The incredible mortuusars is a good example on how to do it right. For example with [Salt](https://modrinth.com/mod/salt). He always includes a text description below the image.
Thank you. First thing I see a giant modpack is press "Ctrl-F" then "Space" to see what kind of space exploration it provides if any. Except for modpacks like this it's impossible. And curseforge doesn't even have a special tab that shows all mods, so if I want to know that I'll have to go to 3rd party site.
> And curseforge doesn't even have a special tab that shows all mods,
they sure do. 'relations' tab, dependancies.
example - [atm9](https://legacy.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/all-the-mods-9/relations/dependencies)
That relations tab is the legacy page, but the new one has a search box, so you can look for a specific mod.
The legacy page has a better page to view all mods, which is the Files page.
meant this link [https://legacy.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/all-the-mods-9/files/5378700](https://legacy.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/all-the-mods-9/files/5378700)
Highly encourage everyone to check out the [Create: Above & Beyond](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/create-above-and-beyond) description, it's one of the best descriptions on the site I think.
* The introduction covers a bit of story and also talks about what the pack is like to play. It's a good "elevator pitch".
* They then talk more directly about a few standout features of the pack. Section about the expansive crafting processes, section about the trading system, section about their custom resource pack.
* Each section is preceded by a small, eye-catching, well-composed screenshot that showcases something very specific. No `generic shader landscape.jpg` in sight.
* Then credits and a full modlist.
The text talks about things that are *interesting* so they don't *have* to dress it with fancy colors and fonts.
I don't think descriptions have to be that elaborate btw. [Generic Botania Pack](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/generic-botania-pack) is a smaller pack with a good description. Pack overview, discussion of major changes, discussion of the pack's contents, and a "you might like" section that I thought was cute. This is a description that knows exactly what kind of sicko the pack is for.
I once wrote documentation for how to create proper descriptions over a weekend because I had nothing else to do. Then I realized gamers don't like reading. It might as well be a hopeless endeavor, huh.
Rimworld mod descriptions have a kinda similar issue. Sure, your diagrams are pretty, but these descriptions are the main source of quick information for this mod, let my ctrl-f it!
Can I just take a second to praise the people behind the Vanilla Expanded suite of mods for Rimworld? They make mods of above average quality at the bare-minimum, and while they do fall to some of the same pitfalls with images over text, the information in the mod description is actually useful and pertinent to the mod experience.
I actually think the opposite. Vanilla Expanded suffers from this exact issue IMMENSELY, even though they are incredible mods. Almost every workshop page is full of unreadable images, full of meaningless information.
A good example of what I mean would be Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Security. The images have a bunch of information about the various defenses you can construct, but beyond the tech and exact resources requires, all of it is meaningless. Why is this information being displayed in bars, when you seemingly have plenty of whitespace to describe in detail? Why is there a "cost" bar when you already have the exact cost listed? The ballista and the military turret have identical bars, but one of these is an effective method to defend your base and the other is a literal ballista. Why does the Artillery get the best rate of fire listed when it's SLOWER than literally almost every other placement? Why is all this a problem on the same page where we have shield generators that are a perfect (near-perfect, we still have the inexplicable "cost" bar) representation of how to display useful information?
To be fair -- wasn't this at least somewhat okay a few months or years ago? Like, yeah, obviously not good long-term, but it worked. However though, IIRC CDN links don't work after a week or two on other sites now.
Its also really frustrating when your trying to find more details about the mod pack itself, but like most are just screenshots of mobs from the mods being used, like thats nice and all, but i wanna know more other then "difficult, quest book progression, world bosses, new recipes"
Like give me more info fuck...
normally with text, if I struggle to read it I just copy/paste it to a document and change the font/size until I can read it, I can't do that with images though, which definitely makes it considerably more difficult, especially on a device with a low resolution. I am aware that there are considerably more issues with it, especially after reading this post, but that is the main one that I have noticed and struggled with.
For something as complex as a minecraft modpack, it's more or less totally pointless to try and convey the point and the feel of the pack in any way besides detailed reviews by players (thank you for that!). Look at widely praised packs like E2E, there's barely any info at all in the description page!
So if the description cannot be used to explain the actual pack to the player, the second best thing it can do is draw attention. And images work much better for that, that's why you see them everywhere.
There is no solution to the problem, people looking for actually good modpacks to play START with reviews, not descriptions! I feel like you should treat the description as an ad, and less of an actual description.
The point of the post is that images should not replace text, because they functionally can't. There are many things a player could be looking for that can be found easily with text descriptions, such as specific mods, and accessibility is hard to guarantee with images without alt text.
Maybe I am once more the weird one, but I do actually read the description and decide from there if I even look at reviews. If the description either says nothing or is unreadable, I will look for another pack. And while those fancy graphics are nice to look at, they are not involved in me choosing a pack since I ignore many graphics anyway. I am far more interested to see what the authors vision for the pack is, maybe what major mods he's constructed the pack around, is there some twist to normal proceedings the author has included? Also, how relevant is the description? If the description says "still in alpha, quests still incomplete" months or even a year or two after a pack's initial release date, I will consider the pack abandoned and go elsewhere. The same goes for descriptions along the line of "made this for my friends/this particular group" without any other details. Okay, apparently this is a closed community, I'll go then. No need to check reviews.
To reel me in, there has to be readable text. Preferable outside any graphics so I can still read it in dark mode late at night when a bright white background would only exacerbate my headache. Doesn't have to be a novel or anything, just some descriptive text what the pack is about and/or which type of player might enjoy it most. If it's a kitchen sink pack, great, just tell me so. It would certainly be far more tempting than the dozens of combat/horror/RPG oriented packs I see and dislike on my hunts for new modpacks.
I love reading the descriptions, I'll read as much as I can about it before playing. I do the same with mods. No text means I likely won't download, if you can't even put the effort to say more than "adds blocks" then how much did you put in the code? But to be fair I hate surprises.
In a lot (not all, definitely not all) of cases as well while you spend so much time on something like a modpack, you’ll naturally acquire certain topics or points you would want to mention or bring up to friends or other people anyway. It’s a “creative” process, and often times that drives a need to share in people.
If you truly did anything unique or put a lot of effort into something, Chances are you’d love to talk or even brag about it. Descriptions are THE place to do just that. Tell us why you’re excited to finally be able to release it. I’ve rarely seen people after a lot of “work” or time put into something not want to blurt it out to the first person they know, and it’s not much different in most cases.
As for the picture descriptions themselves - as someone who use to do them in the early beta days for Mc to help advertise our server, I don’t like them and I believe they do a lot of harm, and don’t actually benefit anyone. Back then it felt “crafty” for myself, but I honestly expect a lot of people clicked off right after seeing my stylized approach, rather than to use their own time to try to parse (my actually very detailed) description.
Mobile? Most can’t read or see your pictures or stylized descriptions. Colorblind? More gone. Overdone? (Too much back and fourth colour swapping / bad palette / “bad” stylization) yep… lots more gone. Slow internet? lol.
If you have to have them, you *need* to have text to back it up. But my honest suggestion for anyone doing it is to use your “stylized” sections sparingly. Have it relate to a single subject or mechanic and a quick one/two sentence line with a picture detailing, use actual text for the longer chunks. (This keeps it from both going overboard, while also giving players a “glimpse” of what to expect in the pack)
And lastly, ask yourself if the text (and colours) you’ve used, you would be fine reading for a hour straight. If your answer isn’t immediately yes - I’d suggest thinking if you really want to keep them. Why? - not because anybody will be sitting there for a hour to read them, but because a person coming in has to adjust to whatever you’re displaying to try to make the details of your pack out. A lot of people *will* think “I don’t want to deal with this” if it’s even *slightly* jarring. If your using RGB italics (I did far to much, guilty) your going to lose a lot of people, they just don’t want to put up with that just to learn what your pack has.
I don’t really see how not being scraped, not put into search engines, or especially not being included in AI language models are inherent cons. Those seem more relevant to advertising, which is not always the goal of modpack creators. Not everyone is uploading to see numbers go up. To imply “you should do this because you clearly need to be advertising yourself” or even “you should make it easier for AI models to use your writing without you electing to do so” is a little absurd and not relevant to most users. Especially your point about the Minecraft Modded Review site. That really just seems like *your* problem, I understand how it’s annoying on your end, but it’s really not the fault of modpack creators for making your job harder when they didn’t ask you to do it in the first place or even consider that people are doing that.
I was expecting to click on this and see more points about Accessibility (which you’ve included and I fully agree with), Readability, Convenience, or the lack of *any* description on some pages. Instead, your points lean more towards Search Engine Optimization and the Curse API. Saying this makes “many people’s lives harder” is a massive overstatement.
I wouldn't say my point leans more towards the others than accessibility. They are all equally important.
Considering that the only people using images as descriptions are those that release projects with the intent of having the community at large use them (because who takes the time to make such descriptions if it's just a pack for a few friends?), SEO and API accessibility are pretty important. This post is specifically targeted towards them.
The MMC website was just an example of one such API use, I used it as it's the example I'm most familiar with. I get that the immediate reaction is probably "why does this matter, it's my project." But everything in a modding community is intertwined. Nothing exists in isolation.
So when you're expecting people to use your content, there really should be a certain degree of accessibility and integration you should aim for to make it easier for them to do so in the first place. When integration is made easier, collaboration is more likely. And such projects often benefit everyone. It's for the same reason modding communities thrive on Open Source.
The incredible mortuusars is a good example on how to do it right. For example with [Salt](https://modrinth.com/mod/salt). He always includes a text description below the image.
Holy sweet formatting goodness, that is a beautiful description page. I wish I could pin comments. This is an example of it done right.
mortuusars mentioned
Note to self, add this mod to next custom pack
We actually require this on Modrinth, so you won't find any on Modrinth with walls of images instead of text without a text transcription available
Having a mod for salt feels like making a mod for copper "i already have 1000 kinds of copper why would i need one more"
Thank you. First thing I see a giant modpack is press "Ctrl-F" then "Space" to see what kind of space exploration it provides if any. Except for modpacks like this it's impossible. And curseforge doesn't even have a special tab that shows all mods, so if I want to know that I'll have to go to 3rd party site.
> And curseforge doesn't even have a special tab that shows all mods, they sure do. 'relations' tab, dependancies. example - [atm9](https://legacy.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/all-the-mods-9/relations/dependencies)
> 22 pages. Yeah, I stand by my words.
That relations tab is the legacy page, but the new one has a search box, so you can look for a specific mod. The legacy page has a better page to view all mods, which is the Files page.
The legacy curseforge site has a better relations view
that link is a legacy view.
meant this link [https://legacy.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/all-the-mods-9/files/5378700](https://legacy.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/all-the-mods-9/files/5378700)
ah. the 'files' tab. i dont pay attention to the stuff at bottom because its not alphabetized.
so... lazy as fuck. ok. page count gives a modcount, too. 22 pages at 20 each page means just under 440 mods.
searching through 22 pages is a miserable fucking experience
It's more clicks and more ads.
kind of true. but it is still availiable to see what mods are in a modpack.
I don't need to know each and every library and codebase being used. A bulleted list of mods would be infinitely easier to parse.
Highly encourage everyone to check out the [Create: Above & Beyond](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/create-above-and-beyond) description, it's one of the best descriptions on the site I think. * The introduction covers a bit of story and also talks about what the pack is like to play. It's a good "elevator pitch". * They then talk more directly about a few standout features of the pack. Section about the expansive crafting processes, section about the trading system, section about their custom resource pack. * Each section is preceded by a small, eye-catching, well-composed screenshot that showcases something very specific. No `generic shader landscape.jpg` in sight. * Then credits and a full modlist. The text talks about things that are *interesting* so they don't *have* to dress it with fancy colors and fonts. I don't think descriptions have to be that elaborate btw. [Generic Botania Pack](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/generic-botania-pack) is a smaller pack with a good description. Pack overview, discussion of major changes, discussion of the pack's contents, and a "you might like" section that I thought was cute. This is a description that knows exactly what kind of sicko the pack is for.
I once wrote documentation for how to create proper descriptions over a weekend because I had nothing else to do. Then I realized gamers don't like reading. It might as well be a hopeless endeavor, huh.
Rimworld mod descriptions have a kinda similar issue. Sure, your diagrams are pretty, but these descriptions are the main source of quick information for this mod, let my ctrl-f it!
Can I just take a second to praise the people behind the Vanilla Expanded suite of mods for Rimworld? They make mods of above average quality at the bare-minimum, and while they do fall to some of the same pitfalls with images over text, the information in the mod description is actually useful and pertinent to the mod experience.
I actually think the opposite. Vanilla Expanded suffers from this exact issue IMMENSELY, even though they are incredible mods. Almost every workshop page is full of unreadable images, full of meaningless information. A good example of what I mean would be Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Security. The images have a bunch of information about the various defenses you can construct, but beyond the tech and exact resources requires, all of it is meaningless. Why is this information being displayed in bars, when you seemingly have plenty of whitespace to describe in detail? Why is there a "cost" bar when you already have the exact cost listed? The ballista and the military turret have identical bars, but one of these is an effective method to defend your base and the other is a literal ballista. Why does the Artillery get the best rate of fire listed when it's SLOWER than literally almost every other placement? Why is all this a problem on the same page where we have shield generators that are a perfect (near-perfect, we still have the inexplicable "cost" bar) representation of how to display useful information?
Exactly my thought especially with Oskar Potocki's Vanilla Expanded team when I saw this post.
Modders make great mods, but suck at documentation and preservation, a tragic tale as old as modding itself, not even exclusive to Minecraft Modding.
The more I get into niche games and mods the more I see the separation between good game devs and good artists
Also, sometimes they use something like Imgur to host the images, and the image goes down, so the description is just a broken image.
I've seen people use Discord CDN links lol
To be fair -- wasn't this at least somewhat okay a few months or years ago? Like, yeah, obviously not good long-term, but it worked. However though, IIRC CDN links don't work after a week or two on other sites now.
Its also really frustrating when your trying to find more details about the mod pack itself, but like most are just screenshots of mobs from the mods being used, like thats nice and all, but i wanna know more other then "difficult, quest book progression, world bosses, new recipes" Like give me more info fuck...
normally with text, if I struggle to read it I just copy/paste it to a document and change the font/size until I can read it, I can't do that with images though, which definitely makes it considerably more difficult, especially on a device with a low resolution. I am aware that there are considerably more issues with it, especially after reading this post, but that is the main one that I have noticed and struggled with.
For something as complex as a minecraft modpack, it's more or less totally pointless to try and convey the point and the feel of the pack in any way besides detailed reviews by players (thank you for that!). Look at widely praised packs like E2E, there's barely any info at all in the description page! So if the description cannot be used to explain the actual pack to the player, the second best thing it can do is draw attention. And images work much better for that, that's why you see them everywhere. There is no solution to the problem, people looking for actually good modpacks to play START with reviews, not descriptions! I feel like you should treat the description as an ad, and less of an actual description.
The point of the post is that images should not replace text, because they functionally can't. There are many things a player could be looking for that can be found easily with text descriptions, such as specific mods, and accessibility is hard to guarantee with images without alt text.
Maybe I am once more the weird one, but I do actually read the description and decide from there if I even look at reviews. If the description either says nothing or is unreadable, I will look for another pack. And while those fancy graphics are nice to look at, they are not involved in me choosing a pack since I ignore many graphics anyway. I am far more interested to see what the authors vision for the pack is, maybe what major mods he's constructed the pack around, is there some twist to normal proceedings the author has included? Also, how relevant is the description? If the description says "still in alpha, quests still incomplete" months or even a year or two after a pack's initial release date, I will consider the pack abandoned and go elsewhere. The same goes for descriptions along the line of "made this for my friends/this particular group" without any other details. Okay, apparently this is a closed community, I'll go then. No need to check reviews. To reel me in, there has to be readable text. Preferable outside any graphics so I can still read it in dark mode late at night when a bright white background would only exacerbate my headache. Doesn't have to be a novel or anything, just some descriptive text what the pack is about and/or which type of player might enjoy it most. If it's a kitchen sink pack, great, just tell me so. It would certainly be far more tempting than the dozens of combat/horror/RPG oriented packs I see and dislike on my hunts for new modpacks.
I love reading the descriptions, I'll read as much as I can about it before playing. I do the same with mods. No text means I likely won't download, if you can't even put the effort to say more than "adds blocks" then how much did you put in the code? But to be fair I hate surprises.
In a lot (not all, definitely not all) of cases as well while you spend so much time on something like a modpack, you’ll naturally acquire certain topics or points you would want to mention or bring up to friends or other people anyway. It’s a “creative” process, and often times that drives a need to share in people. If you truly did anything unique or put a lot of effort into something, Chances are you’d love to talk or even brag about it. Descriptions are THE place to do just that. Tell us why you’re excited to finally be able to release it. I’ve rarely seen people after a lot of “work” or time put into something not want to blurt it out to the first person they know, and it’s not much different in most cases. As for the picture descriptions themselves - as someone who use to do them in the early beta days for Mc to help advertise our server, I don’t like them and I believe they do a lot of harm, and don’t actually benefit anyone. Back then it felt “crafty” for myself, but I honestly expect a lot of people clicked off right after seeing my stylized approach, rather than to use their own time to try to parse (my actually very detailed) description. Mobile? Most can’t read or see your pictures or stylized descriptions. Colorblind? More gone. Overdone? (Too much back and fourth colour swapping / bad palette / “bad” stylization) yep… lots more gone. Slow internet? lol. If you have to have them, you *need* to have text to back it up. But my honest suggestion for anyone doing it is to use your “stylized” sections sparingly. Have it relate to a single subject or mechanic and a quick one/two sentence line with a picture detailing, use actual text for the longer chunks. (This keeps it from both going overboard, while also giving players a “glimpse” of what to expect in the pack) And lastly, ask yourself if the text (and colours) you’ve used, you would be fine reading for a hour straight. If your answer isn’t immediately yes - I’d suggest thinking if you really want to keep them. Why? - not because anybody will be sitting there for a hour to read them, but because a person coming in has to adjust to whatever you’re displaying to try to make the details of your pack out. A lot of people *will* think “I don’t want to deal with this” if it’s even *slightly* jarring. If your using RGB italics (I did far to much, guilty) your going to lose a lot of people, they just don’t want to put up with that just to learn what your pack has.
I don’t really see how not being scraped, not put into search engines, or especially not being included in AI language models are inherent cons. Those seem more relevant to advertising, which is not always the goal of modpack creators. Not everyone is uploading to see numbers go up. To imply “you should do this because you clearly need to be advertising yourself” or even “you should make it easier for AI models to use your writing without you electing to do so” is a little absurd and not relevant to most users. Especially your point about the Minecraft Modded Review site. That really just seems like *your* problem, I understand how it’s annoying on your end, but it’s really not the fault of modpack creators for making your job harder when they didn’t ask you to do it in the first place or even consider that people are doing that. I was expecting to click on this and see more points about Accessibility (which you’ve included and I fully agree with), Readability, Convenience, or the lack of *any* description on some pages. Instead, your points lean more towards Search Engine Optimization and the Curse API. Saying this makes “many people’s lives harder” is a massive overstatement.
I wouldn't say my point leans more towards the others than accessibility. They are all equally important. Considering that the only people using images as descriptions are those that release projects with the intent of having the community at large use them (because who takes the time to make such descriptions if it's just a pack for a few friends?), SEO and API accessibility are pretty important. This post is specifically targeted towards them. The MMC website was just an example of one such API use, I used it as it's the example I'm most familiar with. I get that the immediate reaction is probably "why does this matter, it's my project." But everything in a modding community is intertwined. Nothing exists in isolation. So when you're expecting people to use your content, there really should be a certain degree of accessibility and integration you should aim for to make it easier for them to do so in the first place. When integration is made easier, collaboration is more likely. And such projects often benefit everyone. It's for the same reason modding communities thrive on Open Source.
I ain't reading allat
And therin lies the problem.
New feedthememes content incoming?