I'll confess, I haven't been modding for NV lately. Haven't even fired up the NVGECK.
Quite frankly, the gaggle of fuckwits who can't do anything but bitch about the quality of something they're getting for free has got me disinclined to take NCCS one step further in the immediate future.
Instead, I've been playing Dragon Age.
It's... okay.
As I described it to Herculine recently, DAO feels, to me, like World of Warcraft, if it were written by the people who did The Witcher. You still got the simpering nonsense of "OMG WE HAVE TO SAVE TEH WRLD FROM TEH EVL ZOMBIE-DRAGON!" but it includes a lot more death, sex, general hopelessness and racial inequality.
I tell you, Kiddies: I have been playing video games for over two decades now, and I am so completely and thoroughly sick of saving the world from some allegory for the devil and his faceless, dark minions...
That was one thing I respected about the writing for The Witcher. There were no 'good guys'; there was no altruism; there were no happy endings. It was just which side you decided to take in the grand argument.
I've also been playing with the DAO toolset. I used Aurora for NWN back in 'the day' quite a bit, and was fairly handy with it. This seems to be the same toolset, but more evolved - and none of the evolutions are improvements.
The DAO toolset is the most convoluted, needlessly complicated piece of shit I have ever used.
After this, NVGECK's bugs are a tiny price to pay for something that does what I want without seventeen useless steps in between.
Not going to start officially modding for DAO or anything, so don't worry if you're one of the four or five people who actually give a shit about my FO3/FONV mods.
Speaking of, I just made the mistake of looking at NCCS' stats. 1164 unique downloads, 14 endorsements. For those of you who fucked your way through high school and missed math class, that's a hair over one percent of players that could be bothered to take the ten seconds to endorse.
Couple that with the fact that I haven't picked up a single kudos point for NV despite blowing through twelve or more hours of my life answering inane posts and PMs to help morons figure out how to use a mod...
...Yeah. I'm gonna go work on a gun or something. At least that's thankless work that benefits me in some way...
Kinda part of the reason why I'm taking a break and playing Neverwinter Nights, though I have no doubt that I deal with the stupidity and ignorance on a much smaller scale than you. I've just been getting things like: "When I run your mod with this other buggy mod it doesn't work, so can you make a patch?" or: "I've changed all the voices and hairs in your mod and now I can't talk to them and they have these big exclamation marks but I don't know why..." or, my favorite e-mail of all (and this is an exact quote): "I love your mod but it isn't working. How can I get it to work?" which to me is about as helpful as calling a doctor on the phone and asking: "What does this look like to you?"
ReplyDeleteHowever, not to defend the hordes of half-wits but rather simply a statement of fact, Robin Scott has had a forum thread up for a few weeks now saying that he's about to change the uploaded file rating system so that people have to meet certain requirements such as time being a member, activity points, et cetera before they can post an endorsement of rating. Surely that will greatly reduce the numbers of people able to leave comments, but his somewhat logical rationale is that it should also eliminate ratings trolls. Even so, I agree with you. My Tabaxi companions for Oblivion have been up for almost exactly a year now, have had 468 unique DLs and 13 endorsements out of 20 comments and 5 of the comments were me typing. Not as low as your 1% (I'm no math whiz but I think it's about 30%?) but still if only a third of the people DLing can be bothered to at least say thanks it is just as discouraging and does not inspire one to create more mods. I've had a partially-completed Herculine's NCCS Companions Volume 2 for some time now, but where's the inspiration to finish them and get them uploaded?
At the moment I'm more inclined to spend some time over at the Neverwinter Nights Vault giving those modders the recognition they deserve...
I just typed a really long comment and got this crap:
ReplyDeleteRequest-URI Too Large
...and couldn't retrieve the comment so fuck Blogger, I'm not typing it again.
Sorry Matt... in a nutshell it was just saying that I feel your frustration though surely on a smaller scale, as we've discussed in our PMs.
That's the second time that's happened to me here. I gotta remember that I can't type the whole Merriam Webster's in this little white box...
Oh... well nevermind. Looks like it's showed up anyway. I do so hate it when technological flaws make me look goofy...
ReplyDeleteOne tip: before hitting 'post comment', hit ctrl+A and then ctrl+C.
ReplyDeleteBetween "request url too large" and server problems, long posts tend to get absorbed by the aether on a worryingly regular basis.
As for the specific comments: it just grates on my nerves.
I know, you can't expect everyone to care enough to do anything other than demand perfection, but fuck me.
I get the most inane PMs. People expect me to help write mods from the ground up; shit that has nothing whatsoever to do with my uploaded work.
I'm expected to give tutorials on every aspect of the GECK.
And what do I get for it?
Dead. Fucking. Silence.
99% of the time I only know when I've fixed something or bent far enough over backwards when I never hear from the person again.
The great pisser of it is that even when I blow someone off and say something like "I'm sorry, I can't help you." They keep sending PMs with more and more questions.
It's goddamned near enough to make me yank the plugs on my various email accounts and pull one of the vanishing acts I was famous for back in my Tribes days.
This is my first post to you on here, but i've followed ur blog since the first time u answerd a very scared newbie who was having problems with the vault one mod on fo3 and u were very kind to walk me throu the steps of finding what mod was giving me the problem with ur wonderful valut. you brought ur skills to nv and once again i found myself havin a problem with a project of ur's dropped a comment on ur mod page and once again i got the type of responce i expected from you, a detailed explernation of what the problem was and how to fix it, i know there are alot of ppl who take ur good self n herculine for granted but there are those of us who do thankyou and wait with baited breaths to see were you both take your project's, i know i said in my post about ur combat tactics being amazing and ment it for someone to put that much time and effort into something given away for free really does amaze me when it can clearly be seen that the ppl behind the game didn't put half as much into it, so from me and your other silent follower's please don't vanish its people like you who make the place better and more fun for the rest of us. I for one can't wait to see whats next from you two.
ReplyDeleteHellsownson
Don't worry, I'm not actually going to vanish.
ReplyDeleteI have too much time invested to up and go poof! S'why I used the qualifier "almost enough to make me".
It's just frustrating, and matters in my "real" life aren't helping matters lately.
Honestly, I DL a lot of mods but don't comment, but I have good reason.
ReplyDeleteThe first, most likely reason is I did not enjoy the mod. I figured giving a negative comment is of little use. just because i don't like the mod doesn't mean everyone will dislike it.
The second reason is I don't really use the mod. maybe I DLed to take a look but haven't had a chance or decide not to use it even though it may seem like a good mod. I can hardly comment on a mod I don't use.
The third reason is I like the idea have the mod loaded up but I haven't experienced the mod yet because I haven't been to that area or am not yet powerful enough or whatever. Again, I won't comment on a mod I haven't used yet.
As a modder, let me ask your opinion, as to the first reason, would you like feedback that is primarily negative just to get the feedback? I am not the type to just dump on a mod, I would give concise reasons why I did not enjoy the mod I find but some people, particularly the artistic, have trouble taking criticism.
Keep in mind I have yet to DL any of your mods, I am DLing some of your NV mods today and read over your webpage and wanted to comment.
I prefer to get feedback - positive or negative - as long as it's constructive.
ReplyDeleteFor example: "You mod sucks and you should feel bad!" Is pretty worthless. It communicates that you don't like it; but not why.
On the other hand, "I'm sorry, but I can't endorse your mod. Here are my issues:" and then detailing what you didn't like or what didn't work, and how you feel it could have been done better.
But in reality, I find most complainers fall into one of two groups. 1) People too stupid/lazy to read the manual. They don't install it correctly, it therefore doesn't function correctly, and I'm an ass for making a mod that "doesn't work". 2) People who assume that I exist for the sole purpose of making their fevered dreams a reality. These people bitch that the mod needs a total overhaul to be a completely different scope and concept, and then they might endorse, if they think about it.