The new "outdated" tag on mods.

[Wondiws98]

Just logged on this morning to see this tag on all of my mods.

I hate it. I don't think it's necessary and it just makes it look like the mod is broken or something and i think it could be misleading for some people.
I think it also kind of stresses modders to go and update everything single one of their mods to make sure they don't look like they're outdated when they really aren't.
Maybe we could tone it down a little? Like make it so that tag only appears on mods made for 1.19 and below.
That's just my opinion, maybe there's an actually good reason why it's there.

Edit: Especially considering the game gets small updates every week...

Edited May 6, 2025 by Wondiws98

[Isif]

I wanted to add an opposing opinion: I think it's a good idea to make sure that mods do in fact work on new versions; since the game and applied mods work together as a unit, they could potentially affect each other when components are partially upgraded. If their behavior is unchanged, then they can be tagged with the new version in the page without updating the mod itself. To me, this tag just means the author themselves hasn't confirmed its behavior on the latest version—the user can look into the comments to see if other users have confirmed if the mod is broken or not, and if there is no information, they may decide to test the mod apart from their important data (if they decide to be vigilant about such things). Especially with intensive mods that use Harmony patching, minor versions updates could break a mod, as minor changes can have greater changes to the structure of the IL code, or just affect state in a way that a mod doesn't account for (in the latter case, no patching error will help find such an issue). As long as the mod is untested, it's dubious whether the mod works as intended or not.

[Wondiws98]

I disagree. My complaint is how the tag portrays the mod as being straight up "outdated", which is usually far from being the case.

The problem that I have is that it tags every mods which doesn't have a tag of the most recent version of the game.
And it may not seem like a big deal to just have to add the tag to releases but when you have 20+ mods to manage, it adds up.
Also, I don't add tags to mods which I didn't test and confirmed that it does work in said version, so for me to add the most recent tag to every mod would mean to test all 20+ one by one, which is a lot of work, especially considering the game releases tiny little updates every week which is very unlikely to break a well made mod.

The unbiased "outdated" is still a very bad idea in my opinion. I don't think it should be straight up removed, maybe toned down to some degree.
For instance, it could be changed to something like a yellow thing that says "may be outdated".
I just really think it's a bit over-the-top and that there's room for improvement.
Just to give some breathing room for modders.

Edited May 6, 2025 by Wondiws98

[Isif]

I see. I still agree with the behavior of tagging mods which aren't tagged for the most recent version (including minor updates) as the lack of a version tag implies the author did not test it (which is true), but I thinking softening the tone of the tag is a reasonable change. I agree with the way you tag your mods and if you don't test every mod on every version then I don't think you should feel obligated to (after all, there is no compensation for authoring and maintaining mods).

[The Insanity God]

Personally I have mixed feelings about this change as well:

I like how it's far more noticeable that the author has not confirmed that this mod is supposed to work on a given version...

I don't like the phrasing "for outdated Vintage Story ..." as I feel this will be easily misunderstood as "this mod is only for outdated game versions" while in reality mods often survive game versions (especially when we talk about minor versions)

I'd opt for something along the lines of: "Warning: Author has not confirmed this mod is supposed to work for game versions beyond ...."

[Billiam]

The "outdated" message is also awkward for release candidate versions: 

[Broccoli Clock]

What is the situation with this?

I have a mod that is "outdated" (it's not, it's just a very simple grid recipe mod). It's very likely I stated it was compatible with 1.20.4 as that was the latest version at the time. That's obviously updated, so the list now looks like.. 

The question I have is...

As the mod is still working, do I just take the previous files, and re-upload them and select the compatible versions so that it includes the latest build? Is that how I get around this?

Do I need to do this in the UI? 

(I messed up the screenshot it should have 1.20.11 in there too, sorry)

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In general terms, I have mixed feelings about the automatic outdated message. When changes with modding happens it's necessary to flag the mods which may be out of date. I can't imagine there are the resources (or the time to develop them) for a system that detects if the mod files conflict with more modern versions of the game. Doing it en masse, then getting the authors to double check seems probably the only workable solution.

It would be really nice if when editing the mod you were allowed to add versions the mod is valid for. Emailing the mod account to inform them that their mod(s) have been listed as outdated would also be a QoL here as I didn't know this had happened to me until I actually checked the Mod DB manually.

[Isif]

3 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

What is the situation with this?

I have a mod that is "outdated" (it's not, it's just a very simple grid recipe mod). It's very likely I stated it was compatible with 1.20.4 as that was the latest version at the time. That's obviously updated, so the list now looks like.. 

The question I have is...

As the mod is still working, do I just take the previous files, and re-upload them and select the compatible versions so that it includes the latest build? Is that how I get around this?

Do I need to do this in the UI? 

(I messed up the screenshot it should have 1.20.11 in there too, sorry)

---

In general terms, I have mixed feelings about the automatic outdated message. When changes with modding happens it's necessary to flag the mods which may be out of date. I can't imagine there are the resources (or the time to develop them) for a system that detects if the mod files conflict with more modern versions of the game. Doing it en masse, then getting the authors to double check seems probably the only workable solution.

It would be really nice if when editing the mod you were allowed to add versions the mod is valid for. Emailing the mod account to inform them that their mod(s) have been listed as outdated would also be a QoL here as I didn't know this had happened to me until I actually checked the Mod DB manually.

You can add compatible game versions when you edit a mod version. You don’t need to recreate the release.

In case it’s unclear, you can edit a version by pressing its version number in the Files tab.

Edited June 5, 2025 by Isif

[Broccoli Clock]

6 minutes ago, Isif said:

You can add compatible game versions when you edit a mod version. You don’t need to recreate the release.

In case it’s unclear, you can edit a version by pressing its version number in the Files tab.

Brilliant, that worked a treat!

I also know why I was having trouble, if you are already logged into the ModDB and navigate to your mod it shows you the tabs [Description]/[Files]/[Source]. Clicking on the [Files] tab will show me a list, clicking the mod version number will take me to a page called "Edit Release" where I can amend the versions the mod is valid for.

However.... if I click the [edit] button to the top right, I get taken to a page where I can change the Description and Source, but can't edit the files and there is no direct link back to the initial page which listed the files. 

As a dev I can sort of see the logic intended, but it's not overly intuitive and could be streamlined. Although, to be fair, this information may be somewhere and I've overlooked it.