All mods are disabled entirely on new update


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Time to step in. :) 

As observed, this version of the game (1.48) includes an update to a new version of Unity which, as suggested, wraps our code in a more efficient way, which leads to important performance improvements. We "rolled it back" in 1.48.1 because we discovered this new way of wrapping our code was causing the game to crash for some people. As soon as we can roll the "re-wrapped" game back out without crashing people's systems, we will. Yes, this will break existing unofficial mods (again).

Performance and optimization is a big concern for The Long Dark as the game's current performance is preventing us from doing a lot of things we'd like to do, including: graphics improvements, AI improvements, more animations, environment detail, post FX, Switch port, world streaming, etc. I'm not promising any of these improvements will happen on a specific time-frame, I'm just saying they are not even on the table unless we can find ways to improve the game's performance. A lot of what we're fighting against is the engine (Unity) itself. We've spent a lot of $$$ on Unity Enterprise Support simply to ensure we can utilize their engine to the best of its ability but The Long Dark is pushing a lot of the engine's capabilities due to the size of our game, essentially. They work with us to suggest best practices and find solutions to the challenges we face so that The Long Dark can run as well as possible for as many of our players as possible.

So, anything we can do to improve performance, we will do, and if that means that unofficial mods get broken along the way, so be it. To be clear, we did not roll out this change so that mods would be broken. But, the fact that unofficial mods will be broken is not at all a concern to me. We are not responsible for supporting unofficial mods or hacks to our game.

Here's the official stance on mod support in The Long Dark. It will sound familiar as it's pretty much what we've always said:

* We do not offer official mod support, but we will in the future. The delivery of these tools depends on internal timelines and priorities. We do not support the unofficial modding of the game. Partly because it's OUR game, and partly because we don't want to deal with the additional support requests and issues that may arise from people's use of unofficial mods.

* You won't get banned for discussing the desire for mods or modding in the game. At some point (hopefully soon) we'll open up a dedicated community hub for creators, and we expect there to be a lot of "wishlist" type discussion about things you'd like to see from us to support the modding of the game. What you WILL get banned for is sharing links to unofficial mods, or encouraging people to use unofficial mods. This includes save-game manipulators, which frankly encourage a style of play that is 100% contradictory to our intention for the game. We are responsible for setting the direction of the player experience in The Long Dark.

A few further points just based on some of the discussion in this thread:

* You may feel modding our game is your right, but it is not. When we are ready, we will provide a properly vetted EULA which will outline the appropriate use of mods and all the correct legal language around their use and distribution.

* You may feel that you "know better" than we do about how our game should play or be "fixed", and that somehow it's up to the community to address the deficiencies in our game, because clearly the development team doesn't know what it is doing. This is antagonistic and insulting. If we haven't gotten around to addressing things like the persistence of broken snow shelters, or breathing effects (fixed BTW), or any other personal bugbear you have with the game, it's because we're trying to run a business and ship both Survival and Story updates to hungry customers. Just because we haven't gotten around to fixing your personal pet peeve with the game doesn't justify the existence or persistence of unofficial mods.

* I'm not at all sad to think that players will no longer be able to crack open our game and review all our systems and tuning. A lot of the "magic" of the game is ruined by knowing too much about what's under the hood. I understand the tinkerer's mentality but we work hard to preserve some sense of mystery and joy in the experience our game can create for people, and I'm not at all saddened to think that people would not longer be able to hack our game and share details about systems and tuning that we may prefer to keep to ourselves. 

Before I worked in games, I modded games (I won't tell you which ones because it makes me feel old). I get it. I used official tools that were supported by the developers. It's a great way to extend a game's experience and let your players bring their own creativity to the worlds you've created. I see official mods just as I see any kind of fan creation -- fan art, fan fiction, fan music, fan short films, cosplay, etc. We celebrate this stuff all the time. If anyone follows us on social media or reads these forums, you'll see we encourage fan creations. We will celebrate official mods as well. I don't think it's fair or reasonable to position our stance on mods as suggesting we as a studio are not friendly to creators. We will put significant resources into supporting and growing our own Creator community when we are ready, we just need to do it correctly and fighting with us about it just makes it harder for us to accomplish this. So please, just stop.

I know there are some folks out there who don't like our stance on mods, or don't like me personally for whatever reason, and I'm sure they will find a way to make this about me or arrogance and find ways to attack me and my team. That's unfortunate, but it happens in our industry, and it's happened with The Long Dark community in the past. I don't want to have an antagonistic relationship with our players, but I also expect my team and the work we do to be respected. Giving us the time we need to approach the modding question in our own way is a sign of this respect. Contradicting our desired way of handling modding is a sign of disrespect.

I hope you can see my point of view on this. Thanks for reading.

- Raph

PS If for some reason in-game screenshots don't work for the Wiki, feel free to contact us at info@hinterlandgames.com, giving us a list of the assets you need, and we can probably get those to you pretty easily. And officially. :) 

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Alright folks, time to reasonable here :)

First of all, whether or not Hinterland advocates people modifying their intellectual property is entirely up to them.
Second, Hinterland has already stated that they want to integrate mod support and tools later on.  So, I'm not sure what you are all up in arms about.
Third,  Hinterland has explained that the last update incorporated an update to the engine... and that this unintentially broke your mods as a unanticipated side effect.  They weren't out to break your mods, they just weren't compatible with the update... and that's not Hinterlands fault.  Mods are third party...

:D Honestly folks need to take these things in stride. 

Nevermind, Raph has stepped in.  Please disregard any part of my post that does not align.  He of course knows the intentions of Hinterland better than any of us.  You know, because they are his intentions.  :) 

Edited by ManicManiac
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9 minutes ago, FINDarkside said:

They even took over the TLD subreddit in pretty shady way and banned talking about mods there too. 

Woah...this is 100% bullshit and a lie. Where did this come from?

We have nothing to do with the TLD sub-reddit, have no influence there and cannot moderate anything, which is a big reason why we spend no time or energy there. We won't put our time into a platform where we can't guarantee a safe place for our developers or our community members.

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I've never used the save game editor to cheat. What I have used it for is getting back arrows. Not arrows that I've legitimately lost, but ones that definitely hit animals but got eaten by the game somehow. I even lowered their condition. That's not cheating or altering the game experience. 

As I said before you don't have actively to support modding in any way, and there are good reasons you don't, but bans over suggesting that someone might use a mod to address some issue they have is a huge overreaction.

It was obvious that you made the code change for technical reasons though and not just to screw with people. That was a silly conspiracy theory

Edited by Serenity
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35 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Woah...this is 100% bullshit and a lie. Where did this come from?

 We have nothing to do with the TLD sub-reddit, have no influence there and cannot moderate anything, which is a big reason why we spend no time or energy there. We won't put our time into a platform where we can't guarantee a safe place for our developers or our community members.

Should have clarified that that's no longer the case,  but it certainly happened. It went something like this:

* person A becomes TLD subreddit moderator and is pretty much the only active moderator for the subreddit
* person A is hired by Hinterland
* Somewhere here talking about mods was banned, not sure at which point
* Person A makes official Hinterland account, invites it as a moderator. States that now A can can keep moderating even if the community would want Hinterland out of the subreddit, since no one knows these two accounts are connected.
* Person A invites second Hinterland employee to be a moderator 

Edited by FINDarkside
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18 minutes ago, FINDarkside said:

Should have clarified that that's no longer the case,  but it certainly happened. It went something like this:

* person A becomes TLD moderator and is pretty much the only active moderator for the subreddit
* person A is hired by Hinterland
* Somewhere here talking about mods was banned, not sure at which point
* Person A makes official Hinterland account, invites it as a moderator. States that now A can can keep moderating even if the community would want Hinterland out of the subreddit, since no one knows these two accounts are connected.
* Person A invites second Hinterland employee to be a moderator 

Wow, this is a crazy conspiracy theory. Shame on you for perpetuating it.

It's true that about 3 yrs ago one of the people we hired to help us manage our growing community happened to also be a moderator for the TLD subreddit. In fact, this was one of the reasons we hired them -- it showed a dedication to our game and community, something we look for in all our community staff. They were not the only moderator, and certainly after they joined us, there were other moderators in the subreddit. Those other moderators knew that this person now worked for us, so there was nothing hidden or untoward about it. At one point we asked that another member of our community team also be added to the moderating group just because that allowed us to share the workload (just as we do currently).

We've always discouraged the discussion of using unoffiical mods in all our communities, which I've already outlined above. Back then, we treated Reddit the same as all our other communities, so we also discouraged it there. This was done with the knowledge of the "non-Hinterland" moderators. Again, nothing untoward about it, and 100% consistent with our activities in Steam, here in our official community, etc.

Just because people don't like being asked not to encourage certain game behaviours doesn't mean there's a conspiracy to control a subreddit. We know the whole reddit culture thing is anti-moderation and really nobody truly wants devs in those discussions. We don't want to be where we aren't welcome. I would say 90% of the hostility our subreddit shows towards me and us is absolute batshit insanity and conspiracy nonsense, and 10% of it is deserved because we gave our time and energy to help nurture a community that then turned around and shit on us, and I didn't respond well to it, so...you know. We don't go there anymore.

 

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56 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

Alright folks, time to reasonable here :)

First of all, whether or not Hinterland advocates people modifying their intellectual property is entirely up to them.
Second, Hinterland has already stated that they want to integrate mod support and tools later on.  So, I'm not sure what you are all up in arms about.
Third,  Hinterland has explained that the last update incorporated an update to the engine... and that this unintentionally broke your mods as a unanticipated side effect.  They weren't out to break your mods, they just weren't compatible with the update... and that's not Hinterlands fault.  Mods are third party...

:D Honestly folks need to take these things in stride. 

Nevermind, Raph has stepped in.  Please disregard any part of my post that does not align.  He of course knows the intentions of Hinterland better than any of us.  You know, because they are his intentions.  :) 

I think the main frustration is that at least for the last 3 years or so it's been said its coming. Intentional or not, the HL staff seems to come off as really offended and uninterested about mods, the modding community as a whole. Sadly a lot of the people in favor of modding are not all on these forums, because I'd love to see some honest responses from those of us have no interest in the game without the mods. I'm one of them, the game is a great direction, but until modding support is in and the modders can re release the quality of life mods that a lot of us use, it will sit on the shelf.  I dont think they broke modding on purpose. But since the recent changes killed the modding, I think that officially supporting it really needs to be moved up the priority list. 

Edited by Amazombie
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I never said claimed that it was hidden from the subreddit owner, which was not an active moderator btw, who later acknowledged that something needs to be done to the situation. I'm not sure if you was supposed to disagree with me, but your comment exactly shows the problem. r/thelongdark was never "your community", person A even explicitly said that A has no affiliation with HL when he joined the subreddit. I'm not going to argue much further, since you stated yourself that you understand that's not how reddit works. Here's a quote from moddiquette:

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Please dont: 
Take moderation positions in communities where your profession, employment, or biases could pose a direct conflict of interest to the neutral and user driven nature of reddit.

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nobody truly wants devs in those discussions

Oh come on. No need to try to play some kind of victim here. People are happy to discuss with devs, people aren't happy when the devs try to dictate what parts of the game you're allowed to talk about, that's not what reddit is about. There are plenty of subreddits where devs are present and it's seen as a positive thing. Some subreddits even have devs as moderators, but they're not in charge of the subreddit and understand that it's not "their community" where they can decide what people talk about. They are there to take part, not to take over.

Edited by FINDarkside
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5 minutes ago, Amazombie said:

I think the main frustration...

I think the main frustration comes from a misplaced sense of entitlement.  Hopefully you read Raph's statements... did you?  They don't seem at all offended or uninterested.  People just need to accept that this is their intellectual property, not ours.  They want to support mods, eventually and on their own terms.  Which is both natural and correct.  That this does not suit some, is not a Hinterland problem...

I can't agree with your point of view because what you are using to prop up your argument is fundamentally and objectively not true. 

:) 

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2 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

I think the main frustration comes from a misplaced sense of entitlement.  Hopefully you read Raph's statements... did you?  They don't seem at all offended or uninterested.  People just need to accept that this is their intellectual property, not ours.  They want to support mods, eventually and on their own terms.  Which is both natural and correct.  That this does not suit some, is not a Hinterland problem...

I can't agree with your point of view because what you are using to prop up your argument is fundamentally and objectively not true. 

:) 

I'll admit, this response he had was a good one. But up until that, that is not the case, as as been echoed by many here. In any case, I've stated my opinion. Shelved this version of the game and will play again when mods are supported. 

Edited by Amazombie
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9 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

They don't seem at all offended or uninterested.

I'm sorry, but Raph literally said that he is offended of mods that fix bugs in the game. He thinks that making a mod to fix a bug is "antagonistic and insulting". People aren't fixing bugs to "show that Hinterland doesn't know what they're doing", like Raph seems to think. People fix bugs because they want them fixed. Getting offended by that is all on Raph.

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It seems like you are just here to spit venom... that's not healthy. 

Honestly, what you said is more rude than anything I've said in the past week so I don't see your point. My health is just fine, thanks for your concern. Despite disagreeing with Raph, I believe I have been reasonably respectful.

Edited by FINDarkside
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@FINDarkside
I'm not being rude to you... you are expressing you opinion and I am expressing mine.  Since you got on the forums today you've seemed intent on being hostile.  I can't control that you read Raph's statements though a filter that bends/twists them to support your point of view, it's a natural and human thing to do.  I'm just pointing out that your manor in these posts are not helpful or productive in any way.  The more a person raves on about a thing the more it just sort of turns into to noise with no real impact.  There is a difference between respectful discourse, and being openly hostile to any who don't conform to your view point. 

Like I said, it's not healthy :) 

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21 minutes ago, FINDarkside said:

I never said claimed that it was hidden from the subreddit owner, which was not an active moderator btw, who later acknowledged that something needs to be done to the situation. I'm not sure if you was supposed to disagree with me, but your comment exactly shows the problem. r/thelongdark was never "your community", person A even explicitly said that A has no affiliation with HL when he joined the subreddit. I'm not going to argue much further, since you stated yourself that you understand that's not how reddit works. Here's a quote from moddiquette:

Oh come on. No need to try to play some kind of victim here. People are happy to discuss with devs, people aren't happy when the devs try to dictate what parts of the game you're allowed to talk about, that's not what reddit is about. There are plenty of subreddits where devs are present and it's seen as a positive thing. Some subreddits even have devs as moderators, but they're not in charge of the subreddit and understand that it's not "their community" where they can decide what people talk about. They are there to take part, not to take over.

Right, and we were never "in charge" of the sub-reddit. When I say "our community", I consider everyone who plays our game to be one of our players, and therefore part of "our community". In any case, the suggestion that 

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"They even took over the TLD subreddit in pretty shady way..."

...is 100% bullshit, and nothing you've said diminishes that.

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7 minutes ago, FINDarkside said:

I'm sorry, but Raph literally said that he is offended of mods that fix bugs in the game. He thinks that making a mod to fix a bug is "antagonistic and insulting". People aren't fixing bugs to "show that Hinterland doesn't know what they're doing", like Raph seems to think. People fix bugs because they want them fixed. Getting offended by that is all on Raph.

Stop twisting my words.

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There is a difference between respectful discourse, and being openly hostile to any who don't conform to your view point.

I agree with you, there's a difference. Everyone else is talking about TLD, modding, reddit and so on, while you are talking about my health. 😂

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Right, and we were never "in charge" of the sub-reddit.

Hinterland employees were the only active moderators and made the rules. I won't continue this any further, I already quoted you the relevant part of reddit guidelines. Trying to prevent people talking about mods in r/thelongdark was a mistake.

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Getting pretty argumentative here...

In summary, I think those that support mods have made their viewpoint and desire known.  Raph has clearly stated his current viewpoint on mods and we don't have much choice other than to be okay with that and anxiously await the day HL will support mods (hopefully sooner rather than later!) 

If we want HL to support mods, I certainly don't think we should piss off the ones who can give it to us (despite how we feel).

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