But to do something like that on actual binaries. I have read a bit in the old pre 1.60 codebase of TLD back then, but no actual experience modding TLD (again, since I respect the devs wishes regarding that). Basically the sheer size of the undertaking killed it. Maybe not horrendous, but "tedious" is probably an apt description. I never got it finished, and hence never released it, but I had something rather similar for Minecraft 1.7, which basically could do bytecode manipulation from JavaScript - among other things. Doing that from a scripting language but targeting a native binary - without having to embed asm into the scripting language and without ruining the game's performance - sounds like a horrendous task. Many TLD mods don't just extend the game's code in some way, but also change the game's existing functionality. Yeah, something like that would obviously be sweet, but I wonder how well this would really work for a game like TLD. From what I've been able to tell, most people aren't just looking for "more of the same", which is the only thing you could do without writing code. Most stuff that the community has been requesting for years (and which ye olde mods provided), like binoculars, more food items with special effects on the player, new firestarting items, etc., all require some code to be written. Yeah, but then again, it's not like you'd even need modding tools for that □īut on a serious note, anything beyond the most basic mods will require some code to be written to enable custom functionality, and if that's not possible with Hinterland's mod support, then it's pretty much DoA. Basically my point is: if the community has a big enough interest in it - it'll happen. Sure that wouldn't bring back legacy mods, but it could be a way forward. Let the mod loader expose an API via V8 and people could mod TLD with limited programming experience. It is possible to do binary modding (maybe the most popular example of this is SKSE), but you kinda rightly point out that this is a job hardly possible for a signle individual unless comitting to it full time (maybe patreon the project? Crowdfund?). But if that was done actual modding could be done in a simpler language like JavaScript. Doesn't mean I have to like it (since I indeed believe in free software - free as in free speach, not as in free beer), but I guess I'll have to respect their stance on it. And as such it's at Hinterland's gusto to allow or prevent modding either with their EULA, by means of obfuscation or, as it happened in this case, converting bytecode into actual machine code. But I'm also making a living writing proprietary code, and if there wasn't such a thing as ownership of intellectual property I'd be out of a job in no time. And I'm probably with you on that argument. I'm involved in open source for 20 years, not big time, but with a few contributions, mostly in the GNU and Linux code bases, and also Minecraft modding back in the 1.7 days. I think we could now have a discussion on if someone paying money for code should be allowed to use said code as they see fit. Also godmoding, teleporting, or what have you that was possible with the right mods which you can't really consider modding, but more like cheating, is something they will want to avoid with all means neccessary. Like adding some food, tweak weapons, add new maps, things like that. Removing breath, for example, probably isn't in their playbook. If - and by this time I doubt it - The Long Dark gets modding support they will want to have it restricted to what you are supposed to mod. For a game that's eventually supposed to get mod support, that's a pretty rough deal.
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