Comments on attitude towards 'Update Requests'...

Quote from HeadHunter67

That sounds good, but let's be honest. Most of the clamor comes from people who can't even be bothered to read a sticky - you can be sure they wouldn't be reading the changelog, let alone understanding it.

For those you setup a 'fake' download placeholder (where the real link will go); actually you might have it under a 'work in progress' section and a BIG BLOODY SET OF LETTERS (sort of like that) which mildly berate the user for clicking on the '1.0.0' compat release. To be honest, you're talking about a user that won't look anywhere else, and will then come here already 'knowing' they have a problem and flow directly in to the areas, past all the out of the way and off to the side sticky topics you wish to increase the gutter area with.

User interface is surprisingly relevant here: http://www.codinghorror.com/bl…treating-user-myopia.html

They might still miss it - I saw someone on the RedPower thread on MVF asking where the 1.0 release was. If Eloraam had made the link any bigger in the OP, it would have needed two pages.

If there's one thing I learned in 5 years with Microsoft, it's that no one ever went broke over-estimating the stupidity of the average user.

Quote from HeadHunter67

They might still miss it - I saw someone on the RedPower thread on MVF asking where the 1.0 release was. If Eloraam had made the link any bigger in the OP, it would have needed two pages.

If there's one thing I learned in 5 years with Microsoft, it's that no one ever went broke over-estimating the stupidity of the average user.

You may be judging everyone by one person.
Lets face it. These people die off by natural selection.

You dont see grown ups climbing over the fence into the lion enclosure do you?
Theres always the idiot that trys but from that one idiot you cant judge the human race.

That said.

I agree with you

Quote from HeadHunter67

Listen to yourself. You talk about not putting words into other's mouths, but you presume to speak for others and then you use that hypothetical opinion to arrive at an inaccurate conclusion.

By the way, do you know what happens here when someone says "What's taking so long for 1.0?"

Hypothetical? He closed the minecraft topic and bans anyone who ask's about an update. Sure I'm sure its a pain to update, but also because the all the lastest pages are just people who do what I just described.
Unless you need me to link the topic here or something.

Quote from MJEvans

For those you setup a 'fake' download placeholder (where the real link will go); actually you might have it under a 'work in progress' section and a BIG BLOODY SET OF LETTERS (sort of like that) which mildly berate the user for clicking on the '1.0.0' compat release. To be honest, you're talking about a user that won't look anywhere else, and will then come here already 'knowing' they have a problem and flow directly in to the areas, past all the out of the way and off to the side sticky topics you wish to increase the gutter area with.

User interface is surprisingly relevant here: http://www.codinghorror.com/bl…treating-user-myopia.html

I found the fake link for the 1.0.0 release (compliments of risugami)

http://tiny.cc/PAIN

Quote from libraryaddict

You may be judging everyone by one person.
Lets face it. These people die off by natural selection.

If it were just one person, that might be a valid point. But it's not - it's common and it's recurring!
Even if it's only a small portion of the populace, the damage they can do is disproportionately large.

And natural selection no longer applies to Mankind. Our greatest sin is that we overcame it. We put labels on hairdryers saying "Do not use while in shower" - the only purpose of this is to preserve the lives of the terminally stupid.
This means that stupid people survive long enough to breed, to pass on their traits to their offspring, and to make reality television shows.

Quote from Lurch1985

I've been saying for years that we need a good Zombie holocaust to sort out the stupid and the fatties. Then we'll see what survival of the fittest is all about. And before I get critiques for 'judging' everyone, I work with the general public, so I've got plenty of first hand experience. It's not all cynicism.

I would be Umbrella corp:P Seriously, that does need to happen tho. Also, anyone who has worked with MC's code will know who one of the first people to die is. jk But his code does frustrate me, but he isn't the only one, ever seen piston code?

I've found that the more I have to wait, the less I mind the wait. It's given me a reason to really stop and look at as many mods as possible instead of just skimming off the top page or two of MCF and missing some fun ones that don't get much traffic, like Simple Winter Mode. I'm constantly tweaking my BetterThanTechnic suite, and when everything is ready to go, it should be a blast - 512 height map, snow, and a ton of great content mods. I would not have had that if I'd been able to just plow right through 1.0.0 with the usual suspects.

Hey, look who's here! Welcome to the Machine, my friend...

Quote from HeadHunter67

Hey, look who's here! Welcome to the Machine, my friend...

Been lurking around for a while, thought I'd regged already but apparently that was for the Ind-Rage forums.

Huzzah!

Having worked on my own mod for awhile now and seeing how development goes, offering release dates just leads to broken promises and accusations. EX: I wanted version 1.2 of my mod out a few weeks ago, I promised a lot of stuff for it, and that it'd be done that weekend. I got sick and had to cancel, and picked up extra hours at work, then there were some new games I wanted to play and I got sick again. Result, I've had to cut a bunch of features (that I can't reliably solve issues for at the moment) and 1.2 is still not finished for my mod.

I've upset a lot of my fans by doing this, but that's how things happen. When you're a developer and there's real life, people on the internet don't understand that you have life outside your mod, if you say "I'm going to take a few days off to play Skyrim" they'll cry heresy and spam you to death. If you say a feature will be in, they'll cry and whine that it didn't make it in without even considering why it didn't.

Sometimes its best just to keep it quiet, and I wish like Al I had kept my fans relatively in the dark, for both their sanity and mine.

I remember one specific instance with a game... I just don't remember which game that was. Either way, they had a release date set. A group of gamers had prepared for that release date and rented a place for a lan party etc. They had booked flights and some had booked hotel rooms and planned all sorts of things to celebrate the release.

As the release date got closer the developers where forced to push the release forwards a month or something.
Rage ensumed on the developers forums and some even demanded that the DEVELOPERS would re-fund their investments for said party... (Really!)

Release dates are RELLY bad, sure it's nice to have a general idea when something is going to be finished but in the end, you can never know what's going to happen. And following a release date blindly just leads to rushed development and last minute bugfixes that actually cause more issues than they solve.

Quote from Shadowclaimer

When you're a developer and there's real life, people on the internet don't understand that you have life outside your mod, if you say "I'm going to take a few days off to play Skyrim" they'll cry heresy and spam you to death.

They did it to Notch - every time he took a vacation or a new game came out, people acted like he owed it to them to put aside his life to fix whatever petty concern they brought up.
They begrudge him his success, despite being instrumental in getting him there. If they were in his shoes, they'd do no different. I can't blame the guy for handing the reins to Jeb so he can enjoy the fruits of what he started.

Quote

If you say a feature will be in, they'll cry and whine that it didn't make it in without even considering why it didn't.

Worse yet, someone brings up an idea - other people think it would be good to implement it. Over time on a forum, that "idea" morphs into a "expectation", whcih somehow then becomes a "promise". When the expected feature is not present in the next release, these people will get on your case about breaking a promise that you never actually made. They do it to Alblaka here from time to time. Giving those people even the slightest bit of ammunition to use against you is risky - better to simply keep them in the dark and let them wait. At least then, when they rant, all the reasonable people can see that they're off the deep end.

Quote from HeadHunter67

They did it to Notch - every time he took a vacation or a new game came out, people acted like he owed it to them to put aside his life to fix whatever petty concern they brought up.
They begrudge him his success, despite being instrumental in getting him there. If they were in his shoes, they'd do no different. I can't blame the guy for handing the reins to Jeb so he can enjoy the fruits of what he started.

Worse yet, someone brings up an idea - other people think it would be good to implement it. Over time on a forum, that "idea" morphs into a "expectation", whcih somehow then becomes a "promise". When the expected feature is not present in the next release, these people will get on your case about breaking a promise that you never actually made. They do it to Alblaka here from time to time. Giving those people even the slightest bit of ammunition to use against you is risky - better to simply keep them in the dark and let them wait. At least then, when they rant, all the reasonable people can see that they're off the deep end.

Yep, take my instance, I'm having major issues getting armor implemented without any base class edits. Notch's changes to armor are a pita for anyone trying to add any. I can get armor in, but it has Fur armor's texture until I can get the issue resolved. Armor was supposed to be in version 1.0.1, 1.1, and now 1.2, but I might even exclude it from this version solely because people are bitching so hard about armor not being the right texture.

Its like, if you people understood the fact that I spent 8 hours, 8 $(@*ing hours, looking at my code only to find out I misnamed a variable. I was almost in tears in frustration and rage trying to solve it, I was pulling at my hair on a caffeine binge trying to get a version out for you ungrateful buggers. Then MAYBE you would then understand a minute amount of the effort it takes to code this crap, but no, the MCF forums is full of kids with a false sense of entitlement.

After reading all this I have only one thing that I feel I need to say.

When discussing someone's attitude, not the rules, but the attitude with which they state and enforce said rules, it does not fall under any obligations or promises dictated by one's position or vocation, but from normal levels of respect due every human being who has not proven themselves to be a complete idiot. Meaning, I feel that Alablaka DOES owe people something: Treating them nicely. Everyone owes everyone else that. Stating it the way it has been stated and enforcing it the way it's been said that it's been enforced is not nice, it's harsh. More harsh than it needs to be.

I personally would do a one-strike policy with this particular rule. If there are sufficient moderators on the forum who are NOT already busy being developers, it's easy to have those mods just kick the 'omg when is it coming out?!?!1!?' posts in the nuts once, watch them get deleted, and warn/temp ban the person who posted it. A temp ban is not bad. Especially when the person did something stupid and they realize it. I've been a forum mod before, and at least on most forum software it's easy for mods to remove posts.

Please understand, I'm not flaming, complaining, or telling anyone what to do, this is just my opinion and how I would handle things. This is not meant to upset anyone. Now I have to go or I'll be late for massage school...crap...

Quote from Snowpaw

I feel that Alablaka DOES owe people something: Treating them nicely. Everyone owes everyone else that.

If that's an obligation, it must be a mutual one. Keep in mind that we all benefit from the work the IC2 team puts into this mod, and they ask nothing from us except our patience - though they also appreciate our gratitude.
Those who demonstrate that they cannot be patient and cannot make the simple effort to conform to a simple rule, are indicating that they feel they are above the social convention of obligation - and as I said, obligation is a mutual concept.

So is virtue. Kindness is a virtue, but in order for it to have any value, it must not be squandered on those who do not value it. Alblaka has shown himself to be pretty easy-going about a great many things, and when people don't agree with him he has shown that his opinion can be changed by rational discussion. So I don't think he's out of line for this policy.

One need only look at the Minecraft mod forum to see how anything useful is lost in the noise of "OMG when is this for 1.0?" posts. Personally, if I were in his shoes, I'd be banning people who ask the same question that's already been answered on the same page as their post (often, the one directly before theirs) and people who can't be bothered to read the OP. I can be "nice", but what would be really nice is if people made a little effort instead of taking others for granted.

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I personally would do a one-strike policy with this particular rule.

For most transgressions, that's understandable - but I think if people know there's no consequence to a behavior, then there's no deterrence. "Stop, or I'll say stop again!" isn't an effective warning. People know the score coming in, and if they can't even be bothered to read the rules, then they don't deserve special consideration for it.

Quote from Snowpaw

After reading all this I have only one thing that I feel I need to say.

When discussing someone's attitude, not the rules, but the attitude with which they state and enforce said rules, it does not fall under any obligations or promises dictated by one's position or vocation, but from normal levels of respect due every human being who has not proven themselves to be a complete idiot. Meaning, I feel that Alablaka DOES owe people something: Treating them nicely. Everyone owes everyone else that. Stating it the way it has been stated and enforcing it the way it's been said that it's been enforced is not nice, it's harsh. More harsh than it needs to be.

I personally would do a one-strike policy with this particular rule. If there are sufficient moderators on the forum who are NOT already busy being developers, it's easy to have those mods just kick the 'omg when is it coming out?!?!1!?' posts in the nuts once, watch them get deleted, and warn/temp ban the person who posted it. A temp ban is not bad. Especially when the person did something stupid and they realize it. I've been a forum mod before, and at least on most forum software it's easy for mods to remove posts.

Please understand, I'm not flaming, complaining, or telling anyone what to do, this is just my opinion and how I would handle things. This is not meant to upset anyone. Now I have to go or I'll be late for massage school...crap...

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Truth is, when the majority of people ARE idiots in the MC (and MCF) community, you have to cater your rules to them. Intelligent people will understand the reasoning and just ignore the severity of it.