mod support !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ben91]

when are they going to bring this most needed Feature to the game?

this Feature is literally the most neccessary Thing that is needed to make this game as great as it could be

- it would massivly increase the playability and replayability of the game

- it would bring so many new and old Players to the game

- Players who are looking for and realistic and challenging gameplay and are currently very bored by the game could enjoy the game again

- every Player could Player the game in the way they want by the mods he or she wants

- the hundrets of awesome suggestions in the wish list section could be brought to the game by the Players and we dont have to wait for Hinterland to bring maybe of of These Things to the game every year

personally for me it is more frustrating than enjoyable to Play the game at the Moment because i just have to think about how much better the game could be while i am playing and i really hope they realize that this Feature will make the game so much better and bring it to the game sooner than later

[Khan_Drichthyes]

The biggest problem I have with bringing Mods to the game is the fact that it's still a work in progress.

I was a big fan of Kerbal Space Program (KSP), going back to when it was in Beta.  Eventually, I started trying out Mods.  Now I don't play it much anymore.  

Every update to KSP would often make it unplayable until the Mods were updated as well.  Occasionally, the Mods themselves were being refined and updated, requiring yet more sessions of downloading and installing them.

I wanted to play KSP, not spend time updating or waiting to update Mods.  So, in the end, Mods may very well have killed my desire to play KSP.

But what about Skyrim, one may ask?  Well, Skyrim is old.  It's been around for so long that Bethesda no longer supports it with updates.  So, the need to keep up with updating Mods is less critical. 

But will Mods eventually breathe renewed life into The Long Dark in its inevitable old age?  Maybe, but maybe not.  Skyrim had much bigger publicity, thanks to the bigger budget afforded by Bethesda, and so had a bigger following of players.  Who knows what Dame Fortune will bring?  Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune!  Oh you gods in general synod, take away Her power!  Break all the spokes and fellies from Her wheel, and bowl the round knave down the hill of heaven, as low as to the fiends!!!  <cough>  Sorry, I couldn't help myself.  It's my favourite scene from Hamlet.

[ben91]

3 hours ago, Khan_Drichthyes said:

But will Mods eventually breathe renewed life into The Long Dark in its inevitable old age?  Maybe, but maybe not.  Skyrim had much bigger publicity, thanks to the bigger budget afforded by Bethesda, and so had a bigger following of players.  Who knows what Dame Fortune will bring?  Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune!  Oh you gods in general synod, take away Her power!  Break all the spokes and fellies from Her wheel, and bowl the round knave down the hill of heaven, as low as to the fiends!!!  <cough>  Sorry, I couldn't help myself.  It's my favourite scene from Hamlet.

basically everyone i know who Plays TLD doesnt Play it anymore because it became insanly boring without much Progress and improvements on the game and mods are basically the only proplem that would solve These issues.

and espcially a game like TLD could benefit from a mod System with its relatively small but dedecated fan base.

of Course there are examples of game where mods did not too well but this will probably not be the case in TLD.
there are so many small and Major changes all These dedecated Players could bring to the game with their mods and make the game so so much better.

in my opinion this game only uses less than 50% of its potential at the Moment and the Major Thing that could Change that would definetly be mods

[odizzido]

I think small very easy mods would be a good place to have things right now. Something like a mod that reduces animal spawn rates by like 90-95% but also makes them drop realistic amounts of meat with proper calorie amounts. That probably wouldn't be much work and would change how the game is played significantly. It's also a great way to test out how things like that would feel.

[Khan_Drichthyes]

2 hours ago, ben91 said:

basically everyone i know who Plays TLD doesnt Play it anymore because it became insanly boring without much Progress and improvements on the game and mods are basically the only proplem that would solve These issues.

I can see your point.  I started playing in December, so it hasn't come close to reaching its "staleness factor" for me.  In the end, I suppose I wouldn't be against having Mods available.   I don't think I would start using them, though, until the game reached a more "finished" state.

[Cr41g]

I can see where some might want more from the game... but the fun has not worn off for me yet..

[StrayCat]

Well, I'm not a moderator myself but guys... It has been made clear by HTL that mod discussions are not allowed (yet) on this forum. 

[ben91]

12 hours ago, StrayCat said:

Well, I'm not a moderator myself but guys... It has been made clear by HTL that mod discussions are not allowed (yet) on this forum. 

it is a wish list Forum and we wish for mod Support, whats wrong about that

[TerribleSurvivor]

@ben91 What i would like to see first is some kind of vanilla modding. That means that you can basically modify the entities that are already in the game to your exact imagination (e.g make wildlife extremely rare but increasing the meat outcome harshly as well). Oh and you could be a little less generous with exclamation marks in the title caption

 

22 hours ago, StrayCat said:

Well, I'm not a moderator myself but guys... It has been made clear by HTL that mod discussions are not allowed (yet) on this forum.

How about a hyperlink reference to that "prohibition paragraph". Just saying "Hinterland says this and that" is not exactly credible to me.

[StrayCat]

No problem (I repeat : I'm not a moderator, ask them for more details) :

http://www.hinterlandforums.com/announcement/40-rules-and-guidelines-for-the-hinterland-forums/
"No support will be given to those using cheat tools, or hacked/pirated copies, and any forum users who discuss pirated/pirating software will be removed."

http://www.hinterlandforums.com/forums/topic/17558-to-mod-or-not-to-mod/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-124738
"As a reminder - we don't currently support mods officially. Please don't discuss game hacks, save editors, cheat engines, or other game-altering software in our official forums. Thank you."

http://www.hinterlandforums.com/forums/topic/17457-turn-all-the-way-around-in-a-vehicle/?tab=comments#comment-12355
"we do discourage their use and request that they not be shared in our official communities"

You see, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but it's not as if you were the first to suggest mods here...

[Admin]

We are fine with people requesting mod support, and talking about the benefits it might bring. What we aren't going to allow is people linking to mods or sharing how to mod the game. At this point we do not have official mod support.

But your interest has been noted. 

[TerribleSurvivor]

@StrayCat I never said nor intended to imply that you are a jerk. It´s just highly critical to make a statement in the name of Hinterland (regardless of your disclaimer that you are no moderator whatsoever!) without backing it up with sufficient evidence. Especially if it´s about prohibition. I didn´t mean to offend you in any way.

However, as admin stated, requesting options for game modification doesn´t fall under the "mod-sharing paragraph". Things have been cleared up.

Let´s resume the original discussion.

[ben91]

On ‎05‎.‎07‎.‎2018 at 10:22 PM, TerribleSurvivor said:

@ben91 What i would like to see first is some kind of vanilla modding. That means that you can basically modify the entities that are already in the game to your exact imagination (e.g make wildlife extremely rare but increasing the meat outcome harshly as well). Oh and you could be a little less generous with exclamation marks in the title caption

thats exactly what i am looking Forward to most aswell

where i also want to see some awesome ideas in the wish list brought to the game by modders, i am a total noob when i Comes to making mods myself but most of the issues i have with the game at the Moment can be changed very easy by using the already existing gamefiles; respawn Durations, Blizzard Durations, skill System, crafting times, harvesting and crafting ingerdients, weight/duration of items, clothes material, temperature, stats of clothes and so on..... and it is so much fun when Players share their personal custom modes as a mod. cant wait for the "only night" and "only Blizzard" challenges we will probably get from some People  

much like in other games that Support mods, like DST, where i spent about 100+ hours to basically rewrite the whole game after i got too good at it to make it more interesting and challenging again. i really cant wait for doing that in TLD and basically create the perfect challenging survival game for me and have so much fun again and hundrets of hours of interesting Content without much effort. all the good other mods that get created by other Players, like new items and Skin changes, will just be a nice Addition.

thats sadly why me and other Players cant enjoy playing the game right now anymore. it would be so easy to make the game fun, interesting and challenging again but we cant really do it atm.

i cant empahsize enough how great mod Support would be for the community and the game

 

[Eranderil Nix Grey]

I am for mod support. Implementation through steam workshop would simplify the process of adding mods, and it would appear that there already exists some framework of doing so- as you can change the language support that way. 

[Thrasador]

I'm here to vote as pro-modding!

I like the game, but I want to play it the way I want to play it....

The way I want to play it is I hoard everything not nailed down and take it with me....like I do in every other game I play....

I can't do that in this game, so it makes me upset. It drives me crazy. I quit playing because of it.

I don't care that it's not realistic, I don't care that it defeats the purpose of it being a survival game, I don't care if it makes it "too easy," or breaks immersion....or whatever the 80 other reasons are that I am not supposed to hoard everything I see....

Hoarding makes me happy.

I'm a hoarder.

I'm not going to change because you tell me to, or you don't like it, or it's not how you like to play.

It's how I like to play.

I should be allowed my own happiness in life, just like you should be allowed yours.

That should be the end of the discussion/argument.

Ideally I shouldn't even need a damn mod to do so. It COULD just be added to the custom game settings, but everyone has made it abundantly clear that's not happening....so modding is my only chance at happiness in life, or with playing this game....

Which I feel is unfortunate....

By 41 though, I grasp the notion that life sucks and then you die, so I do my best to accept that fact everyday!

[Eranderil Nix Grey]

For those that don't use steam, well, there is already Nexus mods with a portion for TLD. (Don't get your hopes up, it contains a grand total of about 2 mods, and one is a map file that I do not think is added to the game.) Bethesda's Oblivion never had much in the way of "mod support". It happened anyway. Could go that way here too. Modding will almost certainly happen with or without devs approval.

My point was that they already have one means of granting mod support. For in-game support they could add an option to the main menu for mods, just a button, similar to the existing Wintermute, Survival, Options... ect. At least for managing the mod files you add to the game. I am not a programmer, so I do not know how stringent this would be to do. That said, it is also completely unoriginal and boring. 

Out of curiosity, if you don't have steam, how do you change your language support? If there is a process involving downloading a file and dropping it into a certain file location... well. Welcome to adding mods to a game? Kinda how it works... In which case there already exists a level of mod support anyway. Difference being, I doubt Hinterland has files in place to make your game not run if you change the files, that you would need to delete first. 

[Eranderil Nix Grey]

Then what is the point of language support through steam? I would assume it would not cover the same languages. Nice try though. You also completely ignored the rest of my comment. If you wish to start something, maybe consider trying to be constructive instead? I doubt anyone here wishes to deal with two people bickering, and would rather we pose insightful and productive means of creating a mod support framework. For my part, I will acknowledge that the steam workshop language support may well be outdated and no longer used. To be blunt I doubt this. Regardless, my original point stands, outdated or not. There does, in fact, still exist some means of mod support already. Weather you like steam or not is your own problem, and also off topic.

[Pillock]

If you know how to mod, or you know where to look for existing mods, then you can probably either make them now or find some that have already been made by other people. (Neither of those applies to me!)

So if you want mods, asking for them from Hinterland is not really the right thing to do. If you want official mod support and mod tools from Hinterland, then I guess you just have to be patient. They are apparently working flat-out on Wintermute until December, so nothing is going to happen about mods until well after that. And I personally wouldn't expect any mod tools to be released at all until after the complete story mode is finished, so you're looking at another year or more, probably. But perhaps they might decide to expand on the Custom mode settings a little in the mean time? A few more options, and more specific settings within each option would certainly be welcome, I think - just to tinker with the game balance a little more precisely to suit everyone's personal preferences better.

[StrangerFromTheInternet]

I don't even care about official mod support that much, I kinda like the "unofficial" modding tools that the community has put together over the last two years.
Moreover, I don't think that Hinterland would ever go so far as to include a tool that would let you modify the behavior of the game while it's running. In other words, I think there will always be things that can only be done with "unofficial" mods.

But what I'd really like to see is an end to this prohibition around talking about modding on this forum.
I feel like the only effect this has is to drive people away from this forum.

And besides, what's the harm in letting people talk about mods, anyway?
It's not like censoring these discussions will magically make mods go away...

[Soul Sojourner]

I love the idea of mods and official mod support. (thinking of you, Elder Scrolls, Civilization)
I also agree with Khan to the extent that letting them get the game to "where they want it" before adding mods as well as letting them focus on Wintermute before putting too much into mod support is a good idea. I don't feel that the game needs to be anywhere near "old" though.

Ha, in a way it's already old, it just keeps getting improved!

[Admin]

On 2018-09-02 at 1:11 PM, StrangerFromTheInternet said:

And besides, what's the harm in letting people talk about mods, anyway?
It's not like censoring these discussions will magically make mods go away...

 

As stated we are fine with people discussing their desire for mods. We, however, do not want people directing others to existing mods, or recommending existing mods. For this reason, we've edited your post removing references to where you can find them.

The main reason for this is that the use of unauthorized mods can have adverse effects on the game performance, even when not using a mod or after removing it. This creates additional work for our support team who are expected to find solutions for people whose games a result of using a mod. When they're focused on this they're not able to focus on helping to address other issues.

Again we're fine with your discussing a desire for mods to come, but recommending or referencing any that might exist now will result in a suspension of posting privileges as it's against the forum guidelines.

Thank you.

[ltnshinysides]

I'm just going to say one thing really. With such a dedicated and passionate fan base, there is some real potential to have some well crafted and thoughtful mods created. Maybe a great avenue once the game is completed as we all know, my self included, once its finished the question will then be, are they making a sequel?!  

This is never ending for you Hinterland  I hope you guys enjoy it as much as we do.

[Soul Sojourner]

1 hour ago, StrangerFromTheInternet said:

I'm really trying to put myself into your shoes, but your arguments just don't make sense to me. I struggle to believe that that is really your prime reason for this draconian amount of censorship surrounding mods.

I also can't help but think about Klei -- they're another Canadian indie game studio, about the same size as Hinterland, and they're very open around the topic of modding. They're having none of the issues you're describing.

---

(I really had to tiptoe around the rules here. I think everything I said is allowed, but I may have came a bit close to the line at some points. I'm really just looking for a honest discussion of this topic, so please treat this with some leniency )

Not presuming to know anything, but if I was a game dev I would want people to experience the game as we intended it before mods start changing player experiences and before we've even had a chance to reach our vision for the game yet. Then after that point, by all means, I'd love to see what everyone does with it while continuing to still work on improving the vanilla experience. I mean this generally, not TLD specifically.

I think discussing the idea of implementing mods/mod support is entirely different than discussing available unofficial mods and how/where to get them. It'd be weird to me if you got in trouble for that, but I dunno.

None of this is any sort of argument, just my perspective of why I wouldn't want mods in a game if I were a dev.

[Admin]

Posts deleted and thread locked. While it was fine to discuss the desire for mods repeatedly arguing with us over our forum rules is not a useful way for any of us to spend our time.