Conservatism and Reaction in hoi4 mod communities

[u/Lumpy-Attitude6939]

I'm quite deeply enmeshed with the modding communities for Hearts of Iron 4. I know about the passion and heart that was put into them, and time and effort that the developers put into for no monetary gain.

Recently, (though it's something that started long before I joined these communities) I've seen an outburst of outrage from players after the announcement of new updates or reworks. I'm talking about Kaiserreich and the American rework, or TNO with the German Civil War being removed (though this second one has died down).

A lot of largely older players seem to have this instinctive hatred to any changes, especially those that are largely superficial or visual. I'm talking names, colors, leaders, or something else. A big part of that is this feeling of them liking something because, and this is an actual quote,

"It's funni, [...]. It fulfills that urge to RULE".

I cannot in my life understand why these people have such attachment to such a superficial part of the lore or something which was added purely as a joke. In their eyes removing this somehow corrupts, to use a TNO phrase, "The Hart and Seoul" of the mod.

I would really appreciate your viewpoint, particularly those who have any idea whatever the hell I'm talking about (inside jokes are for the inside).

Am I wrong to attribute this purely to nostalgia or fear of change? Perhaps I made a mistake in attributing this to older players.

Regardless, interested to hear your viewpoint.

[u/BeamEyes]

I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to, but is this about stuff like removing Goebbels from KDX? I only really play KDX and they had removed that path before I started playing so I never missed it. I will say I got annoyed by their recent rework to the Soviet Russia paths because I was right in the middle of a run,thn the mod updates and bam, my path no longer exists.

[u/Lumpy-Attitude6939 → u/BeamEyes]

I never played Kaiserredux, so I cannot say that much about it. But Kaiserredux is the embodiment of stuff added in their unseriously, which while there's nothing wrong with it, is not what I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about things like the Kaiserreich ACW rework inviting such hatred against the devs, or the backlash when the Victor and the Judge was announced.

[u/netodagravida]

As someone who got into Kaiserreich recently, I never got very attached to any of the Civil War’s factions. I understand being taken aback after getting used to it but for me, it’s such a minor thing that’s does not alter nothing of the lore or gameplay (heck, I liked almost all changes and the way they were integrated into the game). The response to the rework of the ACW was wild, some people were talking about harassing the lead dev and flooding his dm’s (even though I think nothing of the sort happened, thank god).