RC/ReC/ElC/CC Policy Change Suggestion - Your thoughts?

[Reika]

Someone came to me with a suggestion regarding my modification policies, with the aim of satisfying both the people who want some flexibility and the people who know the problems unrestricted modifications cause.

The suggestion is as follows:

I lock down the recipes for a few, specific, "there is never a good reason to change this" items (for example Bedrock Ingots and Sintered Tungsten in RC and things like the tiered ore drops in CC), but officially open up permissions to modify other recipes, under the following caveats:

1. Any tech support for a modified version is refused until the issue is demonstrated to clearly be independent of any changes, most easily demonstrated by replicating it in an unmodified copy
2. Any people wishing to make modifications would first ask me so that if their changes are ones that are severely detrimental, I could tell them why and attempt to convince them otherwise
3. People would have no right to complain about balance/progression problems that are of their own making, and anyone caught doing so will be penalized (posts getting reported, public statements of dishonesty if applicable, et cetera)

Editing of the mod's "deeper behavior" through things like ASM would remain disallowed, as would distribution of modified copies.

I am ambivalent about the idea. The motive seems honest, but I have the following reservations:

• I do not know how I would enforce #1, and as has already been discussed, people omit such information, either through ignorance, laziness, or dishonesty - some are already lying about their versions to receive tech support. This is doubly true when you consider the group of people that will be making problematic changes is disproportionately lazy and/or dishonest.
• #2 sounds similar to my original "screen all modifications" idea, which as stated before, I would be open to, but was forced to back away from as several mod authors threatened permanent crash-on-load incompatibility.
• I also have reservations about the increased workload dealing with #2, as the number of requests may be dozens per day.
• My enforcement of #3 is not particularly strong; while I can have posts on places like here, MCF, and reddit taken down, and make their incompetence and/or dishonesty abundantly clear, there is little I can do if they start ranting on some private (or worse, readable-by-all, editable-by-members) forum or sites like somethingawful, which were in the past the main vectors of rumors.
• #3 is likely to be unpopular, and I am reminded of how people reacted to a similar rule for not complaining about already-fixed bugs ("psycho crazy" being one such memorable description). I maintain that such actions are utterly indefensible and that anyone doing so or defending it might as well wear a T-shirt saying "It's my right to be an @$$hole", but that will not stop me from being criticized for it.
• The potential gains may be limited. I am uncertain, even were I to change my policies today - even to a "do whatever you want" policy - that the public perception of my mods would appreciably change; I find it likely that people who avoid RC for my rules would continue to do so (and never even be aware of the change), MT-crash rumors would persist, and so on.
• I am also somewhat nervous that this may alienate some of the people on my side, with some accusing me of "selling out" or similar.
• I do not want to make it easier for servers to sell access to RC content, which being able to globally disable recipes (so that users buy it to obtain it) is often a requirement for doing
• HeilMewTwo makes another good point:

  It sounds great, but I think you will find that people will start trying to push for unrestricted access, under the excuse of: "You already relented once! Just stop being an a****** and let us do what we want!" Considering I have literally seen the second part of that sentence directed at you already, I do not think this would do much to deal with the crap you have to put up with.

 

[HeilMewTwo]

It sounds great, but I think you will find that people will start trying to push for unrestricted access, under the excuse of: "You already relented once! Just stop being an a****** and let us do what we want!" Considering I have literally seen the second part of that sentence directed at you already, I do not think this would do much to deal with the crap you have to put up with.

 

[ewsmith]

my opinion? it's your mod. i only play it. anyone who thinks that gives them some form of ownership over it is ignorant of how reality actually works.

 

[Pyure]

First, I'm entirely in favour of any policy that facilitates the addition of intelligent mods to people's games/packs. RotaryCraft and its subsidiaries are top-class mods that can benefit far more worlds than they currently do.

As far as FTB packs go, right now you can only find them in so-called "kitchen sink" packs, unless you count Horizons, which was a showcase pack for "unusual" mods (at the time).

This is specifically because the mods are extremely unfriendly to anyone trying to tailor a specific balance curve. Whatever your opinion is on a "balanced" pack (whether balance is ludicrous, necessary, or what), the fact remains that anyone trying to actually accomplish balance can't do so with RotaryCraft because it strictly enforces a specific, non-diverging balance curve.

This is why:

1) Is reasonable
3) Is more or less reasonable
2) May not be particularly well thought out.

No popular mod that I know of...not Buildcraft, not even GregTech(anymore)...tries to tell me what is balanced in my pack. They tell me what's balanced in their mod, but not what is balanced in my pack. They understand that making mods work together harmoniously means that they need to give and take to prevent exploits, incoherence, obsoleting, etc. I'll request clarification on this, but to my knowledge, no other popular mod in a major FTB pack has explicit rules against minetweaker use (explicit as laid out in Reika's rules. There are allowances.)

Scenario: In my hypothetical pack, it may make total sense for Fusion power to be acquirable on the third day of playing. Maybe its a silly futuristic pack where fusion is Tier1 on the route to anti-matter and black-hole-powered systems. Whatever. That's my business. If I want to scale all the recipes so that this is achievable in three days, there's no justifiably sane reason to prevent this. (Other than the fact that my pack is clearly insane to begin with, but again, that's my business.)

At the end of the day Reika is fully entitled to do what he pleases with his mods, but while I respect a person's ability to produce an intelligent mod that functions well by itself, I truly and deeply admire modders (the vast, vast, vast majority) who go out of their way to encourage the modding spirit and let their mods play nice with others.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Though, Pyure, if you'll notice, Reika isn't saying that he'll keep people from making said changes, just that he'd attempt to dissuade them from doing so if it'd break his mods' progression. Basically, if you want to ore-dict bedrock ingots and bedrockium together so they'd be interchangeable, Reika would say something along the lines of "I don't think that'd be a good idea, because that could severely break the progression of RotaryCraft," but he wouldn't say that and "therefore, I'm not going to allow you to do it." It kinda goes along well with #3, which I interpret as meaning "you can make a modification that breaks my progression, but don't come complaining to me when said progression breakage causes problems, since you're the one that did it and, therefore, are the one responsible."

 

[Pyure]

Though, Pyure, if you'll notice, Reika isn't saying that he'll keep people from making said changes, just that he'd attempt to dissuade them from doing so if it'd break his mods' progression. Basically, if you want to ore-dict bedrock ingots and bedrockium together so they'd be interchangeable, Reika would say something along the lines of "I don't think that'd be a good idea, because that could severely break the progression of RotaryCraft," but he wouldn't say that and "therefore, I'm not going to allow you to do it." It kinda goes along well with #3, which I interpret as meaning "you can make a modification that breaks my progression, but don't come complaining to me when said progression breakage causes problems, since you're the one that did it and, therefore, are the one responsible."

This is an understandable counter argument.

Let me explain: The reason I kept my concern neutral (rather than "#2 is stupid") is because the concern arises not from my wanting to telling someone what to do with his mods, but with someone telling me what is balanced in my world. If I want people to be able to make tier5 stuff out of tier1 materials in my world, I may have extremely justified reasons to do so. Maybe the amount of that tier1 stuff is restricted because this is a themed HQM pack. Maybe you can do it only one time. That's not the modder's business and it doesn't impact him or his mods.

I can do this in GregTech or BigReactors or any number of mods, and therefore I see these mods in hundreds of finely tailored, beautifully worked modpacks that are practically works of art themselves. I'd give a pretty penny to be able to do so in RoC with the same freedom, friendliness and frankly mutual respect.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Eeh, different strokes for different folks. Personally, I've no problem with it as a concept; its just a small consideration to help alleviate complaints that'd arise from people Minetweaking things without thinking about how they'd affect the whole picture. Basically, it makes you aware that what might go wrong during your tinkering may very well (and likely) be on you, and not the fault of either the author of the mod you're altering or Minetweaker. I can't see something that'd give people pause to think as anything other than a good thing.

 

[Pyure]

Eeh, different strokes for different folks. Personally, I've no problem with it as a concept; its just a small consideration to help alleviate complaints that'd arise from people Minetweaking things without thinking about how they'd affect the whole picture. Basically, it makes you aware that what might go wrong during your tinkering may very well (and likely) be on you, and not the fault of either the author of the mod you're altering or Minetweaker. I can't see something that'd give people pause to think as anything other than a good thing.

Backtrack a step. You hit the nail right on the head but didn't notice it.

You mentioned the "whole picture". The whole picture is JadedCat's business, or Jason McCray's. Where Reika makes a rare stradivarius, they make arias. His talent is to make a beautiful instrument; I'm asking for tuning pegs.

 

[Reika]

First, I'm entirely in favour of any policy that facilitates the addition of intelligent mods to people's games/packs. RotaryCraft and its subsidiaries are top-class mods that can benefit far more worlds than they currently do.

As far as FTB packs go, right now you can only find them in so-called "kitchen sink" packs, unless you count Horizons, which was a showcase pack for "unusual" mods (at the time).

This is specifically because the mods are extremely unfriendly to anyone trying to tailor a specific balance curve. Whatever your opinion is on a "balanced" pack (whether balance is ludicrous, necessary, or what), the fact remains that anyone trying to actually accomplish balance can't do so with RotaryCraft because it strictly enforces a specific, non-diverging balance curve.

This is why:

1) Is reasonable
3) Is more or less reasonable
2) May not be particularly well thought out.

No popular mod that I know of...not Buildcraft, not even GregTech(anymore)...tries to tell me what is balanced in my pack. They tell me what's balanced in their mod, but not what is balanced in my pack. They understand that making mods work together harmoniously means that they need to give and take to prevent exploits, incoherence, obsoleting, etc. I'll request clarification on this, but to my knowledge, no other popular mod in a major FTB pack has explicit rules against minetweaker use (explicit as laid out in Reika's rules. There are allowances.)

Scenario: In my hypothetical pack, it may make total sense for Fusion power to be acquirable on the third day of playing. Maybe its a silly futuristic pack where fusion is Tier1 on the route to anti-matter and black-hole-powered systems. Whatever. That's my business. If I want to scale all the recipes so that this is achievable in three days, there's no justifiably sane reason to prevent this. (Other than the fact that my pack is clearly insane to begin with, but again, that's my business.)

At the end of the day Reika is fully entitled to do what he pleases with his mods, but while I respect a person's ability to produce an intelligent mod that functions well by itself, I truly and deeply admire modders (the vast, vast, vast majority) who go out of their way to encourage the modding spirit and let their mods play nice with others.

The point of my rules is not "I know what your pack's balance is", it is "people making changes, 99.5% of the time, have no idea what they are doing, and 90% of those times, blame me for any side-effects, and 75% of those times, shoot their mouth off to everyone who will listen about how RC is bugged or unbalanced".

 

[n0rw0lf]

Personally, I think that as a mod author, you will always have to deal with arrogant, irritating people. Whether it be rumors being spread by a certain modpack team, or people complaining that the mod is too overpowered. People can be stupid irregardless of policy.

I think:
1) Is reasonable

2) Needs more thought
#2 Would require a ton of work, and would unfortunately be seen as an elitist approach. Why? Because eventually, if you slow down on responding to people, those people will feel resentment. "Big modpack here was allowed, why not me?"

Unfortunately, I think the only appropriate way to do this is to have more of a blacklist approach. Its not ideal, but it allows you to target the big offenders while not having to work as hard.

A system like this could work: You reserve the right to disallow a modpack develper from putting your mod in any modpack, at any time.
Modpack developers would have to provide contact information, Legal name of the main developer, and a detailed list of the changes that are going to be made through an "application" process. All applications are by default accepted.

If by skimming through the modpacks, you notice an issue, perhaps with lack of detail, or a fundamental lack of understanding, you may revoke their right to use your mod in a public modpack until they fix or explain to you the importance of the changes , and you accept them. It is up to the modpack developer to notice that the license has been revoked. Perhaps that can be done through automated "modpack versions" of builds built for specific packs, with an ID that checks against a server to see if its still valid, and if its not, it leaves a message in the log for the player to either download the regular version or for the modpack developer to fix the issues.

3) Is a policy that you should have right now anyways. You've dealt with the crashing rumors, well I'm sure those situations will be very similar

as for making it easier for servers, if they break one of your rules (ie: no selling mod content), the license is invalidated anyways. AFAIK, according to the law, breaking 1 rule is no different to breaking 10.

 

[Azzanine]

Flip a coin; Heads= no access, tails= full access.

Anything short of those two options will only ever increase your work load, scorn and generally make your day/s bad. It's a zero sum game man, you lose no matter what you do, of course that is if pleasing everyone is your goal.

I have one idea, you could allow full balance access but you could reinstate that warning banner if your mod detects tinkering. Except this time make it so the banner fades in an allotted time, 15-30 mins seems like a reasonable amount of time for the message to sink in before it fades.

You should care a bit less about what people think, if you are confident in the quality of your work then no amount of scorn should matter.
Plus your mods already take a lot of effort to like, whether you get your way or others get there way you are ALWAYS going to have people running their mouths. There was a point where I tried to ham fistedly "try" RoC, I couldn't figure out how to power a grinder easily and was like "fuck this shitty mod, WTF is the creator thinking?" took me a good while to give it a proper try but until that time my advice about RoC would have been "Don't bother, that mod's a mess". There would have been absolutely nothing you could have done to stop me saying things like that, uninformed/ ignorant opinions are a thing and will never stop being a thing.
That being said my advice today would still be "don't bother" unless I figured the person asking had the patience and mental capacity to multiply and divide with a calculator. I figured you had enough morons pounding at your door, wouldn't feel right to direct more of them to your way.

 

[Reika]

Unfortunately, I think the only appropriate way to do this is to have more of a blacklist approach. Its not ideal, but it allows you to target the big offenders while not having to work as hard.

A system like this could work: You reserve the right to disallow a modpack develper from putting your mod in any modpack, at any time.
Modpack developers would have to provide contact information, Legal name of the main developer, and a detailed list of the changes that are going to be made through an "application" process. All applications are by default accepted.

If by skimming through the modpacks, you notice an issue, perhaps with lack of detail, or a fundamental lack of understanding, you may revoke their right to use your mod in a public modpack until they fix or explain to you the importance of the changes , and you accept them. It is up to the modpack developer to notice that the license has been revoked. Perhaps that can be done through automated "modpack versions" of builds built for specific packs, with an ID that checks against a server to see if its still valid, and if its not, it leaves a message in the log for the player to either download the regular version or for the modpack developer to fix the issues.

This is a non-starter. Not only does it require a DRM system implemented in the mods, but asking things like real names is not remotely reasonable (or necessary).

 

[InfinityRaider]

The best way would be to implement your own minetweaker functionality, this allows you to have full control of what can and can not be done.

 

[Reika]

The best way would be to implement your own minetweaker functionality, this allows you to have full control of what can and can not be done.

This would not affect "vanilla table" recipes. As it is, I already have full control over other items indirectly, as only my machines can make them.

 

[InfinityRaider]

This would not affect "vanilla table" recipes. As it is, I already have full control over other items indirectly, as only my machines can make them.

Correct me if I wrong, but I meant this: as I understand, right now you crash the game if anyone changes your recipes, so you could make a new minetweaker handler for "vanilla" recipes thats fully under your control.

 

[HeilMewTwo]

Correct me if I wrong, but I meant this: as I understand, right now you crash the game if anyone changes your recipes, so you could make a new minetweaker handler for "vanilla" recipes thats fully under your control.

If you mean that stupid minetweaker rumor, no he doesn't. It just disables his mods from what I understand.

 

[InfinityRaider]

If you mean that stupid minetweaker rumor, no he doesn't. It just disables his mods from what I understand.

Ah yes now I remember, that guy throwing quite the fury for breaking his world, my apologies

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

For my tuppence:

1) Not just reasonable but essential. "You break it, you bought it." - i.e. if you choose to mess with it, that's your choice. You cannot expect tech support. That's just a fact, and a fair one.

2) Just to clarify, do they have to ask you, or is this a request for them to ask you, so you can run it through your "is this a stupid effing idea" filter, and - critically here - provide a form of pre-tech support. That's the impression I get - that you will say to them, not just that it won't work, but why its a bad idea, potentially providing guidance for better changes. Which I think is pretty cool.

3) Is a tough one, but again as @n0rw0lf said - should already be in place. With a finely tuned balance like your mods have, it seems unfair that people can change things willy-nilly, blame you for it, and have people listen to them. Comes back to point 1 - "you break it, you bought it", so if you mess it up, deal with it and don't blame the author. Enforcing it is the tough part, especially as there isn't actually any law against lying on the internet. Well, as far as I know. But what you've suggested seems fair - Wall o' Shame 'em.

- GwnG

 

[Reika]

3) Is a tough one, but again as @n0rw0lf said - should already be in place. With a finely tuned balance like your mods have, it seems unfair that people can change things willy-nilly, blame you for it, and have people listen to them. Comes back to point 1 - "you break it, you bought it", so if you mess it up, deal with it and don't blame the author. Enforcing it is the tough part, especially as there isn't actually any law against lying on the internet. Well, as far as I know. But what you've suggested seems fair - Wall o' Shame 'em.

I need a good way to enforce this, or the rule might as well not exist.

2) Just to clarify, do they have to ask you, or is this a request for them to ask you, so you can run it through your "is this a stupid effing idea" filter, and - critically here - provide a form of pre-tech support. That's the impression I get - that you will say to them, not just that it won't work, but why its a bad idea, potentially providing guidance for better changes. Which I think is pretty cool.

I think the idea would be that they have to tell me, ('ask' implies I have to give permission) so that I can act accordingly.

If you mean that stupid minetweaker rumor, no he doesn't. It just disables his mods from what I understand.

Not even that. The only way to trigger my mods to disable themselves (and by that I mean in functionality, not an outright uninstall, would would cause blocks and items to disappear) is to try to monetize it.

My recipe enforcement code just undoes changes. So if you have a MT script adding a new recipe for bedrock ingots, you will find that line commented out, along with a note about how such changes are not permitted.

 

[Pyure]

The point of my rules is not "I know what your pack's balance is", it is "people making changes, 99.5% of the time, have no idea what they are doing, and 90% of those times, blame me for any side-effects, and 75% of those times, shoot their mouth off to everyone who will listen about how RC is bugged or unbalanced".

I wish you were joking.

Your numbers are conjured and subjective (how do you define "no idea what they're doing") and their intellect, capabilities and attitudes are none of your business. Your logic applies to other modders, and yet your stance is unique.

I see that little or nothing is actually going to improve here. For a brief moment I was pleasantly surprised, but instead now I'm reading this thread and growing progressively more alarmed and shocked. The prevailing attitude that everyone else is an idiot is deplorable.

I pray...I hope no other mod developer ever, ever, ever takes this same stance. In an "industry" (forgive the term) that is fundamentally built on the premise of taking someone else's work and tweaking it to your whims, building a mod and then placing heavy restrictions against modifying it runs directly counter to the entire spirit of the community. Its just wrong.

99% of the community is too stupid to work with your mods? Got it. That's a pretty persuasive reason to avoid this thread going forward.

If anyone needs to point out an error or otherwise comment on my reasoning, feel free to message me directly.