Mods are a big thing. I’ve said that before, their adding longevety, showing current and previous interrest in a game, and give some brilliant ideas. Moders are the reason I *dont* loose interest in games even years later. All typos in this paragraph are intentional and have been seen in mods I have played.
If you are not a programmer, I’ll tell you one thing. One typo can break an entire program. Having to spend hours to find a misplaced ; is a rite of passage, but despite this I have noticed a blatant disregard for the English language in modding communities.
I recently acquired Heroes of Might & Magic 3 Complete. Very good game, so I decided to snag the In The Wake of Gods fan patch since it has a lot of nice content. I looked at the Screenshots on Strategy Planet, screenshots that are supposed to show the mod at its peak.
Take a look at seven of these. This is system dialog mind you, not user.
Other screencaps with lengthy dialog is either typo ridden, or written so poorly I could open a can of alphabet soup and splatter a better paragraph against the wall. In the Wake of Gods is indeed an exceptional mod but when the programmer can’t spell for crap, how am I supposed to know he programmed it right?
Then you get modders that completely disregard the writing style of the original game. You know how some Baldur’s Gate mods use *s for emphasis or to denote an action? Those are never, ever, EVER used in the original game. Any denotation of action in dialog is extremely rare or done through floating text.
It makes them look sloppy, it is sloppy, and if a bug strikes, the one playing it is going to think of them as an illiterate moron who should start school over from scratch. Presentation is everything. A modder who releases a cluster of typographical errors isn’t likely to get very far. I know it’s a petty thing, but as a bit of a programmer myself, I know that precision is important.
So what are your thoughts? Does a typo-ridden mod make you get a degree of disrespect for the programmer?
Gtostical
To be perfectly honest with you…there are a million grammatical errors all of your articles. I get that you are trying to be ironic by making mistakes intentionally, but your writing is far less than perfect. Learn how to write properly before you criticize other people’s writing.
Rian Quenlin
Guilty, my writing style is quite weird.