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Topic: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

Hello guys,

I came to the decision to create this topic after reading another topic about a problem with a mod. In my opinion it is good that mods are not supported at all by the official teeworlds team(meaning support staff and mods and so on...).

But there is one downside to this:
A lot of new mods are presented here, because they might get recognized a lot by that, so the people learn about the mods here in the first place. I believe it's obvious that they will create a thread here, too, if they have a problem with that certain mod. The problem with this is, that we don't want to support the mods, so we don't give them any answers. But those people don't see our reasons for that, thus they will always do it again, and also they are irritated a lot, and maybe even angry about the community being so harsh to them, which is obviously not what we wanted to cause in the first place...

Now don't get me wrong, I am absolutely not fighting for mods being supported. But also I am completely disaffected with the current situation.

Two solutions came to my mind, which could solve this problem:

1. Remove mods from the official forum completely, which means that mods may not be promoted here anymore. By doing this the official forum could focus more on the official game and we probably would not have to deal with people asking for support for mods anymore. It might also be helpful in encouraging people to play vanilla teeworlds instead of mods, because here they will find a large, and what is most important, the official community. The problem with this solution is that it might be hard to get it done. There are so many posts about mods in the content other section, and people are used to that very much.

2. Create a new section in the Community creations area which would only deal with mods(Content: Mods). Questions in this area should not be answered by the official community, but by the people who are into that certain mod. By this we could keep questions about mods separated from questions about the official teeworlds, and we would not have to care about all thiese questions about mods anymore. Maybe the team of moderators should then be supported by one more, who should focus on that section, maybe one who himself is into the mod community. Though I don't know if this solution collides with the credo of the official teeworlds team "mods are not supported" too much.

I personal would prefer the first solution, but as I said, I am really in doubt if it is possible(but still I think it's the right thing to do, if mods are not supported, they should not be on the forum at all...).

My request is now that you give your opinons about that topic here, tell me what you think about that. Do you have any further ideas how to solve the problem? Or do you think it's not a problem at all? Whatever your opinion is about that topic, please tell about it in this thread.

Thank you in advance,

ghost

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Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

well i would say if they want support for the mod, they should go and ask the mod developper , visit the mod-page or the mod-thread in this forum. this is all possible and not to hard, if youre using your brain ^^.

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Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

PlasPlasPlas!   good post wink   i like first option.....

Why allowing publish something that do not want have? It's an absurd situation.

4 (edited by Lanta 2010-06-29 21:57:33)

Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

I think only thing we need is a community that is able to read the rules before posting something.
I'm the first one that, in a support request, say "This is the official forum and we don't support mods. Contact directly the developer of the modification for other informations".
In my honest opinion the first option is too much strong, we must do something to promote mods... we can't simply erase them. The second option is the same, in that way Teeworlds will really promote and support mods and there is a big possibility (not too far) that vanilla will die.
So, that's what I think and I hope someone will agree with:

OPTION 3 - Insert a big sticky notes at the top of the support section or an alert before posting in that section that remind the user that we don't support mods. After that, if a user still post a mod-related issue his thread will be deleted without any notification. Easy, simple and fast way to solve all problems.

Support Staff - ESL.eu Teeworlds Admin

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Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

Lanta wrote:

I think only thing we need is a community that is able to read the rules before posting something.
I'm the first one that, in a support request, say "This is the official forum and we don't support mods. Contact directly the developer of the modification for other informations".
In my honest opinion the first option is too much strong, we must do something to promote mods... we can't simply erase them. The second option is the same, in that way Teeworlds will promote mods and there is a big possibility (not too far) that vanilla will die.
So, that's what I think and I hope someone will agree with:

OPTION 3 - Insert a big sticky notes at the top of the support section or an alert before posting in that section that remind the user that we don't support mods. Easy, simple and fast way to solve all problems.

i agree in all things, but i would add to OPTION  3:
"We don't support mods" If anyone would still post a topic about a mod, it shouldnt be closed, it should be DELETED!
Maybe the sticky note isnt needed, we should already delete the topics, instead of closing them. Its not the right way, the forum is full of mods-topics in the support-content, and if a new member is looking for support, it will see the 10000000 threads and think: its the right place. if he would only see threads about the vanilla, he would think: maybe its the wrong place to ask this

6 (edited by Lanta 2010-06-29 21:58:10)

Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

Zeratul wrote:
Lanta wrote:

bla bla bla

i agree in all things, but i would add to OPTION  3:
"We don't support mods" If anyone would still post a topic about a mod, it shouldnt be closed, it should be DELETED!
Maybe the sticky note isnt needed, we should already delete the topics, instead of closing them. Its not the right way, the forum is full of mods-topics in the support-content, and if a new member is looking for support, it will see the 10000000 threads and think: its the right place. if he would only see threads about the vanilla, he would think: maybe its the wrong place to ask this

Totally right. Just edited tongue

Support Staff - ESL.eu Teeworlds Admin

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Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

Hmm these are all decent solutions to an ever growing problem, but I do have some points to add.

To remove mods completely wouldn't really work I think, as people would still go to this forum for support when they can't find the mod on an external site. The problem is not that we don't want to see mods at all, but that we simply can't offer support for them. Our main objective is to make sure people ask support in the right place, that is, in the topic that the mod developer(s) have set up for their mod.

Solution 2 is somewhat what we try to do right now, as we merge topics in support with the topics about a specific mod so that the developer (or anyone who is familiar with that mod) can help them with their problems. Unfortunately we don't have topics for some mods and some others aren't actively supported on this forum.

Number 3 seems like a good starting point, as it will be the basic reminder that might motivate people to do the right thing. I think the notification should contain 3 messages:

1. The Teeworlds developers don't support mods.
2. If you need support for a mod, ask in the right mod topic.
3. If you fail to comply your topic might be deleted without notification, or worse.

The only thing I'm not 100% sure about is the deleting of topics, as this might urge people to remake their topic, or ask why it has been deleted. Maybe instead it would be an option to make one central topic where all mis-posted mod-related topics are merged into, so that:

1. The forum will still be clean, with only one mod-related topic.
2. The people who need help but posted their topic wrong can still get support.
3. Other people can still search the forum for the question and the answer to their specific problem, preventing multiple topics about the same problem (that is if people learn to use the search function).

But then again, deleting would make things a lot easier for the moderators, so it all depends on the amount of quality the community expects. Personally I'm a bit split between this, as I prefer a clean forum but still want to respect the interest of the (mod-playing) group of players.

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Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

Azon wrote:

The only thing I'm not 100% sure about is the deleting of topics, as this might urge people to remake their topic, or ask why it has been deleted. Maybe instead it would be an option to make one central topic where all mis-posted mod-related topics are merged into, so that:

1. The forum will still be clean, with only one mod-related topic.
2. The people who need help but posted their topic wrong can still get support.
3. Other people can still search the forum for the question and the answer to their specific problem, preventing multiple topics about the same problem (that is if people learn to use the search function).

But then again, deleting would make things a lot easier for the moderators, so it all depends on the amount of quality the community expects. Personally I'm a bit split between this, as I prefer a clean forum but still want to respect the interest of the (mod-playing) group of players.

Let me think...
...
... delete big_smile

People that want support for a mod can read the sticky or the alert, then they will realise that have to contact directly the developer of the mod, maybe in the topic where the mod has been released. That's fair enough.

Support Staff - ESL.eu Teeworlds Admin

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Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

People that want support for a mod can read the sticky or the alert, then they will realise that have to contact directly the developer of the mod, maybe in the topic where the mod has been released. That's fair enough.

What's about russians or other very bad english speakers that nearly don't read anything and just try to post 2 sentences in english ?

To remove mods completely wouldn't really work I think, as people would still go to this forum for support when they can't find the mod on an external site. The problem is not that we don't want to see mods at all, but that we simply can't offer support for them. Our main objective is to make sure people ask support in the right place, that is, in the topic that the mod developer(s) have set up for their mod.

Then get the MOTD broadcast back. I don't want to have a broadcast or a server chat each time I join a server to know where I can find informations about the mod.

Not Luck, Just Magic.

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Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

Dune wrote:

People that want support for a mod can read the sticky or the alert, then they will realise that have to contact directly the developer of the mod, maybe in the topic where the mod has been released. That's fair enough.

What's about russians or other very bad english speakers that nearly don't read anything and just try to post 2 sentences in english ?

They will learn to read. An alert is really visible, you can't miss it.

Dune wrote:

Then get the MOTD broadcast back. I don't want to have a broadcast or a server chat each time I join a server to know where I can find informations about the mod.

If you download the latest version from GIT and compile it (you can find it also here http://www.teeworlds.com/builds/ ) the MOTD is already back.

Support Staff - ESL.eu Teeworlds Admin

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Re: [SUGGESTION] Mods on the official forum

@Dune: The language of teeworlds is english. If one is not capable of english (and in todays time I think everybody should be) it is his own problem. I f he wants to be able to communicate with otheres here on the forum it is not our duty to make so he can get thorugh somehow, but it's his duty to learn the language as much as it is needed.

About Azons idea:
I think it is a quite good starting point. I also support the idea that misplaced topics about mods should be deleted, people finally need to learn to post in the correct section(I mean....it's not that difficult, is it?).

Also one thing why I started this discussion:
Right now the content other section is more or less abused as a content mods section (there are only few other things in there), and I believe the huge amount of topics concerning mods demands an own place for this.