Jump to content

What if someone takes Making history expansion DLC and turns it into a mod?


Recommended Posts

You would be in trouble because you are distributing paid content for free, copyrighting things, and other reasons. So DO NOT make DLC into a mod! It is a great parts pack with a mission builder that costs money, which I think it is pretty reasonable, if the cost is low. What is the cost anyway?NoCopyright.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, JEB'S DESTINY said:

You would be in trouble because you are distributing paid content for free, copyrighting things, and other reasons. So DO NOT make DLC into a mod! It is a great parts pack with a mission builder that costs money, which I think it is pretty reasonable, if the cost is low. What is the cost anyway?NoCopyright.png

Cost is tba. Will probably be pretty low (I'm going with </=$10, 15 at most)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

You'd have to build it entirely from scratch, as decompiling and redistributing their work isn't allowed.

You might be in trouble legally even doing that.

That said there are already mods that do similar stuff like adding cold war era parts and such.

Which is where my issue lies with this DLCs (and the majority of what Squad/T2 can offer). There are community free options that can achieve quite a significant bit without paying a dime. With the exception of the mission builder (which I'm confident could be made into a mod if such a feat wasn't now copyrighted by Squad/T2) there's nothing present in the mod that warrants payment. It's a paid mod. In a game where literally every other part of ingame content is free. I understand they need money to keep making content. Fully support that. Personally I just don't see this particular approach to DLCs as effective. Minecraft's texture packs seem to make Mojang/Microsoft profit off of the game (though possibly again possible to do for free through mods, but I'm less certain). Maybe looking other games attempts at content will be a better notion for Squad/T2.

That said, KSP2 will undoubtedly be forward built to have DLCs be more capable than mods. If T2 seriously wishes to implement DLCs into the next game, they can't have mods compete in the same market. Squad/T2 just can't beat free content unless their own content has been built to be superior from the start. But that's just my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Which is where my issue lies with this DLCs (and the majority of what Squad/T2 can offer). There are community free options that can achieve quite a significant bit without paying a dime. With the exception of the mission builder (which I'm confident could be made into a mod if such a feat wasn't now copyrighted by Squad/T2) there's nothing present in the mod that warrants payment. It's a paid mod. In a game where literally every other part of ingame content is free. I understand they need money to keep making content. Fully support that. Personally I just don't see this particular approach to DLCs as effective. Minecraft's texture packs seem to make Mojang/Microsoft profit off of the game (though possibly again possible to do for free through mods, but I'm less certain). Maybe looking other games attempts at content will be a better notion for Squad/T2.

That said, KSP2 will undoubtedly be forward built to have DLCs be more capable than mods. If T2 seriously wishes to implement DLCs into the next game, they can't have mods compete in the same market. Squad/T2 just can't beat free content unless their own content has been built to be superior from the start. But that's just my opinion.

I sort of agree, especially after enduring the Bethesda creation club debacle recently. Not only do "paid mods" not offer enough to warrant their price, there are often way better free solutions.

That said, this recent quote from the KSP weekly really abated my fears somewhat in regards to this game.

"In other news, the Making History Expansion continues to be carefully molded, as more features and components are implemented. For instance, just as with the core game, we expect that Mods will play an important  role in Making History, and this week completed the design of where and how Mods installed into the game are going to be displayed to the Mission Creators and Mission Players. We are making sure that Mod support is at the forefront of the decisions we make with the design. It is imperative for us to maintain the relationship we have with our community and to extend this into the creation of Missions and the support of Mods. It is because of this we will integrate Mod support from day one into the Making History Expansion. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll let you know further detail regarding Mod support, so stay tuned for that."

Edited by Rocket In My Pocket
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I sort of agree, especially after enduring the Bethesda creation club debacle recently. Not only do "paid mods" not offer enough to warrant their price, there are often way better free solutions.

That said, this recent quote from the KSP weekly really abated my fears somewhat in regards to this game.

"In other news, the Making History Expansion continues to be carefully molded, as more features and components are implemented. For instance, just as with the core game, we expect that Mods will play an important  role in Making History, and this week completed the design of where and how Mods installed into the game are going to be displayed to the Mission Creators and Mission Players. We are making sure that Mod support is at the forefront of the decisions we make with the design. It is imperative for us to maintain the relationship we have with our community and to extend this into the creation of Missions and the support of Mods. It is because of this we will integrate Mod support from day one into the Making History Expansion. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll let you know further detail regarding Mod support, so stay tuned for that."

Although I applaud the intent to keep it open to community development, I just don't know how willing the community will be to develop content for an optional piece of content. Hard enough to get your mod noticed these days with just one platform, much less two.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

which I'm confident could be made into a mod if such a feat wasn't now copyrighted by Squad/T2

That's not how copyright works. It covers works, so documents or code or binary files that were created by the copyright holder, not abstract concepts. SQUAD owns the code for Making History and the compiled files that will be distributed under that name, but they do not legally own the idea of a mission builder. There is not now, nor has there ever been or will there ever be, anything stopping any modder from creating a mission builder, as long as it is truly all their own work and not redistributing bits and pieces from Making History.

An obvious follow-up question: Why hasn't anyone? We have contract pack mods, which are often mistakenly likened to the mission builder, but so far no one has made an interactive point-and-click step-by-step mission building-and-executing mod. I surmise that it's too large and complex of a project for a modder or team of modders to complete in their spare time, and the integration with the stock game would be extremely difficult if it was even feasible at all (remember that SQUAD is releasing a 1.4 update containing changes to make Making History possible). So I have to disagree with the notion that it's a feasible mod project, and I'm glad that SQUAD has decided to use their greater resources and expertise to take it on.

(Asterisk, EULAs do limit what you can do with some games, but that is about a contractual agreement between two parties, not copyrights.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

That's not how copyright works. It covers works, so documents or code or binary files that were created by the copyright holder, not abstract concepts. SQUAD owns the code for Making History and the compiled files that will be distributed under that name, but they do not legally own the idea of a mission builder. There is not now, nor has there ever been or will there ever be, anything stopping any modder from creating a mission builder, as long as it is truly all their own work and not redistributing bits and pieces from Making History.

An obvious follow-up question: Why hasn't anyone? We have contract pack mods, which are often mistakenly likened to the mission builder, but so far no one has made an interactive point-and-click step-by-step mission building-and-executing mod. I surmise that it's too large and complex of a project for a modder or team of modders to complete in their spare time, and the integration with the stock game would be extremely difficult if it was even feasible at all (remember that SQUAD is releasing a 1.4 update containing changes to make Making History possible). So I have to disagree with the notion that it's a feasible mod project, and I'm glad that SQUAD has decided to use their greater resources and expertise to take it on.

(Asterisk, EULAs do limit what you can do with some games, but that is about a contractual agreement between two parties, not copyrights.)

Then it still remains fully feasible for a modder to do. IMO RSS/RO is a hell of a massive task and has still been done on somone's personal time. So I believe that it's still on the same scale a mods. There's nothing I've seen as of yet, that proves it as entirely beyond the scope of mod content.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Then it still remains fully feasible for a modder to do. IMO RSS/RO is a hell of a massive task and has still been done on somone's personal time. So I believe that it's still on the same scale a mods. There's nothing I've seen as of yet, that proves it as entirely beyond the scope of mod content.

RSS is great, but it's mostly content. Orbital parameters, height maps, textures, etc.; and we shouldn't forget that our real-world solar system solves most of those design decisions for free. It's a big undertaking, but it's quite do-able with a piecemeal approach of collecting whatever data you can find from NASA or wikipedia and iterating on it as folks contribute better info. Just the kind of thing one or a few devs can take on over time.

RSS has a plugin, but it's a quarter the size of my own Astrogator's plugin. Whereas the expansion will have screens and screens of interactive widgets describing "nodes" and windows popping up in your face while you're succeeding or failing mission requirements, remembering what you have and haven't accomplished, saving and loading, possibly triggering achievements, etc. Again, RSS is obviously one of the best mods, but I don't think it's comparable to Making History in terms of development scope. (And that's ignoring the new parts and the stock missions that have yet to be worked on.)

RSS is also not updated to the current version of the game, which makes it less of an example of a project that modders are able to handle completely. Clearly there are some obstacles to keeping it up to date that have yet to be surmounted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Although I applaud the intent to keep it open to community development, I just don't know how willing the community will be to develop content for an optional piece of content. Hard enough to get your mod noticed these days with just one platform, much less two.

You'd be surprised, actually. Taking an example from another game, a non-trivial number of mods for Skyrim are dependent on the presence of one or multiple of the DLCs. So it's not unreasonable to think people would develop mods that are dependent on a certain piece of DLC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, IncongruousGoat said:

You'd be surprised, actually. Taking an example from another game, a non-trivial number of mods for Skyrim are dependent on the presence of one or multiple of the DLCs. So it's not unreasonable to think people would develop mods that are dependent on a certain piece of DLC.

I don't dismiss that, but on the other hand, every game is different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...