The Mod Squad

[Skummy]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="TsuMirren" data-cite="TsuMirren" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I hate using the term agendas, but only someone with one could complain about a site that provides focus and enables engagement.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Do you not recognise how one select group of mod makers choosing to host their mods elsewhere, and not use the official forum to promote them despite this being common practice for every mod maker, having been common practice for as long as the series has existed, could be construed as elitist without requiring an "agenda"? </p><p> </p><p> The fact remains that it was your decision to pay to host your own website, and any other expenses you might have incurred while creating mods for this game - to turn around after the fact and complain as if this expense was forced on you comes across as bitter and entitled, and only moreso when your reaction is to take down your mods, and to post about how you're the best/only people making historical mods.</p>

[Big Roguey]

<p>Hi.</p><p> </p><p>

I've removed posts that didn't lend to the discussion going on. </p><p> </p><p>

jwt13 please avoid posting in this thread for the forseeable future based on the posts I've had to remove.</p>

[TsuMirren]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Skummy" data-cite="Skummy" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Do you not recognise how one select group of mod makers choosing to host their mods elsewhere, and not use the official forum to promote them despite this being common practice for every mod maker, having been common practice for as long as the series has existed, could be construed as elitist without requiring an "agenda"? <p> </p><p> The fact remains that it was your decision to pay to host your own website, and any other expenses you might have incurred while creating mods for this game - to turn around after the fact and complain as if this expense was forced on you comes across as bitter and entitled, and only moreso when your reaction is to take down your mods, and to post about how you're the best/only people making historical mods.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> I've certainly never said it was forced upon us, it's something we have all done. In any other field of work you'd get a bit of consideration for doing extra, a bit of control and be allowed to handle how anyone gets access. But, not on here...in a way, I'm stunned GDS are comfortable with amount of unlicensed content on this forum. People should just be happy they get access. Also, for all the discussion about us holding things back...where is all the work? Where's the full discussion that might help? Where are all these betas? You can't say we're stifling 2011 or even 2005 onwards as using any of our bases for it would see the modder give up. You know what, I believe that's exactly what happens. Grab, change the date, "right what needs done...oooh, hmmm, ahhhhhhhhhh...I give up". </p><p> </p><p> Did I say only? We're most definitely the best for the years we have done. Point me to a better 80, 85 or 87! Show me a better 91, 92 or 94. I mentioned Mammoth, does fantastic and guess what I've asked him previously if I could use stuff. He posts as freeware, I still ask out of common courtesy. I've also worked with Matt and there was another lad who took a pounding, asked for help, apologised and then admitted it was too much work.</p><p> </p><p> Being good and describing yourself as good doesn't make you entitled, it just makes you good. Hell, I've been told on here by numerous people that I am good. I'm not going to apologise for describing myself as so. But again, what are any of us stopping? You can't just make 94 in to 96 or 01 to 07 or x to y. That's not how modding works. Now, a fantasy verse, you can get away with stuff because, hate to say it , nothing has actually happened. So if GloryVerse gets released then Kitarzu and others can change years around. In any currently live one you just delete future dates, fudge some numbers and edit bios to suit the starting point. That's not daunting, but is time consuming. You take XVerse back a few years and nobody can really raise issues as you don't know, there's no general knowledge to compare against.</p>

[Skummy]

<p>I don't mean to downplay the work that you've all done, as I have used several of Genadi's mod, and I have built my own mods either from scratch or using another as a base and recognise that it's an extremely time consuming task.</p><p> </p><p>

That said, my point about you acting as if you've had the decision forced upon you is referring to earlier posts where you cite the costs of buying programmes etc. to keep informed of all the changes you've made, and Genadi's post that reads like looking for sympathy for the money spent on hosting your mods external to the GDS site. No one has asked that you do these things, and "what about the money we've spent?" isn't a good argument when it was entirely your own decision to spend that money, and entirely your own decision to host all your mods somewhere other than the GDS forum in the first place - a decision that I remember being unpopular and viewed as elitist and exclusionary in the first place.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

And when you talk about "any other field of work" or "unlicensed content", it just sounds even more like you have a heightened sense of your own importance - this isn't a "field of work", and this isn't "unlicensed content", it's fan-produced content using the game's in-built Editor tool that literally everyone who plays the game - even the demo version, they don't have to have even paid for the product - has full access to. To say that people "should be happy they have access" to the content you produce <em>is </em>elitist under those circumstances, there's no other word for it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

As for why there aren't other mods for time periods you've created for - your mods don't exist in a vacuum, as much as you sometimes seem to have strived to make that happen. There's a modding community out there, and by and large mod makers would rather create content that "fills in the blanks" rather than competing with one another, or going to the effort of creating a mod that's just going over ground that's already been covered.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

If you think your mods are the best, and there's probably a strong argument that some of them are, then great, I'm happy for you. But when you start lording that over people, guessing at why other people "give up", or saying that people should be grateful that you've been so generous as to give them access to your work, you can't possibly be ignorant as to how that would rub people the wrong way. </p><p> </p><p>

Again, regardless of the amount of work you feel you have put into your mods, all that you have done is use a tool that is freely available to anyone and everyone, and to argue that you should have special privileges or should have been part of a dialogue with the game's developers because you think that you're better at using that tool than anyone else <em>is </em>elitist and, frankly, a little absurd.</p>

[TsuMirren]

"this isn't a "field of work"" - Of course it is, work can be voluntary too. I'm not even going to respond to the rest, you'll only twist my reply or ignore it and continue with the accusations.

[alvarasus]

I think the new forum rules were going to put in place because certain person was denied permission to use the 1987 mod for his mod. This person would been able to launch his mod when 2020 was released helping sales of 2020. Because for the first time a real world mod was released on the day of 2020 being released. I could be totally off base, but somehow I think I am not.

[Genadi]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Skummy" data-cite="Skummy" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I don't mean to downplay the work that you've all done, as I have used several of Genadi's mod, and I have built my own mods either from scratch or using another as a base and recognise that it's an extremely time consuming task.<p> </p><p> That said, my point about you acting as if you've had the decision forced upon you is referring to earlier posts where you cite the costs of buying programmes etc. to keep informed of all the changes you've made, and Genadi's post that reads like looking for sympathy for the money spent on hosting your mods external to the GDS site. No one has asked that you do these things, and "what about the money we've spent?" isn't a good argument when it was entirely your own decision to spend that money, and entirely your own decision to host all your mods somewhere other than the GDS forum in the first place - a decision that I remember being unpopular and viewed as elitist and exclusionary in the first place.</p><p> </p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Jesus Christ this has gotten out of hand. Genadi's post reads as it reads, stop looking for implications to fit your ridiculous narrative. I replied to someone who said we were foolish for removing our mods and we did it as some kind of power play. I corrected that person and stated we weren't, we are in fact just no longer paying out of our own pocket for a site to host them. The fact you somehow spun that into "Genadi's post that reads like looking for sympathy" is legitimately stupid. If you want to reply to facts, discuss or debate facts and things I've said great I'm happy to. The "Your post reads like...." is a childish, pointless, troll like game I don't want in this thread.</p><p> </p><p> The rest of your post is your and Tsu's back and forth which I suggest you take to PM's.</p><p> </p><p> Edit - The amount of misinformation and straight up bs I've heard spouted over the past few days is really a new low for these forums. It's 2AM, if anyone wants to chat further I remind you once again we're always available on Discord. Goodnight and sorry for all the great supporters of these mods who've had to wade through pages of nonsense.</p>

[BrokenCycle]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Genadi" data-cite="Genadi" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I corrected that person and stated we weren't, we are in fact just no longer paying out of our own pocket for a site to host them. </div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Then why does the original post by MrCreative say that you did it to "protect the integrity of your mods" and not "it costs too much money to host them"?</p>

[alvarasus]

You do realize he threaten to make all are mods freeware if we don't make mods for 2020? Mod section was dead because the game has been out for over two years. We all have lives outside of modding. Plus we have other interests than just this game. You work on project so long you also suffer burnout, which some of us has suffered with this game. We have every right to pull the mods because we created them. We actually do not have to give anyone any reason for doing so. Plus 90% of the people complaints of people doing the complaining have already downloaded the mods.

[TsuMirren]

<p>"There's a modding community out there, and by and large mod makers would rather create content that "fills in the blanks" rather than competing with one another, or going to the effort of creating a mod that's just going over ground that's already been covered."</p><p> </p><p>

Okay, my post is valid then. Where are they? Surely not on another site or via an avenue not available to GDS users. You can't rip us apart whilst also mentioning some other invisible community. That would be even more elitist, modding for a select few.</p><p> </p><p>

The ironic thing is that my 1985 Mod is still up on this forum. I also welcome EWB putting a crew together, good luck with it.</p>

[Genadi]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="BrokenCycle" data-cite="BrokenCycle" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Then why does the original post by MrCreative say that you did it to "protect the integrity of your mods" and not "it costs too much money to host them"?</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Probably because when he wrote the post threads were being locked and posts being deleted. Yours was one of them. Lies were being thrown our way and he may have misspoken you should ask him, you were in our Discord last night saying sorry for your double speak and posts that were misinformed, feel free to ask away.</p><p> </p><p> I asked you to clarify your seemingly troll post and not double talk anymore. You replied with more double talk and didn't clarify or answer the original question. </p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="BrokenCycle" data-cite="BrokenCycle" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>The same reasons why you own your website, have your own dedicated forum post where you link to your website, force people to register on your website to download the content of your website (I believe? Not sure, I'm already registered...), have you own mod installer, and so on.... I dunno. I don't think this is really that relevant to what I was trying to say ("Put them back up.").</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><p> This is getting really tiresome now. Here's a suggestion, direct your posts to EWB. It's the forum that actually does what ya'll are claiming we did. Adam's even a member there in the private section. It's a super nice place where they crap on all of the diaries, mods and members here.</p>

[kdcastles]

This whole thread sounds like my 4-year-old telling my 2-year-old he can't play with his toys because they are his. Never thought I'd see a group of adults acting the same way.

[BrokenCycle]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Genadi" data-cite="Genadi" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I asked you to clarify your seemingly troll post and not double talk anymore. You replied with more double talk and didn't clarify or answer the original question. </div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Correct. I did apologize to you in the Discord last night and you were a cool guy. However, your "Please clarify your double speak" post was in reference to me saying that you guys created your own website to host your own mods, which has very little to do with my original point of "Put the mods back on your website. You look terrible for doing this." and you never really addressed that point.</p><p> </p><p> This is my last post about this. I want to preface this by saying that you seem like a nice guy, I love your mods, and I love most of the Mod Squad's mods...</p><p> </p><p> Some of you guys are playing three sides here. </p><p> </p><p> One is the dedicated mod maker that sacrifices their lives to Total Extreme Wrestling, working thousands of hours modding a game. They have wives, sons, and daughters. Their children barely know their names because they have spent their childhoods reading archives of the Observer, and pour hundreds of dollars into VHS tapes from EBay to watch lower midcarder matches from some indy fed in Nebraska in 1994 just to be accurate. And it would be a shame for all this work to go to waste for some guy to just take it all for free. Hive had a great, civil post about this today, I believe, and it made me feel empathetic to your points.</p><p> </p><p> Next is the side where you yank your mods from your website and they're just gone now apparently. One guy says it was to "protect the integrity of our mods," and another guy (you) says the cost of hosting them is just not worth it anymore. Come the **** on. This was a blatant F you to GreyDog, and is what I said all along... an incredibly misguided power play that doesn't really help you guys at all but confuse and annoy the people that don't give a damn about mod politics on the GreyDog forums and just want access to around 15 of the most popular TEW mods around. People like your mods. Can you please inform people how they can download them? If the cost of hosting them magically became too much of a hassle a day after the original poll, can you please point me in the direction of mirrors on MediaFire, Google Drive, Dropbox, and so on? There are none? Oh! Are you guys going to get on that soon?</p><p> </p><p> The third side is the victim. How many times have you posted here and on Discord "I'm not sure why people hate us. These posts are so misinformed and full of lies! I can't believe how many people have called us arrogant pricks! We do so much for the community!" Well it's pretty clear how you guys <em>appear</em> to be arrogant pricks, and this move was pretty dang bad.</p><p> </p><p> Just put them back up. Pretty please?</p>

[Lucas]

<p>Dude you can just ask me directly, I don't understand why all the posts everybody has get directed at Genadi.</p><p> </p><p>

To be clear: </p><p>

</p><ul><li>Consent to host the mods was withdrawn. They were made under the existing rules, which are now under threat.<br /></li><li>If people have questions they can contact me<br /></li></ul><p></p><p> </p><p>

And we are a bunch of guys who have worked together, so yep - theres different perspectives. </p><p> </p><p>

The high drama isn't necessary. You're complaining about the mods being taken down yet not a single person has actually asked for access to a mod to play it. It just seems you're arguing based on some misguided principle. Was there a mod you wanted to download?</p><p> </p><p>

As I said, if someone has questions, they can ask me. I can't repeat this many more times, as it seems people end up directing their complaints at Genadi instead of listening to what's being said.</p><p> </p><p>

Constant arguing will just see posts being deleted - we've given feedback from the mods and waiting to hear what's next. Just be patient, and if you need anything, for the millionth time, drop me a PM, or come on our Discord.</p>

[ezpkns34]

<p>the link to the msp picture pack in the first post doesn't work, is there another link to the picture pack available?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

edit:</p><p>

nevermind, found a working link, <a href="http://www.wrestlingnexus.com/nexus/?p=33" rel="external nofollow">http://www.wrestlingnexus.com/nexus/?p=33</a> in case it helps anyone else</p>

[hammerglenn]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="ezpkns34" data-cite="ezpkns34" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>the link to the msp picture pack in the first post doesn't work, is there another link to the picture pack available?</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Contact Mr. Creative via PM for any mod link issues.</p><p> </p><p> Note: Just saw that you edited your post with the link</p>

[smartman]

<p>I'm going to play Devil's advocate here. If the reason you took down the mods was to stop Adam and his cronies from grabbing them, editing them for 2020 (this is based off of your comments; I'm not making this claim in any such way; This is a hypothetical so please don't ban me.), and releasing them on the day of (which btw would tick off 90% of the long-time board members that aren't Adam's cronies but wouldn't bother any of the lurkers, CV-diehards, or RW people of which I'm betting are at least 95% of the people who buy the TEW games), exactly how does that stop them from doing that when they've been out for years already? Not to mention anyone just converting the mod themselves into 2020 like a bunch of people have done to iDOL's awesome 2004 mod in 16? Once the files went public, they're out there forever. I have some mods from 2010 sitting on a hard drive for instance that probably don't exist anywhere on the internet right now.</p><p> </p><p>

I get it that you're mad as hell and with exceptionally good reason. He went and sprung something on you that he knew was going to back you into a corner and elicit a very negative reaction from you. I'd say that you all should have been smarter than to fall for the trap, but that would have taken ridiculous amounts of restraint which I don't think 99.9999% of the people on the planet have so I can't fault you for that. You all are amazing partly from the start and mostly from the fact that you've been modding for over a decade now for some and 5 years or so for others. If Adam drives you from the game, it will greatly diminish the game for about 50 people, me included.</p><p> </p><p>

You guys have the numbers of downloads of the mod but not the hours of play so you can shoot me the numbers as (we have X downloads), but I doubt most of them play for very long (stupid lack of historical appreciation). Which makes what Adam did make absolutely no sense. If his premise was "Well if I can get rid of this group who have been modding for 5-10 years, the modding community will flourish.", I have absolutely no idea how ridiculous that thought was, but it is up there with "The Earth is flat." To echo Tsu, exactly where are the other modders? There are not 15 out there going "If only those egomaniacs on Nexus would stop making mods, I could unleash these 3 awesome mods I've crafted after a year working on each of them." Those people don't exist.</p><p> </p><p>

Was the goal to populate the forum with 15 copies of every mod where people made like 5-50 minor stat changes and uploaded them instead of just keeping them for themselves as they do now? I honestly have no idea what Adam's thinking was, but it was never, ever, ever going to fix the lack of mods being published. If his goal was that, the solution was to go to all of the modders and ask, and then go to the other long-term board members and ask them. You don't just up and spring a poll on the modding community, especially when paying for actual products is frowned upon by a lot of the people in that age group and anyone who came after Napster. So they're probably 90-10 or 95-5 "Screw them, let me have all the mods right now. Intellectual Property be danged." Gee, I'm shocked that the poll was overwhelmingly one-sided towards that answer.</p><p> </p><p>

Oh, and Adam if you actually wanted to know why the mod's forum is lackluster now (again despite a massive amount of mods released for 2016 already), here are the reasons.</p><p> </p><p>

1. Modding is unbearably hard</p><p>

2. The board picks them apart arguing over mostly minutia while the happy people leave one comment and go play the mod leaving it looking like it wasn't that great a mod when in fact it could be quite good.</p><p>

3. People have lives.</p><p>

4. The game was coming to the end of the cycle and people knew it. Honestly, based on past releases, most people probably thought the new version would be coming out now (as 2019) so they didn't mod in the first half of this year.</p><p>

5. Again, modding is incredibly hard. Burnout is easy to reach.</p><p> </p><p>

None of that is going to be solved by letting everyone steal other people's work. Now, if someone wants to up and create their own location/angle/moveset database on their own and post it for everyone to use, more power to them. They should get a medal. And honestly, if you'd asked Genadi in 2012 if he'd let his be freeware, he would have. After everything that has gone on since them, I'm not the least bit surprised by this reaction.</p>

[DomNWO]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="smartman" data-cite="smartman" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I'm going to play Devil's advocate here. If the reason you took down the mods was to stop Adam and his cronies from grabbing them, editing them for 2020 (this is based off of your comments; I'm not making this claim in any such way; This is a hypothetical so please don't ban me.), and releasing them on the day of (which btw would tick off 90% of the long-time board members that aren't Adam's cronies but wouldn't bother any of the lurkers, CV-diehards, or RW people of which I'm betting are at least 95% of the people who buy the TEW games), exactly how does that stop them from doing that when they've been out for years already? Not to mention anyone just converting the mod themselves into 2020 like a bunch of people have done to iDOL's awesome 2004 mod in 16? Once the files went public, they're out there forever. I have some mods from 2010 sitting on a hard drive for instance that probably don't exist anywhere on the internet right now.<p> </p><p> I get it that you're mad as hell and with exceptionally good reason. He went and sprung something on you that he knew was going to back you into a corner and elicit a very negative reaction from you. I'd say that you all should have been smarter than to fall for the trap, but that would have taken ridiculous amounts of restraint which I don't think 99.9999% of the people on the planet have so I can't fault you for that. You all are amazing partly from the start and mostly from the fact that you've been modding for over a decade now for some and 5 years or so for others. If Adam drives you from the game, it will greatly diminish the game for about 50 people, me included.</p><p> </p><p> You guys have the numbers of downloads of the mod but not the hours of play so you can shoot me the numbers as (we have X downloads), but I doubt most of them play for very long (stupid lack of historical appreciation). Which makes what Adam did make absolutely no sense. If his premise was "Well if I can get rid of this group who have been modding for 5-10 years, the modding community will flourish.", I have absolutely no idea how ridiculous that thought was, but it is up there with "The Earth is flat." To echo Tsu, exactly where are the other modders? There are not 15 out there going "If only those egomaniacs on Nexus would stop making mods, I could unleash these 3 awesome mods I've crafted after a year working on each of them." Those people don't exist.</p><p> </p><p> Was the goal to populate the forum with 15 copies of every mod where people made like 5-50 minor stat changes and uploaded them instead of just keeping them for themselves as they do now? I honestly have no idea what Adam's thinking was, but it was never, ever, ever going to fix the lack of mods being published. If his goal was that, the solution was to go to all of the modders and ask, and then go to the other long-term board members and ask them. You don't just up and spring a poll on the modding community, especially when paying for actual products is frowned upon by a lot of the people in that age group and anyone who came after Napster. So they're probably 90-10 or 95-5 "Screw them, let me have all the mods right now. Intellectual Property be danged." Gee, I'm shocked that the poll was overwhelmingly one-sided towards that answer.</p><p> </p><p> Oh, and Adam if you actually wanted to know why the mod's forum is lackluster now (again despite a massive amount of mods released for 2016 already), here are the reasons.</p><p> </p><p> 1. Modding is unbearably hard</p><p> 2. The board picks them apart arguing over mostly minutia while the happy people leave one comment and go play the mod leaving it looking like it wasn't that great a mod when in fact it could be quite good.</p><p> 3. People have lives.</p><p> 4. The game was coming to the end of the cycle and people knew it. Honestly, based on past releases, most people probably thought the new version would be coming out now (as 2019) so they didn't mod in the first half of this year.</p><p> 5. Again, modding is incredibly hard. Burnout is easy to reach.</p><p> </p><p> None of that is going to be solved by letting everyone steal other people's work. Now, if someone wants to up and create their own location/angle/moveset database on their own and post it for everyone to use, more power to them. They should get a medal. And honestly, if you'd asked Genadi in 2012 if he'd let his be freeware, he would have. After everything that has gone on since them, I'm not the least bit surprised by this reaction.</p></div></blockquote> <p> </p><p> I'm really glad someone said this because I wanted to say something like this, and smartman said it way better than I could. This idea that pushing away modders who do not want to go back to the old rules is somehow going to make more mods comes out makes no sense to me, either If there were capable, great modders out there ready to make all of these theoretical mods for years not under the MS umbrella, where are they? Are there really that many guys out there who are dedicated to making mods who are not because they cannot make a variant of a [insert mod squad year here] without explicit permission, which in the only case i remember it being an issue was in the same year they made it? I can only think of a couple of mods recently that were even close to being finished besides MS mods: Mammoth's mods (which are amazing), the RW updates, An 05 mod in beta, The 1933 mod (can't speak on the quality myself but it looked to me like the creator put a lot of work into it, props), and I guess iDOL's mod that may never come out for 16 because the next game was already announced (not blaming him for not finishing it, he has real life stuff going on). Not to mention the countless mods that were announced shorty after the game came out and never came to fruition. </p><p> </p><p> Yeah maybe we'll get more mods, but what is the point if they aren't quality work?</p><p> </p><p> Getting more mods that are less quality only benefits one group: GDS. Not the fans, not the modders themselves (the ones making quality mods right now at least), just GDS. Adam seems to want engagement and if he did this freeware thing, I would not be surprised if the number of mods did go up, but with how much more time it takes to create a quality mod, there are <strong>many</strong> more reasons (as SM stated above there aren't a plethora of mods available at the moment. To scapegoat the rules when the rules, in my opinion, are not even strict and have rarely been an issue since the game came out seems odd to me, personally.</p>

[Genadi]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="smartman" data-cite="smartman" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I'm going to play Devil's advocate here. If the reason you took down the mods was to stop Adam and his cronies from grabbing them, editing them for 2020 (this is based off of your comments; I'm not making this claim in any such way; This is a hypothetical so please don't ban me.), and releasing them on the day of (which btw would tick off 90% of the long-time board members that aren't Adam's cronies but wouldn't bother any of the lurkers, CV-diehards, or RW people of which I'm betting are at least 95% of the people who buy the TEW games), exactly how does that stop them from doing that when they've been out for years already? Not to mention anyone just converting the mod themselves into 2020 like a bunch of people have done to iDOL's awesome 2004 mod in 16? Once the files went public, they're out there forever. I have some mods from 2010 sitting on a hard drive for instance that probably don't exist anywhere on the internet right now.<p> </p><p> I get it that you're mad as hell and with exceptionally good reason. He went and sprung something on you that he knew was going to back you into a corner and elicit a very negative reaction from you. I'd say that you all should have been smarter than to fall for the trap, but that would have taken ridiculous amounts of restraint which I don't think 99.9999% of the people on the planet have so I can't fault you for that. You all are amazing partly from the start and mostly from the fact that you've been modding for over a decade now for some and 5 years or so for others. If Adam drives you from the game, it will greatly diminish the game for about 50 people, me included.</p><p> </p><p> You guys have the numbers of downloads of the mod but not the hours of play so you can shoot me the numbers as (we have X downloads), but I doubt most of them play for very long (stupid lack of historical appreciation). Which makes what Adam did make absolutely no sense. If his premise was "Well if I can get rid of this group who have been modding for 5-10 years, the modding community will flourish.", I have absolutely no idea how ridiculous that thought was, but it is up there with "The Earth is flat." To echo Tsu, exactly where are the other modders? There are not 15 out there going "If only those egomaniacs on Nexus would stop making mods, I could unleash these 3 awesome mods I've crafted after a year working on each of them." Those people don't exist.</p><p> </p><p> Was the goal to populate the forum with 15 copies of every mod where people made like 5-50 minor stat changes and uploaded them instead of just keeping them for themselves as they do now? I honestly have no idea what Adam's thinking was, but it was never, ever, ever going to fix the lack of mods being published. If his goal was that, the solution was to go to all of the modders and ask, and then go to the other long-term board members and ask them. You don't just up and spring a poll on the modding community, especially when paying for actual products is frowned upon by a lot of the people in that age group and anyone who came after Napster. So they're probably 90-10 or 95-5 "Screw them, let me have all the mods right now. Intellectual Property be danged." Gee, I'm shocked that the poll was overwhelmingly one-sided towards that answer.</p><p> </p><p> Oh, and Adam if you actually wanted to know why the mod's forum is lackluster now (again despite a massive amount of mods released for 2016 already), here are the reasons.</p><p> </p><p> 1. Modding is unbearably hard</p><p> 2. The board picks them apart arguing over mostly minutia while the happy people leave one comment and go play the mod leaving it looking like it wasn't that great a mod when in fact it could be quite good.</p><p> 3. People have lives.</p><p> 4. The game was coming to the end of the cycle and people knew it. Honestly, based on past releases, most people probably thought the new version would be coming out now (as 2019) so they didn't mod in the first half of this year.</p><p> 5. Again, modding is incredibly hard. Burnout is easy to reach.</p><p> </p><p> None of that is going to be solved by letting everyone steal other people's work. Now, if someone wants to up and create their own location/angle/moveset database on their own and post it for everyone to use, more power to them. They should get a medal. And honestly, if you'd asked Genadi in 2012 if he'd let his be freeware, he would have. After everything that has gone on since them, I'm not the least bit surprised by this reaction.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Well said. <span style="color:#00FF00;">+1</span></p>

[BHK1978]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="smartman" data-cite="smartman" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>2. The board picks them apart arguing over mostly minutia while the happy people leave one comment and go play the mod leaving it looking like it wasn't that great a mod when in fact it could be quite good.<p> </p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> This is off topic but I always found this to be interesting. Mainly because unlike other sports you cannot really assign accurate numbers because there is no data to really support wrestling stats. I mean in baseball if someone hits .229, you can reasonably give them poor ratings in any hitting category.</p><p> </p><p> However, in wrestling the stats have to be completely subjective. Who is to say that Ric Flair's psychology in his prime isn't 100 or who is to say it isn't 88? There is no way to pinpoint exactly what the "correct" stats are. Granted you would not give him a 24 in psychology, if one did then they would deserve any negative feedback coming their way.</p><p> </p><p> Therefore, I am in the camp of posting one comment and leaving because I am not about to pick apart something that is subjective.</p>

[Kingster]

<p>My last reply on this, because this argument leads nowhere.</p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Genadi" data-cite="Genadi" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Mate, you didn't. If you read my original posts that were deleted for no reason other than Adam saying "He's bitter" while failing to reply to any of the facts I outlined you'd know that I was the most outspoken critic against the rules in the first place. It was at a time all of my mods were freeware, heck I even created a mission statement outlining exactly that. That's just one of the misconceptions I've noticed from many people and understandably so. The posts I made explaining the history and my PoV were deleted so how would anyone know.<p> </p><p> Of all of this, the irony has been the most startling thing.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> I'm not your "mate", so stop talking to me that way, alright?</p><p> Second, good to know that you know better what I read on these forums and what I don't. I suppose you have some kind of super-power.</p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="TsuMirren" data-cite="TsuMirren" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Well, collectively we are the best group of historical real world Modder. Mammoth does great work too, but he's not a group so evidently I'm not taking a pop at him here.</div></blockquote><p> Do you even realise how incredibly and utterly arrogant that comes off? Burying all the other great mod makers like Fleisch, TheWho, the Thunderverse guys only to name a few. And you wonder why a lot of people have problems with how you conduct yourselves?</p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>No, no you can't imagine anything close. I couldn't before I started, ergo neither can you.</div></blockquote><p> What if I told you I have done modding work in the past for private use, as well and gave up because it was too much of a hassle? Yes, I can imagine what it's like. You're not the only group doing this stuff, even though sometimes it seems like you think you are.</p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>"no money" aside from the magazines, programmes, DVDs and books purchased in order to get more information. </div></blockquote><p> Oh, come on, you know what I mean. Your livelihood isn't in danger, you know that's what I was talking about. No one forced you to invest money in this kind of research, although I and I'm sure many others appreciate that kind of commitment. But you knew you wouldn't get that money back either way whether without or without that proposed change to the forum rules. So I don't accept that as an argument.</p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Lucky? Nooooooooo, no no no, it's the mod users who are lucky here. Lucky that you have mods.</div></blockquote><p> See my reply to your "we're the best modders out there" statement. A tiny little more humility would serve you guys well.</p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Here's a thought though. Why aren't their mods from 2011 to 2016? Surely a group of you jut need to steal Fleisch or Who's work then back mod it. You've all read our threads, so you'll know data sources, you'll know what to change and how to get your cuts done. Not like you need to watch footage, read too much stuff, join facebook groups (some closed to general fans) or spend time checking facts and making sure you've covered everything. That'd be silly, that's how you get an ego. The game has been out over 2 years, maybe it's more than us being us. Maybe there is actually a skill to modding, I can "imagine" that's the case.</div></blockquote><p> No one has ever put into question that it's incredibly hard to mod, as much as you guys try to convince yourselves. Your "us vs. them" mentality is mind-blowing.</p><p> </p><p> Your blowing this thing up like it's a case for the International Court Of Human Rights, when it's just about rules on a message board about computer games.</p>

[Genadi]

<p>Ok buddy.</p><p> </p><p> I asked you to take your stuff with Tsu to PM's and keep the flaming out of this thread. Instead you do exactly the opposite.</p><p> </p><p> Either I am better at reading the forums or <em>you're</em> a troll. I'm thinking the latter.</p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Kingster" data-cite="Kingster" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div><p> <span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Your </strong></span>blowing this thing up like it's a case for the International Court Of Human Rights, when it's just about rules on a message board about computer games.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Or maybe the former <img alt=":rolleyes:" data-src="//content.invisioncic.com/g322608/emoticons/rolleyes.png.4b097f4fbbe99ce5bcd5efbc1b773ed6.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /></p>

[Lucas]

 

<div class="ipsEmbeddedVideo"><div><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tRfKdNxIOcQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" title="Not your friend,buddy"></iframe></div></div> <img alt="" data-src="//content.invisioncic.com/g322608/emoticons/biggrin.png.929299b4c121f473b0026f3d6e74d189.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

[Genadi]

<p>Ok here goes, one post that I hope will be the last on the matter or at least a reference if someone hurls misguided abuse or lies. I've realised on reviewing the past few pages a lot of confusion has arisen due to a few things. Firstly posts being deleted so only half of the story and conversation have been seen by most which have led to mistruths being repeated. Secondly the wide range of new and old members we have here on the boards. Some of these members remember certain events while others weren't here at the time. That's created an environment of old grudges and arguments that new members in particular have no idea about.</p><p> </p><p> I'm going to try and clarify some things so the issues I pointed out can have some light shed on them. To save myself time I'll post in bullet points the series of events that have led us here as best as I can.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> Many years ago the mod section was nearly dead in the water. Not just dead activity wise but it had become an extremely toxic environment with several camps seemingly going to war with each other daily, constantly flaming each others threads. Nearly every good mod maker I know stopped modding and most stopped visiting the forums. We had one current day RW mod left and only a small handful of historical mods most of which were pretty bad quality to be brutally honest.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> Around 2008-09 I think it was the mod section was at a low, after daily troll wars and people flaming each others threads Adam introduced a rule that offered protection for those putting in the work. I was the most vocal in opposition, another ironic part of all this.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> I didn't think the new rules were a good idea for several reasons I won't go into now as this post is already going to be a wall. I lost that battle and embraced the new rules (I can be a stickler for rules it's one of my weaknesses I'm working on), one of the ways I did so was trying to form relationships between mod makers so the petty grudges would stop killing mods and driving off creators.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> I created a mission statement around 2010 with a simple goal which was transparent from day one, create a plethora of quality mods like EWR had. I asked the community to come together and pool their resources, to try and engage what mod makers were left and help all involved. </p><p> </p><p> <a href="http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=152810" rel="external nofollow">http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=152810</a></p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> The mission statement never reached it's goal, most mod makers I asked didn't want to share their data the current RW mod included. The members who were willing to offer their work and help were the beginnings of the silly group I forever regret giving a name to (had I only know the drama from labelling a group with a name). The small group of us worked for a few years together, sharing whatever we could and trying best to utilise our time as modding proved to be a huge time sink. It worked really well and our mods all reached a much higher quality because of it, we also had our modding time cut down and weren't spending as much time doing menial tasks like title histories. Another misconception I've seen repeated is people saying our mods are all the same stats wise. This is a huge signal to me the person posting this is quite frankly speaking out of their ass. Not only do most of our mods use different bases but the amount of arguments we've had amongst ourselves regarding stats with the GDS community involved in those debates are countless. Stats and the entire database set up can be completely different depending on what mod you're playing. We have never and probably will never all work on the same mod, it makes no sense to for many reasons I won't go into now. Again this is just one of the many lies or misconceptions I keep seeing thrown around as someway to justify what Adam did with that poll post.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> After years working together and gradually adding more and more members to the group we thought it funny one day to give it a name so we could post one main post on the forums, similar to my mission statement thread with the exact same intent. The intent being to provide the TEW community with the best and widest range of mods we could. Even people who didn't want to join or never showed interest were offered help whenever needed, they can attest to that themselves. The group and myself have had countless requests to use our data over the ten years. I've said no a total of two times and only because someone was already working on the exact same date using my mod as a base. If anyone can point out any member that's work has been used as freely and extensively as mine I'll be amazed. I've never once said this but I do now because words like power play and monopoly being are being thrown around to describe my conduct. The hypocrisy is just stupid and as I mentioned becoming tiresome given all I've done and offered to creators here. It's just so easy for people to spout of BS here and not be called on it, not be banned by mods or exposed for being straight up trolls with agendas. The fact that this has been twisted over the years into some inside clique who uses "power plays" to create "monopolies" is just ridiculous, borderline insulting. When Tsu mentions the time and resources he's spent on the game he's met with "No one asked you to do that" as if he's requesting some kind of high praise (believe me he doesn't need any) when in fact he's mentioning those things in direct reply to being flamed and lied about. We mention all we've done for the GDS community not as some stupid thing held over peoples heads, not for some expectation of internet praise, we do so because we find it astonishing people have twisted it to fit a distorted insulting narrative.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> The forums came about for these reasons and many more to be honest but these are the main ones....</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> There came a time where people were cool and skilled enough to make us Hype Videos for our upcoming releases. These were a fun little addition I personally appreciated. I realised after trying to include one in the mod thread I was unable to, I shortly after discovered embedded videos are only active in the diary section. After a very short discussion with Adam and Arlie we were told they would not make active embedded videos in the mod section. The reason I was given was cost. I replied and pointed out how many videos are embedded within the diary section, literally hundreds and the cost that's associated with it already. I never received a reply. We really wanted to embed our videos on our mod pages so creating a forum to do so made sense. </p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> There were already several forums created exactly like ours, from EWB to TheWho's board and more. EWB is known for having private mods and crapping on GDS diary writers for those who don't know their fun history. Making our own for our own feedback threads, and supporters to engage made sense.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> Here's a post I made at the time which provides even more reason...</p><p> </p><p> </p><blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>If anyone thinks GDS is the only forum that mods and diaries are hosted I have news for you. EWB has had mods come out on those boards for TEW games that have never even been announced here on gds some of which use data made by mod makers on GDS without their knowledge. That won't happen on nexus.<p> </p><p> People signing up makes life easier for me as a mod maker SlimJim. I've spent literally over hundreds if not thousands of hours making data for the community. I've never once asked for anything in return not even a thanks. I've now asked those who've supported me to spend a minute registering to help me out and make my modding life easier. It's very simple I don't know why all the speculation and nonsense. The forums let us keep track of the mods popularity etc much better while allowing us to post in any format we prefer. Embedding of videos within a mod release thread for example is not available here on gds. Add to that the restrictions GDS has because of trademark laws etc and another advantage of the Nexus forum appears.</p><p> </p><p> Registering to download content is extremely common within the modding community, was standard for games like Morrowind and Civ. Those communities had no issue spending a minute to sign up in support.</p><p> </p><p> This is not splitting the community, we would only invite select members if that were the case like other boards. There are currently a few boards out there that have TEW sections and as I mentioned have released exclusive mods in the past. That won't be us, we don't want hidden sections and we won't be keeping any mods secret just for our site like EWB has in the past.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> In short, it made our tasks as modders easier, it provided us with the ability to present them nicer with embedded videos and after a discussion it just made sense. The phrase "Let's create a monopoly of mods" was never uttered by anyone. The phrases mostly spoken were "How do we make modding easier" and "How can we make these more fun and get people engaged".</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> Over the following months after several requests we made our own Discord channel, inviting everyone from GDS and making it an open place for discussion. This was also met with hostility by some people, most of which happened to be members of other existing forums with private sections etc.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> Adam made a post in TEW general days ago which was one of the most disingenuous hypocritical things I've ever read. His intentions were transparent. I pointed out how and why as did others. He asked for the discussion then once confronted with my post chose to delete it and call me bitter not replying to one point. </p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> Since the Nexus boards were launched Lucas has been paying for their upkeep, we've not once asked for money. Given Adam's conduct and hostility he chose not to continue paying for a site that supports TEW. I asked anyone to provide any good reason why he should to do so. No one has.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> I've personally lost all motivation for modding. If people want to call this playing the victim or being a kid that's cool. Those kind of people will turn things into an insult regardless of the facts or what's discussed. This post is for the lurkers and supporters of our mods who I feel are owed an explanation.</p><p> </p><p> <strong>*</strong> I enjoy modding, I don't enjoy it right now to the point I haven't opened TEW in days. This probably didn't require such a large wall of text but I've witnessed many new members and even some old who don't know the history and have asked me here and in Discord to clarify. Hope this does. We'll be in Disc as always if anyone wants to discuss further.</p>

[alvarasus]

He didn't mention Fliesch, The Who, Captain Charisma, Hitman, or any other Current Day Mod maker because there current day. His exact words were Real World Historical modding group. Mammoth is by the way has amazing mods and we support his work fully. I have asked permission to use his work because that's the way it should be. I even cite him in my mod because he does amazing work and borrowed things from his mod.