An open letter to the entire community.

[CanadianFrog]

Over the last year, I've seen a phrase pop up constantly in discords, comment sections, and forums all over the community. The exact wording changes but the common theme is always the same. "Private mods killed this community." I'm sure everyone is guilty of daydreaming over City of Angels or River Falls at least once, it's only natural. But those mods aren't private because of some ill will of the creators, nor are they harming this community. No, dear friends, the fault is ours.

I am a relative newcomer to Emergency 4's community. While I have been playing the game in one form or another since 2011, I only took an active role in the community late in 2017. Even so, over the last five years, and after reading several old threads and speaking with some real "OGs" of the community, it's pretty obvious that we only have ourselves to blame for the current state of things. MikeyPI made a pretty well structured post in 2015 about why he and Hoppah were deciding to hold development of the NYC mod for the time being. I'll post it below, as it's worth reading. I'll also post a link to the thread if anyone else in interested in scrolling through a seven year old locked thread.

MikeyPI's post from 16 June 2015 (spoiler tagged for the sake of formatting)

Spoiler

Well, they say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, I wonder what it is then when someone just takes yours as their own...  I can't personally see it as flattery, but perhaps that's just me.  If not for the fact that we've already went down this road once before, and were given word that it would be resolved then I figured this would no longer be a problem.  Apparently taking this issue in good faith was a serious mistake, and I gave too much credit to the level of respect people are capable of.  There is a difference between accidentally doing something, and knowingly with full intention taking advantage of something. The first time something like this happens it's possible it's a misunderstanding, the second time it happens from the same people it's just pathetic.

 

What people fail to grasp is the level of time invested to do this type of hobby, time that could be placed into other things instead.  It is of course "not a big deal" when you're not the one actually taking the time and putting your effort into something, so I do not expect anyone who does not do it to understand my feelings..  I would expect other modders to grasp the concept though, and the flat out disregard for this just frankly speaks to a situation where people just prove their character for what it really is.  I've put a good deal of my time and energy into this project, working when I could to try to improve the modification as I went along and ultimately gained experience.  When it came to people asking to use the things that I put the time into, I simply asked to be informed so I knew where and how it was being used, and usually I let people have at it.  When people are just taking things without even so much as a common courtesy, that is a problem, but to take something and claim it as your own, that is just ignorant.

 

I don't figure that the community as a whole will frankly care what's transpired, more or less just figure "but that's toys you're taking away from me", and in fact it very well may, which is a shame.. Ultimately though it falls on the offenders for the faults in their actions that out of respect one would hope they would be up front about, but time and again people prove incapable of that courtesy, yet expect the respect they're incapable of giving to others...  The problem going forth is that I value my time greatly, and don't enjoy feeling it's being wasted, when someone is not only taking things that I put effort into, but taking them and not even using them in a different way from the way that I did, it really sits badly with me. Couple that with the indignant belief it's acceptable to not only take things but claim them as yours, yet expect people to credit you for yours speaks to an egotistical hypocrisy.

 

This community was intended to be a collaborative place where people could share and work together on things, ultimately it has become a place of givers and takers.  Where people have no qualms about stomping over anyone else so long as they get what they want out of it, which is fine if that's what you want to have, I certainly don't think it's an ethical way to be.  Take the time to think about the time invested by the people before you screw em over, for you it may only take 15 minutes but someone took the time and effort you're exploiting. This type of behavior that has become standard as of late may keep the gimmick "toys" coming that the community wants, but ultimately it also reduces the desire of people to waste their time in providing new and interesting things for the community to enjoy, if the goal is to ensure that people stop bothering to try to evolve this aged game all that has to happen is what has been a problem of late and people will stop wasting the time.

 

Because of how I feel regarding this stupidly ignorant scenario that has been presented, but more importantly the way in which it has been handled I figure it is not worth the hassle of wasting my time any further.  As such I am suspending this modification unless Hoop feels so inclined to continue forth with it, I can find more prudent things to do with my time rather than wasting it only to have others not only jack the things I put time into and claim them as their own, but to do so in such a way they feel compelled to be indignant when someone catches them.. The arrogance involved to think this way just boggles my mind, it ultimately comes down to respect of one another and the time and effort placed into even a hobby.. It may be "just a hobby" but it's still my time invested into this hobby, and ultimately what's the point in it if people can't even be respectful of one another when it comes down to it in the end.

 

For me unless something changes to drastically change my view, I'll find better uses for my time rather than trying to put new content into this ancient game that a limited number even play.  I as of right now see no reason for the effort when it'll just be hijacked without any regard what so ever for the time I put into it.  Thank you to everyone that supported what I tried to do while working on this project, it had its fun moments and was a good bit of work, but ultimately this latest affair just comes down as another example of everything that is wrong with people's viewpoints when it comes to respecting people's effort.  The reality is I can just as easily take the things I've put effort into as a hobby and sell them as opposed to making them for this game, and frankly with the lack of appreciation for the effort it certainly looks more practical to do that instead.

and here is the thread if you want to read further (highly recommended) 

By my own interpretation, Mikey wanted to wait until the state of the community improved to release his work into our lives. The state of the community never did improve, sadly, so NYC V2 stays forgotten on a hard drive somewhere, probably forever. Nowadays, all I see is people complaining about this decision. Hardly a new thing, even in the original thread some people whined and moaned over the dev's rightful decision, but what was once balanced with some messages of sympathy is now just the voices of the masses crying because they couldn't play with a new toy. 

Thats the root of it, in my opinion. We've become so obsessed with something new. Everyone wants a new mod so they can play something just a little different, but that desire for more has given way to a monster - theft. Now is this the "legal definition" of theft? No, probably not. I've had it argued to me that no civil or legal action can be taken for anything in this game because of all sorts of varying reasons. But my rant here has nothing to do with legality, but about respect. 

Itchboy is the principal victim of this nowadays - look no further than his parking script to see what I mean. All he can do is ask politely for us to refrain from using an asset he placed his effort and time into creating, and a portion of the community has walked all over that. All his scripts, models, etc. Same goes for EmC_Unit. You need not look too far to see an edit of the Miami mod out there, even though it is forbidden in the terms of service.

I'll take a moment now to acknowledge that not everyone is guilty of being a vulture for other's content, this site in particular seems to have no issue for it whatsoever, and for that I am thankful. I'm sure that what I've been referring to this whole time is simply a vocal minority, their actions speaking loud thanks to their discords and other websites that function as an echo chamber. But the problem is certainly widespread enough to be of concern to all of us. Why should Itchboy, EmC_Unit, THVFD, or anyone else for that matter release anything anymore? None of us want that, but it's near impossible to blame these long time developers from wanting to withhold some of their work from us. 

It's not about greed on the dev's part. Itchboy alone publishes dozens upon dozens of free to use models for us if we really aspire to create our own mods. He's also present on the forums to answer questions, even the most ammeter ones. (He helped me greatly in my early days of modding.) The problem is greed for us. We become so blinded by seeing things that are "new" and we forget that these developers are owed respect of their boundaries. Their time and effort has gone into creating a product for the community, it is the absolute least we can do to be able to recognize that we shouldn't view all these projects as a depot for spare parts. But we have been treating these projects as depots for spare parts. That is what is killing this community. Not private mods, but our own greed. 

TL;DR - If we weren't so greedy about assets, we would have no need for private mods.

[itchboy]

I'll be watching this thread, everyone, please be nice about this discussion even if it's a controversial topic.

As for my thoughts? I was named specifically so here's my take:

If we're talking about the forums in general, things have improved significantly and people absolutely an respect one another's work within this section of the community. Compared to those older days, I feel a lot more satisfied in making content in this kind of environment.

I am also thankful for all the new people I've met, and the people who support my projects in a non-transactional way. It is an honor to make mods with many of your positive interactions. It's a much better situation than people mindlessly begging for assets like the old days. I'm still amazed that I have people helping with research, texture making, collaborations with models, scripts.

For me personally, if there is a solution to this "problem", it's the one I've been saying for years. If you don't like private mods, instead of tearing down content creators, support public mods instead. There are many public release mods that need a lot of love and improvement and could benefit from your effort. Look at how community sourced information was able to help Project Nostalgia and Montana. It really doesn't take much but you could become a part of making your favorite mods be even better.

 

 

[DavidBomBastic]

On 11/4/2022 at 1:14 AM, itchboy said:

I'll be watching this thread, everyone, please be nice about this discussion even if it's a controversial topic.

As for my thoughts? I was named specifically so here's my take:

If we're talking about the forums in general, things have improved significantly and people absolutely an respect one another's work within this section of the community. Compared to those older days, I feel a lot more satisfied in making content in this kind of environment.

I am also thankful for all the new people I've met, and the people who support my projects in a non-transactional way. It is an honor to make mods with many of your positive interactions. It's a much better situation than people mindlessly begging for assets like the old days. I'm still amazed that I have people helping with research, texture making, collaborations with models, scripts.

For me personally, if there is a solution to this "problem", it's the one I've been saying for years. If you don't like private mods, instead of tearing down content creators, support public mods instead. There are many public release mods that need a lot of love and improvement and could benefit from your effort. Look at how community sourced information was able to help Project Nostalgia and Montana. It really doesn't take much but you could become a part of making your favorite mods be even better.

 

 

Shut yer mouth you stupid wank

[Sangmi]

4 hours ago, DavidBomBastic said:

Shut yer mouth you stupid wank

That's unnecessarily rude and not helpful in the slightest.

[Squad 65]

This is one of the reasons developers are keeping their mods private. I hate it when drama starts over a certain mod. Especially over a mod that people have said that it's private and a test bed. People don't fucking get that people have choices to do what they want.