[2020] Monthly Workshop Request

The latest hasn't changed. No workshop till full release. They don't want a workshop full of thousands of mods deprecated by a dozen versions that don't work on the latest and just cause issues for people that install them- Issues that get reported with no care from those people and just flood the bug forums with unsolvable issues, etc etc.

Implementing the workshop before the tools are in place is stupid at best.

To implement it before an Alpha build is finalized is pretty dumb too. It's the reason that 3/4 of the workshop items for Empyrion are broken, and do not work with their current version.

Add to this that the fact that there is no version tracking system in the Steam Workshop. Only DLC requirements are tracked.

And to be fair, most of the reason for using the workshop instead of manually installing mods, is because of the complexity. Having to know to read if the mod is going to be compatible with the version of the game client you have is simply too much for many players to handle. Hell, it's a bit of a stretch to assume that mod authors using the workshop would take the step to identify what version of the client their mod is written for. Once more I'll point you to the Empyrion workshop here, because it's a perfect example of what goes wrong when you add workshop support too early.

Originally posted by vgifford: Yeah, I have to agree, the biggest plus to the workshop is the ease of modding the game in question. To me, all mods are "Use at the consumer's risk." If a mod breaks your game, don't blame the game's creators.

And I totally agree with you there. But, Most people don't- Or rather couldn't be bothered to. How many times do you think it's happened that a user has had a fatal crash or major issue, came to post a bug report ranting about how screwed up the game is; Neglects to include a crash log, a week of furious ranting goes by as people try to help them, and then they drop the bomb: "Well, I DID install these ... Do you think any of those could be causing this?"

Because if you think anything other than "All the time", You're wrong. Now imagine holding a magnifying glass over that because you, as the developer, implemented workshop too early, leading to 80+% of the workshop base being for versions other than the current one. How much more often would that absolute waste of time above occur?

I hesitate to phrase it this way, but, People, by and large, are inconsiderate jerks. If an issue occurs with a game, "It's the devs fault, FIX THIS NOW!" or something to that effect is often the result; Even when the issue is self-created through the use of mods. People would rather assume the issue lies with the game itself rather than with their perfect little mod they installed that does the thing they wanted.

"Use at the consumers risk" only works when the consumer recognizes that disclaimer instead of just downloading things willy nilly without any consideration.

Originally posted by Ming: It got to the point that CA made it so that if you are playing a modded game in the bottom left hand corner you have a single white pixel. This way they can immediately identify if a screenshot is from a modded game. Because if it is, then they ignore the bug report.

Hmm, that’s a good idea. It’s definitely been easier to dismiss bug reports after TFP put the version number in the upper right corner.

Originally posted by vgifford: Would you say that Spherii's mod launcher is a functional equivalent to Steam's workshop?

Same as Vortex, or any of the other similar programs. At a guess about a third of the people who try to use them find them too complex to be able to use properly. The forum, Reddit, and Discords are littered with help requests from people who simply cannot read and follow simple instructions, so they go asking for help to have people basically tell them the exact same thing in the instructions.

I mean, we're talking about people who don't have enough experience with a computer to be able to drag and drop a folder into another folder without screwing it up. So they need a 3rd-party program to do it for them.

And people wonder why I have such a cynical view on the future of our society.

Originally posted by vgifford: Would you say that Spherii's mod launcher is a functional equivalent to Steam's workshop?

I would say it’s the best option available for players now, with the caveats that it’s an unofficial third party tool and it’s only for Windows.