Thread Split: Drakon's Modding

[Drakon]

Well, I don't mean to be a dick, dude.. But did you see the two videos that Jason (Gametech.US) made of your work?

Those are both fairly self explanatory. And more importantly. In Gametech.US' AV Famicom video, Did you not receive a mint AV Famicom that you replaced with something... less minty?

I'm not attacking you. These are basic, rudimentary questions. Answer honestly, that's all anyone can ask of you.

Oh you mean that customer? I told him I needed time for school and he started freaking out at me demanding that I ship the system immediately that day with priority shipping. I had already fallen behind the course schedule and I really needed time to catch up. I had told him in advance I'd need time for school, I even had rushed to get his system done quickly to have time to work on studies. I must have shipped him the wrong system because I had a few identical ones and I was in a rush. Sorry. He also started making all sorts of threats at me. Same sort of threats as that guy I did the toaster for, that unless I immediately did his bidding he'd do everything in his power to attack my reputation.

And you're not being a dick. I really appreciate you asking.

[Voultar]

Well, I don't mean to be a dick, dude.. But did you see the two videos that Jason (Gametech.US) made of your work?

Those are both fairly self explanatory. And more importantly. In Gametech.US' AV Famicom video, Did you not receive a mint AV Famicom that you replaced with something... less minty?

I'm not attacking you. These are basic, rudimentary questions. Answer honestly, that's all anyone can ask of you.

Oh you mean that customer? I told him I needed time for school and he started freaking out at me demanding that I ship the system immediately that day with priority shipping. I had already fallen behind the course schedule and I really needed time to catch up. I had told him in advance I'd need time for school, I even had rushed to get his system done quickly to have time to work on studies. I must have shipped him the wrong system because I had a few identical ones and I was in a rush. Sorry. He also started making all sorts of threats at me. Same sort of threats as that guy I did the toaster for, that unless I immediately did his bidding he'd do everything in his power to attack my reputation.

And you're not being a dick. I really appreciate you asking.

Certainly you can understand why someone would have difficulty with taking your word in confidence, here. I mean, that's a pretty significant mistake. These people aren't handing you $100 to install one of Tim Worthingtons boards. I believe the front loader was $400+- for the mod-work alone??? I'm not critiquing your prices. I am however critiquing your lack of receptiveness to the customer base for whom you render services to. Someone shelled out $400 for mod-work that was far beyond the realm of sub-par, no offense. I'm just being honest. Of course they were livid.


If I paid $400+ for a toaster with that kind of mod-work. Aggravation would be a grand understatement for me, as the client.

[darcagn]

I must have shipped him the wrong system because I had a few identical ones and I was in a rush. Sorry.

[Drakon]

I really wish the customer had tried to communicate better with me. He acted like everything was fine and then went completely crazy on me when I told him I'd need a week or so to catch up with other things.

That toaster wasn't $400 for mod-work alone.

These customers did a lot of backstabbing, lack of communication, made crazy demands that made no sense, and threats. The toaster customer starting making a lot of threats and trying to tell me how it should be fixed instead of showing any willingness to work with me. All this anger wasn't caused by the internals. It was because he thought that the image was a little dark due to his rgb cable, and because for some reason it wouldn't allow him to use rgb and s-video at the same time.

[Voultar]

I really wish the customer had tried to communicate better with me. He acted like everything was fine and then went completely crazy on me when I told him I'd need a week or so to catch up with other things.

That toaster wasn't $400 for mod-work alone.

I'm just quoting Jason on the price there.

And again. I understand that the situation with your customer may have been difficult. But what does that have to do with sending him a totally fucked system, that wasn't even the original that was sent to you? That kind of nullifies any argument that you could make against him. Honestly, there's a fairly consistent pattern here. In your defense, every retort starts with "the customer". How about "the Drakon"? It seems like you're not wanting to take sole responsibility for these things. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it just doesn't make sense to me at the moment.

[Drakon]

Yes I shipped him an identical system that wasn't quite as nice on the inside, but it wasn't on purpose. I thought that's what you'd read it as when I wrote that.

[Voultar]

Yes I shipped him an identical system that wasn't quite as nice on the inside. I thought that's what you'd read it as when I wrote that.

Yes, I clearly read it. But that's not exactly in context with what you stated. You essentially cast blame on the customer for "rushing you". As a result, you sent him a botched system.


The Toaster incident. You also made an attempt to deflect and shift responsibility onto the customer for being irate and "not willing to work with you."


Do you see the point I'm trying to make? It's not to be an ass. It's to point out that you seem to have difficulty with taking responsibility here.

[Drakon]

So all those apologies for my past work quality didn't state that clearly enough? I'm not blaming the customers for poor quality work. I'm blaming them for making it sound like I don't care about anything. If for just a minute you could stop thinking about the quality of the work then you'd hopefully understand what I've been trying to discuss.

[Voultar]

So all those apologies for my past work quality didn't state that clearly enough?

That's the difference between a general blanket statement and scrutiny.

I bring up a couple of valid and publicly known incidents, and you try to deflect and shift the weight of responsibility around.

Certainly I'm not being unreasonable. If anyone believes that I am, please interject.


EDIT: Sorry, I see that every time I make a post, you make an addendum to what you've stated prior.

I believe what you're failing to understand is that the quality of the mod-work IS the representation of your own practices. Both ethically, and from a business perspective.

[Drakon]

If I thought you were being unreasonable I wouldn't reply. The issue is that you're talking about the quality of my work and I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people trying to make people believe that I don't listen or care. I never tried to mix these two things together, you're the one doing that. I can only apologize for the quality of the work so many times. If you don't read it and believe it, then what would apologizing again for the same thing accomplish?

You really think that the quality of my older work is a representation of what sort of person I am? Perhaps I was busy with more important things and I didn't have time to refine my skills or pay as much close attention to detail back then as you would. Or do you prefer thinking that I did it like that on purpose?

[Voultar]

If I thought you were being unreasonable I wouldn't reply. The issue is that you're talking about the quality of my work and I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people trying to make people believe that I don't listen or care. I never tried to mix these two things together, you're the one doing that. I can only apologize for the quality of the work so many times. If you don't read it and believe it, then what would apologizing again for the same thing accomplish?

Sorry, it's becoming increasingly difficult to offer a sound retort when you edit your post several times after I make one. I'm trying to keep everything coherent here.

I believe that you and I have a very different understanding of what workmanship is. And more importantly, what it means to the customer. It's part of the package, to disregard one would totally dissolve the other.

You're wanting to separate your craftsmanship from the ill relationships that you've fostered with people who've paid you money for services. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.


The pattern, Drakon. It's all about the pattern.

A simple example:

If I paid $400 (or even $300) for an NESRGB modded frontloader that was even in HALF the condition of that one fellas. I would be unequivocally convinced that you gave .003% shits about the quality of your work or the relationship between us. Be it professional or personal.

[Drakon]

Like I said there's plenty of people who respect me, like me, and enjoy paying for me to provide other services. I'm not trying to win back any of this business, I never wanted it in the first place. I only started it because people kept requesting it.

Why is it so hard to believe that if you hire someone who's inexperienced, that the quality turned out that way not because they didn't care, but because you hired someone who didn't have enough experience? When I hire someone and don't get as good service as I had hoped I don't blame the person I hired, I blame myself for not doing enough research first.

[Voultar]

Like I said there's plenty of people who respect me, like me, and enjoy paying for me to provide other services. I'm not trying to win back any of this business, I never wanted it in the first place. I only started it because of popular demand.

Why is it so hard to believe that if you hire someone who's inexperienced, that the quality turned out that way not because they didn't care, but because you hired someone who didn't have enough experience?

Well, that's a question of ethics.


If someone knowingly admits to being grossly inexperienced, but charges a person exuberant money for a service, that's self explanatory.

But hey, if you made that abundantly clear to each and everyone of your customers, that's their prerogative. As long as there was full disclosure.


I just can't see a customer spending that much money for mod-work under the notion that it's being performed by someone who really doesn't know what they're doing.

I take it that you did fully disclose to each and everyone of your customers that you were very inexperienced.


^ That's not a jab at you.

[darcagn]

I'm really not entirely convinced he isn't trolling us right now.

You never represented yourself as being inexperienced, Drakon.

[Drakon]

I know it's not a jab. I increased my prices because it was eating up too much of my time. Partly because my work was horrible and very inefficient, and partly because I was doing other things too. I just wanted a way to slow the pace down and that seemed to work. Most customers I did warn that my av port installs were really bad because I caught wind that some were bothered by it. No customers had complained about inner workmanship so at the time I didn't think to mention that too. Still, I had already posted pictures of what the insides of my own systems looked like. As soon as a customer would complain about the quality of something I had done I would usually add it to my list of warnings for new customers.

darcagn thanks for the friendly post. I was completely inexperienced at good quality work. I'm sorry that I had such an ego back then. Customers hadn't complained about it so I wasn't aware that it bothered them so much. I really wish people would have given me feedback instead of keeping quiet and turning it into this.

[Voultar]

I'm really not entirely convinced he isn't trolling us right now.

You never represented yourself as being inexperienced, Drakon.

I have to align with Darcagn. Throughout the era of this, Drakon. You've never represented yourself as an inexperienced modder.


If you have, and you can provide proof, I won't argue with you. But that's a pretty tall leap.

Nonetheless, what do you want to happen, Drakon? Do you want to be part of the modding community again?

[Drakon]

I don't want to be a part of the community again. I feel that if I said that people would only think I've been saying these things to get into it again and not because it's true. If someone really wants to go out of his or her way to hire me and understands what he/she is getting into then I won't stop the person, but I won't actively advertise any service.

The best proof I could provide is just my first work looking like this:



If you contrast it with my current work:



You can see that I care more than 0.003%.

[Voultar]

Well, I suppose I don't understand the point of this interjection.


I believe that you do want to participate in the modding community. To share ideas, figure shit out, properly rid the Genesis VDP of jailbar interference, etc.

Nothing wrong with any of that.

[Drakon]

No I don't want to be a part of that either. I just wanted people to know that they were wrong about me.

[Voultar]

No I don't want to be a part of that either.

Why not?

[Drakon]

I don't like being famous. And I receive better treatment elsewhere.

There's also the fact that people who were supposed to be working with me in the past backstabbed me.

[Voultar]

I don't like being famous. And I receive better treatment elsewhere.

Where do you receive better treatment from?


If you haven't been able to tell. I'm trying to facilitate and end to this for you. Granted you've done some god awful modwork. I don't like to see anyone get owned forever.

Perhaps if you stuck around and were decent to people, you could effect change here.

[Drakon]

I'm fine with being decent to people, I hope that others will learn to be decent back. What I really want to see is more patience. I've seen a lot of would-be modders fall into obscurity due to over-scrutinization from more experienced people. It's not cool or helpful to bash someone else's lower quality work because you have more experience or because you progress faster. Not everyone progresses at the same speed, that doesn't mean that they care less. I see a lot of people in places like this working against each other, instead of working together. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. The only times I'd really insert myself back into these threads in the past was when they'd start to focus on other people who did work that wasn't approved of. I don't like to see other people who're trying to progress and get into this get shot down. If people stop shooting others down and instead focus on providing non-public constructive criticism, there'd definitely a much larger talent pool.

[Voultar]

I'm fine with being decent to people, I hope that others will learn to be decent back. What I really want to see is more patience. I've seen a lot of would-be modders fall into obscurity due to over-scrutinization from more experienced people. It's not cool or helpful to bash someone else's lower quality work because you have more experience or because you progress faster. Not everyone progresses at the same speed, that doesn't mean that they care less.

So many people would take my polite replies that I couldn't help them for free with their project the wrong way that I simply had to stop replying to them.

It's a modding community. We typically help each other on general principle. If you don't have the time to exhaust helping someone. Perhaps you should just say "I really don't have the time?"

And I agree with you. There's a difference between being over critical and providing constructive criticism. However, it's typically best to set someone in the right direction before they pick up bad habits. Ie: Using copious amounts of hot glue.

That's no offense to you. But if we could gently guide these people, I would receive far less hardware to repair, with hot-glue to remove.

I never want to receive a PCB that looks like Solo in suspended in Carbonite Hibernation.


An ounce of prevention is worth a lb. of cure. ...Or hot glue.

[Drakon]

No offence taken. You have to understand that all attempts to "help" me when I started out were done in the form of public posts that were as rude and non-constructive as possible. If the same people had sent me pms replacing the rudeness with useful examples and actual help, it would have been fixed right then and there instead of it coming to this.

I've had people turn replies like "I really don't have enough time." into them taking it as me being an asshole. The only effective thing I've found is just not replying.

[Voultar]

No offence taken. You have to understand that all attempts to "help" me when I started out were done in the form of public posts that were as rude and non-constructive as possible.

I've had people turn replies like "I really don't have enough time." into them taking it as me being an asshole. The only effective thing I've found is just not replying.

Now Drakon..

I believe your insistence to use hot-glue was the basis for all harsh criticisms you received. I believe that people in the community made an ample attempt to sway you away from buying it by the pallet, but you justified your usage of it. Nonetheless, it snowballed into what we have today.

[Drakon]

All done publicly, and non-constructively. Not a single pm, and no remarks about it from customers until after people turned it into this. If you really want my advice that's what's needed.

I've sent a few very constructive private messages and e-mails to other people in the past. Some of these people were being publicly shamed and showed little signs of progress. I noticed right away that my private messages were much more well received and applied. I also gave these people words of encouragement, instead of tearing them down.

[Voultar]

If you really want my advice that's what's needed.

What are you referring to, exactly? Do you mean people PM'ing you with advice?

[Drakon]

That people are more constructive, less public towards and have more patience with people who are just starting out in and trying to learn modding. Instead of thinking "he doesn't care" try thinking "maybe he's too busy to improve any faster". This doesn't only apply to me, to anyone really.

[Voultar]

That people are more constructive and less public towards people who are just starting out in and trying to learn modding.

Maybe you should join Retromods?

I've made several posts with my own documentation for newbie modders, along with a couple of others.

It's a fairly benign environment, it isn't a place designed to tear anyone down.

Granted, 90% of your previous work was used as examples of what not to do.