Online support for modded game !

[bagmenot]

Hi,

Since at least the 4.0 release you are punishing people who enjoy playing a modded game.

What would it cost to have an alternate server for people with modded game ??? If it's not possible to just refuse their ship when not vanilla and not take in account event from modded game ?

Frankly I am consterned that you betrayed your modder community by dropping online features for them ! This was in the contract when buying your game since version X3 or even before !

Give me the protocol of you online feature and I will code it myself on my server if it's too much for you !

I already have eternal regrets of funding egosoft with the console like game X Rebirth, I hope you will stop turning you back on the community who feed you !

Best regards

[CBJ]

Let's start with a fact: the venture system has not been enabled for anyone, modified or not, since 4.00, so the entire premise of this post is flawed.

As for all this emotive stuff about "punishing" and "betraying" modders, there are good reasons, both technical and security-driven, why online games that use a single common server do not generally allow modding. These have been covered on several occasions and I will not repeat them again.

Now, since this is not a Tech Support request, it can go over to the main forum.

[Raevyan]

Let's start with a fact: the venture system has not been enabled for anyone, modified or not, since 4.00, so the entire premise of this post is flawed.

As for all this emotive stuff about "punishing" and "betraying" modders, there are good reasons, both technical and security-driven, why online games that use a single common server do not generally allow modding. These have been covered on several occasions and I will not repeat them again.

Now, since this is not a Tech Support request, it can go over to the main forum.

Maybe an update on the thing would be appropriate since last time we heared about it is almost a year ago and then only some talks about its concepts? Considering you planned to release it with/shortly after 4.0.

If you plan to bri g it with x-22 than ppl who are holding back on mods because of ventures may enjoy playing x4 again

[af_2017]

As for all this emotive stuff about "punishing" and "betraying" modders, there are good reasons, both technical and security-driven, why online games that use a single common server do not generally allow modding. These have been covered on several occasions and I will not repeat them again.

I can understand and accept possible reasons for providing modding features to the game:
- it's might be another "toy" for players. Creating mods might be interesting and rewarding activity.
- vanilla game also can benefit from created mods by accepting ideas and even ready solutions thus making egosoft life easier
- whatever other reasons I missed

From your explanation I can make a conclusion that provided API/features for modding allows to introduce technical and security issues.
I can accept that the features have been provided with idea of more freedom and creativity of potential mods despite to possibilities to introduce the issues.

Now with all these mods and online features it seems logical to have certification program from egosoft for extensions to consider them as "legal/certified" and allow them to work with online features specifically. Instead of banning all non-egosoft extensions.
Otherwise things do not look as "completed".

[Xenon_Slayer]

Providing additional support for modding is a whole different subject, and something we're constantly trying to improve on either through the engine, tools or documentation. But a modification is the same, no matter how you go about it. As you say, there could be some signing process, something which we have done in the past with the old X2 and X3 Bonus Packs. It is a very time consuming process of validation and testing for both the authors and ourselves and usually leads to only a few cherry picked packages which constantly have to be maintained as the game moves forward. I personally don't think it's realistic, especially when we now have the extra challenge of ensuring online stability and security.

[af_2017]

Providing additional support for modding is a whole different subject

Thanks for the explanation!
I agree with the prioritization of the activities and related achievements.
Conclusions:
- modded game must be considered as experimental, used by own risk without relying on egosoft support. Which seems logical.
- mod-makers should be interested in creating high quality mods to be included into official vanilla game, and as a result delegating mod to support to egosoft.

[|K.O.S.H.]

Hi,

Since at least the 4.0 release you are punishing people who enjoy playing a modded game.

What would it cost to have an alternate server for people with modded game ??? If it's not possible to just refuse their ship when not vanilla and not take in account event from modded game ?

Frankly I am consterned that you betrayed your modder community by dropping online features for them ! This was in the contract when buying your game since version X3 or even before !

Give me the protocol of you online feature and I will code it myself on my server if it's too much for you !

I already have eternal regrets of funding egosoft with the console like game X Rebirth, I hope you will stop turning you back on the community who feed you !

Best regards

It seems like you don't understand, why there is no mod support for online features.
Simple answer: others have content, you don't have. There is no way to handle it.

Or do you want to automatically download 3rd party mods from people sot even know about their existence?

[Rei Ayanami]

Give me the protocol of you online feature and I will code it myself on my server if it's too much for you

I think you underestimate the complexities required.

Consider the following problems :
1) Modded game A modifies ship "Argon Nova Vanguard" to have additional guns and sends it to a vanilla game.
How would the vanilla game know how many guns the Argon Nova should have? Should it take the default ones? Or should the modded ship show up in the vanilla game?

2) Modded game A modifies ship "Argon Nova Vanguard" to have additional guns and sends it to modded game B, which gave the Nova less guns.
Which modded game takes priority, A or B?

3) Modded game A has a mod-created ship "Imperial Death Star" and sends it to a vanilla game.
What should the vanilla game display? How would it know what something called "Imperial Death Star" is?

4) Modded game A has a mod-created ship "Imperial Death Star" and sends it to a modded game B without the mod that contains the Death Star.
Should B automatically download the mod against the player's wishes? If not, what should modded game B display for the ship?

5) Modded game A has a mod-created ship "Imperial Death Star" and sends it to a modded game B which also has the "Imperial Death Star" but a different mod version.
Which mod version takes priority?

5) Modded game A has a mod-created ship "Imperial Death Star" and sends it to a modded game B with a different mod that has a completely different ship with the same name "Imperial Death Star".
Which modded game takes priority, A or B? Will game B's Death Star be overwritten by game A's Death Star? Does B display the entirely different ship that according to its mods is referenced by "Death Star"?

6) Modded game A mods Asgard main battery to be able to fire its super laser 10 times per second with no cooldown and no heat builtup and sends it to a game without that mod (vanilla or differently modded).
Which gun configuration takes priority?

7) Game A, modded or not, sends a ship to modded game B, which has a script mod to instantly destroy any visitor ships.
Would that be allowed? How would Egosoft enforce it?

8 ) Modded game A mods its ship to have 10 million missile storage and sends it to game B without that mod.
Should the ship in game B also have 10 million missile capacity? Would that also affect other ships of the same type that already existed in game B's universe? Will that change be removed once the visitor ends, or will it be stuck in the savegame data?


These are just a small part of what needs to be considered when trying to enable ventures for mods.
You'd have to check every possibility of what could be different, ship types, ship configuration, ship attributes, you'd have to check which mods were used on A and B, how the mods are configured and then find a solution that works every single time, such as which mod takes priority, what if a mod can't be found, what if different mods use the same IDs for different entities, etc. And that doesn't even take into account mods that modify other mods or version differences of the same mod.

That's the best reason I can think of why only vanilla, aka unmodded, games are allowed for ventures.

[bagmenot]

Give me the protocol of you online feature and I will code it myself on my server if it's too much for you

I think you underestimate the complexities required.

I am a developper, this level of complexity is a joke, I had to deal with harder challenges in life

Consider the following problems :
1) Modded game A modifies ship "Argon Nova Vanguard" to have additional guns and sends it to a vanilla game.
How would the vanilla game know how many guns the Argon Nova should have? Should it take the default ones? Or should the modded ship show up in the vanilla game?

Egosoft should be able to generate all "valid" combinations, if the ship don't match a valid combination, it's rejected as unsafe to travel in other universe.

2) Modded game A modifies ship "Argon Nova Vanguard" to have additional guns and sends it to modded game B, which gave the Nova less guns.
Which modded game takes priority, A or B?

From what I understand how the game works, the sent ship is valid because passed egosoft check of valid combination, so game B should trust it, even with an extra gun power.

Game B can choose to refuse visitors with an unsafely moddified game.

3) Modded game A has a mod-created ship "Imperial Death Star" and sends it to a vanilla game.
What should the vanilla game display? How would it know what something called "Imperial Death Star" is?

Rejected by egosoft combination check before beeing sent.

4) Modded game A has a mod-created ship "Imperial Death Star" and sends it to a modded game B without the mod that contains the Death Star.
Should B automatically download the mod against the player's wishes? If not, what should modded game B display for the ship?

Rejected by egosoft combination check before beeing sent.

5) Modded game A has a mod-created ship "Imperial Death Star" and sends it to a modded game B which also has the "Imperial Death Star" but a different mod version.
Which mod version takes priority?

Rejected by egosoft combination check before beeing sent.

5) Modded game A has a mod-created ship "Imperial Death Star" and sends it to a modded game B with a different mod that has a completely different ship with the same name "Imperial Death Star".
Which modded game takes priority, A or B? Will game B's Death Star be overwritten by game A's Death Star? Does B display the entirely different ship that according to its mods is referenced by "Death Star"?

Rejected by egosoft combination check before beeing sent.

6) Modded game A mods Asgard main battery to be able to fire its super laser 10 times per second with no cooldown and no heat builtup and sends it to a game without that mod (vanilla or differently modded).
Which gun configuration takes priority?

These kind of modification are done on the weapon configuration in the game, the send game will have a valid combination. This is the kind of local change only affecting game A.

When sent in game B it match a valid combination configuration, the ship will behave as a vanilla.

The game B can modify the weapon to be overpowerfull, it will just have to deal with the modified ship in his universe or refuse visitors.

7) Game A, modded or not, sends a ship to modded game B, which has a script mod to instantly destroy any visitor ships.
Would that be allowed? How would Egosoft enforce it?

Egosoft can simply ignore any event happening in a moddified game.

Game A is not punished because game B is modified. While game B has visitors do whatever he wants to them but it will not affect them.

The script may destroy all visitor ships, egosoft simply discard whatever happened in game B.

8 ) Modded game A mods its ship to have 10 million missile storage and sends it to game B without that mod.
Should the ship in game B also have 10 million missile capacity? Would that also affect other ships of the same type that already existed in game B's universe? Will that change be removed once the visitor ends, or will it be stuck in the savegame data?

Invalid combination, simply refused to be sent to other universe.

These are just a small part of what needs to be considered when trying to enable ventures for mods.
You'd have to check every possibility of what could be different, ship types, ship configuration, ship attributes, you'd have to check which mods were used on A and B, how the mods are configured and then find a solution that works every single time, such as which mod takes priority, what if a mod can't be found, what if different mods use the same IDs for different entities, etc. And that doesn't even take into account mods that modify other mods or version differences of the same mod.

That's the best reason I can think of why only vanilla, aka unmodded, games are allowed for ventures.

That's because you are not a developper (or one who never had to design a webservice or sanitize trash data), else you would have think of the solution I provide or a similar one.

As you never looked in the savegame, there is an extra problem that egosoft needs to take care, NEVER save in the savegame relation change with visitor faction !!! As this may be infinite (or as much as the number of game owner who have an account on this forum)

Last time I checked, for every visitor faction you destroyed a ship of (or reputation gained for), was stored in the savegame, bloating it without reason.

And egosoft should never have trusted anything except player name from visitor, there is no reason the game B should display the game A ship names for example.

[Rhingeim]

Outside of security reasons, most online features for games actually don't allow modding on official servers. So, if ventures come back eventually, development team will need to choose from two options:

1) develop and implement some sort of validation pipeline, so some mods will be allowed for online features.

2) restrict online features for modded saves.

And the first one option is quite complex and rather expensive in comparison to the second one, because you need to think about what should be allowed and what should not, how it's tied up with development roadmap and how this whole validation pipeline should work eventually. Knowing that Egosoft doesn't have a resources comparable with bigger companies, and X series is not a extremely successful title in terms if revenue, I think that it's better for them to go with 2 option and focus on something like new DLCs and bug fixing with optimization. And at the end of X4 development life cycle, probably just remove this block, so community can pick up game support from that point.

[RedFlashyKitten]

I am a developper, this level of complexity is a joke, I had to deal with harder challenges in life

People like you are the reason why we have ****** node.js code in software where it doesnt belong, which propagates ****** security standards into mainstream software where it doesn't belong. Like node.js and Nvidia right now.

[CBJ]

That's enough of the personal attacks.

[IRONOX]

At this time i don´t think they will waste any manpower or development for something they never intended to bring into their game.
If they will change their mind about it, so it be. I don´t need and will not need such feature.

[Bastelfred]

There has been a mod that enables (simulates) ventures for modded games for a very long time. So strictly speaking, the people with mods since 4.0 are the only ones who can use this feature. So what's the fuss about?

[bagmenot]

People like you are the reason why we have ****** node.js code in software where it doesnt belong, which propagates ****** security standards into mainstream software where it doesn't belong. Like node.js and Nvidia right now.

Never used node.js ^_^

I do programming in C, C++, Lua, QT, PHP and others, always hated JavaScript and used only when required...

[bagmenot]

There has been a mod that enables (simulates) ventures for modded games for a very long time. So strictly speaking, the people with mods since 4.0 are the only ones who can use this feature. So what's the fuss about?

The point is why not enable ventures for modded games on a separated instance ? Without support is OK, not disable a feature for mod user/modder who paid the game too.

[chew-ie]

Oh the Necro...

[Alan Phipps]

Agreed, we don't need a 2022 discussion resurrected just to make a belated techie point, even if it is your own thread.