HTML Should I modify a post because a game dev asked me too?

[Davox]

So a DEV who is using HTML ->Twine -> Sugarcube has asked me to delete a post on how to use console commands. Because I quote "This game is a commercial project that was created to feed me and people close to me... and I'm afraid there is a chance to lose a couple of potential sponsors. And that seriously bothers me."

First of all allowing players to remove grind is going to lose Patreons? I checked the patreon and there are no tiers that give you access to cheats, because I could understand that being an issue. I think 99% of game threads on here have multiple posts asking for cheats and sugarcube is so easy to do, its something us forum dwellers want. Removing the ability to cheat and play the game as I want, actively puts me off being a patreon.

Usually I'd respect the DEVs wishes (they are a poster on her after all). But thought I'd put it to the vote.

 

[RedPillBlues]

At the end of the day this is a forum for pirated adult games. The threads are created to share, discuss the game, and help each other; cheats/saves are a part of that. On the other side I get it, a dev politely asking to have something removed and interacting with the community is almost always a good thing. If I were you I would probably just throw it under a spoiler.

Also yeah cant imagine a game losing a large potential fan base over a cheat code comment on F95. (Unless of course they built the game around grind, and offer workarounds for Patreon tiers, in which case fuck them.) Kind of seems like a non-issue.

 

[Duke Greene]

Seeing people go straight for cheats is something that I always found vexing when I was a dev. It's an indirect way of telling me that my gameplay is shit. But I would never prevent people from sharing the cheats in question because at the end of the day, this is a sort of feedback: if many people cheat then maybe there is a problem in need of fixing. Also, if there was nothing to like they wouldn't cheat - they simply wouldn't play at all.

I would simply ignore that message were I in your shoes. I understand the dev being bothered by your post but they're not being financially hurt by it regardless of what they think. Unless, of course, they design their game with the freemium mobile game philosophy of making the mechanics as obnoxious as possible to allow players to bypass them with money. In which case, like RedPillBlues said above, fuck them. But I haven't played the game, so it's all hypothetical.

 

[Davox]

In all honesty there isn't enough game there at present to warrant cheating. Remove the grind and there felt like ~20 minutes of content.

My other feeling is that the whole patreon model and incremental increases often means players have replay parts of the game or grind bits that aren't fully complete, so console commands activly improve regular players experience.

 

[RanliLabz]

It's totally fair for a dev to ask you to remove incorrect information in a post; and natural (if a bit pointless) that they would want you to take down pirate links, passwords or spoilers... Heck, it's even fine for them to try and persuade you to change a poor review! But asking you to take down a post about console commands that you wrote doesn't seem reasonable. I also can't see how it could possibly hurt the project if they don't have freemium content in their tiers.

 

[Loqic]

For me it's pretty standard to cheat in most games. From HTML games to AAA titles. When I was younger I could spend hours grinding or honing my skills, but these days I just want to get through the story and not waste my time on tedious stuff.
Many games here suffer from unnecessary fluff that drags out playtime from 20 minutes of actual content to 5 hours.
Heck, if I wasn't able to cheat in these grindy games I wouldn't even play them, much less support them.

And I agree with Duke Greene that devs need to take a good look at their own creations and figure out if it's flawed in that way. I get that creating enough content can be challenging, but there are more ways around it. If you want a daily routine for example by having your character go to work every day to earn money for that $750 Autolubricating Turboencabulator-driven Dildo™, make sure that every day at work is different and rewards you with something new to keep the player interested instead of "you finished your shift, here's $15".
Next to a good story I think the most important thing to keep players hooked in games is a worthwhile reward in whatever form. If we're not getting any, why continue spending time on it?

Anyway, I strongly disagree that he'll be losing paying players over it, so just keep it.

 

[ParadiseLofts]

I'm a developer and I'll chime in, as this recently happened to me on the flip side. I came into this whole thing very ignorant of how to market (much less create) a game. It was more an experiment to see if I could develop a working game in progress, and get the support to finish it to the end. Learning code and smashing this together has actually been a really fun experience for me, regardless of the patreon support, but it is hugely time consuming. Creating the game has been a challenge enough. Doing "proper" security fell to the wayside, and that's just my fault.


When I discovered f95, I wasn't aware it was a piracy site, but rather a place to promote games and the development community. The fact is, though, it is a piracy site. I've certainly failed at security, and that may account for some loss of patreon dollars, but the *other* fact is this site has probably helped to introduce more patreon supporters than any other. There are benefits for developers here. I'll definitely beef up security now that I know better (if I continue development), but I'm well aware of how things get leaked, and that they will. I've always believed if the project is interesting/fun enough, the support will come, and likely be started by this type of community.

As for the developer's request? I like the idea of putting it under a spoiler tag or something. I understand his frustration, but ultimately, the decision is yours.

 

[Deleted member 229118]

At the risk of sounding like a heartless jerk:
Why care what the dev want?
F95zone is a pirate site.
We STEAL games.
Atleast if you believe copying something is stealing.
Ignoring the whole piratcy is theft arguement.

This game is a commercial project that was created to feed me and people close to me

Now any pity i had for the dev died with this.
If he cant make money of the game.
Though luck.
Get a job like the rest of us.
Not everyone who becomes a dev is able to live off it.
That is the hard reality of life.
You succeed or you fail.
Bitching about it shoudnt change anything.
Something i wish our goverments learned.
Fucking bail outs.

Sorry.
This kind of behavior just anoy's me.
The idea that someone is owned anything in this crapsack world of ours is laughable.

 

[khumak]

Personally, as a modder myself, if the dev for a game I was modding requested something reasonable I would probably do it. I may technically be able to do whatever I want with my mod, but it's still a mod. Without the original dev creating the vanilla game, the mod is entirely useless. The fact that this is a pirate site is kind of irrelevant IMO.

That said, I would think a dev would realize that the whole point of a mod is to expand the appeal for his game. Even if it doesn't necessarily match the dev's vision, this is someone who likes his game and is willing to donate his time for free to expand some aspect of it that presumably other people enjoy as well. So a mod is at least indirectly increasing the appeal of his game and thus "probably" increasing the amount of patreon/subscribstar/buy me a coffee/whatever revenue the dev is getting.

 

[Zippity]

So a DEV who is using HTML ->Twine -> Sugarcube has asked me to delete a post on how to use console commands. Because I quote "This game is a commercial project that was created to feed me and people close to me... and I'm afraid there is a chance to lose a couple of potential sponsors. And that seriously bothers me."

First of all allowing players to remove grind is going to lose Patreons? I checked the patreon and there are no tiers that give you access to cheats, because I could understand that being an issue. I think 99% of game threads on here have multiple posts asking for cheats and sugarcube is so easy to do, its something us forum dwellers want. Removing the ability to cheat and play the game as I want, actively puts me off being a patreon.

Usually I'd respect the DEVs wishes (they are a poster on her after all). But thought I'd put it to the vote.

For me it will always depend on what I posted, the tone of the communication from the developer, and where I posted it...

If it was a demand, and it's not breaking the websites rules, then I would just ignore the developer and keep truckin' along... If the developer was professional in the request, and I wasn't breaking any rules on the site, and depending on the circumstances behind the request, I might remove it, just depends...

If the reason for the request was exactly what you placed in the quotes... I would have a hard time believing it... Seems like a stretch... Donations are not a dependable source of income... They fluctuate and could disappear at anytime, without notice... You should never rely on donations via a public website, to sustain your food needs... Donations should only be relied on as a supplemental nicety, as bonus income to feed your hobby, not your tummy...

Zip

 

[OsamiWorks]

As someone who enjoys prodding software and systems I think "cheating" in this situation , especially with a game that probably just opens a browser (lol) is not an issue. The truth is you really can't stop someone with even a little motivation from interacting with anything you make publish. A vast majority of players will not do that because they lack the knowledge, skill, or care.

Personally I think it would be hilarious to encourage a person who's "cheating" and not doing what is intended to experience a different game by setting up agents (idk if thats the right word here) to occasionally check values that are easily modifiable and subtly mess with aa player. For example, you could have different dialogue, maybe even add items and objects that can't be acquired without cheating and have the in game characters comment on it, leaving in plain text banners and ascii art mocking people looking at your code. Making your buggy code that you don't intend on fixing as a one man team more fun than for the people scrutinizing it. As an added benefit this will often attracts the same people who will help you fix those issues. If the dev isn't into it, this same method for catching cheaters can just execute a fork bomb to crash the game.

Usually I'd respect the DEVs wishes (they are a poster on her after all). But thought I'd put it to the vote.

Proffessionally, I don't believe in doing anything that is morally wrong and do my best to respect the wishes of creators, often reading over policies before I interact with anything. I think many people who publish struggle to understand that what you are doing carries no malicious intent and if they do approach you, it is best too advise on, or make them aware of issues. I will say that anything you play with inside of your own environment, is fine, as long as it doesn't affect other users. I think you should politely tell the creator of the game to fix problems with it on their own if they have issues, and just to avoid any ill will you could offer a minor amount of help by directing them to a solution but don't fix it for them unless you actually want too.

 

[215303j]

When I discovered f95, I wasn't aware it was a piracy site, but rather a place to promote games and the development community.

It's both and I think that situation is actually benefitting devs.

I mean, if I couldn't download stuff from here, I'd download from somewhere else. But in that case, there would not be any dialogue (direct or indirect) between me (the community) and the devs. I think devs can profit immensely from both the free publicity, PR possibilities and the interaction with the community.

Community building is a buzzword, especially for webshops and other e-commerce ventures. I think they rarely succeed in having any kind of open communication with a customer but it's not for lack of trying.

But how many devs are participating in the comments section of the Pirate Bay??? Granted, most of the comments are "crack not working" or "how to install the crack" but still...

 

[Davox]

Well this thread seems to have randomly kicked off again....

I didn't delete my post, however the Dev has implemented cheat codes into his game for Patreons. He's managed to do it in a way where the codes don'y actually appear as variables in the code. Its some form of Hex coding which is at least novel.

Just changing the variables you want still works anyway, and now people are just posting the actual patreon cheat codes...

Some his responses are still a bit sh!ty but I think some of that is just a result of being a non native english speaker.

 

[Zippity]

Well this thread seems to have randomly kicked off again....

I didn't delete my post, however the Dev has implemented cheat codes into his game for Patreons. He's managed to do it in a way where the codes don'y actually appear as variables in the code. Its some form of Hex coding which is at least novel.

Just changing the variables you want still works anyway, and now people are just posting the actual patreon cheat codes...

Some his responses are still a bit sh!ty but I think some of that is just a result of being a non native english speaker.

Peeps have been sharing cheat codes and gaming hints for games since the advent of the Personal Computer, and even more so with the advent of Gaming Consoles... It's just a natural aspect of the gaming world... If the developer has purposefully added them, and then lets any part of the public know they exist, it is bound to become public knowledge at some point... Especially on publicly accessible sites like Patreon and it's ilk... Just because someone is a fan and is willing to pay a monthly sub to support a given product's development, doesn't guarantee they will keep it to themselves... They are not bound by anything to keep it to themselves...

Zip