Why is this forum going downhill?

Well, I mean the forum was an awesome place. Also the mods here were great. Now I can't understand.. Before the whole thing with skins number plates and configs came, almost every week or every few weeks you had a new awesome map or car mod.. But why isn't it like this anymore.. I mean.. I haven't seen a new good mod in a while.. I don't want to say that everything that came out recently is crap, but there is just people making simple skins and configs.. Don't judge me.. I am not able to do car mods.. I am working on a map right now soo.. Yes but basically I wanted to say that a few people should work on cars and maps again.. I mean a skin or number plate is nice and handy sometimes.. But i don't care so much about them like I do about a new map or a car.. And it's rather sad to see everyone doing a few configs and then say.. Look at me I am the best Modder ever.. Not really..

 

I think its best to wait for quality content as when it comes you appreciate it more. I find the best thing is to check out the development screens, as it gives you an idea on what people are working on.


Oh and people will always say this forum is going downhill, so don't worry as it makes matters worse.

 

Yes, but Still most recent mods (not talking about future mods) are just configs or skins.. Sure they are easy to make but as I said. I don't care so much about them.. Sure some configs are great like DJpoppers.. I use it my self and I like it..

 

So what people can release them if they want to its not like they can add strict quality control that only allows you to submit large projects.

 

Configs and skins can also be very good, but they need some effort, people are starting to understand this, @Aleferna_dls has started a pack and usually single configs get bad reviews, packs however, @NinetyNine mod is first in the repository, mine is third and this means people liked our mods in the past months, creativity and effort usually pays, as for car mods i must say i started my mod because the lack of new content, so i'd like a lot new mods but mind that it's not easy

 

I think what we are seeing today is the effect of a program in constant flux. This weeds out 98% of people who might otherwise make
the jump into serious modding. This affects a whole range of personalities, everyone from the Bernds and AR162Bs to johnny noob
wanting to make a car in one hour. This also affects how many people are willing to dump countless hours into helping through tutorials
and or PM discussions. Helping people make good maps or cars is is downright ridiculous and very unproductive when each new update
can and will change the whole game overnight.

I might add the 'good ole' days were a much simpler time before the devs really started hacking T3D. It all started with the experimental
versions and hasn't looked back. I think this will continue to be the way things will go until the devs find a happy medium to where modding
and the help pipeline it entails will be worthwhile....for everyone.

 

I think the problem comes from different ways:
-At firsr, make a (good) mod is Extremely Difficult, so 99 percent of people doesn't try it (Because of the scare to do it bad, or the difficult to do it)
-From that 1 percent who makes mods, not all are well received. For example, poonton boat; in its first release it had a really bad rating, so the author could have dissappeared, but not, he tried to improve and now works well.
-WE: Have we thought about how we judge mods? If they're good everybody support them, but if they're not "as good as it's suppostly standart" people hate them. If we now that a modder needs lots of efford and hours to do a mod.... why are we so critic with them? This can cause an author to just not doing another mod and frustrate.
-Updates: Lots of mods break with updates (which are good of course) And thid could frustrate. Update a mod each time that the game updates (Which is fortunately frquent) can be a bit "boring" so the author could decide not to upsate the mod.
I think those are the reasons of the suppost "downhill" of modding, but not of the game
Cheers

 

I dont feel like its going downhill at all! Just slowing down. I feel like now the actual game updates with new content all the time people dont feel the need to make mods. We are fine with the game itself. But I think it might pick up again. But I know how you feel, I felt the same thing recently.

 

I cant say i think this forum has gone downhill. What i can say its growing, and fast, that means it has attracted a larger crowd. thats a good thing, although the average quality of mods might get a bit lower.
This is a game in development, what we are talking about is the community of a pre-release. People will come and go. Whats most important is what happens once its goes 1.0 .

 

I feel like the amount of vehicle being created is low due to the fact that creating a vehicle with proper collision is a pain, I looked at the tutorial once and said nope.
I would rather stick with map making because well beamng has made map making a whole lot easier then vehicle creation in my opinion, Skins and number plates are really just texture, textures are not that hard to make, in my opinion, if you make skins or number plates you do you.
In all honesty I think beamng should put a little more focus into making vehicle creation easier, Don't get me wrong I love updates on the level editor but at last it's functional, I've seen much worse.
I feel that if there was a built in tool for vehicle creation like level creation then more people would make vehicles, Beamng is still evolving and we have no idea where it will be in a few months.
--- Post updated ---

 

Well there is the NodeBeam Editor included in the .drive zip, but that thing is a horrible piece of software, which I still love for it's existence.
It doesn't work at all for some people, for others like me it works, but is super buggy and not really user friendly. For example, when you want to switch from one option to another, you have to deselect the old option to not have both activated. There is no redo option, so you have to safe your work after almost every step to make sure not to loose everything.

I think some people got disappointed by the NBE and just stopped doing mods then.

But if I didn't had the opportunity to use it, I wouldn't be motivated to do everything in the texteditor, reload the vehicle after every step and adjust again and again 'cause of the lack of visible feedback.

Overall it's a love - hate relationship between me and the NBE .

 

How is it horrible... just asking I was thinking about doing things for my first mod maybe

 

This. I personally like mods to stock vehicles more anyways, as I like the certain character that BeamNG vehicles do. I've been sorta longing for someone to take that concept into a mod instead of creating real-world cars as mods, but I see the appeal there.
The config pack mods are awesome because you get a lot of content that mostly feels like it belongs in the game, rather than a tacky addon. @Djplopper and @NinetyNine! pack have put a ton of effort into their mods and the results show. My mod is climbing because I'm also starting to realize even 'simple' config packs take tons of effort and polish to make nice.

Another reason we're seeing more skins and license plates is because they're easier to make (even bad ones) than a car, and it requires no or little 3D modeling experience and minimal jbeam knowledge. And as the game becomes more popular, there will be more people trying to mod by starting out with the 'easy' stuff.

 

I accidentally hit post reply before beeing finished with writing, sorry.

 

Thank you for the support

 

I agree with all of you above , but the Main point why people are just creating plates or skins is that there are no good explanations like good tutorials , I mean really , how would you Figure out by yourself how to get a new map working without getting errors or so , this isnt possible ( in my opinion) so I made a tutorial for how to create a basic map and I think it helped alot. With doing maps I learned a few mounth after that how to create cars and this even more hard and time intensive as "basic" maps. I mean I still cant create blender models or doing jbeams from scratch but even everything else should be explained in a video tutorial. I dont wanna say that the wiki section is not helpful and even the mod support is gorgeous but I personally like it way more to do stuff by my own and some videos. And if I can find some more experience with car mod ding I have also planned to do a (probably very long) video tutorial for that so that more people can find the fun to create "real" mods, but yeah as I said it will also take its time because I still have to learn and also this wouldnt be easy at all

 

the true fact is that true creativity and support between the community sort of passed away, i tried some time ago to create a D15 Restyling, i said it was my first try in blender but people only criticized me without any help, that mod will probably remain unreleased

 

That´s exactly what usually happens; People judge something without think about it, They don´t put in your place and understand you, just... Critics. But you have to ignore them, follow your ideas... Don´t be influded by other ideas, just do whatever you want. For me, that restyiling was great, i couldn´t do that, so I appreciate it.
Cheers

 

doing what i wanted brought me to 30000 downloads, i think i'll follow this line