Modders: We need to talk

Why not go with a cheaper/slower CDN? I'm sure most of the forum members wouldn't mind.

My idea is rewards to members that contribute considerably to the wiki.

 

I like this idea. Only problem i see with it is the amount of crappy mods that people will be trying to squeeze money out of. If you apply the same quality control, if not more, to these mods as you do to just the regular mods, it should work out ok i would think.

Now this is a good idea. It would get some motivation going. Too many mod authors have left already, i would hate to see any more go, and maybe this could be a way to keep more of them in the system.

More thoughts

1) this right here is needed. i have not looked at wiki recently, so i wouldnt know what needs to be added, but maybe some more terrain editor help? last i checked that was pretty sparse
2) I think we could combine the weekly author meetings and users with mods into one group on discord, maybe with 2 channels, one for questions, one for discussion/
criticism.
3)This would be very nice to have.

 

Great thinking ! I think this will close the gap between the devs and the members.

I, as a modder and I don't wanna sound like showing off or anything, have plenty of ideas that can be applied in Beamng but I'm missing some extra experience with other things (like lua scripting). Plus, I don't feel sending a dev private messages over the forum asking for a thing or two is a good idea to me (I kinda hate how slow the forum messaging system work compared to something like steam).Or maybe make a place where the modders only can post threads which can only be seen by the Devs ?

I think the only downside to the kickstarter and paid mods thingy is that people might tend to make tonnes of low quality mods as a way of making money.

 

Maybe this is the wrong thread to discuss this, but the World Editor needs serious improvement:

1. Saves files in wrong location
2. No blank level to start making one (not really a big issue, but still...)
3. Material saving issues (especially this)

 

Paid mods have ended badly in the past. Steam tried to add paid mods and it was removed shortly after. Donations on the other hand, make a lot less income but is welcomed by the community. Even if you did make paid mods, people would just go download it for free on another site.

 

but if it was like a gabe made car mod gabe split it 50 50
--- Post updated ---
forget about paid mods i had the idea to make a forum were you can see mods in wip and and to get the mod you have to be a dev or mod tester

 

True especially for people like me, my mum and dad would hate me asking them $20 just so I can get the latest and greatest mod. I personally think paid mods could ruin the community as you would get people asking (mostly kids) "can you give me the [insert awesome mod here] pweez" but donating donating would be a better idea.

 

this

and this

Paid mods usually does not end well, even for all the good intentions they may bring. To work paid mods would have to be encrypted somehow, or only downloadable and run-able by one copy per download ,most likely via steam somehow, or through an email code (Note since steam doesn't support paid mods, any content would most likely be listed as "dlc"); You can be certain any paid content will be a huge target for pirates, and eventually as with all games some hellhole like beamngmods.ru will have paid content on it. Furthermore to expand on the quality of mods, they would have to be at the very minimum matching the official released content's quality, in both detail, and play-ability; noone would want to pay for anything that doesn't handle, deform or look as it should, or rattles around like its built with rubber bands, hot glue and duct tape, however as with the above quote by @BASELKLALIB you can expect a mass of idiots to submit bad content with the expectation of money and praise.
Although as a personal note I do feel the community needs a stimulus of good official quality matching or exceeding content, not to say there isn't anything like this already out there, its just scarce overall, and often when reading through some of the mods pages I start thinking about @Zappymouse 's "meat and two veg". As for the other suggestions I personally am all for them, and the modding community will most likely be too, just be sure to drink your ovaltine make sure that what is "promised" can be accomplished in terms of deadlines; keep stuff realistic for time budgeting, although I am sure the devs know all too well how the community reacts when even unofficial estimations are not kept.

 

I think these two first points could be covered by the Discord group, and it would allow me to ask dumb questions and spare me some hours of searching

I think that if you keep doing the modder upgrade changlelog, there is no real reason to spend more of your time on this. And moreover, if any of us encounter a problem there would be the Discord group to help.

About the paid mods, I'm still skeptical. Even if it will greatly encourage modders, I'm not sure the community would like it. It's like restricting the awesomeness of some mods to the small amount of people who would bother buying it.
I think donations would work a lot better, even if the modder will receive 75% of the income and the other 25% are used to pay the traffic cost.

And for the kickstarter idea, I think it's awesome, and the small amount of money invested could also come from some donations from the community.

Anyway, I love your awesome community support !

 

Would the "price" of a paid mod be entirely up to the discression of the mod author? If so, how would transactions be handled, and to what extent would the author be held accountable in the event that it looses support?

Many of us here know that authors like AR162B (to name one) are juggling many time consuming and frankly more important things, and as a result of that almost all of his mods are currently being heavily reworked just to keep up. With the pace of the game it seems unlikely that you guys could ever give someone like him enough advanced notice to keep his mods up to date for his now paying customers.

Further more, as aware as we may be of the existing thievery of mods, I really don't see how we could ever prevent it from happening once people realized that they could pirate them and save money. It only takes one person who is willing to redistribute a mod to severely undermine the mod author's ability to earn money for their work.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making more avenues for mod authors (and you guy) to make a living, but there are a lot of things that need to be hammered out to make it work. To further clarify, I have very good faith in the integrity of both you, the devs, and our amazing mod authors to not abuse a system like the one suggested, I just don't see the rest of the internet being quite as honest in their dealings when money is involved.

The other points raised in the OP seem great to me, but I obviously have no foot in this matter (I've never made any mods, and I don't possess the skills needed to do so).

 

Not to bring the thread off topic, I noticed "donation system" when scrolling through, has a forum member donation system been thought of? sorta like how we had on the RoR forums?

 

I think it will be great to make something like a poll "Best mod of this month", with a small prize (40-50eu) to a winner. And, maybe, in the end of the year something like a poll for a best mod of this year, with larger prize (~500eu). Is it possible to do?

 

i see where this is going.. reminds me of the xplane store, no offence but the only mod that i would buy would be the auriga heron and altitude as the level of detail is spectacular, but the pricing of mods will vary, and the high end mods should have custom sounds and more simulations (radio for example) as the planes on the xplane store have, but we need torque converter simulation and quite a lot of simulations, such as engine damage and coolant temp, hopefully there will be some free meduim quality mods, and the torque curve mods will be free

 

personally i would like a smoother way to create and edit maps, haven't done it in awhile because i was always having to move and edit files outside of the editor and make sure things got put in the right folders.

If paid mods became a thing maybe discounts for other modders, or credits for each download to spend on other mods as an extra incentive to make mods.

 

I congratulate you for creating this discussion. Much appreciated. Each time i red an issue question from user being answered by "this mod is causing trouble, just remove it", i felt a bit sad.
They are certainly some not so good integrated mods that would need to be better done, but when some of the AR162B awesome stuff are concerned, i thought that his work deserves more than just being removed to solve an issue when the game is updated. It's just an exemple and just my point of view. And also i know that it's not that simple, it's just when the modder can read such, the instant effect can be a feeling of devaluation of the efforts.

Your post shows that you care about all those creations, and indeed, it would be awesome that a discussion could happen to speak about new features and how to maintain mods up to date.
AR162B manages very well to find by himself how to do, but it's a lot of work.
I have a very little Jbeam level, i manage too but it's more hard to me, and currently doing a mod since monthes and spent hundred of hours in it, sometimes i was to the point that i was scared that a new update would break my mod before i ever posted a single teaser about it. It didn't happen but it's a good thing to maintain the relation between development side and modding community.
It will motivate new members to do more stuff i'm pretty sure.

Also i think that a more visual and intuitive way to create jbeam, like a visual editor, would be a big improvment in the way to get more mod creation.

 

i don't know who must to thank who. In my case, i'm just happy to express my creativity, and share it. thanks to you beamng
I'm against the fact that the players must pay/ buy the mods ((if never it happens, IMO it's the best way to we want not to take them)) but I am for a reward, even if i wait nothing