Do you think Wube would buy/hire Bobs mod dev(s)?

[Jeeto]

Would be nice if they incorporated Angel's or Bob's into an "Advanced" option you can just turn on in the game itself. There will always be even more mods that would come along and make things more advanced, but I bet even more users would flip on the advanced mode after they got bored of their vanilla map if there was something just built-in and could be turned on at any time or a research that unlocks previously "hidden" ore fields you didn't see before or whatever.

[boran_blok]

no, because with official support comes official expectations.

I like bobs mods, but they can be reaaaally grindy, having this as an optional self inflicted thing removes all critisizm wube might receive from this.

[Daid]

While I like bob's mods and angles mods, They are not up to the same quality as I would expect for the main game.

Also, it's pretty clear from some of bob's comments that he has access to the factory source code, pretty sure he assists in things and likes doing so on his free time. I've been there with hiring a community contributor for a project (different project), and while it worked for a while. He left after a few months because he liked working on things in his own direction on his own accord.

[Ghoulish]

I honestly dont believe they would add features to the game (especially at this stage) as complicated as angels or bobs. Purely for the fact that it would then be up to Wube to maintain even more code / additional balancing. And not withstanding the fact that these mods really take the factorio experience to a whole new level of complicated. So I doubt they would buy one of them. As for hiring, would be harder to say. Bilka was recruited from the community after all. But I imagine for Wube, there must be a host of additional criteria to be met other than ability to code.

[Hannu]

I hope not. Complexity of these mods is far beyond usable level in vanilla game. Only minority of players want it. I prefer to get my Bob's & Angel's without compromises which would be inevitable if mods were included in vanilla game

[T-A-R]

Having some good modders around is just as valuable for them i guess. Having a active modding community is a sign of a dedicated player base. Independent modders are way more free then they would be on a payroll.
Though i would pay for joined force pack; mods with more of a vanilla look.

[b_d]

seems more their unique FORK of their MODS gives more interesting output. WUBE more concentrated in Stabilizing and Balancing the game to even think about other mods Till 1.0 is released and then select stable Mods to include in the Alpha Packages 0.15 or 0.16 and up

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, Bob's (and even Angel's), as awesome as they are, lack polish.

Now Deadlock's Industrial Revolution, that's another thing - I *swear*, it's more polished than vanilla !
(Of course, he has a much easier job than most Wube devs, not having to deal with the C++ side...)

But anyway, I don't see the point, this "advanced option" is just the built-in mods browser. Angel & Bob just need to make an "Angel & Bob Official Modpack" mod (with relevant prerequisites), and it would quickly end up as one of the most downloaded mods...

And big modders already get money in the form of Paypal payments, and now monthly subscriptions like Patreon (for those that don't mind it).

[Serenity]

The devs shy away from anything advanced and difficult these days. In fact they are removing complexity from the base game before 1.0

[eradicator]

Now Deadlock's Industrial Revolution, that's another thing - I *swear*, it's more polished than vanilla ! :lol:

Eh...eh. I totally respect the work of @Deadlock, and maybe the mod is a well polished approximation of what he wanted to achieve. But it does - as most mods - apply a standard tiering model to stretch content. Rivets Mk1~Mk5, Plates Mk1~Mk5, Ore Mk1~Mk5, *everything* Mk1~Mk5. Sure, stuff has fancy names, but the pattern is obvious and repetitive. And often i have trouble telling different items apart because they're too similar in color/design (tin vs iron, plate vs reinforced plate). Vanilla imho has a well distilled set of "different enough" items to not have any obvious patterns except ore→plate, and keeps all intermideate products relevant even in the end-game where IR feels like much of each tier is useless once the next tier is unlocked. At least that's my impression from the first ~15 hours. TL;DR: To me IR is distinctly "mod quality" not "vanilla quality".

But anyway, I don't see the point, this "advanced option" is just the built-in mods browser.

This. Advanced mode already exists.

And big modders already get money in the form of Paypal payments, and now monthly subscriptions like Patreon (for those that don't mind it).

Neither bob nor angel have donation links on the portal pages, and all the patreon links i've seen on the portal so far are from "small" modders and have "0$/month 0 patreons". Deadlock stated that he doesn't expect to get even one penny ever for his mod. Do you have sources that proof this wild claim?

[evopwr]

Well, I would like an advanced mode. Not necessarily any of the existing mods, but just an expanded research tree/buildings that is half way between vanilla and any of the mod packs in terms of complexity. Like a stepping stone. It could unlock after completing Normal mode. Gives normal people an incentive to do another round.
You guys also need to remember, the people on this forum are the minority hard core. The majority of players will not play mods, as typically mods for games are dangerous, buggy, and risky (theres a lot of of dodgy stuff out there). How are they to know how amazing the mods are in Factorio? Most players will not play any mods. So give them something built in I say.
And no I dont count "expensive mode" as covering this off. Expensive mode can be removed IMHO.
And if you dont like the idea of an Advanced Mode, then dont play it...
But for those who do like the idea, its worth doing IMHO,
$5 DLC after 1.0 ?

[BlueTemplar]

I'd buy the promised nuclear cooling cycle and space platforms as DLC.

What you want is a New "Complex" difficulty.

And big modders already get money in the form of Paypal payments, and now monthly subscriptions like Patreon (for those that don't mind it).

Neither bob nor angel have donation links on the portal pages, and all the patreon links i've seen on the portal so far are from "small" modders and have "0$/month 0 patreons". Deadlock stated that he doesn't expect to get even one penny ever for his mod. Do you have sources that proof this wild claim?

Yes, Deadlock specifically stated that he didn't want any money... but he would take "a lifesize monowheel and a flying helmet" !

Bob's Paypal
Bob's Patreon.

Angel's Paypal

Earendel's Paypal and Patreon are in his signature.

[eradicator]

It could unlock after completing Normal mode.

Honestly i'd rather have it unlock after building a rocket or something. I.e. "post-rocket content". And i'd like it to be actually new stuff. I honestly can't for the life of me understand why people enjoy "building circuits now requires 20 subcomponents that have no use otherwise". I think it just shows that everyone wants more content, but noone has come up with any good ideas yet. Space Exploration looks like the first thing that has actually new mechanics from the description (haven't played yet).

The majority of players will not play mods,

Agree. But i think it's mostly due to the "findability". There's a huge mountain of mods out there and most people "can't be bothered"/have no time to decide for themselfs what mods they want to play. Which is also reflected in the group of people that *do* play mods: they just look at what's most popular and don't think about it. My gut feeling says that 80% of all "modded players" play "Bob&Angels with RSO and LTN". Pyanodon is slowly climbing up but has been overlooked for quite long. Most people probably haven't even heared about Xander's Mod. The Minecraft community tried to solve it with modpacks that bundle *hundreds* of mods into one easy installable package each. And then there started to be tens of "modpack managers" and hundrets of modpacks and again only the most "visible" ones were played.

Try asking yourself: How many mods do you play that aren't on the first 5 pages of "most downloaded"?

as typically mods for games are dangerous, buggy, and risky (theres a lot of of dodgy stuff out there).

Dangerous? Risky? Never heard that. I don't play many games so i'm a bit short on examples, but there are many large, well organized modding communities. Diablo 2, Skyrim, Minecraft to name just the ones i know. And factorio mods aren't really less buggy than mods in other games. Factorio just protects the "engine" better from the shit that mods do.

How are they to know how amazing the mods are in Factorio? Most players will not play any mods. So give them something built in I say.

If you give them "something built-in" they will still not realize that there are great mods out there. And when they're done with the new stuff they will once again come back here and demand for "more vanilla content". It's catch22. The only way out is to make more players play mods, and i think the awesome modding support built right into the main menu of the game is the best attempt i've ever seen at doing this.

$5 DLC after 1.0 ?

Wouldn't mind another 20, but as far as i remember wube stated they don't want to make paid dlc to not split the community. So... let's just wait for 2.0 :D.

___________
@BlueTemplar

Huh. So Erendel has 30 patreons, but i can't see how much money that is per month? Bob has a whooping "$26/month" from patreon. Therefore i conclude that your statement "Big modders get money" is misrepresenting reality in the same way that "Humans live in space" would misrepresent the bunch of astronauts living on the ISS. :p

[BlueTemplar]

Oh, right, I forgot that one could see that... I had no idea about the actual numbers of subscribers/money involved... and we still don't know about Paypal, though I'd expect those opening a Patreon to quickly dwarf the Paypal amounts !

[Light]

Any negatives towards mods not being polished is ultimately an unfair comparison for two primary reasons. The first reason is they can only make use of the tools that Wube provides them, which as history has shown sometimes means having things taken away for reasons that may make sense for vanilla but aren't necessarily relevant to mods. The second is obviously that by being employees of Wube it's their job to spend 8+ hours a day working on game development when mod creators (as shown above) can't pay the bills and commit to development full time. I could only imagine how polished they'd be if they were also receiving a cheque for their work too. Though we mustn't also forget that Wube is a group of employees with varied talents too, as it's not just Korvarex making his passion project in his basement anymore with programmer graphics.

Ultimately I can't envision Wube incorporating mods like Angel's or Bob's primarily because vanilla is a simplified experience when that simplicity is the core reason we use mods knowing it's not going to necessarily fit vanilla yet still add more to the game. Many things would have to be altered to gel better with vanilla and they would cease to be what they are today. I can't picture them wanting to leave things like Bob's circuit and module creation in tact given the many intermediates you have to contend with. Apparently three oil outputs was too complicated with vanilla so Angel's would have to be entirely gutted to better fit vanilla since there are entities with far more inputs/outputs than that, not including the 80+ fluid/gasses over the standard amount.

Such expectations from the community wouldn't be unreasonable if it's an official toggle, with many bitching and moaning how different the game would feel otherwise. So with that said I can't see it happening in the slightest, though Space Exploration could have been a contender if it were far less involved and complicated than it currently is given how Factorio is seriously lacking in any end-game content for the moment.

---

Huh. So Erendel has 30 patreons, but i can't see how much money that is per month? Bob has a whooping "$26/month" from patreon. Therefore i conclude that your statement "Big modders get money" is misrepresenting reality in the same way that "Humans live in space" would misrepresent the bunch of astronauts living on the ISS. :p

You lost me here as you just proved they are getting money, therefore the statement is correct regardless of the sum being made. Your sarcastic remark of a "whooping" amount of money seems to imply you have to pass some subjective threshold to somehow qualify.

I'm a patron to Earendel because his mods have enhanced the experience of the game so much that it's worth a few dollars a month in my eyes. Angel and Bob have also received a tip for their effort in improving the game, which I wouldn't have done if it didn't provide many hours of content to further enrich my $25 game experience.

Unless I misinterpreted your reply it seems obvious that more popular mods get more exposure for contribution with large scale mods providing more "bang for your buck" as it were; Though I would honestly applaud any mod developer out there that could make enough bank to pay their bills and commit full time to modding, there are many who simply don't want to push that angle and are happy receiving whatever they get rather than paywall people to achieve that sort of result. This too contributes as to why Angel/Bob/etc. aren't necessarily making much when people aren't being pressured into it and having it thrown in their faces everywhere they go. That sort of humble attitude is becoming more rare as time goes by and it's refreshing to see content creators with that mindset, especially with a game like Factorio that has a thriving modding scene.

... Now I'm thinking about how I miss when most Youtube content creators big or small didn't promote their patreons in every damn video, often before AND after you're watching it for the intended content.

[eradicator]

Huh. So Erendel has 30 patreons, but i can't see how much money that is per month? Bob has a whooping "$26/month" from patreon. Therefore i conclude that your statement "Big modders get money" is misrepresenting reality in the same way that "Humans live in space" would misrepresent the bunch of astronauts living on the ISS. :p

You lost me here as you just proved they are getting money, therefore the statement is correct regardless of the sum being made. Your sarcastic remark of a "whooping" amount of money seems to imply you have to pass some subjective threshold to somehow qualify.

I never said the statement was wrong. What i wanted to express is that most people reading "they get money for it" will assume that the money-getting is an important part of modding, which it is not [1]. 26$/month might not even be enough to pay the extra electricity that bob's computer wouldn't need if he *didn't* make mods. Also stating "but they get money for it" is often used to discredit people in some way [2], and i think it's healtier for the community if people have a correct understanding of the fact that "the big modders" don't "do it for the money", because they already know there's not much to be gotten. Not even mentioning the "small modders". So i'm not sure what you're trying to proof by shouting at me.

Unless I misinterpreted your reply it seems obvious that more popular mods get more exposure for contribution with large scale mods providing more "bang for your buck" as it were;

I was trying to explain that what you call "popular" i call merely "well visible". The "download count" is heavily skewed to very old mods and mods that do frequent updates, and i've voiced my dissatisfaction with this many times already. Visibility is basically a self-fullfilling prohecy. The download count only moves upwards. And of course "popular" has never been equivalent to "good" (do i have to explain that this doesn't mean "all popular things are crap"?).

Though I would honestly applaud any mod developer out there that could make enough bank to pay their bills

Never heared of any game where that is even remotely realistic. It's a nice dream. But the more realistic route is for higly visible modders to be employed by the "parent company" and becoming non-modders. Or to start making their own game (ask bob about that :p). Modding is far to strongly percieved as "free stuff" to make it into a job.

... Now I'm thinking about how I miss when most Youtube content creators big or small didn't promote their patreons in every damn video, often before AND after you're watching it for the intended content.

My "favourite" is when someone tells me "don't forget to subscribe", where the use of "forget" belittles peoples choice to not subscribe to every channel they've watched a single video on.

__________
[1] In linguistics this is called the Maxim of quantity. It states that for a successful communication any approximated mention of a quantity should be on the same order of magnitude as the exact quantity. For example saying "There were more than 100 visitors at the festival" if there were actualy 52845 is a misrepresentation (you should say "more than 50k"), and if you talked like that in reality people will stop listening to you very quickly. In this case the lack of an explicit mention of quantity implies that the quantity is "about average" when compared to other cases where people "get money" for doing something (i.e. salaries).

[2] In this case "big modders already get money [emphasis added]" implies that wube shouldn't give them any money because they already get enough of it to make a living.

[BlueTemplar]

Hmm, yes, poor phrasing on my part, thanks !

I was trying to explain that what you call "popular" i call merely "well visible". The "download count" is heavily skewed to very old mods and mods that do frequent updates, and i've voiced my dissatisfaction with this many times already. Visibility is basically a self-fullfilling prohecy. The download count only moves upwards. And of course "popular" has never been equivalent to "good" (do i have to explain that this doesn't mean "all popular things are crap"?).

The in-game mod browser seems to default to "Trending", which I guess means "has been downloaded a lot recently" ?
(The website defaults to "Last Updated".)

[eradicator]

Hmm, yes, poor phrasing on my part, thanks !

Being understood is all i hoped for, thank you too! As a modder myself i simply prefer if people understand the reality of modding. So i tried to explain why i find your statement's vagueness detrimental to the image of modders in general. I don't want to get into all these pointless "forum wars" about who's right or wrong.

The in-game mod browser seems to default to "Trending", which I guess means "has been downloaded a lot recently" ?

Trending is "deviation from last month's average downloads" (source). As far as i remember @Sanqui also talked about some exceptions for "mods with high total download count" (can't find source on that). In essence "Trending" is meant to make finding "fresh" mods easier because "most downloaded" is pretty mush set in stone by now. As trending is also based on download count it might be prone to the same problems that normal dl count is. I've seen at least one mod author pushing lots of empty "updates" just to stay on "Page 1" of "recently updated".

(All of this is getting wildly off-topic though...)

[planetmaker]

Would be nice if they incorporated Angel's or Bob's into an "Advanced" option you can just turn on in the game itself. There will always be even more mods that would come along and make things more advanced, but I bet even more users would flip on the advanced mode after they got bored of their vanilla map if there was something just built-in and could be turned on at any time or a research that unlocks previously "hidden" ore fields you didn't see before or whatever.

No. Just because a mod is great doesn't mean that it should be part of the base game. The base game is great as well and doesn't need an(other) integrated hardcore mode.

[Mango]

No. Just because a mod is great doesn't mean that it should be part of the base game. The base game is great as well and doesn't need an(other) integrated hardcore mode.

+1

On the other hand it wouldn't be a bad idea to somehow show what can be achieved using the Factorio API. Just some minor teasers.

Lets say a showdown of some cool functions/effects at the end of final camping? maybe?