Question regarding mod packs/derivations rules.

[sefer]

So this is purely for academic purposes not trying to start any fights, and not looking for a flame war to ignite. I simply want to hear your reasons and I would actually like something that takes a few sentences rather than just a "because I said so." So here goes.

1. Why do you disallow mod packs and/or derivations for your mods?
2. If someone ignored this, what would you do? (In complete honesty, 100% what you would actually do. Not some fantasy answer that you wouldn't actually backup with action.)

I find many of the most popular mods to mostly include a yes to everything so long as the person informed them and gave credit, and some that either disallow one, the other, or both. To me, it actually ruffles my feathers when I see people saying no to both (annoyed seems a bit hostile of a word to define my feelings). When I started noticing some that did this despite having no form of monetization I became incredibly confused.. I mean, that always seemed to be how I wrote it off, that the person didn't want attention diverted cause of money.

Some things to consider:

1.If your reason was that you wouldn't be given credit if you allowed it but said you needed credit... Why would you think they would obey your "No." answer? That just means instead of getting credit and getting told about it... They are just doing it and not telling people at all. I mean, ive seen some mods that feel similar to others... I would bet you anything they looked at your code, and either took small snippets with changed words, an added line of code, or just looked up an alternative method of doing the exact same thing you did for that segment (thats kinda how alot of programmers make 'new' programs.) the only difference is now you didn't even get a nod (because if they nod to you, then thats admitting they used your programming as help for theirs.)

2. If you chose to make your mod public, why? Was it because you thought it was fun and improved upon the game and thus you wanted others to have it too? Or did you just want money or something? If it was the first then you should really allow people to mod pack/derive from your mod, so that they can spread the fun further.

3. If you think your mod is a lone wolf... <.< Its not. I'm sorry but, maybe only a small handful of ppl are ONLY using your mod. For the most part people have 10, 20, 50, 100+ mods running at once. Modpacks aren't just thrown together. Its an accumulation of mods that someone has gone through and found a way to make them all play along fairly well together without crashing, which if you are a frequent mod hoarder... You would know it can sometimes take literal DAYS of time getting the right load order and mods to work nicely together. Sometimes doing so can kill the fun so much that by the time you get all the mods you want for your ultimate game... You no longer want to even play. A modpack takes all of that hard work and gives it to people painfree! To bypass annoying "No modpack" things in past games i've literally had to prepare bat files that open up every single mod page for the person so they can shamelessly earn their 5 cents per view from a unique viewer just so I could get people into my modded server for minecraft in the past... For most of these rimworld mods... I see direct downloads, or steam... You have no monetary incentive so why refuse a mod pack person who wants to do all the hard work for you?

4. Human beings have only advanced because we have collectively shared our knowledge and passed down the rights to those that come after us to further our work and reach new heights once we were done... A different person has different views, insights, thought processes, and can expand your work to a new level that you never could have. There are no original thoughts or ideas. Everything is made up of things said, done, taught from a past work, and it is different from copying/stealing: It is how humanity progresses. It has only been corporate greed that has caused a huge stall in progress and the greatest sin from that greed? These people made their creations as derivations from older ones. I of course am talking about Disney, and how they caused old works to retain copyright for exponentially longer amounts of time thus preventing progress to continue. Worst of all? They made their characters off of older ones that were public domain, and then made sure that their derivations would never enter into the public domain to be used just like they used someone elses.

So now that I have brought some things to light, and hopefully reminded you of why you made these mods to begin with, if you are still adamant in keeping your no to modpacks and no to derivations, please inform us to your exact reasoning behind it. Perhaps theres something I didn't bring up that you know about that I don't. I mean seriously, if you just say no because you don't think anyone else deserves to touch your work, thats totally fine, it is yours after all. (Though in that specific case, do think about any help you may have received or mods you looked at to get to where you are now. That knowledge came from somewhere, not just thin air. Theres probably someone you should be thanking on your mod page, even if its a teacher ^_-)

[Mehni]

Some of my mods were gobbled up by HCSK.

They often lag behind on updates, so I get bug reports for an outdated version.
Other mods in that mod pack lag behind on updates, or have been heavily customised. I made compatibility patches for a few of these mods, and then I need *another* compatibility patch for an ever-changing mod pack.
They make substantial changes to the game, so issues arise that only happen in that mod pack.
None of the changes/improvements these modpacks made to my mods have come back to me.

All of that is extra work for me. I get bug reports that are hard to reproduce, only arise under very specific circumstances and there's no benefit for me. Sometimes, not even a thank you or acknowledgement.

I've chosen a license with a high degree of freedom, because I believe in Open Source. Sometimes I feel honoured or flattered that a modpack wants my mod, but most of the time? Ehh.

Apart from that, modpacks in general are meh. Modding is about customising the game to suit your individual taste. A modpack doesn't achieve that, and the mod pack maker will always be a decision I strongly disagree with.

[sefer]

Some of my mods were gobbled up by HCSK.

They often lag behind on updates, so I get bug reports for an outdated version.
Other mods in that mod pack lag behind on updates, or have been heavily customised. I made compatibility patches for a few of these mods, and then I need *another* compatibility patch for an ever-changing mod pack.
They make substantial changes to the game, so issues arise that only happen in that mod pack.
None of the changes/improvements these modpacks made to my mods have come back to me.

All of that is extra work for me. I get bug reports that are hard to reproduce, only arise under very specific circumstances and there's no benefit for me. Sometimes, not even a thank you or acknowledgement.

I've chosen a license with a high degree of freedom, because I believe in Open Source. Sometimes I feel honoured or flattered that a modpack wants my mod, but most of the time? Ehh.

Apart from that, modpacks in general are meh. Modding is about customising the game to suit your individual taste. A modpack doesn't achieve that, and the mod pack maker will always be a decision I strongly disagree with.

Very concise! Thank you Mehni. I can totally understand this. I was looking at this from just my own perspective with the thought that any mod pack maker would be putting extra care into it and making sure not to cause problems for the mod owners. I had so many mods that I couldn't figure out what mod added this one specific feature that was causing problems, but I knew there was no point in reporting the issue because it was obvious through testing that it was a conflict between another mod, and a simple player would probably just throw the error at you and complain without any regard. Although, would a well thought out mod pack actually cause that kind of a problem more so than people adding various mods themselves?

I totally agree the mod author is usually making a mod for themselves and then offering it up for others because why not? I as a user has always just pictured the majority of modders using each others mods while making a mod themselves for things that another modder hasn't made yet. Like a collective to improve the game to the specific tastes of each individual.

My question for you then Mehni is, if the mod pack creators made sure to give each person credit, and firmly state that the mod pack could throw errors/bugs due to conflicts and thus the individual mod authors should not be bothered with such things due to possible outdated or conflicted materials, would you feel like you could maybe agree with it? I don't know what other mod pack owners do, but typically the pack I would make is based on what I am currently playing with, and would have a high degree of knowledge of what kind of errors/conflicts has arisen and what to do about it, which usually if it doesn't cause a crash then I consider it fine (if not I painstakingly spend hours isolating the conflicts and deciding how to fix it/ whether it be scraping it or changing the mod load order.)

Also I am sorry that happens to you. Some people are very selfish and don't know proper etiquette or manners.

[Mehni]

I mean, when a mod list hits 200+ mods I'd be surprised if there are no conflicts at all. I think modders should strive towards compatibility: well made mods generally don't conflict with other mods. That's a matter of defensive coding and staying in your own scope. That does more than preventing mod conflicts: it's proper coding practices.

Yes, I think a modpack can prevent incompatibilities or conflicts between mods better than a single user can. They know what's going on. Despite one or two bad experiences with HCSK, I still very much respect it for what it does: try to create a coherent experience and reduce redundancies. There are probably 3 or 4 mods adding fertiliser, HCSK unifies them. Don't underestimate the amount of manhours into HCSK: sharing that with others is a big benefit. Downside of HCSK is that it's mostly shared with the users instead of with other modders. Still, that's a net benefit for the RimWorld community so I'm okay with them using my mods. I'd be lying if I were to say I mod exclusively for myself: another part that plays a role is having my ego inflated by seeing people enjoy my work.

You propose modpack makers add a disclaimer regarding incompatibilities/errors. I would argue that its the responsibility of the modpack maker not to introduce new incompatibilities. That said, bugs happen. I, as a mod maker, would like to fix them all. Even more so if the bug report comes from a single community ambassador who verified the issue. If a modpack can provide me with a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example, I would greatly appreciate it. If it's "here's a modpack of 200 mods, plz fix" they can go pound sand. This here is my dream bugreport. Logs, a reproducing savefile, clear and polite communication -- I'll take the time out of my day for something like that.

For the record: I speak mostly of HCSK because they're the only real modpack I know of (Steam collections aren't modpacks, imo). While the modpack isn't my cup of tea to play with, I respect the work put in and the direction it has taken as of late. I hang in their discord and they're good folks.

[sefer]

Yea I don't consider a steam collection as a pack because it doesn't include things like load order, its more a suggestion of things to get. By incompatibilities, I simply meant harmless errors that are thrown or slight conflicts that don't really hinder the experience. I currently have 87 different mods, and the biggest annoyance is the popup window that throws errors... But these errors, to my knowledge, don't stop anything from happening. Sometimes when I right-click something with my rimworld vampire, it pops up with an error, but this doesn't stop me from selecting and doing an action with him. So if I turned my list into a modpack, I would list that there are harmless error throws that can be ignored by setting auto-open to off. The only other error my list has includes a faction from The Agency (another thing added by Jecrell ) that cannot get a name, so they are simply known as "error name". (I suspect this is from one of my various mods that adjusts factions spawns making it really high numbers.) its obvious to me that it is because of a conflict, but its not that important. It doesn't stop me from enjoying the game and it doesn't cause any problem other than 1 faction being labeled as errorname, the benefit from the other mods outweighs that tiny negative, so I deem it acceptable.

My ultimate gripe is exactly what you said earlier. The mod authors should always be thanked and mentioned, and the bug reports should be handled by the mod pack owner as it is their responsibility to find out if it is indeed a conflict, or an actual bug caused by the mod and the base game, and then they should be the ones to make the official report and give an intelligent report like what you mentioned.