An open letter from the Kingdoms of Arda team, and the total-conversion mod community

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It is off topic, and there are already multiple threads where that topic has been thoroughly discussed.

If you want a legitimate answer to that question, I recommend talking to a lawyer instead of asking a bunch of random people online.
My question is directly related to the proposal from TW expressed in this thread. This proposal of a kind of support for internal modifiers could cause legal issues I think thats why I am asking.

Honestly, this approach is inefficient and time-consuming, so I am suspecting they have even forgotten to check this potential issue.
 
My question is directly related to the proposal from TW expressed in this thread. This proposal of a kind of support for internal modifiers could cause legal issues I think thats why I am asking.

Honestly, this approach is inefficient and time-consuming, so I am suspecting they have even forgotten to check this potential issue.
As I've said before, this is a very silly question with a very obvious answer. NO.
Allowing a more moddable game is not any kind of legal risk to the developers. Please read this again aloud.
You only provided a case where a game got into slight trouble for HOSTING mods (on Steam Workshop) which has nothing to do with modability. NOTHING. NOT A THING.
Unless you have some compelling legal precedents, please stop asking this.
If you want to talk to the developers so badly, try asking a good question.

(Edit: incidentally I have worked on a LOTR mod for Mount and Blade and we had an external forum because Taleworlds didn't want to risk legal trouble for HOSTING The Last Days mod on the forums)
 
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If you want to talk to the developers so badly, try asking a good question.
It really is amazing the lengths people will go to when their religious beliefs are challenged.

Like I said before, I don't want to believe that TW is intentionally screwing modders for monetization reasons. It's nonsensical as far as business strategies go, but I reluctantly have to admit that it's plausible. Even so, I'd LOVE to be proven wrong.

It's a pretty heady jump from there to "TW is definitely intentionally screwing modders and it's totally justified." But when you're working backwards from the conclusion that this game is awesome and the devs are divine, all sorts of wacky ideas come out of the woodwork.

I'd really love it if someone at TW would start an honest officially-sanctioned dialogue with us about this and other issues so folks wouldn't have to resort to conspiracy theory to reconcile their fandom. I'm pretty sure that most of us would be very amenable to a hostage negotiation and amenable to reasonable limits on our expectations as long as we feel like we have a tangible part in the process.
 
(Edit: incidentally I have worked on a LOTR mod for Mount and Blade and we had an external forum because Taleworlds didn't want to risk legal trouble for HOSTING The Last Days mod on the forums)
So hosting the forum of a mod could cause legal trouble but not directly helping them through direct support and direct modification?

Allowing a more moddable game is not any kind of legal risk to the developers. Please read this again aloud.
This is not allowing a more moddable game the issue. Please read my previous messages again. Aloud or not.

I am pointing out the potential issue about the way chosen by TW to reach this goal. By interaction, answering to demands and support. Directly between the devs and the modders.

What is mentioned here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...-conversion-mod-community.440886/post-9704835

(If they choose instead to drop the internal modifiers, then there is no issue.)
 
So hosting the forum of a mod could cause legal trouble but not directly helping them through direct support and direct modification?


This is not allowing a more moddable game the issue. Please read my previous messages again. Aloud or not.

I am pointing out the potential issue about the way chosen by TW to reach this goal. By interaction, answering to demands and support. Directly between the devs and the modders.

What is mentioned here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...-conversion-mod-community.440886/post-9704835

(If they choose instead to drop the internal modifiers, then there is no issue.)
And here's proof that your argument is irrelevant.

I put up a poll to ask whether fans would be OK with intentionally restricting mod development for IP law or any other reason. They're overwhelmingly saying "No."

Devs have not suggested that they're intentionally restricting mod development. Duh specifically said the opposite. You're not really accomplishing anything by claiming that Duh isn't telling the truth, especially not if your intention is to provide reasonable explanations for the access modifier impasse.
 
Devs have not suggested that they're intentionally restricting mod development. Duh specifically said the opposite.
At which point I have suggested this?
You're not really accomplishing anything by claiming that Duh isn't telling the truth
At which point I have suggested this?
especially not if your intention is to provide reasonable explanations for the access modifier impasse.
If it happens that this is really an issue, Hanlon's razor would provide a better explanation. Seriously, it is TW.
 
So hosting the forum of a mod could cause legal trouble but not directly helping them through direct support and direct modification?
They are not helping a particular group only, but everyone, even if a particular group was asking for something. This is the source of your confusion, improved modability can not be construed as a conspiracy against IP holders, that's just your great random idea. I can't believe I have to explain this to anyone.
In any case, you do not have any precedents to show, this is just a poorly construed amateur legal speculation that you keep pushing.
 
As a customer and gamer, I -bought- warband to play mods. I pre-emptively -bought- bannerlord to play mods. The M&W vanilla game is pretty dull to be honest. The game needs the imagination of modders, please don't place roadblocks on them. Please remove roadblocks and let them VASTLY improve your otherwise mediocre game (for free by the way). You could, additionally, HIRE some of these imaginative and talented "modders" to help you design DLC content that is imaginative, there's nothing but UPSIDE for you to work with the modding community and not be jerks. .02 from a gamer.
 
Keep up the good work, TaleWorlds.

Don't listen so much to angry people demanding you how to work on your own game.
 
This is the source of your confusion, improved modability can not be construed as a conspiracy against IP holders, that's just your great random idea.
To be more clear, what I think is an issue is responding to the demand of a particular group that could be in copyright infringement. Typically, a SW mod asking for a few changes or documentation to do their overhaul mod and TW devs responding to it while knowing what the modders are doing and why they are asking something.

I am not saying TW should block modding in any sort. Bonerstorm seems to misinterpret my intents and he is suggesting everywhere I am supporting this. I am simply asking if the devs have considered this issue before going to the option of removing internal on a case-by-case basis.
 
The demand comes from the Modding Community in general, the developers of KoA merely voiced it.

And as I have said before, this is going off-topic of this thread original topic. If you want to continue this discussion, open up a new thread. Any continuation of it here will now only result in a deletion of the posts.
 
The demand comes from the Modding Community in general, the developers of KoA merely voiced it.

And as I have said before, this is going off-topic of this thread original topic. If you want to continue this discussion, open up a new thread. Any continuation of it here will now only result in a deletion of the posts.
Ok, I won't bring the topic again. I just want bonerstorm to calm down in opening threads everywhere on the forum and on reddit telling I was suggesting the devs were aware of it and doing it on purpose.
 
It was one LotR mod, one single one out of the dozens which are out there for various games, and this also only because they have had plans to make a commercial game with a similar setting (LotR Online)

Total War games are getting less moddable by every release. GamesWorkshop might have requested some additional restrictions but I don't think anyone truly believed it would be very moddable. How to sell the DLCs if everyone can simply use mods?

This goes also off-topic from the thread topic here, so if you want to discuss something in that direction, open up a new thread for it.


I've purchased games just for the mods - in the case of Medieval 2, I've purchased the game specifically for the Third Age Total War mod. The rest of the game has no value to me. Without Third Age, CA would not have gotten anything from me.

I've skipped many of the latest Total War titles because of that - or simply waited for the sale - without the modding support, the game is only "worth" 1/4 or 1/5 the price to me anyways (that's when games are 75-80% off). That means the developers (CA in this case) only get a fraction of what they would have gotten had I bought at release (Steam keeps 30% for itself and the devs get 70%).

Some of these issues I think could be resolved as the article notes simply.

The solutions to some of these problems are actually very simple. TaleWorlds could hire an intern with the sole task of documenting how you intend for us to extend and utilize everything from Gauntlet to FaceKey generation. It is not at all practical to offload the burden of documenting a codebase this large and complex onto modders. If TaleWorlds ever wants the Bannerlord modding scene to flourish into more than just small tweaks and patches, this is a must.

This person will have to understand a lot in order to make it happen - a Wiki IMO seems like the best option so that the community can add its own insight.

The internal one though - that one will require major changes.
 
Just chiming in that this is an important issue and resolving it should be a priority.

I don't think there is any bad intentions here, but it still needs to be fixed asap.

Mods are what makes the game worth playing, and that's fine. The same is true for warband. Just make life easy for the modders so they can fulfill the potential of the engine. Thanks.
 
First off you're comparing an early access game to a release copy like Warband, Bannerlord is a way more complex and newer game which requires more time and that is why i believe they went with EA. Nobody asked you to start doing TC mods at the start of early access, the game is not ready for that at all and further changes to the code may severely delay your work as the game progress further.

I never believed in EA and this post further confirm why that is, people don't know how to handle it and start acting like they're entitled to answers, it would have been better to keep working on it and release it when it's ready.

I am really surprised the developers responded to this with the 1.6.0 patch when this is clearly not their fault, Bannerlord still have several more years before it's complete, please give me an example of any other game of this size that allow you to fully mod it early on that would be the reason behind your unreasonable claims.

If people are not spoonfed with information they start bashing the game, impatience like that is the reason gaming is what it is today, a pile of garbage where Mount & Blade is the only exception.

While mods certainly important for the game's future they are in no way required to add support for it at the start of early access, this is no secret to anyone...hopefully.
 
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"A decent first step" is how I'd put it, but also yet more evidence that TW needs to take some classes on corporate communication and customer relations. I mean jesus ****, if you're removing >100 and adding 4, you don't just say "added some and removed some", especially if you're gonna give that another week to stew.

That's just an absolute own goal in terms of advertising your response. And that came from a COMMUNITY MANAGER, not a random dev, so it's not like it was someone you can give a bit of a pass on for not knowing how to communicate stuff like this.
 
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