I’m relatively new to Stonehearth and recently used the modding sub-forum to try and find some mods. Although the forum is active and there’s some great mods around, I felt my experience could have been better. Finding updated mods was a bit of a pain.
Just testing the water here, but how do you feel about the creation of a nice portal to host these mods – like an independent Steam Workshop? Right now, I’m thinking the advantages would be:
A place to host mod files that isn’t zippyshare, mediafire or Dropbox – properly organized, easily browsable and faster download speeds!
Version control and bug fixes – Subscribe to your favorite modifications and receive notifications when mod authors release an update
Mod ratings – See what’s good or bad before downloading a mod. See what’s popular and what’s not. Also, great for authors to get feedback on their work
Mod author donations – Encourages authors to create more and keep mods updated. Stonehearth has a huge potential for a modding scene but we should be able to support our favourite mods, right? They take a lot of work to create.
Mod authors get better statistics on file downloads
Good idea? Bad idea? Are people content with the modding sub-forum here?
I know a lot of people use github but it’s not exactly a frontend platform for non-developers.
Let me know what you think or tell me things you would want to see!
Although it would be nice, it might just further complicate things later on down the line when stuff like workshop and stuff is accessible. I see this far too often with stuff like Skyrim, where half the mods require nexus and the other half are workshop exclusives and it becomes a mess. Truthfully I think mods in this stage no matter how nice (The Mythical creatures mod is a great example) aren’t very good as the game isn’t very good yet. Until the game is completely done, I don’t think a central mod hub is a good idea. I like the donation feature you mentioned, making it similar to Minecraft modders where the mod makers make revenue from ad links to the mediafire or whatever or donation buttons on the side, but again, this opens a whole new bag of worms with workshop which as we saw with the Skyrim “donation” (more like buying) mods, it was terrible. I think our system is fine, for now, but I understand where you are coming from.
I think it is not really needed at the moment, maybe in the future. The interesting mods that have an actual download button don’t exceed the 20. And a large part does not work anymore with the latest version.
I agree that the ‘modding’ category is a mess to search for mods. I see a lot of ‘help me’ items in it. Which is fine in itself but covers all the mod projects.
I think what we really need in the short term is a category for ‘mod projects’. With criteria as download link, Which version of Stonehearth it works with and date updated. Or at least things partially made, like Qubicle objects for example. With a greater detailed plan.
And if we get too many categories I think ‘kickstarter’ can go, or ‘Scripting & Code’.
And a ‘Guide’ category would be nice too.
Let me call @SteveAdamo
as @Froggy said, Radiant has talked about making a mod manager. I love the idea of a site but it’s a shame it would become unnecessary after they released it. Something that would maybe be a nice extra or something the devs could support is working with Nexus. They already have a great database and site for mods and there are a couple of different programs that use nexus (Nexus mod manager, FOMOD, Mod Organizer ) so it should be doable to make a manager to work with Nexus.
I think there is a need for a dedicated mod site, either run by the community or by the Stonehearth guys themselves (probably baked into the Stonehearth website). I don’t think the Steam Workshop is enough for the game, mostly because you can buy and run Stonehearth outside of Steam and what happens when multiplayer is in the game and each user needs the same mods to have the best experience? (I admit that I’m not entirely sure how the Steam Workshop works, so maybe that’s a non-issue)
I got pretty far into making a v1 for a dedicated mod site (I own stonehearthmods.com), but ended up shelving the project because I wasn’t going to be able to dedicate enough time to support the site post-launch. If anyone would like to help out with finishing building out and supporting a mod site post-launch, let me know.
A mod manager doesn’t really solve the issue of discovering mods, though. Sure, you can use the tool to add mods to the game easily, but how to non-technical people add mods to their game? How can people find the best Stonehearth mods, or mods that have been created by Radiant themselves, or mods that have the seal of approval from the Radiant team? Plus, if Radiant wants to have a vibrant and active modding community, it would make sense to unify that community under their own banner as opposed to having a fragmented modding community on different mod database sites (like Nexus). Not to mention the opportunity for creating rich guides and tools to make modding more approachable to a wider user base.
Interesting replies, seems we have a bit of a split.
I’m still looking into the possibilities of building this site. If you’re a mod author who may be interested in listing the files on such a site, please reach out to me!
Just to clarify on donations, @LionRiderKing, this wouldn’t be the same as “paid mods”. The model I have in mind is more like the “beer me a beer for my hard work” approach that some developers include on free product pages. With game updates breaking mods each time, sustaining a mod that works across multiple versions takes a lot of effort; that’s without the time needed to expand a mod’s feature set. I think small donations from the community who appreciate this amount of effort is a great incentive for mod authors to keep things updated.
Either way, I’m glad at least this has sparked discussion around a forum restructure here on discourse.
)