"Whoever Fights Monsters Should See to it That in the Process He Does Not Become a Monster."

[TheObstinateNoviceSmith]

INTRODUCTION:

 

The popular quote I used for the title of my post today came from someone by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche. It is one of the most profound quotes to me because it applies in many situations and in many different ways, as well as on various levels.

 

And now, much to my dismay, it applies to us. It applies to this community and I type this while watching on the news (live at the time of this post) rioting and looting happening in a city not far from where I live and that isn't too far from my heart and the combination provoked me into typing this up. I know the result may be some of my "friends" no longer being such. It may cause mods I release to not get as many endorsements and my name may forever be mud after this, but I do not care.

 

Just like the riots I am witnessing over a "just" cause, the behavior I have seen in this community for their "just cause" is equally as repulsive because in both cases the people "crusading" for some cause are mainly hurting other members of THEIR OWN community.

 

- In the case of the riots, they are NOT hurting the justice system, they are NOT hurting the government... They ARE hurting the Police who generally serve the community and thus harm the community as those officers cannot serve the community or answer calls because they have to deal with this wide spread looting. They ARE hurting the businesses in the area which serve said community and they are hurting members of the community by damaging their property.

 

- And in our case we were NOT really hurting Bethesda or Valve as they have their money and will continue to make more even if it by different means... BUT we DID hurt mod authors who are/were a part of this community. We DID turn on one another and turn what is normally a pleasant atmosphere into a battleground.

 

And I had the same question watching these riots as I watched our actions here: WTF is wrong with us?

 

 

MY POST

 

I understand that in all actuality, it is the minority that tends to be the most vocal and thus give the very false appearance of being the majority so if my words in no way apply to you, then I am not talking about you although I will say, "us" because I see... I want to see the community as an "us" and a "we" rather than a "you", "me", and "them".

 

A significant change happened recently (one that to my understanding has been undone for now) and rather than approaching this change with civilized discussion, an open mind, logic, and or reason... we broke out pitchforks and torches. Our teeth came out and we were biting and clawing everything in sight and if someone had a different point of view we tore them apart as well.

 

They were traitors. They were wrong. They were greedy. Modding should never be about money. It's a hobby and no one should get paid for a hobby.

 

Now I am/was tempted to address the arguments about whether modders deserve money or not (NOT are OWED money, but deserve it) but I won't because that is not what this post is or should be about.

 

No. This is about the fact that those modders and people that wanted to be compensated were vilified and they should not have been. This is about the fact that while we have a forum where you can post practically whatever opinion you want about whatever you want, we still chose to go to a mod's page (which would have nothing to do with recent events) and turn their comment section into our battlegrounds over this issue.

 

And I will tell you what, whether you believe a person has the right to charge for what they do or not, it was a sad day when mods stopped being about the mod itself and Bethesda didn't do that. Valve didn't do that. WE DID THAT.

 

We did that by instead of talking about the quality of that mod in the comment section, we were all stating are damned allegiances.

 

"Well I think modders should be able to charge."

 

"I think they shouldn't"

 

Instead of mods being made to improve Skyrim and/or personalize it, they were being made to essentially make political statements which is interesting that we think mods shouldn't be about wanting any kind of compensation but are okay with them being about making statements regarding issues.

 

We attacked mod authors who gave us plenty of their time and who knows what else for free for years, and all that meant nothing to use because they were now charging.

 

Do not get it twisted people. My shame, and this post is about whether or not you feel modders deserve to get money for their time or not. My shame and disgust are about the fact that we forgot, in an instant, that we are ALL part of the same community.

 

We are the Nexus community. All of us, whether we agree with one another or not on whether to join the Stormcloaks or the Imperials... whether we think Serana should have been killed on sight or romanced on sight... whether we think Lydia should have a better attitude about carrying our gear... whether we want to convert Skyrim into Naruto... etc, etc, etc.

 

But more importantly, we have to remember that we are all the Nexus community even when we disagree on RL issues as well. Regardless as to our country of origin, our faith or lack thereof, gender, race, creed, and yes... where we stand in regards to the recent events regarding pay for play modding... we are of the same community and deserve to be treated as such.

 

What does that mean? It means sometimes accepting things you don't like because there are things regarding you that others won't like but they accept.

 

To me, whether you are compensated or not, a mod is supposed to be done because you feel it improves and/or personalizes Skyrim in someway and you decide to share that for others in our community who would also like to improve and/or personalize their Skyrim in the same way. Skyrim, nor mods for it, in my opinion, should be the place that is separate from the real world because Skyrim should be about the fun. An escape from the real world in a sense.

 

That being said, I do not like the fact that hotfiles contains mods that to me are more political than being about the game itself. BUT, I accept that. I accept that and the authors of those mods I still consider my brethren and if for whatever reason they had an issue they couldn't figure out mod wise, that by some miracle (I can't stress the word "miracle enough in this sentence)I know something about, I would not hesitate for one second to help them.

 

You will not find one comment from me on their comment page attacking them for what they believe and or that they believed that they should make a mod to make a statement. It is their right and that mod and its comment page belongs to them. If I have nothing nice to say, I say nothing, Clearly that mod wasn't made for me, but I am thankful regardless and still proud to be a part of the same community.

 

But I can't take pride in us always feeling the need to state where we stand in a mod's comment section. I can't take pride in our attacks on our FELLOW modders. Now if you do that in the general forums, I have no choice but to accept it, but it still is a terrible thing to do.

 

In our fear that the pay system would eventually harm our community, we became the monsters in all this. Modders had more to fear from their own community than from Bethesda, Valve, and or Steam.

In our fear, I fear, that we were the ones that did more harm to our community than any corporate entity.

 

 

And while I know it isn't likely to be the case, I hope, I truly hope that we learn from this incident and in the future are not so quick to attack our own community for not thinking the same as us even if it is in regards to the community.

 

 

With much concern and care

-Tons

[Deleted31005User]

The rioting was nice imo, shattered some windows, hurt my big toe from trying to kick Steam's bottom but ultimately hitting someone else in the process.

I'm glad its over...for now, they will probably try this again with the next game Bethesda releases.

[thompsonar]

Well said. I'm certainly not the most active poster, but I do frequent the forums to stay up to date and I think you're spot on. Perhaps cooler minds will now prevail without taking too much a toll on the community. Let's all take a deep breath and reflect on what has occurred and build something better from it.

[TheObstinateNoviceSmith]

Well said. I'm certainly not the most active poster, but I do frequent the forums to stay up to date and I think you're spot on. Perhaps cooler minds will now prevail without taking too much a toll on the community. Let's all take a deep breath and reflect on what has occurred and build something better from it.

 

One can only hope. I know this will all pass and before we know it, it will almost be like this never happened and things will return to normal... or as back to normal as they can, but if we don't learn to handle our disagreements better, how can any of us truly claim to have pride in our community?

 

I do like that we have passionate members in our community, but there is a way to be passionate without being fanatical. There is a way to take pride in who we are and what we believe without hating someone else for who they are and what they believe. I just hope in the future we're able to find that way sooner rather than later.

[Sebiale]

I agree wholeheartedly.

This has a been a sad incident born of miscommunication and misunderstandings on several levels, but undoubtedly the ones who did the most damage at the end of the day were the community members.

We finished the fight I guess. But I for one do not like how this has ended.

[notmyhome]

I agree partly. Unlike the Baltimore one. this riot got s#*! done, one has to admit. You think steam had removed their paid mods if not for the massive backlash?

 

I asked myself if it was worth the casualties, though.

 

Chesko abandoning modding was the biggest loss, obviously. The SkyUI team telling us what they think about the modding community didn't help either.

 

 

If anything good came from this desaster, it's that people like me who never thought about donating to mod makers suddenly remembered how to unclench their purses.

[TheObstinateNoviceSmith]

I agree wholeheartedly.

This has a been a sad incident born of miscommunication and misunderstandings on several levels, but undoubtedly the ones who did the most damage at the end of the day were the community members.

We finished the fight I guess. But I for one do not like how this has ended.

 

And that is what makes this tragic. I know some people don't care how they get things done, long as it gets done, but that tends to be a slippery slope, hence the quote of this title. It's like sure we may have convinced them to remove their feature, but we did it by terrorizing our own community.

 

It's like if we play a sport and we cheat to win that game against our opponent and at the expense of some of our players (some even star players), is it truly something to be proud of?

 

 

I agree partly. Unlike the Baltimore one. this riot got s*** done, one has to admit. You think steam had removed their paid mods if not for the massive backlash?

 

I asked myself if it was worth the casualties, though.

 

Chesko abandoning modding was the biggest loss, obviously. The SkyUI team telling us what they think about the modding community didn't help either.

 

 

If anything good came from this desaster, it's that people like me who never thought about donating to mod makers suddenly remembered how to unclench their purses.

 

I wasn't necessarily responding to you in my response above, but it does somewhat apply here as well.

 

Progress is always a matter of perspective. I can see why stopping this from happening with this game, this time, might seem like progress to some. Also, there is almost always some good to come from just about nay tragedy, but it doesn't change the fact that this was a tragedy in just about every sense of the word.

 

On one hand I am happy this is over so the dust should settle soon, on the other I am disappointed that we got what we wanted by doing things in the wrong way. In that sense, I am sure those riots draw attention to those people and it was mentioned several times what their cause was so they did accomplish something, they just went about it entirely wrong.

 

And just like with the riots, there were some of us that used the chaos around here to benefit ourselves as individuals.

[stoaty6666]

I agree wholeheartedly.

This has a been a sad incident born of miscommunication and misunderstandings on several levels, but undoubtedly the ones who did the most damage at the end of the day were the community members.

We finished the fight I guess. But I for one do not like how this has ended.

totally agree with this I think that this has ended badly, I'm not sure we can still call ourselves a community, time will tell

[TheObstinateNoviceSmith]

 

I agree wholeheartedly.

This has a been a sad incident born of miscommunication and misunderstandings on several levels, but undoubtedly the ones who did the most damage at the end of the day were the community members.

We finished the fight I guess. But I for one do not like how this has ended.

totally agree with this I think that this has ended badly, I'm not sure we can still call ourselves a community, time will tell

 

 

I think we can... still call ourselves a community. It's kind of, sort of like family. You go through some issues with them, some big, some small, but in the end you're still family.

 

I think that even after this, we can still see ourselves as a community, but we clearly got some work to do and some deep reflecting on recent events needs to occur in order for us to improve ourselves and ultimately our community as a whole.

[stoaty6666]

maybe but I saw a couple of posts this morning which makes me wonder