Vintage Story on CurseForge?

[Tyron]

So, turns out @Rastrick asked on the CurseForge forums about adding support for Vintage Story and their community manager popped by on discord offering just that. For those unaware, CurseForge, amongst other things host mods for games and for some games they build launchers to make mod installation easier.

This seems a fairly big move so I would also want to hear from you all whether that is something you feel is right for the game. 

I myself planned to build a small modhub site eventually, but if the large majority is fine with using CurseForge I will delay those plans until a needs for it comes up again. In other words, this is is not an exclusive offer. It is still possible for us to host a small-scale but official mod hosting site that integrates into the game. 

As for me personally I have mixed feelings but feel inclined to accept

[Stroam]

My first reaction is no, because it's 3rd party. My first thought is, this could be good for VS in that it distributes the development load. CurseForge has people with experience building mod loaders so that could be used as a good example of one way of doing it. My current stance is, this is probably a good thing but I'm not going to research it enough to argue one way or another.

[cynthia]

I do also have mixed feelings regarding the curse thing tbh.

While I do like it from the perspective that it might get the word out there more as a moddable game.

I am also against it due to even though it would not be an exclusive right for curseforge to host mods, I do think it could basically become that.

so my personal opinion is currently, that if it happens, I would like there to be some agreement that allows you to rehost any VS content that is hosted on curseforge.

Edited October 23, 2018 by cynthia

[copygirl]

I have sort of a personal grudge against Curse and CurseForge. For taking over the Minecraft forums (breaking them in the process for who knows how long) and wiki, FTB and then getting bought by Twitch. I also heard they have a track record for inserting themselves into modding communities in general and not really putting any effort into providing anything meaningful. But I couldn't find anything from a quick search, so that might just be hearsay. The only real value they add is a way to search and browse mods, which only works well if they're the main source of mods everyone is encouraged to upload their mods to.

Perhaps look into mod.io as a future possibility?

[Draconicrose]

Curse Forge doesn't support Linux so I don't support them either. I recognize I'm the minority, so take that with a grain of salt. It'd be nice to have our own mod hub that integrated into the game if all the versions could benefit from it.

[Ultimaheart4]

i also feel that we need to use a different system for mod integration, i use curse forge for minecraft mods, its nice, but its so not optimized for minecraft, and dealing with curse forge/twitch for modpacks etc for minecraft has been a horrible experience, i wouldnt even release my own mod onto curse, in the end i never did release it, and sure that was quite a while back and i didnt feel like overhauling my mod to update to newer minecraft but still, i feel that our community should be in charge of mods and making a system for moding built directly into vintage story even. but its just my opinion, i wouldnt mind a system to help with modding, but i dont want it to turn out similar to minecraft moding or the curse of twitch that it is. unless someone can actually convince me that curse forge is worth the time? it use to be good till twitch bought them out. most people i know even use multimc instead of twitch/curse for modpacks. 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Ultimaheart4 (Allen)
wanted to add more... sorry :)

[Tyron]

Thank you for the response everyone. Based on everyones feedback, I've decided to suspend any efforts towards curseforge mod support and rather try to build our own modhub instead. We may revisit this at a future date though, should a serious need arise. 

[copygirl]

I would've loved to hear some thoughts of the people who are in favor of CurseForge officially hosting our mods.

[Tatazaki]

So here's my thoughts on Curseforge integration.

The main pro is free advertising for the game- as well as advertising for the mods in the game.

A secondary pro is that it gets a mod database going beyond what we have in the forums.

The main con however is that the way VS is setup- you can really only have one instance going on in one place at any given time.

On top of that, the twitch launcher will at times not load things properly as of late.  (however, I think it's just minecraft getting that issue.)

I will say that while there could very well be better options- Curseforge will make the most noise about the game and having it on the twitch launcher (and with how lovely the logo is) will make people wonder "what's this game?" 

[Bl0ckparty]

It's all about visibility and ease of use for the lay person/Player.  We have become a "point and click" civilization.

As a Player and not a Modder, I agree that there are distinct advantages for Curseforge integration.  Most of it is for people to notice VS more because the logo is added to other more popular logos.  I wouldn't mind having VS on Twitch.  I wouldn't mind launching VS from the Twitch launcher.  I wouldn't mind having VS modpacks available through the Twitch launcher.  I wouldn't mind having a list of mods available through Curseforge.  It would all be much easier for me, as a Player, than the current system.

BUT!  Vintage Story is still in it's infancy right now.  There is so much planned for the future and so many mods that can be created.  As it was noted that they don't support Linux, they're not an all inclusive community. It has also been noted and noticed by myself that little businesses get bought by bigger businesses or, by providing a better service--at least initially--it can take over a previous existing service/platform.  The original people who created content or who were in control may lose out in one way or another.

If it was possible to join Curseforge and/or Twitch and still have a written "out" in place should the VS creators and/or modders as a whole decide there is a better way/better system, I would agree wholeheartedly.  I don't want someone(s) with more money or importance to come in and say "we had a deal!" and take all the good that has been created and run away with it.  To paraphrase:  "If the contract is not plain enough that the reader feels like they need a lawyer to explain it to them, the reader may not want to sign the contract for want of losing all they have."

I'm ignorant of the contracts so unable to make a better decision or come to a better conclusion.  The issue can always be addressed in the future when VS has more polish.

 

 

[Soloquendi]

I'm too late to vote, but I want to add my input as a former content creator for Curse.  I will never have anything to do with them ever again.  Amazon/Twitch was only interested in the player base and demoted the modding community to a corner in the basement.  They don't moderate their own forums anymore, and they no longer have any standards for  what content they accept.  It's worse than Technic now.  They're only interested in your game to increase their monopoly. 

 

[Sarainia Angelsong]

SWEET if you did add it to curseforge then I can use my "Twitch app" like how I modpack Minecraft with but I be modpacking Vintage Story and I love the way they do it cuz I always mess up "Forge" then to begin with I always get the wrong versions of mods all muddled up! @Tyron I would fully support ya given you know my grievous luck so far even just modding your game! I like the Twitch App that's with forge cuz it just is "BOOM!" modded and play! I have yet to get anyone's mods here working and I have yet to code up even a working test mod! You say your way/game is easier to mod, but why am I still to date able to mod other games but not yours? I sent ya screenshots of several experienced people and .json files seem to be a taboo subject in the programming world! Curseforge is a good automation tool I like the Twitch profile for mod folders and versions never get out of whack and they always work! Tyron I fully back you up only if you choose curseforge then at least I have some hope to play a modded game! All my screenshots in your private DM's have more than explained my troubles.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Tyron
Everything in bold and pink makes it hard to read

[ApacheTech]

Adding this to the Twitch Launcher would make playing, managing, and modding the game much easier. Especially as the game grows, being able to launch multiple instances of the game with different settings, different game versions, and different modpacks will be massively beneficial. Creating a bespoke launcher is ok, but with Twitch Launcher you get all the footfall as well, increasing the popularity of the game, and encouraging more sales. Bespoke isn't always best. With Twitch Launcher, you get all the support from them, it's a ubiquitous piece of software that millions of people who play Voxel games already use, and know how to use. You get full community access, and many professional modding outfits release mods purely for Curse Forge. It should either be Curse Forge, or Steam Workshop.

[RapscallionGamer]

I have mixed feelings about this along with others.  But I would overall accept because of exposure and you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

That said I don't use the twitch launcher because it is a sad bit of coding and it reports back more than I am comfortable with.  The other issue I have with the ifrastructure regarding mods, is two part, searching is a nightmare with name and tags not being used properly, and of course the information contributors put forth about thier mods is most of the time.... horse pucky.  You pretty much have to try something to find anything out about it.

[copygirl]

I will reiterate that the Twitch App or Launcher or whatever it is called nowadays is not supported on Linux, which the game so far has tried its best to support (Mac OS support has been spotty due to lack of hardware to debug on). As such I don't think it's appropriate to use, because it will be leaving behind a number of people - Vintage Story has gathered a little bit of attention in the Linux Gaming world, already.

Certainly, at some point we will be reviewing how mods are dealt with, allowing them to be selected per-world, and per-server, maybe even auto-downloading mods with have been vetted by the team. Additionally, the game is already loading a ton of content from asset files, so it would be a bit silly to have entirely separate installs for different versions (or worse, just different sets of mods) of the game taking up a large amount of space. This could be dealt with much more intelligently, having smarter mod managing and such all within the game itself, or through a custom launcher application that would manage downloading, updating and selecting different installed game versions and associated assets.

Edited March 18, 2020 by copygirl

[Sparkle Kitti]

4 hours ago, copygirl said:

Mac OS support has been spotty due to lack of hardware to debug on

What goes into debugging? Is it something that I could help with since I do have a Mac I could run it on?

[Javajoe]

For me. If a game is made well enough, I rarely will use mods with it. So I'm all for whatever you decide @Tyron. I'm not a Linux user but I tend to agree with the Linux guys/gals to keep it to something that will have Linux support. And as far as Crap OS, I mean Mac OS, it's Mac. Does anyone care about Mac?   

[ApacheTech]

5 hours ago, copygirl said:

~~~ not supported on Linux

Not even with WINE?

It's a shame that Nexus Mod Manager has fallen to the doldrums. Curse and Steam are the only two realistic options for mod management. I prefer Curse because you can use different modpacks, different game versions, and different accounts. With Steam, it would be impossible to use a camera account, without re-activating HyperVisor. Curse (Twitch) gives a massive amount of flexibility, which is exactly what you need for these games. If I'm on a multiplayer server running 1.12.8, and I want a sandbox world in 1.12.9-rc.1 for mod development, and carrying on my 1.12.6 SSP with different mods, complete with the ability to use a camera account for third person timelapse videos... that's only possible on Curse.

VS could include a launcher manager that offers all of this, but it would still be all in-house, and wouldn't bring in any new footfall. With Curse, and Steam, you get the potential of millions of new customers, instantly, at no extra cost. You also save yourself from being the first line of tech support for the platform. All of the "hwo i intsal yr sftwr??1?!?" emails get sent to Twitch, not to here. It would instantly integrate the game into the live stream community, which is fast outpacing YouTube as a gaming platform. Let's Plays are still the best "Try before you buy" method of introducing new players to a game, and so everything to make that as easy, and seamless as possible is good. Being able to launch the game, and manage it all through the Twitch Launcher is the best possible way to do that. Linux users... well, there can be a bespoke native launcher in with the game as well. Linux has always been clunky, and unelegant compared to Windows, when it comes to stuff like this. As Twitch grows to take over from YouTube, they may expand their platform to Linux as well, in which case, you'll have automatic support there as well. That's up to the Live Stream community to put pressure on the platform to expand though, and for game developers to do the same. Facts and figures are needed for that, but the vast majority of users will be using Windows, and will have access to Twitch, and Steam, and will automatically know how to use both platforms.

[copygirl]

6 hours ago, ApacheTech said:

1. Not even with WINE?

2. Curse (Twitch) gives a massive amount of flexibility, which is exactly what you need for these games. If I'm on a multiplayer server running 1.12.8, and I want a sandbox world in 1.12.9-rc.1 for mod development, and carrying on my 1.12.6 SSP with different mods, complete with the ability to use a camera account for third person timelapse videos... that's only possible on Curse.

3. With Curse, and Steam, you get the potential of millions of new customers, instantly, at no extra cost.

4. Linux users... well, there can be a bespoke native launcher in with the game as well. Linux has always been clunky, and unelegant compared to Windows, when it comes to stuff like this.

1. I haven't personally tried, and wouldn't really want to, but it looks like nobody has had any luck getting it to run.

2. MultiMC is an open-source, cross-platform alternative for managing Minecraft modpacks. It does everything you want from the Twitch/Curse launcher and more. It also can download CurseForge modpacks - though to be fair, updating is a thing you have to do somewhat manually. I love it and have used it since before Twitch took over everything.

3. First, regarding Steam: Proper integration would actually require a lot of work behind the scenes. And as you know, they take a 30% cut. With both, you're limited to how they do things, and what they decide in the future. That is a cost. Steam and I believe Twitch also require creating an account, and thus having to agree to their terms.
Vintage Story is in a sort of interesting position, where you can load mods without restarting the game. And ideally, with the modding API, mods may be compatible across multiple versions. We should focus on that, get the modding API stable, and give people less reason to run an old version. We don't have to fall into the same traps as Minecraft modding. But yes, a launcher would be nice, like I said, for all the reasons I've mentioned in my previous post.

4. Linux has been massively improving over time. Sure, it's - at times - rough around the edges, but at least you own your computer, still. Everyone knows Apple tries to control what's available on its platform and what you can do, and they try to make sure you don't own your device. Microsoft has been pushing into that same direction, lately. Sure, it has its upsides, because everything is supposed to be stupid simple. But we need Linux - It's the only way into a brighter future. We need the freedom, the customizability, the control, and not to give in to our corporate overlords - this also applies to Twitch and Steam, by the way.
At least Steam knows it can't lose to Microsoft. They've been pushing for and improving Linux Gaming, with Proton / Steam Play for example. I think they can do this because they're not a publicly traded company, by the way. They can still choose to do what they find interesting and important, rather than to try and maximize their profit (while keeping expenses low).

All in all, people should come to terms that not everything will or should be available on their favorite launcher. We should be able to retain our freedom and flexibility we have. Even if it means the effort of writing our own launcher, and making sure the mod managing experience in-game is as good as it can be. At the very least, this should be the #1 priority in this regard. If, after that, we have time to offer the game on different platforms, we could try to do that.

Vanilla Minecraft also comes with its own launcher. Notch had been approached by Steam but denied. (In hindsight, I would've preferred that over Microsoft.) But look at where it is now. If you have a good game that excites and interests people, they're willing to go the little extra step.

Edited March 19, 2020 by copygirl

[Erik]

Something that needs to be added is, that the launchers of those huge mod hosting sites like Curse and Nexus Mods are often just inferior to mod launchers specifically developed targeting a specific game. For Minecraft, twitch launcher is really bad in comparison to MultiMC. For Fallout/Elder Scrolls the Nexus Mod Manager or it's newer replacement Vortex is much worse from a feature and usability viewpoint than Mod Organizer 2. 

Using an inferior software doesn't actually sound that bad at first if it does what you want. But they often promote bad modding habits and thus result in a lot of mod compatibility issues, the user is unaware off. This is especially the case for something like the Steam Workshop. It's presented as a simple click to install service, but in games like Skyrim it really fails and causes a lot of issues because the user is unaware and unable to configure the load order, nor is the load order automatically managed with something like LOOT (Load Order Optimization Tool). Even the Nexus Mod Manager had a similar problem, while it allowed configuring the load order of mods (only manually though), it didn't allow configuring the install order and warn users about mods overriding files of each other. Vertex fixed both those issues and does a really good job at telling people of those issues and forcing them to fix them, but makes this unnecessarily tedious and lacks important features like manually changing your load order.

Getting twitch launcher support for Vintage Story would just stick it in the Steam Workshop situation. Mod installation is easy, but things like conflict detection and resolution are not possible for the user, because the launcher is just too general and not specific enough to Vintage Stories needs.

Also on a completely different note about Steam, why not release on Steam with a higher price to compensate for the 30% cut? Something like 22€ would still leave the devs with just over 15€ and provide regional pricing as well as more awareness and probably boost sames a bit. While not perfect, it seems like the best compromise. 

[ApacheTech]

"What everyone should do", and "what everyone does do" are two very different things. "What people does do", regardless of the atrocious grammatical consequences of such a phrase, is much closer to "what people will do" than what they should do. MultiMC is terrible compared to Twitch Laucher for Minecraft. With Twitch, it's an all-in-one. One click install, one click updates, and each mod is available to search for right there. Until Fabric came along, at least. I'm now forced to use MultiMC, and I miss almost everything about the Twitch Launcher because of it. With Twitch Launcher, I could just browse through the modpacks, install as many as I like, in the background, while I browse for more. Each would be loaded into it's own profile, and everything is set up for me. No browser, no websites, no other installs, everything in one place, as it should be. The only thing it lacked was the ability to easily create desktop shortcuts for different packs. You say that MultiMC does everything Twitch Launcher does... but it doesn't. The only packs you can install are legacy packs. There's no options to install maps, resource packs, or individual mods from a list. There's no version control for individual packs. All of that is manual, and there's no indication that manual version control is needed when a new version is released. It's nothing like Twitch Launcher. MultiMC also doesn't support Forge for the last 3 updates of the game. I use it because I'm forced to, because Schematica is no longer being maintained, and Litematica is only available for Fabric.

Working in-house, within a nice bubble of self-control is fine. It works for small indie games that have no real ambition to grow. If Vintage Story wants to stay as a small enterprise, and remain fairly hidden then more power to it. Fight the system! But fighting the system comes at a huge penalty. Places like Steam may take 30%, but that is 30% of the millions upon millions of new customers it opens the game up to.

If the game used MEF for plugins and mods, you'd have full support for adding and taking them away without restarting the game, regardless of what platform you get the mods from. You can build a very robust and secure modding API around MEF that seamlessly integrates into the existing architecture, because it revolves purely around the strategy pattern, to create a strongly typed base for reflection. A lot of Unity projects are moving to MEF for that reason. It's massively powerful in what it can do. For a long time, it was just seen as an IOC container, but it's perfect for game modding.

[Erik]

20 minutes ago, ApacheTech said:

You say that MultiMC does everything Twitch Launcher does... but it doesn't. The only packs you can install are legacy packs. There's no options to install maps, resource packs, or individual mods from a list. There's no version control for individual packs. All of that is manual, and there's no indication that manual version control is needed when a new version is released. It's nothing like Twitch Launcher. MultiMC also doesn't support Forge for the last 3 updates of the game.

You're right that MultiMC doesn't have a browser for mods and modpacks included with one click install/update functionality. But you are not limited to Legacy FTB packs only, with the "Import zip file" option you can import any curse forge pack (apart from forge 1.13+ packs). Twitch Launcher however can't install FTB Legacy packs nor does it support Fabric. The twitch launcher is also unbearably slow and nowhere near as responsive as MultiMC, it is also loaded with a lot of features unnecessary for modding Minecraft, the whole twitch stuff. While it arguably provides the better user experience compared to MultiMC, but MultiMC is lightweight, fast, doesn't need a twitch account and has all the necessary tools to create and play modpacks. Sharing modpacks for private use is also easier imo, as you can just export a zip file.

39 minutes ago, ApacheTech said:

Working in-house, within a nice bubble of self-control is fine. It works for small indie games that have no real ambition to grow. If Vintage Story wants to stay as a small enterprise, and remain fairly hidden then more power to it. Fight the system! But fighting the system comes at a huge penalty. Places like Steam may take 30%, but that is 30% of the millions upon millions of new customers it opens the game up to.

Switching to Steam for higher sales at a 30% cut would be a good business decision for most companies, but most companies turn out new games or dlc every year, generating new sales. Anego Studios however will probably only produce a tiny quantity of games (only Vintage Story for now, though Tyron said he wants to do a freelancer type game sometime in the far future), so the money from each purchase really counts, as I suspect most people will only buy the game once. Steam may be effective in short term, but in the long term, Anego studios loses out on a lot of money.

53 minutes ago, ApacheTech said:

If the game used MEF for plugins and mods, you'd have full support for adding and taking them away without restarting the game, regardless of what platform you get the mods from. You can build a very robust and secure modding API around MEF that seamlessly integrates into the existing architecture, because it revolves purely around the strategy pattern, to create a strongly typed base for reflection. A lot of Unity projects are moving to MEF for that reason. It's massively powerful in what it can do. For a long time, it was just seen as an IOC container, but it's perfect for game modding.

Having created quite a few mods for VS myself, I think modding the games is quite easy and powerful already and I don't think rewriting the game to Managed Extensibility Framework is needed nor worth the investment, as you can already add/remove mods without restarting the game, as the game assets and libraries are only loaded on entering a world. Also not the right thread for such a topic.

[ApacheTech]

The "Import from Zip" is all fully manual, and you could do that with Twitch as well. You could fully flesh out your own modpack manually, and then export to CurseForge. You'd then have access to all the version controlling for all the mods you'd chosen to use in your modpack integrated into the pack as standard. You could "Import from zip", just by unzipping the pack into the profile folder, then clicking update. The manual stuff isn't the issue. It's the lack of one-click-installs.

If VS created a bespoke mod manager and launcher that worked very much like Twitch, with version control for individual mods, as well as modpacks, in-built search functions, with one-click installs for mods, modpacks, resource packs, and moving forwards, different shaders, skins, and pre-genned maps, it'd be good. You'd also need to be able to use multiple instances of the game as standard, be able to use multiple accounts as standard, and be able to seamlessly use different versions of the game in each instance, without it asking to uninstall other versions.

To me, creating a MultiMC-esque clone would be largely pointless. So much of it is manual that we might as well just copy zip files into folders, and call it all done. Creating a Twitch Launcher clone, however, would add huge playability to the game. You shouldn't need to manually download any file, open any browser window, or open Windows Explorer at all, ever, to be able to mod the game, and run multiple instances, over multiple versions, on multiple accounts.

Comparing to MC isn't fair, in this case. There's a lot of variables there, and it is all run by the modding community, not by Mojang. Different modding groups tearing the community is different ways. Up until 1.12.2, it was largely harmonious, with Linux lagging behind, doing their own thing. After 1.13, it all changed, but that was nothing to do with Twitch, or with MultiMC, it was all down to the developers of the modloaders. With VS, modloading is fully integrated into the game as standard, so these deviations wouldn't affect it. Do it right, once, and it only ever needs to be refined, not overhauled. It's a perfect fit for the Twitch Launcher, and creating anything bespoke would only ever be an imitation of what Twitch and CurseForge currently offer.

[ApacheTech]

Just checked online, and Twitch Desktop App does seem to work with Wine, and is used widely by the World of Warcraft community for modding and managing WoW on Linux.

[copygirl]

1 hour ago, Erik said:

Also on a completely different note about Steam, why not release on Steam with a higher price to compensate for the 30% cut? Something like 22€ would still leave the devs with just over 15€ and provide regional pricing as well as more awareness and probably boost sames a bit. While not perfect, it seems like the best compromise. 

Unfortunately, I believe when you put your game up on Steam you agree to not sell it below that price elsewhere.

7 minutes ago, ApacheTech said:

To me, creating a MultiMC-esque clone would be largely pointless. So much of it is manual that we might as well just copy zip files into folders, and call it all done. Creating a Twitch Launcher clone, however, would add huge playability to the game. You shouldn't need to manually download any file, open any browser window, or open Windows Explorer at all, ever, to be able to mod the game, and run multiple instances, over multiple versions, on multiple accounts.

That's all well and good and that can be provided, over time, with a custom launcher. Something like MultiMC isn't even required. Something like the Twitch launcher isn't going to cut it - it's not integrated with the game. I've already outlined why I think it would be a bad idea. A launcher needs to be able to manage different game versions, and updating the game itself. The game itself should handle mod managing better, perhaps even mod discovery. We'll see how the game develops in the future and how people would like to share maps and mods.

I highly disagree that we should depend on a third party for this, which would likely not be able to provide the best, most fluid experience. Involving another company is a bad idea. Do you want to have to restart the game to select a different modpack to play on a server, when the game wouldn't even have to be restarted for that? I also don't like that there's a single point (of failure) where mods have to be shared. Why not let people put up their mods on the forums? On their GitHub? Why force everyone on a platform they might not want to use - one that Anego Studios doesn't even control?

Just now, ApacheTech said:

Just checked online, and Twitch Desktop App does seem to work with Wine, and is used widely by the World of Warcraft community for modding and managing WoW on Linux.

Question is whether it would start Minecraft in Wine, too. Because that would be a bit silly.

And it's unfortunate that MultiMC has stopped working with Forge 1.13+. If I remember correctly, there were attempts at resolving this, but ... as is common in the MC modding community, there was drama, or something like that.