Debate between a legit game owner, and me (cracked game) on MCCC discord!!!!

I wanted to have some fun, so I went to the MC Command Center Discord chat, and fired it up.
They are completely bullies. (BTW I took screenshots from my other account that i 'Pretended' i bought the game)
It's such a nice experience. But looks like they are just richfags and don't care.




Looks like they just don't care about poor people. How selfish.

There are many fora not willing to deal with illegal downloads.
I've been banned many times.

Looks like the quality of discussions is pretty much comparable to the average subreddit or Facebook-group. 

Apart from that, think about it this way. There are modders who invest time in creating these mods. They post the creations on platforms that specialize in mods. I don't know if there is any (even indirect) financial compensation for these creators/if the mod creators in any way get a share of the site's advertising revenue. But let's leave it at that for the moment. Imagine yourself being such a creator. What could you want from posting your creation in public, and on a well-known internet platform? You expect for starters lots of "likes/thumbs ups". You expect maybe also more deeper connections (real-life friendships). And who knows, if you're a college student maybe there is also the implicit expectation of "being recognized" one day, by one of these game developing studios. After all: what's the chance for the average person these days (with or without a college degree) to even find a half-decent paying job? In this context, even mediocre advertising revenue on a website will make certain people do or say almost anything.

If there is now any even remote talk about piracy on these platforms, imagine how the chances of these things are going in a "nosedive". Right, you will be stigmatized. Some of these people (like possibly this "EG"-Moderator in the screenshots) may now say: "we are against piracy for idealistic reasons !111". But mostly it isn't, or it is not the sole reason. More often than not materialistic considerations play a major role.

If you really needed support on these Forums Discord servers/subreddits/Facebook groups, you should never mention your game is pirated. Unless the platform is clearly about a piracy-related matter. Mostly these mods just work fine on pirated games as well, if the patch version matches. 

Try not taking it too personally. I'm also thinking how I would react if one of these clowns came to the Forum or the FB-page of G4TW. And started picking a virtual fight. Correct, the posts on the Forum will be censored/deleted. And on Facebook chances are there will be bans.

I would buy it but it's ridiculously expensive, it costs about $488 with all the DLC's, it's not worth it..

The_gh0stm4n wrote:Looks like the quality of discussions is pretty much comparable to the average subreddit or Facebook-group. 

Apart from that, think about it this way. There are modders who invest time in creating these mods. They post the creations on platforms that specialize in mods. I don't know if there is any (even indirect) financial compensation for these creators/if the mod creators in any way get a share of the site's advertising revenue. But let's leave it at that for the moment. Imagine yourself being such a creator. What could you want from posting your creation in public, and on a well-known internet platform? You expect for starters lots of "likes/thumbs ups". You expect maybe also more deeper connections (real-life friendships). And who knows, if you're a college student maybe there is also the implicit expectation of "being recognized" one day, by one of these game developing studios. After all: what's the chance for the average person these days (with or without a college degree) to even find a half-decent paying job? In this context, even mediocre advertising revenue on a website will make certain people do or say almost anything.

If there is now any even remote talk about piracy on these platforms, imagine how the chances of these things are going in a "nosedive". Right, you will be stigmatized. Some of these people (like possibly this "EG"-Moderator in the screenshots) may now say: "we are against piracy for idealistic reasons !111". But mostly it isn't, or it is not the sole reason. More often than not materialistic considerations play a major role.

If you really needed support on these Forums Discord servers/subreddits/Facebook groups, you should never mention your game is pirated. Unless the platform is clearly about a piracy-related matter. Mostly these mods just work fine on pirated games as well, if the patch version matches. 

Try not taking it too personally. I'm also thinking how I would react if one of these clowns came to the Forum or the FB-page of G4TW. And started picking a virtual fight. Correct, the posts on the Forum will be censored/deleted. And on Facebook chances are there will be bans.

This is a very good argument but I also agree with the original poster that most of the people doing mods and such are american or at least from western world, where piracy is much more frowned upon I feel, (you wouldn't download a car!?!) I'm pretty sure in america piracy is even a crime for which one can pay fines and of course they are speaking from their point of view, they don't want to get in trouble or get anyone else in trouble. In second and third world countries governments don't give a toss about this stuff, I grew up with pirated games. Pirated games were the only way to even get games in my country a few years ago. When there will be antipiracy laws here I will also probably be more careful

In my opinion, there's no use in mentioning your game is cracked, because 99.9% of the time, MCCC and other mods' creators can't tell the difference. I've had my mods looked at with logs by these folks many times, no difference that's easily noticeable. "The files are different" is a bunch of phooey. 

The Sims 4 community is the most anti-piracy crowd I've seen in my simming years; sims 2 community gives no hecks unless you're on MTS, sims 3 community has been churning out BGC stuff for years, sims 1 community is probs just thankful you're still playing at all. 

So yeah, with sims 4, you're better off just coming in like you would if you owned all games legit, no explicit mentions of piracy.

Okay, so... this is a topic that is relevant to several of my hobbies, and I'm going to start off by giving you a little advice. Intentionally going out of your way to bring up pirated games to a community that you know is rather passionately opposed to it is not a good indicator of whether they're insensitive dickbags or not, because all you're doing is baiting them into arguing with you. Even if your reasoning is sound and your plight relatable, you won't get sympathy from people when all you look like is an antagonistic troll.

Though I pirate this game and use emulators for old games as well, in most other communities I tend to be on the legit side, not because I have any problems with pirated or recast/bootleg things, but because I have the means to own and enjoy the legitimate items, and you wouldn't believe how nice, normal, and even sympathetic some of the people are until someone presses one of their buttons. In one of the communities that I'm a part of, bringing up that you have recasts/bootlegs and might even support the creation of said bootlegs is tantamount to proclaiming that you are the child of Satan and are going to systematically sacrifice every member of the legit community to feed the recast agenda. The witch hunts get so nasty that it is quite frankly terrifying to the point where most of the reasonable people (like myself and a number of my friends) just shut up and don't say anything in order to stay out of the line of fire, and actual supporters of the other side have to hide behind several layers of anonymity to be safe. But even with that, does that make them jerks who don't understand what it means to be poor? No. They're just an angry mob with torches and pitchforks fighting over a matter of ideals. (Oftentimes there are laws involved, but when it comes to the community's stance that's 100% ideals.) Some of them may even be as poor as you and still support the other side, because they just flat out believe that pirating is wrong. It's a war, and a very nasty one at that, and most often it's just better to stay out of it.

Mizukithepanda wrote:Intentionally going out of your way to bring up pirated games to a community that you know is rather passionately opposed to it is not a good indicator of whether they're insensitive dickbags or not, because all you're doing is baiting them into arguing with you.

Hello and welcome to the Forum,


I suppose that part of your post was a reference to the OP's starting line:

KidDude wrote:I wanted to have some fun, so I went to the MC Command Center Discord chat, and fired it up (...)

I initially did not read much into this, but yes, it can be understood as deliberately bringing up problem issues. Then again, only the OP knows for sure what the intention was. I myself would not have done such a thing either, not even if I was bored to death, simply because it's not worth my time. Just in the same way as a fervent anti-piracy fighter will quickly realize that being hostile toward us on G4TW won't yield much benefit either. 

But if it's a first time pirate; like a kid downloading their first cracked game (a TS4) and not knowing that you should not ask for support on pirated stuff unless you know the platform clearly supports piracy? Then the reaction of these users would not have been different most likely. Even if the kid asked in the politest/friendliest way possible. Whether an offending post happened with intention/premeditation or not is for practical purposes only secondary in my opinion, because there is no way of knowing such intentions. Do we know for sure that the OP was an antagonistic troll in this instance? To what extent are we sure? Enough to make a banning decision? I myself am not 100% sure, although the quoted sentence is an admittedly strong indicator, plus the fact that the OP apparently did not stop discussing after the first "warning". You can make a moderating decision based on circumstantial evidence like that (we also do that on G4TW in problem cases), but you will never know for sure what a person may have had in mind when posting. It's almost always an uncomfortable decision-making process, and there will always be an unknown variable.

As for idealism. Regardless of what the intention of a poster is, community moderators will make moderating decisions, which can be wrong or right. Even if there is no legal obstacle, or financial interest in pursuing a certain line of community stance, the "angry mob with pitchforks" is a metaphor that will be used to attract new (and like-minded, of course) community members. And surely there are people who believe piracy is wrong out of a sense of "justice". In my experience though, at least Western/Westernized culture has a tendency to uphold highly idealistic & abstract values, while discarding materialistic motives. In public, most people would always go for the idealism argument, even if there is a secondary and more tangible benefit. Maybe that "EG" Moderator and the other staff are not directly supported by EA in this instance, but I am of the opinion that these platforms still receive some kind of attention by game publishers. Of course: mods oftentimes enhance the game experience, and could help advertising games/gather new customers.

The_gh0stm4n wrote: But if it's a first time pirate; like a kid downloading their first cracked game (a TS4) and not knowing that you should not ask for support on pirated stuff unless you know the platform clearly supports piracy? Then the reaction of these users would not have been different most likely. Even if the kid asked in the politest/friendliest way possible. Whether an offending post happened with intention/premeditation or not is for practical purposes only secondary in my opinion, because there is no way of knowing such intentions. Do we know for sure that the OP was an antagonistic troll in this instance? To what extent are we sure? Enough to make a banning decision? I myself am not 100% sure, although the quoted sentence is an admittedly strong indicator, plus the fact that the OP apparently did not stop discussing after the first "warning". You can make a moderating decision based on circumstantial evidence like that (we also do that on G4TW in problem cases), but you will never know for sure what a person may have had in mind when posting. It's almost always an uncomfortable decision-making process, and there will always be an unknown variable.

First of all, thanks. It's great to be here.

Unfortunately, you're right. If there is any difference in how they're treated, it's because someone with enough sway in the group to get people to stand behind them picked up on the scant few signs there might've been that this was just an innocent first timer and not someone out to pick a fight, which really doesn't happen often enough. That said, people coming to pick a fight in general is surprisingly common on both sides. I've never understood it. It's never been something that I considered worth my time and emotional investment, and yet people claim that it's fun and will make judgments about people that probably aren't true based on an argument that has a heavy basis in idealism.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:As for idealism. Regardless of what the intention of a poster is, community moderators will make moderating decisions, which can be wrong or right. Even if there is no legal obstacle, or financial interest in pursuing a certain line of community stance, the "angry mob with pitchforks" is a metaphor that will be used to attract new (and like-minded, of course) community members. And surely there are people who believe piracy is wrong out of a sense of "justice". In my experience though, at least Western/Westernized culture has a tendency to uphold highly idealistic & abstract values, while discarding materialistic motives. In public, most people would always go for the idealism argument, even if there is a secondary and more tangible benefit. Maybe that "EG" Moderator and the other staff are not directly supported by EA in this instance, but I am of the opinion that these platforms still receive some kind of attention by game publishers. Of course: mods oftentimes enhance the game experience, and could help advertising games/gather new customers.

I really can't argue with you on this. It's always a possibility that there are ulterior reasons for them to be openly against it. I think I even alluded to it before, but there have been plenty of times where I wanted to jump in and defend someone who was getting raked over the coals for supporting the opposite side of the argument, but couldn't simply because of what consequences jumping to their defense would have for me. As much as it's terrible, sometimes you have to forgo ideas of heroism and being right in order to protect yourself and possibly others.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:Looks like the quality of discussions is pretty much comparable to the average subreddit or Facebook-group. 

Apart from that, think about it this way. There are modders who invest time in creating these mods. They post the creations on platforms that specialize in mods. I don't know if there is any (even indirect) financial compensation for these creators/if the mod creators in any way get a share of the site's advertising revenue. But let's leave it at that for the moment.

There is now a way for modders to get payed thru donation, and many are doing it these days. they have public releases of stable mods which are available thru the normal websites like MTS and others, then they have pre-releases that are available to those that donate that are only available thru this other site. its a site called patreon. https://www.patreon.com/

they use these people that donate as testers, so they get to try mods like a month or more in advance.

Deaderpool who makes MC Command is using this site.

there is also one other modder who's name i wont mention being that this is a family friendly site, but he's bringing in more a month than anything i ever made from any job i ever had. for people that make really good mods, that can now be a full time job with no need for a real one. there are lots of people willing to support them thru donations, and more and more modders are starting to do this.

Misfit203 wrote:
There is now a way for modders to get payed thru donation, and many are doing it these days. they have public releases of stable mods which are available thru the normal websites like MTS and others, then they have pre-releases that are available to those that donate that are only available thru this other site. its a site called patreon. https://www.patreon.com/

they use these people that donate as testers, so they get to try mods like a month or more in advance.

Deaderpool who makes MC Command is using this site.

there is also one other modder who's name i wont mention being that this is a family friendly site, but he's bringing in more a month than anything i ever made from any job i ever had. for people that make really good mods, that can now be a full time job with no need for a real one. there are lots of people willing to support them thru donations, and more and more modders are starting to do this.

I have to admit I didn't know about this "patreon" thing beforehand, then again, I think the same can be applied here: a modder who wants to become 'well-known' may have to think twice about their stance on cracked games. They mostly won't give support there either, I guess.

Mizukithepanda wrote:
First of all, thanks. It's great to be here.

Unfortunately, you're right. If there is any difference in how they're treated, it's because someone with enough sway in the group to get people to stand behind them picked up on the scant few signs there might've been that this was just an innocent first timer and not someone out to pick a fight, which really doesn't happen often enough. That said, people coming to pick a fight in general is surprisingly common on both sides. I've never understood it. It's never been something that I considered worth my time and emotional investment, and yet people claim that it's fun and will make judgments about people that probably aren't true based on an argument that has a heavy basis in idealism. 

(...)

I really can't argue with you on this. It's always a possibility that there are ulterior reasons for them to be openly against it. I think I even alluded to it before, but there have been plenty of times where I wanted to jump in and defend someone who was getting raked over the coals for supporting the opposite side of the argument, but couldn't simply because of what consequences jumping to their defense would have for me. As much as it's terrible, sometimes you have to forgo ideas of heroism and being right in order to protect yourself and possibly others.

Not really anything to add there, but maybe a related side-thought: I wish more of these gaming(-related) platforms had a disclaimer in their rules/TOS that no support is given to people with cracked games. If it's not already clear from the content of the discussion; and I don't think that general gaming/modding discussion legally excludes giving support on cracked stuff. Openly encouraging or even releasing cracked games is one thing, but merely giving support or discussing about them is quite another, and I doubt that this is illegal in America. Then again, legal experts from America and their European fans seem to increasingly circulate the theory of copyright infringement facilitation. And giving support on cracked games is being interpreted as such facilitation.

Since most of these modding sites are based in America, maybe it is "assumed" that the audience is aware of this alleged connection between illegality and support on cracked games. Again, I myself don't necessarily find this connection logical, but I don't live in America and I probably understand too little about customs there to give a more in-depth comment about this. 

Or, maybe I'm indeed thinking far too complicated: quite possibly Moderator EG just wanted to prevent possible accusations down the road along the lines of "ewww, Moderator EG indirectly supports piracy !11111". Maybe she just needs to appease her constituents, and what is shown in the screenshots is not her actual/personal opinion on cracked stuff. Does that make me feel more sympathy toward the person? Probably not, but then I'm from the other side of the aisle, and therefore you may call me biased.

I agree about EG. I went on to ask from help from Deaderpool & they were really rude as heck so I'm not surprised about this at all.