite manner to the mod devs through their preferred method of receiving bug reports.

However, when it's more subjective (opinion) than objective (fact) is when it gets hairy. I try to put myself in the shoes of a mod dev and think about what I would and how I would react if I received that feedback. I try to keep 2 questions in mind when providing constructive feedback to FTB, mod devs, or any other volunteer person or group in the MC modded community:

1. Does the mod dev, FTB person, etc.,. have the power to act upon my request or complaint ?
2. Have I kept my focus on the concrete (thing) and been careful to avoid the personal ?

A bad example of (1) is a too-vague complaint like "your mod sucks and should be more like X or less like Y"
A bad example of (2) is implying the person is stupid, lazy, incompetent, etc.,.

A good example of (1) is a feature that is inline with the spirit of the mod or a bug that has enough detail for them to fix it.
A good example of (2) is sticking to the facts and prefacing any opinion with a clear 'IMHO' or similar

Perhaps a more simple technique is thinking about how I would talk to said person if I was face-to-face with them. People are rarely rude face-to-face unless they are spoiling for a fight.

I guess at this point I'm just wondering why we're singling out mod devs as apt candidates for the kind of treatment you're discussing. The internet is the internet and everyone has to deal with the rudey-poohs and morons. The thing is, they're not going away. And if you read a bit here and there you'll soon find that the actual first-rate jerks are extremely rare. A lot of the conflict and drama stems from very thin skinned people freaking out like they've just been stabbed because someone was assertive in their opposition to a particular complaint or idea.

I've had more than one mod dev get right uppity with me because they posted somewhere asking if the community thought their mod might belong in this mod pack or that one and I said no. I wasn't rude or vague. I was very clear and specific. What angered them was that their plan didn't include opposition. The worst part of the internet is how people twist things to rationalize their own emotional response to something. Like somewhere in the back of their mind they know they shouldn't be making a big deal out of it but they're upset so what words do we have to add/move/remove from this in order to make it seem like there's an argument to be had here.... Also, public schools and the truly frightful levels of reading comprehension they instill go a long way to recognizing the source of interwebs conflict.

I recently came across a forum for a specific game where the moderators themselves are the kind of thin-skinned numpties that promote conflict. Lemme tell ya, the only thing worse than thin skinned forum posters who can't read for shit are moderators with the same characteristics. It tends to turn a forum into a drooling carebear circle jerk where everyone gets a blue ribbon for towing the popular line.

And one of the first things I tell mod devs whose first response to opposition is to go into fight mode is that they're going to need much thicker skin if they want to survive a round in the internet public eye.

There's a point in expressing respect that promotes good will and community and beyond that point is simply cloying and co-dependent. I know there was very recently another round of mod-centric drama that prompted a nauseating public outpouring of rainbows and sprinkles for mod devs. So again, I'm just wondering if there's some substance to this and something specific (your examples above are not sufficiently specific) that we should be looking at? I'm just trying to understand the origin and intent of this whole topic, because I'm not seeing the kind of abuse one might expect would prompt this sort of thing. I don't see the rampant abuse of modders one might expect was present based on what is said here.

 

[MigukNamja]

I don't see the rampant abuse of modders one might expect was present based on what is said here.

The intent of my post was not to claim all is black and promote only white, while pretending that grey doesn't exist.

Rather, I do occasionally see posts that could have more effective and better received if they were more respectful in tone and more appreciative. And, by appreciate, I don't mean kissing arse, but just a simple "thank you" every now and then. If I'm being a good friend to a mate, I'll tell him when his fly is unzipped and when he has booger hanging from his nose. At the same time, I'll also congratulate him on his accomplishments and thank him when he helps me.

I'm simply asking we treat volunteers similarly - with respect and civility. I try to keep in mind they aren't paid enough to put up with some of the crap they put up with, whether from 1% of the FTB population, 5% of the MC Forums population, 10% of the Reddit population, or what have you. And, what they put up with is often not obvious negative Internet behavior that can be easily extracted and presented with a quote. Rather, it's the result of unintentional drama and the clash of expectations, however well-intended.