For those of you that missed Techland removing mod support for Dying Light, here is all the information you require to be caught up on the matter:
Techland are mostly known for Call of Juarez and Dead Island, both of these franchises had mods created for them, yet Techland did nothing to take the mods down. There are also threads specifically made around the list of Dead Island mods. So why do they suddenly care about removing mods that improve the user experience.
Over the release of Dying Light, two Redditers by the names of drogean2 and Descatusat created a mod to remove the film grain that’s always on, and uploaded the mod to MediaFire and TinyUpload. Shortly after these files were uploaded, they were taken down via a violation of the file sharing websites Terms of Service…. taken down by Company: Entertainment Software Association.
Hold on a minute, RedGamingTech mention that WB Games are apart of this organisation, so this would imply that WB Games are filing legitimate Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take down notices on modders… this is definitely not a good reaction to have from WB Games simply due to a cosmetic alteration that may not be liked by certain players, ie myself (I hate film grain on any game). If Techland didn’t allow the player to disable this function, we should be allowed to mod the filter out… shouldn’t we?
Well it doesn’t stop there. If we look at the patch notes for patch 1.2.1 you will see the line “blocked cheating by changing game’s data files”. Hold on, since when was removing an unwanted filter considered cheating? I am aware that this is the case for any VAC enabled game but that is not the case for Dying Light.
In order to remove filters for Techland’s previous titles, such as motion blur, or to increase the FOV (Field of View) you had to mod certain files within the game, because they seemed disinterested in allowing PC players to have the freedom they’re used to with these options. If you plan to restrict players from enjoying the game the way they want to with certain cosmetic filters that do not by any means appeal to a wide audience, expect people to mod it. First, countless amounts of customer feedback in regards to Dead Island having frame rate or connectivity issues that remain unfixed to this day, and now this.
The community came together to bring some of the best mods for Dead Island, why is this filter mod being shunned by the dev and publisher?
Several days later the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) caught wind of the DMCA notices.
The ESA have since apologized for the wrongful DMCA claims for the Dying Light mod files that were uploaded.
The ESA state the following:
“ESA was notified this morning that potentially erroneous DMCA notices had been transmitted by one of its vendors,” the organization told Ars. “Upon further review, it was determined that the notices should not have been sent and retractions were issued immediately. We regret any inconvenience and have taken steps to avoid similar situations in the future.”
Techland mentioned that the 1.2.1 patch wasn’t an intentional block on modding the game but it was a side effect of singleplayer modding while using the idea of stopping cheating within the game.
“Creating obstacles for modders has never been our intention,” Techland said in a statement provided to Ars Technica. “We are now working on a quick patch that will re-enable common tweaks while stopping cheating in the game’s multiplayer mode.
“At Techland, we have always supported the mod community and loved seeing how our own game can be changed by the players. A big part of the original Dead Island’s success was the passion and creativity of mod-makers from our community. We want the same for Dying Light.” – Steam Forums
Yet to be fair this could have been easily tested in-house, but clearly wasn’t, so it appears the patch wasn’t fully tested with modding in mind. “Blocked cheating by changing game’s data files” implies that you can’t change the files, therefore you can’t retrieve the files for modding… this was a clear oversight for Techland.
On Feb 6th Michał Napora annouces on the Official Techland forums that Dying Light will receive official mod tools.
“Hi guys,
Today we want to announce something really special – we are creating our own set of Modding Tools.
We’re all in awe of some of the mods we’ve seen so far – the drop kick that send the zombies into the sky is nuts. It’s amazing to see what you guys are able to come up with.
Soon, you’ll be able to create your own version of a zombie outbreak. We’ve been working on a set of Modding Tools for some time, but we would also love to hear your thoughts on the issue.
So, tell us what would you like to see in our modding tools. What would you like to create with it? What would you like to do with them?
Give us your thoughts right here below in the comments section.
We’re hoping to support the creations you make, so please, let us know what you would like in there, and let’s create something special together.” – Techland Forum
Is this to little to late? Has the damage already been done for modders? Only time will tell.
However, this is a step in the right direction for Techland, and hopefully we see more developers allowing mods in the future.
Source: RedGamingTech, Ars Technica, Steam Forum, Techland Forum