Modding and people
Invariably, people don’t appear to understand the effort taken to modify a game, unless of course they are the ones doing it, or have a similar (or better) level of understanding.
Various games bring about people who irk me, but more often than not those who might appear to be culprits of it aren’t, and those who drape themselves in a cloak of understanding often don’t. This reversal is probably more infuriating than anything else because the subjects are either long-time franchise fans or computer scientists, who assume that because it’s the ideal model that it’ll work (or worse, they don’t understand the commercial forces which drives the choices, even though they’ve studied that too).
I could draw a line in the sand between myself and these people, but in so doing I would be cutting myself off the community as a whole, and I would be modding for nobody but myself (which, frankly, would make it much easier).
Tropico 4 isn’t necessarily one of the worse communities, but there is certainly a level of entitlement which rivals Team Fortress 2. The problem with entitlement is that players believe that the publisher or a modder should add/fix/remove something because they think it fits within the scope of the game. Were it necessary, the developer would either add it or possibly DLC it (see maps in the COD franchise).
I’m not saying that everyone out there with their hand out is an idiot, or that they need to have a deep understanding of the game, but many of the complaints aren’t well thought through.
Aside from modding, you then have the people who make you wonder about humanity. Those who have tried everything but removing anti-viral programmes, insisting that an application designed to peer and interfere with other applications couldn’t possibly be causing that fatal cross-thread deadlock that plagues every game on the same engine. You’ve got the people who didn’t read the box/site/page/forum/billboard/poster which screams that their system is inadequate for the game they’re about to buy.
You then have the additional “know-it-alls”, and I don’t mean those who are part way through the code trying to unravel the magic (read: people like me), but the people that rave about X, Y and Z, features, being dead wrong about one or more of the things. Supplemented from time to time with those who want to know every secret to “perfect” their experience and get the best score (why would we give that away?).
To top it off, you have people complaining on various forums about delays and “unhelpful” staff on forums/lists, without registering that maybe, just maybe, there is a reason they’re not giving away the secrets of the game or that they aren’t responsible for the delay but under contract can’t make a comment about the delay.
Finally, there are the people who are trying to be helpful, and correct things that weren’t wrong in the first place. Anachronism has no place in video games, save, perhaps, to demonstrate the path from which the franchise or system has grown. Want features from that game? Go play it. The incremented number at the end of the title says one thing to you: this isn’t the game you’re talking about, it’s a new one. Yes, it looks the same, speaks the same language to you, and probably does many things in the same way. The differences in the game are not that big, I hear them complain, saying that a new game wasn’t worth it. Apparently the difference between your frontal lobe and that of a low-tier primate aren’t either.
Entitlement is the sum of everything wrong with the gaming industry. While you may have a product to move, you can’t bow to people completely or you end up with a fan base expectant on your compliance. (This post is, of course, to say nothing of the people who want “modkits” for engines — but if you want to read it that way, go to the beginning and start with that in mind, it probably works equally as well.)
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