As I understand it, the issue is that people can upload mods from the PC to the XBox network. You can’t actually create the mods on the console. The console crowd has been clamoring for the PC community to make their mods available to them. The mod community has been feeling harassed by an outside community that feels entitled, and ill feelings have arisen on both sides. Console users have been uploading content from the PC mod world onto XBox’s network, and apparently this has been some degree of contempt or animus toward the mod community for being PC Master Race elitists. Some mods are going onto the XBox network without credit to the original creator. When the creators are credited, they’re in for harassment because their mods created with PC hardware in mind tend to be very buggy in the limits of the XBox.
So, people have already started taking about how this could end the mod community as we know it, like when AoL got access to Usenet. A community that evolved its own bonhomie over many years, with standards of courtesy and co-operation, is now invaded by people who were never part of this evolution and do not feel obliged to learn the protocols of mutual respect that have made it a community in the first place and amounts to the only reward all these people receive for their work.
Is it true, though, that the console community feels that the mods are a privilege that they’ve paid for, and acts entitled? And is this really going to break up the mod community?
I guess I misunderstood what the process would be. I had thought Bethesda would be uploading the mods for the Xbox which would presumably include contact with the creator. But it sounds like anyone can just upload whatever?
I’m guessing there is still some kind of human gatekeeper, since a fair number of mods involve boobies. I imagine Bethesda can just open the mod and look to see if any new textures feature bewbs. And… I don’t know what else they’d check for, but apparently not compatibility and originality.
Sheesh. I don’t know how apt the comparison to Eternal September is, but it sure is jarring. I still have nightmares. (All those damn stupid AOLers with their damn stupid "ME TOO"s…)
If the Xboxers want mods, they’ll have to write them themselves. If a PC mod author wants to undertake to adapt an existing mod to Xbox and maintain it there, more power to 'em. But if some console yahoo downloads a PC mod off of Nexus or Steam and sideloads it onto his Xbox, why is it anyone’s problem but his own? Stupidity is its own self-inflicted and fully-deserved punishment.
It certainly reinforces the widely-held belief that the Xbox community is the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in the gaming world.
I don’t really see how that would break the mod community. There have always been asshats harassing modders (or pestering them to do this and that by self-styled “Ideas Guys”). As well, I don’t know that I would characterize the modding scene as “convivial” or use words like “bonhommie” - some of the major players have egos the size of planets and/or are legit insane :).
That said, there are two reasons anybody gets into modding : either for one’s fun ; or as a “proof of concept” to get hired into a real gaming company. The latter is becoming more commonplace. Getting harassed by insane trolls with too much time on their hands is primo training for the latter.
On the one hand, stealing content by uploading it is unforgivable dippery of the first order.
On the other hand, this line from the article:
is also dippery because literally every person who uses a mod, be it on console or PC, is “freeloading” off of the creator. There’s no quid pro quo in the modding community - the vast, vast, vast majority of players do not create content and never will create content. That kind of nonsense just plays into the perennially moronic console vs PC “debate.”
On the last hand, I can’t believe Bethesda isn’t running some kind of (or at least better) quality control on this stuff.
I think the issue is not being given credit, or having a mod that has not been properly tailored for consoles, breaking games and then being blamed.
These are console gamers. They don’t think Mods = possibly break. They think Bethesda feature: must work flawlessly.
The whole death threats and begging spam directed at modders is pretty ridiculous. But I don’t think it’s going to have any lasting effect on t he modding community.
This is not the first or last time consoles make things bad for some section of PC gaming, but we grin and bear it. So will modders.
I don’t really get the problem. The PC modders should simply ignore the console guys wholesale. If the console modding community, such as it is, is torn apart due to poor quality control and lack of proper attribution, no big loss. It should have no effect on the PC side at all, which can pretend that consoles don’t exist at all.
I think that just underlines the point, though. There are enough internal problems in the PC mod community that getting riled up over an external community that poses no actual harm is pretty pointless. Oh well, I guess they all thrive on drama so it’s not really unexpected.
I know the stereotype is that console gamers are mentally challenged, but this is taking it too far. No one with enough mental functioning to operate a console thinks the worlds “flawless” and “Bethesda” belong together without a ‘nowhere near’ involved makes any kind of sense.
Well, ok,not flawless, but not going to fuck your save… ok, not not going to fuck your save, but not going to ruin quest-lines like some mods ca… ok, maybe you’re right.
About the only failure mode console titles from Bethesda are immune to is Crash to Desktop… only because consoles don’t have desktops to crash to. :dubious:
A question I meant to ask earlier, in the initial assertion that Bethesda has some role in the quality of mods: is this true? Other than providing the tools, I wasn’t aware Bethesda had anything to do with mods, let alone QAing them before they go live.
My cite is everything at the various Nexus websites. If there was going to be any QA, I’d suspect the only real opportunity would be the Steam workshop for FO4 mods, and I’ve never heard anything about that place being very quality proactive.
In my experience, using a mod is strictly a laissez-faire thing: install and use at your own risk.
