Do you mind if I ramble a bit?
Weeks later and the community is still whining against Vazkii... and I'm still laughing. And still facepalming, since stupid arguments like the one Gilberreke quoted are sadly too common in the modded MC community.
“What players want is most of the times not what is good for them… ”
Who the fuck-
THAT DOESNT MATTER. What a person choses is up to them, and no one can (or should) tell them they should go one way or another.
What does happen if we use the same logic for doctors?
Doc: "Pat, you need to stop smoking. It's bad for you."
Pat: "THAT DOESN'T MATTER! It's my right to decide if I should or shouldn't smoke! No one should tell me what to do! Now lend me some cigs, please."
Doc: "Are you crazy? Of course I won't."
Pat: "I have the right to smoke if I want to! Lend me those fucking cigarettes!"
If Pat doesn't want to stop smoking, that's their life, their right, their decision. However, this doesn't make smoking the "right thing to do", and more importantly: Doc is 100% in their right to deny Pat some cigs.
Going back to the Minecraft community. If you want a different gaming experience and decide to mess with the configs of a mod to achieve that, you're completely in your right. However, if the modder decides to remove a config option that they believe that yields less fun, it's akin to the doc denying cigarettes to Pat - the modder has this right, and they're probably right too. (Assuming the modder is a better designer than the player, that is.)
But there's something the example above doesn't cover, "artistic expression". Someone making a game (even a simple Minecraft mod) is engaging in an artistic activity. And while an art appreciator (player) has the right to say "I think this piece of art would be better if you did X", the one expressing oneself still isn't the player/appreciator but the guy making the game/artist. I think this is related but not quite the same as FC calls "creative integrity".
FlowerChild wrote: I've recently been feeling like quite a dinosaur when it comes to my views on creative integrity and such, wondering why I ever put myself through so much hell over it, so it was nice to see someone else taking a stand on something like that.
Worth mentioning this "someone else" is probably young. I wouldn't be surprised if Vazkii is 20 or so years old, I remember seeing some comments about college.
So the news are actually better - the young gens are doing it too. Maybe the "dino feel" is unjustified? :)