Stonehearth Exchange

What does everyone think of a Stonehearth “Exchange”? This would be a public repository where you could upload, download, rate, and review resources like models, effects, mods, etc.

I’ve seen this idea cross the Discourse once or twice before but haven’t seen it executed yet. This is something I’d love to bundle with SHED (which is getting a huge face-lift by the way).

Questions, comments? If this isn’t something people would want or use then I won’t bother. I’d just like to see what kind of interest there is before I invest any of my time.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

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as with the past suggestions/attempts we’ve seen, all I can say is… I wish you the best! :smile:

I think its a great idea, but I for one am just not sure of what Radiant’s intentions in this area might be… given the very strong focus on mod development with SH, perhaps they have plans of incorporating some sort of “store” in the existing UI, that allows players to access some central repository (at some very distant future date, mind you)…

of course, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have fan based alternatives as well… so again, best of luck! :+1:

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I too like the idea. Yet i currently don’t have time to invest in modding! But a community made “Exchange” would be a good idea. If ya need any help i’ll see what i can do!

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You can’t just go changing your avatar on us, Steve. I had no idea who was posting! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I’m sure Radiant will have something eventually. At the end of the day if they release official stuff that replaces what I do, then I can only hope I was helpful in some way.

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Steve, i’m disappointed no one changes their avatar just like that! That’s just cruel!

apologies! :smile:

I felt it was time to incorporate @Goldmetal’s lovely work on the Discourse as well, since I just did a refresh on my [Youtube][1] and [Twitter][2] pages… :+1:

the avatar still features Luke (riding his big wheel), so its not too far from what I had previously… :smile:
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqIv9jjnGmM15BdnoY70GKg
[2]: https://twitter.com/imevensteven

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It’s allright man, you are forgiven since it’s still apurty neat avatar :smile:

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We should have an intervention for him guys! Set him straight.

On that topic, @SteveAdamo, where did you find your background with the fortifications?

apologies @jonzoid for the derailment…

the background is courtesy of our lovely @Froggy via this thread:

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To much awesome stuff!

Apologies for derailing(or at least aiding in it). I’ll go back to my mapgame hole. :guardsman:

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Alright, everyone out! You guys can all go back to @RepeatPan’s thread and derail his hype train. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I have been summoned. I shall derail this thread.


Call me a party pooper or whatever, but there’s just no demand for any kind of modding repository right now (and I probably should know). There have been several attempts (five of which I know of) which all failed and/or disappeared into the unknown depths of the blagoweb.

If we’re being bloody honest, how many mods are currently active (as in, working with the latest stable/latest latest)? I would say from the top of my head, it’s less than ten, probably less than five. I do not include mods that have no real content or intention to release at the moment because they’re waiting for something, but only things that could be downloaded right now. Immediately.

I have done my research about this kind of thing and talked to the owner of a similar repository for another game which was released ten years ago, with a fan base that would likely be similar sized to Stonehearth’s. You really have to put your mind to it and, most importantly, have to release your own content to make the platform attractive. People won’t use it, or your fancy mod loader (I’m somehow assuming this would be included, but it doesn’t change a lot) if they can simply download it on dropbox/somewhere else.

There’s also the good old issue of community splitting. The community here hasn’t reached its critical size yet, so if you start a community somewhere else (which “review” and “comment” kind of implies) that would force people to be either here or there - in which case, the official forums (i.e. this Discourse) will always win.


My personal approach with ShPad was to have something that was serving that function, and only that function. That means, comments/reviews would be outsourced to this Discourse, and ShPad itself serves only as repository/“overview”/download place. I mean, that’s what the internet slowly is all about, right? Microservices, you stick together enough of them to make your website/application work.

So, I guess, good luck, but pessimistic me does not really see much advantage of such a repository yet, nor would I use it (either as user or author) because I can’t think of anyone it would offer me that GitHub/Discourse doesn’t.

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Thanks, RP! I appreciate your insight. I don’t want to spend time working on something that nobody would use or that would lose to a competition with other distribution methods.

A few follow-up questions for you:

  1. Assuming we’re talking about a mod repository, what features would make it something you would upload to? Reviews? Comments? A publish button that let’s you, with very little effort, create a new release? Auto-updates to your users? Compatibility detection with other mods in the library or even just other mods that have been installed by your users? GitHub Integration?

  2. What about resources like models or effects? Let’s say you didn’t have @Froggy and really needed a conveyor belt resource. A quick search, sorted by community rating, shows you that someone has already created a really cool one and it’s licensed for anyone to use or modify.

Basically, I’m asking if there are any features that are useful enough that would convince you to start using a platform like this.

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  • Comments: That’s what I have Discourse for. Just keep in mind that if you opt to allow comments, you’re going to compete with every single forum software there is - and most of them can do a way better job at it than you can, because they only need to do that (i.e. they don’t have to focus on a dozen different features too). If you get Discourse integration, which is impossible I think, that would certainly make it attractive.
  • Reviews: If we’re talking about a Steam-type of review, they don’t really work out in my opinion, as does voting. I can present you numbers from my somewhat successful Steam workshop entry: Over 860 days in the workshop, I’ve got 36’345 unique Steam accounts visiting the entry. Currently 155’692 people have it subscribed, in total there were 260’387 unique subscribers. 1529 people have it currently favourited, 1817 did it in total. I have 6’310 votes, 5600 of which are positive. So that means that every 7th person actually read the page instead of just clicking on the instant-subscribe-button, and only every 40th actually voted. Sure, different communities and all, but do the maths now on a community of <100. Having no or few reviews is actually pretty depressing as creator.
  • A publish button: I’m currently working on a little program that does that for GitHub; downloads the newest source, packs it into a properly done .smod and inserts a version.json including the date/current version that can be referred by the mod itself (in the log or similar) so you always know what version you’re using (or reporting bugs for), then creates a new release on GitHub. So, for me, there would be no advantage for me. I might release this little tool for others, too. Personally, GMod requires you to use such tools to pack/upload your mod, and while they can be automated, using them for the first time is a hassle.
  • Auto-updates: Technically, there’s still SteveCannon which does exactly that (and only that). I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible to use it, but maybe not simple enough. That was some time ago, I’ve got some new experiences that could make it better. All in all, auto-updaters don’t make sense, as you can’t launch them before the game (at least, not properly), and you can’t really launch them in the game (at least, not properly). So SteveCannon was really just “Click once, update mods, done” kind of thing - easy, extensible and with an open protocol.
  • Compatibility: Not possible. Not really. I mean, for this to work, I would have to manually say “Alright, my mod won’t work with A, B and C”. That’s a statement you don’t really wish to make, because it puts your mod in a bad light. You can’t detect that automatically either. In addition, it can be used to blame other mods (what if the other mod was updated and now is the most compatible mod in the world? It would still be “shamed” by many other mods stating that they’re incompatible with that mod, which isn’t true anymore).
  • GitHub integration: Not sure what you want to integrate there. GitHub itself offers a lot: Repository managing, wiki, a nice issue tracker and most importantly, that’s all interconnected already. What do you want to plug into GitHub to make your site more attractive?

Which would be in what direction ShPad would have headed eventually. “Here, I have made model X, but I suck at animations”, so a guy combines the model X from A with some animation Y from B and gets something new, unique that he can use in his mod or whatsoever. It’s a hell of a lot of work.

The only feature that could really attract me is impossible to deliver, because it’s reliable statistics, such as Steam’s. Steam has amazing stats for content creators; I’ve listed some of them above. In addition, it also gives you nice, interactive graphs:

But because you’re a third party site, and won’t have control over unique accounts (such as Steam does, because they sure as hell know who owns the game and who doesn’t - and therefore, can tell apart unique clients and hits), the data would be less reliable, less meaningful.

Especially if you don’t host everything at your place (i.e. forums, issue tracker and all that) and people just do “drive-by downloads” (i.e. visit a Discourse thread, go to your site, download the mod), it’s really really hard to get reliable stats.

Reason I’ve stopped ShPad was that I couldn’t find a proper use for it myself.


Another thing from the community I’ve mentioned before: People are children. Although the other community had a young target audience (not unlike Stonehearth’s, however), you wouldn’t believe the amount of “secret” drama that went on.

There were people going on “revenge rampages”; downvoting and what not on content others made that they didn’t like (because, for example, they downvoted/wrote a bad review first - justified or not didn’t matter).

So be prepared for a lot of drama. Lots.

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I would love to see a website basicly for everything Stonehearth related. I’ve been secretly working on a website this is where it’s at.

But I’m not sure how far I’ll take it, So to answer your question, I’d love to see a website for builds, news, comments and future mods. You’ve got a point in saying there are loads of mods out there but most probably outdated ect. Maybe something like a even in depth tutorial section explaining best area’s to find stuff ect. A little bit like PlanetMineCraft where there’s pretty much everything listed :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit - sorry if the mentioning of the template I made was out of place. Just thought I’d share the little features I always saw one of these websites having. I’d use a website that links things towards Stonehearth all the time. Maybe for newer players a website as such could have a survival guide and what mobs do what. Just read through all the comments so many good points made about a website at this point though!

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lol when i hear store i have suggested a marchant have entered your town - hey give me 5 mean beds and i will be back in 3 days and give you 2 crazy mods :stuck_out_tongue:

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