Mods

[Rifleman]

26 minutes ago, Joelle Emmily said:

A lot has been said here, and some of what I'm about to say may be a rehash. But...

Modding can only improve the game. I play and am part of the Kerbal Space Program community, and KSP has a TON of mods, all of which improve and change game play to match the player's style and preferences. It has also led to things being implemented into the game which the devs, originally one guy, didn't think were feasible. For instance, they originally thought that multiplayer was an unrealistic pipe dream, but a collection of modders worked at designing a solution, and now, multiplayer is a planned future feature. They just recently added radio and signal mechanics, and, at first, they weren't going to add female Kerbals, now, Valentina, is one of their most popular Kerbals.

Another game with lots of modding options is Stellaris, and quite frankly, the replayability factor of that game would be significantly lower without them.

A strong modding community will only help Hinterland and The Long Dark, it'll add limitless features that devs couldn't possibly offer on their own, and will insure strong playability and replayability, and will only help sales. It certainly did for KSP.

Speech over. *gets off soap box*

The long dark are supporting mods but you have to agree to their rules. I even got a permanent warning on my profile because of it. The strong modding community exists but it's under the hinterland radar. e.g private Steam groups, unlisted wikias (that don't show up on Google and requires a link) and more, I won't reveal any of the community's because I don't want a extra strike to my profile.

[Joelle Emmily]

9 minutes ago, Rifleman said:

The long dark are supporting mods but you have to agree to their rules. I even got a permanent warning on my profile because of it. The strong modding community exists but it's under the hinterland radar. e.g private Steam groups, unlisted wikias(that don't show up on Google and requires a link) and more, I won't reveal any of the community's because I don't want a extra strike to my profile.

I assumed as much. Almost every single game will have modders, and, it's inevitable that'll happen. A point worth noting, is that if Hinterland opened up modding and made it a little more free for all, as KSP did, they could take credit for doing so, and gain a wealth of ideas and different points of view that would only improve their game.

It's kinda like fanfiction, most authors who have a problem with others writing stories about their universes, quickly lose that problem when speaking out about it hurts their sales. Ann Rice has never recovered from her cease and desist orders, though,,, she has seemed to have gone nutzo.

[Wastelander]

36 minutes ago, Rifleman said:

The long dark are supporting mods but you have to agree to their rules. I even got a permanent warning on my profile because of it. The strong modding community exists but it's under the hinterland radar. e.g private Steam groups, unlisted wikias (that don't show up on Google and requires a link) and more, I won't reveal any of the community's because I don't want a extra strike to my profile.

Modding communities in the darknet, what a time to be alive 

[Rifleman]

29 minutes ago, Joelle Emmily said:

I assumed as much. Almost every single game will have modders, and, it's inevitable that'll happen. A point worth noting, is that if Hinterland opened up modding and made it a little more free for all, as KSP did, they could take credit for doing so, and gain a wealth of ideas and different points of view that would only improve their game.

It's kinda like fanfiction, most authors who have a problem with others writing stories about their universes, quickly lose that problem when speaking out about it hurts their sales. Ann Rice has never recovered from her cease and desist orders, though,,, she has seemed to have gone nutzo.

The people at the other community don't want to show their ideas to hinterland. They think hinterland might try to get their wiki shut down. I can tell that there very paranoid, considering that they made their wiki unlisted and they have banned people who shared the link near where hinterland will know about it.

And the other modders at the steam group are the opposite. They would love to show their mods to hinterland.  

[Wastelander]

1 minute ago, Rifleman said:

The people at the other community don't want to show their ideas to hinterland. They think hinterland might try to get their wiki shut down. I can tell that there very paranoid, considering that they made their wiki unlisted and they have banned people who shared the link near where hinterland will know about it.

Well, you have to understand Hinterland's position here though - the game is in Alpha, it's their game, their debut. They want their vision released first, and I fully support that descision.

[Rifleman]

12 minutes ago, Wastelander said:

Modding communities in the darknet, what a time to be alive 

Actually it's called the deep web.

Basically the deep web are website or video that can't be found on Google.

This YouTube video is from the deep web, because it cannot be found on Google or YouTube

If you type in 2 Deep 2 Web on YouTube. It won't show you anything 

 

[Wastelander]

Huh, I always thought darknet and deep web were synonymous. Well, another day another bit of knowledge!

[Joelle Emmily]

24 minutes ago, Wastelander said:

Well, you have to understand Hinterland's position here though - the game is in Alpha, it's their game, their debut. They want their vision released first, and I fully support that descision.

Quite frankly, that kind of outlook is out modded, and, ill conceived. Modding does not change a developers core game, and they can release anything they wish in their updates, modding does not come pre-packaged. Their vision will always be accessible no matter what a community does. The idea that they'd want the world to see their vision first, speaks to lack of foresight and experience.

I'm a writer, and one of the things I was most afraid of when I was starting out, was someone stealing my ideas. Then I discovered, it's all been done before. Romeo and Juliet is a retelling of Pyramus and Thisbe, Legend of Zelda is a retelling of old Greek stories, the ideas in fight club were around when Columbus set sail. Right now, there are 3 or 4 games enough like The Long Dark, that if I'd played them first, I wouldn't be playing TLD.

This isn't a threat in any shape or form, but I feel it's worth mentioning, that if modding never occurs, I'll lose interest sooner or later. I'm already starting to get bored, and I'm only still really going to get achievements, and to see what else is added. I'm not all that interested in story mode, and in all honesty, I don't really care about their vision, I just like the settings and dynamics. Once I do unlock all the achievements, I'll likely stop playing for 6 months; then check to see what's been added, and if it's nothing I find interesting, I'll go back to KSP or something.

Yes this is their game, and yes they can do whatever they want with it, but, it's my money I sent on the game, and if I don't like the content, I wont by merch, and I might not buy future games. KSP has kept me hooked to them on and off since like 2012, I've bought Kerbal figures, I've bought other people the game, I bought shirts, anything to support them. If they'd never added modding, which I might add the community started without their permission, and they kinda HAD to go with it because of the response, their game would have been stale and one dimensional.

I bought The Long Dark after watching Scott Mannly play it on youtube, and liked the setting, I bough it and played 26 hours straight. Now after 3 or 4 weeks, it's starting to lose it's luster. Modding would add life, and a hundred loyal players trying to add content to keep a thousand other players hooked. Right now, it's what, a dozen or two people coding like mad to bring a vision to life? To tell 1 story from 2 different prospective? to build a narrative that'll last, MAYBE a few hours in a world that's already being fully explored?

Just a thought.

*Climbs back off of soap box*

[Wastelander]

@Joelle Emmily you're not wrong (I, myself, had to lose my fear of 'stealing ideas' for my homebrew worldbuilding), and I do actually agree that mod support is needed. However, I'd like mods to work on the full game, I guess, and since that hasn't been released yet I can understand Hinterland's position. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree here.

[Joelle Emmily]

3 minutes ago, Wastelander said:

@Joelle Emmily you're not wrong (I, myself, had to lose my fear of 'stealing ideas' for my homebrew worldbuilding), and I do actually agree that mod support is needed. However, I'd like mods to work on the full game, I guess, and since that hasn't been released yet I can understand Hinterland's position. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree here.

I don't think we are disagreeing, I think the only thing we don't see eye to eye on, is timing. I hate to bring up Kerbal Space Program so much, but they really do the whole modding thing well.

Updates often break mods, KSPs transition from 1.0.5 to 1.1.0 to 1.1.3 to 1.2.0 all killed almost every mod. The community just released updates, and almost overnight. Mechanical Jeb was, arguably, the first mode for the game, and, it's seen some 50 iterations, and changed hands several times, and is always available no matter the release. They've had two major updates in the past 6 month which broke 90% of the mods, each time, the mods were rereleased along side the game because they give modders early access to their builds. Players are happy, the game gets huge notoriety and ends up with console version that sell REALLY well, and the game evolves beyond what they'd originally envisioned.

[Wastelander]

True, it's the timing we disagree on. I remember playing a lot of modded minecraft back in the day - Minecraft had the advantage of supporting modpacks built around earlier versions by simply making said versions available.

[Joelle Emmily]

34 minutes ago, Wastelander said:

True, it's the timing we disagree on. I remember playing a lot of modded minecraft back in the day - Minecraft had the advantage of supporting modpacks built around earlier versions by simply making said versions available.

I think my entire mindset in this regard can be summed up in one sentence. I'm a diehard open source girl.

[Rifleman]

11 hours ago, Wastelander said:

Huh, I always thought darknet and deep web were synonymous. Well, another day another bit of knowledge!

A deep web cannot be found on Google and requires a link.

A darknet is a hidden service that requires authorisation.

The Hinterland forums have their own darkweb that can only be accessed by staff. It's called the Admin CP.