All mods are disabled entirely on new update

[thekillergreece]

No comment by Hinterland for this.

[Mroz4k]

I am pretty sure that The Long Dark doesnt have official mod support yet. These few mods were created by the community unofficially, and players use them at their own risk. I dont expect the Hinterland will respond to this and if they will, not in a very friendly manner.

I am fairly certain mod support is one of the most commonly requested community suggestions, and as such is probably in Hinterland´s own wishlist for future, but as far as I know, TLD does not have mod support yet.

But I could be wrong, just a regular forum member here. You could probably search around the forums for other Mod related threads and see there what their stance on the subject is.

[thekillergreece]

Just now, Mroz4k said:

I am pretty sure that The Long Dark doesnt have official mod support yet. These few mods were created by the community unofficially, and players use them at their own risk. I dont expect the Hinterland will respond to this and if they will, not in a very friendly manner.

I am fairly certain mod support is one of the most commonly requested community suggestions, and as such is probably in Hinterland´s own wishlist for future, but as far as I know, TLD does not have mod support yet.

But I could be wrong, just a regular forum member here. You could probably search around the forums for other Mod related threads and see there what their stance on the subject is.

The big problem is, there is a program that is used to collect PNG pics from the TLD code and they are used on TLD wikia. For example:

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Hunting_rifle

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Wolf

And ton of more. That program apparently doesn't work anymore since this update.

 

If Hinterland is taking way too damn long to implement even the very basic mods, why should they flip off unofficial mods as temporary workout? Makes no sense, tbh.

[Guest kristaok]

Be careful, I am only warning you out of concern... I don't want to speak for Hinterland, but I don't think they like mods, and I heard if it's mentioned people can get in trouble. I don't want you or anyone else to get in trouble, this is why I am just letting you know in a friendly way. 

Hopefully one day Hinterland will accept and allow modding since most companies do, I think it would actually help them not only sell more of TLD, but it would also help bolster the Forums, the Teams Rep, etc. etc. 

Back in the old days most gaming companies admittedly did not like people modding, thank goodness companies are starting to realize that usually those who mod don't want to cheat they just want to better their game. 

But yea I think also why modding is not supported for TLD is because it's not really finished at least story wise, even though the sandbox is where it's at in my opinion - I LOVE TLD Sandbox / Survival Mode. But also once people mod their game issues can arise especially if that individual has no real clue as to what they are doing, and Hinterland don't want to be bothered with the reports of issues because it takes attention away from those who have reports from their unmodded game if that makes sense. Basically modders mod at their own discretion, and if they don't know what they are doing they could seriously harm their game. 

But I understand why people are hurt after this update, we had the whole fiasco where people (me included) were not able to play their game due to crashing, thankfully I fixed my game, but also now people have lost their ability to mod. So I know it's hard for you, hopefully Hinterland makes it all okay and allows modding one day but right now I don't think they are for modding which is quite unfortunate.  

[Serenity]

Just talking about mods could get you banned from here. That's how much they don't support it

It's one thing to not actively support it in the game. New updates breaking mods is completely normal even for mod friendly games. But Hinterland's over the top aversion to even unofficial mods is pretty unique

Edited May 7, 2019 by Serenity

[thekillergreece]

7 minutes ago, kristaok said:

Be careful, I am only warning you out of concern... I don't want to speak for Hinterland, but I don't think they like mods, and I heard if it's mentioned people can get in trouble. I don't want you or anyone else to get in trouble, this is why I am just letting you know in a friendly way. 

 

4 minutes ago, Serenity said:

Just talking about mods could get you banned from here. That's how much they don't support it

It's one thing to not actively support it in the game. New updates breaking mods is completely normal even for mod friendly games. But Hinterland's over the top aversion to even unofficial mods is pretty unique

Idk why but this sounds too fascist move for a game dev company, let alone Canadian ones. I hope you will be proved wrong, idk why discussing a mod will now get you straight up banned in modern gaming industry world.

Edited May 7, 2019 by thekillergreece

[Serenity]

Maybe discussing is allowed, but I got temp banned from the Steam forum for linking to one. Even then most people are wary about doing more than mentioning things

[Guest kristaok]

1 minute ago, Serenity said:

Maybe discussing is allowed, but I got temp banned from the Steam forum for linking to one. Even then most people are wary about doing more than mentioning things

Wow I am sorry that happened... but yea I was told that people have been banned for even discussing it. So that's why I wanted to warn people that mention it, I really don't want to see anyone banned. 

[Mroz4k]

Also, be careful - the Hinterland dont take kindly to discussions of mods, modding of the game and or discussions on this topic, as seen here.

I am not a moderator or any kind, and I am not Hinterland staff, but I study company economics and maybe my explanation of why this is bad will help you people understand why I believe Hinterland cracks down so hard on unofficial mods. 

TLD is their product, and as such its protected by author laws. When the game receives official mod support, it means the company created another product which has tools to adjust their original product, through their own tools. With official support, Hinterland can monitor and control the modding and protect the players from potential abuse by modders. But, if someone unofficially mods the game, it means that they illegaly crack through the protective layer of their game, exposes the code which Hinterland has exclusive author rights for, and modifies it through unofficial means, completely out of the control of Hinterland. Problem is that in order to do this, they must break the author law, because the modification happens without the Hinterland´s approval. If the initial means of modding means that this person broke the law, what is stopping them from hiding malicious malware in these mods, to prey on the unsuspecting players? If this happened, the backslash would then fall on Hinterland, whom had no say in the matter in the first place.

To sum it up - in order to create unofficial mod, the modder must break the law. What is stopping them from using this oppurtunity to hide malware within them as well?

I would not be surprised if the TLD unofficial mods were blocked by Hinterland on purpose. The fact that unofficial mods exist opens them up to exposure, if anyone were to be damaged by the use of these unofficial mods, it could hurt the game and its reputation.

That is all I am going to say on this subject because I really don't want to get banned for discussing it. Unofficial mods are a bad idea and you shouldn't be using them, if you love this game and the company that made it.

[thekillergreece]

"What we aren't going to allow is people linking to mods or sharing how to mod the game." - We are not linking mods or sharing how to mod the game so we are good.

My main concern is, the update killed a helpful program that was used solely for the TLD wikia. I dont think thats considered as cheat tool if it is used for wikia, is it?

[Guest kristaok]

@Mroz4k - I never thought of it that way, that makes sense... I never really figured modding was illegal or anything. But I know what you mean, it's not illegal if it's supported, but since mods are not supported yet it is illegal. But still... forgive me (Hinterland), but if they made it easy by allowing mods and supporting them people would not feel like they have to go this route. One of the games I play excessively "Torchlight" openly allows modding, and because of that both the first and second game are thriving even though they are getting older - the first being 10 yrs old now. Also look at a newish game called "Stardew Valley" it's thriving because the company also allows and promotes modding. Last I checked another favorite of mine "The Sims" openly knows folks mod that game ALL the time, and yet nobody is admonished for it and The Sims is thriving due to that. 

But I better stop while I am ahead LOL... I just hope one day that Hinterland makes the right choice and allows modding whether it be through them or through others, because right now they are cutting out a majority of their fanbase. And no offense the game still is pretty niche, it's not really that well known, and it's not really that popular I have told people about the game and they have no clue what I am even talking about.  

[Amazombie]

For what its worth. 

[Mroz4k]

5 minutes ago, thekillergreece said:

"What we aren't going to allow is people linking to mods or sharing how to mod the game." - We are not linking mods or sharing how to mod the game so we are good.

My main concern is, the update killed a helpful program that was used solely for the TLD wikia. I dont think thats considered as cheat tool if it is used for wikia, is it?

Please don't discuss game hacks, save editors, cheat engines, or other game-altering software in our official forums. Thank you. Linking the words of one of the Community engagement officers from these Forums, a Staff member. So I wouldnt be so sure about whether this topic is okay or not.

Who adjusts the Wikia? The community, not the Hinterland staff.  

It may have been a helpful program but I would hardly call it necessary. You can still make screenshots then upload them on the site, manually, right? Might be more tedious but not impossible.

7 minutes ago, kristaok said:

One of the games I play excessively "Torchlight" openly allows modding, and because of that both the first and second game are thriving even though they are getting older - the first being 10 yrs old now.

I fully agree, and even if I wouldn't use them very much personally, I would greatly appreciate official mod support. It would solve the longest standing issue of "game content for survival coming out too slowly" by allowing the community to create official mods which would help people adjust the game to their liking. It would once and for all shut up every person who has ever complained about the lack of content because with official mod support, the amount of content would only be limited by the amount of modders, working on new, official mods. By using official tools provided by Hinterland, which would make these mods protected against any kind of malicious misuse of malware and such practises.

[thekillergreece]

Just now, Mroz4k said:

Who adjusts the Wikia? The community, not the Hinterland staff.  

It may have been a helpful program but I would hardly call it necessary. You can still make screenshots then upload them on the site, manually, right? Might be more tedious but not impossible.

Yeah, a wikia whose Raphael liked our work.

Making screenshots are shit quality and has background. This is why we use PNG icons as they are ready made icons with no background.

[hozz1235]

Hopefully this will be addressed in the next mailbag:

 

[Amazombie]

9 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

Hopefully this will be addressed in the next mailbag:

 

If you scroll up I posted a pic from my twitter, where they responded to me. My guess is mailbag will give same answer. 

[StrangerFromTheInternet]

1 hour ago, Mroz4k said:

If the initial means of modding means that this person broke the law, what is stopping them from hiding malicious malware in these mods, to prey on the unsuspecting players? If this happened, the backslash would then fall on Hinterland, whom had no say in the matter in the first place.

Just because we violated copyright law by creating unofficial mods doesn't mean we suddenly become amoral beings and start writing malware.

The way we've done things is that basically all mods were free, open-source software. That means that the mods' source code was freely available, e.g. on GitHub. Anyone can see what a mod does, and the code of all mods was checked prior to being included in any lists. Moreover, most mods used very permissive licenses, which allowed anyone to copy, modify, re-release, etc. these mods.

And no, I really don't think the backlash would've fallen on Hinterland if something would've ever got past these checks and a malicious mod would've been spread around. I've seen this back in ye olde Minecraft modding days: never have I ever seen Mojang get blamed for the actions of any mod.

And if you think about it: As long as the mods are unofficial, why would Hinterland get blamed if a mod did something stupid? If anything, Hinterland would be more likely to be blamed if a malicious mod had used their official API.

[atomic]

2 hours ago, thekillergreece said:

No comment by Hinterland for this.

Is this a necessary discussion? How many times do you want to hear that mods are not the priority right now. In a post dd. Dec, 25th 2018 Admin wrote " Mod Support is something that we have planned for the future but is not currently in The Long Dark. Unapproved mods tend to adversely affect the game’s performance and cause additional work for our Support Team "

This is one of the comments I have found in regards of mods. I've read more like these and all of them were pretty clear to understand. So why bring it up again and again?

 

 

 

[StrangerFromTheInternet]

6 minutes ago, atomic said:

Is this a necessary discussion? How many times do you want to hear that mods are not the priority right now. [...]

This is one of the comments I have found in regards of mods. I've read more like these and all of them were pretty clear to understand. So why bring it up again and again?

The difference is that before, we were still able to pretty easily create mods, even without official mod support. Mod support would've been nice-to-have, and with Hinterland changing their stance on modding, we would've finally been able to talk about it on this forum without having to fear the ban hammer.

But now, with them switching their scripting backend from Mono to IL2CPP, modding is pretty much impossible, so we'd need an official modding API to get anything substantial done. Heck, even with some fabled modding API, I don't see how people could feasibly create large mods as long as all the game ships with is native binaries.

[atomic]

4 minutes ago, StrangerFromTheInternet said:

we would've finally been able to talk about it on this forum without having to fear the ban hammer. 

No need to fear a "ban hammer". Admin wrote last year that "we are fine with people discussing their desire for mods". What they don't like is links to sites with mods. And he made clear, at least to me, why.

I'm fine with mods, don't get me wrong. But if it has been made clear several times before that its support is not #1 topic now, then you should not be worried that some possibilities have been closed down now. To me it's like my landlord would tell me all the time not to use his garden to grow chili. One day he will pave the garden and then my chili plants are gone...

[StrangerFromTheInternet]

Basically, the thing I don't understand is - if Hinterland is truly committed to adding mod support at some unknown time in the future, why are they trying to essentially get rid of the current modding community? And why switch to a scripting backend that will make modding exponentially more difficult? Do they just not see the impact this will have on their future modding API?

Or was all this talk about adding mod support just PR, and there never were any genuine plans to add mod support?

Edited May 7, 2019 by StrangerFromTheInternet

[Amazombie]

45 minutes ago, StrangerFromTheInternet said:

Basically, the thing I don't understand is - if Hinterland is truly committed to adding mod support at some unknown time in the future, why are they trying to essentially get rid of the current modding community? And why switch to a scripting backend that will make modding exponentially more difficult? Do they just not see the impact this will have on their future modding API?

Or was all this talk about adding mod support just PR, and there never were any genuine plans to add mod support?

Basically from what I'm seeing, this is the general feeling. Its not like this is something new? Or that this is a small number. Hinterland only recently made talking about mods ok, but if you look else where this discussion has been going on for a long time now, and it is a fairly large chunk of its player base who use and want mods. for a long time it was no, no , no, and now "its on the list" that makes it seem like they threw it on just to shut up the people who want modding. Personally, I've been playing this game since 2016 and while they finally "added it to the list" Nothing they've said or done makes it seem like they care that its important to the community. This change taking the current unsupported mods away is another way of them showing they do not care about the modding community in my opinion. 

[Admin]

Short-ish answer: mods broke because of a change in Unity we adopted to improve performances. To fix the current PC crash, we may have to roll that back and mods may work again for a short period of time. That is until we find a way to get those performance improvements in safely again, at which point mods are likely to break again. As for why we are currently not supporting mods, we have made it clear in the past: there are a lot of competing priorities while making a game like The Long Dark, with a team our size, at the level of quality that we want. At this stage, mods just create more work for our team still working and focusing on the core game (bug reports, performance issues etc.). We are looking forward to doing mod support justice with proper tools at a later stage.

[Amazombie]

5 minutes ago, Admin said:

Short answer: mods broke because of a change in Unity we adopted to improve performances. To fix the current PC crash, we may have to roll that back and mods may work again for a short period of time. That is until we find a way to get those performance improvements in safely again, at which point mods are likely to break again. As for why we are currently not supporting mods, we have made it clear in the past: there are a lot of competing priorities while making a game like The Long Dark, with a team our size, at the level of quality that we want. At this stage, mods just create more work for our team still working and focusing on the core game (bug reports, performance issues etc.). We are looking forward to doing mod support justice with proper tools at a later stage.

Well, thats certainly your right. I've seen people are already rolling back to previous version to keep playing with the unsupported mods and will just play that until the mods are made available again. Just hope you guys see the desire and maybe change your priorities a bit. 

[StrangerFromTheInternet]

2 minutes ago, Admin said:

We are looking forward to doing mod support justice with proper tools at a later stage.

This has been Hinterland's position for literally years now.

Can you at least throw us a bone and narrow down the time frame that we should expect? 

Also, do you plan to still support dynamically changing the game's code, which is what mods currently do using Harmony, or will the planned mod support be more restricted than our current tools?

6 minutes ago, Admin said:

To fix the current PC crash, we may have to roll that back and mods may work again for a short period of time.

If creating builds with Mono isn't too much of a hassle: Would it be possible to have two builds of the game, the default one using IL2CPP and a deprecated one still using Mono that people would have to opt into using Steam, at least until the official mod support is released? That way, we wouldn't just lose all our mods basically over night.