This is all fine and well, but am I the only one a bit concerned about how NexusMods is practically a monopoly in the modding scene? Why does literally every modder have to use a rate-limiting host as a platform, especially when Github exists?
Well, for one thing, Nexus gives modders a share of ad revenue. Under a different name, I have a mod that’s a backend requirement for a big, popular mod, and that nets me a reliable few bucks a month.
That said, a good portion of the modding community also exists on Gamebanana. If you want BotW, ToTK or Source engine mods, GB is the go-to.
Steam workshop exists as well, for games that support it.
That’s even worse though. Plenty of games (e.g. Stellaris and RimWorld) are also available on platforms like GOG or, ugh, Epic. But if you want to use mods and you bought the game on any platform other than Steam it’s fuck you.
https://steamworkshopdownloader.io/ never gotten this to work myself but I put the least amount of effort in as possible. There may be others as well but I remember when I did my research a couple years ago that it was a real trudge and almost not worth it.
Even if you buy Terraria off of steam, you can use steam mods. Sounds like a per-game problem, rather than a steam problem.
Natural monopoly. Nobody else offers as good of an experience. The closest is ModDB and their UX is stuck in the mid 2000s.
I don’t think that term really applies here. It’s not like the barrier to entry for a webservice hosting game modification data is all that high. It’s very different from the railway, waterworks and power grid markets.
Also there are at least the competitors Loverslab, Curseforge, ModMD and Modrinth from the top of my head.
There’s also steam workshop. Neither are shining examples of a free modding community. I think nexus mods starting out better and slowly enshittified but I don’t know the extent of it.
That went so well until your proposed alternative was Microsoft.
Yeah, an alternative using git would be good probably, but maybe don’t use github. Preferably though, it’d be agnostic and just target some git repo anywhere. It’d pull from a description file for the page to ensure a uniform appearance preferably, and it’d show and manage versions from some uniformly named folder on the repo.
I know what Microsoft’s general reputation is, but it’s undeniable that GitHub has only seen improvements since Microsoft acquired it.
At least github is easier than the shit that is nexusmods
Also there are alternatives
Gitlab… sourceforge…
Ive downloaded a lot of mods from sourceforge over the years
I mean, github does exist. It looks like people just prefer platforms with a pre-existing community.
There’s also the Thunder store!
In Curseforge we trust
I hope that was snarky because CF has really gone downhill.
Yeah no question Curseforge ain’t great and if you want to get a modpack as opposed to a singular mod you get kind of screwed by the launcher.
Thing is, the alternatives tend to suck more. Plus my point was that Nexus ain’t alone.
It’s like I didn’t think it could get worse but it just kept getting worse and worse lol.
Incredibly petty mod to make in the first place, so Nexus might as well be petty too and remove it.
Finally, someone who isn’t just calling one side stupid and dismissing peoples points.
Everyone showing up late to go ‘well I don’t see why they removed it!’ –
You are why.
Trolls escalate. They keep pushing until they get smacked down, then cry and scream and pretend they’ve been proven right. Being ignored doesn’t just embolden them, it bores them, and tells them they need to get worse to get attention. No matter what happens - no matter what anyone says to them - they get to use it in their stupid little word game.
The nature of bad faith is that there is no right answer.
You have to simply get rid of it, and the sooner, the better.
I understand your point that the behavior surrounding certain mods can escalate and create a toxic environment. In that sense, it’s not just the mod in question but the kind of interactions it may foster. However, that leads us into a very slippery slope. If we start removing mods based on what they might encourage rather than what they actually do, where do we draw the line?
Note that mods can be used for multiple reasons, not all of which are nefarious. Some people may genuinely appreciate the option to customize their experience in a way that the mod allows, without any intention of engaging in toxic behavior.
Your argument seems to be based on the idea of acting pre-emptively to negate potential harm, which is a valid point. But this can also set a concerning precedent that may affect the open nature of modding communities, by limiting what can and cannot be customized.
So the question then becomes, how do we balance preventing potential harm with preserving the user’s freedom to customize their experience? It’s a complicated issue, but one that deserves open dialogue rather than summary judgment.
However, that leads us into a very slippery slope.
Wrong.
Next.
Moderation exists to identify and exclude people who are being absolute cocks.
You don’t need any grand philosophical statement about values. You don’t need to defend the paradox of tolerance against absolutist demands for unrestricted expression. It’s perfectly fine to say: you were doing some diet Nazi shit, that’s awful, fuck off.
“but you need to hear BOTH side of the arg-”
No we don’t.We already heard the terrible arguments for intolerance and don’t need to rehash it over and over again in every new piece of media.
Tbh I don’t even know why the option even exists. I have 2 days worth of playtime and not once does it go on about pronouns or anything like that. So to me the menu seems completely pointless. If i can recall i also don’t think the NPCs have even referred to me as male or he/him. Maybe Bethesda added it last minute or something to try to appeal to a larger group of people idk. I’m just enjoying my spaceship man.
When you meet Sam & Cora they’ll refer to you by your pronoun while they talk about you.
The whole thing is just to make the character generation non binary, that’s it. I don’t see why this is such a big deal for some people. I’m a cis male, I select a masculine body type and go with he / him, or maybe they / them, and be done with it. It does nothing but help others feel more included.Ohhhh. Wow i never noticed that tbh. I was so focused on trying to win sarah over. Never met a more picky person in my life. Now she resides on europa because she bitches every time i steal or a innocent sounding dialog option makes her mad. Sam is cool every ounce and a while he says something about me stealing but it’s not as annoying. I’ve yet to come across cora. I spend so much time in the ship builder.
You might’ve missed their initial dialog in the lodge, which happened in that garden area. You can find her typically in the basement where she has her room and she will be on board of your ship if you assign Sam onto it. The kids in Starfield are actually pretty cute and wholesome, unlike the literal spawns of Satan from Skyrim.
Ohhh that kid! I completely ignored that little stinker. I remember her trying to con me out of 50 creds for books. I’m too greedy for that i got ships to build.
I’m not super far in, but I have heard it. The first time I remember hearing it is in the opening act when Lin is telling Barrett about you. Also when Sam talks to the marshal about you in Akila City. I suppose there are only so many opportunities for other characters to talk about you while you’re standing right there, but it does pop up, so it’s nice to have the option for those moments.
Do people really care what gender the MC is? I just role play as whatever gender the character is.
If I’m playing Tomb Raider, I am Laura Croft. If I play GTA, I’m CJ or Trevor or whatever. If I’m given a choice, I’ll sometimes look up if the gender matters (e.g. in Mount and Blade it can impact relations), and otherwise just pick randomly. When there’s a character creation screen, I usually randomize it a few times and get into the game.
I wouldn’t mind role playing as a gay or trans person, though I’d be a little worried about the content because I’m not looking for anything with relationships, I want to wreck monsters and solve puzzles.
Depends on if the character’s supposed to be a self insert. In a game with deep customization you may be trying to make yourself, and not playing as Lara Croft or Geralt, so being able to choose your pronouns helps immersion, and immersion’s a big deal to many players who’ll take it anywhere they can get it in a game, whether it’s pronouns, or being able to see your torso and feet when you look down.
To confused people exploring from all Communities trying to understand what the hell is going on:
- Bethesda is a game studio who does a decent job of giving people choice to do/be whatever they want in their games. Out of the box they included the option to choose your pronouns in a new game called “Starfield”.
- They also make it possible to modify their games to make very drastic changes to the player experience.
- Nexus is a site that hosts thousands of mods to all sorts of games. People make mods, upload them to Nexus and players download them.
- Someone made a mod to remove the option to choose pronouns from Starfield.
- Nexus decided they don’t want to host this mod. It’s hurtful to people and goes against their values of inclusivity.
That’s about it. Most of the people whinging about censorship don’t even play the game. They’re just here to whinge about how the world is moving on from old bigoted ways and they want to stay in the past and be jerks to people for merely existing. If they actually cared, they’d just download the mod from some other site. The mod itself is probably not much bigger than this reply.
Most of the people whinging about censorship
To further add on that, to complain about censorship for a mod that LITERALLY censors the game.
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I can’t imagine being such a pussy that pronouns in another character’s profile would make you cry from extreme butthurterie like a little beta wuss
This is like that old “progressive redneck” meme. I agree with the spirit of what you said but shit that’s not how I would say it.
Sometimes you have to speak to them in their own language
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They finally give you something that controls how people refer to you in their games, and dipshits wanna remove it? This is as close as you’re going to get to having characters refer to you as a choice you’ve taken other than Codsworth and Vasco having like 1000 generic names recorded to use.
We can’t be far from text-to-speech tweaking a ton of voice acting. Might have to pronounce or IPA your custom name, to get an AI voice to nail it… but maybe it’s better-off being wrong. There’s disarming verisimilitude in schmaltzy NPCs confidently fumbling your character’s name. Or if some characters heard it, but haven’t seen it, and you catch some mutter ‘so that’s how it’s spelled.’
Whether that name is Paarthurnax, Heloise, or Ng.
I am just picturing the orc noble who uses words incorrectly/mispronounces shit. Forgot what those are called, but they have similar characters in most of their games. In Starfield, they even called him “Dumbrosky.” Dumb Bro ski.
Malapropisms.
I mean, I sorta get it. Identity politics are political and often divisive, and some people don’t want it in their escapism.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but if a role-playing game had a mandatory character-selection choice to choose if my character was pro-choice or pro-life, I could see myself mildly resenting it.Not really a good example. A more apt example is if these people were getting angry that the character creator allowed a player to create a woman, or a person of colour. The game offering you a choice of pronouns is not asking you for a political opinion, it’s literally just an option to create a type of character that these people don’t think should exist.
And that’s the crux of it, they aren’t angry about pronouns, they’re angry about trans and non-binary people becoming normalised.
I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn’t political. Trans, non-binary, etc is, and normalizing it is political, regardless of if it’s right or wrong. I think that you’re correct and that it seems like something done as ammunition in the Culture War; normalizing identity politics rather than a design decision done out of a necessity to improve the quality of the game apart from that.
My earlier analogy was about having a pro-life/pro-choice option forced on you, but I guess to make it more accurate it would be more like the game just telling you that you’re pro-life as part of your character settings? Because it’s not just putting the politics in the game, it’s taking a strong side. Again, rightly or wrongly, I can see why some people would resent that in their escapism.
Fuck off forever
Does it even affect dialogue? The PC is hardly ever referred to with pronouns, actually I can’t remember a single line.
I believe it changes enemy barks like “He/She/They shot him!” and maybe a few dialogue lines?
Heh, I like how the enemies are considerate enough to figure out and use the correct pronouns mid-battle
Hey, you! What are your pronouns? … Thanks, now eat lead!
I might be a paid killer, but I’ll be damned if I’ll misgender someone. Professionals have standards.
Wait, the mod removed the option to set a gender in the character editor? Why don’t these people just make a male character and be done with it?
Because it’s not actually about the pronouns. These people aren’t actually angry about pronouns.
They’re angry about trans and non-binary people. They’re angry that people are growing to accept these people, who they do not think should be accepted. They are angry that a group they don’t think is normal, is being accepted as normal.
I don’t think it’s even about that, they’re angry because the want to be angry. The why doesn’t matter, if the current right wing outrage du-jour had been… I dunno, left handed people rather than trans people, you’d see all the same people working themselves into a screaming tantrum if a game or movie had a left handed person in it.
What difference does it make to anyone that people are doing this in their own game? It’s not like this mod takes the option away for everyone. It doesn’t. It only effects their own private game they’re playing in their own home.
Nowadays everything seems newsworthy… I would not be mad about it if Bethesda did not include a pronoun setting, i am not mad someone made a mod to remove said option, i am not mad nexus keeping its sovereignty to decide what they host…
What is everyone mad about? Just let ppl do whatever they do.
Exactly this. It’s a game guys, not real life.
The way you worded this makes it look like you’re against pronouns
Ok, how am I against pronouns now? I agree with the fact that people should have personal preference whether they agree with having the pronoun feature in the game or not. It’s not about being against pronouns, it’s about freedom of individual choice.
Now, I’m not forcing them to reupload the mod. But, if a moderator just solely removes the mod based on their own political idealogy, then you’re stripping the freedom away from everyone else. We can have a kill children mod but god forbid we have a remove pronouns mod.
I’ve used Nexus Mods for the past 6-7 years, I’m honestly just sad to see them take this route.
Nah man I totally agree, I just mean when you said “it’s a game, not real life”, some people could take it wrong. Nothing against you but I guess my message came across wrong too
Look I’ve got no skin in the game here, what’s wrong with having a mod that removes a selector in a character creation screen?
I get that some people are upset if they get misgendered or whatever (as I would be…my chosen pronouns just happen to line up with what everyone assumes they are…comfy living) but is it really necessary to force everyone to have a pronoun selection option if they don’t want a pronoun selection option? You’re not going to make someone blinded by hate see any clearer by forcing them to do something that only affects them.
Edit: I’m sorry if my questioning hurt some folks, that wasn’t my intention. I couldn’t see what the big deal was, but thanks to those who made the effort to engage with me, I have a more informed view and I can appreciate why the mod was removed and why its existence was upsetting.
Was going to comment the same. How is this mod hurting anyone? Isnt this the point of modding, to tweak it a little bit to suit your tastes? Its not like its a rape or child molesting mod. Those things should get deleted. But this? Such a petty thing to do.
Imagine there was a group of people in your school, in your workplace, in your city who for some reason feel that Kazakhspy should not exist. They’re not allowed to kill you, that’s against the law, but they would if they could. Instead, they say fuck Kazakhspy, go kill yourself Kazakhspy, I can’t stand you Kazakhspy. Hearing that kind of thing on a regular basis might be a little hurtful. Now imagine some game studio heard about this and thought hey, let’s include Kazakhspy in our game. And then that group in your community was like “what the fuck is this! I hate Kazakhspy and now they’re shoving Kazakhspy down my throat in a videogame? I will not stand for this.” And goes through the effort of making a mod to remove you from the game and puts it on the website. You hear about this and see that it’s up there with a few downloads. You might be a little hurt to know some people hate you so much they’ll mod a game to spite you just because they don’t like your existence. Then the website owner is like, “Wow, this is weirdly hateful and doesn’t belong on my website. Let’s not perpetuate hate against Kazakhspy.”
That’s why. In context it’s hurtful to people because the intention of creating it was to hurt people through hate.
Noones forcing anyone. The creator can upload the mod elsewhere. Nexus doesn’t subscribe to bigotry and won’t platform it.
I do not understand this debacle at all. 100% of people against the inclusion of pronouns—USE A PREFERRED PRONOUN. I guarantee if I called one these man children a “her” they’d lose their little minds.
I’m non-binary and I’m afraid to express my gender in public. It’s good to know I should also be afraid to express my gender in a VIDEO GAME (points for realism I guess).
Where do you live, Iran? Also the mod doesn’t impinge on your ability to express yourself. Not sure how that relates to being afraid in a game.
Let me guess, you don’t have any trans friends. Probably don’t have any gay friends, either.
I know no fewer than 5 people who have been physically assaulted over their sexuality or their gender identity. My local pro-LGBTQ church was vandalized by people who left messages about how god hates them.
You deserve all those downvotes you’re complaining about if you really believe that non-binary people in the Western world aren’t reasonably afraid to express their gender.
And as for “how it relates to…a game”. Can you imagine being Jewish and a bunch of pro-nazi mods made it to the frontpage of your favorite game? Can you imagine if then everyone started bitching because the site took those hateful mods down?
Games, as online communities, are used to “innocently” draw people towards extreme beliefs.
Of course is Kotaku coming with a whole tempest in a teapot over this.
Kotaku is an absolute joke, but that’s not new, they are the laughing stock of game journalism for a reason.
Are you sure about this picture? I’m sure that instead of nice cool looking ships most I make are just flying bricks or dicks.
Errrmmm, disks, I mean disks.
Thatsapenis.jpg
