Which Modders Produce the Better Quality Mods?
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Some of you might have seen me expressing my disgust about lazy mod authors and broken stuff previously. I'll keep this one brief. Who actually takes pride in their work and are capable of producing bug free mods, or aren't lazy to fix them?
I mentioned a while ago that I've collected almost every BUG FREE lore friendly vehicle and a few BUG FREE real life vehicles in two packs I made.
Pardon my French but honestly, I'm tired of sifting through all the broken garbage and bullshit floating around this site. I'm tired of going against authors demands and fixing their crap so I can have something that works in my game AND arguing with lazy people who cannot be arsed fixing a window or a shadow. In saying that, so I don't have to waste my time anymore, which authors have vehicle mods that are actually WORTH downloading with minimal to no bugs and who actually take pride in their work and actively fix and support their mods?
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A simple answer to your question GTA Modding Noob - sort files by highest rated.
As for the modders laziness... <sigh> Do give it a thought that life changes - some people who were keen on modding our favorite game quit the business. Like anyone else, they have their lives. And sometimes when, I don't know, you have a new job, newborn, credit to pay you will no longer spend time improving something that, in comparison, is pretty irrelevant.
From my perspective, most mods I use don't even need updates - I use scripts mostly. Script Hook is the only dependable that needs to be reworked from time to time. Of course, I understand if you use more complex mods that gradually deteriorate or stop working altogether - that may indeed be disappointing. But there are quite a few fun mods circulating that you can run and have fun with indefinitely.
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@TheMurderousCricket Very well said.
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Honestly some of the 'highest rated' have their issues. People rate them high with zero criticism. "Oh nice a Forza car port" or "oh sick exotic car" 5* yet meta's have to be manually configured because authors are lazy or don't proof read their typing and the cars have pieces missing or stupid little 'noob' errors. OR worst case scenario, chunks of the model are completely deformed- disgusting, why would I want a car with half of another piece sticking out from another part of the body or a car with holes in it?
As for the life changes stuff, there are modders who are actively releasing mods- scrips and vehicles that are piss poor quality and continue to churn more out whilst leaving their busted stuff claiming they're bug free when they clearly aren't.
I cannot comprehend how people cannot be bothered proof reading their files for errors nor bothering to test their cars in game BEFORE uploading broken or buggy things here. Honestly if people are incapable of doing those simple tasks (especially tasks that take less than 10 minutes), they shouldn't bother releasing garbage at all.
Or hell, at least allow or be grateful that noobs like myself can pick up a program and learn something within 10 minutes just to fix their crap.
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@GTA-Modding-Noob Your nickname is the best thing that you wrote in this site, that resumes your experience doing mods, correction, "fixing mods". Do your own mods, release them here and you'll to understand few things that now you're attacking and ignore about modding pipeline.
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@TheMurderousCricket said in Which Modders Produce the Better Quality Mods?:
A simple answer to your question GTA Modding Noob - sort files by highest rated
That's how we think it should work but unfortunately reality looks different. Just take this mod for example. It is bugged as hell, a performance and memory hog because the developer is a n00b. It is unclear to me why it got such a high rating. Maybe because the author falsely advertises it as "the ultimate expansion to Grand Theft Auto 5" (see description)?
Or is it because of the ability claims and people rated it high right away without even testing it?
Or maybe the many downloads it already has (me-too-effect)? This mod gets updated almost every day (which speaks for itself) and all the re-downloads are added to the total downloads number (clever but nasty trick).Otoh there are mods which are underrated because some people don't get their very personal wishes granted, which are even totally out of scope.
This so happened to my VAutodrive mod. I remember someone giving it half a star because I didn't implement the bodyguards which he asked for. Tell me what bodyguards have to do with an autopilot!
It also got some low ratings from people who think this is just another kind of taxi service. All they needed to do is to read the description and they would have seen how wrong their assumption is.
It even got low ratings from people who didn't know how to handle it and that just because they were too lazy to read the guide. Well you can tell this is way more than just a taxi service by looking at the PDF guide which has 32(!) pages. There is more to it than just sitting in a vehicle, pressing a key and that's all.@GTA-Modding-Noob I'm not much into addon vehicles and so I can only recommend one, the #1. His name is SkylineGTRFreak.
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@Cyron43 - Guess it varies depending on the category. In my case this method usually worked - I gathered some really nice mods by "star-sorting" stuff. Hence the suggestion.
I admit that I was curious about the mod you mention. However it sounds too chaotic and complicated for now for me to even get bothered by it. I agree the "gotta catch them all" mechanism plays a part.
IMHO some other, very old and even no longer supported mods are better and bring even more fun than some of the "fresh" ones! Take Vigilante 0.6 by Guadmaz for instance. Pure fun.
Hmm, at first glance, your mod looks interesting. Thanks for the heads-up. One question though - do other drivers randomly flee from the player or can you set waypoints for them too?
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@TheMurderousCricket said in Which Modders Produce the Better Quality Mods?:
do other drivers randomly flee from the player or can you set waypoints for them too?
They just try to get away from you in panic.
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That should do, really nice idea Cyron43. Guided tours of San Andreas will be a snap from now on.
As far as the abandoned mods are concerned... Another point in case - I just downloaded Guadmaz's "Actor Manager" mod from 2015. No updates for years. And, according to all comments, it is defunct, incompatible and generally dead as dodo.
Guess what? It works great!
It just proves that discontinued mods do not necessarily have to be useless. If the original was designed with care and properly tested, it will work no matter what and keep the fun going for years to come. Even if the original author abandoned it.
I mean, come on... I think about 70% of stuff down here is like that.
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@TheMurderousCricket I'm still using SPG and I even prefer it over SPA because it's expandable, every character has access to the same vehicles and I don't have to buy an apt just for the garage.
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@MetaGTA said in Which Modders Produce the Better Quality Mods?:
@GTA-Modding-Noob Your nickname is the best thing that you wrote in this site, that resumes your experience doing mods, correction, "fixing mods". Do your own mods, release them here and you'll to understand few things that now you're attacking and ignore about modding pipeline.
I, like probably millions of others, don't have to upload nor create mods at all if we do not want to. Having an avatar name doesn't really mean anything. I could be GTA Modding God and be trash so...? Would my name really make a difference to you? As I said previously I want to be an example. If I can learn and do something within 10 minutes, there is no excuse for 'GTA Modding Pros' not being able to make or fix little things like broken windows. Say what you want, pure laziness.
Anyway, I'd upload my mods but I've made 3 giant packs with all my GTA stuff (so I don't hit the DLC folder limit) and my packs include other people's stuff obviously and MY FIXED VERSIONS of hundreds of broken stuff that authors wont let me even give to them so...
...I've already given some things to a few hundred of my friends via One Drive who want fixed versions of some of the broken garbage here so at least I'm making some people happy... Now I wont be a petty prick and or copy your, I assume, attempted jabs? But whatever, you've just made 2 ped mods so I bet you cannot even figure out how to do anything related to vehicles such as set up META files, do textures or create/edit models in ZMod so... Right back at ya.
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@GTA-Modding-Noob You're totally wrong, your noob status is because you're ignoring the vehicle modding pipeline and yeah I released 2 peds here but vehicles I did above 50 exclusive for Youtubers. The point about modding pipeline that you ignore is the main issue in modding: MODDING TOOLS NOT ALL THE TIME WERE SO REFINED WITH ALL THE FEATURES WORKING LIKE BREAKEABLE GLASSES, MATERIALS, COLLISIONS, COMPONENTS BEHAVIOR, ETC.
You're attacking mods with your very limited knowledge not just about vehicle model convertion (metadata edit or breakeable windows fixes is a small part of a whole convertion), you ignore the history and evolution in modding. For your information, GTA V has been too hard to analyze and develope proper tools for its features, not all the time we had all these features avaible in Zmodeler3 like right now, that is a noob error attack modders ignoring that, is pretty unfair. For that, continue your modding, do complete vehicle convertions, release here (if you want or not but not just fix contents from other authors and be the Modding God) and you will to see and be grateful for all the research and creativity of older modders helping to develope better and complete pipeline and tools, that is the thing that only experienced people knows even if modders not update their old mods because life is first, always first and that don't mean be lazzy.
Finally, mods are a hobby, each one invest time for fun, not to be slave of perfection, even the best and skilled modders are limited by models quality, tools and game features and their free time to invest in a mod.
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Agree with MetaGTA.
The good old days where you could flip Quake 3 upside down with just a notepad and WinRar are over.
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@MetaGTA said in Which Modders Produce the Better Quality Mods?:
You're totally wrong
Nope, you are! I had some in-depth discussions with @GTA-Modding-Noob and I can assure you he knows what he is talking about. Shall we have a closer look at your work or wouldn't it be nicer if you just stop bullying people before it gets really ugly?
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Here is the latest example of false rating and why I've had enough of modding for the public:
@alin23
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I don't understand... Just about everyone uses ZMod and or 3DS MAX... I create mods for Halo and Fallout with 3DS MAX and ZMod for GTA stuff. Its the same crap. Me, admitting I've just entered the GTA V modding scene have learned and had success in very little time. I know how to put in 1 or 2 simple lines of text into a vehicle file within ZMod to make glass break. I can also manipulate shapes on a vehicle model and chop off pieces that are sticking out of my body or unaligned. I'm sure everyone's ZMod is capable of doing the same thing, don't blame the program, blame the user.
Most scripts around here are created within visual studio, so unless you don't know how to code, scripts should, as do some of them here work almost flawlessly. I spotted a mistake in the vehicle addon spawner, 3 or 4 duplicate cars, the author didn't believe me and blamed my install, mods or integrity of my game. I watched YouTube and figured out how to access and edit scripts and BAM! I found multiple HUMAN ERRORS and had to post pictures to prove he/she made a mistake and my game was FINE. To this day, they still haven't updated it for anyone else. I guess they are too lazy to delete 3 or 4 lines of extra text and upload it.
I can provide you with a list of broken scripts, vehicles and peds that are broken, have glitches and even crash your game. I'm not going to argue, once I decided to get more of people's broken junk, fix them, and distribute it elsewhere, then people can get mad at me I guess...
I'm sorry but refusing to do 5 minute quick fixes (and declining help) or blaming users for their own sloppy mistakes, especially when nobody tests their mods before uploading them are in the wrong, period. Pure lazy. I've seen users banned from here just for pointing out issues and getting into fights with authors. Its a bit sad honestly.
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The modding community for GTA 5 is not very big and therefore quality often suffer, also GTA 5 is not the easiest game to modify, its very easy to cause issues due the way the game have scripted events. If you compare it to the modding community for skyrim where there is thousands of modders, testers, reviewers, the quality of the mods is of another world. To expect something similar for GTA 5 mods is not only wrong but very unfair.
It's also totally wrong to blame modders for bad mod quality, modding is by itself a uncertain endeavor, it is after all a hobby where players modify games made by others that often is not made to be modified. If you dont like the quality of a mod just skip it, it is not made for you, someone else made it for their fun.
Personally I really appreciate what modders in GTA 5 have manage to do, there is so many great mods here that work well enough. I have at the moment around 50 mods I use and more is added each day, and it is a long process to test all the mods for stability and bugs, but that's a part of using mods.
So to you @GTA-Modding-Noob let's see your GTA 5 mods, then we can talk, until then please stop this ranting, do something with it instead, show us "noobs" how it is done.
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Dude, really? Testers? Its a SINGLE CAR 90% of the time! How hard is it for you or I to put it into GTA V BEFORE we upload it here? Honestly I cant tell if some of you are serious or joking about that point. And the other point is, if you find a glitch in my script, especially if you read through it on that github whatever its called and then TELL ME about it, I WILL FIX IT. I've pointed out so many errors, simple lines to delete or typos but once again, nobody cannot be arsed doing a 1minutes fix yet alone PROOF READ THEIR WORK before uploading once again. Like I said, some people here seem to think this is a mod race and churn out too much consistent broken crap just to stay relevant and care more about their egos and popularity rather than produce basic mods with no stupid OBVIOUS rookie mistakes.
I love mods, that's why I bother getting them. To see errors and fix them means I love the mod more than the modder who put no effort into it.
I asked a question and said my piece. You and some of the others replied with objections and basically calling me the moron. So I'm obviously going to make a response or explain why I typed what I typed. You haven't answered my already answered question so why bother trying to stir more arguments?
I said it before and Ill say it again. PROOF READ YOUR SCRIPTS AND CHECK YOUR CARS IN GTA V BEFORE YOU BOTHER UPLOADING IT HERE. Excuses excuses excuses, its all I read... If I can do it, I'm sure these year+ long modders can do the same, if not better. And no, I'm not uploading 'other' people's stuff as although I dislike their sloppy work SOMETIMES, I love it so much that I MAKE THE EFFORT to FIX their stuff so I can enjoy a nice bug free version. Regardless of that I RESPECT the permissions of not redistributing other people's work so no, I am not going to get myself banned uploading other's people work. As for mine? I don't need to prove squat to you nor do I have to give you any of my mods, it has nothing to do with my argument against lazy modders who cannot TEST or FIX their small rookie issues.
Example: Although as I've mentioned this multiple times, YES ZMod does cause some little FIXABLE issues (rarely) but, does ZMod automatically add lines for breakable glass or dirt mapping? NO. THE USER HAS TO PUT THE LINE IN. So, there you go.
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@GTA-Modding-Noob You are right about some cars uploaded here. Some of them come with errors.
What about the peds ?
Some are great and works flawless. But some leaves a lot of to be desired😠
Personally, I'm modding Molly with many hooker/stripper and MP female clothes in a single unit. But this is taking me to much time because I want to make sure my work pass my own expectations.
Tasting a mod takes a lot of time especially peds, but I don't know about cars, aircrafts or maps. And I think some modders don't have patience testing and fixing the errors.
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@xxx78 said in Which Modders Produce the Better Quality Mods?:
To expect something similar for GTA 5 mods is not only wrong but very unfair
There are quite a lot of script developers who don't even test their mods before publishing! That's the least we can expect. We can also expect they don't publish before they have fixed the most severe bugs. On various occasions (see example above) I start a mod and run into a bug right away which is even easy to reproduce and occurs in 100% of all times. Yet they advertise their crap as the best since Jesus walked over water. I think that is unfair! I would be ashamed of myself if I uploaded such a crap. Add to this the endless complaints about game crashes we see here each and every day and very often it's because of developer n00bs who create memory- and performance hogs due to a lack of basic programming skills.
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@dionys19 said in Which Modders Produce the Better Quality Mods?:
I think some modders don't have patience testing and fixing the errors
But that's an essential part of a mod project! If someone is 'meh' about testing and fixing he should better refrain from modding altogether! I have to question the motivation of such people. Why do they create mods in the first place if they give a f*** about the quality? I rather they are just attention seekers who want their 15 minutes of fame.
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@GTA-Modding-Noob Amen!
I am quoting this special part so nobody misses it:@GTA-Modding-Noob said in Which Modders Produce the Better Quality Mods?:
To see errors and fix them means I love the mod more than the modder who put no effort into it.
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@Cyron43 If you want something that is bug free buy a new game...ohh no...thats right...even tripple A games have plenty of bugs, ctd, memory leaks, spelling errors etc...
This is a modding forum, it is made for testing and trying stuff, if you dont like what you see, dont use it. No point throwing stones at people because they made something that dont live up to your standard....they did not make it for you...and you dont have to pay anything if you want to use it....wow is it free? any still you complain....
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@xxx78 Dude I develop mods myself. So don't talk down to me like that. I am not expecting bug free mods. As a professional software developer I know there is nothing bug free and I have never talked about bug free! Read my post again. I said "don't publish before they have fixed the most severe bugs"! You know what most severe bugs are? They are the ones which crash the game or make the mod useless because they block it from delivering the basic functionality which they advertise. This is not just the case for me but for the public, which I always referred to! That's your second fail. So before you try to p** on someone you should pay more attention on the comment. No cigar for you this time.
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@xxx78 Now now don't skew my good words and use it to bash people. Buying things and the game has nothing to do with this post. Stay on topic by either helping me find people who take pride in their work or discuss lazy modders. Modding FORUMS are for discussion yes, which is what we've been doing. Discussing about lazy vs quality mods. Not bashing people who also agree that lazy people need to just do little checks from time to time...
If you don't want to contribute to helping me (and of course others who would want to know who the best of the best/decent modders are), well, some famous words from Mr Ramsay, "Get out!, Get the #### upstairs!" Don't go all keyboard warrior on people and further side tracking my thread, if you cannot be bothered contributing, don't bother posting in my thread.
Like myself, @Cyron43 and many others before, TEST, TEST, TEEEST, do I have to type it in 100 other languages? T.E.S.T your mods BEFORE you upload! How hard is it?! TEST.
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TTEST!!! Do I need to make a video tutorial on "How to test your GTA V mods before you upload for dummies" guide?