Article on addon coding burnout

[Jinglehopper]

[reposted from the general authoring forum, it wasn't getting much attention there and I wanted to make sure enough authors had the oppurtunity to respond]


Hi Mod Authors,

I'm a writer and I'm developing a story about the pressures involved in coding ui mods for the WOW community. Modding takes time and effort. Even small mods take hours and I know the big mod projects have consumed weeks or months of man-hours to implement. To make it worse, some of you receive no compensation other than a rude comment about bugs or some random feature request.

I'm looking for people willing to be interviewed for the article. If you have any great stories about how you cope with the demands of the community on your coding skills and time, please send me a PM. If you ever thought about quitting, have actually quit modding to just play WOW more, or wonder why you ever started coding in the first place, send me a PM. If you have ever wanted to say "WTF people! I just need some time to sleep! Stop commenting/emailing/PMing me!" Now's your chance.

Send me a PM and I'll collect everything and write an article which will highlight the efforts you put into each of your mods. And of course, if you'd rather stay anonymous, that's cool too, but your story can still be told.

jinglehopper

[DFPercush]

Although this story does not relate to WoW specifically it shows a similar effect. A friend of mine (who does play WoW incedentally) is an artist who starting taking requests for pictures at conventions and things of that nature. He tells me how he never ever wants to do that kind of art work ever again, because so many people would ask him to do very specific things and then be very picky about it afterwards. It's just like a band performing on stage, the more energy the audience gives the performers, the more energy is shown in the music and the better atmosphere and better performance in general. It's important for artists (and programmers too) to have feedback and get a little love for their work. It makes it all worthwhile when someone tells you "man your code saved my ass so many times". I'm glad someone is making an article about this. Where is this article going to appear?

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by DFPercush Where is this article going to appear?

We'd love to have a copy of it up here when it is finished, as well.

[Jinglehopper]

Originally Posted by Cairenn We'd love to have a copy of it up here when it is finished, as well.

As it's for The Escapist, it will be online anyway. I'll be sure to send a link to you Cairenn when it goes live, thanks for the interest.

And you're right DFPercush, I have so much respect for the people who spend so much of their time basically to make other's gameplay more effective. I've got no coding chops of my own, but I've been using addons since I first fired up WOW. This is my small gesture to the community of which heretofore I've only been a consumer.

Whoa, that last sentence was pretty writerly, sorry.

I've gotten a few PMs from authors so far, does anyone know of any addon writers who have quit coding and may not check these forums anymore? I'd love to get their perspective as well.

[Jinglehopper]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/95/14

Here's the link. Hope you guys like it.

[Elegantprose]

Excellent read, I've always had a great respect for the coders of the mods I use, just wish the few wouldn't make it hard for the one, who in turn pleases the many.

[Mazzlefizz]

YOU TOTALLY DIDN'T USE ENOUGH SEMICOLONS! As a writer, you have an obligation, no a DUTY, to us readers to repetitively punctuate and occasionally abbreviate! I'm so sick of authors slacking at their jobs, with their "look at me, I can rite!" attitude and releasing half-ass non-semicoloned work! Is that so hard? wut is going on with u???

And there was no way to get to page 2 without pushing the next button. That sux.

[Mazzlefizz]

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I enjoyed that article, especially the dramatic flair you gave to the disappearance of Lozareth. It was a good read. Nice work, Jinglehopper!

[Jinglehopper]

Haha, well done. I should have paused more; it is indeed a moral imperative.

You're getting quite a bit of sympathy, Mazz. God knows you need it