UPDATED 14/06/18 - *** Rules for User Made Mods and Edits of PDS games ***

[Wagonlitz]

I haven't seen this written anywhere yet

Here you go. Yes it probably should have been put in the OP.
As you can see using Github for internal development is ok as long as you obscure the link and don't share it.

Not sure what you want me to comment on, Every one of these questions has been answered time and time again.

No, we have no plans to open the forums wide open.
I never said and no one has ever said that github or any other service could not be used for internal organization or version control. What you cannot do is have it available to the public, this means taking reasonable steps to ensure it is not widely available, such as posting links in the forums, or using the name of the mod or the game in the title, I would suggest something like we use (A project name). If some person goes browsing and happens to find your project, well that is life, You can not be held responsible for that unless you contributed in someway.

Any mod is free to have a webpage or social media, as long as on those pages you do not allow DL links. Or have public forums. The only place you should be able to get your mod is through the automated Steam workshop DL, and through a link on modding sub forums here.

No the grandfathering will not change, Someone already repeated my pets in apartments analogue and although they discount it, it still works for me.

Also: this is thread is about modding rules, please contact Meneth about issues related to the Wiki.

By choosing to release the source code, I want to help other developers who wish to learn from what I've done, and, ideally, inspire them to make mods of their own and improve a game I like. I myself benefited from this when creating my mod, and collaborated with others who had already figured things out and documented them for me.

You can release the source on the mod forums for the game you are modding. To access the mod forum you will need to register your game; this is done to avoid providing access to the mod forums to pirates.

and also compile mods from source

Since when do PI mods have to be compiled?

 

[InconsolableCellist]

Here you go. Yes it probably should have been put in the OP.
As you can see using Github for internal development is ok as long as you obscure the link and don't share it.

You can release the source on the mod forums for the game you are modding. To access the mod forum you will need to register your game; this is done to avoid providing access to the mod forums to pirates.
Since when do PI mods have to be compiled?

My mod for Cities: Skylines needs to be compiled. A number of other complicated mods need to as well.

I can't really express how retarded PI's policy on source code is, nor will expressing it change anything. I wish I had known about it before I bothered investing my time in one of their products, however. I regret that their game received attention due to what I did, however.

 

[blackninja9939]

>I'd say it's part of their policy so that only those who pay for their games get the support/forum/mod package. I don't see how it is unreasonable, personally.

I haven't seen this written anywhere yet (it's not in the list of mod rules). It's unreasonable to me as a mod-maker, however, because I've put months of work into creating a mod. By choosing to release the source code, I want to help other developers who wish to learn from what I've done, and, ideally, inspire them to make mods of their own and improve a game I like. I myself benefited from this when creating my mod, and collaborated with others who had already figured things out and documented them for me.

If this is true, Paradox Interactive can't see an inch in front of their face, and they don't deserve to have a modding community. Who are they to dictate to their fans like this? They're worried about the lost revenue from the tiny percentage of gamers who will pirate their games and also compile mods from source? That has to be a fraction of a percent, and those people weren't going to buy the game to begin with.

How is it possible to run a publishing company in such an ass-backwards manner?

Who are they to dictate their fans? They are the company who make the game and it is perfectly within their right to decide how to run the modding community and what is or is not allowed.
Your mod violated a rule which you had decided not to read, that is not their fault when action gets taken against the mod it is your for not following their rules.
I see nothing unreasonable about wanting to have modding locked behind as a reward for people who have actually purchased their game, hell even if it was unreasonable it is their game it is completely down to them and you complaining about being penalised for breaking the rules just makes you come off as whining.

 

[InconsolableCellist]

Who are they to dictate their fans? They are the company who make the game and it is perfectly within their right to decide how the run the modding community and what is or is not allowed.

Just because someone has the technical ability to do something, doesn't mean it's ethical to do so. They receive direct financial benefit from their game having an active modding community. To claim that they have no obligation to their fans and modders is silly.

Your mod violated a rule which you had decided not to read, that is not their fault when action gets taken against the mod it is your for not following their rules.

I didn't make the decision to not read the rule, as I made clear in my previous comments here.

I see nothing unreasonable about wanting to have modding locked behind as a reward for people who have actually purchased their game, hell even if it was unreasonable it is their game it is completely down to them and you complaining about being penalised for breaking the rules just makes you come off as whining.

The method of DRM you're supporting is an active punishment to modders, who are only able to learn how to do what they do by the good will of others. Dictating that source code can't be shared goes far beyond saying that a modder can't receive donations. It's an active attempt to prohibit people from both learning how to mod, and giving back to the modding community once they've figured something out.

Please post the sources you used when learning how to make your mod, and we can go through them and determine how much of that information would've been unavailable had every user strictly followed these ridiculous rules.

 

[blackninja9939]

Just because someone has the technical ability to do something, doesn't mean it's ethical to do so. They receive direct financial benefit from their game having an active modding community. To claim that they have no obligation to their fans and modders is silly.

They have no obligation in the slightest, the fact that they are so supportive already is very good. We have user mod coordinators who actively visit the modding forums to reply to issues and help fix things, they take suggestions directly from the modders and implement them, they work hard to try and release tools like the recent Maya exporter to aid the modders. I know of few companies who do so much to aid their modders.

I didn't make the decision to not read the rule, as I made clear in my previous comments here.

Lack of knowledge about the rules does not change that you broke those rules.

The method of DRM you're supporting is an active punishment to modders, who are only able to learn how to do what they do by the good will of others. Dictating that source code can't be shared goes far beyond saying that a modder can't receive donations. It's an active attempt to prohibit people from both learning how to mod, and giving back to the modding community once they've figured something out.

Please post the sources you used when learning how to make your mod, and we can go through them and determine how much of that information would've been unavailable had every user strictly followed these ridiculous rules.

What is wrong with them only wanting mods to be available to those who legally own the game? It is not prohibiting anyone from learning to mod unless they have an illegal copy of the game.
I learnt to mod ck2 from looking at other mods and asking other modders for how to do it and practicing by trial and error, these days there is also a well maintained modding section on the wiki. This is also how I learnt to mod eu4 and now Stellaris as well as doing some for older paradox games like vicky 2 and hoi3. This will also be the method I employ when hoi4 is released.
None of those sources broke any of the rules at all, claiming that the rules limit you to such an extent where nobody is able to learn to mod without breaking the rules is ludicrous. I went from 0 coding experience or modding experience at all to modding ck2 in the AGOT mod over the course of a year through various trial and error and just learning the same way you learn any new skill. Not once did I run into a hurdle that was not resvolable through more practice or using the various resoucres available to me and every other modder out there.

 

[gigau]

They talked about doing that some while ago, so it might come sometime in the future.

They have indeed, even was supposed to already be up a few months back... but that attempt failed... Ever since, we've been waiting, watching server updates go by and not solve this issue.

 

[InconsolableCellist]

They have no obligation in the slightest, the fact that they are so supportive already is very good. We have user mod coordinators who actively visit the modding forums to reply to issues and help fix things, they take suggestions directly from the modders and implement them, they work hard to try and release tools like the recent Maya exporter to aid the modders. I know of few companies who do so much to aid their modders.

I know of few companies that police their users' creations, claim that they own the copyright to them, prevent them from using things like CC, prevent them from sharing the source code, prevent them from taking entirely voluntary donations, and then somehow have fans who won't call a spade a spade.

If you want to see an example of a company who has a healthy relationship with its modders, look at ZeniMax/Bethesda.

Lack of knowledge about the rules does not change that you broke those rules.

Did you miss the part where I talked about how I broke the rules, and then found this thread as part of a support ticket to Paradox Interactive? I think you missed some of my comments here.

What is wrong with them only wanting mods to be available to those who legally own the game? It is not prohibiting anyone from learning to mod unless they have an illegal copy of the game.

That's a fine goal, but the way they're doing it IS preventing people from learning to mod. Github, Bitbucket, Reddit, the Steam Workshop page, etc., are all places that people go to learn how to mod. I used those resources when I was learning, and that's where I contributed myself. According to the information in this thread, you're supposed to only publish the source code for internal use (a contradiction) and should obfuscate the name so that anyone searching for "Popular PI Mod" won't find the source code, download it, and use it without going through the DRM channels that PI intends (Steam Workshop and the official forums).

Again, I think they're silly to do this, as at best it's just a tiny percentage of people who are somehow so motivated to pirate that they'll download the source code for mods and compile (or at the very least package them) themselves. Also, by this logic PI should issue legal threats against ModDB and other places, since anyone pirating the game could just use those resources to get mods.

I learned how to mod Cities: Skylines by reading the source code for many other popular mods, as well as discussing the code with developers and making posts about it on non-PI forums. According to the rules posted in this thread, those developers were sharing their source code in a manner that would allow pirates to access the mods without paying for the game, and therefore they should've had their mods deleted.

 

[blackninja9939]

I know of few companies that police their users' creations, claim that they own the copyright to them, prevent them from using things like CC, prevent them from sharing the source code, prevent them from taking entirely voluntary donations, and then somehow have fans who won't call a spade a spade.

If you want to see an example of a company who has a healthy relationship with its modders, look at ZeniMax/Bethesda.

You mean the company that tried to institute paid mods and saw the unholy shitstorm that was caused by it? Do Bethesda do some things better than paradox? Yeah sure they definitely do, taking donations would be wonderful I mean who says no to money but it is down to the company to decide whether they want that or not.
As for the policing of creations, they do not really police to the level you think they do. You just feel victimised because it was your mod that got taken down. There is nothign wrong with them not wanting unsavory mods made or wanting to remove one if they feel like it or if it just plainly violates their rules.
The claims to copyright have been addressed a thousand times in this thread so there is no point getting into it now but with regards to the source code, you are not prevented from sharing it here on their forums in the specific games modding section where other modders will be able to find it.

That's a fine goal, but the way they're doing it IS preventing people from learning to mod. Github, Bitbucket, Reddit, the Steam Workshop page, etc., are all places that people go to learn how to mod. I used those resources when I was learning, and that's where I contributed myself. According to the information in this thread, you're supposed to only publish the source code for internal use (a contradiction) and should obfuscate the name so that anyone searching for "Popular PI Mod" won't find the source code, download it, and use it without going through the DRM channels that PI intends (Steam Workshop and the official forums).

You can learn from those places, there is nothing wrong with telling someone over reddit how to do things, it is the releasing of mods which is what is not allowed.

Again, I think they're silly to do this, as at best it's just a tiny percentage of people who are somehow so motivated to pirate that they'll download the source code for mods and compile (or at the very least package them) themselves. Also, by this logic PI should issue legal threats against ModDB and other places, since anyone pirating the game could just use those resources to get mods.

It is still their prerogative of how to run their company and their relation to the modding community, as I said before you feel victimised so you want to feel like they are the bad guys here when in actuality paradox are very helpful and encouraging to modders. On the Stellaris release stream cknoor was actively saying he cannot wait for people to release some mods he can show off on stream!

I learned how to mod Cities: Skylines by reading the source code for many other popular mods, as well as discussing the code with developers and making posts about it on non-PI forums. According to the rules posted in this thread, those developers were sharing their source code in a manner that would allow pirates to access the mods without paying for the game, and therefore they should've had their mods deleted.

As I said above there is a difference between being taught how to do something or looking at examples of something and outright releasing the submod on a third party website which the rules explicitly do not allow. If they did release the mods on third party websites then paradox are well within their rights to want them removed or to choose it is not worth their effort.

I am not gonna bother responding anymore as it will just be the both of us repeating our points endlessy and realistically getting nowhere, in the end you have two choices:
1) Look at the rule fully, obey them and keep on modding and stop complaining about how you are the victim and paradox are the big bad guy for enforcing their rules or
2) Ignore their rules and have your mod removed again or any future mod if it also violates the rules

Is paradox perfect with the modding community and rules? No, but they do a hell of a good job in my opinion and they have helped me and the other AGOT developers out numerous times as well as many other modders for many of their games.

 

[starwarsfan541]

You mean the company that tried to institute paid mods and saw the unholy shitstorm that was caused by it? Do Bethesda do some things better than paradox? Yeah sure they definitely do, taking donations would be wonderful I mean who says no to money but it is down to the company to decide whether they want that or not.
As for the policing of creations, they do not really police to the level you think they do. You just feel victimised because it was your mod that got taken down. There is nothign wrong with them not wanting unsavory mods made or wanting to remove one if they feel like it or if it just plainly violates their rules.
The claims to copyright have been addressed a thousand times in this thread so there is no point getting into it now but with regards to the source code, you are not prevented from sharing it here on their forums in the specific games modding section where other modders will be able to find it.


You can learn from those places, there is nothing wrong with telling someone over reddit how to do things, it is the releasing of mods which is what is not allowed.


It is still their prerogative of how to run their company and their relation to the modding community, as I said before you feel victimised so you want to feel like they are the bad guys here when in actuality paradox are very helpful and encouraging to modders. On the Stellaris release stream cknoor was actively saying he cannot wait for people to release some mods he can show off on stream!


As I said above there is a difference between being taught how to do something or looking at examples of something and outright releasing the submod on a third party website which the rules explicitly do not allow. If they did release the mods on third party websites then paradox are well within their rights to want them removed or to choose it is not worth their effort.

I am not gonna bother responding anymore as it will just be the both of us repeating our points endlessy and realistically getting nowhere, in the end you have two choices:
1) Look at the rule fully, obey them and keep on modding and stop complaining about how you are the victim and paradox are the big bad guy for enforcing their rules or
2) Ignore their rules and have your mod removed again or any future mod if it also violates the rules

Is paradox perfect with the modding community and rules? No, but they do a hell of a good job in my opinion and they have helped me and the other AGOT developers out numerous times as well as many other modders for many of their games.

At least Bethseda tried to do something to compensate their modders, did it fail sure, at least they tried something different.

Pdox has been constantly making modding more difficiult rule wise, some of the moderators seem hostile to modders, I do not singlehandedly share this opinion I know several others whom have the same thought. Paradoxes developers are great and their connections to the modders and community is wonderful, they have great resources for modders in many cases but their rules are regressive compared to other companies. Considering their informal policy is jokingly reffered to on sites is "release it and pray modders fix it....."

 

[Deleted]

I hope people realize that there's threads on websites like Chans and Reddit that have people providing direct download and/or the files themselves of mods to people who request it. Great job "Stopping piracy".

It's an anti-piracy measure, sure, but not a particularly good one.

[I love Paradox, of course. I just disagree with their rules on mod distribution.]

 

[Wagonlitz]

I can't really express how retarded PI's policy on source code is, nor will expressing it change anything. I wish I had known about it before I bothered investing my time in one of their products, however. I regret that their game received attention due to what I did, however.

So you don't find the game itself great? Also you are perfectly allowed to release source code on the modding forums; that is part of why they are there.

The method of DRM you're supporting is an active punishment to modders, who are only able to learn how to do what they do by the good will of others. Dictating that source code can't be shared goes far beyond saying that a modder can't receive donations. It's an active attempt to prohibit people from both learning how to mod, and giving back to the modding community once they've figured something out.

Please post the sources you used when learning how to make your mod, and we can go through them and determine how much of that information would've been unavailable had every user strictly followed these ridiculous rules.

How is it in any way DRM? In fact PI games (at least the PDS ones) are completely DRM free and can literally be pulled from the steam folders and run after uninstalling steam. Similarly PI games are some of the most moddable out there.
For that they require that you prove you own the game before provinding things like mods and support. I think that is fully reasonable---especially given it takes 2 seconds to register your game.

We have user mod coordinators who actively visit the modding forums to reply to issues and help fix things, they take suggestions directly from the modders and implement them,

Indeed. And they keep making the games more and more moddable.
Also suggestions for games are actually listened to. As you might have noticed the latest EU4 patch introduced Danish dynamic province names; those were only added due to me suggesting adding them after randomly getting into a conversation about the topic with a dev. (Also where else can you randomly end up discussing the game with a dev?)
Those repressive Swedes removed the glorious Danish = from the names though.
@gigau how do you guys do with regard to dynamic province names?

 

[Wagonlitz]

I hope people realize that there's threads on websites like Chans and Reddit that have people providing direct download and/or the files themselves of mods to people who request it.

Those people obviously ought to be stopped; although stopping them probably is impossible.

 

[Deleted]

Those people obviously ought to be stopped; although stopping them probably is impossible.

I disagree with that. Yes, they're breaking the rules, but in my opinion the rules have no way to be enforced. It just restricts modders themselves; not stops piracy. The rules, in my view, should be revised. Yes, piracy is awful and I still hope there's something done to help restrict it- but I don't believe this should be done through distribution of mods.

 

[starwarsfan541]

I disagree with that. Yes, they're breaking the rules, but in my opinion the rules have no way to be enforced. It just restricts modders themselves; not stops piracy. The rules, in my view, should be revised. Yes, piracy is awful and I still hope there's something done to help restrict it- but I don't believe this should be done through distribution of mods.

100% agreed

 

[jursamaj]

Something you people need to realize: None of the rules in the OP have *any* force unless "you want to Mention/Discuss/Plan or otherwise Market your User mod on our forums and or list it in the steam Workshop". That's a direct quote from the OP.

You can have an external forum, share on any site you like, claim copyright to your own work, accept money, whatever. You just can't them put it on Steam Workshop or or mention it on these fora. PDX can't even require other sites to remove stuff they don't like (except those they have an established arrangement with, like the official wiki). You have to choose: be part of the PDX/Steam community, or go rogue.

I take that back, there is 1: distributing PDX copyrighted files is a copyright issue. *That* they can enforce (and not because they posted a rule about it).

But I'm really confused about this talk of 'compiling'. What games actually require compiling mods? Certainly not any of the Clausewitz derivatives.

 

[loup99]

I hope people realize that there's threads on websites like Chans and Reddit that have people providing direct download and/or the files themselves of mods to people who request it. Great job "Stopping piracy".

It's an anti-piracy measure, sure, but not a particularly good one.

[I love Paradox, of course. I just disagree with their rules on mod distribution.]

Those people obviously ought to be stopped; although stopping them probably is impossible.

As for reddit, that is impossible to solve. I directly asked the moderator team and they said no to enforcing the User Mods Rules, given that they considered that there were no issues currently.

 

[Ticket Cookie]

The claims to copyright have been addressed a thousand times in this thread so there is no point getting into it now but with regards to the source code, you are not prevented from sharing it here on their forums in the specific games modding section where other modders will be able to find it.

I love Paradox games and all, but these rules are pretty unclear and often blatantly unlawful and that point have not been adressed. They should really ask a legal expert to draft new ones.

I'm studying european corporate law, and not intellectual property, but the "4) The User Mod may not claim ANY kind of license or copyright of any kind (You can still have Credits)" one is quite clearly ignoring the Bern Convention [notably article 5 (1) and (2)] and the European Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (2001/29/EC, and then the 2006/116/EC and 2011/77/EU successive drafts) and dozens of member states national law.
For example in France the mere creation is sufficient, and you don't have to claim it to have it. It's the same in the UK and in Sweden (the Bern Convention was even amended there in 1967!).

And as you said yourself, "Lack of knowledge about the rules does not change that you broke those rules" : we can all act as if corporate rules breaking legal rules simply don't exist, because they have to respect the law, even in their own forum.

(In fact, if the "Moddings rules" aren't included in the game's terms and conditions [something I doubt they are, but I can't manage to find them], @InconsolableCellist cannot be asked to respect them before creating an account here, something he apparently did after being taken down, because you can't expect him to be aware of corporate rules, contrary to Paradox and the law. I do believe they are abusive and thus non-binding anyway.)

The fact that no one is forcing them to change it by some kind of claim in court doesn't mean that they are right, just that people have better things to do (I know I won't for example).

The thing I find pretty sad is that they are upsetting a few modders that won't improve the game in their own ways anymore, and even if it might not be a lot of guys, it's still lame. Especially for a company that is quite friendly to their customers.

 

[blackninja9939]

I love Paradox games and all, but these rules are pretty unclear and often blatantly unlawful and that point have not been adressed. They should really ask a legal expert to draft new ones.

I'm studying european corporate law, and not intellectual property, but the "4) The User Mod may not claim ANY kind of license or copyright of any kind (You can still have Credits)" one is quite clearly ignoring the Bern Convention [notably article 5 (1) and (2)] and the European Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (2001/29/EC, and then the 2006/116/EC and 2011/77/EU successive drafts) and dozens of member states national law.
For example in France the mere creation is sufficient, and you don't have to claim it to have it. It's the same in the UK and in Sweden (the Bern Convention was even amended there in 1967!).

And as you said yourself, "Lack of knowledge about the rules does not change that you broke those rules" : we can all act as if corporate rules breaking legal rules simply don't exist, because they have to respect the law, even in their own forum.

(In fact, if the "Moddings rules" aren't included in the game's terms and conditions [something I doubt they are, but I can't manage to find them], @InconsolableCellist cannot be asked to respect them before creating an account here, something he apparently did after being taken down, because you can't expect him to be aware of corporate rules, contrary to Paradox and the law. I do believe they are abusive and thus non-binding anyway.)

The fact that no one is forcing them to change it by some kind of claim in court doesn't mean that they are right, just that people have better things to do (I know I won't for example).

The thing I find pretty sad is that they are upsetting a few modders that won't improve the game in their own ways anymore, and even if it might not be a lot of guys, it's still lame. Especially for a company that is quite friendly to their customers.

No they really have been addressed many many many times, go through all the dev posts on this thread and see how many times the have been questioned about the copyright rules, and by dev posts I do not mean the show only dev posts button as these questions have been going on long before that button was implemented.
To quote one of Castellons posts:

To clear up a few things, I am not worried about whether you feel the rules can be enforced in Court since These are the rules if you want to post your Mod on our forums or workshop. If you break them we can simply remove the mod from the workshop and/or the forum, no need for a court of law.

If someone wants to take Paradox to court then sure be my guest but realistically that would be plain old stupid.

 

[Ticket Cookie]

Thanks, I didn't see that answer. The "dev posts" feature is a great one, I'm glad they had since added it!

Someone could challenge their ban in court someday. Of course, as I said myself, there is little chance someone will feel concerned enough to do so, but it's bad corporate practice to keep potentially unlawful rules just because they don't believe somebody will do it.

Especially when thoses rules are ineffective and probably cause more harm than good.

 

[loup99]

Someone could challenge their ban in court someday. Of course, as I said myself, there is little chance someone will feel concerned enough to do so, but it's bad corporate practice to keep potentially unlawful rules just because they don't believe somebody will do it.

Given that the rules are forum (and workshop), by posting the mod on the forums, the modders agree with the rules. On other sites, the modders do not have to respect these rules, and have their copyright. Thus, there is no case to be made at court.