An open letter to modders: Stop removing your mods from the Steam Workshop!

[Jaxxa]

It would take me forever to dig through the forums to find and download the mods I want, then I have to keep tabs on every single thread for every mod to see if the modder updated them and redownload them.

If you have the time to do that, that's great, its what I would do if I could. But I don't have that kind of time so I use steam workshop instead.

That really does sum up the state of the game modding right now. We have two systems that both have issues. One manual system based around the Forums that can take a significant time investment to keep up-to-date and is not ideal to display and find new mods. And a primarily automatic system on Steam that allows you to easily install mods, at the expense of being at the mercy of them being removed or any automatic updated that you didn't necessarily want.


Also if a modder wants to remove a mod from Steam if possible it would probably be best to do it after a new Alpha has been release and broken the mod anyway.

[faltonico]

@Jaxxa @Everyone else
There is no real need to have all of your mods up to the latest version (a modder here pointed that out to me), so, no need to expend time on that, you just have to have them work when you first enable them, If you eventually happen to find an error with any of those mods, you better report it, and be on the look out for the eventual fixing update, or simply stop using it.
Have a list of working mods and play with them until the end of your colony, If you don't update that often, you avoid incompatible and/or save breaking updates. *cofalien*coforassan*cof*harmonycof*

On the matter of the "discovery" of mods, that someone else mentioned, i don't know how Steam would be better that the forums, here, we even have a pinned thread with a list of mods (most of the authors don't even know it exists though) https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=27962.0 ...may be pass on the responsibility to some people to keep that list up to date instead of relaying on the author to see the thread that nobody notices? i could help with that.

Regarding the OP, If you use steam, just deal with it xD

[RawCode]

welcome to real life, nobody owe you anything!

if modder decided to remove his mod from workshop, well, you have absolutely no rights to stop him.

I'm not saying a modder can't remove their mod, just asking that they don't as a common courtesy to the people who support them.

very simple, don't support bad modders who update without warning and remove mods for fun.

[Tanelorn]

I'm sure you have your reasons. Maybe the mod isn't needed anymore or made obsolete by a similar mod, maybe you don't feel it's appreciated enough, maybe you just don't care about it anymore.

So if you want to abandon or remove your mod for whatever reason, please, just leave it on the workshop. It costs you nothing, and saves your users a lot of frustration and headache!

THIS. Update the info in the mod to let ppl know BUT KEEP IT IN THERE!!!

[whoishigh]

very simple, don't support bad modders who update without warning and remove mods for fun.

Easier said than done. I have no way of knowing who removed what without spending far too much time on the mod mismatch screen. The simplest answer here is to make modders aware of what happens when they remove their mods from the workshop. If they see this request and decide it's "Not My Problem™" then yeah, I'm probably not going to use their mods anymore.

Regarding the OP, If you use steam, just deal with it xD

I have been dealing with it, and again it's an infrequent problem - but if I can convince anyone who puts a mod on the workshop to not remove it for whatever reason for the sake of the people actually using their mods, you can bet I'm going to try. The issue here is entirely on Steam's end, but I can't pretend Steam would act on this complaint within a year or two, let alone even listen to it, so I made a plea to the people who are creating the content and putting it on Steam. It seems reasonable enough, and I don't see "deal with it" and "this is how life works" being valid arguments here.

But everyone has the right to make their own choices. I'd like to think most modders would choose not to fuck over the people using their mods once they know what's going on, who can really say.

[skullywag]

Just copy the mods to the mods folder...you can still subscribe to the mod and let steam handle that, just copy it over to the mods folder one every now and then. Im not sure why this is an issue. Its very obvious which ones which on the mod screen. Leave the steam one disabled and only enable the mods folder one. Now it wont matter if ones removed from steam youll still have the latest version as steam cant delete those files. Im not sure what all the fuss is about this is a very simple process.

[Fluffy (l2032)]

this is a very simple process.

If only Valve caught up to that...

[whoishigh]

Im not sure what all the fuss is about this is a very simple process.

It largely defeats any benefit of the Steam Workshop, and again it's a simple request on my part. All the modder has to do is not click anything - versus me going through the effort of doubling the amount of mods I have to scroll through in Rimworld's already not great mod menu. The entire goal of the workshop is to make things easier for the player, not harder.

I really don't understand why it's that much of an imposition to ask that modders simply not click one button.

[skullywag]

Cuz pretty much every modder who has removed a mod from the workshop has done it out of drama. Its rarely simply cuz they have stopped support, most modders will just leave the mod up. So you asking for the modders to not remove it is not gonna fix the problem as a whole. Im the one who has been chasing said modders when they DO remove them to get an answer as to why, I take my job as moderator of the mods forum a little further than just the forums

believe me when I say your attempt is a noble one and hey, if it works GREAT. I just dont see the majority of people who have removed mods being the type to listen to you. Hence ive given you possible workarounds which WILL deffo work at the cost of some minor annoyances, I agree the mod list isnt the best but the icon next to the mod changes for steam ones and youd have all of them at the bottom of the list disabled so you dont need to scroll the whole way anyway. The only extra effort for the player is copying the workshop folder to the mods folder....thats it. Ctrl+c, Ctrl+v, wait a bit, done.

[faltonico]

It largely defeats any benefit of the Steam Workshop, and again it's a simple request on my part.
-snip-

I don't know why you feel entitled to have things go your way, or the way it is more convenient for you, if a modder decides to take his mod out for whatever reason (being drama the most common), he can, he is the one really entitled to do anything,
¿does it sucks? Never happened to me, most likely.
¿is s/he a douche? You may think so, but s/he also have his/her circumstances.
¿can you convince him/her not to with this thread? i really doubt it.
But if you use the steam service, you better have a plan b in case that happens, don't complain and simply do what Rawcode said, stop supporting that author.

Should steam do something about it? well, users already have to ask permission to Steam to play their games, why not have them control over the mods that are not theirs? and if we are already there, why not to sell them back to the users as well?! /s
Now seriously, it would be the last straw for Steam to keep a mod that the author explicitly wishes not to, but i see that situation coming in the future, even more so if people keep asking for it.

But really... Is it really that hard to right click and drag a folder?

[Granitecosmos]

Should steam do something about it? well, users already have to ask permission to Steam to play their games, why not have them control over the mods that are not theirs? and if we are already there, why not to sell them back to the users as well?! /s

And then you realize they actually tried this. The Skyrim paid mods fiasco, and Steam was nice enough to take only 75% of the revenue for themselves. What a nice bunch, I don't even understand the massive community backlash they received.        Turn mods into DLC, best idea ever.

Yet another reason for me to never upload anything to the Steam Workshop (along with the ridiculous mod handling this thread points out). But hey, at least I can't delete it if it's not there, right? So OP won't have any problems with my mods. Problem solved.

But really... Is it really that hard to right click and drag a folder?

This. If you want mods, this is the oh so huge price you have to pay. If you can't do this, well, Git Gud™.

[Fluffy (l2032)]

and Steam was nice enough to take only 75% of the revenue for themselves

While I dislike paid mods as much as the next person*, let's not get fake numbers out there. Steam took ~30% (their usual cut), ~40% went to the game developers, and the modder got ~30%. Still a pretty terrible deal for modders (leaving aside the larger issue of wether or not paid mods are a good thing/the end of the world).

*: I do sometimes have daydreams where I can live off modding, and I don't need to do actual work anymore. Wouldn't that be nice?

[GideonHidolka]

and Steam was nice enough to take only 75% of the revenue for themselves

While I dislike paid mods as much as the next person*, let's not get fake numbers out there. Steam took ~30% (their usual cut), ~40% went to the game developers, and the modder got ~30%. Still a pretty terrible deal for modders (leaving aside the larger issue of wether or not paid mods are a good thing/the end of the world).

*: I do sometimes have daydreams where I can live off modding, and I don't need to do actual work anymore. Wouldn't that be nice?

As opposed to getting nothing now? i'm not a modder but i never understood the drama surrounding that situation. Giving modders a platform to make money from mods if they wanted to try it  did not seem like that big a deal to me and I cant help but feel like the backlash was purely from PC gamers being a spoiled bunch that think everything should be free (Including games via piracy)

[Jaxxa]

As opposed to getting nothing now? i'm not a modder but i never understood the drama surrounding that situation. Giving modders a platform to make money from mods if they wanted to try it  did not seem like that big a deal to me and I cant help but feel like the backlash was purely from PC gamers being a spoiled bunch that think everything should be free (Including games via piracy)

Some other issues apart from the % of money and players wanting it to be free.

- Encourage Modders to produce lots of small cheep crap just to cash in.
- Encourage Modders to steal work from other mods and claim it as their own.
- Reduces Community Collaboration, why work together (share a cool new way of doing things) when if I keep it to myself I can make more money, but harms the community as a whole.
- If a free mod does not work then there is no loss, if someone pays for a mod how long does it need to keep working? Each Alpha version of Rimworld breaks most mods from the previous Alpha, how many Alphas do I need to support a mod for? Just the one or is there an expectation that it will keep working, if so for how long?
- What about compatibility with other mods? If two mods don't play nice with each other do I need to try and fix it? What if I am taking a break from Rimworld for a while, can I do that now without pissing off everyone who feel entitled for the mod they paid for to keep working (No Judgement in if that is reasonable for them to expect or not)?
- What about just bugs in the mod, how quickly do they need to be fixed?

So while I would love to just get money from what I am already doing, there are a number of issues that need to be figured out as a Community to avoid a massive issues and disappointment. It would probably be best for Paid mods to be implemented from the release of a game to avoid a painful transition and so everyone knows what they are getting into.

[The-Eroks]

Hmm... I see both sides of the issue. Steam is really convenient dabbling in mods and has a pretty great selection presented in a reasonable GUI. But also kinda sucks when a mod's author just arbitrarily removes it and it causes in-game issues. 

Has anybody simply asked Steam to not delete the mods without the end users permission?