Could 4.10 Update lock the SFS files again and reunite the online community?

[MicroWave]

This discussion is rehashed every so often, so let's just repeat some facts which never seem to sink in.

1) Authors and/or distributors of the Il2 never authorized modding. According to the EULA, it is actually forbidden.
2) Oleg Maddox expressed his dissatisfaction that the protection was broken on several occasions.
3) Lack of legal action does not imply approval of mods.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by MicroWave

This discussion is rehashed every so often, so let's just repeat some facts which never seem to sink in.

1) Authors and/or distributors of the Il2 never authorized modding. According to the EULA, it is actually forbidden.
2) Oleg Maddox expressed his dissatisfaction that the protection was broken on several occasions.
3) Lack of legal action does not imply approval of mods.

And after this statement I really hope that you can testify that none of the TD members/contributors have ever been involved in any kind of modding of IL2, which as you say is illegal?

C'mon, the mods exist - and the thing that splits the community is the fact that we are not allowed to point out that the emperor has no clothes...

[MicroWave]

Originally Posted by mazex

And after this statement I really hope that you can testify that none of the TD members/contributors have ever been involved in any kind of modding of IL2, which as you say is illegal?

C'mon, the mods exist - and the thing that splits the community is the fact that we are not allowed to point out that the emperor has no clothes...

Why do you care? Would it change any of the points I made?
The fact that mods exist means what? Should we do something about it?
Considering what I stated before we have the following options:
1) Ignore mods
2) Introduce new protection scheme to prevent them (at least temporarily)
3) There is no 3rd option

[mazex]

Originally Posted by MicroWave

Why do you care? Would it change any of the points I made?
The fact that mods exist means what? Should we do something about it?
Considering what I stated before we have the following options:
1) Ignore mods
2) Introduce new protection scheme to prevent them (at least temporarily)
3) There is no 3rd option

Yes, stick the head in the sand if you like to. Reminds me of the managers at the large record companies that missed the wide open market opportunity that Apple, Spotify etc grabbed from the table in front of them... Soon there will be no market for music that is not online and they will sit there with their "there is no third option" mentality and no customers. I don't think that I have ever heard of a game developer that fights people that wants to create mods for their game? This is actually rather amusing - especially with the bunch of now made "official" mod developers that now rant about the others that are not in the club... Why not work together instead?

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by mazex

Yes, stick the head in the sand if you like to. Reminds me of the managers at the large record companies that missed the wide open market opportunity that Apple, Spotify etc grabbed from the table in front of them... Soon there will be no market for music that is not online and they will sit there with their "there is no third option" mentality and no customers. I don't think that I have ever heard of a game developer that fights people that wants to create mods for their game? This is actually rather amusing - especially with the bunch of now made "official" mod developers that now rant about the others that are not in the club... Why not work together instead?

You are overestimating the importance of mods. With a few exceptions like Counterstrike they have no commercial significance, because there are too few people that buy games only when certain mods are available. As for Il2, its commercial value has basically ceased to exist years ago. Your comparison with the music industry is therefore a classic apples-oranges-example.

You also seem to have missed that in recent years, more and more games are closed tightly so that trivial stuff can be sold as "DLC" - the kind that nobody would shell out money for if it could be created by users. Inspired by the console market, where user mods are obviously not possible, this is spreading more and more into the PC games area as well. You don't have to like that development to realize it exists.

Anyway, I don't see where anyone "fights" the mods (any lawsuits I've missed?), and I also don't see where the developer comes into play here as you mentioned, because last time I've checked he's moved on to a new project. Which is quite a heavy investment that now has to compete with free developments of the old engine.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Let this dead and beaten horse rest in peace already People can still choose which version to use. Being a brownie nose purist or a mod fanboi helps no-one. Just play the damn game your way.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

Mods are poison for online games. Those who have played multiple games know this -- but it seems every game community has to learn it the painful way.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by BadAim

There is no more division in the online community that there ever was (IMO). Everyone always had preferences as to what kind of server they wanted to play on, and that has not changed. The only ones who are excluded are the ones who see a cheater behind every cloud, and quite frankly I see no way for Daidalos to fix that.

I'll grant that absolute surety for competitive purposes is gone, but I reiterate, we'll probably never get that back with IL2. Why don't we just kick back and have some fun?

If I sound harsh in this post, I'm truly sorry, but as I've said 100 times before, I don't give a crap if anyone else is cheating as I don't have any money on the outcome of a given fight and I know I'm not cheating.

If some twit needs to cheat to think he has a bigger penis than I do, then that's his problem, as I know the truth.

That's pretty much my outlook on things as well. I know the way mods came about was not satisfactory but i can't discount the positive aspects of the whole process just because it started the wrong way.
I'll just use that content to have fun and make sure i fly on servers with a good community and attentive admins to weed out any possible troublemakers.

What Mysticpuma says about the trouble of switching between versions is true however. That's why SoW is going to be mod-friendly from the start.

If i had any say in it, i would choose a server-enforcable list, just like the difficulty settings. A mods folder would be created and all mods placed in there with their own subfolders and maybe a .ini or .txt file for the game to read the mod titles from. So, if i added a freeware mod plane, say a handley page hampden, i would have a c:\SoW\mods\Hampden folder.

Then, when i would run the game i would have a menu option called "mod/add-on management". When i clicked that, a scroling column of all installed add-ons would appear, with an on/off switch next to them. This would permit me to activate/deactivate them from within the game.

Even better yet, a similar list with slightly modified logic would be available to me when hosting a multiplayer session or running a dedicated server. In that list, all mods on the client PCs would be overriden by the host PC and set to off by default, unless the server allowed it. This would essentially prevent the client PC from using anything included in its mods folder unless specifically and individually approved by the server, all running from one version/installation and without the need to exit the game and switch the mods around.

The best thing however is that it would prevent the need for server admins to compile lengthy lists of available mods. By having the server enforced list default to an "off" state, we effectively create a universal base to start from. Then, if the server admin or host would like to enable mods, he would have to specifically state which ones would be changed to an "on" state.
Instead of having to maintain a constantly updating list of available mods, they would only have to maintain the list of mods they would actually use on their server, reducing management time by a wide margin.

This could be done by dropping the relevant files in the server's sow\mods folder so that the game can read them and display them on the server enforced mod list, thereby allowing the host to toggle their state. Alternatively and to save disk space on dedicated servers who only track data and don't have to display any graphics, maybe only the .ini and some data files from each mod could be used to read the mod and enable it, without including the textures and 3d models. Just letting the dedicated server know to allow certain files would be enough, even if these files weren't included on its hard disk.

I'm not a professional software engineer and this is a very simple solution that i came up with in the space of maybe 5 minutes, it is sufficiently modular to allow for expansion and it still allows for good control of what kind of mods people would be able to use without having to exit the game and move files around every time they want to change servers.

I'm sure that if i can come up with something like this, people like TD and the Maddox team can come up with way more refined, elegant and useful solutions for SoW.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by The Kraken

You also seem to have missed that in recent years, more and more games are closed tightly so that trivial stuff can be sold as "DLC" - the kind that nobody would shell out money for if it could be created by users. Inspired by the console market, where user mods are obviously not possible, this is spreading more and more into the PC games area as well. You don't have to like that development to realize it exists.

Well, that is a good argument - but I really hope that it won't happen to SoW:BoB (and Oleg has said that support for user made content will be built into it).

An example comes to mind hearing the kids shout downstairs in front of the TV playing "Little Big Planet" on the PS3... There are more than 3 million user made levels for that game which is the main reason it still sells like butter - and they sell a load of silly DLC stuff like hats or costumes anyway...

[MicroWave]

Originally Posted by mazex

Yes, stick the head in the sand if you like to. Reminds me of the managers at the large record companies that missed the wide open market opportunity that Apple, Spotify etc grabbed from the table in front of them... Soon there will be no market for music that is not online and they will sit there with their "there is no third option" mentality and no customers. I don't think that I have ever heard of a game developer that fights people that wants to create mods for their game? This is actually rather amusing - especially with the bunch of now made "official" mod developers that now rant about the others that are not in the club... Why not work together instead?

Let's cut the story short.
You want DT to officially support and endorse mods? It's not going to happen. Until developers and/or publishers change their views, DT is not in a position to support modding even if we wanted to.

As far as I know Il2 series included officially a significant amount of 3rd party projects (3D objects, maps) long before the modding started. Even a plethora of 3rd party programs was welcomed (HL, DCG, MAT manager...). How is that fighting people that create content for the game? DT hasn't changed that policy.

And finally, I really sympathize with your resentment that now made "official" mod developers get different treatment. I really can't imagine what kind of devious actions they have taken in order to achieve that.