CompatibilityChecker Discussion Thread

[NathanKell]

I'm fine with that one. The issue with the timer is that many people get up and do something else while KSP loads, so might miss it; but disappearance on scene change (and persistence on main menu) would work fine with that.

[ferram4]

There really isn't a point anymore. CompatibilityChecker is dead, killed because it had a method of unifying the message displaying code for user convenience. At this point, it is unreliable for its original purpose, and so long as the sabotage mod exists, it will continue to be. We have no way to know how many people will use it, but it will certainly be enough for the next KSP update to be a problem; remember, 0.26/0.90 is going to break anything that functions in the editor hard, and CC would have been valuable there, but now it is not.

Finally, there is the problem of what would be happening: we would be rewarding someone for sabotaging a mod. Worse, we would be rewarding that someone and hoping that they might decide to stop breaking that mod out of goodwill, though the sabotage in the first place shows a distinct lack of it. We do not want to teach people that if they want to get something that they should sabotage a mod because it will result in compliance with their demands, however reasonable they might be.

[Ippo]

So, that's it? Isn't there any way to find a compromise between us and khatharr? Just gg, everyone home?

[regex]

Finally, there is the problem of what would be happening: we would be rewarding someone for sabotaging a mod. Worse, we would be rewarding that someone and hoping that they might decide to stop breaking that mod out of goodwill, though the sabotage in the first place shows a distinct lack of it. We do not want to teach people that if they want to get something that they should sabotage a mod because it will result in compliance with their demands, however reasonable they might be.

Excellent point, I concede. If I need compatibility checking I'll be looking elsewhere.

[AlphaAsh]

...Finally, there is the problem of what would be happening: we would be rewarding someone for sabotaging a mod. Worse, we would be rewarding that someone and hoping that they might decide to stop breaking that mod out of goodwill, though the sabotage in the first place shows a distinct lack of it. We do not want to teach people that if they want to get something that they should sabotage a mod because it will result in compliance with their demands, however reasonable they might be.

Without any kind of intervention from "the powers that be", there's nothing that can be done. And even if they did intervene, the damage is already done and would probably just continue off the forums. As Ippo says ... "Just gg, everyone home?" Yep. The only thing left to do is respond to all support requests thusly:

"Do you have Compatability Popup Blocker installed? If yes, I can't help you."

Edited October 25, 2014 by AlphaAsh

[regex]

The only thing left to do is respond to all support requests thusly:

"Do you have Compatability Popup Blocker installed? If yes, I can't help you."

Better yet, since certain users seem to believe that they are above any attempts to ease support, simply don't provide support. Ever.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Better yet, since certain users seem to believe that they are above any attempts to ease support, simply don't provide support. Ever.

That would sadden me.. I'd understand why, but it would be punishing every user, including the ones that really appreciate CC's intentions and won't touch that blocker mod with a bargepole.

[regex]

That would sadden me.. I'd understand why, but it would be punishing every user, including the ones that really appreciate CC's intentions and won't touch that blocker mod with a bargepole.

CC doesn't work anymore, users don't pay heed to OPs or read posts, users think they're entitled to modder's time and work, users are becoming more hostile and copping attitudes that are toxic to the community as a whole... This has been building up with the continued popularity of KSP and Squad hasn't exactly helped by releasing a broken Win x64.

Sure, I suppose modders could only support people who can actually show some civility and demonstrate reading ability, but you still have to deal with all the crap in a thread from rude people who have no stake in the community and don't care to try to be a part of it. What's easier, picking and choosing or just outright saying "go away?"

[Boomerang]

CC doesn't work anymore, users don't pay heed to OPs or read posts, users think they're entitled to modder's time and work, users are becoming more hostile and copping attitudes that are toxic to the community as a whole... This has been building up with the continued popularity of KSP and Squad hasn't exactly helped by releasing a broken Win x64.

Sure, I suppose modders could only support people who can actually show some civility and demonstrate reading ability, but you still have to deal with all the crap in a thread from rude people who have no stake in the community and don't care to try to be a part of it. What's easier, picking and choosing or just outright saying "go away?"

I think that's one of the most tragic things about this all - the lack of appreciation for the hours and hours and hours of time that modders not only put into creating/updating mods, but also in helping all the users. Some of whom have legitimate bugs, but many of whom either don't know enough to ask for the help they really need and have to be coached through the process, or, even worse, who just expect a few terse sentences on a message board to produce a solution.

I'm not *that* far removed from being one of the people who needed coaching through the support process and I really, really appreciate the time that people put into these projects, and for no more reward than some thanks and rep.

It's tragic that more and more people seem unaware of that effort on the part of the modders, or if they're aware, then they don't appreciate it or expect to be catered to. Our modders are a creative, hard-working bunch who have all sorts of aims. It takes a lot for a bunch of them to come out in unison against a project in particular. For such a thing to happen really ought to suggest that the idea being trounced is a woefully bad idea, rather than that the modders are a bunch of control freaks or whatever vibe is being passed around by a few people.

Anyway, I suppose the cynicism is understandable, but at the same time, there are a lot of people who honestly appreciate the time and effort that people put into their mods and that I'd hope a nasty, demanding few don't ruin things for everyone.

[regex]

Anyway, I suppose the cynicism is understandable, but at the same time, there are a lot of people who honestly appreciate the time and effort that people put into their mods and that I'd hope a nasty, demanding few don't ruin things for everyone.

Nah, that's just me talking. I've been in quite a mood recently and I already cut support for all my mods anyway (well before this), so it's not like you're missing anything from me. I do, however, fully expect a gamut of responses to these developments as time goes by, so I urge you to be prepared.

[Boomerang]

Nah, that's just me talking. I've been in quite a mood recently and I already cut support for all my mods anyway (well before this), so it's not like you're missing anything from me. I do, however, fully expect a gamut of responses to these developments as time goes by, so I urge you to be prepared.

Oh, I already am, which is all the more reason I hate seeing things develop as they have. Unfortunately it'll just make for more bitter users, which makes for more annoyed authors, etc, etc. We'll just have to see.

[Raven.]

There really isn't a point anymore. CompatibilityChecker is dead, killed because it had a method of unifying the message displaying code for user convenience. At this point, it is unreliable for its original purpose, and so long as the sabotage mod exists, it will continue to be. We have no way to know how many people will use it, but it will certainly be enough for the next KSP update to be a problem; remember, 0.26/0.90 is going to break anything that functions in the editor hard, and CC would have been valuable there, but now it is not.

Finally, there is the problem of what would be happening: we would be rewarding someone for sabotaging a mod. Worse, we would be rewarding that someone and hoping that they might decide to stop breaking that mod out of goodwill, though the sabotage in the first place shows a distinct lack of it. We do not want to teach people that if they want to get something that they should sabotage a mod because it will result in compliance with their demands, however reasonable they might be.

Ferram, I know you code a modification to CC that prevents your mods from running on Win64 builds. What about modifying CC to:

1) Instead of displaying a message at startup, making a entry to the logs that the mod is on an incompatible version of KSP along with the KSP version and the mod version. When a user asks for support, require that in order to get support, they post their log files, and we do a word search for the CC log entries to see if they are running out-of-date mods. Basically, no log file = no support.

2) If an incompatible version of KSP is detected, disable the functionality of the mod, much in the same way that FAR/NEAR disable themselves on Win64. When a user comes onto the forums asking why the mod's not running, ask that they post the log files, and then do a word search for the CC log entries.

Just me brainstorming here.

[m4v]

Don't overreact people, look how many people downloaded the popup blocker, for all practical purposes it doesn't exist. If compatibility checker dies it will be because the modders using it killed it, not the other way around.

Edited October 26, 2014 by m4v
less inflamatory

[ferram4]

@Raven: Point 2 was the original proposal of this thread; messages alone were used because we wanted to make things easier for users and be understanding of users that were willing to run the game even with the incompatibilities. That didn't work though, and a very large number of mods already do that.

And requesting logs from people is standard, but that doesn't solve people running around talking about how X mod causes Y problem, when the only reason there's a problem is because there is a compatibility error. If they're running something that permanently suppresses the messages, then we're back to the point where the best case is that they complain that X mod doesn't work, instead.

The ultimate problem though is that no amount of unifying code can be written for this anymore now that the sabotager plugin is out. It overrides any unified code in CC. All of it.

@m4v: Yet it cannot be relied on to do its job anymore, nor can we know if it has been distributed beyond the main source. We also don't know to what extent it will grow beyond this point; it might be promoted by someone somewhere and become an actual problem with significant numbers; in that case, it would be better to have already addressed that possibility rather than scramble to do it then.

[Faark]

@m4v: Yet it cannot be relied on to do its job anymore

It could never be relied upon being effective. It intends to make a player aware of sth, that will never work all the time. Its definitively a ***ty move to create a mod disabling CC, but you saying this makes CC entirely useless is kind of a bash against your users as well. Most of them probably want to help you, so they can enjoy an awesome mod. Aren't those the users modders should focus on?

it might be promoted by someone somewhere and become an actual problem with significant numbers; in that case, it would be better to have already addressed that possibility rather than scramble to do it then.

Why should someone promote sth that kills a feature necessary to modders for supporting mods? All possible reactions (like disabling features instead of warning or modders having less time to improve the mod) would only hurt players in some way. Seems like CC actually has an image problem that needs to be "fixed".

This should be considered feedback!

Lesson learned: User don't understand why modders need to throw a dialog at them all the time.

Possible improvements i see so far:

- Explanation. There should be some "About" button. It should explain the user why such a dialog is necessary for modders and mods to exist (just a tiny click for you vs hours for the modders because of bad bug reports; especially for more popular mods; even experienced users/modders have written such false reports in the past; incompatible mods can appear to work but break later or even other stuff; modders could disable but won't to be nice to user, so user pls just bear with the click; did i miss any argument?).

- The above text could also contain some call for action. Update mod, "Request an updated version", stuff like that. Or how to [temporarily] get rid of the msg, in case we actually go for it.

- Can we improved the usability? Some clickable Web-Link might be nice to make getting the latest version easier. Maybe even some "click here to check for update available for this mod" solution? (A popup showing the user what online-stuff will be done should cover the legal part, i guess?)

- "Dead" mods seem to be a problem. Why not allow some cfg file to silence a specific mod version for a specific KSP version. In a way that's more work for the average user than just clicking ok all the time. CC would probably not "work" with people doing this anyway. The only alternative i see is pushing mods using CC to include some license allowing users to share a recompiled version with CC removed/updated.

As stated earlier:

- Disabling the mod for incompatible KSP version. Kind of anti-user and a problem on KSP updates, but if its helps the modder...

- Requesting log files on bug reports & co. Kinda annoying as well, but might help with other issues anyway

It would also be possible to negotiate a CC version among trusted mods only, though that might require stuff like signed assemblies.

[ferram4]

It could never be relied upon being effective. It intends to make a player aware of sth, that will never work all the time. Its definitively a ***ty move to create a mod disabling CC, but you saying this makes CC entirely useless is kind of a bash against your users as well. Most of them probably want to help you, so they can enjoy an awesome mod. Aren't those the users modders should focus on?

Those aren't the users that bury good bug reports (or at least ones trying to help) when KSP updates. Once CC can't be relied on to tell people that their mods are probably incompatible, with that KSP version we're back to dealing with that. And now CC can't be relied on to deal with that contingent.

Why should someone promote sth that kills a feature necessary to modders for supporting mods? All possible reactions (like disabling features instead of warning or modders having less time to improve the mod) would only hurt players in some way. Seems like CC actually has an image problem that needs to be "fixed".

Well, if it's an image problem, then there's nothing to be done, and ultimately it needs to be abandoned. The community is too large for its attitudes to be affected once they're set, and at that point there is no reason to waste time fighting something that can't be fought.

This should be considered feedback!

Lesson learned: User don't understand why modders need to throw a dialog at them all the time.

I'd actually argue this isn't the case. Most reply to any explanation with, "but it works fine!" Of course it doesn't actually work fine, there are errors being thrown everywhere, but the user wants it to work fine. And so magically, it does, lest the errors are blatant enough that no one can tell themselves that it is working fine.

- Explanation. There should be some "About" button. It should explain the user why such a dialog is necessary for modders and mods to exist (just a tiny click for you vs hours for the modders because of bad bug reports; especially for more popular mods; even experienced users/modders have written such false reports in the past; incompatible mods can appear to work but break later or even other stuff; modders could disable but won't to be nice to user, so user pls just bear with the click; did i miss any argument?).

As I mentioned, most don't listen to it. Second, a group that doesn't like a message dialog and wants it to simply go away because "it works fine!" isn't going to bother to read an explanation.

- The above text could also contain some call for action. Update mod, "Request an updated version", stuff like that. Or how to [temporarily] get rid of the msg, in case we actually go for it.

Can't update a mod from inside the game, updating requires going online, which (if bundled in a mod, rather than as a separate thing, as CC is) is going to cause people to overreact. Temporarily getting rid of the message will just be viewed as a "fix me" button, and we'll be back to where we were before CC was created.

- Can we improved the usability? Some clickable Web-Link might be nice to make getting the latest version easier. Maybe even some "click here to check for update available for this mod" solution? (A popup showing the user what online-stuff will be done should cover the legal part, i guess?)

It's not supposed to be a mod updater. It's just supposed to tell you that you're running on the wrong KSP version. Anything more is outside of CC's scope, IMO.

- "Dead" mods seem to be a problem. Why not allow some cfg file to silence a specific mod version for a specific KSP version. In a way that's more work for the average user than just clicking ok all the time. CC would probably not "work" with people doing this anyway. The only alternative i see is pushing mods using CC to include some license allowing users to share a recompiled version with CC removed/updated.

I see two other alternatives: 1) a user takes over the mod, and it is no longer dead. All the problems are solved in the process. 2) The mod dies, rather than staying in a state of un-death. In the state of ISA Mapsat, once it finally just died, we got SCANsat to replace it, and everything was back to normal.

Problems should be addressed, not ignored.

- Disabling the mod for incompatible KSP version. Kind of anti-user and a problem on KSP updates, but if its helps the modder...

Already happened. Once people start ignoring the warning and advocate ignoring the warning because "it's fine!" there isn't much other option.

- Requesting log files on bug reports & co. Kinda annoying as well, but might help with other issues anyway

We do. Most don't provide it. Or get pissed and post goatse instead.

It would also be possible to negotiate a CC version among trusted mods only, though that might require stuff like signed assemblies.

Also possible, but I'm not sure how much effort that's worth going to.

[m4v]

Those aren't the users that bury good bug reports (or at least ones trying to help) when KSP updates.

That's something we'll have to live it, a forum thread is inadequate for bug reports, really only if FAR could get its own subforum you will deal with that.

Once CC can't be relied on to tell people that their mods are probably incompatible, with that KSP version we're back to dealing with that. And now CC can't be relied on to deal with that contingent.

Sure you can rely on CC, you can even try to quantify it: you will be able to rely on it 99.8% of the time (cc disabler downloads vs far downloads during the same time) and that's the very worst case. This whole issue is being blow to astronomical proportions, the people that just ignore all warnings are likely a bigger population.

Lets forget about all this and carry on, keep all the poles afar of the imaginary axis.