Crimes of Modding..

[Halie Satanus]

A light hearted or very serious survey on the worst crimes a modder can commit...

Gahh, was going to add a poll which was very amusing but I have to catch a plane...

[J@mes]

are you creating one or asking what the crimes are?

[MasterOfNone]

No.1 Crime - Not finishing what they start.

[Empress Meg]

Not proofreading! I hate not understanding what someone is trying to tell me in the install instructions or stop reading a delight comment on a certain unit because they cannot spell or bother to find someone who can.

Devoirs The Empress

[C.M.]

Starting a new mod instead of helping a similar one that needs help and eventually ending up with two dead mods instead of a released one.

[Aradan]

Not deleting map.rwm...

Starting a new mod instead of helping a similar one that needs help and eventually ending up with two dead mods instead of a released one.

Ditto!

[Ramashan]

This might go under 'finishing what you start' but;

Offering help, doing some work, then slowly disappearing as you go to help out on another mod. If your not happy, no longer interested, have other obligations, or have problems with the way the mod is progressing, tell someone. Just don't disappear with work half done and without an explanation.

[J@mes]

not setting up CGF error logging to trace is a crime.

[Harry Lime]

Changing more than one thing in a mod then upon testing hitting the dreaded unspecified error. Gah! The time I've wasted going back & starting all over again, this time more circumspectly.

[OTZ]

Changing more than one thing in a mod then upon testing hitting the dreaded unspecified error. Gah! The time I've wasted going back & starting all over again, this time more circumspectly.

The sad part is that you may have to "re-learn" this lesson over and over again.

I know I have...I've gotten complacent many times and gone ahead with mulitple changes prior to testing, and then ahving to start from scratch because of the U/E.

[Augustus Lucifer]

I know I have...I've gotten complacent many times and gone ahead with mulitple changes prior to testing, and then ahving to start from scratch because of the U/E.

Indeed, after a while you get to feeling that you have the changes down pat and can make 5 or 10 at a time that have potential for completely unrelated and unspecified errors, and then you don't capitalize something in an obscure file and POW! RIGHT IN THE KISSER!

I think the biggest crime a modder can commit is not documenting their progress for future modders to build upon. Some information about M2TW areas are still lacking, even though they're included in prolific released mods .

Number two would have to be not backing up your files. I make daily backups and in most cases back up individual text files, and will .rar a full version of the mod folder after significant changes have been made and it is determined to be stable. If I hadn't backed up files I might have torn my hair out by now.

Other offenses:

3) Asking for help BEFORE trying to find the answer on your own, I don't mind other people needing help, which is why one of the few areas I check is Mod Workshop, and I ask a good bit of questions, but only after an hour toying with the search function.

4) Spreading your self too thin. People that work on 7 different mods, even if their work is semi-quality, should spend some of that time having a life.

5) Making a new mod because your idea differs slightly from someone else. If we have an RTR, and EB, and an RS for E:TW they are all going to die out. The breadth of work needed to make a mod doesn't lend weight to mods that are theoretically the same, so if we have the same "Well EB has heavier scripting", "Well RS has named legions", "Well RTR has history", or whatever, we may not have a rome mod to cherish any time soon. People have done more as a mini-mod than the difference overall is between a lot of the existing mods.

Cheers,
Augustus

[MasterOfNone]

Not bothering to modfolder their mod. This makes me think that they do not believe their downloaders wish to play any mod but their own, or that they expect their players to setup multiple copies of RTW et. al. and use up their HDD space - or it leads me to believe they do not have a good coder (who could convert it in 3 days) which makes me suspect how well the mod is coded in the first place.

And I agree with all the above especially the point about intuitive coding and build management. I hopefully always code with the thought that, should I die, someone could understand easily what I was doing...

And I might die after making this post

[Maraxus]

Poor marketing, no screens, no readme file, nothing, at least not in one easily accessible place. PEOPLE YOU NEED TO PROMOTE YOUR MOD TO GAIN FANS!

[jimkatalanos]

hmmm, how about using other's work without permission?

[Ummagumma]

hmmm, how about using other's work without permission?

Especially with an "I made this" tagline..

[jimkatalanos]

Especially with an "I made this" tagline..

That's the worst crime.

[Legio]

-Accepting too many historians and not enough modders

[Augustus Lucifer]

-Accepting too many historians and not enough modders

That's true for a lot of mods, though to be honest, on our mod right now we don't really need more modders, it might help, might not, but we have the Coding and GFX generally covered, along with a couple outsourced areas. However we only have one historian, a good one, but only one. Which means we currently have to spend half our time researching and debating research, rather than just taking submitted research and coding it. I'd be good with another 9 talented historians.

But I agree about the sentiment. It's more like "Any mod that is founded by a historian", because people who can't mod asking for others to do the work for them = . Also increases the chances the people who do help in the modding area don't know what they're doing, because if they were extremely credible they'd be busy on another mod that actually has hope to succeed.

Cheers,
Augustus

[Ramashan]

Poor marketing, no screens, no readme file, nothing, at least not in one easily accessible place. PEOPLE YOU NEED TO PROMOTE YOUR MOD TO GAIN FANS!

This point is valid, but you also need to know when to market. There is also the danger of marketing too early without much work done and having no idea when you'll possibly have anything released. This is definitely a trap we fell into in try to garner excitement and then having nothing to show for it because the work on the actual mod was progressing slowly.

But you do need to update your forums regularly to let people know that the mod is still alive and work is being done.

[Legio]

This point is valid, but you also need to know when to market. There is also the danger of marketing too early without much work done and having no idea when you'll possibly have anything released. This is definitely a trap we fell into in try to garner excitement and then having nothing to show for it because the work on the actual mod was progressing slowly. But you do need to update your forums regularly to let people know that the mod is still alive and work is being done.

Boy have I learned that the hard way.
Also setting standards too high too early is common.