About a week ago, the devs released their statement on whats next for brickadia. In that post, they gave the greenlight for modders to mod their game. At the time, me and a few other users of Omegga were overjoyed to finally mod the game. While I can't speak for some of the other devs on that day, I personally was excited to see if I could add new avatar items, new visual effects, audio and music to a game that's core selling port is user created content. However, as I watched my fellow devs try to utilize methods for editing and reading the game files, a dreadful feeling came upon me. Normally, whenever I had been given tools to mod a game I really enjoyed, whether it be for Minecraft, Rimworld, or even Brickadia, I felt excited to take on the role of creating something new that didn't exist for that game.
However, I realized, they didn't actually provide any tools to mod the game. In fact a lot of the things we needed to work on before we even start making our dream mods would be to actually make the infrastructure to support the mods. We would have needed to build our own language to compile code, build our own networks for sending the data from our mods on the server to clients, and potentially even build our own distribution network to serve mods to the client. Also, when the team leader, cake, asked for approval from Zeb to confirm we could indeed work on this new modding platform, we were also given a set of rules that our modding needing to comply with in order to not have the Brickadia dev take any actions against any of us. The rules were as follows:
1 no making unsafe systems that could be used to distribute malware automatically,
2 no competing with our current or future business,
3 no helping people make cheats and similar annoying things,
4 no posting content or servers that doesn't work to the gallery or server list,
5 no complaining if it stops working in a future game version,
6 no complaining if a future game version ends up including similar features or content,
7 no submitting crash reports that you caused
Now, while these rules seem easy to understand and seem like should be relatively easy to follow, these rules, depending on how they are enforced, can be really problematic for both the developers of the new modding system and for any users trying to use it. Here are some basic factors about these rules
Rule 1 means that distributing mods in real time for each server (like what blockland had) could not exist. Even if we get past the idea of sending the raw files, the only way to set up a system where a server could encourage a user to download the mods automatically would be if the Modding team developed a sandboxed language, that required players to grant individual permissions to each mod for specific tasks, and then make sure that there is no *MASTER MOD* that bypasses our restrictions and creates an entirely new language under it to sandbox mods differently.
Rule 3 means we would need to verify that any modding system we have would have to check and verify mods cannot be used for cheating, and/or must automatically turn off mods for servers that do not want to comply. And, we would need to make sure any mods can't bypass these restrictions, or the Modding team may by liable.
Rule 4 means we can't post any modded servers to the general server list that breaks vanilla clients or in any way "doesn't work". This means that vanilla players NEED to be able to load into the server correctly without mod requirements interfering
Rules 5, 6, and 7 are all about making sure none of what we do can affect them and their development. We are supposed to be at their mercy that features and functions exist, and if we don't, we must suck up that we may spend months of development time on systems that could be forcibly removed or purposefully neglected if they ever choose that they want to prioritize their system over ours.
Finally Rule 2 specifically states to not compete with their business, currently and in the future. This means that if the Modding platform gets in the way of their development, shines a bad light on them if they remove features the modding platform needs, or if they change the EULA at any point to anything they want. It also means that if, for example, they create a "mod marketplace" like Bedrock Minecraft, any free modding service would be competing with their business, so the entire modding platform would be in violation of their rules.
Now, these points alone should raise some concerns. Even if the Modding team does develop tools and networks and everything for modding, there is a question that is still unanswered about this entire situation…
Why allow modding Now, and not anytime during the alpha, demo, or first few weeks of EA?
The answer, I propose, is that they were not planning on adding any form of modding anytime soon. The entire greenlight to the Omegga team was specifically to give us red meat and for us to develop the modding platform for them. They already have been swamped with bug reports, technical issues, PR mishaps, and features that were promised for EA, that they still have not delivered on. The roadmap, remember? So, in order to compensate for the entire steam discussions backlash where everyone wants modding for a game that basically promised modding and whose entire business model and gameplay loop Requires people to be able to mod, they chose to allow a bunch of volunteers from the community solve their problem and potentially dedicate weeks of unpaid labor so they can point to something when people ask for modding. The entire reason to release that statement when they did was specifically so people who want modding can be shut-up by directing them to this community project. Then, once the community makes the system exactly in the way that complies with the rules (if they don't they will be punished, potentially legally), the team can either buy-out the code, or find some way to integrate the system into the game, and they now have an entire modding platform all pre-made for them - all the hours of free labor, playtesting, and mod database - all given to them for free.
However, as tempting and plausible as this sounds, this will not work. It didn't work with Bukkit, Minecraft's open-source plugin/modding platform. All it needed was for one contributor to not like that Mojang "bought" the rights to Bukkit years prior, and one contributor was able to DMCA the entire project, effectively halting the entire plugin modding scene for an entire year. Unless the dev team can work with all the modders of a project to get their approval to relinquish all rights to their work, this will be a fear for everyone - every modder and player who uses mods.
So, maybe they don't try to use the existing modding solution, then? Well then, good luck having a team of, what, 7, replicate almost everything about the modding platform so that its an easy transition between platforms (Note: unless the mods are compiled in-game, any pre-compiled mods would break due to changes in import paths or any method names). However, then if you do use any method names or code-patterns that are identical to the modding platform (which is needed for easy transfers from the old platform to the official system), then you run into the same problem with potential DMCA legal battles.
So maybe they create entire new codebases and structures for mods. Method names, functions, and code structures are entirely designed differently to not run into any issues with copyrighted stuff. Well, now the dev team maybe spent 6-8 months to create something that a lot of developers will not transfer over to. Who wants to rewrite all their mods so they can comply with a new official format when everyone has been and will use the old-existing format if no new mods are released for the new system? This would be specifically creating a new format no one asked for, and where one of the main selling points may only be "its official".
============================
In the end, the devs were in a very difficult spot due to their own choices in their choices and schedules. Because they did not prioritize official modding from the start - or even just anywhere during the alpha - they now shipped a game that relies on modding to exist. However, they now do not have the time-budget to work on modding support, and are instead outsourcing that labor to the community to handle for their product. However, again, they either will try to make a modding solution official, but that will cause problems regardless of which path they go with that, OR they simply won't actually add any official modding to their game, and will forever rely on a community modding platform to keep their game that depends on modding afloat. They are playing a tough gambit, and hoping that whatever path they choose, that they can weather whatever problems they will face regarding modding.
I will try to keep updating omegga and keeping it running, and may even help with whatever modding system the community comes up with. However, simply because of mismanagement of their time and features they wanted to prioritize, they have created a situation that did not need to exist, and run the risk of hurting themselves, their game, and the community in doing so.
idk what to put here. Professionals would probably drop their substack link here or a patreon. Then again, I'm not a professional.
