Orion's ToEE complete fixes - beta (part A)

@ Lord_Spike: There's a really bad 3-letter word in Russian... As for English, I don't know. :blink:

@ Everyone: As for the situation itself, I'd say that this forum is free for everyone to come to and leave from. What keeps everyone here is his own interest and (in the best case) the interests of the community. Every person here is also free to have his own opinion on anything that happens in our community, be it a release of a mod or just some thought explained at the boards. There is no real "elitism" here on the boards. This has already been discussed once, and unfortunately I have to get back to it yet again. The fact of "elitism" comes from another very unpleasant fact: we have a VERRRRRY (I repeat: VERY) small number of modders here. Look at the NWN community - there are thousands of modders there. We only have about 10 working people, some of which leave sometimes for an indefinite amount of time. And heck -- these ten people have their own opinion, just as everyone else! And it may look weird, but the opinions of these ten people tend to be the most expressed ones, because these ten people actually care to *post* anything here (in General Modification). The rest just don't seem to care at all! It's funny to read words like "there is no one out there who will test your mod". The truth is -- we have 5200+ people here by now, but have you seen at least one newcomer post in the General Modification lately? Have you seen anyone willing to test Orion's mod or ANY OTHER MOD OUT THERE recently? Everything seems to depend on these ten people - not because they act "elite" and force their opinion upon everyone else, but simply because everyone else doesn't seem to care to express his own opinion! People come here to *play* our mods mostly, not to help develop them and not even to provide feedback most of the time, and that's a very sad truth. If at least an eighth part of those 5200 people who registered here ever cared about the development and testing process of our mods, I think that the question that is currently at hand and the conflict that arose between certain modders and Orion today would have never ever existed, nor would the problem of "elitism".

Personally I don't have neither positive, nor negative feelings towards Orion's latest creation, at least because I haven't seen it. And I tell you what - I haven't seen it yet just because I don't have time to install and play through it! Because I'm deeply obsessed by the idea of developing ToEEWB, ToEEFE, ToEESG, and ToEE-whatnot so that everyone here will be able to create better mods! And I know that if I gave this up now, and started testing mods, assisting with mod development itself, and so on, I would have never gotten anywhere with the tools. That's another sad truth. And *yes*, sometimes I blame myself for the fact that I don't always have time to test people's creations, support them or criticize them (depends on what the creation is worth), and answer everyone's questions on the boards (I'm trying my best to answer as many of them as I can!).

It's sad that Orion has to leave because he feels that he is not needed here and that his mod is not appreciated. As I said, this is based solely on the opinion of (maximum) 10 people here. Yes, we consider that what he has done (e.g. changed way too much of Liv's stuff) is not correct. Well, that's what we *think*, there is nothing that can be done about it. However, it doesn't mean that the mod is bad or whatever. I'm sure there will be people who will play it and who will be satisfied with it. More than that, I'm sure that if Orion stayed and persisted in its development, it might have in the end turned out to be something really special, maybe even not worse than Liv's mod itself (will need a lot of work of course, but it's possible). However, I don't want anyone to put blame for Orion's leave on the modders here just because they cared to express their opinion, while everyone else (maybe even people who play Orion's mod right now as I'm writing these words!) didn't!

We don't act elite and we don't deliberately drive away newcomers. I can say at least for myself that I welcome everyone who tries his hand at modding and not simply playing. However, the very fact whether this or that modder stays with us and works on mods or not does NOT depend on us, other modders. As I said, if we are the only people who care about expressing their opinion about what's going on here in General Modification, well - then that's the general social situation here (with all the people), and not "elitism" on our side. Think about it yourself: would Orion have cared about our opinion if we ten said that his mod is not right, but if 100-200 other people found it exciting and interesting, and actually expressed their gratitude to Orion?

Sorry for having to say this, but I felt I had to say it.
- Agetian

 

Nice post, Agetian. :thumbsup:

This statement smacks of elitism!! You little people are beneath me, so I'm going off to join a forum for the elite non-elite!

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

 

Im tinkin yur not so guddonit yurself up in dis hauz, Spikes homie. Actin the snobs n what. Jus keepin it rael.

(Ha, my affected accent sounds more like that guy who spams Ted's blog. Though its hard to tell one affectation from the next.)

 

Thanks for your point of view, s-h. It certainly helps to have a fresh input.

The reason we react so strongly about something that to people passing by might not seem worth fighting about, is becuase this particular encounter of Liv's was the first to be done that way. Liv took some ideas that were being discovered by the other modders here, and a great deal of her own efforts, and she combined them to create something entirely new which had not previously been done.

It was, in a sense, a seminal moment, when she added in this new combat encounter (and another with a bunch of assassins). The knowledge had in part been there, in theory, but she made it happen for the first time and showed everyone else that it could be done. Furthermore, she didn't do it by powering up a tool and adding a few entries here and there (well, that would have been part of it ) - she did it the hard way. It would have taken her a lot of effort - far more than a week - of testing and retesting and trying new things and getting the balance right. As with all her efforts, she worked her ass off on it.

We owe her, and people here, both modders and players, recognise that. I write tutorials now and then on how things can be done and the best way I generally have of showing how things can be achieved is to point at how Liv did it, because analysing her work is one of the best ways any new modders can learn about how to do things.

She wasn't perfect - when Orion first showed up and tried one of his "fix everything in sight" efforts, she was elitist in her reactions to that particular effort, as she was toward some of Drifter's work. Maybe the next generation have fallen into the same trap. But we owe her, thats the bottom line, and we are aware of it. So we don't change her efforts lightly.

On the other hand, Orion knew we wouldn't like that particular change. As he said, the game was full of 'bullshit' that needed working on, and instead of concentrating on fixing that, or on adding his own stuff, he went back and changed what others had done. He could have made it work by building on it. Hell, he could have incorporated Krunch's idea of an evil priest in Verbobonc animating that skeleton priest that way- Allyx made a bunch of maps of Verbobonc that are just waiting to be used. He could have solved his peculiar dilemma - and for all the pnp D&Ders here (I have been playing since the early 80's) he was the only one who voiced a problem with a skeletal priest - by building on it, expanding it, creating something new. But he didn't. He simply changed it, knowing the change would provoke a reaction.

When Orion posted that first bunch of changes, I said we should get behind it, because it was clear he would be willing to do a lot of important stuff. I hope he comes back and keeps at it. But if each modder just changes what the others are doing to fit his or her own vision of D&D - and for any rule Orion quotes to show skeletal priests shouldn't exist, any experienced p&p player can quote examples of how the rules are made to be adapted by DMs for the expansion of the game - well we won't get far, will we? Imagine if every modder just rereleased the previous modders work as his own interpretation.

I realise Orion did far more than that, and he is right in saying we have unfairly singled out this one tiny change, but then, he knew that is what the reaction would be. We may be to blame for eleitism, perhaps, but he deliberately set this in motion knowing what the outcome would be.

 

Another point to bear in mind is that Orion, if I'm not mistaken, had submitted his mod to be included in a formal Co8 release, or at least be sponsored in some way by Co8, saying, "I rightfully demand that my mod is linked in the download section of the forum." I don't think anyone would object to personal modifications for private use. Hell, we probably all use some or other.

Bear in mind also that Orion's track record is not good. His previous effort was unstable and caused numerous CTDs, so a certain degree of skepticism was going to be inherant in any future submissions by him. Personally I thought he had a great deal of potential, but he lacked some mechanism of common sense that seemed to invariably propel him into these controversies, much as Ted described above.

As far as this elitism charge goes . . . well, we must be a pretty sorry lot if all 25 or so active members we have here are conspiring to "take control" or drive away those who don't subscribe to our elitist world view. What would we gain by it? Furthermore, can anyone identify any modder besides Orion who has been treated this way? Personally I can't think of any, which sort of begs the question, could it maybe be the case that Orion was deserving of it? I remember during the last Orion controversy a newcomer called asimpkins* came out in defense of what he percieved as unfair treatment against O. A few days later he was exchanging rather vicious posts with him in some other thread, having gotten the drift of what the Orion dynamic was all about. (iirc, that was the guy that debated Old Book and others at length about Rangers?)

I think that if you look at the big picture instead of the microcosm, you'll see that this community is overwhelmingly accepting of all who wish to be a part of it. Orion included. We've been this way for quite a long time. We are for the most part free of the vitriol that exists in many forums, such as our sister forum 'The RPG Codex,' where you must purchase a virtual flak jacket upon registration. What you will find here is passion though, mainly because the few people who mod this game have had to do so without the aid of any official modding toolsets, tutorials, or even moral support. Everything we have here is self-made, hard bought, and therefore precious. Nothing's come easy for us. Maybe that's what people misconstrue as "elitism."

Edit:

No, but they have granted us their tacit permission to mod the game through their frequent tips on how to do so in communications with our modders.

 

I merely wanted to point out some additional points...

Yeah, I have to agree here, but I also want to point out yet another side of this: of course, we should not be driven only by a certain "superstition" caused by the bad track record, because a path of a modder is (in best case, of course) constant perfection, so the next thing developed by the same modder is not necessarily the same as his previous one, given that the modder has taken his own mistakes into consideration and worked on fixing them. Personally I am a good example of this: my first project, ToEE Mod Studio, was a failure, it was both my bad and the lack of good testing team as well, but anyway - it's on my record forever - it was my project, I made it, and I had to state that the project failed and discontinue it personally. And of course, my next projects - ToEEWB/ToEEFE being the major ones, as well as certain subsidiary stuff like the Editor's Helper Script - should not be judged by my first experience with the Mod Studio. I have carefully considered all the mistakes that I made during the process of development, rallied a good team of both testers and development assistants, and made infinitely better projects than the Mod Studio.

A totally different thing is, of course, when a modder does NOT learn from his own mistakes or at least doesn't WANT to learn from his own mistakes. In that case things get totally different and that's a special aspect which I leave to all of you guys to consider.

I really hope that former, and not the latter is true for Orion's second pack of fixes (as I said, I haven't seen it myself so I can't be the judge of it). When he posted his second attempt at fixes I was kind of skeptic about it, too, but I dismissed this thought very quickly, and told myself that I should only rely on objective facts. Therefore, this way or the other, in order to judge the mod's qualities we have to actually see it and see if it's better than the previous one or not.

A really good point, Gaear! As I said, we simply *care* about things - we care about this forum, we care to keep this forum up and alive, we care to post in it, we care to develop mods and tools for use on this forum, and - most important - we care to express our opinion about what's going on at the forum. There is nothing out there that we would gain by driving away newcomer modders - moreover, it is our duty to keep things going at this forum. I remember the moments when Cerulean the Blue and Heavydan85 came to the forums and were newcomers - and they were warmly welcomed here, and they gave the forum the so much needed feedback - they became active members of the forum, and of the "General Modification" in particular, and all of us other modders supported their initiative and tried to support them in their efforts in all possible ways.

Exactly. The members of Troika, and programmers of Troika in particular, were in close contact with the members of Co8 from the very beginning. The first two patches were beta tested by the Co8 members, and changes suggested by them were widely accepted. Also, after the official process of developing and patching ToEE was finished, certain members of Troika kept contacting certain Co8 modders and helped them in their effort to create high quality mods. I can quote an e-mail I got from Steve Moret a couple weeks ago, speaking about Ted's effort to recreate the Keep of the Borderlands". He said: "That's awesome! Do you mind if I forward this on to Tim Cain? He'd love to hear about what you guys are doing." This is an exact quote. As you can see, Troika supports our efforts, even if indirectly, and therefore, we have their *implicit* permission to mod the game.

A really good point. Modding here at Co8 is all about the team work. Once again, I can give you a personal example here - just read what I said above about the Mod Studio and the ToEEWB, and you'll understand the difference. When you work in a team you know the demands of the team and you can demand from the team. Basically, you simply cooperate with other people in an effort to make the game better. Other people help you on your way, and you help other people by knowing what everyone else does and everyone else wants, and by working in that direction. The Mod Studio, being a bad example of a cooperative project, failed very quickly and was discontinued. ToEEWB, being created in tight cooperation with the modders who actually work on game mods (e.g. Allyx, Shiningted, Cerulean the Blue, and others), turned out to be a success.

There is a thing here we call the Circle of Eight Mod. As the name implies, it is a mod created by the Co8 team (sorry if someone understood it only now ). Once again I want to underline the word team here. It is an effort of many, many people - not only those who work on it right now, but also those who worked on it in the past. We can't forget the efforts of such modders as zhuge, Dhoom, VaeVictis, Phalzyr, and others. The Co8 mod was always a team project, and I hope it will always be a team project.

Individual mods are individual mods, they have all rights for existence, but they won't necessarily be included in the Co8 mod itself - just because *this* is up to the team that works on the Co8 mod, which is *different* from that of the individual mods. No one can demand to include certain stuff in the Co8 mod without the approval of the team that works on the mod. I hope you get my point here. And it's not about elitism at all, it's about cooperation this time. Because the team that works on the Co8 Mod really cares about their mod, and wishes that all improvements in the mod were for the better and not for the worse. It's that simple.

- Agetian

 

Okay . . . er, you know that was a joke, right?

<sigh> Well it looks like we've gone and made people gun-shy now . . .

Brad, I feel quite confident that no one will mind if you do that. In fact, none of us could tell you not to. The only point at which it might come up for discussion would be if it were being contemplated for 'official release.' When that day comes you can start to feel nervous , but until then, mod away.

I know your heart's in the right place here; it's just unfortunate that anyone would feel they have to tip-toe around. That's simply never been the case and never will be, near as I can tell. :shame: