Quote from FlowerChild
Just as an addendum to the above: to those of you that dislike my personality, have you ever considered that the very things that make me different may also be responsible for me fairly consistently coming up with ideas that no one else has considered?
Seriously: yes, I am a very different person from most, but I've learned to accept and embrace that throughout my life instead of trying to conform to the majority. It is the very differences in my thought process and how I view things that gives me the ability to think outside the box and come up with solutions to gameplay problems never before considered.
In other words, those differences are an absolute asset to the community which I do not believe should be discarded so lightly. Whether you love or hate me, there's absolutely no one else quite like me in the community, and you've all benefited from that in one way or another.
Interesting that you're so active here. Now, to preface what I am about to say, yes, I have at times found your personality and opinions disagreeable. That and the "One Mod Show" nature of Better Than Wolves have kept me away from the project. I do think there is such a thing as free use of ideas, of course, and that one can't really lay claim to a set of ideas taken from real life. However, I think that the fact that people are so openly disrespectful of your creative freedom is, quite frankly, disgusting.
While I will try to keep my post as civil as I can, the fact remains that "Better With Forge" is not simply a rehashing of the same ideas. It is an outright, feature-for-feature, clone. The very name of the project is intended to make plain the fact that it is, for all intents and purposes, the same mod. If someone creates a mod called "Machine Power", where in-world structures provide torque to gear-driven devices, all well and good. That is using the same ideas. If however, one replicates every aspect of a mod, without change, without introducing anything new, and without any creative involvement of their own - that is to say, if one makes a port, rather than a new mod - then that is theft. You can say that copyright shouldn't apply because these are not major businesses until you are blue in the face, but that doesn't make it true. Here are some quotes from the United States copyright office website.
Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.
Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created
in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship
immediately becomes the property of the author who created
the work.
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
In other words, by creating Better Than Wolves, FlowerChild has the sole legal right to permit or disallow derivative works. No one else has that right. There's no condition for "public demand". As a complete clone of Better Than Wolves, this "Better With Forge" violates that legal right. This isn't an opinion or possibility, it is a fact. They could have produced an original work. They clearly had the technical know-how, and it's obvious the community would have supported and encouraged such a project. Making an outright copy, and even going so far as to have it appropriate resources from the original, is not only wrong in a moral sense, it is wrong in a strictly legal sense as well.
Please pardon the truncation. I simply want to boil a large bit of text down to the crux of the argument. Now, let's be perfectly honest about a couple of things. First, most people's suggestions are bad. Look at any given topic, even those that say that they do not take suggestions, and you will see people giving their ideas by the score. Of these, many will be poorly written, sometimes outright incomprehensibly unreadable. Many will be poorly conceived in regards to game balance, or otherwise not in keeping with the theme and/or spirit of the mod for which they are proposed. Many others are uninspired or unoriginal, either done by other mods, unnecessary, or already suggested (possibly even multiple times) and already either accepted, or with good reasons against their inclusion. Secondly, most mod authors do the same thing as FlowerChild. They're just less open about doing it.
As I said, the majority of ideas for mods aren't good, however, there are many good mods out there. How do we reconcile this difference? Clearly, if they were taking a bunch of bad ideas, their mods would be bad. Well, the fact is that Modders don't listen to the vast majority of ideas out there. They listen to ideas from people who have shown themselves to be worth listening to, and ignore the rest...and sometimes they ignore the "worthy" people as well. The only real difference in FlowerChild's method is being more harsh about this. Honestly, it's hard to fault this approach, either. Remember that above I pointed out that even posts that declare themselves to be unwilling to listen to ideas about things get people flooding them with "good ideas". While the abrasive attitude and harsh treatment of people who "just want to help" may seem excessive, keep in mind that this is, primarily, a housekeeping method. Without it, you'd be sure to get people who were absolutely certain that their idea for a Chinese-style water clock that acts as a timing mechanism (as an example) is so original and brilliant, or such an obvious and perfect inclusion, that there just has to be an exception made for great ideas like theirs. In fact, pretty much everyone who had an idea would be certain that they ought to be an exception to the "no suggestions rule". Even with such strict enforcement, you're still bound to get people certain that their idea is just too good for the rules to count, but at least it will be a smaller number.
2
I really, really don't get this attitude. I am speaking of the general attitude that it SHOULD be compatible with other mods, not picking on anyone in particular. First, I have played BTW and I don't feel any NEED for any other mods. Yeah, there are times I would like EE just so I could get some use out of all my flint, but I guess I can always use it for despawn timers. Second, I would rather have FlowerChild spend time improving this mod than taking the time to make it compatible with other mods (with the notable exception of the BTB collaboration) and having fun doing so.
One thing I find missing in many mods is balance. Fun new toys, but mostly quite easy to get and possibly overpowered. I for one prefer to have to work to get the new toys, that way I enjoy them more. If anything, I sort of wish the tech progression was a bit harder. I do know that working your way up the ladder seems to help you understand all the new toys better. I also find that the top end tech is incredible, if you can use it to its potential. So far I have come far short, but I have certainly enjoyed the ride.
Oh, since FlowerChild pretty much wrote this mod because he likes modding and he wanted to make a mod he would like to play, he probably doesn't care much if people are shortsighted enough to say "no forge, no compatibility, no thanks!"
Any balance a mod has can be quickly thrown off by adding in other mods, much easier to keep the balance if you are only developing for one mod. Also, incompatibility is an effect more than a goal from what I have understood reading the forums. (though I could be a bit wrong there...)
5
First, I am fairly new to minecraft in general. Never played it until after the official 1.0.0 release. Have spent far too little time since then NOT playing it though.
One of the first things I noticed in forum lurking in various places was the impatience of players for updates to their mods to be released, and one thing that seemed to me was that they were waiting for an update to the Forge before they could. Personally, I would rather not have forge compatibility than have to suffer through that.
Second, mods. I played for a while with no mods and enjoyed it, but was getting to the place where it was starting to lose interest a little bit. I hesitantly ventured into one of the popular mods, and while I liked some of the features, it seemed to VERY quickly get overpowered. Still have that save on one computer, and check it out once in a while.
I had read about some of the "popular" mods, but wasn't sure which to pick. There was this one mod, something about wolves I think, that several people really seemed to like too. Just didn't appeal to me since my experience with wolves usually led to their stupidity getting me killed or my landscape destroyed. (Wolves belong in dark places sealed up against their "AI")
Finally one night I just had to check the post and found out that BTW was not about wolves (mostly at least) Now I understand why Battosay says he just can't really play without it, don't know that I really want to any more. Buildcraft was the other mod that I was considering using, now it looks like I can try both at the same time. Even though I am not sure if or when I will do so, I thank you for making that possible FlowerChild. Thanks even more for BTW in the first place, I am glad we can enjoy the fruit of your "fun" of making this mod.
Anyhow, after working my way up the tech ladder in a new file, started over with my pre-existing save. Have to go feed some wolves and start to set up a bit of automation now.