Compensating modelers for their work

[Niezdara]

[quote author=Niezdara link=topic=17415.msg135982#msg135982 date=1377638424]
Last but not least appreciation SUCK! How many of you people would work hours IRL for an appreciation? I just don't buy that

What exactly do you think we do?
[/quote]

I don't know what do you do for a living. I hope you got paid for your job. Its quite hard to pay the rent, taxes and so on, just with appreciation.

[-Perception-]

Niezdara I fail to see a valid point to your reasoning..

If you want to get paid for your work, try selling it on websites especially designed for that. (There are enough, and as a decent modeller you probably know the most prominent ones.)
This is a non-profit mod, none of the devs gets paid for the endless hours invested, which certainly surpass the amount of time put in the creation of a few models.

Also, its quite common that appreciation is all that you receive when making models for non-profit projects like mods, and it kinda is enough, just enjoy the incentive for sharpening your skills.

I have personally put quite an amount of time creating and fixing models for a mod that I haven't even played a single time, just because the developer in charge is such a nice guy. 

[Hypernoma]

Not even talking about what we do for a living outside of NI... On my first day as a developer I was working on NI for 19 hours straight, every patch day hande and myself are on working for between 14-16 hours, senni has been working his ass off morning till night every day for weeks now, naozumi has put in hundreds of hours on web related crap, banks put in an inordinate amount of time working on ragnarok alone... I hate to think how much time and money I have invested into NI. It would be impossible to sit down and work out how much time each developer has put into working on NI and I'm sure the number of hours would be staggering. I personally know how much it costs to run NI and I'm the lucky head developer in that we had a good base of donators established when I took over running this mod. The last time I checked with worm he had spent close to 1000 euro on NI and I have no idea how much Jez spent getting this off the ground. My point is however we invest both time and money into this mod for nothing but the appreciation of players.

You may say that admins get the advantage of joining servers, however they have a lot of work to do in their position as admins, deal with a lot of trouble makers and often deal with abuse at the hands of players. They have strict guidelines to follow, forms to fill out for every kicked player and regularly have to carry out additional tasks for the development team.

Ryu was rewarded for making a massive contribution to NI and as Senni said, it was only after a considerable contribution. He worked closely with us making numerous models per our requests, changing models as requested and remodelling many things for us on a very short time frame, often with only hours to work in.

I would also like to address not being able to use weapons that players model; if you make a pike, chances are it will be for a pikeman class. If you make a bow it is likely to be for the archer tree. If you make a 2h sword it's likely to be a commando... I don't see how that is so difficult.

In regards to xenoargh, mackie and narf, I know who they are and many players do know who they are. Would they be able to pick out each of their individual models? Probably not. Could I pick out each of their individual models? I doubt it. I am however very appreciative of their work and I think you'll find on each of their OSP threads they say the items are free for use but to give the modeller credit. They do not ask for items or gold in every mod that uses the items but simply for their work to be acknowledged. We have done exactly that.

I am perfectly willing for senni to look at some form of rewards system for modelling but I have always respected our modellers for their great contributions while asking for little but recognition and our genuine appreciation in return.

[Maroon]

Damn, Niez, you're alone on this one.
I myself model for 3 reasons, mostly.

1. I enjoy making models. Easy as that, I like to have an idea about how something should look, and then try to make something from that visualisation (as long as it doesn't involve too much texturing )
   
2. I really like the appreciation for what I make. Isn't it nice when you have put quite some time into something, making it as perfect as it gets, and people see this, and understand it.
   
3. I wanna help improve this mod. I really do. I love NI, and I want to make it better, and the best way I can do that is modelling.
   

So yea, an extra reward is always nice, and it's maybe a little bummer if I find out that weapons I have made or will be making end up as weapons I will almost never see, as I won't have them myself, but I know that I helped improve NI, and I know someone, somewhere, loves what I've made. And that what keeps me going, not in-game rewards.

[Niezdara]

As I expected...Well I think we can end it here, unless someone else like to add how he appreciate the devs and their hard work.

Since all modelers seems to be perfectly happy with the current state of affairs, lets just close this topic (or even better delete it) and forget about it. It would be definitely better to keep current "respect, appreciation and recognition instead of gold" policy then degrade into that immoral and shameful "work for reward" thingy.

I humbly apologize for even daring to propose such an unacceptable idea which might jeopardise that great venture. It is clear to me now that I'm well below your high moral standards.

[-Perception-]

I have got some bad news for you if you are only creating models for a reward..

Check some of the websites that give models away for free, many of those are good quality, and some do not even demand giving them credit.
After all, it is art in a way, and you should mainly do it for your own entertainment.

[Gutsman]

Niez your last few posts have been very hostile I am not a modeller myself but if you only want to model to get money or mats in-game the I would recommend not modelling because for mods where the devs don't get paid you can help them by modelling, donating, mapping.

They will then appreciate that and if you make a post in the models section people would see who made the item their using if it is added to the game.

[Tajulek]

In my opinion, all NI's supporters should be rewarded.

[BlackLagoon_Revy]

(From Sphinx)

So reward to all admins, game admins, forum moderators etc..

Why Not ? Like you said, they trade time doing something else for the mod instead of playing ....

You wanna help, help. If you expect a reward , get lost (imo)

[evildan]

Im surprised she didnt list off a bunch of demands for work he wanted to do!

I will make 10 models, in reward i expect a urlls (earls) bane!