Factorio Forums

Factorio is one of the best games ever made in the history of computer games. It is fun to play. It is more fun to mod. Publishing a half-decent Factorio mod, however, is like being asked to suck on a hundred salty dicks every day when your limit is two or three. I can only imagine what being an actual game developer must be like. Oh wait, I don't have to imagine.

I asked Wube to remove the obsolete 0.17 IR mod from the mod portal. I did this because it has brought me a good deal of grief ever since it was featured in an FFF - mostly from streamers and other "content creators" and their entourages, all concerned about their self-entitled right to corporate profits, but from other generic consumers as well. I turned off every possible method of people sending me grief that I could - PMs, Discord, e-mail - until recently I even had someone trawling through github transaction logs (IR was never even on github) to find out my real life name and personal e-mail address.

I regret spending any time on the mod and I regret publishing it at all. The portal doesn't let you delete your own mods, so I could have "deleted" it by uploading a "blank mod" - but this would have removed it from the disks of anyone who clicked on "update" and I didn't want that to happen. So I sent a request to Wube.

Wube removed the mod, but didn't tell me (or didn't realise) that this frees the mod ID up for anyone else to use. Predictably, the bottom-feeder known as ptx0, a serial impersonator of modders, then uploaded a copy of my mod using the same mod ID. Obviously they didn't bother asking what my wishes were for the distribution of my own work. This person has never shown a flicker of interest in the mod until now, so I can only conclude that they did it out of pure spite. They are now apparently free to overwrite your copies of IR with anything they please. I recommend that you back the mod up.

They are welcome to the mod. I hope it brings them as much misery as it did me.

Edited the next day to add: Wube have now helped me recover my property from the impersonator. So because of the impersonator's actions, the mod stays on the portal whether I want it there or not.

For what it's worth, perhaps not much, I think there are a lot of us out here who enjoyed IR and still enjoy it, and who aren't even bothering to upgrade to 0.18 experimental purely because IR doesn't work with it.

It's unfortunate that doing anything to stand out on the internet brings the trolls out of the woodwork.

I'm sorry that people behaved this way. I respect your work on this mod, and I'm sorry to see it go away. If there were a way to support your work on it (e.g. Indiegogo or something along those lines), then I for one would do so.

Well, I had the opportunity to try out IR while it was still in public development. So thanks for that!

It is really mind boggling that a mod author, instead of being shown appreciation for their hard work, got terrorized to the point they wished the mod was never made.

I have to ask (out of curiosity) - what are you going to do with the work you already put into the 1.1.0 version of the mod? Will you continue it in private, or are you abandoning it completely effective immediately?

Wube have now helped me recover my property from the impersonator. So because of our resident license troll, the mod stays on the portal whether I want it there or not. Thanks for that, troll.

Dev-iL wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:08 am Well, I had the opportunity to try out IR while it was still in public development. So thanks for that!

It is really mind boggling that a mod author, instead of being shown appreciation for their hard work, got terrorized to the point they wished the mod was never made.

I have to ask (out of curiosity) - what are you going to do with the work you already put into the 1.1.0 version of the mod? Will you continue it in private, or are you abandoning it completely effective immediately?

"Terrorised" is probably too strong a term. I stand by the "slightly too many salty dicks in your face than you are emotionally or spiritually prepared for" metaphor in the OP. There was plenty of appreciation as well, but while getting compliments and appreciation is always welcome, it's not a plus/minus ledger where X units of appreciation perfectly cancels out Y salty dicks releasing pure energy, like matter and anti-matter, otherwise we would probably have warp drive that runs on an intermix chamber of internet cruelty by now. Probably I just don't have the right character to deal with it, and it didn't help that I pissed off the charming Twitch and YouTube communities on day 0.

I don't know what I will do with the half-finished expansion/revamp. At any rate I am benching Factorio until 1.0. It remains the most addictive and replayable game in my library and six months might change my feelings about tinkering with mods but I'm done with it for the time being.

I had the impression that players where pretty happy about IR and having their mods featured in FFF, twitch, and youtube seems to be a good predictor of modder satisfaction too.
What happened to make you feel like killing your own mod is the best solution?

Oktokolo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:11 pm I had the impression that players where pretty happy about IR and having their mods featured in FFF, twitch, and youtube seems to be a good predictor of modder satisfaction too.
What happened to make you feel like killing your own mod is the best solution?

The judgmental rebuke you implied in that final question probably constitutes a good example of the answer to it.

Also, it seems like people were constantly griping about the license. Apparently some people can't be content with something being high-quality and free unless it's free on their preferred terms instead of the creator's terms.

Kyralessa wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:12 pm The judgmental rebuke you implied in that final question probably constitutes a good example of the answer to it.

If you mean the "killing", that is just because normally, artists are not deleting or destroying their own work because of what others do or think (except, when the act of doing exactly that is the art, wich it most likely isn't here). No judgement intended though.

Kyralessa wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:12 pm Also, it seems like people were constantly griping about the license. Apparently some people can't be content with something being high-quality and free unless it's free on their preferred terms instead of the creator's terms.

The currently listed CC-BY-ND 4.0 is pretty permissive.
It even allows commercial use - so streamworkers should be happy as they may sell stream views to advertisers.
It does not allow derivatives, but you can still make companion mods. So most modders should be happy too.
And players in general do not care about (or even know the basics of) licenses anyway.

Angel uses CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, wich additionally forbids any commercial use. That actually forbids commercial streaming if not explicitly allowed by the author. That might annoy the streamworkers (casual non-monetizing streamers should be fine though). But he does not seem to have problems because of that.

How terrible. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed playing through the mod under 0.17. After playing through Krastorio, I just went back to IR, and was looking forward to trying out some new ideas, but found it missing. I am sorry about what transpired, but as a programmer myself, I know the feeling, but I can also say that despite the misery that you experienced, your work has provided great enjoyment for many people. So there's that. I only wish that it could have continued: you're talented, and you have that going for you. So, no matter what comes, thank you.

Oktokolo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:10 pm

Kyralessa wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:12 pm Also, it seems like people were constantly griping about the license. Apparently some people can't be content with something being high-quality and free unless it's free on their preferred terms instead of the creator's terms.

The currently listed CC-BY-ND 4.0 is pretty permissive.
It even allows commercial use - so streamworkers should be happy as they may sell stream views to advertisers.
It does not allow derivatives, but you can still make companion mods. So most modders should be happy too.
And players in general do not care about (or even know the basics of) licenses anyway.

I thought the "issue" was that there was some clause preventing gaining revenue from it (preventing Twitch/Youtube ads)?

Oktokolo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:10 pm The currently listed CC-BY-ND 4.0 is pretty permissive.
It even allows commercial use - so streamworkers should be happy as they may sell stream views to advertisers.
It does not allow derivatives, but you can still make companion mods. So most modders should be happy too.
And players in general do not care about (or even know the basics of) licenses anyway.

The copy of license.txt in my pre-takedown IR version is Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International so I think the current license on the portal was just an artifact of the whole takedown-restore thing that went on, reuploaded under the wrong license.

There were a number of streamers that descended upon the IR thread that got pretty upset over it and tried arguing over and over that mod authors should allow commercial streaming as if that is somehow a good thing for mod authors, and those were just the posts in public (or on the mod portal).

Solinya wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:08 am The copy of license.txt in my pre-takedown IR version is Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International so I think the current license on the portal was just an artifact of the whole takedown-restore thing that went on, reuploaded under the wrong license.

In that case, the mod is using the same license as Angel's, wich is well known too.

Solinya wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:08 am There were a number of streamers that descended upon the IR thread that got pretty upset over it and tried arguing over and over that mod authors should allow commercial streaming as if that is somehow a good thing for mod authors, and those were just the posts in public (or on the mod portal).

The streamworkers certainly can get a bit whiny. But if they get a consistent no, they normally just ignore that, and go on monetizing it anyway.
You just have to avoid participating in lengthy discussions about the license and licensing in general. Because if you do, they will try to convince you. And as talking for hours nonstop on camera literally is their job, i would expect some stamina...
Best way to avoid that probably is to choose a permissive license from the start. The end result is the same but there are no discussions about whether having patreon to cover equipment costs is commercial or not...
But Angle survived with an NC license. So it certainly is possible.

I am quite please with ptx0, I was looking for this mod a few days ago and couldn't find it, but now I can and will be able to finally give it a try.

I must admit that a hundred salty dicks is a bit much for one guy to handle...

Deadlock989 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:59 am Edited the next day to add: Wube have now helped me recover my property from the impersonator. So because of the impersonator's actions, the mod stays on the portal whether I want it there or not.

well, it was only uploaded because several people asked me to do it. like you said, not a flicker of interest in the mod from me. serial impersonator is a bit harsh, however, considering I was sure to note that I'm not the one who wrote it, and so on - but you have a history of jumping on calling people license violators when we've followed the letter of the license to a T.

for what it's worth, the only way to reupload IR .17 without violating the license was to use the original ID.

and I only did it to make it available to people so they can play it, once again. the info.json lists you as the author. of course I never asked you because the license was attached to the mod by you, and you have already granted permission for this to occur.

so thanks for reuploading it and keeping the people from messaging me still to ask for it to be updated for .18, because i refused every one of their requests, as your license does not allow it. but you can!

ptx0 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 05, 2020 2:04 am

Deadlock989 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:59 am Edited the next day to add: Wube have now helped me recover my property from the impersonator. So because of the impersonator's actions, the mod stays on the portal whether I want it there or not.

well, it was only uploaded because several people asked me to do it. like you said, not a flicker of interest in the mod from me. serial impersonator is a bit harsh, however, considering I was sure to note that I'm not the one who wrote it, and so on - but you have a history of jumping on calling people license violators when we've followed the letter of the license to a T.

for what it's worth, the only way to reupload IR .17 without violating the license was to use the original ID.

and I only did it to make it available to people so they can play it, once again. the info.json lists you as the author. of course I never asked you because the license was attached to the mod by you, and you have already granted permission for this to occur.

so thanks for reuploading it and keeping the people from messaging me still to ask for it to be updated for .18, because i refused every one of their requests, as your license does not allow it. but you can!

[Moderated - again - by Koub] This is still off limits. Also topic locked.