Opinion - Mod or Not to Mod?

[DND]

Mod or Not to Mod?

Before I get into the heart of this thread let me first express my admiration for those that are capable of creating a mod, put in the hours of work and provide them to the masses for little or zero financial gain. This is not intended as a shot at you rather wondering out loud what the developers do in ensuring that all mods are compatible with past, current and future versions of the game/sim. Also, how users navigate the choice of including mods or relying on the OEM and DLC content provided for their racing enjoyment.

Over the years mods have played an integral part for many wantabe racers to enjoy their favourite sim, but at what cost? Not necessarily financial but to the integrity of the sim. I remember downloading the latest real life liveries and driver names in the early nineties to the Grand Prix series which would cause occasional issues and require a re-install of the games software to get it back to level. After a few updates to mods and the whole process of hits, misses, and eventual phone calls to my smarter brother to help sort things out I decided to leave well enough alone and kept the last mod that had the classic red and white of the Marlboro McLaren and drivers the likes of Ayrton Senna Nigel Mansell and Jean Alesi.

Fast forward to the latest decade and the mods available today…WOW. There is no shortage of mods in most of the games/sims available, sans a select few. The work and quality of any individual mod is diverse as the number that are available, but how well do they work with others within the sim? What effect does it have on the developers as when a base update is made and the complaints begin to roll in that the mod that used to work, now…well doesn’t work so well anymore? Does the number of mods available provide a progression of the base software or does it retard it?

Is there a best practice to address the integrity of the mods available, or more importantly how they make it onto ones PC and eventually in the game/sim? I know there is at least one developer that have shared their blueprint to the modders, but what is the vetting process for these mods to be offered and added to a game/sim by the user?

Tell us what you think are mods a must have, or is it keep them away from my sim? Or do you fall somewhere in the middle? And what is your vetting process as to what mod you add?

 

[erba72]

Trusted modders firstly, but if a mod seem to be good from modders that I don't know, I'm trying it.

 

[Constantin Grimminger]

What kind of question is this even? Ofc you gonna have mods. Just look how good eg. AMS becomes with modded content.

Sure, nowadays stock content is plenty and great and stuff, but it'll never fulfill everyone's desire for tracks, cars, weather (looking at you, AC) and plugins.
Just take TCR for example, which current-gen sim has plenty of TCR cars available at stock?

Keep your games moddable, then you'll keep your craving sim racing maniacs happy.

 

[Pessio]

Uh, surprise! Opened RD briefly to check mail, found this article, and inside, two screens of my Mini and Birdcage! Lovely

 

[mitch porter]

yer y not have ago mate if it works cool if it don't owell **** happens

 

[Metla]

I love mods, But as long as we have one great current mod platform (such as AC) then I dont expect every game to also be modable.

I'll try anything if it takes my fancy.

 

[mitch porter]

I love mods, But as long as we have one great current mod platform (such as AC) then I dont expect every game to also be modable.

I'll try anything if it takes my fancy.

 

[Rex Racer 65]

Modders continue to make AC my go to sim. I am for ever grateful to all the work they do. Please keep'em coming!

 

[Doug62]

How much time have you got?

There's so much to say on this.

Modders are important because for the most part these people learn how! Ask youself, Is there a school that teaches all aspects of moddering game? Not that I know off . So let's stop people modding our games/sims completely.
Now ask yourself, who's going to make the next generation off games/sims?

People that do things just for money will never do as good a job as those who love what their working on. rF2 has become a classic case off near enough is good enough, let's make some money! Release broken unfinished, untested content to a bug filled base. People that are just doing it for the money. Yes, the money is important, we all get that but when quality suffers for it, so dose the money! People get disillusioned and loose interest in a game they stop buying.

We all see, read bad things about 3party mods but so many are good, up to par or in a lots off cases explore better what the game is truly capable off.

How many game developers today are made up from mod teams off yesterday? I can think off two for racing sims alone. Rieza & Simply Mad Studios, 1 used rF1 as their base engine, the other earlier was GTR2. Both used the ISI physics engine. Both are well known modder groups who brought these platforms alive with innovations that was never seen or considered of by the games developers.

Like I say, There's is so much to say on this subject.
People need to be far more supportive of modders who are learning this craft, art.
Devs don't always get it right and some don't care as much for the game as for the money.

 

[Zuffenhausen Weiss]

Developers needs to realise that modding have always been part and parcel of sim racing wether devs like it or not

A good example is AC vs ACC and GTR vs GTR2, without it Kunos could never match the sucess of it's precessor like it has for ACC and neither could Sector 3 (or Simbin)

 

[Emery]

Modders are leaders. The next hot DLC is usually found by following modders. In 2013-2014, that was GT3, but no sim studio had it on their radar and we had to rely on modders to show the way. Of course now GT3 is feeling somewhat saturated...

But that is the role that I see modders fulfilling. Over the years the advances that came from modders have included plugins for realfeel, realtime & historical weather, voice commands, crewchief, & "radar".

 

[Loren Thomas]

I'd rather have a really complete sim of a good series. To get the top quality, you really need access to the cars and tracks, which a real game studio can get a whole lot easier than one or a few modders, however dedicated. But to my mind, that ideal sim doesn't exist right now - ACC had the potential but still isn't delivering on several fronts. So I don't mind a good mod in the meantime.

 

[Metla]

Developers needs to realise that modding have always been part and parcel of sim racing wether devs like it or not

A good example is AC vs ACC and GTR vs GTR2, without it Kunos could never match the sucess of it's precessor like it has for ACC and neither could Sector 3 (or Simbin)

The other-side of the coin is that releasing a modifiable platform to compete with your previous modifiable platform is likely to fail as all the mods (and the user base) are already on the old platform.

As a prime example I believe RF1 continued to outsell RF2 for a long period, and I doubt RF2 even now has reached the success of Rf1.

An AC2 wouldn't have done much at this time unless it bought something revolutionary to the platform rather then just being a base for mods.

Just my opinion, But devs need to allow a modifiable platform to live out its lifespan before attempting to replace it.

 

[Shovas]

It's such an obvious thing that modding and open platforms should be the default for the benefit of both users and devs. There are so many clear examples where the value continues to this day: Old SimBin titles still being sold, rF1/rF2 designed as open platforms, AC1 with 10K+ mods, GPL still going after 20 years, GTR2 still being the feature-leader up until the last few years.

Users get shelf-life, feature upgrades, and new content for far longer than a dev would support their own closed platform, and devs get increased engagement, mindshare, marketshare, and more money as long as they want to keep the product available.

Assetto Corsa is still being sold so somebody is making money on that still and users get so much value from it.

SimBin/Sector3 knows this, they still sell Race 07/GTR2/GTL/etc. all over the internet. They still even keep up lobby servers for Race 07 to my knowledge.

I don't know about maintainability for the devs but AC1 seems fine and rF1/rF2 were designed to be open platforms and by design rely on mods.

Modding got simracing to where it is today. rF1/rF2, GSCE/AMS, AC1, and all the old SimBin games *rely* on moddability and got to where they are because of it.

Correct me if I'm mistaken but simracing isn't unique with regards to mods, either. As I understand it, flight sims gain a competitive edge if they're open to mods.

Even with shooters, some games like Far Cry 3/4 used to have epic, epic mods available but, over time, they've been closed down and FC5 is a barren wasteland after your first playthrough.

It's a real shame we're ignoring what got us here and what we're going to lose with everything moving to closed platforms.

We get what we deserve. You vote with your wallet, one way or the other.

 

[Shovas]

As a prime example I believe RF1 continued to outsell RF2 for a long period, and I doubt RF2 even now has reached the success of Rf1.

An AC2 wouldn't have done much at this time unless it bought something revolutionary to the platform rather then just being a base for mods.

rF2's migration path wasn't as easy as it needed to be. If they had managed that better, you wouldn't have had all the modders either stick to rF1 at the time or move to AC1 or AMS.

And that's not the only time migrations like that have happened. When SimBin stopped for a long time after GTR2/Race 07, modders went to GSCE/AMS or rF1/rF2.

Kunos probably just isn't as aware of what's happened in these cases or else they wouldn't have repeated the rF1->rF2 fiasco with AC1->ACC. Maybe they still would have anyway because the license was too good but really the opportunity is currently lost. I hope if they do release AC2 they won't repeat the mistakes of rF1->rF2.

 

[Shovas]

Btw, the poll is weirdly worded. I voted "Roll the dice" but it doesn't really describe my take. My vote would be simply "Yes, of course, why wouldn't you". You find recommendations from others, from youtube videos, etc., you read reviews, you check ratings, and you download the cream of the crop.

 

[aphidgod]

lol... what's at stake here? You download a mod for free, you try it out, it sucks and you're out what, 10 minutes of your life? If that's an amount of time you absolutely can't afford to waste, please stop simracing. Your life is far too important for games.

I thought this was going to be a thread posing a question to modders about their craft... I was all ready to strongly advocate for "not."

 

[Durge Driven]

 

[alx@llg Gaming]

My Opinion on Mods 2016 - Oh Cool Theres more than 100 cars in AC now (This Was Before I Had DLC)
My Opinion on Mods 2018 - So Now I Have Over 1000 Cars "All The Options".....
My Opinion on Mods 2020 - 3500+ Cars, 700+ Tracks, 1.5Tb Game Folder/Archive Folder (I Need Help On This Pointless Addiction)....

 

[Metla]

rF2's migration path wasn't as easy as it needed to be. If they had managed that better, you wouldn't have had all the modders either stick to rF1 at the time or move to AC1 or AMS.

Interesting point, But if it were too easy (copy/paste) then you would instantly devalue your new platform.