[2024] Mods are a free workforce

If the base game itself isn't good, People don't get invested in it enough to mod it.
See all the many ♥♥♥♥ games that have zero modding community because noone liked the game itself enough to bother for examples.

Originally posted by James:

Originally posted by I can't spell: Make base game that is heavily customizable - rely on fanboys in the "community" to improve it. Implement some improvements in next alpha. Rinse and repeat for infinity.

Hidden wires are the latest example too. People were asking for it for years and TFP kept ignoring it. Yet, fans made a mod years ago in several different variations and TFP noticed how popular they were and decided to finally include it.

TFP weren't "ignoring" hidden wires; They actively stated that they preferred and liked the visible wires as it lent to the aesthetic they were going for and fit the 'cobbled together' electrical system

But they WERE observing the community, the use of those mods, and the consistent interest in being able to hide the wires; The way people were going out of their way to build awkward looking bases and corridors to hide them, etc..

It became clear over that time that their stance, while not technically wrong, Wasn't what the playerbase at large preferred; And it was a small enough thing that they didn't mind bending the knee as it were to split the difference meeting in the middle- Hidden wires, but visible while wiring things together.

That is, almost literally, the kind of thing Early Access is meant for. To pay attention to the community and shape your game along the community's interests where it's feasible to do so while retaining the core of what you want to be.

It's inane that you're using the hidden wires as an example of the devs using modders as a "free workforce". The A20 mod itself is 6~kb. To put that into perspective a little, This comment that I'm writing here is closing on 1kb of data.

If devs doing what any smart dev would do, acknowledging that their stubbornness isn't doing any good on a given subject and listening to their community when it makes sense to do so is using people as a free workforce then basically every single dev team ever to have actually pay attention to their community is guilty of doing so. Devs fixing reported bugs? Using their playerbase as free work, how dare they!