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[Urist McScoopbeard]

That it does. I've looked a few pages back, and apparently back in 2015, I was avidly defending the free modding. Curing communism did a great job to make my world-view better, it seems.

Yes, Bay12 is a funny place. Where time seems to go both forwards and back. I too, have have stumbled upon younger versions of myself that seem to say the exact opposite of what I believe now.

EDIT: Beware, these dopplegangers may attempt to steal your soul only to barter it back to you in exchange for taking their spot in time.

[Sergarr]

EDIT: Beware, these dopplegangers may attempt to steal your soul only to barter it back to you in exchange for taking their spot in time.

Thankfully, I've already reached a mutually profitable agreement with all of my dopplegangers, where they use the soul (1 pcs.) in rotation, therefore bypassing the need for unnecessary time-travel

[Putnam]

EDIT: Also, I will kindly disregard the ad-hominen, @Sergarr. I have been nothing but civil (if blunt) in expressing my view points, and even if you don't agree with them I'll expect the same from you.

Sergarr didn't do much ad-hominem. I got the closest, and I merely accused you of pulling information about the process of modding out your ass, which I still feel rather confident in doing since it's incredibly likely that I have more experience in modding than you.

Oh, and also: I was actually against paid mods before reading your arguments, working through actually good arguments in my head, then realizing the arguments I thought were actually good ended up being variations on "I define modding as something you do for free", so thanks for putting forth your views so badly that they managed to convince me that I was wrong despite agreeing with you.

[Reelya]

Yeah, i summed up why I'm not concerned before:

- if paid mods become a thing, then they'll diverge from the free mod community, more like DLC expansion packs.

- if you only get "a few cents" from making a paid mod, or stealing one, then people shouldn't actually worry about it too much and just keep modding for free.

- anyway, the "well" of free mods to steal is finite especially if modder alliances get together and ...

- bundle community mods and have someone put them on the market for the minimum possible price

So if someone is stealing from you to make a profit, just out-compete them and credit everything, and/or give any proceeds to charity.

[wierd]

No, there is such a thing as disgust.

A great many free modders will just quit. Never to return.

[ChairmanPoo]

I think dammage to the community spirit is a genuine concern

[Urist McScoopbeard]

EDIT: Also, I will kindly disregard the ad-hominen, @Sergarr. I have been nothing but civil (if blunt) in expressing my view points, and even if you don't agree with them I'll expect the same from you.

Sergarr didn't do much ad-hominem. I got the closest, and I merely accused you of pulling information about the process of modding out your ass, which I still feel rather confident in doing since it's incredibly likely that I have more experience in modding than you.

Oh, and also: I was actually against paid mods before reading your arguments, working through actually good arguments in my head, then realizing the arguments I thought were actually good ended up being variations on "I define modding as something you do for free", so thanks for putting forth your views so badly that they managed to convince me that I was wrong despite agreeing with you.

Then consider it addressed to you as well, also he did call me a freeloader (also wouldn't the vast majority of people who use mods be freeloaders?) And, at no point--for reference--did I say anything about the process of modding. Seriously! I said that I don't see it as an amount of work I'm willing to pay for. While you definitely have more experience then me (pretty much limited to making maps on the old Star Wars: Empire at War and poking around in DF raws) I still get a say. It's my right as a consumer to say, "Hey, this isn't worth my while to pay for it. I like it enough to use it free, but if I had to shell out cash for it, I'd rather just not have it." I'm not invalidating your work--It's good work (I've actually never played fortbent, sorry, not a homestuck fan), I just wouldn't pay for it, because in the end, it doesn't enrich my experience all that much. And that's how I feel about 95% of mods. Of course, there's always one or two mods that I'd pay through the nose for, but those are the exceptions rather than the norm.

EDIT: And the only "mod" that enriches a game so much for me that I'd be willing to pay for it is probably Dwarf Therapist. Though, I'm not sure if a third-party program is considered a mod? (I'd pay for Dwarf Therapist, all of the money.)

I don't know how else to describe the situation. It's not content I'm willing to shell cash out for.

[Putnam]

EDIT: Also, I will kindly disregard the ad-hominen, @Sergarr. I have been nothing but civil (if blunt) in expressing my view points, and even if you don't agree with them I'll expect the same from you.

Sergarr didn't do much ad-hominem. I got the closest, and I merely accused you of pulling information about the process of modding out your ass, which I still feel rather confident in doing since it's incredibly likely that I have more experience in modding than you.

Oh, and also: I was actually against paid mods before reading your arguments, working through actually good arguments in my head, then realizing the arguments I thought were actually good ended up being variations on "I define modding as something you do for free", so thanks for putting forth your views so badly that they managed to convince me that I was wrong despite agreeing with you.

And, at no point--for reference--did I say anything about the process of modding. Seriously! I said that I don't see it as an amount of work I'm willing to pay for.

That's a total non-sequitur.

"I did not say anything about the process of modding. Seriously! I said that I don't see the process of modding as an amount of work I'm willing to pay for."

You are commenting on the amount of work the process of modding takes by saying that you are not willing to pay for it.

And that's how I feel about 95% of mods.

That's how I feel about 95% of movies and games, but you don't see me saying that they should all always be free.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Listen, I've already made my other points on why I won't pay for mods I don't think mods should have to be paid for. I'm not going to just keep arguing in this circle. Let's just agree to disagree.

[Putnam]

Then I look forward to someone actually making a point.

Like, I know this seems a bit brutal, but I'm actually kind of freaking out about the fact that my views were changed by someone arguing for the side i was already on.

[Reelya]

Yeah, but that shows that you're a proper open minded person, which is good.

The distribution model itself dictates the type of content available. e.g. Youtube wants to be "more like TV" but that doesn't mean that Youtube is suddenly going to have weekly reality TV gameshows and daytime soaps, because those models don't fit with the distribution model. It'll be a new different type of TV.

In the same sense the sentiment "modding isn't an amount of work I'd pay for" is entirely based on the scope of current things that are called mods. Sure, they have a value, but that value is below the threshold where either you or they could be bothered to make a transaction. That's why people who made "paid mods" bundle a lot of material together, so that the aggregate value is above what's worth paying for.

But also, the effort that goes into bundling lots of small mods together to make a working, coherent mod pack isn't trivial either. Getting lots of mods to play well together in a way that makes sense, and isn't going to break the buyers machine, and now that person is responsible for customer support. Consider that ... it might not be as easy as it sounds to merely slap a pile of small mods together and call it a "pack" that you are now responsible for maintaining.

But yeah, like I said, try the community mod pack idea where full credit is given, as a way to innoculate the system against thieves. To be honest it might be more work that you'd think it is.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Then I look forward to someone actually making a point.

Here's a possibility: how do you judge just what a mod might be worth?  Especially in the context that many mod users tend to have a count of fifty as a low point?

[Reelya]

Well that would be up to individuals to judge for themselves. After all, markets set prices, there is no "actual value". What those 50 mods would be worth would be what the person would be willing to pay if you somehow stole all their mods and if they didn't pay then they have to play vanilla. IDK, someone might be willing to pay $10-$20 to get all 50 of their mods back, but e.g. any single mod is only worth a few cents each. Also, each individual small mod might be easy enough to live without that you wouldn't even pay the 20 cents it's worth to you, because that's too much hassle, but the 50 together is still worth $10.00.

So any future "paid mods" system that's sustainable needs to be built on large enough chunks such that they're worth buying on their own. Also, they need to be built on stuff that's not too easy gotten for free. e.g. quick and dirty fixes can be indispensible, but they're also really easy to make, so they can't really stay exclusive to any paid mods for very long.

[Putnam]

Then I look forward to someone actually making a point.

Here's a possibility: how do you judge just what a mod might be worth?  Especially in the context that many mod users tend to have a count of fifty as a low point?

Oh, that's actually not that hard.

If it's a single sword and a quest to get it, I'd say, oh, $.50, maybe.

A mod that adds new races, rebalances the magic system and adds an entirely new guild with multiple questlines as well as extra questlines on top? That I would pay $20 for.

An unofficial patch? Would not put a price on that. It's practically unethical.

A library to make more mods? Would not put a price on that.

SkyUI? Mods rely on it. Would not put a price on it. This was the biggest reason I was against it in the first place.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

$20 for a mod!?!? That's probably not compatible with a bunch of other mods!?!? We'd be in the hundreds of dollars for games if we paid for all those big mods we like so much! That's wild!

... 50 cents for a sword and a quest!?!? there are between 350-500 quests in vanilla Skyrim (found a couple of numbers), that's 12-17 cents a quest! And you want to charge me around four times that for a user-created one? That stuff adds up!

Also, how are we to understand the quality of a mod? Can we have some sort of trial period first? Forget going on pure content, what about quality???



Also, dude...

Like, I know this seems a bit brutal, but I'm actually kind of freaking out about the fact that my views were changed by someone arguing for the side i was already on.

Don't be a dick. Enough.