Need an account to download mods?

[Mooncat]

Those who are unable to download mods from mods.factorio.com for whatever reason, ask me, I will upload them to anyone. I'm also against this move. PM will be the fastest way to notify me.

If you have a place to store them or mirror them I will collaborate.

As a modder, I don't like this. I want my mods to stay on Mod Portal. You shouldn't share the mods with players who are playing pirated Factorio.

[namek]

Those who are unable to download mods from mods.factorio.com for whatever reason, ask me, I will upload them to anyone. I'm also against this move. PM will be the fastest way to notify me.

If you have a place to store them or mirror them I will collaborate.

As a modder, I don't like this. I want my mods to stay on Mod Portal. You shouldn't share the mods with players who are playing pirated Factorio.

The thing is I don't ask why they need them, because it's not my business. I find it unfair that users must prove their purchase since it's private information. I also know that most people who haven't bought the game simply don't have money to buy it. This game isn't finished and it costs 20EUR. That's a lot of money. Try before You buy - that's my moto. Don't start talking about the demo. You don't like this, I don't like that. Lets agree to disagree. Life is unfair and we have to deal with it somehow.

[orzelek]

Those who are unable to download mods from mods.factorio.com for whatever reason, ask me, I will upload them to anyone. I'm also against this move. PM will be the fastest way to notify me.

If you have a place to store them or mirror them I will collaborate.

As a modder, I don't like this. I want my mods to stay on Mod Portal. You shouldn't share the mods with players who are playing pirated Factorio.

The thing is I don't ask why they need them, because it's not my business. I find it unfair that users must prove their purchase since it's private information. I also know that most people who haven't bought the game simply don't have money to buy it. This game isn't finished and it costs 20EUR. That's a lot of money. Try before You buy - that's my moto. Don't start talking about the demo. You don't like this, I don't like that. Lets agree to disagree. Life is unfair and we have to deal with it somehow.

There are few problems with your approach - especially with consistency and mod feedback.
And while noone forbids mirroring of mods some mod authors can complain and if mod license forbids redistribution you could be breaking it.
Biggest issue for me is the fact that with mod portal you know that delivered mod is consistent - if you mirror it there is no way to tell that it's the same mod. And I did spend some time investigating bugs that were caused by users getting a modified mod copy from somewhere so this is not purely theoretical issue.

[namek]

There are few problems with your approach - especially with consistency and mod feedback.
And while noone forbids mirroring of mods some mod authors can complain and if mod license forbids redistribution you could be breaking it.
Biggest issue for me is the fact that with mod portal you know that delivered mod is consistent - if you mirror it there is no way to tell that it's the same mod. And I did spend some time investigating bugs that were caused by users getting a modified mod copy from somewhere so this is not purely theoretical issue.

Some kind of hash can be used to prevent issues you've mentioned. But I really doubt that it's the bigger problem than mod portal itself, at least for me.

[Mooncat]

I know I shouldn't involve this conversation too much because it is not so meaningful. There is already a huge debate about pirate softwares. But I do find your points are a bit misleading.

I find it unfair that users must prove their purchase since it's private information.

You don't need to prove your purchase. You just need to create an account. In case you have the game on Steam, you just need to link it to your Steam account and that's it. No private information is involved.

Try before You buy - that's my moto.

No, people do not "try" the game this way. They are "playing" the game instead.
People can already obtain the full game somehow on some websites. Do they really need to also "try" the mods before purchase? I don't think people will purchase the game because they find mods are interesting. On the other hand, they will just keep it as is. They already have full access to all features, why do they need to purchase the game?

Life is unfair and we have to deal with it somehow.

I agree with you that life is unfair. But I don't understand what you are trying to achieve here. Are you trying to make the world fairer while being unfair to the devs and we modders? Or... do you think it is right to make the world even unfairer?

[namek]

With privacy stuff I've probably pushed too far. But with other things You've mentioned I just simply disagree.

[featherwinglove]

Played torrent-edition nearly a year (never paid for early access since there is so many abandon-ware). Was so excited about this game! Considered buying after release. But this move from devs totally frustrated me. I see where you're going. Factorio forgotten.

I would suggest not admitting to pirating the game and not buying it afterwards on the official forums, some moderators or developers might not appreciate that.

I'm pretty sure he's also not playing it afterwards as well, per "Factorio forgotten." That's a sale lost for sure.

And in general i have seen very few complaints about this system

And what percentage of those who have decided not to buy the game for this reason are going to take the trouble to create a forum account here and tell you guys? It seems likely that each complaint represents more than a hundred lost sales.

While I'm al for people buying the game. I don't think the difference in these numbers is just piracy vs legit copies.

It's also likely because it's a pain in the ass. It has become my habit to download every mod that's come out since my last login, even ones I might never use, simply because I don't want to log in every single time I need to download just one or two mods. Also privacy: this method tends to obfuscate my playing and modding habits to anyone snooping on my mod downloading behaviour. So, I download first and then shop afterwards.

[Mooncat]

It's also likely because it's a pain in the ass. It has become my habit to download every mod that's come out since my last login, even ones I might never use, simply because I don't want to log in every single time I need to download just one or two mods. Also privacy: this method tends to obfuscate my playing and modding habits to anyone snooping on my mod downloading behaviour. So, I download first and then shop afterwards.

nah, even this forum requires more login than the mod portal. The access token of the mod portal can last for a few days. Though it may be because I constantly check for new mods there.
But hey, you can still browse mods in game, without images, given that you have already logged in once. And this grants you the ability to use the updater. So I personally see no problem about the login part.

[featherwinglove]

I only access web sites using programs I know have trustworthy encryption, and I don't know that for Factorio. (For multiplayer, I'm good 'cus I've never heard of an MITM attack in a game ...probably the worst they could do is a ClusterTruck anyway.) I also have my browser public-workstation configured (it really is a shared computer, and even if it weren't, I don't want to lose any of my internet accounts should it get physically stolen): it blows up everything when it closes. History, passwords, cookies, LSOs, everything (it doesn't catch Unity Player Preference files, but I blow them up manually when, very seldom, I need to. This is the mechanism for saving games in Unity Web Player games like Reactor Incremental and AdVenture Capitalist.)

As for the forum vs. downloading mods: If I'm in a forum, I log in when I want to be tracked, and don't need to log in when I don't want to be tracked. Also, I can imagine someone not wanting his neighbours to know he owns and plays Factorio, e.g. Hutterites and Amish

[Factorie]

I pirate a good chunk of games, but Factorio I just had to purchase after hearing all the praise about the devs. I don't mind paying full price for a game that has a great dev team behind it, it's the ubishit games and such that I don't want to give my money to. But if I like a game, I'll purchase it legitimately.

[Aeternus]

Played torrent-edition nearly a year (never paid for early access since there is so many abandon-ware). Was so excited about this game! Considered buying after release. But this move from devs totally frustrated me. I see where you're going. Factorio forgotten.

I would suggest not admitting to pirating the game and not buying it afterwards on the official forums, some moderators or developers might not appreciate that.

Devs/studios that heavily (or falsely) advertise and release no demo for gamers to actually verify the product is as advertised should expect no different. I'm glad to say Factorio stays far away from that particular practise (the playable demo shows exactly what the game is). But with the amount of false advertising on the AAA platform, and the huge number of assetflips and other types of games that are utter crap on the indie side, you can't blame gamers for becoming suspicious of what gets pushed their way.
That said, I don't see the OP's issue as a problem. The mod portal is sort of an online service for Factorio, so... login makes sense.