This is really interesting. The guys behind Indie DB and Mod DB have announced mod.io, a new cross-platform API to give any game Steam Workshop-like mod support.
It's aimed to be a drop-in solution, that requires no external clients or anything. So it will enable players to upload, search, download and so on easily from within any game that supports it. The API is open, the SDK is on GitHub under the MIT license and they have a plugin coming soon for Unity. They plan plugins for Unreal, GameMaker and Lumberyard too, although since the SDK is open anyone can help build them.
"For too long there has been a lack of tools that help developers support creators in an agnostic manner, restricting modding to a small percentage of tech-savvy users. mod.io removes that barrier, enabling creation, curation and sharing, providing a way for developers to interact directly with their community," said CEO and co-creator Scott Reismanis.
It's completely free, just like Mod DB and Indie DB are. It seems they're hoping to make a bit of money from studios that want a private system, as they're offering their "licensed whitelabel solution" to anyone as well.
What's exciting, is that the open source RTS 0 A.D. has already announced their support of it, which will come with Alpha 23. They also have the sandbox game ECO and the virtual world game Sinespace that will support it.
This is brilliant stuff, can't wait to see it gain more support.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: CaenthI suppose as a gamer you don't have to do anything with this, just hoping more developers will support and use it?As a gamer you don't do anything, no. It's up to game developers to integrate it if they wish.
Quotethey even have plugins ready for GameMaker, Lumberyard, Unreal Engine and Unity.As far as I can tell the plugins aren't actually ready yet. The Unity one says coming soon and the others all say something like "we require an Unreal Engine plugin. Interested in building one? We'd love to hear from you".
Quoting: chipgwSounds really cool. Hopefully people will start using it.My bad, blame the lack of coffee, adjusted the text.
Quotethey even have plugins ready for GameMaker, Lumberyard, Unreal Engine and Unity.As far as I can tell the plugins aren't actually ready yet. The Unity one says coming soon and the others all say something like "we require an Unreal Engine plugin. Interested in building one? We'd love to hear from you".
They do seem to lack a robust system for version dependencies as well as inter-mod dependencies too.
Really happy to see someone working on providing a reference for how to do mod handling though, this does tend to end up far too big of a mess usually.
Last edited by Ananace on 15 May 2018 at 6:27 pm UTC
P.s. I get how people don't like gaming services getting "centralised" around Steam but it's often due to having a wrong idea. It's like saying PC is centralised around Windows.
Quoting: cprnI get the target audience is software that doesn't release on Steam at all but let's face it: most of games sooner or later does.And they can still keep using mod.io, unless they absolutely need Steam Workshop for the Steam client integration. I don't really care if the game provides their own mod manager using some other service.
Quoting: GuestQuoting: cprn....
P.s. I get how people don't like gaming services getting "centralised" around Steam but it's often due to having a wrong idea. It's like saying PC is centralised around Windows.
How's this for ya: monopolized
It's rather condescending to think that you, above anyone who disagrees with you, have the "right" idea.
The wrong idea of thinking Valve invented workshops because they wanted to take over the world in one way or another. They didn't. It was released for developers because they saw it working for Half-Life and wanted the same thing for their games without the effort of implementing the whole thing from scratch. Same goes for updates, multiplayer and input layers. The "according to facts" idea is usually the right one.
Also, it's far from monopoly. You can implement a different solution - that's exactly what mod.io does. All I'm saying is hating on Valve makes no sense here and it won't make life easier for developers. The opposite. All Steam service layers exist because of this sole reason - devs wanted it easier.
Quoting: tuubiQuoting: cprnI get the target audience is software that doesn't release on Steam at all but let's face it: most of games sooner or later does.And they can still keep using mod.io, unless they absolutely need Steam Workshop for the Steam client integration. I don't really care if the game provides their own mod manager using some other service.
Yeah, but that's for as long as there aren't many. It kind of reminds an xkcd strip about standards. The one where they say:
Quote- Hey, there are 13 competing standards for this!
- You're right! That's awful! We should make our own that will merge all the good solutions and leave out the bad ones to make life easier for everyone around!
...
- Hey, there are 14 competing standards for this!
When each solution has its own problems and many different games use many different solutions for the same thing it's very hard to make anything consistent and inconsistencies are what frustrates the end user. That's how e.g. Microsoft and Adobe stole big chunks of their markets.
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