Modder Protection

[DtD]

Mine takes 5 minutes =P Any spoiler tag that takes >5 minutes to install is doin it wrong. I just posted that to prove they are a quick and easy solution to the problem.

[tokage]

Hey no offense man, but anybody, who claims something can be installed in 5 min and there will be no problems afterwards, is highly exaggerating in my experience. It almost never is that easy

[DtD]

Or they just do this stuff all the time

[capn.lee]

I certainly don't really want it for modders

then why did you call this thread 'modder protection'?

[Wilbefast]

I mentioned this before, but think one of the reasons "Warcraft 3" was such a fertile modding environment was because all the mods were Open-source, so anyone could open up a "map" they liked and edit it. Remember that Warcraft 3 was the birthplace of "DOTA" (Demigod, League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth) and a serious breading ground for "Tower Defence" games.

The other advantages were the simple mod tools and the ability to download maps peer-to-peer simply by joining games: good maps were shared, bad ones weren't, so natural selection ensured that only the best maps survived, and the rest were removed from the pool.

[tomascokis]

@capn.lee

Does the name of the thread have to be my particular view?
Or can it just be the subject?

[zamzx zik]

I mentioned this before, but think one of the reasons "Warcraft 3" was such a fertile modding environment was because all the mods were Open-source, so anyone could open up a "map" they liked and edit it..

Wrong. Warcraft III, like Starcraft, has map protection systems, so people can't modify/hack/ruin perfectly good maps by cheating.( Although Starcraft's is built in, Warcraft's 3'd party ones work quite well too.) I think that overgrowth too should offer some form of map/mod protection that would collquate maps or mods into single file. Not only would it allow for easier sharing of maps, but the format would make it difficult for scriptkiddies to muck around in maps. (Assuming that it wouldn't be too huge of a feature request)

this is based on the assumption that you would auto-download new maps as needed.

[Wilbefast]

the format would make it difficult for scriptkiddies to muck around in maps.

True, but then why is this a bad thing?

[Endoperez]

Wrong. Warcraft III, like Starcraft, has map protection systems, so people can't modify/hack/ruin perfectly good maps by cheating.

Could you elaborate? I've never played WC3 and never tried modding SC. Are the map files available to all, or not? Are there two different formats for sharing maps, or how is it possible that you and Wilbefast have so radically different views on how the map files work?

[tokage]

Well, I don't have that much experience with the WC3 an SC maps either, so my impression might not be correct.

What Wilbefast described is, that map editing through the editor is easy. You can open up an existing map, edit what you want and save it as a new one. Furthermore the distribution was automatic so the most popular maps were circleing just by being played and not only as map packs.

What zamzx zik described is, that there was a system in place that ensured that, both players had the exact same map. This prevents rudimentary cheating through hacking the map on one side. Easily implemented by using either bit-wise comparison of both map files or faster a secure hash-function over the maps, although the necessary steps to conflict resolution can be trickier (which one is the original?). Maybe there even was a more elaborate versioning system involved.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. In fact the map comparison should be a necessary part of the easy distribution method.

[capn.lee]

@capn.lee

Does the name of the thread have to be my particular view?
Or can it just be the subject?

*facepalm*
you were saying that wasn't under discussion...

I mentioned this before, but think one of the reasons "Warcraft 3" was such a fertile modding environment was because all the mods were Open-source

nail right on the head there, if we look at this properly, that is the ideal solution. The main reason to even allow mods at all is to improve overgrowth itself, for the good of the overgrowth community. The best way to increase innovation is to have a purely open system of reiteration.

In Warcraft 3, we didn't just get one tower defence map and that was it, somebody played the first one and improved on it, it was then improved again and again and again. Eventually it broke out into Flash games and again flourished.

At any step of the way, stopping reiteration would have harmed the process. Either because the process behind creating TD maps was hidden from amateur map makers, pushing them out all together, or because somebody demanded ownership of the idea, stopping everyone from reiterating.

I, as somebody who plans to make and release mod content, would insist that once something has been publicly released, I have no rights to it. I still wish to retain credit for my work, but in a small modding community, we don't really need to worry about that, these problems sort themselves out. Nobody gets away with claiming others work as theirs for too long.

I think anything released would benefit from a creative commons licensing agreement, but more importantly, the maps and the scripts all need to be open, if I want to learn how to add auto-turrets* to my mod, there's no harm in letting me have a look at the scripts, if I alter it, I may make a more fun addition to the game and inspire someone else to do the same to mine.

* Purely an example, honest

[tomascokis]

you were saying that wasn't under discussion...

I wasn't saying that it was out of bounds for discussion - anything but that, I'm putting my opinion out there in the interest to find others.

[Wilbefast]

I can't stress enough how valuable it is to a modding community to have Open Source maps. Also important a good system for sharing and ranking the mods. Take Little Big Planet: there are a lot of maps being map because they're easy to make. Trouble is sorting through the sewage to find something good. Warcraft 3 didn't have that problem because of the manner in which they were shared (eg - peer-to-peer). Overgrowth will need to use something different though, because it's not so focused on multiplayer (or is it?).

[capn.lee]

because it's not so focused on multiplayer (or is it?).

dun-dun-dunnnh

Ranking systems seem like a reasonable request, but it's hard to prepare when we don't really know the quantity or quality of the content that will be released. there's no point developing a database for thousands of entries with filtering options to find exactly what you're looking for if all that gets released are a handful of high quality campaigns.

[Epic Llama]

Some of my thoughts on the subject of mod protection and how they are packaged...

I, as somebody who plans to make and release mod content, would insist that once something has been publicly released, I have no rights to it. I still wish to retain credit for my work, but in a small modding community, we don't really need to worry about that, these problems sort themselves out. Nobody gets away with claiming others work as theirs for too long.

Spot on. If mods are closed then it will seriously harm the modding community.

Why should I be allowed to create something based off the hard work of others and then stop people creating something based off of my work? Allowing open access not only allows derivative works but is also an important tool for those learning how to mod.

Obviously it is important that those who put the work in are credited. Though I don't see this as a technological issue. As capn.lee said these issues sort themselves out.

From a technological point of view I think some form of packaging system is important. The ideal solution in my mind is a package that can simply be dropped into an override folder and then a Morrowind style list of enabled mods (this made debugging conflicts much easier).

Whilst easy installation is important I would say easy uninstallation is even more so. Lets face it, there are going to be poor mods out there. If I have to remove a plugin plus trawl through subdirectories and delete art assets its going to seriously complicate removing mods (this was a real pain in Morrowind). On the other hand if I can just drop a package into the correct directory and then remove it if I don't like it I am free to just try a mod to see if I like it.

Of course a mod package system has its drawbacks. The game will need to extract the assets before they can be used. Doing this at runtime would cause a performance hit. Doing it when the game loaded would increase the load time.

This puts us back at square one. Perhaps a system where the package is extracted into its own sub folder the first time the game loads with the mod. This keeps uninstallation easy (just remove the sub folder) and also prevents conflicts where multiple mods use the same names for assets.

Of course these are just ideas, all requiring more work from the devs . How feasible they are I don't know.