Mastaklo Mods | Skill Tool Release

'Sup people, lots of craziness going on in this thread, I thought I'd give my two cents. To preface, no, I have not made any Xenoverse mods yet (the things I would like to do require more knowledge and time than I have at the moment), but I have been a member of numerous modding communities over time (Skyrim, Sonic Generations, Star Wars Jedi Knight, just to name a few) to which I contributed. As such, I feel that it is pretty acceptable for me to make a comment on this community.


I agree with the bulk of your post, ZReincarnation, but this is simply false. Mastaklo does not own the authority over all of his mods. His mods are designed to be utilized in a game that he owns none of the rights over, they are based on intellectual properties that he has none of the rights over, and the models themselves use assets that he did not create on his own. He does not own them in any way, shape, or form, and charging for them is, as such, illegal. I am not trying to be offensive toward Mastaklo at all here, just laying down the actual facts of copyright law. These are facts, not my opinion.


I would think most people don't want Mastaklo to get into trouble, or the community as a whole. As you said, he has contributed a lot, and I personally have a feeling that he simply doesn't understand the copyright laws here and that it is an honest mistake, not that he is being intentionally malicious. I don't think he is being greedy or knowingly breaking the law, just honestly unaware of what his actions are doing. If we try to get him to face a lawsuit, we are getting him in trouble when I really don't feel he deserves that. Additionally, that could draw a cease and desist to the community itself, which would be very sad.

Of course, Mastaklo doesn't deserve to get flamed over this, but expressing disagreement with his actions and explaining the legality of it all is not flaming. I haven't actually seen much flaming or disdain toward Mastaklo in this thread, only toward his payment policies.


They have every right to complain about his decision. Not everyone has the time, knowledge, or resources to learn to mod, much less to take that time to create mods that provide them literally nothing in return. Modders mod because they want cool new things in the game or just because they think its fun, but someone who doesn't feel the same way shouldn't be looked down upon, they are merely using the things provided to them by someone. If they are unhappy with a modder's policies, I don't see why they should be excluded from the right to complain. There are many problems with charging for mods, aside from just the legality of it, which I'll get to in a second.

Already touched upon this, but I want to emphasize that just because he hasn't contributed doesn't mean he has no credibility. Even if he's wrong (which I'm not going to get into), the fact that he has not created anything has nothing to do with the merit of his argument.

Of course its very human to get emotional, but to jump to the idea that the forum should be taken down is a tad overboard. Again, if people are getting irrationally angry and rude and insulting toward Mastaklo, that's wrong, but as far as I can see most people are upset about him charging for mods, and are expressing disdain for that concept, not for Mastaklo himself. To get angry about a policy doesn't mean one can't appreciate what he has done. Just look at the paid mods situation on Steam: everyone still loves Valve and Bethesda, despite how angry they got at that, to the point that Steam finally took them down. People moved on from that anger and continue to appreciate both companies. I'm sure people are plenty appreciative of what Mastaklo has done and will do, as long as it excludes these policies.

Again, though, I must emphasize that anyone being irrationally rude or mean is not okay. However, I feel those people are in the minority.

Okay, and that was in the past, so it is irrelevant right now. Additionally, even that policy was illegal. If you require payment in order to release something based upon someone else's intellectual property, you have to have rights to use that IP.

Sure, lets walk in his shoes. Dario releases modding tools, mastaklo learns to use them and begins sharing his knowledge, primarily using this site. People begin to mod themselves and the community starts to thrive. Mastaklo gets a few thanks here and there, but nothing too extravagant. Mastaklo begins releasing his own mods, and people love them. Soon, Mastaklo begins requiring payment for release, leading to some complaint, but nothing too huge (despite the illegality of it). Shortly thereafter, Mastaklo begins charging for anyone to use his mods at all, leading to huge backlash.

I can see why he might be frustrated that people were upset, but one must realize that these people aren't wrong for feeling the way they do. The payment policy is both illegal and bad for modding in general, a backlash is to be expected. Mastaklo can be upset about this, but to threaten taking down the community or to claim that everyone else is being irrational, just because they don't want to pay for your mods, is ridiculous.

I also have to emphasize that modding isn't about the appreciation. If you mod solely for payment or for a "thank you", I'm sorry, but your heart isn't really in it. Modding is all about creativity and sharing. You create mods because it is fun to do and because you want to see new things in games you love, and then you share those mods because you want everyone to enjoy your work. If you get upset that nobody is thanking you or paying you for it, then I'm sorry, you're being entitled. If people EXPECT you to make them more mods, THEN you can expect some sort of appreciation for it, but if you are going to volunteer yourself for it you can't get upset when nobody pays you for doing so.

Now I'm going to emphasize here that I do a lot of modding, for multiple communities. I have published a mod on the Steam Workshop that has nearly 40,000 subscribers. This mod also has numerous comments on it. I'd say about maybe 10% of those comments are "thank you"s or talking about what they like about the mod. Maybe 5% are people reporting bugs. That leaves a whopping 85% of people asking me to add more stuff to the mod. These numbers are just estimates, but regardless know that the vast majority are people asking for more. Also realize that this means that a very small fraction of people who subscribed to the mod actually bothered to comment (40,000 subscribers, not even close to that many comments).

What's my point? My point is that I didn't flip out when people didn't appreciate me. I just kept updating mod, expressing my gratitude for the people who appreciated my work, and I continue to share the mod because I want to, not because I get a bunch of thank yous for it. I haven't updated it in a while, mostly because a lack of time, but if I did update it again I would continue to share it, and I would not be upset when nobody thanks me for working on it more. Why? Because I mod for the reasons I stated above: its fun, and I get cool new features in a game I love.

Now, the problem with charging for mods (aside from legal issues): it is detrimental to modding communities. Picture this: Mastaklo keeps charging for his mods with no backlash, and other people begin to follow suit. Many, many mods are now behind a paywall, inaccessible to anyone who isn't willing to be nickel-and-dimed by yet another game. Mods are essentially DLC now, only lower quality and cost a lot more (no offense of course, but obviously a single modder cannot accomplish what a development team can). This encourages all kinds of bad practices; people "stealing" mods by downloading them and then putting them up behind a paywall, people paying for a mod only to release it to the public for free, and hundreds upon hundreds of different versions of nearly identical mods that all cost money because someone didn't want to pay for someone else's Cooler or SS4 Broly or something. The incentive for modders is now to crank out as many itty bitty mods as possible rather than trying to improve upon the game's modding foundation and make something epic, because they're going to make more money if they can consistently crank out new content than they would if they worked on one mod for a long time.

This isn't just a hypothetical scenario, this is exactly what happened when Steam tried to allow charging for Skyrim mods. It was a disaster. Valve and Bethesda took major blows to their reputations, and the modding community became a competitive environment rather than a cooperative one... all of that in a much larger, more developed community of people who knew each other well. Imagine what would happen to this community if we allowed the same to happen here. A small community like this would be utterly destroyed.

Mods for this game can only get bigger and better if users continually share their efforts.

So, TL;DR, nobody should be mindlessly insulting Mastaklo, but for the most part people are complaining about the policy, not the user, anyway. Also, charging for mods is both illegal and detrimental to modding communities, and mod creators and users alike have every right to complain.

you are very narrow minded.and only seem to see one side of the story .  apparently you didnt read my comments either. 

squidgy617 by this time I think people know how it ll affect the community . talking to him about legal issues is alright . but this was just ganging up on him . that is just not fair.

he made a big mistake on saying he might shut down the forum . But its probably a claim he said when he was pushed to that point, its not likely that he would actually do so. But I will stop here too. If it comes to the point that he would close down the community I will take care of it. But I doubt it ll come to that point

It's a shame this whole situation happened. I really wanted that X and Zero, I was so happy when I saw them. Those were the guys I wanted from day one.

well,not everyone is from USA here,sometimes you have to do a conversion from dollars to the local coin,and sometimes that freaking value may be a few dollars but could be a lot of your coin. Not sure if it's relevant at all but,I wanted to say it quiet a while now when I saw HT prices... I wonder why the heck nobody on UN has proposed a "worldwide coin" that is the same for each country...totally irrelevant tho xD

riot inc

My reaction to seeing all of this for the first time went something like "oh boy what did I miss this time", then I looked a few pages back and noticed Mastaklo had pulled all of his mods in favor of selling them, and since I am a very opinionated individual I felt the need to express my own thoughts on the matter.

Mastaklo decided to sell his mods, that is his decision to make, sure I am not in support of it, and I am outright against the idea of selling mods (then it just becomes paid DLC in my opinion) but again that is Mastaklo's decision which he has the option of taking.

On the flip side people speaking out against such practices have just as much say in the matter as everyone else, and should be allowed to do so! Personally I am all for the donation route, so I am not against financial support for modders who often spend a lot of time and effort on the work they do, but this isn't a business, and in my opinion nor should it be!