dethtoll

2 comments by dethtoll on Mar 19th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

Stop it! Just stop it! I am declaring a moratorium on the following fallacy: "you've probably never done this or that, therefore you are not allowed to say it is done poorly because you don't know what you are talking about." That's like saying you're not allowed to complain that a band sucks at guitar 'cuz let's see YOU do it. I don't need to have a degree in music theory to know that the Rolling Stones suck. So if I tell you that your mod is lacking in areas A, B, C and/or D, you don't get the right to shit all over me for expressing my opinion. This is made worse if the person making the fallacy is himself claiming to have experience in whatever is being critiqued.

All I hear from some of you mod leaders is "wah you don't give constructive criticism!" when half of you fucks don't even know what constructive criticism even is. Constructive criticism is usually synonymous with useful criticism. Useless criticism, in the case of moddb, would be (and I quote, verbatim):

i have played every single mod/add-on for hl and hl2! this mod has ruined hl forever a**hole!!

That's not exactly useful, is it? I think anyone who has progressed beyond the mental capacity of a five year old would agree that there is nothing to be learned from this statement.

This is an example of useful criticism, and again this is an actual quote:

For some reason, I felt the most solid weapons in the game were my knife, shotgun, and AK74. I'm not sure why, but it seemed my guns worked a whole lot better on the monsters (probably due to the close range) than on people, who I usually missed at even short to medium range. The VAL and Groza's accuracy felts really strange, and I had trouble hitting things at medium range with both guns.

Why is this useful? Because instead of saying "well this mod sucks, i can't hit anything, fuck you, your mod sucks", it says "For some reason the accuracy of such and such weapon seems to be off" in a polite and respectful manner. The problem, which was reported by many others, was noted and fixed in a patch.

However, an equally useless cricitism is, and once more this is an actual quote:

The best mod ever. 10/10

Why is this useless criticism? It doesn't go into any detail as to WHY the mod is good. What exactly did the poster like about it? The gameplay? The graphics? The audio? We learn nothing from this statement. It is nothing more than mindless adulation.

Unfortunately, some of you (by which I mean certain modders) seem to have adopted the idea that the only constructive criticism is GOOD criticism, by which I mean sheer mindless adulation with no complaints whatsoever. Any time someone so much as dares to say they have an issue with some aspect of the mod, the modder will leap to defend his work, saying "it's meant to be like that" or "you haven't played it enough" or my personal favourite, the one phrase that makes me so fist-clenchingly fucking angry that it drove me to write this, "what the fuck do you know, you've never made a mod yourself."

This is a fallacy. More specifically, it's a distinct brand of ad hominem, attacking the person making the argument rather than attacking the argument itself. This particular variety is so widespread, that I'm not sure it even has a name, except perhaps ad hominem lack of authority, or as I like to call it, the "you just don't understand" fallacy.

I beg of you. Stop making this mistake. It does nothing but make you look like assholes. Video games, and mods for them, are a form of art just like painting or film. And that means you have to learn to take criticism. What's more, you have got to stop acting like having modding experience somehow makes you an authority over the rest of us "mortals" who supposedly have never modded in their lives. Again, I don't need to have a degree in music theory to tell you that the Rolling Stones suck, and I don't need to be Gooseman to tell you that your mod is broken and needs fixing.

So quit being a bunch of fuckups and get over yourselves. Jesus Christ.