Well, that's what Henley stated in one of the podcasts some time ago. Thing is, mod drama is the best ever drama, with one exception: when it hits you.
Well, it didn't hit me, but it did affect the AvP2 community.
Here are the facts:
- a modder, (we'll call him Mr. Orange, in a Reservoir Dogs style) develops a mod for AvP2. It becomes popular and people adopt it. The mod also uses an online file to filter out some of the people that used to hack the game. Like a simpler version of punkbuster, but based on IPs.
- among other changes, Mr. Orange added text (let's call it 'credits'), more like "this is my server, you must respect admin" and stuff like that.
- a person who runs a game server and also utilizes this mod (let's call him Mr. White) decides to remove that text and replace it with a different message.
- Mr. Orange utilizes the 'punkbuster' mechanism and 'locks' everybody out
- from the initial 39 active servers, now only 6 remained online. The number is increasing steadily, as people configure the mod to disregard the 'punkbuster' mechanism, or even ditch Mr. Orange's mod entirely.
I understand to some extent Mr. Orange: somebody removed his 'credits' from his mod, and he's angry about it. I say to some extent because I am fully aware that when somebody downloads a mod, he can do whatever he chooses to do. Because of this I preffer to state in the readme that they are explicitly allowed to use the mod or any parts of it in their own mods. I save myself from disappintment this way.
But I'm straying. So, I do understand Mr. Orange to some extent. What I don't understand is why did he feel the need to take out all this frustration on the other members of the community. I mean ok, somebody stripped the 'credits' from the mod, talk to that guy. Sort it out. If he doesn't comply, then write a nasty article about him, find his home address and break one of his windows. But don't take it out on innocent people. We've seen how that can go: [insert any political/military rant here].
What Mr. Orange did is basically abuse the fact that his mod is widely used. But this abuse seems to be also the reason why the mod might also become the least used AvP2 mod. Because for what it is worth it, we're going to give Mr. Orange and his mod a run for their money.
