Post by Alex on Aug 7, 2006 0:55:22 GMT -5
So hypothetical scenario here guys.
Let's say you had this mod, and you worked on it for two solid years to make it as good as you could. And let's say you were understaffed all the time, and you ended up finding help where you could.
Let's say that you released a demo and then a first version and then a second one. And you had good times and bad times with this thing
- it was your baby.
And sticking with that metaphor, let's say you brought your baby out into the world and took it for a walk. And all sorts of men and women would stop and say "oh look at that baby, isn't he darling".
And then there's some guy with a gut and an unwashed shirt sitting on a fencepost, and he comes up to your baby and says "MY GOD THAT BABY IS Ugly! and he horks on it) . On your baby. That you love.
So that's a metaphor, and it sucks. But its referring to Killing Floor. Yep. The baby was in fact a METAPHOR for my mod , did you catch that?
Hope so.
So in a circumloquacious manner, i am going to attempt to paint a picture of how I'm feeling about Killing Floor at this time. Abit frustrated, abit happy, and abit of both.
You see - I have come to the realization that despite how much people (gaming afficianados) like to rant about this or that, or what makes a game "great" and what makes a game "suck" most of them simply don't know what they really want.
When I released 1.0 I had people from the "We're into gritty Subculture music and visuals and we like ur mod dude, rawr" crowd who probably played the hell out of silent hill , and felt right at home.
And now that 2.0 has come they're looking at the mod cockeyed , thinking - Dude this sucks, where is my rusty toilet seat? Why arent my zombies drenched in cow shit and spattered in blood? Where's the "It got hit by an a-bomb" vibe.
Well guys(and girls). it's gone. Because what players who aren't artists (and probably a few who are) fail to realize is that an individual's artistic offerings closely reflect what's happening in their life at that time.
So if 1.0 was my "soul searching angry fuck the world-ey" artistic offering, then 2.0 is my "time to grow up alex and see the world without the emo eye piece" statement.
But here's the crux. - How I see the mod and what it represents is very different from how someone else sees it. If I'm a 15 year old gamer browsing the web for stuff to keep my mind off how badly i'm doing in school and why none of the girls look at me during recess, maybe ill give Killing Floor a try.
And will I know what it's creator was trying to express or achieve when I boot it up? Nope. Will I care ? Nope. I'm gonna boot it up and try to play it - and if that "start game" menu button doesnt work. I'm gonna be dissapointed.
And maybe ill shut the game down right away and feel angry that I spent five minutes downloading it when I could have downloaded some other mod. Wow. What a jerk the guy who made this was for fucking my five minutes over. Damn.
Maybe ill post on my favorite forum about how much that mod sucked. Why not right? those five minutes were totally wasted by this shitty, damned, shitty mod. FUCK!
Now i'm painting this kid as a terd right? Like he's a total jerk who's not seeing it from my perspective . And maybe a year ago when I was totally up my ass about everything i would have bought that these archetype "pissed off players" are jerks.
Ready for the zinger?
They're not.
Yep- it's pretty understandable to feel upset when you're expecting something and you get something else. Remember those temperfit tantrums when you thought you were gonna get a ninja turtle on christmas morning and you got some kind of shitty transformer instead? Yes you do. We all do. Uh. Unless you're jewish. But it's a metaphor so shhhh.
And I was thinking to myself - If it's understandable that someone who boots up your game and is dissatisfied with what he's playing should be incensed to rant about it on let's say - a comment thread at moddb, or something then does that make it right that he do so?
- No .
We all know that a modder does not "owe" the players anything, because they aren't paying and yadda ya, and blabbity bla, but come on lets get serious. There's other transactions going on that monetary ones. How about the guys who invest their time in mapping for KF, or keeping the community goin? They're paying arent they? In time and energy and effort - Alot like I did when I made it in the first place.
Same goes for that 15 year old kid who starts it up and wastes his 5 minutes. it's not much effort, but he's still paying something. Isn't he?
Should he be rewarded with something?
Unfortunately as far as modding goes - It's caught between two things. The need for a fanbase and the desire for popularity, and the more personal aim of bringing something you find interesting to life. And most of us modders do abit of both. And some more than others like to play up the first aspect . And that's what we call "hype"
When a mod's Hype is greater than the Delivery , we get an imbalance.
so to use unrealscript
If (Hype > (Delivery - WaitTime))
return "ThisModSucks" ;
Can someone check my syntax?
Well I think it's pretty close to accurate anyway. And that's just how it is with modding.
I think that Killing Floor has had a great run, and that it's had alot of fans, and peoplle who DO appreciate what I'm doing. Believe me guys , I really don't let the weiners stop me from appreciating the KF fanbase and the guys and gals who map for the mod, or host servers, or spread good word about it or all that stuff that makes me wanna continue working on it.
But I also see that it's getting tougher and tougher to please the gaming audience. Not just with mods, but with retail products. They will ask for a hard game and then curse when they die too much and hate you for making it challenging.
They will ask for gameplay over graphics but neglect to play titles that don't look up to par with the other games on the shelf. They will pretend that they know what they're looking for when they don't have the faintest clue what separates a good game from a bad game and a good game from a great game.
And the bottom line is - That's why WE are the developers and THEY are the players. They aren't wrong, and we aren't right. We're just working from two opposite ends of the spectrum.
And I can tell you guys, After two public releases. ..
Phew.
.Being on this side can be a real bumpy ride
Let's say you had this mod, and you worked on it for two solid years to make it as good as you could. And let's say you were understaffed all the time, and you ended up finding help where you could.
Let's say that you released a demo and then a first version and then a second one. And you had good times and bad times with this thing
- it was your baby.
And sticking with that metaphor, let's say you brought your baby out into the world and took it for a walk. And all sorts of men and women would stop and say "oh look at that baby, isn't he darling".
And then there's some guy with a gut and an unwashed shirt sitting on a fencepost, and he comes up to your baby and says "MY GOD THAT BABY IS Ugly! and he horks on it) . On your baby. That you love.
So that's a metaphor, and it sucks. But its referring to Killing Floor. Yep. The baby was in fact a METAPHOR for my mod , did you catch that?
Hope so.
So in a circumloquacious manner, i am going to attempt to paint a picture of how I'm feeling about Killing Floor at this time. Abit frustrated, abit happy, and abit of both.
You see - I have come to the realization that despite how much people (gaming afficianados) like to rant about this or that, or what makes a game "great" and what makes a game "suck" most of them simply don't know what they really want.
When I released 1.0 I had people from the "We're into gritty Subculture music and visuals and we like ur mod dude, rawr" crowd who probably played the hell out of silent hill , and felt right at home.
And now that 2.0 has come they're looking at the mod cockeyed , thinking - Dude this sucks, where is my rusty toilet seat? Why arent my zombies drenched in cow shit and spattered in blood? Where's the "It got hit by an a-bomb" vibe.
Well guys(and girls). it's gone. Because what players who aren't artists (and probably a few who are) fail to realize is that an individual's artistic offerings closely reflect what's happening in their life at that time.
So if 1.0 was my "soul searching angry fuck the world-ey" artistic offering, then 2.0 is my "time to grow up alex and see the world without the emo eye piece" statement.
But here's the crux. - How I see the mod and what it represents is very different from how someone else sees it. If I'm a 15 year old gamer browsing the web for stuff to keep my mind off how badly i'm doing in school and why none of the girls look at me during recess, maybe ill give Killing Floor a try.
And will I know what it's creator was trying to express or achieve when I boot it up? Nope. Will I care ? Nope. I'm gonna boot it up and try to play it - and if that "start game" menu button doesnt work. I'm gonna be dissapointed.
And maybe ill shut the game down right away and feel angry that I spent five minutes downloading it when I could have downloaded some other mod. Wow. What a jerk the guy who made this was for fucking my five minutes over. Damn.
Maybe ill post on my favorite forum about how much that mod sucked. Why not right? those five minutes were totally wasted by this shitty, damned, shitty mod. FUCK!
Now i'm painting this kid as a terd right? Like he's a total jerk who's not seeing it from my perspective . And maybe a year ago when I was totally up my ass about everything i would have bought that these archetype "pissed off players" are jerks.
Ready for the zinger?
They're not.
Yep- it's pretty understandable to feel upset when you're expecting something and you get something else. Remember those temperfit tantrums when you thought you were gonna get a ninja turtle on christmas morning and you got some kind of shitty transformer instead? Yes you do. We all do. Uh. Unless you're jewish. But it's a metaphor so shhhh.
And I was thinking to myself - If it's understandable that someone who boots up your game and is dissatisfied with what he's playing should be incensed to rant about it on let's say - a comment thread at moddb, or something then does that make it right that he do so?
- No .
We all know that a modder does not "owe" the players anything, because they aren't paying and yadda ya, and blabbity bla, but come on lets get serious. There's other transactions going on that monetary ones. How about the guys who invest their time in mapping for KF, or keeping the community goin? They're paying arent they? In time and energy and effort - Alot like I did when I made it in the first place.
Same goes for that 15 year old kid who starts it up and wastes his 5 minutes. it's not much effort, but he's still paying something. Isn't he?
Should he be rewarded with something?
Unfortunately as far as modding goes - It's caught between two things. The need for a fanbase and the desire for popularity, and the more personal aim of bringing something you find interesting to life. And most of us modders do abit of both. And some more than others like to play up the first aspect . And that's what we call "hype"
When a mod's Hype is greater than the Delivery , we get an imbalance.
so to use unrealscript
If (Hype > (Delivery - WaitTime))
return "ThisModSucks" ;
Can someone check my syntax?
Well I think it's pretty close to accurate anyway. And that's just how it is with modding.
I think that Killing Floor has had a great run, and that it's had alot of fans, and peoplle who DO appreciate what I'm doing. Believe me guys , I really don't let the weiners stop me from appreciating the KF fanbase and the guys and gals who map for the mod, or host servers, or spread good word about it or all that stuff that makes me wanna continue working on it.
But I also see that it's getting tougher and tougher to please the gaming audience. Not just with mods, but with retail products. They will ask for a hard game and then curse when they die too much and hate you for making it challenging.
They will ask for gameplay over graphics but neglect to play titles that don't look up to par with the other games on the shelf. They will pretend that they know what they're looking for when they don't have the faintest clue what separates a good game from a bad game and a good game from a great game.
And the bottom line is - That's why WE are the developers and THEY are the players. They aren't wrong, and we aren't right. We're just working from two opposite ends of the spectrum.
And I can tell you guys, After two public releases. ..
Phew.
.Being on this side can be a real bumpy ride
. I love both 1.0 and 2.0, infact, it's the only reason I ever bought UT2004, disliked the game too much to bother buying it. But I played your mod and bought it right away becaues it was so kickass, even when I played by myself with bots. Seriously, your KillingFloor mod rocks even more then like, a bunch of the games I paid for and installed. *claps for Alex* 
) but still i love this mod, and I'm sure once C+R=C releases ooh I'll love that too.
