DLC and mods... an issue

Marconius · Apr 14, 2012

So I've been thinking... now obviously I don't intend to do this, but taking files from one of the existing DLCs and just tossing them online as a mod would be really, really easy. Now I imagine I'm not supposed to do this. Fair enough.

But! Here's my issue... what if I'm say, compiling a larger mod and I'm using some of the assets provided in DLC for it? Or modifying it? Or what if I just need DLC to be installed for the mod to work?

For example, what if I wanted to make a mod that reworks some of the facial features; now I want to support mongol/asian faces as well, of course... but those are only in the mongol faces DLC! So does that mean I have to put "you must own this DLC" into my readme? That kinda screws over some players. Or I suppose I could try and make multiple versions of my mod, but that's not always possible and it's a pain anyway.

Really, I just want to know Paradox's stance on the whole issue. Basically... using DLC content in mods, what restrictions are there?

James009 · Apr 15, 2012

I don't think it's unfair.

Considering the Mongolian Faces DLC is $1.99 I don't think that's very unfair to the players. The nice thing about the Mongolian DLC is that it is modular, if you don't have it then it doesn't appear to hurt you. That being said, if you incorporate it into your mod then I think you would need the DLC.

How many major modifications of games do you see that require a $20-$40 expansion pack? A lot.
- I can't play most of the best Civ IV mods without the expansion packs.
- I can't play many of the best Half-Life mods without the updated DLC/expansion/story/addition things.
- I can't play a couple of the Medieval Total War mods without the expansions.
- I can't play many of the best Mount and Blade mods without Warband (a stand alone expansion).

This is NOT uncommon.

It's the modders choice whether or not he incorporates the DLC into his mod and, if he does, then it encourages people to buy that DLC because it's probably contains viable content. So it's a win-win.

Also, on your first note, I don't think you can just throw it online because I believe there are still copy protections related to the DLC pack.

RedRooster81 · Apr 15, 2012

What you can do is make a mod that depends on a dlc (just like a user-made module). So far we don't have any play content as I would define it in dlcs (though I assume that will be coming later), like say a Renaissance or Carolingian expansion that adds technology levels or enables naval combat or adds some extra provinces.

Marconius · Apr 15, 2012

James009 said:
Considering the Mongolian Faces DLC is $1.99 I don't think that's very unfair to the players. The nice thing about the Mongolian DLC is that it is modular, if you don't have it then it doesn't appear to hurt you. That being said, if you incorporate it into your mod then I think you would need the DLC.

How many major modifications of games do you see that require a $20-$40 expansion pack? A lot.
- I can't play most of the best Civ IV mods without the expansion packs.
- I can't play many of the best Half-Life mods without the updated DLC/expansion/story/addition things.
- I can't play a couple of the Medieval Total War mods without the expansions.
- I can't play many of the best Mount and Blade mods without Warband (a stand alone expansion).

This is NOT uncommon.

It's the modders choice whether or not he incorporates the DLC into his mod and, if he does, then it encourages people to buy that DLC because it's probably contains viable content. So it's a win-win.

Also, on your first note, I don't think you can just throw it online because I believe there are still copy protections related to the DLC pack.

You misunderstand what I meant. The fact DLC exists isn't, in itself, unfair; such a discussion doesn't really belong in this subforum anyway. What -is- unfair is putting a mod up and saying "you need a DLC if you want to use this mod", because DLC should always be optional. If someone doesn't feel they want to put down a couple bucks for mongol faces, I shouldn't have to tell them "well, you have to if you want to use this mod." That seems like a terrible thing for a modder to do, really.

And as far as copy protection goes, I can just unpack the files the DLC provides and replace the regular game files (or supplement them, as it were), it's really no different than using a mod. In fact, I actually have done this (for my own game only, of course) and it worked just fine.

tonkatoy5 · Apr 15, 2012

Marconius said:
So I've been thinking... now obviously I don't intend to do this, but taking files from one of the existing DLCs and just tossing them online as a mod would be really, really easy. Now I imagine I'm not supposed to do this. Fair enough.

But! Here's my issue... what if I'm say, compiling a larger mod and I'm using some of the assets provided in DLC for it? Or modifying it? Or what if I just need DLC to be installed for the mod to work?

For example, what if I wanted to make a mod that reworks some of the facial features; now I want to support mongol/asian faces as well, of course... but those are only in the mongol faces DLC! So does that mean I have to put "you must own this DLC" into my readme? That kinda screws over some players. Or I suppose I could try and make multiple versions of my mod, but that's not always possible and it's a pain anyway.

Really, I just want to know Paradox's stance on the whole issue. Basically... using DLC content in mods, what restrictions are there?

Watch yourself man........ They got eyes and ear's everywhere

But honestly in this "hypothetical situation" I wouldn't do it mainly because the data is probably hard coded or protected and I like to keep my shady dealings to where they belong....
Standing in a trench coat outside of Walmart or 7-11.

Now in all seriousness if you could prove you created all the data used in the mod by hand and without the use of any and all paradox dlc products, then yeah you'd be fine, but in order to do that you would probably have to not buy the dlc in question or at anytime have it downloaded, or paradox could prove you may have pirated their content (not saying they would, but it would stand up in court)

ticattack · Apr 15, 2012

First up, forgive any rambling or overlong sentences. I'm a little overtired. I've just reread what I've posted, and it seems fine, but... yeah. Disclaimer done.

The answer lies in the cultures.txt file. The mongol culture is in the altaic group, along with turkish, cuman and pecheneg. The relevant lines look like this:

Code:

altaic = {
	graphical_culture = muslimgfx
	turkish = {
		graphical_culture = muslimgfx
	}
	mongol = {
		graphical_culture = mongolgfx
	}
	cuman = {
		graphical_culture = muslimgfx
	}
}

For some purposes, graphical_culture for the group is a default, if the culture-specific one isn't there. It does other stuff as well, but you can see this yourself by doing the following:

- Make a mod that changes nothing but the cultures.txt file.
- Change Swedish the mongolgfx graphical_culture.
- Launch the game. All Swedish characters now look mongol. Norwegian and Danish (the other two cultures in the northern_germanic group, along with swedish) characters are unaffected. Exit the game.
- Relaunch the game, this time without the Mongol DLC checked. All Swedish characters now look Western - not mongol, but not the middle eastern that the mongols fall back to.

I'm unsure exactly how the fallback works, but it's not as simple as "Mongol, else Muslim", as the mongol-swedish fall back to the Western-looking. Play around with it, and just keep the culture groups set to the vanilla ones.

So, for this case and this DLC at least, I'm fairly sure that it's a non-issue, that you could either just use the mongolgfx with another as the parent group and, if the player didn't have the mongol DLC, they'd just see whatever that group was set to.

Now, that works for cosmetic stuff. For more crunchy DLC - traits, events, decisions, etc. - the modular nature of the new system might make this as simple as "Here's a mod expanding on the reconquista. While you can play as all parties, if you want the best experience as the muslims, you'll need the Muslim DLC". In other words, if you want to play with the features of the base game, you need to buy the base game. If you want to play with the features of a given DLC, then yeah, you need to pay for that DLC. Some will disagree, I'm sure, but this sounds pretty good to me.

You misunderstand what I meant. The fact DLC exists isn't, in itself, unfair; such a discussion doesn't really belong in this subforum anyway. What -is- unfair is putting a mod up and saying "you need a DLC if you want to use this mod", because DLC should always be optional. If someone doesn't feel they want to put down a couple bucks for mongol faces, I shouldn't have to tell them "well, you have to if you want to use this mod." That seems like a terrible thing for a modder to do, really.

Respectfully, I disagree. Replace "DLC" in your statements with "expansion pack" and I imagine most would disagree. After all, you need Divine Wind to play a lot of EU3 mods. I don't think anyone's ever complained too much about that.

If anything, the new system will be better for those who don't want to buy everything put out. If you didn't want to buy DW for some reason, a lot of the best mods upgraded and left you behind with old HttT versions. Now, it seems, you could just split the mod up. "Here's the Reconquista mod for vanilla. Here's a second module that expands on (and requires) the muslim DLC. Got that DLC? Check that module. Don't have it? Just check and play the christian part of the mod."

flame7926 · Apr 15, 2012

Marconius said:
You misunderstand what I meant. The fact DLC exists isn't, in itself, unfair; such a discussion doesn't really belong in this subforum anyway. What -is- unfair is putting a mod up and saying "you need a DLC if you want to use this mod", because DLC should always be optional. If someone doesn't feel they want to put down a couple bucks for mongol faces, I shouldn't have to tell them "well, you have to if you want to use this mod." That seems like a terrible thing for a modder to do, really.

And as far as copy protection goes, I can just unpack the files the DLC provides and replace the regular game files (or supplement them, as it were), it's really no different than using a mod. In fact, I actually have done this (for my own game only, of course) and it worked just fine.

Do you think that expansions should always be optional, because expansions are replaced with DLCs?

RedRooster81 · Apr 15, 2012

flame7926 said:
Do you think that expansions should always be optional, because expansions are replaced with DLCs?

I think that it's going to depend on the modding community. The basic updates to the system seem to be done for free, like the 1.05 patch, but we'll have to see where it goes, like the new crusade system and dynamic kingdoms. Now they could have made these dependent on buying the character editor, but they didn't.

Now, as a modder you can make your mod depend on a dlc or not. I don't think that we will get into a situation like EU3 where there will be major for-pay expansions like NA, IN, and DW. That's what I took from Johan's announcement on the new dlc policy, which he wants to be modular, not one adding to the other like they did with EU3.

Marconius · Apr 15, 2012

Respectfully, I disagree. Replace "DLC" in your statements with "expansion pack" and I imagine most would disagree. After all, you need Divine Wind to play a lot of EU3 mods. I don't think anyone's ever complained too much about that.

Respectfully, don't replace "DLC" with "expansion pack", because they're really not the same thing. Saying that you need a complex set of updates, new systems and concepts to play a mod is perfectly fine; saying you need a variety of little tiny changes each costing a few dollars is not.

The issue is that since DLC are so small, there will be a lot of them; the idea is to only have people buy what they want. So okay, say they release a DLC focusing on Sweden, updating history, characters, etc. Then they go and release similar DLC for a number of other countries; now I don't really care much for Sweden in the game, so I decide hey, I'm not gonna buy that. I might buy one for Poland though, since I like playing them.

Now suppose a modder comes along and decides hey, these new characters and such are great, he wants to do something with them! So he makes a large set of events and whatnot, all based on these characters, based on their international relations, perhaps. So that means you need the DLC for both Sweden and Poland to access some of the content of this mod... but not all of it.

So how would this mod be released? Would it require all the tiny DLC packs to be installed? That screws me over, because I don't want Sweden or a lot of the other countries. Other people might be in the same situation, except for other countries. So what is a mod developer to do? Make the mod modular, release a whole lot of different versions? Surely that's a major hassle. But you can't just expect people to buy all DLC, that's actually against the whole "modular" idea of DLC in the first place!

Or here's another example... say I want to make a mod that replaces the flags/CoAs of a whole lot of families, countries and other titles. So I basically collect a lot of sources for this, including the DLC. I cut up the various image files and splice them together and release a large mod with a whole lot of flags in it. So... do I have to put "you must have the CoA DLC to use this" on the mod, even though it's technically untrue? There is no technical reason why I couldn't run a mod like this without DLC, I'm basically doing it right now, because I decided to merge the DLC with another mod I'm running. My problem is, I'm afraid this is something Paradox wouldn't actually approve of, since I'm essentially distributing some of their payed content free of charge.

James009 · Apr 15, 2012

Marconius said:
... What -is- unfair is putting a mod up and saying "you need a DLC if you want to use this mod", because DLC should always be optional. If someone doesn't feel they want to put down a couple bucks for mongol faces, I shouldn't have to tell them "well, you have to if you want to use this mod." That seems like a terrible thing for a modder to do, really...

I'm saying it's not really unfair and it's the modders choice whether he/she wants to include it or not in their mod. If the player wants to play a mod which uses DLC then they need to get the DLC, I really don't think thats unfair. The DLC is still optional, nobody is making it mandatory for players to purchases and it's not mandatory for modders to implement. Nobody is forcing anyone to use the more or buy the DLC.

The opposite to your statement is that you don't want modders to use DLC content in their mods at all because it may force players to purchase the DLC to play the mod. This could inhibit modder creativity, possibility, and limit features. For example, lets say a modder wanted to make an Asian version of Crusader Kings based on Mongolia or something and wanted to use the Mongolian faces as the core face. You'd probably need the DLC to play the mod properly and it probably wouldn't work for people without the DLC. That being said, there'd be no reason someone couldn't do a workaround and use normal faces but why force something like that on the mod creator.

Also, I'd be weary posting and talking about how to circumvent the DLC packs as present. Not really a smart thing to do.

Marconius said:
Respectfully, don't replace "DLC" with "expansion pack", because they're really not the same thing. Saying that you need a complex set of updates, new systems and concepts to play a mod is perfectly fine; saying you need a variety of little tiny changes each costing a few dollars is not.

I made the mistake in my first post mentioning "expansion packs" listed with DLC. The problem is that many games mesh these things. Regardless, some DLC packs may incorporate meaningful features while others simple countries and flags.

Modders should just take content from DLC packs and incorporate them in their mods, that's wrong. However, a good modder also shouldn't force you to purchase DLC that's unnecessary. In the end the decision lies with the modders (what he incorporates) and the player (what he wants to play or purchase).

tonkatoy5 · Apr 15, 2012

Marconius said:
Respectfully, don't replace "DLC" with "expansion pack", because they're really not the same thing. Saying that you need a complex set of updates, new systems and concepts to play a mod is perfectly fine; saying you need a variety of little tiny changes each costing a few dollars is not.

The issue is that since DLC are so small, there will be a lot of them; the idea is to only have people buy what they want. So okay, say they release a DLC focusing on Sweden, updating history, characters, etc. Then they go and release similar DLC for a number of other countries; now I don't really care much for Sweden in the game, so I decide hey, I'm not gonna buy that. I might buy one for Poland though, since I like playing them.

Now suppose a modder comes along and decides hey, these new characters and such are great, he wants to do something with them! So he makes a large set of events and whatnot, all based on these characters, based on their international relations, perhaps. So that means you need the DLC for both Sweden and Poland to access some of the content of this mod... but not all of it.

So how would this mod be released? Would it require all the tiny DLC packs to be installed? That screws me over, because I don't want Sweden or a lot of the other countries. Other people might be in the same situation, except for other countries. So what is a mod developer to do? Make the mod modular, release a whole lot of different versions? Surely that's a major hassle. But you can't just expect people to buy all DLC, that's actually against the whole "modular" idea of DLC in the first place!

Or here's another example... say I want to make a mod that replaces the flags/CoAs of a whole lot of families, countries and other titles. So I basically collect a lot of sources for this, including the DLC. I cut up the various image files and splice them together and release a large mod with a whole lot of flags in it. So... do I have to put "you must have the CoA DLC to use this" on the mod, even though it's technically untrue? There is no technical reason why I couldn't run a mod like this without DLC, I'm basically doing it right now, because I decided to merge the DLC with another mod I'm running. My problem is, I'm afraid this is something Paradox wouldn't actually approve of, since I'm essentially distributing some of their payed content free of charge.

Well isn't that just a paradox

So your worried about missing out on a modding opportunity by not downloading a corresponding dlc. Well sadly there's nothing to do for that, paradox could just not release dlc but then no one would win, and the guy can't zip the dlc into his mod without breaking the law, but at the same time most of the added stuff would require the purchased dlc anyway understand?

And for the second example you would probably be banned and if your unlucky sued if you realeased dlc as a mod especially if you were stupid enough to do it on this forum.

RedRooster81 · Apr 15, 2012

Castellan is the guy to talk to about legal issues it seems. If this thread goes on it will either be shut down or you'll get a dev's attention. Hopefully the latter.

But in general, you would avoid distributing material from the DLCs. It does get tricky though, if for example, you take the Mongol faces DLC and redo it somehow, altering the clothing or assigning the clothing to a new culture type that I'll call Dothraki. Or making so that say a silver-haired princess marries a Dothraki and starts wearing what are Mongol clothing. Now, if you go public with this mod that takes the Northern European graphical culture but replaces adds on some of the Mongol clothing you're kind of in a tricky situation. I certainly wouldn't include the whole DLC material in the mod, but if you paid for the DLC yourself you have access to those official resources, so again a tricky situation.

Marconius · Apr 15, 2012

Also, I'd be weary posting and talking about how to circumvent the DLC packs as present. Not really a smart thing to do.

I'm not, actually, you can't get the files from DLC and move it around without actually buying the DLC first... at which point, I'm guessing you're free to do whatever you want with it, as long as you don't share it with anyone else (which I haven't).

I'm not advocating distribution of DLC materials without Paradox's consent in any way. In fact, I'm trying to do the opposite: I'm hoping that since DLC is going to become commonplace around here and the modding community is already extensive, that this whole issue will be noticed and clarified. I'd basically like to see some official rules laid down about this whole issue, because I'm honestly afraid a number of modders are either going to get into trouble over this, or they'll feel the need to self-censor or second-guess themselves constantly.

As things stand now, if I made a mod that used any assets from DLC, I'd basically have to get in contact with a mod and double-check if and how I'm allowed to release that mod... and I don't really thinks that's a good way to handle things, especially with more and more DLC on the way.

James009 · Apr 15, 2012

Marconius said:
I'm not, actually, you can't get the files from DLC and move it around without actually buying the DLC first... at which point, I'm guessing you're free to do whatever you want with it, as long as you don't share it with anyone else (which I haven't).

I'm not advocating distribution of DLC materials without Paradox's consent in any way. In fact, I'm trying to do the opposite: I'm hoping that since DLC is going to become commonplace around here and the modding community is already extensive, that this whole issue will be noticed and clarified. I'd basically like to see some official rules laid down about this whole issue, because I'm honestly afraid a number of modders are either going to get into trouble over this, or they'll feel the need to self-censor or second-guess themselves constantly.

As things stand now, if I made a mod that used any assets from DLC, I'd basically have to get in contact with a mod and double-check if and how I'm allowed to release that mod... and I don't really thinks that's a good way to handle things, especially with more and more DLC on the way.

Mods can be dependent on DLC and not include the DLC's content. I doubt they can include content, code, or art from DLC and be distributed.

And the whole, "Not smart" thing is a general reference to you alluding to how to distribute the DLC. As innocent as it may be, it may encourage someone else to do it. That being said, they probably should make the DLC rights and rules more clear for modders and such.

Arko · Apr 15, 2012

James009 said:
Mods can be dependent on DLC and not include the DLC's content. I doubt they can include content, code, or art from DLC and be distributed.

This.

You need to use this code in your *.mod

Code:

#dependencies = { "someothermod" } # if you depend on another MOD or DLC you can specify that here and it will get loaded

Of course no way to include any DLC content in a mod or alternative content made from original material.

ticattack · Apr 15, 2012

Marconius said:
Respectfully, don't replace "DLC" with "expansion pack", because they're really not the same thing. Saying that you need a complex set of updates, new systems and concepts to play a mod is perfectly fine; saying you need a variety of little tiny changes each costing a few dollars is not.

My apologies, I could have been clearer there. I wasn't meaning the smaller, cosmetic DLC like those already released, but the larger ones hinted at.

[/quote]The issue is that since DLC are so small, there will be a lot of them; the idea is to only have people buy what they want. So okay, say they release a DLC focusing on Sweden, updating history, characters, etc. Then they go and release similar DLC for a number of other countries; now I don't really care much for Sweden in the game, so I decide hey, I'm not gonna buy that. I might buy one for Poland though, since I like playing them.

Now suppose a modder comes along and decides hey, these new characters and such are great, he wants to do something with them! So he makes a large set of events and whatnot, all based on these characters, based on their international relations, perhaps. So that means you need the DLC for both Sweden and Poland to access some of the content of this mod... but not all of it.

So how would this mod be released? Would it require all the tiny DLC packs to be installed? That screws me over, because I don't want Sweden or a lot of the other countries. Other people might be in the same situation, except for other countries. So what is a mod developer to do? Make the mod modular, release a whole lot of different versions? Surely that's a major hassle. But you can't just expect people to buy all DLC, that's actually against the whole "modular" idea of DLC in the first place![/quote]As I understand it, you'd have a bunch of modular mods making up a single project or whatever you want to call it. Look at CK2Plus - there's multiple mods (that is, multiple checkboxes on the launcher) that make up that project, depending on what the player wants.

So, "SuperAwesomeMod" is the base, and requires nothing but the base game.
"SuperAwesomeMod - SuperAwesomeSweden" would require the Sweden DLC, and expand upon it.
"SuperAwesomeMod - SuperAwesomePoland" would require the Poland DLC, and expand upon it.
"SuperAwesomeMod - SuperAwesomeUlm" would require the Ulm DLC, and expand upon it.

If you don't own the Poland DLC, but you own the other two, then you use those two, and don't even bother copying the Poland one to your mods folder.

Or here's another example... say I want to make a mod that replaces the flags/CoAs of a whole lot of families, countries and other titles. So I basically collect a lot of sources for this, including the DLC. I cut up the various image files and splice them together and release a large mod with a whole lot of flags in it. So... do I have to put "you must have the CoA DLC to use this" on the mod, even though it's technically untrue? There is no technical reason why I couldn't run a mod like this without DLC, I'm basically doing it right now, because I decided to merge the DLC with another mod I'm running. My problem is, I'm afraid this is something Paradox wouldn't actually approve of, since I'm essentially distributing some of their payed content free of charge.

Someone authoritative would need to answer here, but I'd think "no". Posting the entirety of a DLC as part of a mod seems pretty clearly problematic, and most likely illegal.
Split it in half - one has some other version of those houses who are covered by the DLC, the other has any other houses you may have done. If a player has the COA DLC, they just use the second one. If they don't have the DLC, they use both. The system is modular - you just need to make your mods that way.

CrackdToothGrin · Apr 16, 2012

I would like some clarification on this whole situation, too. I'm making and releasing an entirely new portrait set for steppe cultures from scratch, and I would have loved to include some of the Mongol face pieces. As it stands, since I'm fairly sure that that is against the rules to borrow some eyes or cheeks or something, I have to hand create some 480 pieces to get it all to work. It would simplify my work substantially to know if it was allowed to use a piece or two. For now, however, I'm just going to stick to the long-grind of making everything.

Johan · Apr 16, 2012

Marconius said:
Basically... using DLC content in mods, what restrictions are there?

As for everything we do, do not distribute any of our files, just distribute the files you have done yourself.

unmerged(208745) · Apr 16, 2012

I'm saying that distributing DLC's content in a mod is just a pretty/nerdy way to call piracy. So far DLCs are modular and aren't required to play any of the mods, so I would worry about it only if it were a real issue, which is not atm.

RedRooster81 · Apr 17, 2012

Johan said:
As for everything we do, do not distribute any of our files, just distribute the files you have done yourself.

Thank you for the clarification. So if I want to have Northern Europeans use Mongol clothing, I would have to refer to the dlc files like any other mod that is dependent on my mod? Something like

Code:

dependencies = /dlc/dlc001.zip

It would not be possible to recolor the Mongol clothing or hairstyles and use them in a mod? If you say no, then it is no of course.

DLC and mods... an issue

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