Is there a specific place to make suggestions for the site or changes to upload requirements? (in my case, specifically for Sims, but others might have ideas for other upload areas)

Here.

When I download a sim, the first thing I do is go in and strip him/her down to the foundation. While the face mask, eye bags, contacts, etc and so on looks great on the sim, I don't see a point in having it when they aren't genetic and aren't going to be passed down to the simlettes. Other people just don't want the CC for whatever reason, whether they just don't want CC in their game or they've got too much of it as it is.

How many of us have downloaded a great looking sim thinking it'd have great genetics and bone structure and and once the face masks and so forth were removed, (or not downloaded) were left with one really ugly sim that'd make even uglier sim kiddies? Or a sim that doesn't look close enough to what they were supposed to look like?

Here's my official suggestion for and added requirement of sim uploads.

While I understand, and agree that face masks, make up, etc are works of art and displays of skill and creativity, I'd like one of the required pictures for sims uploads be one with hair pulled back and no CC skintone, make up, masks, bags, etc and so on.

That way, those of us who choose not to use certain CC can see what we're getting.

Bumping - to be discussed.

As was in another thread, why not a requests forum? Before being locked it was said it leads to creators being pressured and requestors feeling entitled. How does making it be via PMs not do that? It also said that there are tutorials encouraging people to make it themselves but not everyone is that computer literate (it took me months to learn how to extract using winzip/winrar and I still can only use IE as a browser.) problem with the thread on those who take requests is some might be willing and not post there, or not want to get tons of PMs, etc and there's no way to know from such a long thread who even is still here. Seems pretty goofy to just not have one and have people post them all over anyway when it would be easy to make.

BTW the really weird part is I asked for help on this site at the time ( late 2004) and the people were really, really unhelpful and very nasty. I don't get that as that's nothing like this site now or anytime recently. More like MATY.

Last edited by MattShizzle : 10th Aug 2012 at 03:30 AM.

Hi Matt,

The requests forum was... Kind of a dismal and depressing place, really.

When people imagine a request forum, they tend to picture it as a wellspring of innovation, where brilliant 'ideas folk' pair up with amazing technical talent, and together they produce works of art. Alas, what we actually ended up with was more like a pit of angry, hungry, highly judgmental hyenas. Which was a shame but, perhaps, inevitable.

Part of the problem is that most of the people who want to fill requests are relatively new modders - those who have only recently got their proverbial feet wet, and want to spread their equally proverbial wings a bit. It's rare to find a 'hard core' modder who isn't already massively overwhelmed with their own list of potential projects.

However, when most people make requests, they either want:
a) something extremely challenging, such that only experts could do it,
b) something against MTS rules, like pay item clones and game cracks, or
c) something technically achievable, but with very high expectations. That is, they expect to get the sort quality that a multiple-featured artist would produce, and not something that a first time creator would produce.

My one experience filling a request quite definitely fell into the (c) category. I was very new to modding, but I could use PaintShop and I understood the principles, and so I filled a clothing request. I spent quite a long time on it (I was a newbie!) and posted it expecting gratitude. What I ended up with was "that's nice, but does anyone else want to make a better one for me?" The requester felt understandable cheated - he got a wannabe, low-talent clothing modder when he wanted a pro. I felt rejected, having taken the time to make someone else something they wanted only to be told that it wasn't good enough. Any other potential fillers felt disinclined to fill for someone who seemed so obviously ungrateful. This pattern of behaviour was not isolated, it was quite common.

But by far the more common was scenario (a). The number of 'impossible' requests outnumbered the 'possible'. Requests for an MMO version of TS2, or EP functionality in the base game, or sets of complex objects which would take even the most experienced modders years to create...

Because most of the requesters could not make mods themselves, they did not understand the difference between an easy mod and an incredibly complex one. Thus, we couldn't simply make a rule "only achievable requests allowed" unless we had moderators going through and deleting anything which they (as experienced modders) believed fell into the 'impossible' category. This was often seen as arbitrary and resulted in angry words from those requesters whose requests were removed. Not a fun place to moderate.

So yes, the requests forum ended up full of unfillable requests and people who seemed ungrateful even when their requests were filled.

But that thing I said about the experienced modders not wanting to fill requests doesn't mean that those same people aren't very, very willing to hand-hold people who are learning to make the things themselves. Most such modders have spent many hours answering questions and giving suggestions to people learning their skills for the first time... Because at the end of that 'teaching' period, there are now two modders capable of doing something difficult, not just one. And that's worth doing in a way that simply filling a request isn't.

As for MTS in 2004... Well back then, MTS was almost entirely a technical forum. Remember that late 2004 was when the very first non-conflicting recolours came out. Yes, recolours, one of the simplest types of modding out there these days. Back then, the people here wanted to decode and document the file formats, not to answer player questions, so... If you had come by MTS back then requesting help with something that wasn't incredibly techy, then you would have been asking all the wrong sort of people. That's not being critical of players or of techies, just recognizing their differences!

The MTS crowd has grown, expanded, and matured over the last 8 years, such that the really technical modders are now in a minority. The site's numbers have filled out with people who love to create, and to teach, and to download. That means that questions are now much more welcome than they would have been to a few dozen people picking at bytes with their hex editors.

Last edited by Echo : 10th Aug 2012 at 06:22 AM.

It's not a bad idea. But doesn't it just make one more task for the person who has already spent hours or days on their creation - a lot of people say they feel the hardest and most tedious work on making any Sims creation to share is fulfilling the MTS upload requirements. Getting the screenshots the right angle, bright enough, clear enough, zoomed in enough, to the taste of whoever happens to be on the mod queue that day, filling in the forms, counting the polys.... Now we're talking about adding another hoop to jump through.

It's not like the downloader has to pay, wait in for delivery, and then can't return the goods for a refund. Why can't user download, try out, and delete if not delighted? There are lots of actual mail-order companies not giving as much description or illustration for their goods as the user is coming to expect and *demand* from this free site, where the producers are volunteers.

I do appreciate Delphy and the team are just trying to make their site the best it can be, but in a way, those efforts are fuelling this attitude of entitlement by end-users that so many of us are becoming disincentivised by.

Also, regarding that, Inge, we're doing a bit of an overhaul of the guidelines so that it should be easier for new uploaders to share things here. Not making it the Exchange by any means, but trying to make it not -quite- so difficult for folks to meet every point required. Kinda hard to explain briefly, but essentially, as long as you get all elements (like your upload description, screenshots bright enough, etc.) to a decent standard and some things to a high standard and it's clear your stuff is decent quality, you should be able to be approved.

RE: The initial suggestion, I think it'd be a lovely thing for sim uploaders to include as an optional picture to show the great facial structure of their sim, and I have seen some do so without any requirement for it. Me... I just upload sims with no CC at all lately, so what you see is exactly what you get. There are other sim creators who do the same.

If not as a rule, a sim picture without CC could be added as a suggestion, worded as encouragement to show off the hard work the uploader did on the facial structure (so it won't just be "another hoop to jump through").

While posting something in a discussion, I noticed that there is a button, below the area where you write what you want, in 'Go Advanced', that allows you to view all the posts before yours, now, I was wondering if it is possible to add a button to each post to quote/reply what a member was saying while we are still writing our post. That way, it would make it easier to post several replies to several members, all in one post. This is something I saw at Snooty Sims that made things easier and faster.

Also, this thread should be sticky. Great thread!

MMAA: We tend to discourage multi-quotes here because people tended to overuse it in the past. You can reply with quote to individual posts, but not multiple ones, and in many cases I don't think quoting is strictly required. Even if it is, copy paste also works.

Regarding the "naked face" sim upload suggestion. Given that the creator is already taking a face shot of the sim, taking one more with the facial makeup and CC skin removed should not be a huge additional burden, I would think. I say that having taken upload pics myself, and sometimes having been asked by mods to redo or add some. I understand from personal experience the upload process is lengthy and non-trivial. Yet as a downloader, I think the benefit to downloaders when evaluating and choosing content is worth the time. The informative presentation of content and the enforcement of upload rules really sets MTS apart. The issue raised by the OP, not really knowing quite what you're getting, without a "naked face" shot, is surely something other downloaders would appreciate being addressed.

(fansee - If you're reading this thread, this is why I love your face sculpted, minimally made up sims. What you see if what you get.)