PROJECT CREATOR

[lenscas]

It is almost the same but instead of an account you just use your or somebody else's email.
This could also work but this will need code in the client to enter the code.

Both ways have both there pros and cons and a pro for your system is that you don't need to write extra code for each piece of software you want to support however this comes at the cost that software needs to include code to do support your system.

Do you would like to discuss this our do I just need to keep silent and let you do your own thing? Because as I already said both ways are valid and have uses.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

It is almost the same but instead of an account you just use your or somebody else's email.
This could also work but this will need code in the client to enter the code.

Both ways have both there pros and cons and a pro for your system is that you don't need to write extra code for each piece of software you want to support however this comes at the cost that software needs to include code to do support your system.

Do you would like to discuss this our do I just need to keep silent and let you do your own thing? Because as I already said both ways are valid and have uses.

I'm fine discussing it as long as you are nice about it like you have been. Seriously, senseidragon could have said that in a lot nicer way. I felt a bit sick after reading his post.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

Oh btw senseidragon don't feel bad or anything, I'm just not very well, and I might not be for a long time, but that's real life stuff. Just found out I've got coeliac disease a few months ago and blah blah blah back on topic.

 

[lenscas]

I hope you feel better soon
. A few questions you need to ask your self before choosing a system are
1 How much software that currently exist do you want to support?

2 How easy do you want developers and users to have it when using your system in software that currently exist?

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

I hope you feel better soon
. A few questions you need to ask your self before choosing a system are
1 How much software that currently exist do you want to support?

2 How easy do you want developers and users to have it when using your system in software that currently exist?

1. Uhhhhh sorry could you rephrase that?
2. What? Why do they need to use it? What would it be useful for? I mean I'm fine with open source and stuff but what would they be hooking in to in an api?

 

[lenscas]

for the first one if I remember correctly you said that you might go and support mods from other games? Correct me if I am wrong. You will need to write an api for the mods that run on said game.

the second has to do with how a developer uses your api, in the case of minecraft would the api be able to be installed in the mod that uses it or does it needs to be installed like for example cofhcore? Or maybe an combination included in the mod so that it can get the content and also being installed like another mod so that the user can turn certain content on or off?

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

Aah ok. I currently only plan to support minecraft. I said I would expand to other games if it was successful.

It is compulsory for the modders to make the mod a hard dependency, so that if the players are playing with their mod, they will always have their cosmetic perks. So like cofhcore I guess.

 

[lenscas]

thus it boils down to
Do you want a mod that handles the turning on and off of content that can be used without the rest of your donation system or the other way around if a developer wants it that way?

Or do you want a mod that does the turning off and on of content and handles the inserting of codes, this last part makes it more entangled with the donation system and thus be less useful as a whole for developers that want the user to be able to be able to turn content on or off.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

thus it boils down to
Do you want a mod that handles the turning on and off of content that can be used without the rest of your donation system or the other way around if a developer wants it that way?

Or do you want a mod that does the turning off and on of content and handles the inserting of codes, this last part makes it more entangled with the donation system and thus be less useful as a whole for developers that want the user to be able to be able to turn content on or off.

So is what your saying, the first one is the code containing data for a cosmetic perk, and the second one being the mod having that code and just being unlocked?

 

[lenscas]

what I meant with the first example was a mod that only took care about the switching of content, no matter why it got registered as content that the user would be able to turn on or off.

for the second example it would do the registering of content with the codes making it harder to use for developers that have content that an user is allowed to switch without first donating for it.

You can also separate the switching of content and the codes but then an user needs to install the codes mod before being able to insert a code, he also needs to install the content mod to be able to turn his gained content on or off.
This means that he needs to install 2 mods for something that may be viewed as 1 thing.
This doesn't at least in my ears sound very user friendly or at least not as much as it could have been.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

I was originally going to do number one but I'm reconsidering...

 

[lenscas]

The thing is with number 1 you have a nice system to turn content on or off but you need another way for the bought content to get registered as switchable content.

So you can combine them but then if a developer has content that he wants the end user to be able to turn off he can't use your system without asking the user to install things he don't need (the donation system in this case)

It basically comes down to how much do you want the projects to be separated.

My personal favor is to separate them as much as possible but that may not be the route you like to take.

 

[Senseidragon]

Oh btw senseidragon don't feel bad or anything, I'm just not very well, and I might not be for a long time, but that's real life stuff. Just found out I've got coeliac disease a few months ago and blah blah blah back on topic.

Don't mind me, as I said in my first post, I think you're a fine person and I think you are well-intentioned. I just think you needed to revisit some parts, which you did. It also opened up a little bit more back-and-forth discussion between you and @lenscas and that is good too.

Offering to provide your own content for donations puts you on a similar level as other modders, so that's (in my opinion) a step in the right direction as well.

An example of the sort of content you might offer (like an image of something you've actually created) could possibly inspire more discussion. Or, if that is on the to-do list of things to learn as well, that's fine too.

As a purely hypothetical example, let's say the "meat" of your mod can add visual effects to armor slots. Doesn't matter what armor is equipped, doesn't matter what texture pack a user is using. You hook into the renderer and maybe apply a fire, smoke, or pixie-dust effect to a given slot. This is a purely cosmetic option, and could be highlighted on a store page with a short animated gif or a couple of screenshots.

Assuming you have the ability to generate that content without interfering with other mods special rendering, this gives you something that doesn't give a player any in-game advantage (no giving off light like a torch) but still provides something people might find interesting, amusing, and/or desirable.

If you can't generate that content yourself, you'd need to team up with one or more creative folks that could.

 

[lenscas]

Don't mind me, as I said in my first post, I think you're a fine person and I think you are well-intentioned. I just think you needed to revisit some parts, which you did. It also opened up a little bit more back-and-forth discussion between you and @lenscas and that is good too.

Offering to provide your own content for donations puts you on a similar level as other modders, so that's (in my opinion) a step in the right direction as well.

An example of the sort of content you might offer (like an image of something you've actually created) could possibly inspire more discussion. Or, if that is on the to-do list of things to learn as well, that's fine too.

As a purely hypothetical example, let's say the "meat" of your mod can add visual effects to armor slots. Doesn't matter what armor is equipped, doesn't matter what texture pack a user is using. You hook into the renderer and maybe apply a fire, smoke, or pixie-dust effect to a given slot. This is a purely cosmetic option, and could be highlighted on a store page with a short animated gif or a couple of screenshots.

Assuming you have the ability to generate that content without interfering with other mods special rendering, this gives you something that doesn't give a player any in-game advantage (no giving off light like a torch) but still provides something people might find interesting, amusing, and/or desirable.

If you can't generate that content yourself, you'd need to team up with one or more creative folks that could.

If you mean that this standard content should be available for mods to use when people donate then I am having mixed feelings about this.
If the developers supply it with their own textures and cheeses mod only adds a way to easily handle the adding of the content then I wouldn't mind it but not every mod the same basic content with the same textures even when a developer can make their own using this system.

If I misunderstood then sorry for this useless reply as to the discussing with me and cheese, I was already planning to talk about how to do it as I find it a good project myself and depending on the state it will get may even use it and maybe even host it if necessary.
Again cheese I do not care about how you make it and I will try to help if you want.

Do not under any circumstance bend to my will because its my will.
Only change your mind if you think it will actually be better and say that I need to shut up as this will be better in the long run.

 

[Senseidragon]

Alternatively, switching focus away from content you're generating to the original point of the mod, you need to keep in mind a few key points.

Your authentication server must have high uptime and be able to handle potentially large numbers of connections per second. If your mod authenticates a user on Monday, but your server connection is down on Tuesday, do they still get their perks (cached results) or are they disabled until you come back online and they can re-authenticate?

Though not necessarily probable, such a system could become a target of denial-of-service attacks, requiring you to possibly switch server hosts, maybe more than once. The Computercraft site has been known to get hit pretty hard on occasion, and if his mod required some sort of authentication with his site to work, that would have caused a lot more user grief than just losing access to his wiki for a few hours.

Your implementation needs to be able to gracefully handle situations like this, particularly if it requires authentication for something to show up each login.

 

[lenscas]

Alternatively, switching focus away from content you're generating to the original point of the mod, you need to keep in mind a few key points.

Your authentication server must have high uptime and be able to handle potentially large numbers of connections per second. If your mod authenticates a user on Monday, but your server connection is down on Tuesday, do they still get their perks (cached results) or are they disabled until you come back online and they can re-authenticate?

Though not necessarily probable, such a system could become a target of denial-of-service attacks, requiring you to possibly switch server hosts, maybe more than once. The Computercraft site has been known to get hit pretty hard on occasion, and if his mod required some sort of authentication with his site to work, that would have caused a lot more user grief than just losing access to his wiki for a few hours.

Your implementation needs to be able to gracefully handle situations like this, particularly if it requires authentication for something to show up each login.

DNS is a solution to switching servers as to not being able to connect maybe a file inside the mod that keeps track of what the user has access too that is used as fallback.
If there is a way to see if it got tampered with then that would be ideal.

Developers should be able to say that certain content is not allowed to use the backtrack method and this should have a warning on the place where you "buy" it.

 

[Senseidragon]

DNS by itself is not a sufficient solution, as it takes sometimes up to 48 hours for a DNS change to propagate everywhere.

The host provider used needs to be equipped to mitigate most attacks. They will also generally provide a virtualized IP for your server so they can divert attacks while keeping your service relatively unaffected.

This sort of protection isn't always free (or cheap) however.

 

[lenscas]

DNS by itself is not a sufficient solution, as it takes sometimes up to 48 hours for a DNS change to propagate everywhere.

Yes but unless you have a "hidden" server there is not really a way to tell the clients where to go now and if the hidden server is down you have the same problem.

 

[Senseidragon]

Remember, this is just an extreme corner-case. It isn't something that is likely to happen, just something that could. Where this is no concern for something like Thermal Expansion, as the only thing it will do is an update check if configured to do so and it doesn't remove any functionality if it fails to connect at any given moment, this mod is more sensitive to that case.

 

[lenscas]

Remember, this is just an extreme corner-case. It isn't something that is likely to happen, just something that could. Where this is no concern for something like Thermal Expansion, as the only thing it will do is an update check if configured to do so and it doesn't remove any functionality if it fails to connect at any given moment, this mod is more sensitive to that case.

Yes I fully agree and understand but there is just not so much you can do about it except let the mod connect to another server first to get the most recent server for the data.
Unless I am not seeing something which I hope as the above is just messy in my eyes.