PC1 Modding in pCARS (Want opinions)

[XN-Sigma]

Hi.

I've been following the pCARS development since February on the WMD forums, when I decided to get into it I thought "hey, since there is no publisher BS, I guess this project will be more open to modding than other games".

Now, since then I've seen several threads and discussions on WMD about the subject, they always ended up in flame-wars of people pro modding and people against it, and none of them seemed too serious about it. Until now, recently some user made a thread in the general forum to discuss what kind of plan could be taken to allow or not modding.

As of now, the thread has been overwhelmed by people against modding, which shocked me greatly since my experience with mods has taught me A LOT of people likes them.

So since I found out this forum is a more "neutral land" and people don't need to fear the *ahem* political correctness of the WMD forums, I'd like to ask your opinions on the subject, do you think mods are good for games and should be allowed? Or not?



PS. Most of the people against modding in this recent thread at WMD seemed to be higher ups. ($$$$)

 

[Senad Subasic]

What on earth are the reasons against modding?

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

From my point of view I really can't see any negative points against modding. For normal sim racers it allows for an incredibly wide range of tracks and cars. Of course the quality can vary, but if you don't like it you don't have to use it

Apart from creating content for the racing community, there is also a lot of people who enjoy the engineering side of racing and like to create and modify cars themselves. For instance, earlier today I changed the elliptic shape of the throttle butterfly to change the throttle response at lower openings in a sim. I really enjoy these things and makes the simracing experience much more enjoyable for me.

There is also the point of view from real racing teams. With an open platform you can do quick testing and get an indication of gains from small modifications, before doing anything with the real car. The current sims is on par or usually more advanced than laptime simulations and you have the benefit of having a the real driver behind the wheel.

From the companys point of view its different though. They won't make any money on the modding activity and the lifetime of the game could be too long (just look at rFactor etc). So from a green perspective it would be better to have a very closed platform and charge for new expansions, DLCs etc.

 

[XN-Sigma]

What on earth are the reasons against modding?

Believe it or not, they say bad mods could be degrading to the image of the game, and also that no modder could EVER make anything as good as the ingame content. Some also said that searching and installing good mods is a hassle or that mods would divide and break the community.

That's basically the general mentality over there, to me it seems they see the game as some golden egg that needs to be kept clean and shiny from all views... but inside it's ugly.

 

[XN-Sigma]

From the companys point of view its different though. They won't make any money on the modding activity and the lifetime of the game could be too long (just look at rFactor etc). So from a green perspective it would be better to have a very closed platform and charge for new expansions, DLCs etc.

Actually, there is something wrong there, even though mods don't generate direct revenue, they may generate indirect revenue, a recent case of that is the game ArmA II and the mod DayZ, ArmA II is a realistic military simulator, some people made a zombie survival mod for it called DayZ, well, this mod became so widely popular it made the sales of ArmA II rise a lot. Now DayZ will become a separate game and will be published by the ArmA II devs.

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

Actually, there is something wrong there, even though mods don't generate direct revenue, they may generate indirect revenue, a recent case of that is the game ArmA II and the mod DayZ, ArmA II is a realistic military simulator, some people made a zombie survival mod for it called DayZ, well, this mod became so widely popular it made the sales of ArmA II rise a lot. Now DayZ will become a separate game and will be published by the ArmA II devs.

Thats pretty cool. Good point

 

[Kazumi]

I've been following the pCARS development since February on the WMD forums, when I decided to get into it I thought "hey, since there is no publisher BS, I guess this project will be more open to modding than other games".

No publisher BS doesn't automatically mean there's less BS overall.

But as you said it's not like there's a general concensus.

Modding quality and friendly-ness is a valid concern. I have no idea what some of these people who didn't like its quality downloaded. Many mods are the same or higher quality then retail games. I think there will be much better racing games / sims that are moddable though

 

[XN-Sigma]

I think there will be much better racing games / sims that are moddable though

Indeed, I've been getting more and more interested in Assetto Corsa, knowing that it will be completely open to modding makes me drool. However I must admit something, I use a Dual Shock 3 to play racing games, I have no wheel, and judging by the netKar-Pro demo, I'm kinda worried that the game may be too difficult for my controller, though I read somewhere that FVA fairs better with controllers so I dunno what exactly to expect from AC...

 

[Chronus]

What on earth are the reasons against modding?

From WMD and NG discussions, here is a summary of reasons against modding:
- community fragmentation: modding, they say, fragments community and makes it very hard to find "friendly" or "proper" servers
- mod quality: some mods, they say, are good, the "vast majority are crap" (quote from a notorious NG member - not a moderator - known for its anti-modding stance)
- cheating: modding, someone from SMS told us, is connected to cheating
- hacking: modding, someone from SMS told us, is connected to modding and cheating
- content ripping
- modding, several zealots said, destroys game installs. People install a mod, they say, and the mod ruins the install.
- modding, some believe, will prevent SMS from making money out of DLCs

For every reason they present against modding, as was discussed recently at NG, there is either a counter reason or a proof of its fallacious nature - in my opinion.

But it seems modding is a taboo.

As someone stated above, modding could contribute to increase revenue. SMS doesn't see it that way, we have to respect that.

 

[Andy_J]

It's all about money for WMD/SMS and modding does not feature in their strategy. Their big investors (with weighted votes) voted on no modding as it could affect their profits. There are no sim loving investors connected with Pcars IMHO. The game is being aimed at consoles anyway and wants to attract the rammers and barrier bouncers with DLC paid for additions etc. Compared to Assetto Corsa, it's not a race sim for dedicated PC lovers of sims. Oh no, the dev's saw the dollar signs and betrayed us all. It will be Shift 3 in all but name. My opinion as always.

Cue a WMD rep jumping into this thread with blatant BS anytime soon..............

 

[Andy_J]

As someone stated above, modding could contribute to increase revenue. SMS doesn't see it that way, we have to respect that.

No actually. We don't have to respect that. It was supposed to be a community funded and supported Race sim. Half of their dev staff have been modders in the past. No I won't respect that at all. It's all about profit. No passion any more.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Because some of the SMS team were modders in the past doesn't mean they have to keep their games open for future generation of modders.
So basically yes you do have to respect their decisions especially as the majority of the WMD members obviously didn't express their feelings otherwise.

For modding there are plenty of other alternatives out there I think.

 

[Kenny Paton]

No,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no.
Not another Pcars thread for and against. We all know where this one's going to end.
Just get Game Stock Cars and race the Minis, for gods sake.

 

[Senad Subasic]

Yeah, some people can't give it a rest.

 

[Peter]

No,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no.
Not another Pcars thread for and against. We all know where this one's going to end.
Just get Game Stock Cars and race the Minis, for gods sake.

There was a decent discussion until now.

I like mods in a game, not to change it but to add content.
There are some very good mods and that is the reason I still play GTR2.
But if a developer saids no, its fine by me.

 

[Andy_J]

There was a decent discussion until now.

Agreed.

 

[Senad Subasic]

Agreed.

LOL.

 

[Andy_J]

I hope that some good modders can take the finished game and make it better, just like they did with both the Shift games. Modding makes all the difference to PC sim racers. Paid for DLC might be fine for the console simcade versions, but I see no reason why the PC version could not have mod capability, for offline use only of course.

 

[Ian Bell]

Because some of the SMS team were modders in the past doesn't mean they have to keep their games open for future generation of modders.
So basically yes you do have to respect their decisions especially as the majority of the WMD members obviously didn't express their feelings otherwise.

For modding there are plenty of other alternatives out there I think.

We fully intend to allow modding in many areas. What we won't want is hacking. Thus, we're working on robust tools for this area.

 

[Ian Bell]

I hope that some good modders can take the finished game and make it better, just like they did with both the Shift games. Modding makes all the difference to PC sim racers. Paid for DLC might be fine for the console simcade versions, but I see no reason why the PC version could not have mod capability, for offline use only of course.

We plan to have it very good at release though.