Problems with the modding rules.

[TheAlmightyBread]

Four in particular.

Do not reveal secrets or hidden information, such as cheat codes, (unreleased) blocks, corperations, gamemodes and the likes.

My problem with this is it's really hard to enforce, sort of. It's almost like the Alabama law "Dominoes may not be played on Sunday."

If I found out a cool secret/cheat/other thing and wanted to leak it to everyone on the forums? I can understand why the devs don't want us to do this but I don't think it can ever be an enforceable rule. Maybe they should say "Please don't leak the games code to anyone." Because that's about the same as this rule, I think.

Do not significantly upset the game balance of survival mode

This is vague and also strange. First of all, I'd like a better definition of significantly. Second of all, why does that matter? Isn't that one of the main things mods can be used for, overworks?

I just think this mod is needlessly limiting. Once someone has unlimited BB then they're going to find out quickly how rewarding work can be. If not then they still bought the game, right?

Do not break the age-rating set by Payload Studios (currently ~8 years old audience)

This is purely a problem of clarity. They need some definitions here, 8 year olds very wildly in maturity. I could ask my eight year old sister what she thinks about a mod I made but that's not a definitive answer.

I think for this it would be better for everyone if they made some rules. Maybe something like nothing sexual, no cursing, no suggestive jokes or dialouge, and no direction towards any non TerraTech related material (mentions are fine, but no encouragement).

Do not upset the development of Terra Tech in any significant way

This just seems soft if you ask me. What does that mean? Don't hack you and steal all of your data, well yeah no kidding.

Don't mod in R&D? Well that would be virtually impossible, and if it somehow did happen then it would be such a rare case that you could just PM them.

Also not very clear. @WhitePaw2002 's water mod is NOT something that isn't interfering with game development at all but is probably a violation of these rules. So what if someone tries to mod in a feature that would take a lot of time to put in officially? All that's going to do is increase playtime and make the community bigger.

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If anyone's wondering why I didn't post this in /unofficial_modders it's because nobody ever checks that subforum. Also, I think it isn't exactly offtopic to post this here, but if it is then I'll gladly move this to /unofficial_modders

EDIT: typo

 

[ZenithEevee]

So, I'll try to clarify a few things (Even though i honestly have little to no knowledge about a lot of the backstory behind 2 of them)

1: This one should be relatively obvious. While we cannot enforce it.. Actually, *Technically* We can (But we dont go down that road because... Take it by personal experience, Having to "Approve" All posts ever made would... Basically kill the forum). Aside from that, There's the general Strike/warning/ban system, Post deletion, and so on. So, it *Is* enforcible.. Just we have faith in most of the players.. So we dont expect people to just randomly do it (That, and i dont think there's a lot of things *To* Leak...)

2: Not as obvious, But it comes down to a few things. Cheat menus and essentially allowing you to make blocks invincible, Infinite energy, Infinite Fuel, Or.. I'd even say allowing wheels to have a higher capacity *Could* Upset game balance.. But think of it like this: "If this gives me an advantage that isn't in the case of clarity, It will be banned" (Clarity as in, like, Giving blocks a visible healthbar, Giving actual numerical values to things like wheel payload, or even total DPS of a tech). edit: This does include mods that add "Block addage" Or anything that just pockets blocks into your SCU storage, Even if they weren't available to you.

3: This should be somewhat obvious, But i do understand where you go from. As of a thread held ~2-3 years ago (https://forum.terratechgame.com/index.php?threads/age-rating.1858/), It is confirmed as a general E for everyone rating. So, Generally, The big No no is: Above mild cursing, Racial slurs, Sexual Content, ETC ETC. Basically, Try to keep it PG

4: Now this is where my big "I dont know" Comes from, But i'm guessing the biggest offender would be a mod that, Say, Took Idea's or already put in concepts from scratch into the game (Like, A mod that actually makes Legion, Better Life, Reticule Research or Space junkers as playable factions) Due to the fact it would ruin how the Devs would try to form that faction into their over-all cannon. But i digress, As i.. Generally dont understand down to a personal level.

As for the remark on the Watermod... Its just a fun thing.. Sure, It *Is* something that does mess with the game a bit.. But its not this big theoretical hatenote.. Its just "This would be cool, Lets mod this in"

 

[TheAlmightyBread]

1: This one should be relatively obvious. While we cannot enforce it.. Actually, *Technically* We can (But we dont go down that road because... Take it by personal experience, Having to "Approve" All posts ever made would... Basically kill the forum). Aside from that, There's the general Strike/warning/ban system, Post deletion, and so on. So, it *Is* enforcible.. Just we have faith in most of the players.. So we dont expect people to just randomly do it (That, and i dont think there's a lot of things *To* Leak...)

What I meant by that is that if I PMed a friend every secret I could find in the game's source code via Discord then nobody could enforce that. So if I start a chain letter of all the games secrets and it gets sent out to everyone on the Discord then that can't be enforced.

Or I could just tell them how to get to the source code and avoid this rule entirely. That's why I don't like the vagueness of this.

2: Not as obvious, But it comes down to a few things. Cheat menus and essentially allowing you to make blocks invincible, Infinite energy, Infinite Fuel, Or.. I'd even say allowing wheels to have a higher capacity *Could* Upset game balance.. But think of it like this: "If this gives me an advantage that isn't in the case of clarity, It will be banned" (Clarity as in, like, Giving blocks a visible healthbar, Giving actual numerical values to things like wheel payload, or even total DPS of a tech). edit: This does include mods that add "Block addage" Or anything that just pockets blocks into your SCU storage, Even if they weren't available to you.

Though you didn't tell me why the rule needs to exist for non personal reasons. My main point was that it didn't make sense. But I think you're right about what it means.

3: This should be somewhat obvious, But i do understand where you go from. As of a thread held ~2-3 years ago (https://forum.terratechgame.com/index.php?threads/age-rating.1858/), It is confirmed as a general E for everyone rating. So, Generally, The big No no is: Above mild cursing, Racial slurs, Sexual Content, ETC ETC. Basically, Try to keep it PG

Hmm, I wish they specified that it was E and not "8+ year olds".

4: Now this is where my big "I dont know" Comes from, But i'm guessing the biggest offender would be a mod that, Say, Took Idea's or already put in concepts from scratch into the game (Like, A mod that actually makes Legion, Better Life, Reticule Research or Space junkers as playable factions) Due to the fact it would ruin how the Devs would try to form that faction into their over-all cannon. But i digress, As i.. Generally dont understand down to a personal level.

Even if a mod took the devs ideas and put them into the game that wouldn't interrupt the games development. Jamie or Zeena could just take the mod down and make some brief statement. Boom, the dust settles and everything's fine.

As for the remark on the Watermod... Its just a fun thing.. Sure, It *Is* something that does mess with the game a bit.. But its not this big theoretical hatenote.. Its just "This would be cool, Lets mod this in"

Gahhhh, sorry that was a typo. I meant it ISN'T disrupting the games balance at all. 4 characters off.

 

[ZenithEevee]

What I meant by that is that if I PMed a friend every secret I could find in the game's source code via Discord then nobody could enforce that. So if I start a chain letter of all the games secrets and it gets sent out to everyone on the Discord then that can't be enforced.

Or I could just tell them how to get to the source code and avoid this rule entirely. That's why I don't like the vagueness of this.

While that *Is* True... Again, Payload Devs probably put more faith into their community to NOT do that than most would think... And honestly, Its probably better to not try to bring that up..

That being said, The point was that you shouldn't have a mod that makes it more common knowledge, Or puts it on display.

Though you didn't tell me why the rule needs to exist for non personal reasons. My main point was that it didn't make sense. But I think you're right about what it means.

The rule needs to exist for public reason so no one makes a public mod that gives OP status, Especially now that MP is out in the broad unstable branch. I mean.. You wouldn't wanna play against a hacker/cheater in MP would you?

Hmm, I wish they specified that it was E and not "8+ year olds".

Eh.. Its kinda more of an "E, But only if you can understand the base-line of how to play the game or else you're gonna get really angry as to why you lose to a tech with only 1 basic laser weapon"..

Even if a mod took the devs ideas and put them into the game that wouldn't interrupt the games development. Jamie or Zeena could just take the mod down and make some brief statement. Boom, the dust settles and everything's fine

Well, You see... There's a big difference between "Interrupting" and "Upsetting"

And there are several reasons why the word "Upset" is used instead of "Interrupting"

But the biggest reason is that, Again, You can effect how people see something, And so when it actually gets made, The community would have a different view, Maybe more negative, maybe more positive, Than what it would be if there was no mod of it beforehand.

(Again, Dont know so much on this rule, And i am not speaking for the devs, But rather just suggesting that *Maybe* this is why)

 

[Boomik]

In my opinion, there should be *NO* rules for modding other than #1 and #3 because of obvious reasons. So what if someone makes a mod for a cheat sheet or whatever? It's the person who's downloading's choice to enable it or not to affect their experience. If they don't want cheats, all they need to do is disable it. And they can add whatever they want to the game as long as it doesn't violate rules #1 and #3. If a mod insults a dev somehow, all they need to do is ignore it, unless if it's really serious. If that's the case, then it probably already violates rule #3.

 

[TheAlmightyBread]

In my opinion, there should be *NO* rules for modding other than #1 and #3 because of obvious reasons. So what if someone makes a mod for a cheat sheet or whatever? It's the person who's downloading's choice to enable it or not to affect their experience. If they don't want cheats, all they need to do is disable it. And they can add whatever they want to the game as long as it doesn't violate rules #1 and #3. If a mod insults a dev somehow, all they need to do is ignore it, unless if it's really serious. If that's the case, then it probably already violates rule #3.

I completely agree. It would be heaven if the rules were like that.

 

[Jamie]

The rules in place are more of a guideline. We can enforce certain things - but we don't really want to go down that road.

It's more of a respect thing that we have with the modding community. We're happy to let the modders mess with the game code and have fun - and I think they respect that we are letting them do that. We've not had any issues come from those guys since we first started seeing them come up with mods, so we're happy with how we're dealing with things.

Thanks for the feedback though