Are Mods Checked Before People Are Able to Download Them?

[AlexisHearts]

Are Vintage Story mods checked before being released for people to download, or are people just supposed to trust that it's not malicious? After running across a mod's comment section, I read a comment mentioning how the modder added malicious code to crash a person's game. If something like this were possible, then what else is possible? Am I supposed to believe that there aren't more modders like that one? How am I as a consumer supposed to feel comfortable with the growing popularity that someone with bad intentions hasn't come along? I currently do not see a built-in way to report these malicious mods or modders. If anything else doesn't get done to improve this growing issue, at least add a way for people to report these malicious modders.

[AlexisHearts]

Is this the developer's response to the lack of a way to report harmful mods? By basically saying it's not their problem and it's all up to the consumer? 

[Thorfinn]

Welcome to the forums, @AlexisHearts

First, no, there's not really any formal or informal check. As with anything on the 'net, you need to exercise a little caution.

Code mods (the ones with a .dll file) access the game through an API, strictly speaking, there is not a whole lot stopping C# code from dinking with other things, though your OS is pretty well locked down. Or should be, if you haven't disabled updates.

A JSON? I imagine it's possible there's a Bobby Tables risk but I usually don't do much more with JSONs than just scan them looking for blocks of hex or "garbage" text. Never yet have seen any.

I don't worry about it too much. There are enough users out there that so long as I'm not an early adopter, it should not be an issue. Someone will have run into it, and will have posted, either on the forums or on ModDB. Unless you are going to recompile a .dll, you have no real way of knowing that the source code matches the .dll anyway. There may be coders that do recompile everything, but I doubt it.

Your best defense is keeping all the information you worry about on a completely different machine. Use Rufus to create a bootable stick for your gaming rig, so you can be back in business in a half hour. The second best defense is making regular backups and restore points. I don't know why anyone would need anything beyond that.

Edited May 29, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Dilan Rona]

5 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Bobby Tables

cool looking site. I bookmarked it. Thank you, @Thorfinn

[Never Jhonsen]

I didn’t even click the link, but I know exactly what’s behind it

11 hours ago, Dilan Rona said:

cool looking site. I bookmarked it. Thank you, @Thorfinn

If your not familar with that site Dilan, then I’d assume that you may be one of today’s lucky 10,000.