Modders refusing to use Steam to distribute mods

[Phileksa]

i won't get the mods if they're not distributed on Steam. it was getting mods for this game that got me viruses, and that ultimately lead to me using ad blockers.

ya'll say the ads on the mod sites are there to pay for the mod site, then ya'll say ya'll admit those ads give ya'll nasty viruses, ransomware, and other horrific malwares. so ya'll disable ads (thus disabling their income stream) in order to avoid getting the malware that comes with visiting their sites.

here's an idea: *STOP USING THOSE SITES!*

"but the good mods are where the horrific malware ads are!" until ya'll stop getting them there, of course they'll continue to be there! instead of going to some crazy malware site to get your mods, get them through Steam!

"but people can reupload my work on Steam!" because nasty malware sites are much much more ethical than Steam. okay. you'd rather let all your friends who enjoy your mods end up with their hard drives wiped by rnadom drive-by downloads from ads shown alongside your perfectly harmless mod then come to a nice, safe place like Steam to share them. makes totally perfect business sense there. you know what else makes totally perfect business sense? installing bombs in to every car you fix. that way, your customers become repeat customers who are guaranteed to come back each and every time. except for when they, you know, *DIE* from the explosions. what makes even better sense? installing bouncing betty's in grocery stores! that's how you attract new customers! owh, and random claymores! random claymores always ensure even more customers! *RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT*

one of my favorite sites, MajorGeeks, has asked why i use ad blockers. i told them. it's all the fault of the modders who refuse to use Steam to distribute their "excellent" mods. and while some of their mods might in fact be excellent, just like the restaurant that serves the best food in town, most people won't go if random guys with machine guns come in and randomly shoot the patrons.

please. use the Steam Workshop. stop using the malware infested sites to distribute your mods.

[Ornery]

ouch lol deep breaths

I do understand the frustration, trust me.

[Capt Fuzzy]

I get this, and I agree with it...
Why should we put our PCs at risk so you can make a few bucks off of something that, in all honesty, should be free anyway?
To those, who for whatever reason "hate the Steam workshop", here's an idea.., host your own site. That way you can control what gets put on it and what doesn't.
Don't know how to host your own site?
Do what I did, learn how to make a site, then learn how to host it yourself, it's not that hard. I've done it myself for several years now, and if I can do it, anyone can... lol

[TwinShadow]

The day that some of my favorite mods go exclusive workshop, is the day I stop using their mods in the first place.

The reason I use mods outside of the workshop, is that I know how to browse ad-infested sites. I use uBlock Origin to block ads, and always will until web developers start vetting and take responsibility for the ads they serve. Until this happens, 99.9% of ads will be blocked, and any in that 0.1% that slip through, I will FIND a way to block them. And for those sites that will block my access entirely to the site, I will block that block, or I will refuse to go to that site any further.

Now, the reason I hate the workshop in the first place is because I have no control over when mods are updated. Mods can, and do break the game occasionally. I've had that happen on several occasions. Not being able to roll-back the mod is one reason I won't use Steam for mods. A couple of the good people (I can only name one right now, ohaha for his Volvo FH edit for ETS2) will use Google Drive for hosting their mods. Quick, painless, and some host older versions of the files just in case.

My other reason is my own dealing with trying to upload a mod. I made one minor mod for Stellaris. You know how long it took me just to upload one stupid, simple graphical mod to the workshop? 30 minutes it took me to figure out why the stupid thing wouldn't upload correctly. I'm willing to bet it'd take me just as long if I were to make my mini-mods available on the Workshop just to figure out what tiny, minute change to make just to get the damn mod to even upload in the first place. Workshop is nothing but a frustration for me, even as a mod author. (well, I'm not big by any means, but I do like making mini-mods for my own benefit) That mod for Stellaris was the day I would stop making any other mods for the workshop entirely.

I get that people like the workshop, that's fine and dandy. Me personally? I detest it. After my experiences, I'll never use it again and I still cringe on a couple games I play that force me to use such a horrid implementation of modding to get a few things I want. Hosting a modded server for ARK, for instance, is a royal pain not only to keep it updated (at least until the devs stop updating the game every other day and constantly breaking crap all over the place), but also transferring the files to keep them updating is just a hassle.

Originally posted by Capt Fuzzy:

To those, who for whatever reason "hate the Steam workshop", here's an idea.., host your own site. That way you can control what gets put on it and what doesn't.
Don't know how to host your own site?
Do what I did, learn how to make a site, then learn how to host it yourself, it's not that hard. I've done it myself for several years now, and if I can do it, anyone can... lol

Actually, this can be true, but at the same time, no it isn't. Hosting a site isn't actually that easy. One, you have a bill to pay monthly. Two, depending on the service one goes with, bandwidth plays a big part. Google Drive has a free 15 GB limit that's usually more than plenty of space to host mods on since most are not more than a few megabytes. Trucks can easily push 200 MB alone, and then you have Jazzy's mods which easily reach beyond 2 GB. Honestly, I think Google Drive is possibly the easiest method to share mods with without having to deal with hosting services and the like.

You're also at the mercy of the host having updated services as well.. such as PHP, MySQL, (or SQLite if offered), Perl, Python, Linux OS they use, etc... and making sure their own security holes are plugged. That is, unless one wishes to self-host their own website off their own connection, but that, in itself, is actually a monumental task to even secure and fortify if one doesn't now what their doing. (which is why I don't self-host sites myself since websites are just a pain to fortify sometimes)

[Eddie Yantz]

I use non-workshop mods predominantly, and have never gotten a virus - I practice safe internet computing. Most mods cause gamelog errors (yes, even from the workshop).

Before using workshop mods, I disconnect them from the workshop,

then edit them to be error free (or I don't use them). I never play with a workshop mod enabed in Mod Manager.

[Pill Cosby]

Originally posted by Capt Fuzzy:

I get this, and I agree with it...
Why should we put our PCs at risk so you can make a few bucks off of something that, in all honesty, should be free anyway?
To those, who for whatever reason "hate the Steam workshop", here's an idea.., host your own site. That way you can control what gets put on it and what doesn't.
Don't know how to host your own site?
Do what I did, learn how to make a site, then learn how to host it yourself, it's not that hard. I've done it myself for several years now, and if I can do it, anyone can... lol

To bbe fair modders work hard and deserve something. This isn't the right way to do so.

[Big Danny K]

I totally agree with you! I always end up giving up on mods every time ESET flags ATS/ETS2 mod sites or download links for malware...

[but doctor, i am pagliacci]

Steam workshop doesn't give modders money. They need MONEY to live.

[TwinShadow]

I need money too to live. But you don't see me begging for money when I do post mods. Actually, I do need to switch the ones I did post over to Google Drive and get them off Mediafire... Not like I get paid by Mediafire anyway and they've become a hassle to use.

Most people post mods and do them in their own free time, outside of whatever it is they do in their daily lives. And well technically, they are free to choose where they wish to upload mods to anyway.

[Capt Fuzzy]

Originally posted by wnthm:

Steam workshop doesn't give modders money. They need MONEY to live.

Then get a "real" job like the rest of us...
Let's face facts, getting a good paying job in the gaming industry is about like getting an acting job, unless you can do something that really gets you noticed, you will live the life of the "starving artist".
It's nice to think "If I do this long enough, someone may hire me", and that does sometimes happen, but very rarely. Most of the time, you will end up broke and living the rest of your life in your parents basement. It is honorable that you are persuing what you want to do, but to think that you could actually make a living off of it is kind of a pipe-dream.
Most of the modders that I've known over the years, do what they do, not to get rich or make a living, but because they enjoy doing it. They enjoy enhancing not only their game play, but the game play of others as well. They do it for the fun of it and their reward is having players thank them for improving the game that they love.

The way I see it, if SCS thinks that your mods are that great, they will do one of two things:

1. They will pay you to make them so that they can then add them to the game.
Of course, by the time the "legal department" gets done with the contract, you probably won't get paid nearly what you think you should, plus, SCS will more than likely end up with all rights to it, meaning you will basically get a 'one-time' lump-sum payment for it, then they own it, and you go back to being broke again after the check is spent.

2. They will totally ignore you and then make a similar "update" or "DLC" that is just different enough to keep you from taking any legal action against them, and pocket the extra money themselves.

Two is probably more likely than one...

[HK714]

I only use ONE SWS mod - Klaas' Real Gas Prices. Everything else is off-Steam.

I hate workshop mods for the simple fact that most don't get updated to the latest ATS, and in the case of the transition from v1.5 to v1.6, it broke a lot of mods that were previously working fine.

So I prefer to have "local control" over my mods. That way if they need updating, I can do so without having to wait for the author to do it through SWS.

[Nimir-Raj]

From a modders perspective workshop is piece of s*t ballache and that is why most stuff on the workshop is skins. Because once they are uploaded skins you never have to think about them again.

But other mods like trucks, trailers, AI. It's not so easy. Yes some modders host on horrible ad ridden sites, because most of them also give the modder some pennies and some modders out there are just in it for the pennies.

Originally posted by Phileksa:

i won't get the mods if they're not distributed on Steam. it was getting mods for this game that got me viruses, and that ultimately lead to me using ad blockers.

As a modder I really don't care one iota where you chose to get your mods from. I make mods for me, not for you. I release them because I know others might be interested.

Originally posted by Phileksa:

ya'll say the ads on the mod sites are there to pay for the mod site, then ya'll say ya'll admit those ads give ya'll nasty viruses, ransomware, and other horrific malwares.

A small minority might have said that. I say don't touch mod sites littered with ads. Just use some common sense.

Originally posted by Phileksa:

so ya'll disable ads (thus disabling their income stream) in order to avoid getting the malware that comes with visiting their sites.

People have been using ad blockers long before ETS2/ATS came out. Because using adblockers and script blockers is just common safety practice on the internet. It's long been known that ad servers are under constant attack from people who want to embed nasty stuff in them.

Originally posted by Phileksa:

"but people can reupload my work on Steam!"

Ironically this is backwards. Most of the mods on these ad-virus sites are stolen mods that people are trying to make money off of. You can't make money from Steam, so they take mods (many from Steam) and put them on these god awful sites and often take credit for them.

Originally posted by Phileksa:

one of my favorite sites, MajorGeeks, has asked why i use ad blockers.

If they were truly geeks they'd be recommending ad blocking software to you. Why? Because any geek worth their salt should be more interested in a safe internet experience than making barely any money from ads.

Originally posted by Phileksa:

use the Steam Workshop.

No. As mentioned, from a modder perspective Workshop is a horriblly messy system, the uploader is often outdated for some time after a game update meaning some mods can't be updated, and if you want to support multiple versions (which on Workshop is pretty much required) then you're forced to keep old mods on your system. Which when you work from an SSD is also annoying as hell.

I completely support people not going to ad infested sites, I wouldn't either. But I don't make mods for you. After spending hours/days/weeks making them for myself, if I choose to upload & share them I will host them where it is easiest for me to do so.

On the brightside, my mods are not hosted anywhere that has ads. Give or take the occational one wordpress blog pages might have (again I've used adblockers for years, so I really don't know). My mods are always on google drive which is ad free.


Workshop has it's downsides from a modder point of view, particularly when you have been doing it the old EASIER way for 3 years through ETS2. When you only have a small handful of mods, or most of your mods are just skins, then it makes perfect sense to use workshop.

But when you have over 200 like I do, the workshop is not user friendly at all. I chose to stick some of the more popular mods there to give people options. But I certainly will never put the majority there.

The uploading downsides are unfortunate because from a subscriber perspective they are far easier to manage. It allows even the most computer illiterate person to use them. I just wish workshop was as user friendly for the modders.

[crow357]

Yeah, trying to make money by spreading viruses is no better than the hackers creating viruses. I'm done using Coast 2 Coast, Project West or any of the other crap posted on sharemods. If they can't post it on a legitimate web site, I'm not downloading it. If they stop posting on Steam, that'll just highlight the guys willing to post on steam for the love of the game.

[TwinShadow]

Sharemods is a legit site, its the only way I can get Jazzy's mods right now. Use an adblocker, script block, and its good to go. (I know he also uploads to uploaded.eu or whatever, but its slower and more cumbersome)

But of course, it is a choice where people want to download. Also, its not really the mod authors fault we use ad blocking software; its the ad companies themselves and web developers who plaster their pages in ads.

When I see my block counter hit upwards of 40 or more on one page, you know its a problem. Web devs don't want to vet for the safety of the ads (btw, google isn't safe either, one of my friends got infected through a google ad once), and the ad networks only care about getting the viewing space and don't vet for their own safety.

I can see a new for ads, don't get me wrong. But in this day and age, with more people becoming connected, safety of our viewing experiences need to be the #1 priority. All websites I host or manage will not have ads, at all. I can't vet for the safety of ads, and I'm not going to subject my users to something they can't control.

I guess that ends my rant for now, I suppose..

[crow357]

Sharemods has viruses and malware. It's one of the least legitimate sites I've ever been to. Right up there with porn sites. No thank you.

[Martial.Lore]

I only went to non-Steam mod site ModDB for a couple of games in my library that are not supported by Steam Workshop, namely S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat (Misery mod) and FTL (Captain's Edition), and if I could have got them from Steam Workshop, I would have. For those (like me, I'll admit it) who are less PC literate, mod finding, downloading, unzipping and installing, without Steam, is a frig-ging nightmare we would rather not have to revisit too often.

I love mods, though... I just wish the internet was not such a scary place.