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Mods for Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake receive backlash in Japan, highlighting a large cultural gap in how mods are viewed

Pejo

Gold Member
I mean you cut off my quote, but that's literally what I said.
Were you a fan of "stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself" as a kid too? Well whatever, there's no winning this discussion, I just hope I at least opened up your eyes that there are some legit great/useful mods out there.
 

Komatsu

Member
This is complete BS, Japan has one gadzillion different mod scenes. Alicesoft - an eroge company known for its horny RPGs - has been kept on life support due to people modding and remodding their games, to say nothing of the musou mods, etc etc

It's just that the DQ fanbase in Japan trends old - and as someone in my mid-30s, I mean old old, not 33 or 37 - and they hate whatever it is the kids are up to.
 
Oh good, so you do agree that mods are good and worthwhile to have after all?
this is the same line of reasoning in your previous post.
No I didn't say mods are low effort trash.
No I didn't say mods are good and worthwhile.
I said the majority of mods are visual changes, and of those the majority are terrible, and let's not pretend otherwise.

Or to spell it out for you, which I didn't think was necessary.
Do I think there exist mods that are good? absolutely.
Do I think there exist mods that are low effort trash? absolutely, and these make up the majority of mods.
 

Pejo

Gold Member
this is the same line of reasoning in your previous post.
No I didn't say mods are low effort trash.
No I didn't say mods are good and worthwhile.
I said the majority of mods are visual changes, and of those the majority are terrible, and let's not pretend otherwise.
Half of me wants to drop this discussion, the other half wants me to ask you prove your statement. But fine, fine. I like how you're really dressing up your original driveby shitpost like it was a poignant and proper evaluation of the current mod scene.
Or to spell it out for you, which I didn't think was necessary.
Do I think there exist mods that are good? absolutely.
Do I think there exist mods that are low effort trash? absolutely, and these make up the majority of mods.
No need to get catty, but I at least understand your intent at this point.
 

kevboard

Member
so, has anyone asked these guys what they think about Final Fantasy 7 Remastered? that is also someone modifying the work of someone else by adding multiple "cheats" that streamline the game.

I just looked it up, Yoshinori Kitase was not involved in any way with the FF7 Remaster, which means someone else altered the work of another director.
FF7 remaster lets you turn off encounters, lets you get limit break at all times and other stuff like that.

so, I sure hope they are also angry at whoever did that to FF7!
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
This will throw off supposed Japan respecters, but I believe it's a thing. It's a high conformity culture, and that probably extends to taking products as they are instead of trying to tinker with them.

I don't really care, but anything that sows the seeds of fracture in the PCMR is only of benefit :messenger_smiling_horns:
 
the other half wants me to ask you prove your statement.
Prove what exactly? That most mods are visual changes?
C'mon bruv, you know they are, you yourself post screenshots of how you're modding outfits in ZZZ etc.
A cursory glance at nexusmods shows RE4 has 12 pages of gameplay mods, and 71 pages of character mods...🙄
Which includes a whole bunch of cringe shit like:

Or replacing Leon with Kratos or whatever.
I like how you're really dressing up your original driveby shitpost like it was a poignant and proper evaluation of the current mod scene.
Not dressing up anything, I always said I was talking about a majority, not all mods, and it wasn't a "drive by"
 

kevboard

Member
This will throw off supposed Japan respecters, but I believe it's a thing. It's a high conformity culture, and
that probably extends to taking products as they are instead of trying to tinker with them.

that is absolutely not the case...

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f865a143b970098bcee86ec7726200dc
 
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Northeastmonk

Gold Member
A question I’d ask them is why does the West buy more copies of these games than Japan? That’s great if it’s preserving their work, but if developers solely relied on Japan for sales they’d have to close their doors.
 

kevboard

Member
muh muh muh they only made 7 of these btw

1280x720.jpg

is there anything that hasn't been turned into a Dragon Quest merchandise product yet?

I wouldn't be surprised if they had DQ themed green slime condoms at this point. maybe with the chance to get a rare silver metal themed slime condom with a 1% pull rate!
 
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XXL

Member
Square just shot themselves in the foot.
I don't know how much the rest of you know about Japanese culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is in America where you can become successful by being an modder. If you mod something over in Japan, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.
What this means is the japanese public, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase Dragon Quest III HD-2D for PC, nor will they purchase any of Square's games. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but Square has alienated an entire market with this move.
Square, publicly apologize and cancel this mod or you can kiss your business goodbye.
 
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Square just shot themselves in the foot.
I don't know how much the rest of you know about Japanese culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is in America where you can become successful by being an modder. If you mod something over in Japan, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.
What this means is the japanese public, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase Dragon Quest III HD-2D for PC, nor will they purchase any of Square's games. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but Square has alienated an entire market with this move.
Square, publicly apologize and cancel this mod or you can kiss your business goodbye.
This copypasta was funny 20 years ago on 4chan.
 

Gp1

Member
The modded PC version of FFXV, eg., is the correct version of the game. Correct visuals, corrected art inconsistencies, correct difficulty etc.

I've paid for the game, the game is mine to mod. Japanese industry and consumer can go seppuku all the way and I'll still mod it.
 
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I've actually been thinking about this for a while and I dunno what to make of it. My main thing now is it makes me genuinely question the talent of developers. And I don't mean like AAA slop hacks, I mean sacred cows like Miyamoto. Play enough Mario Maker and you begin to wonder how special his talent is if there are literally 1000+ levels that are better than official Mario levels. If there are mods that make Dark Souls better made by random dipshits online, why exactly am I supposed to consider Miyazaki a deity?

I dunno it is just weird.
 

Gp1

Member
If there are mods that make Dark Souls better made by random dipshits online, why exactly am I supposed to consider Miyazaki a deity?

If Miyazaki was the responsible for the clusterfuck that was the first version of PC's Dark Souls to the point that a modder, IN LESS THAN A HOUR, simply made the game playable, than...

Using DS as an example. There are a bunch of interesting mods for Dark Souls, from things that improve the original experience (better graphics, LOD, textures, QOL improvements, etc) to some other wild things like item/enemy randomizers, complete gameplay overhauls, etc.

Does any of these categories of mods nullify the work of FROM? No and imho they add value to From's original product.

I don't know, when i see these kind of opinions like the examples on the OP (not you multi) i see people that never touched a PC game. It's like seeing sixth gen console players talking about how the current PC game market works.
 
If Miyazaki was the responsible for the clusterfuck that was the first version of PC's Dark Souls to the point that a modder, IN LESS THAN A HOUR, simply made the game playable, than...

Using DS as an example. There are a bunch of interesting mods for Dark Souls, from things that improve the original experience (better graphics, LOD, textures, QOL improvements, etc) to some other wild things like item/enemy randomizers, complete gameplay overhauls, etc.

Does any of these categories of mods nullify the work of FROM? No and imho they add value to From's original product.

I don't know, when i see these kind of opinions like the examples on the OP (not you multi) i see people that never touched a PC game. It's like seeing sixth gen console players talking about how the current PC game market works.
The irony with me is that I grew up PC gaming in the 90s, so this stuff should be in my DNA. I think as time goes on I start to consider the "art" side of gaming (whatever that even means) a lot more, and modding is throwing a wrench in my thoughts. Like, I want to play what the developer created, just like I want to watch the movie the director created and the music the musicians intended - I don't want to play something that has been monkeyed around without cohesion by numerous people. And yes I know you could say producers muck with movies, but that to me is also part of the actual creation process.

Death Stranding is a good example, there are certainly things that can be improved with that game, but I want to play exactly what Kojima created - good, bad, and ugly.

I say all this as I am currently brainstorming creating a Doom level, so I clearly have no idea what I'm thinking. And anyway this isn't exactly even the point of the thread, I'm just rambling.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
I think one of the reasons TES games (post Morrowind) got to be so popular is because of mods. But then again, that's what happens when you design games that give near complete freedom and aren't linear / dictate everything your player needs to do.

Could you imagine NWN without some of the mods - or any of the big PC games? Warcraft 3 without mods?

Many of the best games encourage mods and community content. Sucks to suck.
 
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Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
I tend to agree with the Japanese players on this one. Not that I have any issue with people using mods, but for me, I have precisely zero interest in using them for anything and find it a little annoying that they're constantly cited as one of the reasons PC gaming is great. I just wanna play the actual thing, not some embellishment of it.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I’m exclusively play games on consoles but even I had PC gaming I don’t think I would use mods, I like experience my games the way it’s was intended even with its flaws, but that’s just me.
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
Prove what exactly? That most mods are visual changes?
C'mon bruv, you know they are, you yourself post screenshots of how you're modding outfits in ZZZ etc.
A cursory glance at nexusmods shows RE4 has 12 pages of gameplay mods, and 71 pages of character mods...🙄
Which includes a whole bunch of cringe shit like:

Or replacing Leon with Kratos or whatever.

Not dressing up anything, I always said I was talking about a majority, not all mods, and it wasn't a "drive by"

I completely agree. Nexus is chock full of ridiculous tacky rubbish. I’ve gone to check many times and come away with nothing because the number of mods that actually change anything meaningful (i.e. gameplay or content) is so low. RE4R, to use your example, is probably about 1 page of useful mods - far less than the generous 12 pages you said. Of course that's my personal taste, and others could find more to be useful.

Skyrim and other Beth games are different beasts. The games were made for modding, which created huge communities, which eventually led to modders breaking the game open beyond what was previously possible (dll mods) and so Skyrim's gameplay itself now gets rewritten.

But even with that taken into account the percentage of mods you could delete without anyone noticing or caring is monumentally high. I turned off the NSFW stuff because it's an endless deluge, and that's the stuff that isn't on Lovers Lab - a whole site based around porn mods.

I love mods, but the vast majority of them are the artistic or utilitarian equivalents of a banana taped to a wall.
 
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Hrk69

Member
I’m exclusively play games on consoles but even I had PC gaming I don’t think I would use mods, I like experience my games the way it’s was intended even with its flaws, but that’s just me.
Not even a simple mod to skip or bypass intro videos/legal screens?
 
Yea this is all nonsense. Some small weirdo communities on japan twitter are otaku purists. Most people in japan love mods and PC gaming is starting to explode here. Whenever i see a post that says "This is happening in japan", i usually know its assuredly not.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
I laugh at this.

There’s so many Japanese mods on Elder Scrolls it’s ridiculous. What is this double standard. Only Japanese games aren’t allowed to be modded lol.
 

Roxkis_ii

Member
I don't understand how people can get so upset about something that doesn't affect them. It feels like loser behavior. Like is you life so empty you have to care about what someone is doing on their computer half way across the world?

smh-oh.gif
 

Minsc

Gold Member
I couldn't imagine revisiting the PC release of the OG Final Fantasy 7 without mods. 30 > 60 fps is a must have, and without it the game looks terrible vs my memories of it. I tried the Switch version and had to stop 10 minutes in to it, and switch to the PC w/ mods. Just laziness to me.

And let's not talk about mods that fix the terrible font choices a lot of the old FF Remakes use, as well as tiling errors in Squares games, etc.
 

ReyBrujo

Member
Most people in japan love mods

I think the correct sentence would be "Most people in Japan don't care", which is probably the truth in the Western countries as well. The only mods I frown upon are the ones that modify random encounters, make enemies weaker, make characters grow faster and the like which are cheating. Cosmetics ones are fine, being that replacing models, music, enlarging fonts, etc. But I totally see a minority thinking it's not proper to modify a work of art (even though games might not qualify as one).
 

Fbh

Member
Oh look, another article that tries to present a couple of tweets as a generalized opinion among a certain group or audience.
Either way I guess I can understand the point about the "original intent and vision" to a certain degree but ultimately videogames have always been at this intersection between "art" and "product", and modifying products to suit your own preferences is extremely common.
 

Zacfoldor

Member
Honestly, I do want to mod, but I go so overboard that eventually I crash the game then obsess over whether the crash was my PC going bad or just the shitton of mods I installed, so then I uninstall them all and either quit he game or play it completely mod free imagining I'm now enjoying crash free version with optimized resourced going only to the vanilla game.

It really fucks with me.

Only in wow did I fully embrace them and even then I was constantly fiddling with them for years and years.

I'm not one that can set it and forget it. I obsess and actually, it can take away from the game a little if I just go full ham.

The best user mods are like, flashlight mods or simply qol increases, or alternately full game mods, that provide new story content. The middle mods that provide ostensible improved content, ie, the vast majority of user mods, are just novelties that mean very little and can screw up a fun game if you over-focus on them.
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
I can see where's they're coming from and I personally don't mod games in that sense, if something is annoying (like weapons breaking, too much farming or grinding, etc.) then gotta be it and I'll judge the game based on the creators intention, so I don't do modding unless to fix something, in that case, I think I'm doing so to play the game as the dev expected it to be played or closer to it than the default state

An example of this is when Japanese games only have english VA available in the west (including for countries that don't speak english natively which is dumb af) and I'm playing it with english VA, specially anime games. In that case I'll make sure to play the game in the original language (I did so before for western games only in Spain Spanish without in-game VA option to change it to english BTW) so I'm basically restoring creator's art by modding the games.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
I’ve never installed a mod that didn’t make the game better.

Some are minor things like skins, while others are QoL improvements, to massive overhauls.

Then there’s the mods that fix the work of the lazy developers. Nier Automata for example.

It’s your choice as a PC gamer. If you want to be forced to play as the developers intended, buy a console.
 
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nikos

Member
I agree about tarnishing work/altering the creator's vision to a certain extent. I usually avoid mods that alter visuals, mechanics, or games too much.

I'm all for mods that remove performance limitations, such as ultawide mods, frame limit mods, etc. because they make a lot of unplayable games playable.
 
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