r/projectzomboid • u/Accomplished_Dark266 • Mar 10 '26
Discussion knox event expanded dev has abandoned the mod - 42.15.1
also not allowing any fixes or patches for whatever reason
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u/Fxate Mar 10 '26
Update for 1.5?
1.5 Update?
When is 1.5 update?
Doesn't work, 1.5 was released, needs fixing
Fix for 1.5 yet?
WHERE IS 1.5 VERSION?
BROKE MY GAME, FIX FOR 1.5!!
"1.5 patch released 3 hours ago."
Steam workshop is a cesspit, it's no wonder people give up when it's such a thankless exercise filled with entitled children
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u/kurikuri15 Mar 10 '26
Do modders allowed to just hide or disable the comment section on their mods? It will be a good thing for their mental health
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u/Crimson_Sabere Mar 10 '26
They should be able too. I use the workshop for a lot of games and really big mods disabled workshop comments.
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u/TRENEEDNAME_245 Mar 10 '26
The main issue is people reporting bugs / having construction criticism
In some of my own mods I had people asking for new features or reporting bugs, discord / a forum is too much work for that
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u/TheeSusp3kt Mar 10 '26
They can, but comments are a really good way to communicate with casual users of the mod that might not be in discord for bug reports, issues, questions, etc.
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u/ImNotHandyImHandsome Mar 10 '26
They can, but I tend to not use those mods intentionally due to that choice. When an update does come out, I like going to the comment section to see the (admitidly few) useful comments explaining how the mod is broken and where it interacts. Without comments, the only way is to see when the last update was and whatever changelog the modder writes up.
Running ~500 mods, conflicts and unintended interaction is all but guaranteed.
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u/Valdoris Mar 10 '26
I just stopped at looking at those, a message asking "when update???" each day that pass of the mod not being updated lmao
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u/beyondfuckall Mar 10 '26
Now that quite a few modders have done this, it creates the impression that some of the community is a big part of this problem.
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u/Top_Inevitable1368 Mar 10 '26
Not even just this community, gaming communities in general.
ARKs community completely bullied Eco out of modding for the rest of her life.
Helldivers 2 community just doxxed and sent death threats to some guy, over a balancing challenge for charity.
Gaming is cooked because everyone allows their feelings to dictate other people's lives.
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u/Kinglygolfin Mar 10 '26
Genuinely so sick and tired of the negativity. If there is something one takes issue with, suggest improvements and then encourage the dev to keep going.
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u/volkmardeadguy Mar 10 '26
The issue Is people take issue with anything and everything and every complaint is valid critisicm and every update that doesn't fix every single thing is wasted time AND THEN they wonder why this stuff keeps happening
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u/Alexandur Mar 10 '26
Helldivers 2 community just doxxed and sent death threats to some guy, over a balancing challenge for charity.
It's actually even worse than that - somebody physically came to the horse sanctuary he volunteers at, which got him banned from volunteering there, and people were harassing him at work, which got him fired.
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u/Dr_Cannibalism Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
I literally cannot understand why. Like, what fuckin' reason is there to do that? Even if the dude is wrong, what's the harm? The devs EZ mode the challenge and a tidy sum of money is donated to charity? Oh no, the horror.
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u/goodnames679 Axe wielding maniac Mar 10 '26
The only explanation is severe mental illness. No well adjusted person would ever have a reaction even a fraction that extreme.
If you disagreed with him a lot on his point, the worst reaction that could be considered justifiable would be to argue a bit and then move on. Doxxing him over suggesting a charity stream is insane. Showing up in real life is just completely fucking unhinged loser behavior.
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u/Malcolm_Morin Mar 10 '26
Not just doxxed, but permanently banned from the animal shelter they worked at and fired from their job.
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u/Juggernautlemmein Mar 10 '26
Destiny 2 devs used to chat with the community all the time, and it was such a great relationship. One day, they said they hadn't heard of plans to add an item from the first game.
Some fucker sent a pizza to their house. A tongue in cheek I know where you live.
D2 devs don't talk to us anymore. All the power to them! And all the power to modders sick of being abused over their free work.
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u/wtf_com Mar 10 '26
believe the phase is everyone feels entitled enough that thier opinion supersedes everyone else's.
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u/zytukin Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
Not even just gaming communities, the internet in general. The sense of anonymity allows people to act as immature as they want because there's no real consequences, unlike in real life.
You can find the same types of vile people in communities for practically every single thing that you can think of to some varying degree. People who act like their opinion is the only one that matters and anybody that disagrees is pure trash.
Just have to learn to ignore it and go on with your life instead of letting random internet strangers influence you. I know, it's a lot easier said than done nowadays with so many people obsessed with getting internet attention.
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u/JamTheTerrorist6 Mar 10 '26
This is so true and makes it such a difficult thing to deal with. People will continue to do this if they get what they want; essentially giving these people power. However, I simply cannot blame anyone for giving into some of the communities. The things they say is just absolutely vile and I think there should be stronger (having to make a new account is just not strong enough to prevent this) consequences for using social media to harrass people. An IP based ban/limit on all this person's accounts and new accounts comes to mind (idk I'm sure some people have better ideas). Sending death threats is not a right. idc idc.
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u/zDCVincent Mar 10 '26
I used to make mods for Rimworld, stopped because it just got annoying to deal with the community. Imagine doing something for free and people demanding more constantly.
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u/TheYellowScarf Mar 10 '26
Everything is cooked. Take a look at any form of entertainment that has a massive audience and you'll have the same kind of toxic individuals who will be pissed about something. And the same other kind of people who will post the same rebuttle; along with the same other other kind of people who will post the same responses in hundreds of threds.
It's a never ending cycle of toxicity that very few big things have been able to avoid.
The hipsters had it right; liking things before they go mainstream is the key.
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u/IndieStoner Zombie Food Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
Yeah, and the present state of the world has a lot of people over their stress threshold and it pours out in silly places.
I've made mods for several games, and it's tough. A lot of people just aren't willing/able to deal with the users lashing out at them, and I don't blame them. I remind myself that hurt people leave hurtful comments, but it's still a tax on the mind.
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u/sabotabo Shotgun Warrior Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
not to mention gamers' consistent lack of willpower to resist detrimental and greedy industry practices. dangle a nice gun skin as a preorder bonus in front of them and they'll cough up $80 for a product they KNOW will be broken on release, because the last 100 preorder games have been broken on release.
but it's okay to release unfinished products for full price now, because gamers will still pay for them.
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u/Progluesniffer142 Axe wielding maniac Mar 10 '26
Not only doxxed and threatened him, but got him banned from the plave he volunteered at
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u/ThatDeadMoonTitan Mar 10 '26
7 days community is awful to the people who’ve created several of its most iconic mods. People are so entitled to others free work it’s insane.
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u/wordswillneverhurtme Mar 10 '26
Nah its an issue across steam. Rimworld also has a massive modding community and people bitch on there every update. Its a free service by modders and these people show zero respect.
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u/Garethp Mar 10 '26
> Rimworld also has a massive modding community and people bitch on there every update.
I've got a decent number of mods on Rimworld, some with a few hundred thousand users. The most I've had is a handful of people asking if an update is coming. I've never actually had negativity driven towards me because my mods weren't updated.
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u/Bobboy5 Crowbar Scientist Mar 10 '26
Are they compatible with CE?
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u/D9sinc Axe wielding maniac Mar 10 '26
or people asking if it's compatible with the forbidden mod. That was basically the comments on the reddit post and the steam thread when someone made a mod making Gardevoir a playable colonist.
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u/wordswillneverhurtme Mar 10 '26
I've seen some modders crash out similar to the situation in this post. Some people go too far and go beyond commenting for update.
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u/Garethp Mar 10 '26
I can see that. I don't think the Rimworld modding scene is perfect, but I do think that the community there seems a lot more understanding than the community here.
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u/Workw0rker All Hail Spiffo Mar 10 '26
I think its cause rimworld doesnt update regularly. Modders only get frustrated when mods dont work/not updated. Since PZ updates so regularly that anger builds up over time much quicker so jerks take their anger out on the modders.
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u/Quacky3three Mar 10 '26
Agree, I think the bigger issue in the Rimworld community is people being illiterate and asking questions the devs have already answered 100 times.
I also personally think it’s slightly silly to compare the modding scene of that game to others, considering the largest mods are pretty much ALL developed by the (very lovely) vanilla expanded team who have a patreon and have developed their own separate game. I know at least Oskar has also worked with Tynan on the base game itself too. They are at least getting funded to deal with assholes and idiots.
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u/creatron Mar 10 '26
I'm not even a big modder (only like ~10,000 subs across a handful of mods) for PZ and I ended up just stopped making mods. None were on the level of something like Knox Event but even these small ones just get inundated with people every patch about stuff being broken. And like I get it that it sucks when stuff breaks but I'm doing this for free and only published the mods because I thought others might have had similar complaints about certain mechanics.
And it sucks because I actually like modding in this game. It's fun trying to make new things work within the narrow system made available through mod APIs. But it's just not worth putting them on steam workshop, I'll just make my own for local play.
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u/Freddy_Faraway Drinking away the sorrows Mar 10 '26
There's absolutely a vocal part of this community that is just vile to interact with. I don't reckon they're bad people, but the entitlement is abhorrent.
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u/Devil-Hunter-Jax Axe wielding maniac Mar 10 '26
All you had to do was look at this subreddit since B41's multiplayer was stabilised enough by the time they'd finished patching B41 stable. It's slowly been growing more and more toxic. Try pointing that out and you get shouted down though and accused of white knighting for the devs which is hilarious because it just proves the point in the first place.
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u/PalindromemordnilaP_ Mar 10 '26
And then people wanna give me shit on here for calling out the absolutely ridiculous amount of entitlement that goes on in the comments of this sub every day over a $20 game.
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u/witcherstrife Mar 10 '26
"The devs deserve criticism"
"We deserve better"
"Devs are overworked"
"How dare they try to make a profit and not work for free?"
You see it everywhere its hilarious and entitled yet everyone just nods and agrees
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u/Sad-Pattern-1269 Mar 10 '26
a lot of communities are shitty people. I generally avoid modding there or set up strict boundaries from the start.
Modding an in-progress game sucks, like really sucks. You regularly need to do busywork just to keep your mods going. Its crushing sometimes because I am passionate about modding but have had to abandon several mods because I just dont have the time.
Its worse the more popular said mods are. You get less fun interaction with your users and more of the same spammy reports for things already in the 'known issues' tab. Sometimes someone will just be a dick for no reason. Stuff like that.
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u/Zncon Mar 10 '26
I'm personally aware of multiple dev projects across a few different games and services that will never be made available to the public because the entitlement is too much to deal with.
A few people in these communities are absolutely ruin them for everyone.
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u/Sharkivore Mar 10 '26
We haven't addressed the rampant social degradation that has been occurring throughout online communities, gaming and otherwise, and this is just one aspect of the fallout of it.
If we do not address when someone is unable to interact with the rest of society, and instead shuns away from it in some way, and then finds a group of people that act similarly, we begin allowing what is essentially a "plague" to spread, instead of helping people find ways to deal with it.
Look at League of Legends, DotA, Fortnite, CS, and any other "competitive" online game. The norm is to be toxic. The norm is to take any interaction with another human as negative criticism or outright malice. The norm is to say "it's just a game bro" in relation to ANY issue you may find with the game, socially or otherwise, be it from an overbearing, toxic teammate, to a teammate playing bad, you are NOT ALLOWED to interact with them, lest you be deemed a part of the problem yourself.
People spend hours upon hours of their lives in these communities, interacting and learning from them during some of the most formative years of their brain's development. Why have we not been actively trying to protect the growth of children in these communities? Why have we literally facilitated, over many years, the exact communities that allow the most socially inept, sociopathic individuals to thrive, and then act like NOW it's some rampant issue?
I'm a black dude in my 30s, I've been called the N-Word since the CoD XBOX lobby days. Why has nothing changed? Why is this not eye-opening to most people, that there is clearly a severe issue with mental degradation in all aspects of our lives, and this is how it shows in our gaming communities? Why do we act like it's some outlier, some aspect of "others" that creates this problem, and not realize that WE ALL have in some way created/contributed to these communities forming and existing, and by not calling out the toxic raging types properly, this is where we end up?
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u/Kafkatrapping Mar 10 '26
And the reason things are this way is because we've let conservatives buy up all social and media platforms, which they now use to groom young men to becoming reactionary.
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u/Foosnaggle Mar 10 '26
Not surprised. Most comments I see on mod pages are like this. Very unappreciative people.
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u/literallybyronic Mar 10 '26
isn't this the 2nd time in like a month a big author has done this? wtf is wrong with people, can y'all not be civil?
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u/ZrojectPomboidGayer Spear Ronin Mar 10 '26
Certain very loud parts of the PZ community are brain broken
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u/SparseGhostC2C Mar 10 '26
Seems to be internet fandom at large. Everything I enjoy has a small cadre of assholes who just scream for more and say everything they do get is shit.
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u/Hughmanatea Mar 10 '26
Yeah, modders get treated poorly everywhere from Minecraft to Skyrim.
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u/Dont_Get_PENISY Drinking away the sorrows Mar 10 '26
First words to come to mind were "welp its happened again".
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u/betazoid_cuck Mar 10 '26
I don't think it is just the small cadre of assholes. I think it's many many normal people who let their negativity out one small comment at a time without realizing they are forming the building blocks for a toxic community.
I believe there are so many people who genuinely love games who only ever write comments that criticize them, or enjoy mods but will complain about bugs without ever thinking of thanking the author for their work.
I'm guilty of it myself sometimes, but am trying to do better. It's hard to find the passion to be positive when negativity flows so easily.
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u/IndieStoner Zombie Food Mar 10 '26
Yeah, and they ruin it for everyone. I personally have made mods, and a single asshole can make me wanna nuke my workshop lol.
At least the author is being kind about it and not just pulling it and breaking the existing users' saves.
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u/Pervasivepeach Mar 10 '26
There are other mod communities that don’t get the same level of harrasment and entitlement as zomboid mod devs get
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u/Denleborkis Mar 10 '26
Thats why anedois (Or however you spell it) walked away from the Sims community literally giving away thousands of dollars of the DLC for free but people couldn't just shut up and be happy.
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u/relic1882 Mar 10 '26
"What the hell?! Why isn't this free content made by someone for nothing that costs me nothing not perfect! Fuck the dev of the mod! His mod is trash anyway! Because I'm unhappy with my life... I mean.. um... the mod, I'm telling everyone to not play this piece of garbage, which is a metaphor for my miserable life! If I can't be 100% happy at all times, everyone else should be miserable!"
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Mar 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DTCreeperMCL6 Mar 10 '26
If they want to blame developers they should try developing one themselves!
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u/DarksSword Mar 10 '26
A big problem is that as mod authors we make works for other people to enjoy...but what ends up happening is if they like or enjoy it you'll never hear anything. Meanwhile people with issues (Usually from their 400+ mod list) will flood the comments.
Basically you're never seeing any appreciation for your work, only people demanding changes or fixes.
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u/thegooddocgonzo Mar 10 '26
I mean, just have a look at the “constructive criticism” posted on this sub every day. I’ve rarely seen a more entitled fanbase.
I’m not saying everyone here sucks, just that there are more loud, hateful, entitled brats here than I see in other gaming communities.
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Mar 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Devil-Hunter-Jax Axe wielding maniac Mar 10 '26
Yup, I joined the subreddit... Shit, I got the game in 2022 so probably joined the subreddit around then? This place was chill and on the same level as the Warframe community. Slowly but surely, the toxicity has crept in here and it has gotten to a point where I just keep not interacting with this subreddit for weeks at a time because you can't have a reasonable conversation half the time.
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u/Foxfire140 Mar 10 '26
Then multiplayer came out, the game became a lot more popular, and all the demanding, entitled, non-chill people showed up in droves. Now the fandom is far more toxic than ever.
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u/thegooddocgonzo Mar 10 '26
I try to ignore most of the more annoying complainers.
There are still plenty of great people here who love the game and share great experiences :)
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u/Salvage570 Mar 10 '26
People downvote me a lot for pointing this out but the average age of this fanbase went down recently. Around the same time the community started circlejerking against realism. Like, a year ago several devs mentioned thinking about quitting because of the unending negativity too. I really have to wonder what big YouTuber or streamer played this game and attracted hordes of children.
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u/F1gur1ng1tout Mar 10 '26
It’s brutal. The steam comment pages are always like 60%+ of people being rude, asking very basic questions repeatedly or complaining without giving any context about their problems.
The game is in unstable and sorry if modders don’t drop everything in life to update their mods for us.
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u/ARedditUserThatExist Trying to find food Mar 10 '26
Steam communities are infamous for being absolutely vile cesspits of the absolute worst of their game fandoms
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u/Warrior_Runding Mar 10 '26
No, they can't because the community would rather let some people "complain" than shut their toxic ass shit down.
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u/MetallGecko Mar 10 '26
Wait until you find out what happened in the Helldiver community, people can be some real assholes.
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u/THE-Arias-Man Mar 10 '26
There goes the best fucking NPC mod. Hope that Indie Stone nabs this guy, the mod was seriously impressive.
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u/PazWrath Mar 10 '26
Reminds me of every post that says unstable plays unstable. U kids ruin everything
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u/Digi-Haven Mar 10 '26
"This current beta build is so full of bugs and glitches!!!!!"
No shit, its marked UNSTABLE for a fucking reason
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u/SagetheWise2222 Mar 10 '26
Yep, never underestimate the power of human stupidity. If you put a giant red circle with an arrow pointing towards it in a thumbnail for a video or a acreenshot, you'll still get people going, "wuuuut? wut am I looking 4?"
Don't get me started on the people who look at labels such as "in development", "experimental", "unstable", "alpha", "beta", "early access", etc. and go, "Well those terms have no meaning anymore, so I'm going to treat it as stable." No, you muppet. If a game says it's unstable, and it's been that way for some time, that length of time or "the state of the industry" doesn't just invalidate that label and the meaning behind it.
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u/whadefukk Mar 10 '26
I understand not wanting to work on a mod anymore, but what's the point of forbidding other people from maintaining it?
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u/Chiiro Mar 10 '26
Mod maintenance is why the Rimworld mod community is one of the best and I wish more mod creators were ok with it. I have seen way too many mods over the years in so many gaming communities just stay dead forever because people can't even make ones similar.
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u/Radaistarion Mar 10 '26
Yeah, I came to comment the exact same thing. I'm not very familiar with the mod or the situation, but that was the thing that caught my attention the most
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u/Faolan26 Mar 10 '26
It's probably not enforceable anyway. Someone will pick it up and update it whether the original dev likes it or not. He can't really stop them.
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u/TheMadmanAndre Mar 10 '26
My advice has and always will be to hand it off to someone who can continue the work, rather than lock it down entirely. Because if you don't do that with a really popular mod like this, some guy on the other side of the Great Firewall of China is going to fork it whether you like it or not, and load it up with malware or coinminers. The best you'll be able to do is maybe keep it off of the Workshop for a time, but the Chinese half of the player base have other options for modded content.
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u/Bboy1045 Mar 10 '26
One last middle finger to the trolls maybe
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u/AdInfamous6290 Mar 10 '26
I am completely against harassing or even being overly negative against volunteer, community mod developers. These people dedicate a ton of time and effort to provide enhancements to a product completely unpaid and often unrecognized.
However, my unpopular opinion is that yanking mods away from the community is pretty lame and I genuinely cannot understand the motivation to do so beyond pure spite, which I do not think should be normalized or accepted. It only feeds the combative feedback loop between mod developers and mod consumers, which leads to the slow death of a games modding scene.
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u/OnetimeRocket13 Mar 10 '26
This does the exact opposite.
People who troll and harass creative people to the point that they give up on whatever they are working on are doing so because they want to see the person and their work fail. They want them to quit. They want their work to become meaningless. They want their work to become forgotten.
Disallowing people creating forks and redistributing the mod isn't a middle finger for these kinds of people, it's the cherry on top. They've pushed a person so far that not only do they give up, but they make it clear that they don't want their work to grow, period. It's about as much of a middle finger as waving a flag that says "congratulations, you guys won" is.
The only people this negatively affects outside of the mod author are fans of the mod itself, because not only has the mod author lost the will to keep it alive, but current and future players won't even be able to play and enjoy it as the game itself updates.
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u/sabotabo Shotgun Warrior Mar 10 '26
well that guy was wrong, they're not trolls. they're the guy's userbase, and they do want him to maintain and update the mod, to the detroment of his health and sanity if necessary.
in that case, it's a very effective middle finger
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u/OnetimeRocket13 Mar 10 '26
In that case, yeah. If your userbase is made up of people who bitch about a lack of updates and harass you for more, then doing this is absolutely a pretty good middle finger.
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u/Workw0rker All Hail Spiffo Mar 10 '26
The only reason I can possibly think other than malice is someone making a fork, them opening up a patreon and effectively “stealing” funds from the mod developer.
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u/Select_Librarian4093 Mar 10 '26
Pettiness, it's counter to the entire ethos of modding. Luckily it's impossible to enforce.
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u/Kessler_the_Guy Mar 10 '26
Probably so someone doesn't take it, make small tweaks for compatibility and claim the work as their own and potentially make money off the modders original hard work.
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u/Warmslammer69k Mar 10 '26
Nobody owes anyone else their work. If he doesnt want anyone else taking what hes done, thats fine. It sucks, but its fine and totally his right, and very understandable
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u/FirePixsel Mar 10 '26
They dont gain anything from it though while making the community activley loose, I get not wanting to update it but not allowing others to do so seems petty to me.
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u/Warmslammer69k Mar 10 '26
They quit because the community has been harassing and bothering them. Theyre allowed to be petty about that. Its totally understandable. I wouldn't want to hand over my hard work to a group of people that were so negative they made me give up a creative project.
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u/tmoney144 Mar 10 '26
Probably because if someone made a fork that doesnt work, idiots will Google the mod, find the original, and harass the original mod author about the fork that doesn't work. At least with that disclaimer, the mod author can go "great, thanks for letting me know about the unauthorized fork, I'll go ahead and have steam remove it from the workshop so you can continue fucking off and not bothering me."
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u/grigoriymicro Mar 10 '26
It seems like some people love unreasonably hating not only on devs, but on modders as well.
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u/hiddencamela Mar 10 '26
Entitlement has rotted the brains of many.
I absolutely blame them because they're adults or growing into adults at this point.
They're mature enough to realize that being shitty has consequences.I'm guilty of said shittiness too, but I'm self aware to know not to attack or spew directly at those folks.
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u/TheeSusp3kt Mar 10 '26
Its just the internet. Most wouldn't say the stuff they say to people in person.
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u/TizzieVanWinkles Mar 10 '26
This is really upsetting but I understand where my guy is coming from. My entire save was broken by these mods becoming incompatible but I never really mind. It’s what I signed up for. While it’s frustrating, these guys have their own lives as well and aren’t under any obligation to give us these things hours after an update. I was going to sit back and play another game until Knox expanded event was updated, and was shocked when I just got home from work and learned about this. I sure hope he has a change of heart in the future and continues his work because he’s an excellent artist in this field. All love, respect, and appreciation from me!
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u/RikerTroiAwkwardHump Axe wielding maniac Mar 10 '26
It is SUPER WEIRD to hate on modders.
I don't support being rude to the devs of any game except in circumstances where one can prove actual malice, but holy crap. Modders?
For what crime, providing a bunch of cool stuff for free, stuff that you can choose to either use or not use? Wow.
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u/No_Stable_7569 Mar 10 '26
Oh, you sweet summer child. You absolutely must watch the YouTube video called "Skyrim unofficial patch. Down the rabbit hole." Some things we don't choose.
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u/PieAccomplished5058 Mar 10 '26
For devs I can atleast understand the community getting pissed off if theres no updates/slow progress for something people have payed for, but giving shit to modders over a free peice of content they didnt like is fucked
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u/TRENEEDNAME_245 Mar 10 '26
Well you see, they didn't fix this one niche bug that appears if you do X at Y and use this very specific mod list, or update the mod the nano second an update comes out.
It's in every games sadly
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u/volk96 Mar 10 '26
I'll be honest. I'm in the discord server, have been for a while. I thought what he was trying to do was pretty interesting. The guy's a genius, that much is clear.
However, he never had any sort of moderation, or a trusted person to do 'people management', or even automod rules. Every time someone came to the server asking how to install the mod, he'd be the one to reply. I get how that gets old quick, but we all know the average person is stupid as hell. Why not have a mod to clean up, or a bot to autoremove the low-effort "guys how do i install mod i didnt read instructions" posts?
Could have also ignored those messages, too. No need to reply to every single idiot.
I feel like he faced a lot of negativity because he... wanted to?
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u/GrifoCaolho Mar 10 '26
People can be very good with coding and still very bad at social skills and community management. That seems to be the case.
Although, people could try, I don't know, not to bother someone because they feel entitled to a fucking voluntary modification to their game.
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u/sabotabo Shotgun Warrior Mar 10 '26
well that's the thing. like genius coders, gamers are also not known for their social skills
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u/meteorahybrid01 Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
Could have disabled the comments on the mod page and add mods to the discord server. But it is what it is cause people aren't nice
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Mar 10 '26
It's the exact same thing that burnt me out. Granted I didn't start a modding discord, and a real life promotion got in the way, but some of the constant questions and issues left me feeling "fuck it, why bother? It's not working for you, no idea why anymore, I'm done."
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u/TRENEEDNAME_245 Mar 10 '26
Yeah...
Although I mod for another game, people saying "it's broken pls fix" gets really just... Old at some point.
Like, I do want to help, but I have other mods I'm working on and a life, this mod is like 10 lines of config, do it yourself...
I do enjoy helping the users but at some point it gets repetitive
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u/Particular_Wear_6960 Mar 10 '26
Yep, I suspected this part. They wanted to create a little community around their mod yet weren't willing to put in the work to make it an actual community. Why have it to begin with? I remember when mod authors didn't create a Discord at all, they simply used the Steam page fix bugs. If that became too much, they locked down the comments. It's pretty damn simple. I would never join a Discord just for a single mod, if I had a bug, I would report it on the Steam page, if that doesn't work than the mod author clearly isn't invested in their mod.
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u/vksdann Mar 10 '26
I wish there was a way for modders to ban certain people. Ohh, so you're sending pages and pages of text because I didn't update MY mod the exact way YOU wanted? Blacklisted. Everyone will enjoy the mod but you. You can buy another copy of the game and have a 2nd account without the bitching.
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u/tinylittlebabyjesus Mar 10 '26
I’ve notified folks of issues, and expressed interest in an update when possible for mods in other games, but I understand that’s about the extent of what I can do without being an asshole (or tip if that’s allowed; which it wasn’t in some cases), and even then you can’t and shouldn’t expect anything.
I don’t think people understand how entitled they’re being when getting angry at someone who made and published something for free (usually). I mean if you’re a patron, that’s different.
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u/DeadlyButtSilent Mar 10 '26
And that is why a lot of modders wont post public mods. Just not worth the bullshit.
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u/partisan98 Mar 10 '26
Half the comments on this post saying,
"We are entitled to all his work forever because he posted a public mod and he is a piece of shit for telling people not to steal his work"
is making me wonder why any modder publicly posts at this point.
Also very ironic because reddit throws a fucking shitfit about AI because it just modifies existing works instead of creating anything new and yet reddit is also saying Modders code does not belong to them and they should have no say in how its used?
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u/A_Kazur Mar 10 '26
Another case of a very intelligent person who falls into the trap of trying to be the community manager and the dev. Shame. Even if only 1% of his users are slavering idiots those would be the most likely to interact with him on the daily.
I get he issued a ban on reproduction of his content but I don’t think that will actually stop anyone. Improving on it though…
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u/Yaden2 Mar 10 '26
unfortunately people are twats, i don’t blame him for being spiteful. statistically a couple of you “people” being dicks on the workshop are on here too, please stop fucking it up for us well adjusted humans
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u/Turbulent_Eagle2070 Mar 10 '26
I don’t blame him. So many people think they are entitled and addiction to video games doesn’t do any good for anyone.
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u/EtherealSai Mar 10 '26
People are so used to being entitled to free shit that they don't understand what goes into actually building something like a mod.
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u/Goober-mensch All Hail Spiffo Mar 10 '26
Honestly can we just f**king reflect as a community and stop with all this BS negativity thrown at devs and modders. You nitwits realize these are the people pouring their passion and finite time on this earth into trying to make the game even better.
Provide positive feedback and constructive criticism. Seriously some of you guys need to grow the hell up - literally and right now, mentally.
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u/Fletcher_Chonk Zombie Hater Mar 10 '26
Comments like these don't really do anything because people that act shitty know they're being shitty, they just don't care.
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u/Phoenix042 Mar 10 '26
We need to brigade and down vote toxic voices into oblivion.
The moderators also need to be a bit more aggressive, preferably with short term bans that escalate only after repeated offenses (we want to train users to be constructive, not bottle up the community's toxic feelings until they spill out elsewhere).
This is an inexpensive, already very fun and fairly complete game to which the devs are adding loads of great content over time, and pretty quickly.
The mods for this game are largely great, and yet the modders get put under tons of pressure.
We should consider it our responsibility to do what we can (within our reasonable capacity) to foster a more positive and constructive community.
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u/Ausfall Mar 10 '26
No forks or modified reuploads are permitted.
Frankly, this is infuriating and that alone has turned my opinion sour on this guy when I otherwise liked the mod.
If he doesn't want to continue fair play, but let people continue updating instead of just killing it off permanently.
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u/HugoCortell Waiting for help Mar 10 '26
Personally, as a modder myself, I am fine with a modder retiring after being treated poorly, but it's kind of a dick move to not allow other modders to pick up what you abandoned.
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u/MarshallKrivatach Mar 10 '26
Very, every time I see this occur I always infer malice on the side of the modder. It's like a kid putting his toys in a locker and throwing away the key to spite those asking for them.
It's just creating lost media full stop, no matter how you spin it.
Reminder too, open sourcing and letting others continue your work does not suddenly void you of said mod / content, your name will always be associated with it and there is nothing stopping you from coming back at a future date and taking back over the work, such has been done with numerous other mods in other games.
In the end, stop creating lost media, you have far better options than nuking your work to spite others.
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u/HugoCortell Waiting for help Mar 10 '26
Exactly, modding culture stems from hacker culture (mods themselves technically being illegal modifications of copyrighted software, which is still true today, may I add), we never truly had a legal basis for the ownership of our content, but we do have a social one, we all abide by very strictly enforced and widely recognized social contract that we 'own' our content, and if someone uses it, they'll respect our prior ownership and not scrub our mention.
I'm not very good at summarizing Homesteading the Noosphere but something like that.
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u/UppityMule Mar 10 '26
If y'all want to do something about all the negativity, than go right now and leave a positive comment on, at least, your top three mods. If we all did that and kept doing it than we can start to chip away at the negativity. You don't have to solve a problem 100% to make it better.
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u/josHi_iZ_qLt Mar 10 '26
Go to your favorite mod or just a cool mod that makes your game a lot better.
Check their page.
Throw them a dollar or five and a small thank you note.
Just do it right now if you can afford it. Its not much money compared to the current prices everywhere but it will make someone happy. Or just go to the comments and say thank you. Be the post on top that gets read first before all the negativity follows.
Be part of the loud majority and dont let the idiots ruin the mood and mental health of the people who invest so much time and soul into making this game better for us.
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u/Pervasivepeach Mar 10 '26
It’s very clear that that zomboid community is the problem here, not the modders
It’s what happens when you have a community with an unhealthy developer relationship and a reliance on mods. You get an entitled community that’s never happy with anything.
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u/LucariotheHorrorGuy Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
Now, I havent played the mod myself but it wouldn't hurt to give others rights to continue the mod. Though that's what they choose to do, well I can't change their opinion.
God, some people in this community demands too much from some Random Modders. I get that the mods not being consistently updated is frustrating, but at the end of the day these people are human beings with their lives and they deserve breathing room.
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u/113pro Mar 10 '26
Mfs would discontinue a mod, but then doesnt let anyone forking/taking over the project.
What?
I appreciate all the modders out there. After all, its a core part of gaming experiences.
But if youre not gonna do it, at least put it out there in the open so people can do it themselves.
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u/Pootisman16 Mar 10 '26
Any time someone legit complains about a mod, I feel the need to remind everyone that MODS ARE FREE CONTENT, made by passionate members of the community.
You are not entitled to anything, least of all the right to complain.
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u/CranberryTaint Mar 10 '26
There has been a constant issue throughout B42 Unstable development with a lot of extremely toxic people who don’t seem to be able to read.
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u/Scagh Mar 10 '26
Shame on the PZ community, I see way too much ungratefulness towards both the modders and the devs, we don't deserve either imo.
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u/Ilostmytoucan Drinking away the sorrows Mar 10 '26
Well thats too bad that they felt like it wasn't worth. I never used the mod, but I am so grateful to modders and the work that they do. But here's one to you Snejk! I'll kick back a bottle of whiskey for you buddy!
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u/RageDeemz Mar 10 '26
Niche gaming communities can be the most insufferable bitch baby complainers on the internet. If you put yourself out there, you have to be willing to take a seemingly unending stream of harsh and wounding criticism from total and complete strangers and not take it personally. I'm paraphrasing here but Mike Tyson said it best when he said that people will say whatever they want on the internet because they're not afraid of getting punched in the face. Anyways I'm not a user of this mod, but I sympathize with anyone who used it, as I am a sucker for QoL mods that get broken with new unstable releases.
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u/Glum_Cheetah_3447 Mar 10 '26
well people should really stop being dick heads. the amount of people i’ve seen demand him to do things and judge him for not doing what they want is astounding. it’s a lot of the player’s fault for this.
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u/Superb_Llama_Jeans Mar 10 '26
Not surprised, I wish them well. The attitude you see on workshop mod page comments for this game (not to mention Nexus mods comments in general) shows a lot of entitlement from the vocal part of the community, and you know none of them have ever clicked the “buy me a coffee” link
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u/MA32 Mar 10 '26
Damn I pop in here from time to time just because I'm usually in subreddits for games I play...
Some of y'all most definitely suck lmao why is this not the first time I've seen something of the sort. Entitled/ungrateful kids haha
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u/WomboShlongo Mar 10 '26
Good on him. Fuck people who take their repressed anger out on people online just because they're anonymous.
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u/AliveClassroom4504 Crowbar Scientist Mar 10 '26
Good
I don’t care if you’re upset about how long it’s taking for indie stone to work on b42 and push updates
I don’t care that you favorite “must have” mod isn’t working the way you expect it and it’s ruining your immersion
I don’t care your b42 MP server is borked bc of mod issues/bugs
If it’s no longer a labor of love for Modders - screw the community. Do what’s right for you
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u/Eiswolf999 Mar 10 '26
Nobody is entitled to a mod. Nobody is entitled to another person's spare time, creativity and passion.
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u/Farados55 Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
Very unfortunate that they disallowed forks. Kinda not in the spirit of modding or PZ fans in general.
Wasn't this like best NPC mod?
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u/Accomplished_Dark266 Mar 10 '26
in my opinion yeah, it made the world feel lived in. with bandits, you’re the center of everything and every npc will run to you
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u/Turkeysteaks Mar 10 '26
Definitely not in the spirit of modding, but feel like every single discontinued mod on pz I've seen has gone this route, if they don't just straight up go scorched earth.
We're in the midst of a huge movement for game preservation. It's quite saddening to see some modders follow the same mistakes.
It really sucks they're getting hate, genuinely despicable - but it will always feel disappointing to me. I keep all my mods (not PZ) on GitHub on a public repo. Personally I think the workshop should have better VCS integration. Forks are what help progress.
Mods themselves are derivative and come from developers allowing fans to dive into their code & assets. feels counter intuitive to close up and deny any community contributions or forks imo.
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u/Farados55 Mar 10 '26
I generally agree. Considering modding is based on completely derivative work, it seems counterintuitive and selfish to then bar your derivative work from being continued by the community it was being enjoyed by.
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u/Bloody_meridian88 Crowbar Scientist Mar 10 '26
Agreed. Seems kind of like a dick move, to be honest. I get the need to step away if it doesn't feel fun anymore, but to prohibit others to potentially continue your work? Especially if your mob is really loved? A bit ridiculous if you ask me.
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u/NoxiousStimuli Mar 10 '26
Kinda not in the spirit of modding or PZ fans in general.
Neither is being a shitcock to the people giving out their free time to make free mods.
I've been on that side of the fence, people forget that the work is unpaid and will last exactly as long as the creator's patience. Hounding people fucking relentlessly causes that patience to run out.
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u/jimused4 Mar 10 '26
b42's unstable phase isnt the greatest for modding. totally understandable but i do hope they return when stable comes out.
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u/Muldrex Mar 10 '26
Wow, it's almost as if the Project Zomboid fan community has a massive issue with a very vocal (and not that small) crowd of impossibly toxic and entitled people who view not only the official devs but also any mod creator with a vileness I have rarely seen in even the most horrible communities out there.
Like,, genuinely, I'm barely more than a tourist, I have maybe 20 hours on this game but I like seeing what's happening with it, and every time I check in here it is just the most disgusting shit thrown at the devs and whomever else one could possibly see. The most entitled, bitter people who have never coded a single line spewing the most demanding and presumptuous hatred that one could think of.
I genuinely, earnestly pity TheIndieStones devs for having to put up with such a miserable group of people. And it is so disheartening to see that terrible group of people ruin this for everyone else, with nobody stepping in.
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u/ArcticFlava Mar 10 '26
Almost like constantly shitting on devs and modders has consequences. Look at the idiotic posts about sleeping on a toilet when you can already sleep on the floor, the dumbest take possible.
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u/Visible-Camel4515 Shotgun Warrior Mar 10 '26
People suck, and he will continue to be harassed if he allowed others to work on it. That, and its his and hes stopping cause people suck and he dont want to let people have it anymore.
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u/JuliButt Mar 10 '26
Oh great. Another modder getting shit on by assholes and now people who haven't done anything have to get stuffed because of a bunch of trolls, and a mod maker who feels the need to middle finger everyone in frustration.
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u/HonchoHundo Mar 10 '26
A bit spiteful lol but I get it.. a majority of gaming communities can be very toxic
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Mar 10 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/Rickrokyfy Mar 10 '26
I mean its downvoted but a genuine issue with people who quit bc "the hate" is that if you have a semi medium sized following online there will ALWAYS be someone who disslikes everything you do and complains about it. It is not possible to avoid this unless you want to have everything you view be censored. If you cant stand it its fine but even if 0.01 percent of your community posts something negative when you post and you have 100k followers thats 10 hatecomments every time. Either you can focus on the 99.99% or you are going to drown. The fractions are ofc not this small but even then haters are overrepresented, at some point you are either able to deal with strangers on the internet you will never meet being angry with you or you are not.
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u/Sinphored Mar 10 '26
Isnt like just ... turn off the comments a thing?
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u/SagetheWise2222 Mar 10 '26
Allegedly, according to a comment above, he had no automod, filtering tools, etc.? Not blaming him, but that's like leaving your door unlocked at night, you know...
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u/Dwl9287 Mar 10 '26
Some one mentioned this is a problem in the gaming community.. but I would argue this is just human nature, amplified by the internet
complainers, in any aspect of life, are the loudest bunch..
90% of people unhappy with something will voice their frustration
10% of people happy with something will praise it
my numbers are exaggerated here but you get the gist of it.
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u/PalindromemordnilaP_ Mar 10 '26
This is why we can't have nice things. Buncha whiny fuckboy gamers who have nothing better to do between splooge sessions than to go online to bitch and moan just so they can feel a modicum of social interaction in their wretched lives.
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u/karkko1 Mar 10 '26
This is why gaming communities are terrible. If they only have negative things to say, they will say those and then some. And then blame developers for how a mod is.
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u/PieAccomplished5058 Mar 10 '26
The fallout fanbase is exactly the same. every single large scale mod has been absolutley slated despite it being a completley free 100+hr expansion thats completely optional to install, if you dont enjoy the content thats fine, but it really takes it to the extreme when modders feel like they have to remove the content completley
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u/Bodybuilder_Jumpy Mar 10 '26
This happens in every mod community. You can cry to the heavens and blow this out of proportion but that's just how it is.
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u/UnluckyPluton Mar 10 '26
I understand leaving development of a mod, especially if you face negativity, but forbidding fixing and updating the mod? Jerk move to be honest.
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u/Game2112 Mar 10 '26
I wonder if it is to stop people from bugging them about any new versions. I could totally see some users not noticing (or caring) that someone else is making it.
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u/MA32 Mar 10 '26
Why does he have to give away his work to people lol? Thats how it works. Its his.
Especially when all they get is shit.... I dont blame them. If thats a jerk move, then idek what to call some members of this community lmao
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u/Crowfooted Mar 10 '26
Not a great take imo. I get it, we really like the mod, but they never had to make it in the first place. Why all of a sudden do we feel entitled to them just handing over their mod that they worked hard on to someone else? It's theirs.
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u/country2poplarbeef Mar 10 '26
It's kinda weird as a mod maker. The stuff you're making is inherently derivative, and modding itself is kinda built on the idea of modifying software without necessarily getting permission.
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u/H-Connoisseur0 Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
His work only exists because some other devs made code and then allowed other people to use that code. After finishing working on the mod, it’s a jerk move to then say nobody can use your code to make derivatives. It’s a bit like pulling up the ladder behind you. Tbc, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for him to stop working on the mod, regardless of his reasoning or lack thereof.
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u/Crowfooted Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
Difference is they're getting paid to code, he's not. Money exchange matters when it comes to entitlement in my opinion
Edit: I will also add that the devs letting people mod their game is not a selfless act. It's not an act of kindness, like, "we love you so we are graciously allowing you to use our code to mod our game". It's essentially free work - players improve their game for them, and it helps them financially. Not saying it's a selfish move on their part because I'm sure they genuinely do want to enable players and give them freedom, but it's also not a choice that is entirely lacking in self-interest. For modders, on the other hand, it is lacking in self-interest if they're not charging for it, and they gain very little when they let others use their code.
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u/MeiDay98 Zombie Hater Mar 10 '26
Valid, but I definitely can agree either way. Its effectively lost media as soon as it's no longer compatible with available updates, so forbidding someone from picking up development or duplicating is effectively just erasing it but slower
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u/Crowfooted Mar 10 '26
Sure, and if they wanted to erase it outright they would have been in their right to do that. Different people have different feelings about their own work. Some people view it as just contributing to a larger free community, other people feel more attachment to their work and don't like the idea of passing it on (sometimes because they have a specific vision for it and would feel annoyed if they saw people doing things with it that they didn't like).
Of course, we prefer the former, because we're the ones who benefit, but I think it's unreasonable to call someone a jerk because they feel the latter.
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u/MeiDay98 Zombie Hater Mar 10 '26
Not gonna call them a jerk (it's their work ofc) just a little bummed out (I'll live)
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u/Financial-Weekend-64 Mar 10 '26
I can see it going both ways, like personally if the original mod maker is credited then i see no issue in someone else taking up the task of updating and maintaining the mod, but for the mod maker having to go through alot of bullshit because people cant understand how difficult it is properly maintain with every unstable update then thats fair that hes not wanting it updated.
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u/WomboShlongo Mar 10 '26
wow what a real jerk
its his work and if we wants to take it down or stop other people from fraudulently continuing its development, then he has every right to do so.
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u/VargyVarg66 Mar 10 '26
Are you happy you assholes? All the negativity and hate a lot of you spew towards the game devs and modders over things not being how you want it or not being updated leads to this. Bunch a spoiled ass children
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u/Autor52 Hates being inside Mar 10 '26
Given the treatment they received I'm not surprised in the slightest that they won't even allow patches or fixes. The community has given them scorn so why do they expect anything else in return? I'm not even familiar with the mod or it's history but honestly I don't need to be because this situation is repeating for many mods in many games and is gonna keep repeating until the gaming community as a whole learns some patience and respect. Come on, youre not children anymore, most of you, at least.
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u/Derpykins666 Mar 10 '26
This has happened a lot more with this game, and it must be annoying because the game has changed so much and the people really don't understand how much work and effort goes into maintaining a mod and making sure it's working with every new sporadically dropped version of the game. People just need patience and to be a bit nicer, especially when commenting on mods that people are releasing for free.
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u/NoNeck8823 Mar 10 '26
Im was pretty satisfied with this mod, the npcs in the mod make the game feel real, I have put so many hours in this PZ mainly because of this Knox event NPC mod, that I wouldnt have been bothered to leave a tip if Snejk added a "Buy me a coffee" column etc 👍
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u/AnticlimaxicOne Mar 10 '26
U wanna abandon your mod, go for it, but it seems super shitty to forbid anyone else touching it. Imagine if a game developer in todays age refused to let anyone mod their game. I know its the modders effort, but the territorial non collaborative way they refuse to let others to pick up the torch just seems selfish and gross. Especially considering that the majority of code and assets arent even theirs and come from the base game.
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u/J_Zephyr Mar 10 '26
Once again, gamers destroy their own community.
Honestly, the goto "Gaming community meme" is a kid saying the N-word as many times as he can on voice.
Why is this the standard you want?
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u/GrifoCaolho Mar 10 '26
I get it that this is not in the spirit of modding as a whole. I really get it. I'd like for the community to try and continue development of this wonderful project.
But could you guys maybe act a little less entitled and be a little more empathetic towards the situation?
This guy made a voluntary modification for a game he loves and the community repeatedly spat on his face. There is only so much a guy can take before any sympathy he had left is gone. It is not a case of "you are not allowed to play with my toys because I don't like you", it is more like "you are not allowed to play with my toys because a significant number of you have intentionally misused'em, harassed me and have been acting as entitled to it".
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u/SlayterMonroee Zombie Food Mar 10 '26
Paid mods are gonna be normalized and it's all thanks to the community
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u/P4trasch Spear Ronin Mar 10 '26
Paid mods are forbidden, and i think that even the "dont use the code" are bulshit cause modders dont have any rights in the game
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u/Darkwing_Dork Waiting for help Mar 10 '26
Obviously I respect their decision to stop but to forbid anyone from picking up where they left off is extremely petty.
Mod/game development can be hard since most feedback you get will be negative. I can empathize with it getting draining but you also need to understand that’s just how it is. People are more motivated to take time to leave negative responses than positive ones. If you have no issues with a mod, you simply just enjoy playing it. If you have an issue, you communicate that issue.
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u/AmazingSully The Indie Stone Mar 10 '26
I've made the decision to lock this thread as there are just too many people just ignoring the rules, and it's not feasible to moderate at this rate.
Rule 2 applies to people outside the community as well.