How and why modding should be more of an integral part of Vanilla PA.

Mods, and their implementation into vanilla:

I see countless mods that should be implemented into vanilla, and though I must admit I've seen few games implement mods into their base game, I feel I should ask how difficult it honestly is. @jables has commented on the topic of implementation if I remember correctly saying that the main issue would be the legality of it all. Now please don't get me wrong, I understand it must be difficult to juggle, but does anybody think it actually would be a problem in the first place?

Why should mods be in Vanilla?:

Mods so greatly improve the experience I've had with PA. So many mods improve gameplay or ui, or etc... drastically. Even small ones can help, and I really would hate for Uber to keep reinventing the wheel on things that already exist. An example? A planet list in the system editor by which @wondible created in a day or so... Something that @masterdigital said the team would like to have in the game, but they weren't sure when it'd be, now may I ask what would be the point in not implementing that right away? Heck, they could even claim they did it, nobody would be the wiser, though that's not exactly optimal. :S All I'm saying is Uber is going through this in a VERY unintuitive way.

Games I've noticed implemented mods, and said backlash/happiness:

There are three games I can remember that had mods implemented into vanilla. The first is KSP which has had very good reception; the other is Minecraft with some... Difficult results. The mod I'm speaking of is "potioncraft" now, this was implemented into the game- however without the creator's consent. The creator was actually resentful of it's implementation without any credit. Lastly I believe I heard someone say that Blizzard had claimed to own every mod created for their game, as it's their game, so how does that spin?

Minecraft Debacle:

So like I said, Notch the original owner/creator of Minecraft tweeted a screencap of an email sent to him, a very.. Aggressive email. The person who emailed him claimed to be the creator of potioncraft, and went on about how he absolutely hated both the stealing/plagiarizing of ideas, and the update in of itself.

The email.


The legality of using mods in the vanilla without credit:

Now this seems to be a very grey area. I would think that it would have very much to do with some sort of terms of agreement. For example, if the terms of agreement said nothing of mods it would be open, however if it strictly said they owned all mods... Well, then they own them, and the user has agreed to that premise. I know that no legal action was never put against Notch, because Notch was protected by an end user agreement if I remember correctly.

How to avoid any sort of backlash:

Uber either needs to go the sneaky route with an end user agreement that shows they own all user created content, which I wouldn't exactly enjoy... OR they could easily just- well ask a modder for permission, written/typed/whatever is required. I wouldn't imagine it too difficult to get something like that... Send a contract via email, then have the modder print, sign, and either mail it back, or photocopy it. Easy!

I can almost guarantee Uber that if they asked a modder for permission, even without some sort of signature, said modder wouldn't stab them in the back with some sort of legal action. There are many, many modders that are practically begging to get their mods in the game, don't believe me? Just ask them!

In closing:

I believe mods to be one of the biggest things for PA, what are your thoughts/ideas on what should happen? Or how and why mods should be implemented?

I don't mind uber adding mods to vanilla (with the authors permission of course and some kind of acknowledgement etc credits). But I personally think that uber should make it a priority to get that ingame mod store (distribution service) going. The problem right now is half the people out there dont even know that mods exist for PA or cant be bothered installing PAMM etc. If they just integrated some kind of mod manager/distributor into vanilla that would do wonders for the game itself and the modding community.

There are very few situations where a mod can be implemented outright with no modifications. And even then, only mods with absolutely no subjectivity to them are eligable - they have to be ones with no downside (the planet list one sounds like such a mod). Most of the mods in this thread, for example, are not applicable.

Uber need to review every character of code before including a mod. Unless the mod is tiny, it may be simpler just to reimplement.

All of this comes down to developer time. You could be talking an hour or two for even the simplest of mods; far, far more for more complex mods (and mods can be significantly more complex than they appear). And of course, the legal aspect.

Hence more reason to implement a mod distribution service ingame. This is a must as modding has kept many games alive for a long time. One example is minecraft. I would have stopped playing ages ago where it not for mods.

Though minecraft never actually had an ingame mod manager either, mainly because Notch oddly had some sort of resentment towards mods IIRC.

Putting mods into the base code may be a bit difficult, but why go about it like that when you can simply put said mods into the mods folder that comes with the game already? There is already a client folder actually.

I also don't completely agree on how vigilant Uber has to be about screwwy mods, the reason? If a mod is popular enough to implement into vanilla I'm going to have to take a guess and says it's at least a little safe.

True. Minecraft already has a huge modding scene that is recognisable though. PA has a decent modding scene but it is fairly small. In order to increase the size of the modding scene you also have to get those existing mods out there and make them easily accessible to your average player. In my opinion an ingame mod distribution service would be a huge plus for the game in the eyes of many players.

EDIT:
Im really on the fence about integration of mods into vanilla. But I am an absolute advocate for that ingame mod distrubution service. There is no reason for not implementing one.

There's an issue of stewardship - an in-game mod manager (that does more than simply toggle existing mods on/off) means Uber needs to review all content that goes into it. If it isn't able to download mods, then there's little point - PAMM can already handle enabling/disabling mods, and you'd need it to get the mods in the first place. It's not insurmountable, but it's a real issue.The minute mods get that much exposure, the risk of someone taking advantage and making a mod-malware item rises dramatically.

That's an odd way to do it - what happens if you accidentally disable part of the game by turning the "mod" off? There are many reasons why this is a bad idea.

How do you know the mod isn't pulling code from an external source that an author can modify at will?
How do you know the mod isn't doing anything malicious but hidden?
Popularity does not imply safety, completeness or error-free. Uber is directly responsible for anything they include in the game. Not being vigilant could be a disaster.

@raevn

I never said they shouldn't be vigilant, only that I doubt they'd need to be as vigilant as you imply. Implementing a mod should take hours at most.

I find your distrust towards modders a bit ironic, I know you're probably just being safe, but we all know eachother here. Do you think @cptconundrum or @cola_colin would do something like this?

Also how do these apply to regulars, what I mean by this is... If someone's mods are implemented often, do they have more trust, or what?

I have to agree with @squishypon3 . I'm finding your mistrust of modders to be a bit over the top. If trust is that big a deal then allow a rating system into the mod manager which would allow users to score the mods and approve or dissaprove of it. Honestly If there ever is going to be an individual taking advantage of the system with malware, 1. itll be a very very rare case, and 2. people who implement malware into mods often dont document their mods very well and its kind of obvious at first sight.

The problem isn't us. It's all those people that come in after there is an in-game mod manager and do their evil things.

I don't think it is a good enough reason to avoid doing this though. The points raevn makes are good ones, but it can be read as saying "The more popular mods get, the more risks there are." While true, the alternative is to keep the modding keys tightly locked away and ensure that the majority of players never even see mods at all.

An in-game mod manager would be great but it needs to be done very carefully.

I often don't document my mods very well.

This situation is like. Do we stay with a closed tightly controlled ecosystem like apple does with their iPhones. Or do we go the route of Google with allowing users to customise their android devices to whatever extent they want. Obviously theres malicious stuff out there, but it'll usually be reported on if it affects people.

Just a few screenshots would do for documentation. As the saying goes no pics no clicks. Unless other users have reported that the mod is legit and/or its made by a well known dev.

I just want to see an in-game mod manager. The rest of it is just a hairy situation.

In the short term, something simple that @jables could do would be a "Have you seen PAMM yet?" Steam news and facebook post.

For a one or two line mod maybe. But you are vastly underestimating how long it takes to read through, understand, integrate and test anything more complex than that. They need to know every bit of code it touches, every path through it and every way it can break, and then ensure they are all covered and tested, and that's assuming the mod 100% fits what they want and that no further changes are needed.

Uber can't simply trust like a player can. They are a company, and have to cover themselves and the people that play their game. Of course I trust some of the veteran modders here. But it's not my reputation on the line, and we aren't the only modders.

Rating systems only help after the fact. How much damage do you think will occur if word gets out that someone has added malware to a mod, and a bunch of people downloaded it and became infected? That's modding over and done with, right there. Uber would never recover from that, and the playerbase would mostly ignore mods from then on. Rarity doesn't matter - it's still a possibility, and your second point doesn't hold - there's some very clever evil people out there; and as @cptconundrum has shown, commenting it's not at all an indicator.

Again the apple/google analogy applies. Is android dead yet even though its open and allows modding of almost every aspect of the system. Short answer no.

You saying that one malicious mod will kill Ubers rep is a completely baseless claim.

Games on a desktop are completely different to mobile Apps. People don't expect to have to be careful of mods, or to risking their entire computer everytime they install one (from an official channel), and there's no virus scanner tailored to preventing malicious mods. Furthermore, users downloading from google play can see exactly what permissions the apps have, and can base their choice on that. That does not apply here, where a mod can say one thing and do something entirely different.

You mention malware to the average person in relation to something, and I guarantee you they'll steer clear of that something. And just because we know who the trustworthy modders are, our names mean nothing to the average Joe.

I have a few suggestions then besides pics. One suggestion would be to have Uber popup a disclamer Upon entering their distribution service the informs users that they are not responsible for any potential damage that may occur as a result of a mod.
Another suggestion although not as important would be to make it so the mod is required to link to a forum post. Hopefully which has User feedback and other info on it.

EDIT:
Another thing. Does steam screen every mod allowed into steam workshop for many steam games? I do not think that this is possible. Also the skyrim modding community is still going strong. A disclamer on the Uber mod page would be all that is needed to prevent any damage to their rep. Other than that Uber just needs to respond to cases of reported malicious mods in a fairly timely manner.

EDIT2:
The only reason for why I would not suggest steam workshop integration for PA is because of the many Players such as me who rely purely on the Uber launcher version of the game.