Essentially what I'm asking is if Uber will allow us to post mods enabling client side replacement of a common commander with an exclusive commander like the Progenitor or a $1000 backer com.
Yes, I can make one (and I just did, in fact), and Uber probably won't care as long as it's just client side, but if I'm distributing it to people... Will Uber allow that? That's my question.
I don't see why they wouldn't allow it. Or how they would prevent it. It's client side. You can do whatever you want on client side.
It is not a mod we can officially sanction, and any mod that has existing game content files contained in it (the models, animations, and other art) we'll probably ask people to take down. But you are right that there's nothing we can really do to stop anyone from changing their local files. We rather hope we don't have to. The game has been explicitly designed to not care what the client files are. We wanted to make sure if someone wanted to mod PA to make every unit in the game (non copyright infringing) Bronies they could, and they could play in the same game as someone who is running "vanilla" PA or some other visual conversion mod.
The ability to make mods like that is great, but I understand the need for Uber to protect its intellectual property. We should keep this sort of thing off PAMM. There's not much we can do beyond that.
It could be as simple as changing the json to look for a different model. Or, if the server files come out, a server mod that allows you to choose an exclusive commander with, say, a +changecom command. In Team Fortress 2 you could mod any hat to look like any other hat, but it hasn't affected the economy in the slightest.
In short, if such a mod is added to PAMM or the modding forum, it will be removed, but there's nothing Uber can do about people doing it themselves (other than request that they don't).
It's not even replacement. We can just add new commanders client side. Multiplayer would require everyone to have the same mod I presume. You see the policing? I think if anyone did do this, they should make an evil-twin mod. I.e. all the commanders are evil twins of the commanders. SO they've actually edited the game model slightly. No idea how you would do that, but it seems like fair use to me - if you've actually edited the model significantly. Especially as it wouldn't look like a mirror image of the original.
I don't think it will be hard to replace the modals locally to have any commander you want. A mod like that would probably just replace a few json strings. From an intelectual property standpoint such a mod would share nothing. And I think it would not have much point either. I mean isn't the whole point of a personal commander to show it off to others? You can't modify the clients of the other players.
When you say existing game content, are you counting art that is no longer in the game files but once was as existing game content or would a mod that uses those files be allowed? (E.g. a mod that restored the old Gil-E model or the old P-Gen model from Alpha)?
And what about the Megabot? I plan to make a mod that includes it and I'd hate to offend you guys at Uber (then again I am going to have to make rigs for it so I guess I did contribute to the model)
