Something that bothers me a lot is receiving from people opinions apparently from yourself about different subjects. Which is annoying.

So I’m taking the opportunity here to say something about two things: Modifications for games, shortened to Mods and Anti-Cheat.

Mods

I love modding games. I might not be the most technical person in the world, but I know how to get around. I’ve made mods for games like GTA: San Andreas (simple texture swaps), Skyrim (companions you get on the Steam Workshop and Nexus Mods), Fallout 4 (Ellen, the Cartographer says hi), and recently, Koikatsu. But there’s a bit of a thing relating to modding games.

I’ve heard of the Cathedral vs. Parlor type of thing before and I agree with it almost completely. Older mods I made were never public (I probably didn’t back them up either!) because I didn’t feel like they were good enough to be shown, but nowadays, I try to be part of a community as much as possible. For Koikatsu, the Official Sideloader Website has a folder with mods I have either made myself or commissioned others to do it for me, available always for free because I want to enhance the community with new content.

What deviates from the Cathedral vs. Parlor discussion to me is having Early Access. For me, mods like this should never be charged upfront, but I still think that you should be compensated for your work, because modding isn’t easy. The Early Access model works both ways. People that are really impatient will pay you the privilege to access something early and people that are patient will wait for the free version. Everyone wins.

However this can be a little troublesome, considering the Intentions. Someone might do an Early Access version that is different than the free version, and you still have to pay to get the full thing. I don’t agree with that, everyone should get the same content always, regardless of them being a paying customer for this mod or not.

I don’t do this with my own Patreon because I post rarely, modding is a hobby, not a job to me. I do it because I like it, and if I can get extra from it, it’s good. However I have my own job that keeps me financially afloat so I can have hobbies like this.

Being part of a community is always fun but there’s always something that ruins it. Paywallers usually get people riled up, and I understand it. As I said, some thing that they should be paid for their work, and that goes with the Parlor idea, which is why the community usually hates it. I personally don’t see any issues with it, if they want to charge stuff, let them do it. As long you get what you pay for (quality stuff, I hope!), it’s fine.

Anti-Cheat

Let’s switch gears a bit about modding but in a different way. Modding games is fun, but it can also make other things. Once you have an idea to make a mod, you can do anything you like, including bad things.

Recently, Youtuber Noclick was ‘blocked’ from playing version 2.0 of a frankly terrible mod for Half-Life 2 called “Overcharged” because the devs coded in the mod that if his SteamID was used to play the game, the game would crash and say the message “STOP talking SH1T about us”. The devs’ intention was to cause harm and they did… To themselves, because Noclick pointed out how bad the mod is. Thankfully it’s only a singleplayer mod but what if it was multiplayer?

For Multiplayer, developers employ anti-cheat solutions in order to protect gamers from other less well-mannered gamers. My view on anti-cheat is a little different than most, which is this: Make sure your anti-cheat works. That’s it. That’s all I ask.

Many anti-cheat solutions are kernel-based. Quoting PC Gamer’s article:

For the uninitiated, what it means when anti-cheat is operating at kernel level is that it’s running at the deepest, most authoritative layer of your operating system. Developers appreciate that level of control in detecting and shutting down cheat programs, pre-empting them with a maximum level of system authority.

I don’t think I need to tell you why that’s bad. Devs have full control of your system. Their intentionsis to make sure that less well-mannered gamers have a difficult time but there’s a lot of asking to get full access to your PC. They could anything they wanted, like spy on you without any restrictions. Some remain active after the game is closed! That’s ludicrous.

Intentions

I mentioned this word a few times, and that’s the key. Modding can be done in a good or a bad way. A presentation from Capcom’s R&D Dept. from a while back shows how modding can be done in a bad way:

• The image of the product is tarnished when mods are released that violate public order and morals without permission. 
• Mods can be mistaken for legitimate implementations and can cause bad publicity. 
• Customers affected by buggy mods cost support time. Worst cases include freezes and save data corruption. 
• Investigations take time + are futile even if they turn out to be successful. 
• Delays in the original production of the game due to the time required for research. 
• Support for other users is delayed. 

And honestly, I agree with all of these points. Mods can definitely do every single one of those things. The problem, Capcom, is their intention. A modder might not want to fuck with people’s systems. Maybe they just want to have 2B from Nier: Automata in their game, even if they have to hack it to make it real.

This article from Automaton also expresses the views of modding from Western and Eastern communities, and I personally believe it’s just a vocal minority as well, but they do exist. The intention of making mods, in my opinion, is to take what is already there and enhance it, or make it more accessible/attractive to your liking. I can see how that could be ‘ruining the author’s vision’ of something, but if in my view, their vision is flawed, why can’t I fix it for myself and/or share that with others?

Ultimately, it all comes down to that. Modders have different intentions on what they do, and modding is all about it. With people normally being dicks to each other, it’s not a surprise that Half-Life 2: Overcharged devs are like that (the mod still SUCKS ASS, don’t play it). And hackers and cheat makers are still around. But that is not caused by modding, modding is the tool they used to ruin people’s lives because that’s their intention. Just like you can’t judge anything by appearances alone, Modding doesn’t cause harm, on itself. It can be used to cause harm, but it doesn’t by itself.

Maybe you just want 2B in every game. The Stellar Blade devs were faster than the modding community, so I’ll give them that.