DS Ideas or some other platform like that.

[Vargling]

Like LEGO Ideas, but naturally needing a lot less supporters.

 

Pitch the idea > Gain specified amount of supporters > Klei review it > Klei modify it > It makes it into the game.

 

This would make it possible for the community to vote in suggestions, much better than a forum, and it also opens the ability for massive suggestions like DLCs, such as Winter is Here (amazing :P) to be made into a real thing, maybe as a buyable DLC?

 

Small disclaimer: All money from the sales would naturally go to Klei. You're not going to get a 5% cut for pitching a pengulls fix.

[Ecu]

What happened to keeping things in a megathread?  lol.

Anyways, regarding this...while it seems like a good idea in concept, it actually wouldn't likely work out too well with a team as small as Klei has for DST.  If you are thinking something along the lines of officially implementing mods as actual content, it is also questionable.  There are quite a few legal loopholes that need to be jumped through to hand off content like that.

In addition, while a mod might have a great idea...it doesn't mean the idea is implemented in an optimized way, with art that matches the style perfectly, etc.  This could mean a significant amount of work to essentially reimplement aspects of the mod to make it into an official feature.  So, given my experience, I feel an idea like this would only give false hope.

However, the modding community could do something like this.  If enough mod authors were to work together, they could build a small team that could implement reasonably fleshed out and pitched ideas by the community.  It would be a lot of work to do and given that a majority of mod authors seem to focus on character mods currently, I'm not sure how reasonable it would be to get such a team together.

Anyways, these are my thoughts on this suggestion...

[Vargling]

6 hours ago, Ecu said:

What happened to keeping things in a megathread?  lol.

Anyways, regarding this...while it seems like a good idea in concept, it actually wouldn't likely work out too well with a team as small as Klei has for DST.  If you are thinking something along the lines of officially implementing mods as actual content, it is also questionable.  There are quite a few legal loopholes that need to be jumped through to hand off content like that.

In addition, while a mod might have a great idea...it doesn't mean the idea is implemented in an optimized way, with art that matches the style perfectly, etc.  This could mean a significant amount of work to essentially reimplement aspects of the mod to make it into an official feature.  So, given my experience, I feel an idea like this would only give false hope.

However, the modding community could do something like this.  If enough mod authors were to work together, they could build a small team that could implement reasonably fleshed out and pitched ideas by the community.  It would be a lot of work to do and given that a majority of mod authors seem to focus on character mods currently, I'm not sure how reasonable it would be to get such a team together.

Anyways, these are my thoughts on this suggestion...

There aren't any legal loopholes, Steam T&Cs cover it. It could just be a mod voting system like Rust, but I think Ideas is better, meaning people with no experience can get their ideas done.

It goes:

Gain Support

Klei decide if they want it or not

Klei revise/make/finish it

It's in-game.

[Ecu]

2 hours ago, Vargling said:

There aren't any legal loopholes, Steam T&Cs cover it. It could just be a mod voting system like Rust, but I think Ideas is better, meaning people with no experience can get their ideas done.

It goes:

Gain Support

Klei decide if they want it or not

Klei revise/make/finish it

It's in-game.

Actually no, Steam's T&C do not cover intellectual property rights of the mod author.  Klei would need to acquire said rights in order to use the assets from the mod.  Alternatively, they could definitely reimplement the concept on their own.  However, to do so would be unrealistic.  The time required would be quite huge and make the entire system rather pointless, as very few of such ideas would actually be implemented.

Granted, I cannot speak for Klei and they may decide they would like something like this.  However, from my experience and interaction with multiple Indie developers, I can say rather confidently that it isn't realistic.  Sorry...

[Vargling]

Just now, Ecu said:

Actually no, Steam's T&C do not cover intellectual property rights of the mod author.  Klei would need to acquire said rights in order to use the assets from the mod.  Alternatively, they could definitely reimplement the concept on their own.  However, to do so would be unrealistic.  The time required would be quite huge and make the entire system rather pointless, as very few of such ideas would actually be implemented.

Granted, I cannot speak for Klei and they may decide they would like something like this.  However, from my experience and interaction with multiple Indie developers, I can say rather confidently that it isn't realistic.  Sorry...

Dude, the users submit stuff themselves. That's literally giving them the rights, too. So what the hell are you on?

[Ecu]

14 minutes ago, Vargling said:

Dude, the users submit stuff themselves. That's literally giving them the rights, too. So what the hell are you on?

I worked for lawyers for two years.  Klei would have to draft a contract that the users agree to in order to grant rights on the content to Klei.  That alone would be reasonably costly for Klei to have written up (lawyers aren't cheap usually).  Even if they we willing to invest in such a thing, a lot of mod authors do not match the art style of DST.  Individual mod author coding styles may not match either, and require redevelopment of the mod scripts.  On average, it just isn't worth it for an indie company to implement something like this.

[Vargling]

4 hours ago, Ecu said:

I worked for lawyers for two years.  Klei would have to draft a contract that the users agree to in order to grant rights on the content to Klei.  That alone would be reasonably costly for Klei to have written up (lawyers aren't cheap usually).  Even if they we willing to invest in such a thing, a lot of mod authors do not match the art style of DST.  Individual mod author coding styles may not match either, and require redevelopment of the mod scripts.  On average, it just isn't worth it for an indie company to implement something like this.

Clearly you aren't understanding:

Klei choose whether to implement it

Klei revise it

 

Of course your silly weeb mods will be denied, what is your point?

[isthisworkingnow]

3 hours ago, Vargling said:

Clearly you aren't understanding:

Klei choose whether to implement it

Klei revise it

 

Of course your silly weeb mods will be denied, what is your point?

He's saying it would be too expensive and no mod perfectly mimicks the art style of DS/DST so it would have to be re-done which would take too much time.

[Vargling]

46 minutes ago, isthisworkingnow said:

He's saying it would be too expensive and no mod perfectly mimicks the art style of DS/DST so it would have to be re-done which would take too much time.

Yeah, clearly an 'Ideas' isn't going to overtake a DLC in priorities. Yes, they'll re-do it when they have time. As for code fixes, that's instant.

[TheKingDedede]

5 hours ago, Vargling said:

Clearly you aren't understanding:

Klei choose whether to implement it

Klei revise it

 

Of course your silly weeb mods will be denied, what is your point?

No need to be so rude, they're just giving you information that they think is relevant to the topic.

[Ecu]

7 hours ago, Vargling said:

Yeah, clearly an 'Ideas' isn't going to overtake a DLC in priorities. Yes, they'll re-do it when they have time. As for code fixes, that's instant.

I'm sorry, but what?  Modifying scripting of a mod to make sure it is optimized and up to their standard isn't instant or trivial in a lot of cases.  Generally speaking, when developing content like this, it is important to make as much of it as modular as you can.  This way components of one asset can be reused for others in the future.  So even a script of only a few hundred lines of code could take a few hours or more to refactor.  This isn't trivial time and adds up quite quickly per asset.

You also seem to not understand the psychological effect a system like this would have on their users.  There is a reason you don't see a majority of companies doing stuff like this.  It's a non-trivial investment for large companies to do, and a rather large investment for a Indie company.

[Arlesienne]

It's not a good idea as the others like @Ecu have already pointed out.

To relate to the Lego Ideas concept, it's comparing apples to oranges. Lego needs many upvotes in a relatively short time, but then, if they do start producing sets, the author of the design gets a cut of the sales, sometimes also being offered a job. At least that's how it worked last time I checked... Fret not, Christmas is coming, so I ought to get some Lego VIP offers to milk me dry, I can check again then !