https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/3019900
Are you modder dudes getting paid for your work?
We’d also like to announce that anyone who pre-orders System Shock remake will receive System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition for free and ALL Kickstarter/Backerkit backers who backed at the $30 level or higher will also be receiving SS2:EE for free. It’s our intention to release both System Shock remake and SS2:EE around the same time. SS2:EE has evolved into more than what we were intending. This will be a complete source port to our KEX engine. All the character and weapons models are being remade, and we’ve received permission from the Shock community to include many of the mods that have become standard for many Shock 2 veterans.
These include:
Vurt's Space Textures, Flora, Hi-res Water, Organics/Goo
ACC's Four Hundred (400) Hi-res Terrain Textures
Eldron's Psi Amp
Olfred's Fixed Objects
Grosnus' Hi-Res Spinning Marine/Navy/OSA logos
SCP
SHTUP
ZylonBane's New Quest Notifier
Vaxquis Vintage Song Remake v1.0 Mod
Mercurius' Tacticool Weapon Replacements
Here is a quick look at the before and after of the protocol droid. We’ve added more detail to both the poly model and the texture while retaining as much of the original as possible.
those who gave a permission publicly, did not ask for any kind of monetary compensation, afaik. besides, most mods have too many contributors (with some being mia) for just one person to claim full ownership, and that makes getting paid for such a mod morally questionable.
I wanted to sell them my toothbrush mod, but they didn't want it for some reason.
Why are usermods being included with this port is beyond me let alone the fact that none of these are purist friendly. This will be some players' first experience with the game and they will see it not how the devs intended it rather how some modder thinks it should be.
Last edited by iramshahrier; 25th Jan 2021 at 07:23.
lets put the fact that most of those mods are as faithful to the vanilla aesthetics as (in)humanly possible, and NDS are actually hiring people to finish up/tweak those that aren't aside, and let me guess, you are THE guy who knows EXACTLY what the original devs intended to be a first time experience for all the players that existed, exist and will exist, because you KNOW how all the people should play the game, and what should they like and enjoy. I somehow have a hard time believing that.
dude, just take out your win98 retro machine, pop the cd in, and do your thing if the NewDark build, enhanced editions, reboots, mods or whatever aren't your cup of tea.
Maybe they'll keep the Enhanced edition separate from the Classic edition like they did with SS1. Then everyone can choose whether they want to play with enhanced visuals or not.
yes they will, this has been confirmed multiple times.
First, most of those mods are extremely purist-friendly. They take the original assets and increase their quality without introducing any stylistic changes. Second, you know these are going to be optional, right?Originally Posted by iramshahrier
As a veteran shocker I have to admit most of these mods don't change estetics of the game, but rather fix and polish what was left as it were due to the devs were in a rush. It's a dilemme whether to leave what is clearly wrong (floating object, wrong texture placement thus overlapping, broken script due to a typo) because "that was the devs' vision" or to fix them.Why are usermods being included with this port is beyond me let alone the fact that none of these are purist friendly. This will be some players' first experience with the game and they will see it not how the devs intended it rather how some modder thinks it should be.
SCP fixes thousands and thousands of those small issues. The texture and music mods leave everything as it was but increases the quality: the game would look and sound much worse on modern PCs if you leave the original assets. Thankfully they are not gonna include Rebirth mod which doesn't fit. The Quest notifier is another useful thing that just fits, and I would recommend anyone using it.
So it's not a stupid soup of mods from various places, but a well-balanced kit made by experienced people with good taste and combined by other talented guys who clearly (and hopefully) know what they are doing.
The devs asked each of them if they are ok with the mod being included. Of course you could ask for some money for the work you did 15 years ago, but being a grown man would you choose a few hundred-ish bucks (would they really make you feel better?) or you would be glad to leave a footprint in the game which would be preserved for generations?
Last edited by Valet2; 27th Jan 2021 at 19:09.
---Old Habits Never Die---
Hey, just wanted to say thanks to all you modders for your public work on the project. I'm really looking forward to the Enhanced Edition. I've used a lot of these mods for YEARS now and I'm glad they're getting broader recognition with the help of NightDive.
That said, I'm curious how they managed to make the upgraded models. Something I read made me believe that that was somewhat difficult to do in DromEd.
Elbow grease!
Dark's rigging tools are... awkward to use, but the engine can cope with much more complicated models than the originals, we just never had an artist skilled enough to make faithful remodels (one who was also willing to struggle with the tools.)
Though I think there are Blender-based tools these days for importing characters which are less arcane.
No amount of faithfulness will appease the purist
That said, SS2EE is more anticipated than the SS remake.
Okay.
A) Many of these mods are not that old, some are even in active development and you know that, Valet2.
B) You're argument is exactly what's been used on people in the software industry millions of times before: "You'll get a lot of exposure and recognition!"
That is simply exploitative logic. Night Dive is going to make a lot of money of this added value. They themselves won't release SS2EE for free, just to leave a footprint in gaming history or whatever. So why should anyone who worked on these mods be happy with a fuzzy feeling? And why are they only leaving a footprint in the game now?
That being said, almost all of them signed up for self-exploitation, so the point is moot.
"would you rather be compensated by a for-profit publisher for your work that they want to include in a paid product, or let them idly make money off your content that the average person will see as said publisher's original output and not yours?"
i realize that i sound smug here and that kolya already brought up several of the points i wanted to make, but come on dude you should know better
Nono, it's just my point of view for today, based on some experience. I'd be more than happy to learn counter-arguments and see the situation wider.
If the company decides to pay the mod authors, what amount of payment would be preferable? And what rights would be remained for them? Do these mods remain free for use and further edit, or it's now a part of the official game? And why the current interrogation ("can we use your mod? - yeah, sure") is unacceptable?
For me there's the only adequate option is if they hire the people who did awesome mods to make new ones for the game exclusively, officially, with payment and stuff.
Donating to the authors sounds okay, but there would be fights between them because someone would think his contribution was bigger, or some people won't get money at all (becasue they did a couple textures and disappeared).
Didn't we already go through all this with paid mods?
i would personally be fine with the modder in question being paid by the publisher (how much and in what way, i'm not sure actually - at the very least give the modder a small flat fee, like a couple thousand bucks), while their mod remains freely accessible to use + free for other modders to use/edit/reupload with credit and permission from the original author. there is nothing inherently wrong with asking for permission to use a mod in another project per se, this is how the vast majority of modding communities function and i see absolutely no issue with it as long as everything is done freely out of passion for the original work.
what i find unacceptable is a publisher like nightdive swooping in and asking for permission to use a free mod, in a paid game, without those modders receiving any compensation other than a paltry "thank u vewy much fow wetting us use youw mod :3" mention in a credits section at the end of the game... that most people won't pay attention to. to me this is pretty much the same thing as an artist/musician/etc. being asked to do something for free because of the "exposure" that they never end up getting. it's parasitical on the publisher's end.
nightdive was founded nearly a decade ago, they've made over a million on a kickstarter, they've worked with far, far worse publishers like zenimax, they sell god knows how many old games on steam and gog and so on, i'm pretty sure they have the damn money to pay a couple modders a little bit for the work they did, no matter how old that work is. if the modder says yes then that's on them and i don't think they should be lynched for it, for instance, i know for a fact wesp's unofficial patch is prepackaged with vtmb on gog and all of that money goes to activision. i'm just saying that if i was in the same position i'd at least ask for enough money to pay my rent for the month or something, i think more mod authors should speak up on this and i think companies like nightdive should at least have the common decency to compensate these people. this is not being done for the sake of game preservation, nightdive is doing this so they can squeeze a little extra money out of an ip they've tried milking to death with rereleases, a remake that still hasn't been released and a shoddy attempt at creating a sequel. they have done a few things for game preservation in the past and i have to give credit where credit is due (the system shock powermac source code release), but i am far from convinced that's their #1 priority
sorry that this turned into another rant about crony capitalism but i think i made my point
the 2015 steam workshop paid mods crap was kinda similar but also not really? that was a small group of modders charging for their own work with valve and zenimax taking a massive chunk of their profits (75% if i remember correctly), whereas this is a publisher asking for permission to charge for work done by modders without paying said modders at all. sounds similar but i think this is its own issue
Oh, I'm pretty sure I've seen every argument that has been made in this thread multiple times over. And the rebuttals and the rebuttals to the rebuttals and so on.
You are engaging in fallacious logic, and thus accomplishing nothing more than making yourself look silly.
Look, this is very simple:
- Game modders already give their work to the community for free, explicitly enhancing the "value" of the game.
- Anyone who buys the game can install any of the available free mods, freely, for free.
- Therefore, a publisher who decides to directly include free community mods does not add any more value to the game than already exists, they're just removing steps to realize that value.
So while you may think your argument is, "You're selling my mod, therefore give me money", in actuality it's, "You removed steps, therefore give me money."
The value is that NightDive's game will be better liked, more recommended, more units sold etc because it has been updated by mods. You are kidding yourself if you think that everyone who buys the game would have installed all these mods anyway. And Kick knows that the game is worth less without mods. Everyone can see that by a glance. That is why he came by. Not to remove extra steps out of human kindness. Considering your usually cynical demeanor against any newbie you're showing some astounding naivety and willingness to give credit to this guy. For no good reason one might add.
This works two ways, though. Mod makers also want their mods to be used and what better way to distribute them than packaged right with the game? And this is not a chance you get often.
pot to kettle zylon, but also, i find it disingenuous to say that mods don't make a game more valuable than it already is, especially considering that you yourself make them? this isn't the case with every mod (lolrebirth) but i would imagine that most people who install, say, Four Hundred, and like it, would say that it's better than the original textures it replaces, thereby making it a little more valuable than the original to those mod users. it'd be pretty damn hard to compare that mod's textures with the original game's and not recognize the difference in quality. on top of that, nightdive is removing steps... by selling people the same free community-made mods. i don't see how that doesn't tie into my original argument
That is a different argument than ZB made. And I don't think it ends there.
Mod makers also want recognition, feedback from players, exchange with other modders, potentially help. And they want to inspire others also to create mods, so a better game can be enjoyed by everyone.
All of this works in a modding community by default. It's the whole point of having one. But it stops working when the mods are detached from their makers and of ways to communicate with them.
It is the same reason why we've discouraged mod packs for years and why SS2Tool does not simply download all the favourite mods into your game, which it could do right away.
This is the exact opposite of what I said.
Yeah, I already said that.i would imagine that most people who install, say, Four Hundred, and like it, would say that it's better than the original textures it replaces, thereby making it a little more valuable than the original to those mod users.
And I already said this too.on top of that, nightdive is removing steps...
Are you feeling okay? You seem to have somehow run my entire post through some manner of reverse comprehension filter.
It seems this was a risk that the authors were willing to take, I guess. Maybe they just wanted to offer the best version of SS2 to players right out of the gate. And I don't think Kick would be adverse to promoting mods and directing traffic your way through Night Dive's channels or putting a link to the forum in the readme or mentioning it in the mod descriptions or something.
Furthermore, Night Dive actually doing something with the franchise, doing the source ports, releasing the source code, etc, has the potential to increase interest into the games and mods and fan missions even beyond that.
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