I don't mind addons and UI modifications, but only very limited ones (meters/logs, UI skins, etc.). For the two extreme examples today, Blizzard definitely made a mistake by making such a flexible and extensible addon API for WoW, and the game has suffered for it as devs were backed into a corner having to integrate features into the game from popular addons that were seen as "mandatory" by the players. FFXIV does okay with its strict no-addon policy, but I wish the UI was more customizable than it is.
As long as there is enough customization of the UI built into Pantheon, the only mods I would like to see support for are log and armory parsers.
I haven't enough experience with add-ons to have a valid opinion - but when has that ever stopped me?
I don't think the game should encourage or even endorse specific add-ons by having specific features that help players work with them. As some MMOs do. To the extent possible botting should be prohibited and this ban actually enforced. Add-ons like the ability to customize the ui should be kept track of (the add-on developers do not exactly keep them secret) and where an add-on is popular VR should figure out what deficiency or perceived deficiency in the game causes such popularity and fix the deficiency if feasible.
I think I lean more towards a customizable UI rather than heavy mods and add-ons. To be fair, I don't particularly enjoy using them so I'm definitely biased, but in the games I have used them it always feels weird to use something 3rd party to help in game. I guess it's a spectrum between customized UIs to significant assistance in playing the game and downright cheating.
IMO:
As long as you have client side assets, decisions, or trust in the client (no matter how small) you'll always have mods, add-ons, or similar.
It is up to you, the developer, to determine how much you trust the client, and thus how much attack surface is exposed to your paying customers.
In this particular case, because the client is Unity, it will be 'modded' whether you like it or not, if history is any indication.
If it was my problem to solve, I would be transparent regarding all algorithms, equations, and percentages, from initial design to production, of all game loops.
It serves no good purpose to attempt to hide this information from paying customers, given history.
Some paying customers will find, reverse, determine, or calculate the information regardless, so all you effectively end up doing is punishing the ignorant and law-abiding, which seems less than ideal.
And of course, if your design is logical, fun, and public, it will stand up to any amount of public scrutiny. This has meant, historically, less client side modding, add-ons, or similar. :)
Kilsin said:Community Debate - Mods, Add-Ons, ENB's, and other player-created changes - Where do you stand on this, and would you like to see any of it included with Pantheon? Please explain your answer either way. #MMORPG#CommunityMatters
I only want to see UI customizations, meaning I can change the skin, layout, colors, locations, etc of the information that I'm supposed to be receiving. I look at the current EQ1 UI flexibility as the minimum amount of customization I expect to see in Pantheon.
I like picture addons as has been mentioned.
I like mods that just improve the looks of things like any in game maps.
I could also tolerate mods that help you to time your buffs. I'd like boss fights to be complicated enough that mods as simple as timers don't help.
Anything more complicated than that.. I'll pass.
The only addon that I really love is TSM. It's basically an auction house addon in WoW that will scan the auction houses and let you know the value of items in your bag. It allows you to post faster, and it will tell you the crafting cost of various recipes so you know if they are being crafted at a loss. It keeps up with the gold across your various characters and even provides graphs of your daily, monthly, and yearly gold making.
As for damage meters, deadly boss mods, and other raid-related addons. I like damage meters for personal use but often times people misevaluate these. I don't really think they belong in a community-based game anyway because the emphsis should be on group synergies and group accomplishments, not just individual performance. As for deadly boss mods or other similar add-ons which basically tell you how to play the encounter; these ruin the game in my opinion. They basically remove the mystery of the encounter and eventually, encounters have to be designed with them in mind to maintain a difficult challenge. I think these addons also move the emphasis away from fun gameplay to optimal performance.
Finally, there are UI addons that I rarely use. I know there are a lot of people out there who like mods that change their UI so I'm ok with these. People should have the option of rearranging their UI or setting it to something they can follow.
As for Pantheon specifically, I am 100% ok with seeing UI mods. I would love to see an addon like TSM, but that's just personal bias and I could live without it. Damage meters I'm on the fence with. I like them to evaluate my performance and challenge myself to be better. However, again they are often misused and they shift emphasis to individual performance and optimal gameplay vs group accomplishment and adaptive gameplay. It's probably for the best if they aren't present in Pantheon. Then as for DBM or other mods that tell you how to play the encounter, I don't want to see these in Pantheon.
I would like to see mods and add-ons be at least discouraged and even against the Terms and Conditions of the game, really. Do whatever you can technically and make sure players know it is not allowed and the majority will happily not even think about it.
If they are allowed they tend to become de facto and players often end up ostracised and excluded if they don't use them.
They are, to a lesser or greater degree, detrimental to content challenge/enjoyment, to immersion and to socialisation and the shared experience.
UI customisation and things that are personalisation only? Sure. But info and functionality beyond what the game is intended to be best experienced with? No.
If VR truly think the game would benefit from a DPS meter or a minimap, then they should put them in themselves. If they don't think it would be good for the game, then they should try and stop them and make it clear they don't want them used.
Kilsin said:Community Debate - Mods, Add-Ons, ENB's, and other player-created changes - Where do you stand on this, and would you like to see any of it included with Pantheon? Please explain your answer either way. #MMORPG#CommunityMatters
It has been stated, and reinforced multiple times by VR, that they intend to allow UI modification. But not to allow any kind of add-ons. While it has been said by VR that they don't think certain kinds of add-ons are inherently harmful to the game, validating which add-ons are ok and which are not was not a path that they felt was worthwhile, or perhaps even viable. So the more pragmatic approach is "no add-ons".
I fully support this stance.
Has this position changed to the point where you're soliciting feedback?
Kilsin needs to always put a disclaimer on these posts, hehe.
"Just a topic to keep the community talking. Any apparent view, opinion or stance on the behalf of VR is unintentional"
Kilsin said:Community Debate - Mods, Add-Ons, ENB's, and other player-created changes - Where do you stand on this, and would you like to see any of it included with Pantheon? Please explain your answer either way. #MMORPG#CommunityMatters
Customizable UI, sure, OI think that would be good. The rest? No. That would be bad. Then you start having gropus and guilds demand certain mods in order to group with you.
I am pretty largely in the camp of as long as a person hits buttons in combat/harvesting/crafting/etc I am fine allowing it. I have a larger problem with players using macros to attempt abilities on cool down every time, effectively 1 button press to set up an attack priority, than I do with virtually all addons and mods. (I am leet! 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 Perfect!) If the addon is duplicated by a second monitor I don't think it needs to be addressed. Focus on the people actively copy pasting a program for their keyboard/mouse to play the game for them or even fully botting. If stopping those people overlaps with stopping the others then I will give everything up, but if not, its just wasting time on things I don't care about.
Giving the player features other players don't have is ok in my book. I understand the hatred and there is something to be said about it when people are in competition, but I don't personally mind if someone wants to play the game with a second monitor open looking at a map or if they install a mod to replace their map in game. If the /location command exists people will ruin their own fun with walkthroughs every single quest to be "efficient." These players will openly complain other people should do it too or brag how great they are for not even trying. I don't care if a player's quest journal displays a walkthrough. I don't care if people learn how to fight every mob online or learn it through experience. People will read guides, copy strategies, look at maps, read walkthroughs, run their parsers. It is their fun being ruined for the most part. Back in EQ I even looked up location information from time to time when I was totally dumbfounded. I will hit that wall of desperation in Pantheon as well. The game setting an experience is important but people will objectively set out to ruin it or save it for themselves.
The big addon for me I may even build myself if there isn't a close option in game is to have my friend and ignore list allow for notes and ratings. Make an in game system to look up info I could easily write down out of game. A clear advantage for me to effectively have perfect memory, but a massive QoL improvement in my eyes. Oh look its "trained me three times in KT's" corpse... yeah he can stay dead. I know there are people who wouldn't care about this addon but would protest a combat addon. I am fine saying all of that it is simply personal preference.
The threat meters and combat alarms are potential problems to throw the book at. They generate the most hate and the most acceptance of banning. I would not be upset at this at all, but again don't care myself. I would rather VR finds a way to delay the parse information somewhat to make them pointless. Lock down live parsing. I don't even care if Pantheon shows damage taken / given in the chat log until after the fight. Unless VR has the flame effect doing cold damage it will never bother me to not see the chat.
Jobeson said: ... They generate the most hate and the most acceptance of banning. ...
I'm genuinely curious, in what game other than FFXIV having paying customers ever been even threatened with banning for parsing or using add-ons that simply reformat existing public information sent to the client?
And even in FFXIV, has it ever actually happened? There's lots of anectdotal stories from FFXIV, but in the past few years, streamers parse publicly, with no banning..
vjek said:I'm genuinely curious, in what game other than FFXIV having paying customers ever been even threatened with banning for parsing or using add-ons that simply reformat existing public information sent to the client?
And even in FFXIV, has it ever actually happened? There's lots of anectdotal stories from FFXIV, but in the past few years, streamers parse publicly, with no banning..
Yeah that is why I don't really care about it myself. I see the hatred but don't care personally. I hope they just make it harder to actually do the parsing and not actively try to detect and ban lol. Botters, hackers, and the like are the only aspects I hope they spend resources on.
vjek said:There's lots of anectdotal stories from FFXIV, but in the past few years, streamers parse publicly, with no banning..
That's because the team behind FFXIV leave it in a gray area, they don't really care if people parse for personal knowledge but when those people start harassing others about their numbers/parses it gives them all the room they need to act on it for punishment.
Iksar said:vjek said:There's lots of anectdotal stories from FFXIV, but in the past few years, streamers parse publicly, with no banning..
That's because the team behind FFXIV leave it in a gray area, they don't really care if people parse for personal knowledge but when those people start harassing others about their numbers/parses it gives them all the room they need to act on it for punishment.
Exactly. The problem is not *some* people doing it, the problem is when *most* people are doing it (and even feel 'forced' to do it to take part).
If devs make it clear it is not allowed they don't have to actually come up with some amazing technical solution to stop it or even punish it very often, because 99.99% of players will want to 'do the right thing' and avoid it if they know it's not right.
If devs make it clear they don't care or even tacitly allow it, then it will become standard and everyone will be brow-beaten into doing it or ostracised from anything other then very casual play.
I feel companies *should* ban streamers if the flagrantly break the rules - that's just embarassing for the company - but I guess they can at least reserve the right to do it if at some point they feel it spoils the game for others.
I guess, if we're saying FFXIV devs tolerate it, they must not feel it damages the game. At least, because they are officially against it, they *could* take action if they felt they needed to.
To not have any rules against it means they are hamstrung even if they later feel some instances of it are ruining the game and the community.
I would like to see VR do everything in their power to regulate add ons.
This includes hiding numbers from the client if necessary. Also, I trust the intentions of VR enough to allow them to put spyware on my computer in order to help regulate things.
philo said:I would like to see VR do everything in their power to regulate add ons.
This includes hiding numbers from the client if necessary. Also, I trust the intentions of VR enough to allow them to put spyware on my computer in order to help regulate things.
I agree with this entirely.
or else the PAC NW heat is getting to me, I don't remember ever saying that about a post by Philo :D