Hottentot
09-14-12, 05:12 AM
In the middle of all the politics, world events, "you is stoopid", "am not" and "are too", I just wanted to stop and say something: thank you Subsim modders. Not only because you mod. Many communities have modders and many games have mods. No: thank you, because you mod well.
I've been meaning to write this for a while, since I use mods in many games. Before I start, I'm making this clear as day: I appreciate all the modders for doing lots of work for free and trying to improve any game. Yet I don't feel it's unreasonable to say that there are things that separate excellent modders and mods from any ordinary mod and modder.
From a mod users point of view a few points, which make the Subsim modders firmly belong in the first category.
1: Thank you for keeping it simple. No, really. This is the most important for me: thank you for having good Readmes and thank you for taking time to make easy one click installers for the bigger mods. Thank you for not writing a novel about how I should first modify this file and then combine it with this file and then throw the new file away, because it actually wasn't necessary at all and in fact I need to do it all over again while standing on my hands and singing. Thank you for not starting the Readmes by saying: "In order to make this mod work, you need to download this, this, this and this mod from here, here, there and there."
Thank you for not expecting me as a mod user to have followed your life from the cradle and therefore knowing everything that has happened with your mod within the last 3 years: thank you for writing the version history down and not necessarily even requiring me to read it in order to play.
Edit: And thank you for writing easily readable Readmes instead of telling stories of your family life with "LOOOOOOOOL" added here and there for a good measure.
2: Thank you for support. Thank you for being willing to improve your mods if people seem to have a technical problem and thank you for trying to help with solving the problem. The mods I have used here have always worked without problems on my system, but I appreciate it nevertheless when I see this in discussion. Thank you for not saying: "Well it works on my machine." Also thank you for not saying: "OK, it's easy, all you need to do is to modify these possibly essential system files in your computer in order to make it work. By the way, I'm not responsible if this burns down your system." Thank you for improving your mods to make them work on as many systems as possible.
3: Thank you for not being pricks. Thank you for not arrogantly declaring how the devs are stupid and biased lemmings, who should be licking your feet along with the community because you are there to "fix" the game. Thank you for not calling your personal unfounded gut feelings of how platform X should perform compared to platform Y as a "historical fix" and calling anyone who disagrees with you an idiot.
4: Thank you for not trying to create completely new games. Some of us, myself included, actually like what came in the vanilla and we'd just like it improved. Therefore thank you for not making a big mod pack with many improvements and then adding ghosts with laser guns in it just because you think it's lulz bolz. And if you do, thank you for giving me a clear option not to install them along with the improvements.
5: Thank you for not thinking that "challenge" is synonomous to "artificial difficulty".
I could go on but probably the community members here have something to add as well, so I'm stepping off the soapbox now for a while and giving it to them. Just repeating once more: thank you not for being modders. Instead Thank You for being cool.
I've been meaning to write this for a while, since I use mods in many games. Before I start, I'm making this clear as day: I appreciate all the modders for doing lots of work for free and trying to improve any game. Yet I don't feel it's unreasonable to say that there are things that separate excellent modders and mods from any ordinary mod and modder.
From a mod users point of view a few points, which make the Subsim modders firmly belong in the first category.
1: Thank you for keeping it simple. No, really. This is the most important for me: thank you for having good Readmes and thank you for taking time to make easy one click installers for the bigger mods. Thank you for not writing a novel about how I should first modify this file and then combine it with this file and then throw the new file away, because it actually wasn't necessary at all and in fact I need to do it all over again while standing on my hands and singing. Thank you for not starting the Readmes by saying: "In order to make this mod work, you need to download this, this, this and this mod from here, here, there and there."
Thank you for not expecting me as a mod user to have followed your life from the cradle and therefore knowing everything that has happened with your mod within the last 3 years: thank you for writing the version history down and not necessarily even requiring me to read it in order to play.
Edit: And thank you for writing easily readable Readmes instead of telling stories of your family life with "LOOOOOOOOL" added here and there for a good measure.
2: Thank you for support. Thank you for being willing to improve your mods if people seem to have a technical problem and thank you for trying to help with solving the problem. The mods I have used here have always worked without problems on my system, but I appreciate it nevertheless when I see this in discussion. Thank you for not saying: "Well it works on my machine." Also thank you for not saying: "OK, it's easy, all you need to do is to modify these possibly essential system files in your computer in order to make it work. By the way, I'm not responsible if this burns down your system." Thank you for improving your mods to make them work on as many systems as possible.
3: Thank you for not being pricks. Thank you for not arrogantly declaring how the devs are stupid and biased lemmings, who should be licking your feet along with the community because you are there to "fix" the game. Thank you for not calling your personal unfounded gut feelings of how platform X should perform compared to platform Y as a "historical fix" and calling anyone who disagrees with you an idiot.
4: Thank you for not trying to create completely new games. Some of us, myself included, actually like what came in the vanilla and we'd just like it improved. Therefore thank you for not making a big mod pack with many improvements and then adding ghosts with laser guns in it just because you think it's lulz bolz. And if you do, thank you for giving me a clear option not to install them along with the improvements.
5: Thank you for not thinking that "challenge" is synonomous to "artificial difficulty".
I could go on but probably the community members here have something to add as well, so I'm stepping off the soapbox now for a while and giving it to them. Just repeating once more: thank you not for being modders. Instead Thank You for being cool.