Other comment pretty much already said it, but I think anyone with hundreds or thousands of mods installed in a game can tell you that literally patching the game code would be a painful endeavor.
Even if you compile your own game and want to change one simple thing, it’s better if you can do it via a mod rather than directly editing the game code - this way you don’t get merge conflicts when pulling the updated source from git!
That wasn’t my point. Mods get developed because the game itself can’t be modified otherwise. The Luanti games that are like Minecraft include already a lot of functionality that is only available with mods in Minecraft and it doesn’t make much sense to ask for mods in this context.
Mods get developed because the game itself can’t be modified otherwise
Literally not the case.
Even in a game that you can directly modify, it’s easier to organize modifications by keeping them modular.
Not everyone wants everything in their game.
Luanti games that are like Minecraft include already a lot of functionality that is only available with mods in Minecraft and it doesn’t make much sense to ask for mods in this context.
It makes sense to ask for mod support because what if you want to extend the game functionality even further, without forcing your vision of the game on everyone (merging it into the upstream project) or having to patch it manually (or via some patch utility that still kinda sucks)
Like, I get you, I don’t disagree, but you can’t put in a massive technology tree with fusion reactors or Dyson sphere stuff in the same game where you add high-fantasy stuff with magic and eldritch stuff, while at the same time having guns and cars and a post-apocalypse setting…
The whole idea is that those sort of things would be mods. Anything that could potentially be shared and useful to all players could go into the base, like back-end stuff, yes, but there’s also a lot that would be bespoke to mods and shouldn’t be in the core
That is why Luanti is a game engine where you can have many different games to cover all these different ideas. It even has a built in “store” where you can easily download and install these games and play them together.
But… Then those many different games essentially ARE mods. In which case mod support isn’t as bad as it was made out to be at the top of this comment tree and we’ve been talking about the same thing from different angles
Other comment pretty much already said it, but I think anyone with hundreds or thousands of mods installed in a game can tell you that literally patching the game code would be a painful endeavor.
Even if you compile your own game and want to change one simple thing, it’s better if you can do it via a mod rather than directly editing the game code - this way you don’t get merge conflicts when pulling the updated source from git!
That wasn’t my point. Mods get developed because the game itself can’t be modified otherwise. The Luanti games that are like Minecraft include already a lot of functionality that is only available with mods in Minecraft and it doesn’t make much sense to ask for mods in this context.
Literally not the case.
Even in a game that you can directly modify, it’s easier to organize modifications by keeping them modular.
Not everyone wants everything in their game.
It makes sense to ask for mod support because what if you want to extend the game functionality even further, without forcing your vision of the game on everyone (merging it into the upstream project) or having to patch it manually (or via some patch utility that still kinda sucks)
You don’t need a mod for that, you can just fork the game.
And then you’re left with hundreds of forks that are incompatible with each other. The whole point of mods is that they’re interoperable
The whole point is to work together on the game instead of reinventing the wheel with millions of often incompatible mods.
But what is a fork for then?
Like, I get you, I don’t disagree, but you can’t put in a massive technology tree with fusion reactors or Dyson sphere stuff in the same game where you add high-fantasy stuff with magic and eldritch stuff, while at the same time having guns and cars and a post-apocalypse setting…
The whole idea is that those sort of things would be mods. Anything that could potentially be shared and useful to all players could go into the base, like back-end stuff, yes, but there’s also a lot that would be bespoke to mods and shouldn’t be in the core
That is why Luanti is a game engine where you can have many different games to cover all these different ideas. It even has a built in “store” where you can easily download and install these games and play them together.
But… Then those many different games essentially ARE mods. In which case mod support isn’t as bad as it was made out to be at the top of this comment tree and we’ve been talking about the same thing from different angles