4 years after the game's release, a large number of seriously good mods have been made for it. I think it would be cool if there was an update that added some of the mods officially into the game. But only if the mod author says its ok. Some people might not want their mod added officially. But I think it would add nice variety to the game. Besides, I already treat some mods as if there are official
I agree, people like NinetyNine have made content that is so good, you would hardly be able to distinguish it from official content anyway.
I downloaded the ETK S-Series as my first mod, and haven’t uninstalled it since. Not even for a bit then installed it again, I haven’t touched it it’s so good. If anything comes to the game it should be that. Followed by the Kashira
I do agree, however i think it should be noted that the developers may not feel the need to spend time on an update that integrates mods into the game, and selecting exactly what mods to put in the game would be time consuming as well. Also, the in-game repository exists for a reason. Then there would be the children that complain that their favorite configuration mod wasn't added officially.
Also the mod author might not allow it. Having control over a mod is great as it allows you to add what you want. I think if this update ever did come, it would be very, very small only adding a maximum of about 3 vehicles
Ah I forgot about the FR17. Great idea! Mine would be the ETK S-Series and Ibishu Kashira. But S-Series for sure. I bet it wouldn’t take very long to come up with a list of 20 or more mods though
There's a good case as to why this shouldn't happen. IIRC, something similar happened with the LeGran. They first contacted modders to make the car and their final product wasn't up to snuff, so the dev team redid the car themselves.
It was never stated who exactly the Legran was contracted out to - and we'll probably never know if they were part of the modding community. Everything else is correct though. This is the post you were thinking of.
Mods are.. mods, not official content. In my personal opinion, those should never be mixed together (in any game - referring to something that started as a mod initially, and then made into official content*). Not just in the form, but there's also lot of technical and legal implication in that you may not even imagine. When you see some other games turning a mod into official content, they have gone through lot of thinking, papers, inspection and etc. for sure. Other games instead have been doing a different thing. ARK for example has 'Sponsored Mods'. Which are basically mods on contract, to say in few words. They have to follow the requirements given carefully and must more likely maintain the mod constantly. On that topic (sponsored/kickstarted/paid mods), we asked (only asked) about your opinions time ago: https://www.beamng.com/threads/modders-we-need-to-talk.21455/ To clear up things once for all: That's not true. We did not contact any modder for that, but contracted a 3D artist for that (as Gabester explained in the post linked above me)
Right. Still, nadeox explained pretty much the issues with the topic. On top of that, there's the issue that "official mods" are expected to have the same quality of base content. By the time you bring it up to the quality of the base content, its not really a mod anymore. Just a third party addon or a DLC. There is also the issue that if a mod gets picked to be official it could be a 51% vote thingy, so you get 49% of the playerbase thinking "i dont want this mod to be forced on me". Smaller issue but still one.
If scratchmade user content is equivalent to/or even exeeds "dev" quality (Ninetynine, Stoat Muldoon, Darren9 etc.) Is it even to be considered a "mod"? last time i checked the term "mod" was short for modification, wich indicates alteration of pre existing content. (even dictionaries define it that way) If users create quality content from scratch (just like the devs do), where objectively is the difference? Besides that said users arent employed at BeamNG and dont earn money from their work, thats a kinda obvious one.
Mod is a user-created add-on downloaded separately from the game that adds new content or modifies the existing. So, there is quite some difference between it and official content. Unlike official content, mods become outdated. Sometimes they are fixed, sometimes not.
Depends what you intend for mod. You are right that mod stands for modification, but in the years it is being used more to indicate any content that was made by the users (user-made) than else. So yeah, content that is not made from the devs is usermade, and with that definition above, it would still be considered a mod. Not as a diminutive, but to differentiate from content that comes with the game (ie. so called official content)
Sponsored mods don’t actually sound like a bad idea tbh. But then at the same time really do. I split on what I think about them. Just seems like a waste of time when it could be added officially. In conclusion of this however, I do think mods should just be kept as mods. This thread was mostly created to trigger discussion as I want to see what other people think
I'd personally like to see a contest run where people submit something small (like skins or other art) for a chance to be featured in-game. That could go a long way towards filling in the little stuff like the ads on the Wentward and the taxi light. Two choices just aren't enough.