Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Mods => Modding => Topic started by: Cyan Leader on May 30, 2019, 07:51:15 AM

Title: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Cyan Leader on May 30, 2019, 07:51:15 AM
I don't want to be overly critical of content creators here, I love how the mods spice up the content of the game and god knows how many hours I have spent playing them (and you guys creating them), but it really takes me out of the game to see a character make an outdated joke completely unrelated to the sector or to shatter the tone of the game with things like emoticons on the text. I don't want to single out any mod with specific examples, that's not the point of this thread, but there is a big push in the forums to make mods compatible with each other and with the vanilla balance, please try to maintain the tone close to vanilla as well. To some extent this also applies to any extra Tooltips, please try to use that in moderation.

Moreover, if your mod completely breaks the tone of the game that's fine, I think anyone should be able to make whatever they wish, but I'd prefer that to be advertised in your mod page.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: vorpal+5 on May 30, 2019, 08:26:41 AM
+1
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Cyan Leader on August 17, 2019, 11:27:47 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/k8NWMYm.png)

Really, now.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on August 17, 2019, 12:01:08 PM
My response to this whole principle is pretty well summed up as 'bite me'. If you're willing to put in as much unpaid volunteer labor as we do, then I'll start caring what you think about some fairly minor humor that sneaks in; otherwise, head on into data/strings/tips.json and comment out what you don't want to see.

Personally, I'm limiting myself to one joke tip per mod from now on, but posts like this go a long way towards convincing me to abandon restraint entirely. (For the record, none of these are mine; all of them made me laugh).
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: SCC on August 17, 2019, 12:12:13 PM
My biggest issue with joke tips is that at some point, the joke tips make up the majority of them... I wish there was something to make joke tips spawn less frequently. It's fine to see them once in a while, but it's not fine when it's hard to see an actual, useful tip.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Serenitis on August 18, 2019, 01:36:24 AM
I don't really mind stuff like this, so long as the author isn't being outright abusive to others. Or fasc.


Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: WKOB on August 18, 2019, 01:57:18 AM
This serves as a good jumping off point for a post I wanted to make but didn't really want to make a new thread for:

I just wanted to thank this community for the absurd amount of high quality mod content. There are so many mods, so many of them have a lot of hard work put into them, the community does an exceptionally good job of making the mods compatible and work well with each other, and just in general it's crazy how much has been updated and created every time I start playing Starsector when there's a big update what feels like every 2 years.

The big notable guys like Tartiflette, Dark.Revenant, LazyWizard, Trylobot, some of the classic modders who aren't around as much like MShadowy, Erick Doe and HELMUT, and the newer guys like KingAlfonzo - plus a ton of other people who deserve mentions too but if I listed everybody who's mods I've used I'd run out of space - thanks for the work, tons of people enjoy it who don't get around to showing their appreciation.

I love Alex's game, and it's probably one of the best deals on a game I've gotten, but I wouldn't honestly still be playing it without the community.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Johnny Cocas on August 18, 2019, 05:31:17 AM
Joke tips can be fun from time to time, but they are something that should be optional, not forced into the players and then told to remove them from the tips.json if they don't like them, that is the upmost lack of respect for the user, no matter how you view it.

There are lots of respectable modders who have tips in their mods to help people understand certain mechanics, and that is what tips should do: help explain game mechanics, how to play or how to achieve x goal.

We can't ask Alex to change the game so that there's a separate "jokes" file that people can enable or disable in the game's settings, nor can we ask modders to have an optional additional downloadable tips.json for those who want the jokes available, BUT here's my suggestion:
Keep jokes to a minimal amount, I'd even say 1 joke per mod, and put the mod's ID as a prefix for all joke strings just as most modders do for all the other tips, that way if some joke is tasteless people can quickly and easily see from which mod it is and act accordingly.
And please, don't come here and say "you can just do a quick search in the mods folder and find the mod yourself", I've heard that one before and once again, upmost disrespect for the user.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Alex on August 18, 2019, 09:26:04 AM
Since this seems to come up with some degree of regularity, added this in:

   tips:[
{"freq":0, "tip":"You can change the frequency of tips by adding a json object instead of a string, like so. For example, this tip has a frequency of 0 and will never show up. The default freq value is 1."},
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Mr. Nobody on August 18, 2019, 10:31:59 AM
Since this seems to come up with some degree of regularity, added this in:

   tips:[
{"freq":0, "tip":"You can change the frequency of tips by adding a json object instead of a string, like so. For example, this tip has a frequency of 0 and will never show up. The default freq value is 1."},

[Gregorian chanting intensifies]
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: ActuallyUlysses on August 19, 2019, 09:05:49 AM
Wow, which mod adds those tips? I want more where that came from :D
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: shoi on August 19, 2019, 11:15:27 AM
My response to this whole principle is pretty well summed up as 'bite me'. If you're willing to put in as much unpaid volunteer labor as we do, then I'll start caring what you think about some fairly minor humor that sneaks in; otherwise, head on into data/strings/tips.json and comment out what you don't want to see.

Personally, I'm limiting myself to one joke tip per mod from now on, but posts like this go a long way towards convincing me to abandon restraint entirely. (For the record, none of these are mine; all of them made me laugh).

They clutter up what should be actually useful info and shouldn't be so frequent. 99% of the tips I see in my current game have nothing to do with starsector, if you're going to add them at least let people know on your mod page
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Alphascrub on August 19, 2019, 12:32:58 PM
I'm alright with the tip humor. I haven't honestly ever found out anything from the tips that I didn't learn from playing the game. To be exact, I've found more use in the humor tips than the none because they make me laugh. Whats more is I can remember some of the humorous ones where's at the moment I'm drawing a blank for the rest. Thats kind of the problem isn't it. One tip I would have for new players is buy supplies at every port, where as a player who has been at it for a while probably has entire parts of his/her fleet dedicated to logistics and doesn't need any help managing it. Hence why I think humor tips are ok.

As far as the OP comment on mod balance and such, I agree I don't want OP ships. I want ships that fit in the universe. Overpowered ships tend to take away from the experience. Not add to it. Getting past a particular fight because you fitted and piloted a ship/fleet particularly well is vastly more fun than being able to wipe out the opposing fleet because your ship has more flux capacity and venting than the entire enemy fleet combined. Most mods do an excellent job at meeting just at, just below or just above vanilla balance. Its close enough to keep things interesting. Ever notice how strong the paragon is? How even VS many modded "vanilla balanced" capital ships it wins?  I think thats pretty great.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Ed on August 19, 2019, 02:00:59 PM
I don't want to be overly critical of content creators here, I love how the mods spice up the content of the game and god knows how many hours I have spent playing them (and you guys creating them), but it really takes me out of the game to see a character make an outdated joke completely unrelated to the sector or to shatter the tone of the game with things like emoticons on the text. I don't want to single out any mod with specific examples, that's not the point of this thread, but there is a big push in the forums to make mods compatible with each other and with the vanilla balance, please try to maintain the tone close to vanilla as well. To some extent this also applies to any extra Tooltips, please try to use that in moderation.

Moreover, if your mod completely breaks the tone of the game that's fine, I think anyone should be able to make whatever they wish, but I'd prefer that to be advertised in your mod page.
Do you really think the future will be super serious and people won't shitpost when given the chance? Even the romans loved to draw dicks and write rude things about each other. Also those tips are right, we don't need another Onslaught recolor!
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Vayra on August 19, 2019, 03:18:20 PM
Huh, every one of those screenshots except for one is from my mod.  Guess I'll take that as a compliment. ??? On the upside for you, it means you can get rid of them with a single simple change to your mod folder... I think I even have a tip that tells you how to do it.  ;)

That said, there is also a warning in the forum OP for each of my mod pages about this, heh.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Offensive_Name on August 19, 2019, 03:22:31 PM
Honestly modders can make their mods however they please, you can either not download them or remove what you don't like from them yourself.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: ActuallyUlysses on August 19, 2019, 07:04:55 PM
Huh, every one of those screenshots except for one is from my mod.  Guess I'll take that as a compliment. ??? On the upside for you, it means you can get rid of them with a single simple change to your mod folder... I think I even have a tip that tells you how to do it.  ;)

That said, there is also a warning in the forum OP for each of my mod pages about this, heh.

I am in the middle of playthrough, so for now I will add just those tips :D

Not like there is anything wrong with your mods. I finished my mod list before you split your big mod into three.

On a side note, I see a number of people complaining about stuff in mods that's super easy to alter in 5 minutes or less. If modder can spent dozens of unpayed manhours hours writing and selecting only the most kosher of tips, you can spend few minutes removing them. All you need is notepad and Microsoft Excel.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Mr. Nobody on August 23, 2019, 02:32:19 AM
Assuming one knows where to look in the first place
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Hrothgar on August 23, 2019, 03:07:57 AM
As long as mods are not breaking a law, they can do whatever they can, even sheeps on skateboards and noeone can say anything about tone of their mods.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: oihShio on August 24, 2019, 10:09:33 AM
You realize this is just tone policing?
People have the freedom to design their mods however they please. The moment that goes away I certainly wouldn't be a content creator.

Having designed mods in other games, and having shared said work, if you don't like it don't download it. If you make something, and then choose to share it (for free mind you), where in there is the creator obligated to design their creation around your personal tastes? They aren't.

Hundreds - thousands of hours of work and someone doesn't like the popups? My god. The modders here are excellent content creators, heck I made an account just to say that. Their creative freedom is their own. If they want help with design i'm sure they'll ask. There's a difference between helpful suggestions and saying "please only make content that conforms to a certain style". It comes off as having "thought-policing" undertones.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Hrothgar on August 24, 2019, 10:18:36 AM
That's how every bad thing like "Sense of Pride and Accomplishment" start.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Ed on August 24, 2019, 01:10:52 PM
I am glad to see most people here understand how tone policing is a bad thing and that the tyranny of the offended can only lead to censorship and the murder of creativity.

If you don't like a mod, don't use it.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Hrothgar on August 24, 2019, 01:23:15 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-84la7b9gVg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsbpQR0OFdY&t=178s

In short- every "we dont like something in mod" action soon will be just "we censor what we dont like and/or what we want to make money from. Also no free stuff, **** **** players"
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Alex on August 24, 2019, 01:38:25 PM
... let's please try to keep this more on topic. The OP has a right to his opinion, modders have a right to disregard it or not as they choose, and this discussion is getting pretty far off-topic in talking about stuff that's at best tangentially related.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: SCC on August 25, 2019, 12:36:15 AM
Tone policing? If non-useful tips are making actual, useful tips non-existent, I don't care what tone they are. They are measurably and negatively impacting the gameplay.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Offensive_Name on August 25, 2019, 12:40:46 AM
Tone policing? If non-useful tips are making actual, useful tips non-existent, I don't care what tone they are. They are measurably and negatively impacting the gameplay.

and no one cares what you think, if you don't like it fix it yourself.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Nicke535 on August 25, 2019, 12:59:23 AM
A: Mods usually don't specify which mod a tip comes from, meaning it can be hard to actually "just don't use that mod" as suggested (exceptions exist though, and it has gotten better recently).

B: This is not a policing action, this is not a threat, it is purely the opinion of one person who'd like it if people, at the very least, specify if they add content which is of a very different tone to the rest of the game experience. Not a particularly tall order (not to mention it's not an order, but rather something they'd find nice), and definitely not a "tyranny of the offended".

C: Of course people can say things about a mods tone, just like the creators have every right to disregard said things. The argument that "they've put in work, you haven't, shut up" is utterly ridicilous... however, the opposite is also true: that a mod creator is forced to listen to this critique is equally ridicilous.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: oihShio on August 25, 2019, 02:24:59 AM
A: Mods usually don't specify which mod a tip comes from, meaning it can be hard to actually "just don't use that mod" as suggested (exceptions exist though, and it has gotten better recently).

B: This is not a policing action, this is not a threat, it is purely the opinion of one person who'd like it if people, at the very least, specify if they add content which is of a very different tone to the rest of the game experience. Not a particularly tall order (not to mention it's not an order, but rather something they'd find nice), and definitely not a "tyranny of the offended".

C: Of course people can say things about a mods tone, just like the creators have every right to disregard said things. The argument that "they've put in work, you haven't, shut up" is utterly ridiculous... however, the opposite is also true: that a mod creator is forced to listen to this critique is equally ridiculous.

A. A very fair point, and to add to that there's a good way to see which mods add tips at all, as the tips.json will either be present in the strings folder of the mod or it won't. That should make it easy to isolate which mods are adding tips. Not to mention a quick peek in the .json in notepad++ and a ctrl+f of the text will tell you if the text is from that mod. If they really bug anyone then it is a very simple thing to deal with.

B. Undertones is the word I used. Tone control is a slippery slope that starts incredibly small, and slowly snowballs into something larger over time.

C. I agree, which is why anything posted is also open to scrutiny.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Nicke535 on August 25, 2019, 03:22:56 AM
B. Undertones is the word I used. Tone control is a slippery slope that starts incredibly small, and slowly snowballs into something larger over time.
You realize this is just tone policing?
People have the freedom to design their mods however they please. The moment that goes away I certainly wouldn't be a content creator.

I'm not leaving outright lies unconfronted. Sure, you tacked on "undertones" at the end of that message, but "You realize this is just tone policing?" does not leave much open for interpretation.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Hrothgar on August 25, 2019, 03:35:05 AM
And if you dont like his mod just dont play it, dont force others to do the same .

Also i think too that forcing people to dont make jokes , vide "Onslaught was mistake", because that's joke, mean basically , that you dont like their jokes so throw them out of all players. Also i dont like you throwing insults on people and telling them they're liars. Dont insult people.

My first iteration of post could be a little harsh, but even if you're right, just point that, dont throw insults on people.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Nicke535 on August 25, 2019, 04:30:45 AM
And if you dont like his mod just dont play it, dont force others to do the same .

Also i think too that forcing people to dont make jokes , vide "Onslaught was mistake", because that's joke, mean basically , that you dont like their jokes so throw them out of all players. Also i dont like you throwing insults on people and telling them they're liars. Dont insult people.

My first iteration of post could be a little harsh, but even if you're right, just point that, dont throw insults on people.
Oh, so me pointing out a factual incorrectness makes me the bad guy here? Saying "no, that wasn't what you said" is in no way, shape, or form an insult.

My response was purely on the level of "no, you don't get to decide what you said after you've said it" level. It was not an insult, it wasn't even a comment on their person, it was a statement on what was said and what wasn't.


And that's not even mentioning that I've never even remotely claimed that jokes should be forbidden OR that people are forced to listen to these opinions... quite the opposite, in fact:
C: Of course people can say things about a mods tone, just like the creators have every right to disregard said things. The argument that "they've put in work, you haven't, shut up" is utterly ridicilous... however, the opposite is also true: that a mod creator is forced to listen to this critique is equally ridicilous.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Hrothgar on August 25, 2019, 05:25:36 AM
In my language there is not big difference between undertones and tone policing, but that may be translation thing also.
Title: Re: Please be mindful of the tone of your mod
Post by: Alex on August 25, 2019, 08:19:33 AM
Locking the thread.

Offensive_Name: you've got a PM.

I'll just add, for the record - and as someone that receives feedback, positive or negative, on a regular basis - that the notion that a player politely sharing their feedback somehow amounts to "tone policing" and "censorship" is ... let's say "a bit silly".