Could we enable mods for the long dark?


oplli

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Yea and no. I would love to see some visual upgrades for things like lighting that the public could do, but when you open that soon, next thing you know you see people hunting bears with M16s and laser rifles, moose replaced by Thomas the tank engine, and zombies running around.

I think sometimes it’s just best to let a game stay true to the vision. The mechanics built in work. They may not be perfect but they make the game work the way it does.

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Surely if they can add all that, they'd be able to overcome lack of ingame mod and add something themselves?

Zombies could add a new degree of difficulty! Imagine shooting a moose and waiting for tomorrow to grab that nice hide and all that meat after the blizzard settles, only to find three zombies ruined the coat and half the meat is gone and infected! That would surely push me over the edge and reach for my m16 too!

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Heh, I have no interest in lasering over a bear. People who want stuff like that should check out STALKER:Anomaly. You can shoot mutants with a PKM or RPG. I want the following mods:

A massive animal spawn reduction
Heavily reduced rabbit snarring
Realistic meat and calorie amounts for animals
Animals can freely wander and not be stuck in their bubbles
Animal tracks last much much longer, possibly days, so we can hunt them down
House temperatures always move towards the outside temperature
A home heating system so heating a home in important
A fishing mod so it's not so OP
Possibly a bone tool mod so I can try living long term without a forge in TWM or somewhere
Highly reduced or removed decay of items. A coat inside a house that isn't worn would not decay at all, and food kept below -5 or whatever stops decaying.
A more detailed food system where you slowly get weaker(or stronger) over time from not eating instead of taking health damage
A more detailed thirst system where you don't start dying in under a day from dehydration. Again no health damage from this, but you will suffer effects and eventually die.
A more detailed hypothermia system where you don't take damage from cold, but you can freeze to death. Frostbite can still cause damage.
Modified health regen. The current awake regen on lowest would be the new sleep regen, and the lowest awake regen would be cut in half.
Maybe a sprain system where sprains have around a 0.01% chance compared to the current system of happening but they are far far worse and last for potentially weeks
A new sprain chance where sprains have a higher chance of happening whenever you get into a falling state. Falling a meter or two with 40kg of stuff should have a decent chance of getting hurt, probably.

 

I could probably add more if I thought about it or wrote them down when playing the game but that's what came off the top of my head.

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On 3/27/2021 at 8:07 AM, Syraith said:

Yea and no. I would love to see some visual upgrades for things like lighting that the public could do, but when you open that soon, next thing you know you see people hunting bears with M16s and laser rifles, moose replaced by Thomas the tank engine, and zombies running around.

I think sometimes it’s just best to let a game stay true to the vision. The mechanics built in work. They may not be perfect but they make the game work the way it does.

We have to keep in mind that even if mods exists you do not have to intall them you play as you like it just ads more possibilities

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@opllii understand that, but when you look at games like Elder Scrolls or Minecraft, the developers openly release their development kits to the public for the reason of modding. Not every company wants to see people open up and tear into their game. It’s just a slippery slope. Yes, mechanical upgrades like lighting and such could be nice but when you open that access, anything else is possible. Sometimes developers just want their vision to be left intact the way they release it so people experience it how they are intended to. 
It’s not an expectation to put on a developer, otherwise almost every game would get open treatment like that. I don’t see a problem with letting the developer control the user experience.

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Just my uneducated two cents here, but I'll never understand why other players would want the modding to be limited in order to vet out silly or out of the element mods, like huge full-autos or my little pony skins. The skyrim example is perfect, there are all sorts of terrible and silly mods alongside the ones that add to the ambiance, gameplay, etc.

Why not just use the mods you deem worthy of your attention and let everybody else enjoy their own stuff? To each it's own. If mods were ever officially supported I'd really like to try changes in some of the core mechanics, like crafting, forging, firemaking and hunting. Plus, I'd love to see more primitive skill elements added, the craftable clothing and tools are a good start, but I'd love to see those expanded a bit more. 

 

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On 3/25/2021 at 3:40 PM, oplli said:

I think mods could give new perspectives for the game and open new possibilities.

We've previously said that working on a system of mod support is something that is a goal for the team. What we would like to have is a way for modders to create mods, and share them and an easy way for players to install them while knowing that installing a mod will not adversely affect their game, or system. That is something we need to figure out on our end, how we want that system to work and our goals with it.

So we agree that allowing players to mod their own games is a goal, at this point without official mod support we are unable to offer any form of technical support on modded games. Thus installing a mod risks not only breaking your game in some way, but also won't get support from our team to fix it. While there are people who know enough to be able to break their game and fix it on their own, a large percentage of players don't have that sort of technical skill.

Thus we do not support, or promote, existing mods on our channels. People have created mods for The Long Dark, we don't stop them from doing that but we don't allow for them to be promoted here. Also another issue is the game is still under active development, and so we may update the game in some way that breaks existing mods without intending to. This has happened in the past.

So we understand that people are anxious to see mods, but we ask everyone to be patient with us while we work things out.

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1 hour ago, Admin said:

We've previously said that working on a system of mod support is something that is a goal for the team. What we would like to have is a way for modders to create mods, and share them and an easy way for players to install them while knowing that installing a mod will not adversely affect their game, or system. That is something we need to figure out on our end, how we want that system to work and our goals with it.

So we agree that allowing players to mod their own games is a goal, at this point without official mod support we are unable to offer any form of technical support on modded games. Thus installing a mod risks not only breaking your game in some way, but also won't get support from our team to fix it. While there are people who know enough to be able to break their game and fix it on their own, a large percentage of players don't have that sort of technical skill.

Thus we do not support, or promote, existing mods on our channels. People have created mods for The Long Dark, we don't stop them from doing that but we don't allow for them to be promoted here. Also another issue is the game is still under active development, and so we may update the game in some way that breaks existing mods without intending to. This has happened in the past.

So we understand that people are anxious to see mods, but we ask everyone to be patient with us while we work things out.

Its good to hear !

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@Admin In the future when you do allow mod support would there be any limits? Would you only allow/consider ones made/built and hosted on these forums? Would you allow or ok nexus mods? Could you when you have the time Post a solid what would be ok and wont be ok for mods and which type you would endorse and which you would shun?

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5 hours ago, odizzido said:

Hopefully it doesn't use the stupid steam workshop. I hate that crap.

Why though? It works great with other games like project zomboid, csgo, and many others. I would rather just click a button to download it and enable it in an in-game menu then have to download it from nexusmods and figure out what folder to put everything in.

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Guest jeffpeng

Let me be devil's advocate here really shortly (yeah, me and shortly ... probably not).

There is this many times proven paradigm that players will optimize the fun out of a game. Modding the fun out of a game is equally true. Let me give you two examples.

The first is.... well, I'm using this quite a lot, eh? .... Skyrim. Which has like a bazillion mods, many of which actually fix long standing issues with the game or even outright bugs Todd Howard couldn't be bothered with. That's great, it really is. It's also something the devs should have fixed in the first place. But I also have a colleague that once told me that despite his best efforts to actually finally finish the game after basically a decade of owning it, he never gets around to do it since every time he tried he's bogged down with trying to get "the best" out of the game with modding it to his liking. (I might add that some of those mods do not strictly represent the original creative vision of the game when it comes to appearances of half of the people in the game. I think you get the point.)

The other one is Banished, which is a very simple yet refreshing city-survival game. It allows mods, and there are a lot of them out there, even such that basically make it a new game (although I would argue not a better one). But even using some of the simpler mods already change core mechanics. For example: if you build a quarry in Banished (to get stones) at some point that quarry is exhausted, and the hole that was dug for that quarry will stick around forever. This is a terrible nuisance, but if you simply make the quarry yield unlimited stones, there really is no reason not to put a quarry next to your town center because .... well... it's not like it's going to be an ugly, useless hole in the ground at some point in the near future - right? Also collecting freely available stones in the world becomes not really worth the effort of sending out workers far from home.

What I am trying to say - as a former Minecraft modder myself (i.e. I actually wrote mods) - is, basically: mods have the potential to greatly improve a game. They also have the potential to greatly ruin it. And, in my experience, the latter is more often the case than the former. Designing a game is far beyond just adding a cool feature or removing an annoying limitation. Designing a game is mostly about designing what the player will experience playing it without actually realizing why they like the game. And that is actually a far more difficult task to successfully pull off than most people think.

Now if I look at TLD I have to shamefully confess that ... yes I tried the forbidden mods. And out of all of them which were available at that time I actually deemed only one of them not making the game worse.

Today I prefer to play the games as they were meant to be. I don't want to bother with two days of having to set up mods and whatnot. If there is a limitation in the game it usually is for good reasons IF it's actually a good game. And if it's not a good game why would you bother modding it?

Just my 2 devil's cents - and thank you for reading.

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@jeffpeng my exact thoughts. Obviously they are working on making mods available as mentioned, but I have the same fear. At least TLD has been out a while and has a strong following but my fear would be that a new player would buy it, and start adding mods right away.

With the game so well balanced how it is, as awesome as lighting modifications for example would be, how they would effect the weather elements for example (ie visibility in fog/blizzard) is unknown. Or other changes like modifying damage or behaviors.

I get that people want to play how they want, and I agree that is their right 100%. But this is a beautiful game as it is. I’d hate for someone to miss that experience because they read how much “better” it is after adding mods.

Just my personal view.

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Guest jeffpeng
Just now, Syraith said:

I agree that is their right 100%

While I generally agree with you (obviously).... how is it anyone's "right", actually? A right as in "guaranteed by law" certainly not. If I sell some intellectual property (or anything for that matter) I shouldn't have to also serve the tools to successfully modify it. That's like having to sell a car with a manual on how to install a heck spoiler - and the necessary tools alongside it. There might be the moral "obligation" to let people modify your work, but while even that is debatable, it's not like Hinterland are actively hindering people to mod the game. They just aren't actively supporting it (yet).

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In my opinion enabling mods at this stage would be like shooting oneself in the foot. TLD needs to live until a major sequel is available and can do that with DLCs or equivalent. Mods would not bring anything to their business model but could jeopardize it by competing with it. Mods will be welcome when the current TLD installment will end and then TLD can continue to live through the community, but not earlier.

Edited by yoli
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@jeffpeng I think I’m the opposite of the privilege you describe lol

A person has the right to do anything they want. But there are consequences one way or the other for doing any act. In the terms of TLD, a person does have the right to play how they want. Be it giving themselves objectives beyond what is designed in the game or modifying it in any way. As Hinterlands mentioned though, they do not offer any support for modified versions of their game currently, so doing anything to the games system runs that risk. But you still have the right to do so.

And (as you say) it’s debatable for a developer to make their game open to modifications, I’d say absolutely not. They provide a product. If it’s not in the user agreement that you enter into by paying for that service, they are not responsible in any way, shape or form to offer anything beyond that agreement. You choose to pay for the service presented, if you don’t like the terms, then don’t do it. In the end, games are just LEASE agreements not sales, the developer or medium that you purchased through has the right to remove that access at any time technically, you don’t own any part of it.

And there is no majority of a history of developers to allow that kind of access. If anything, the exact opposite. Rarely does a developer allow/support game mods, the fact that Hinterlands is taking the time to work on that, especially being as small as they are, in my opinion is very surprising.

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7 hours ago, Skelegutplays said:

Why though? It works great with other games like project zomboid, csgo, and many others. I would rather just click a button to download it and enable it in an in-game menu then have to download it from nexusmods and figure out what folder to put everything in.

I buy most of my games on GoG and sometimes games only have steamworkshop for their mod support. Which means I cannot get any of them, AFAIK. Steam is just vendor locking mods and since I think steam sucks I don't like it.

Factorio seems to have good mod support. You browse around the mod menu section in the game and select the mods you want and it downloads them for you. It's simple to use and effective. Steam and GoG and any other user can use it just as easily.

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Guest jeffpeng
1 hour ago, Syraith said:

@jeffpeng I think I’m the opposite of the privilege you describe lol

A person has the right to do anything they want. But there are consequences one way or the other for doing any act. In the terms of TLD, a person does have the right to play how they want. Be it giving themselves objectives beyond what is designed in the game or modifying it in any way. As Hinterlands mentioned though, they do not offer any support for modified versions of their game currently, so doing anything to the games system runs that risk. But you still have the right to do so.

And (as you say) it’s debatable for a developer to make their game open to modifications, I’d say absolutely not. They provide a product. If it’s not in the user agreement that you enter into by paying for that service, they are not responsible in any way, shape or form to offer anything beyond that agreement. You choose to pay for the service presented, if you don’t like the terms, then don’t do it. In the end, games are just LEASE agreements not sales, the developer or medium that you purchased through has the right to remove that access at any time technically, you don’t own any part of it.

And there is no majority of a history of developers to allow that kind of access. If anything, the exact opposite. Rarely does a developer allow/support game mods, the fact that Hinterlands is taking the time to work on that, especially being as small as they are, in my opinion is very surprising.

Well, then we actually do agree. 😉 I'm a software engineer, and it's rather refreshing that someone actually gets intellectual property.

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17 hours ago, TheUnknown said:

@Admin In the future when you do allow mod support would there be any limits? Would you only allow/consider ones made/built and hosted on these forums? Would you allow or ok nexus mods? Could you when you have the time Post a solid what would be ok and wont be ok for mods and which type you would endorse and which you would shun?

These are all good questions and part of what we have to decide. We don't want to give answers in part because some of these don't yet have answers, and we'd rather present a complete version than allow us to get involved with defending something that might not be a final decision or have an answer taken out of context.

As for timelines, we've learned not to give timelines, as they just lead to disappointment. 

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@jeffpeng and I’m going to be shortly lol

One of the reasons I’ve loved playing TLD so much is because I took a couple game design classes as I’ve worked on my CS degree. They were 2D and 3D gaming courses with unity so it’s very enjoyable to see games from that perspective/knowledge of how the code works, how the environment is crafted, etc. Also ruins some of the fun looking at objects and seeing things like a bullet as the code and how it interacts with surfaces, variables, physics and everything else lol

You don’t see games the same or other software properties the same after opening that door 😋

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