Certified mods?

[Falcrack]

So, maybe no certified mods. BUT, if they are determined to not certify mods, could Egosoft please add an official "Offline Ventures" option, so that modified games can send out simulated ventures, and get rewards as if they were sending their ships out to other player's games. Yes yes, I know there is a offline ventures mod already, but there are disadvantages to making us rely on a mod for this. For one, mods break when the game is patched. It relies on someone not affiliated with Egosoft to maintain this feature. The mod and the venture rewards could be wildly out of balance with the rewards in the online ventures. Another consideration, is that the more mods someone has, the more chances there are to break things in the game. I would much prefer is Egosoft were the one's to make offline ventures possible, rather than rely upon a 3rd person mod.

[Killjaeden]

Who is going to do the certification? If the developers are busy certifying mods, they cannot be working on game updates.

In Arma game series the modding tools allow the modders to create a signature key file for their mod, that the host/server uses to check for existance of the mod files on the clients and for potential tampering of the modded files.
So people can have a "shared online experience" on a server, because they all use the same mods / use the mods that the server whitelists as "ok to use".

So the only question is if Egosoft will (at some point) allow users to select the people they want to play with exclusively, set up a "master host"/ server, and in return choose the mod set they want to play with. I understand it wouldnt be simple... but its not like it hasnt been done before, and not a recent invention (first installation of Arma with mod signatures is 14 years old).

Bohemia Interactive devs are pretty cool (i know that at least of of them, Dwarden, even helped out in development on an early X title - dont remember which). I dont think they would say no to sharing some experience/words of wisdom on this topic, if ES would ask them.

Certifaction of "minor addons" that do not effect gameplay or important things could also be done by volunteers with modding experience, whom egosoft trusts... similar to forum moderators. Minor addons/ eyecandy stuff are usually not large in scope and are therefore easier to check than big mods too.

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a single shared online experience

For the start a single shared experience is easier, therefore a sensible choice.
However, if everyone is constrained to play in the exact same "global player group" all using vanilla game files, it would make modding less popular / always have the caveat applied that no online experience is possible.
If significant development time and efford is put into the online thing, then losing all this work in exchange for moddability would be less and less worth the tradeoff for players.

This would result in small mods becoming much less popular - only significant big mods would be worth the trade. But without small mods, you wont have modders collecting enough experience and courage to build a bigger mod. Thus less people will mod. Less modders in general means even less knowledge sharing, means newer modders will have it even more difficult to learn (unless ES steps in with guides themself). Thus the whole modding eco system would decline proportionally to the attractiveness of multiplayer - and could potentially collaps.
As long as no "multiple shared experience" (analog to modded multiplayer servers in games like Arma or older Battlefield games (1942, 2, 2142, ...) ) is available that is.

[adeine]

It's not difficult to work around the crossplay concerns for those who would like to play with mods..

Your entire argument is based on this statement, which is quite simply false. As I've already explained, other games which involve a single shared online experience have the same limitations, and for very good reasons. No amount of people claiming they have a "simple solution", or insisting that we have just "deliberately chosen not to" is going to change this.

No, sorry, it is not incorrect. Games like Minecraft are a completely different scenario. There you have a server that is shared between a group of people, where everyone using it agrees to use, and benefit from, a particular mod or set of mods. That is, of course, fine in that situation, but for games where everyone participates in the same shared experience, and where changes made on one person's client can potentially have a detrimental effect on someone else's experience, the requirement for an unmodified client is absolutely the norm.

Just to be clear, this is not just about people sending modified ships. I am not going to go into details, for various reasons, not least of which is that we're not ready to share our future plans for the venture feature yet, but suffice it to say that the requirement for an unmodified client is not going to be going away because it is an essential element in maintaining a level playing field for everyone who chooses to participate.

Throwing around emotive terms such as "isolating" and "hostile" isn't going to change anything. We put a lot of thought, time and effort into supporting the modding community, and we will continue to do so. We will also continue to look into whether there are cases where we can allow purely cosmetic mods that don't mark the client as modified, as we already did with music changes for example, but it's not always as easy as people think to differentiate between cosmetic mods and those which can affect gameplay in a way that could potentially impact on the way ventures are prepared for and initiated.

If you could explain how it is false...?

Your Minecraft example is exactly the result of implementing mod/install fingerprinting. I'm sure even vanilla already does, or will have to do something like this to some extent:

. Person A installs mod X, mod B, and mod D. For any crossplay features they are now only matched with people who also use mod X, mod B, and mod D.
. Person B is on vanilla X4. They will be matched with anyone on X4 vanilla.
. Person C is on X4 + SV + CoH. They will need to be matched with people on X4 + SV + CoH, or workarounds will have to be created so the DLC content does not break a base vanilla game.

Literally zero difference between mods and DLC/official expansions.

X4 is not, and will never be a game where everyone participates in the exact same shared experience. DLC and mods prevent that from being a thing. So just let people with the exact same installs experience crossplay features together.

[zakaluka]

If you could explain how it is false...?

I would suggest to you, that this topic is simply a non-starter at this time. That doesn't mean it's never worth coming up again, just that you're working against yourself by continuing to push right now. It's belligerent.

[adeine]

I would suggest to you, that this topic is simply a non-starter at this time. That doesn't mean it's never worth coming up again, just that you're working against yourself by continuing to push right now. It's belligerent.

Not trying to be belligerent, but now is the time to bring it up while it's still fairly easy to course correct.

[zakaluka]

Not trying to be belligerent, but now is the time to bring it up while it's still fairly easy to course correct.

Do you know what a non-starter is?

[Alan Phipps]

Have a further private chat by PM by all means, but let's keep this thread on topic please.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

How about a return of the Bonuspackage?

[jlehtone]

Bonuspackage was a collection of "certified mods".

[Burneyx]

Bonuspackage was a collection of "certified mods".

Easy to fix with a new E-Mail-Adress:

MyBrainIsOnVenture@t-online.de

For example

[xant]

Whenever I read the word "certified mods", my first thought is about Egosoft incorporating really well-made and meaningful user-made content. Like the Argon Cyclops, the X-R sectors and ships or other things they would love to make or bring back, but lack the time to do so. It is no secret that Egosoft has an infamously long to-do list and a severe lack of time and resources.

Would be a nice incentive for modders to create even greater things.

[Alan Phipps]

That happened to some extent with the initial and further development of X3AP (besides that in the Bonus Packs) so that's nothing new.

[xant]

That happened almost 10 years ago. And it was a commercial success as far as I remember. So...

[Alan Phipps]

True, but it would also be fair to say that back then there were many more active modders with a long history of involvement in the X2/X3 engine. We are not there (yet) with the X4 engine with associated API and coding but we may get there someday soon (tm).

[NightmareNight91]

Would absolutely love to see the fire and smoke mod become certified, makes battles look much better.

[dtpsprt]

True, but it would also be fair to say that back then there were many more active modders with a long history of involvement in the X2/X3 engine. We are not there (yet) with the X4 engine with associated API and coding but we may get there someday soon (tm).

The way things are going I'm sure most (serious) modders are discouraged... especially after the X Rebirth fiasco... and to add insult to injury the "online" aspect that no (at least hard core and long playing) player asked for, except as a "pipedream"...