This is just a rant, I didn't put it on the main page as that is just supposed to be a showcase of what I've made. I wanted this up somewhere even if few will see it.
Been getting increasingly annoyed by the tolerance of thieves and complete lack of any quality standards in the community. The ripples of a certain Discord's hyper gatekeeping has now led to the opposite in other modding servers where nobody is ever banned for stealing, being a degenerate, or just being plain insufferable. Just a bit of gate keeping would do wonders. You don't need to tolerate the person who stole whole models, the assets, then repeatedly tried to hop accounts because they'll "do better". And the guy who edited multiple mods without permission, only linked them through monetized downloads, left when called out and just came back to post brainrot and not contribute anything of value. Of the people actually removed from the community as a whole it took them putting dog gore in their mods. Someone thankfully banned from one server is still tolerated in another big one as some type of lolcow despite being a thief, gooning to cartoon network 10 year olds on twitter, and using Nazi skins in SAMP. Quality standards wise I just keep seeing *slop* being praised, no complaints, no feedback nothing. Disproportionate models, lazy UV mapping, obviously high poly stuff. Not from beginners either, people with over 10 mods just do not improve. Even among some modders capable and talented don't seem to test stuff very well and leave sometimes glaring issues. Feels like you can't point out anything either without being accused of being nitpicky or hyper critical. If it was just a matter of designs being unlore that would be one thing but there just aren't standards. AI usage is becoming a bigger and bigger part of mods, I'm not starkly anti any use of AI in every possible context like some but it gets to a point it becomes questionable. Anyone critical of it again is dismissed and mocked. A part of me wants to simply stop releasing anything, just make things purely for myself but I'll keep releasing things if for no other reason than to show things can be done to a high standard. I'm not posting this directly in the GTA community anywhere as if you bitch or leave you'll just get mocked once you're gone. I'm just not confrontational enough to try. If anyone in the community is reading this you might know what and who I'm referencing. As bad or maybe pretentious it is to say, it feels like the average mod consumer is a moron, look at any thread for a total conversion and it is obvious. I'd hope it wouldn't apply for people actually capable of making things but in some cases it clearly does. Speaking of total conversions there is a lot of bullshit always coming from that side, people just keep being called out for various forms of bigotry. It feels a bit "fork found in kitchen" to me sometimes, simply going off the demographics of who plays and mods these games still. Eastern European and South American young men and teens aren't exactly the most progressive group generally and are prone to edgelord-y behaviour. I'm not trying to sound bigoted myself saying that, just something I noticed and think plays a part in why this happens. Most of the AI use does come from the total conversion side of things, I understand it is the only pratical solution for making new lines for existing characters and if its actually done right like in LC01 I can't really say it bothers me. At least some Youtubers like BladedOpotato openly say it shouldn't be used for new characters and even does some VA work for mods. As for AI coding I understand why it is starting to get used a lot, scripters are always hard to get for projects. It's not going to be too harmful if the code isn't good in the context of a GTA mod like it is when microslop uses it for their operating systems. But seeing the Backstabber's Blues dev make a video where he explains how he used AI to start coding tools, and says he will use it for other things including textures as it is "simply too convenient not to use" kind of ruined the project for me. I think a little, only when arguably "needed" use of AI in mods can be okay but I don't trust most people to use it that way and it feels like it will lead to more slop if there is no pushback against it. Of course ethical and climate concerns apply no matter how it is used, but at this point if it can be used to make something good, which is rare, getting a little lemonade out of the pouring rain of moldy lemons isn't a bad thing. Companies will continue to push it down everyones throat until stock holders decide they don't like it anymore regardless of what the public does at this point it seems. Maybe the AI talk is out of scope but I kind of needed to mention it with my thoughts on the GTA modding community. 3D era at least, HD era is a whole other can of worms and was probably fucked the moment Rockstar purchased FiveM. I can barely run those games anyway.
Yap over, have a gif so this page isn't only a wall of text.
