Thermal Expansion 3.0!!! No More Beta! Thanks KL!
- Thread starter RedBoss
- Start date
CovertJag is required to get this train back on track it's been de-railed.
This right here. I seriously could not agree more. Your phrasing might have come off as a bit harsher than intended, but I didn't take it as such. It's too easy to put the wrong emphasis or tone on something that you read, and people may have done that.
Anyways, /salute.
I think you're taking it a lot lighter than was intended and I admire your self control. Personally, if someone was throwing the amount of garbage my way as he is yours, I'd be inclined to bite back. You don't deserve any of his attacks, the underhand or the blunt ones.
Honestly, there are 3 groups of people whose opinions I really care about:
-Close friends/family
-Colleagues/academic peers (definitely my advisor)
-Whoever I'm sleeping with
Outside of those, I just don't really have the time/energy to take things personally, good or bad. I'm a pretty all-in kind of guy, so putting a ton of effort into some sort of scathing rebuke isn't in my best interest. It would be caustic.
Bear with me for one final comment about this, then ill leave this thread alone, I promise.
If anything I am probably polarized and anti TE and argumentative because since day 1 of joining htis forum, i was told enjoying gregtech was WRONG and to enjoy resource gathering and teching up was WRONG. after awhile, wtih anything, people get more and more polarized, and more extreme. Honestly, tesseracts are a good way to reduce lag as people said. Without fast quarries changed to 48 mj, the cost of redstone conduits are noticably more than conductive pipes. Would I still tweak it more? Probably, which is why my first comment here was just to ask if there would be in depth configs to adjust the mod to fit with my playstyle. At one point weeks ago i was even told that asking for configs was WRONG.
Surprisingly the people here who chant 'we can play how we want we can play how we want' over and over are usually the first people to say "NO YOU CANT DISLIKE TESSERACTS THEY ARE TEH AWESOMESAUCE!!!!!111" Well, yes I can dislike them if I want. Or hope that they cost more, or whatever. I post in a thread that the author sees just to state my opinion. If everyone else likes cheaper and easier, and the mod changes in that vein, then that is how it will be. But I fear mod authors only hear the loudest voices, the most avid forumers. I point out other forums like reddit.com think more like I do, and im harassed for implying that other forums are somehow more valid than this one. Sigh. the point is that only a few people post here regularly, are they indicative of the whole player base? One guy i argued with the most, enigmius1, posted two videos that I saw on youtube. Know what they were? He built a bridge out of microblocks, and then an ice castle.
Not one single piece of tech anywhere to be seen. Nothing relating to the struggle of survival mode at all, it was flying around in an MPS suit, immune to attack or anything resembling survival mode, building buildings, with not one machine in them.
Is this indicative of the average tech mod player? I don't think so. But he is (was) a very active forumer, and one of the front runners who argued that 'tedium is bad' and that mods that made things easier and simpler were better. Then you can go to say reddit.com and see people posting about Unhinged questions, multiple people discussing fusion reactors. Again, not that they have it 'right', but it might show that the average player thinks differently than someone who builds microblock bridges and ice castles and *does not build a single machine of any type in two+ evenings worth of playtime*. Not that it is bad to do so, but is that an example of an average ftb player?
Anyway, if I speak up its because I fear mods will change because 'the squeaky wheel gets the oil' and ultimately turn off most of the players. And most importantly, players usually dont know what is good for them. Balance and design decisions left up to players will almost always mean a shitty game, real fast. It would be like asking an alcoholic if he wants free beer to be served from now on. Of course he says yes, not realizing it could ruin things down the road.
Ok thats it, wont bother this thread again. Lemming i was probably wrong about you, you have impressed me with your maturity here, even when I was not very mature.
Please don't. A dissenting voice is a good thing. The political climate in the US right now is basically a result of forcing out other trains of thought. And while TE isn't a nuclear-armed superpower (yet), I'd like to be sure that concerns and comments can be aired. It's not unreasonably difficult to add config options, where appropriate.
Also, by default, Tesseracts are going to be quite a bit more expensive in the future. This sort of precludes a mod adding a Platinum Ore, however.
My experience of this forum so far is that for the longest time Greg was "the only way to play and if you don't enjoy this grind you are a noob!" until his spat with mDiyo, where the shift turned into "well Greg was in the wrong!"
I rather enjoy gathering resources, teching up. Dislike Gregtech immensely, have done since before the spat, but there's a whole range of playstyles that aren't just "I want everything handing to me on a silver platter lined with chocolate sauce!" and "make me chew glass to be worthy of creating this machine"
I'm in the middle. Like some challenge, dislike mindless tedium. If mod dev's want to appeal to as many people as possible (and KL has already stated that his aim is to make a mod that he and his friends would like, so this isn't indicative of him or any other specific modder) they have to take that entire range into perspective, and either design around appeasing everyone (impossible) or design around appeasing as large a group as possible.. And that, in my mind, is the middle ground, where the people that want everything easy may find it a little too hard, and the people that like it hard may find it a little too easy.. (but that's only from a balance standpoint, you need an actual interesting mod to begin with)
Anyway, I digress.. your last post seems far more mature than any of your previous ones, and if you can keep that up I don't see why you shouldn't keep posting here. You've as much right to voice your opinions as everyone else, it's just the personal attacks that kinda suck.
Like Metallurgy? :/
I'm sorry, I didn't realize I need to be told how to play this game by other people.
The dissenting opinion on mod mechanics and cost issues etc is great for mod improvement but the condescending tone is why people are upset with your posts. I don't know if you're oblivious or you're just blunt.
Well, thing is most of us do not outright diss GT until someone comes along and either;
1.) Says GT is the only way to play and anything else, you are better off playing creative. (most often used)
2.) keeps saying GT grinds = harder game.
3.) and defends GT's author even though he is in the wrong. (mDiyo case) But I digress.
And last but not least.
This quote of yours, back to you. maybe you should leave "balancing" up to the mod author since you too "don't know what is good for them".
1.) Says GT is the only way to play and anything else, you are better off playing creative. (most often used)
2.) keeps saying GT grinds = harder game.
3.) and defends GT's author even though he is in the wrong. (mDiyo case) But I digress.
And last but not least.
This quote of yours, back to you. maybe you should leave "balancing" up to the mod author since you too "don't know what is good for them".
OMG! Nukes confirmed in TE for 1.7!!!!!!!1111one
Oh please 'struggle of survival' is the first few days getting house and food. Then you hid in a well-lit mine until you get iron armor/sword and become fairly mob proof. Vanilla Minecraft isn't hard. It's already trivial.
Tedium is bad. It's a terrible excuse for 'difficulty' championed by people who don't understand game design. Once you reach the skill level require to reliably repeat something, there's no real different between doing it ten times and doing it a hundred times.
Also FTB forum is probably the best example of average FTB peeps, since it's the main talk-place. reddit is never average of a community, because reddit.
I dont understand how you can accuse someone of being irrational and yet make blanket statements about how people feel about gregtech. You are a walking talking contradiction sir. So let me sum this up... People who dont like gregtech are whiners but if someone doesn't want you to whine they can go to hell? What reasoning skills... Seriously you come off as rude. Maybe you aren't trying to and if your ideas would be welcome if you weren't so hostile. Every post I see from you is aggressive. Of all the mod authors out there KL is by far the one who will listen to you the most. So sure you can say whatever you want. However its your attitude that frustrates so many people. Which is funny since you are accusing others of being emotional... When you say when someone disagrees with you that they are just an in-crowd emotional ninny shows you have literally the maturity of a 12 year old and you really shouldn't be criticizing others.
Let's not go down the GregTech rabbit hole here folks, mmkay? Plenty to talk about that's Thermal Expansion without that digression. A skill set more people could do with learning is the ability to agree to disagree; Lemming's handling of criticism with grace is a great example of one way of doing that.
zorn, the problem is never with having an opinion. The problem is with you mistaking your own opinion for the singular Truth. Conducting yourself with all the "charm" of Steve Jobs (the icon of "I don't care what the user thinks they want, I know and provide what they really want" thought) only works when you have the track record and audience of Steve Jobs. Bombastically pronouncing "users don't know what they want in gameplay" quickly devolves into "you're too stupid to know what you want" no matter how polite your initial parsing may be. Everybody ends up getting defensive and soon it gets into flame territory. The point of dispute everybody's always going to have with you is that you in fact can only speak to what you want from gameplay. Stop telling me what I want from gameplay. You have no basis for being able to get away with dictating that and having it remain unchallenged, and the sooner you dismount from that apparent high horse, the sooner we can communicate on the basis of how everybody has different wants from their gameplay and how, with a combination of mod choices, configuration options, and maybe even occasionally some self-restraint, we can all best achieve the game experience we each want.
Learn to accept that your viewpoint is just that, your viewpoint, and a lot of what you consider is everybody else's hostility will suddenly disappear and you'll have a much sunnier forum experience.
zorn, the problem is never with having an opinion. The problem is with you mistaking your own opinion for the singular Truth. Conducting yourself with all the "charm" of Steve Jobs (the icon of "I don't care what the user thinks they want, I know and provide what they really want" thought) only works when you have the track record and audience of Steve Jobs. Bombastically pronouncing "users don't know what they want in gameplay" quickly devolves into "you're too stupid to know what you want" no matter how polite your initial parsing may be. Everybody ends up getting defensive and soon it gets into flame territory. The point of dispute everybody's always going to have with you is that you in fact can only speak to what you want from gameplay. Stop telling me what I want from gameplay. You have no basis for being able to get away with dictating that and having it remain unchallenged, and the sooner you dismount from that apparent high horse, the sooner we can communicate on the basis of how everybody has different wants from their gameplay and how, with a combination of mod choices, configuration options, and maybe even occasionally some self-restraint, we can all best achieve the game experience we each want.
Learn to accept that your viewpoint is just that, your viewpoint, and a lot of what you consider is everybody else's hostility will suddenly disappear and you'll have a much sunnier forum experience.
This is almost a textbook "how to perpetuate an internet slapfight" sentence. Cut it out. Now.
Did I hear someone say distractions with new stuff? I believe they did... so here you go guys.
New stuff!
Celestialphoenix
Too Much Free Time
Edit- somewhat irrelevant ramblings- seems I got ninja'd by an entire forum
ooh! shiny!- I'm definitely getting the Redpower vibe here.
Should mod/game design be a player democracy?
To put a long answer short
For an answer and reason simple, yet surprisingly hard to put into words.
To be fairly honest a player's desire or 'goal' if you will is to 'win' the game
This drive (which is usually subconscious), will influence a player to favour mods/ideas/changes that makes 'winning' easier. The vast majority [probably 99.9%] of time the simple desire to realise one's own goals will ultimately bias the decision to whether its 'good' or 'bad'.
Now a significant majority seem to play 'winning' as- among others- 'unlocking the highest tech in the tree', or 'defeating all the bosses', and '[effectively] unlimited resources via automation'
So to design via a player democracy will inevitably make a game progressively easier through each iteration. This is not always a bad thing- sometimes it can be a good thing. Sometimes just as easily it can be too much of a good thing.
The hard part comes in splitting valuable feedback from the desire of wanting to 'win' -a skill usually gained by experience- and having the guts to say 'No' when needed. (surprisingly hard to do if a large fanbase wants a 'yes')
I'm being fairly ambiguous with 'win', 'goal' ect for one simple reason;
So lets design by a player democracy; first rule: IN, second: not everyone likes this, but IN, and the 3rd? the 4th, 5th?
Blinding ignoring a majority opinion can be equally destructive as fully embracing it.
So we back to the same core answer- the designer's skill is needed to discern the useful content from public opinion.
("win" being the sense for whatever reason you play for; not just kill dragon, get achievements ect)
This drive (which is usually subconscious), will influence a player to favour mods/ideas/changes that makes 'winning' easier. The vast majority [probably 99.9%] of time the simple desire to realise one's own goals will ultimately bias the decision to whether its 'good' or 'bad'.
Now a significant majority seem to play 'winning' as- among others- 'unlocking the highest tech in the tree', or 'defeating all the bosses', and '[effectively] unlimited resources via automation'
So to design via a player democracy will inevitably make a game progressively easier through each iteration. This is not always a bad thing- sometimes it can be a good thing. Sometimes just as easily it can be too much of a good thing.
Because player feedback is a vital part of balancing a design. Why?
Simply put mod/game devs are good at playing their own creation. They knew the ins, the outs and all the answers before it was released. Through design and play testing they know their game like the back of their hand. Meaning something thats 'easy' for them, can feel a lot harder for us.
[If you ever see a designer who isn't good at his/her creation, then it means either the difficulty is set way too high, or they did not spend enough time playtesting.]
[If you ever see a designer who isn't good at his/her creation, then it means either the difficulty is set way too high, or they did not spend enough time playtesting.]
The hard part comes in splitting valuable feedback from the desire of wanting to 'win' -a skill usually gained by experience- and having the guts to say 'No' when needed. (surprisingly hard to do if a large fanbase wants a 'yes')
-interestingly watching LPs can provide a far more valuable insight into the game/players mind than a public forum. I guess this is analogous to observing wild animals in their natural habitat instead of caged in a zoo.
I'm being fairly ambiguous with 'win', 'goal' ect for one simple reason;
Everyone wants something different. Its a fact; what floats my boat probably sinks yours.
Now this is where it gets interesting- quite a few of our interests share a common theme [thats why we're here]. Chances are one or two of my goals are similar to yours.
Chances are a significant majority [say 90%] will have a similar goal; just with differences in how we go about it/play towards it- is it a means to an end or an end for a means?
Chances are a smaller majority [say 70%] will also have a similar second goal, maybe a 3rd majority with a 3rd goal and so forth.
Chances are a smaller majority [say 70%] will also have a similar second goal, maybe a 3rd majority with a 3rd goal and so forth.
So lets design by a player democracy; first rule: IN, second: not everyone likes this, but IN, and the 3rd? the 4th, 5th?
With each iteration, the design becomes more diluted and gray- as everyone has different tastes; so by majority we don't know what we want.
Does this mean a majority opinion is always a bad idea? Nope- for the same reason its not always a good idea either.
Blinding ignoring a majority opinion can be equally destructive as fully embracing it.
So we back to the same core answer- the designer's skill is needed to discern the useful content from public opinion.
To put a long answer short
Should mod/game design be a player democracy?
It'll feel good for us, and most likely be an initial success- but without the guiding hand of a designer it'll become a simplistic and diluted shell.
RE- new content.ooh! shiny!- I'm definitely getting the Redpower vibe here.
of all the stuff I miss, this was probably the most well used. (My Workshop usually had a wall of project benches)