Update on modding

[alpholy 0]

Yesterday, Monte Cristo upload content pack one. But after installing it. I can't use any mod again.
I can't enter the game agian even for single and I have to delete all mod, then I can enter the game.
This is someone in the forum install this pack and get this reply from Monte Cristos
The reply is
Dear koookini,
Thank you for your interest in Cities XL.
You are right - this crash is caused by our new patch, which is preventing players from using mod files (in solo and planet modes).
That is our policy.
Best regards,
The Cities XL Support Team
You also disturb our single-player too.
No mod is allowed, if that, please delete singer-player mode then. It is ridicious
I am just very dissappointed with MC.
Also, don't ban me. I just talk about the truth.
Don't install this update if you want to play with mod!


Edited for derogatory bashing.
--Liv
CXL Forums Moderator

[Androv 6]

If the mod was letting people make excessive money in planet offer mode, then it's an exploit. It would be like allowing a player to insta-kill anything on Warcraft. Therefore it needs to be prevented from happening. Making them a sensible, ethical company

This post is going to be wiped out anyway though...

[SimBurger 0]

Let me translate his post for those of you who can't make heads or tails of what he's saying:

Paraphrase: He screwed with the software and modified it. Monte Cristo's recent patch intentionally disabled his Mod and gave him a slap on the wrist. Now he's mad and wants Monte Cristo to go down the toilet.

End Paraphrase.

Edited for inappropriate comment.

--Liv

CXL Forums Moderator

[alpholy 0]

It means no plugin or mod in single-player mode,

[Wackee 8]

Originally posted by: alpholy

Dear koookini,

Thank you for your interest in Cities XL.

You are right - this crash is caused by our new patch, which is preventing players from using mod files (in solo and planet modes).

That is our policy.

Best regards,

The Cities XL Support Team

quote>

Well, thanks for clarifying.

I hope, this thread won't get deleted, as this info could be interesting for many of us.

[Palpatine001 57]

Ok something doesnt stack up here...

MCs content uploads shouldnt crash the game unless someone has hacked it and modified it "illegally"

Mean time bagging MC like that is not productive.

[mentarman 14]

Your call for a boycott makes absolutely no sense.

People are either interested enough in the game to buy it, or not.

Once they have it, they either like it enough to pay for the PO or not.

I doubt you are going to get very many people who like the game and want to keep the PO to drop the PO because of your temper tantrum.

As for people who don't like the game very much, or aren't enjoying it enough to pay for the PO, well, they will already not pay for the PO based on their experience.

This isn't a product like Coke or a store like Walmart where you can boycott it and ask others to do the same.

[parrotti 11]

i will so not buy this game, i think the more mods a game have, then more people will buy the game, dont you.

when i go to the bakkery and i buy a bread , then its not onley allowed to put peanutbuther on it .

Edited for inappropriate comment

--Liv

CXL Forums Moderator

[alpholy 0]

I can't play the game(single-player mode) when I am using https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=22754

It is resource mod. I must delete it in order to play this game.

[RorciaK 0]

ok... iv read ign's and gamespots review and read through numerous forums regarding the positives and negatives(!!) and... i still want to play this game lol. I never have played a city building game and i want to give it a shot(also i cant really relate or understand the impact of these flaws since iv never played this genre). From the reviews to the readers responses simcity 4 seems to be the king of city building games but i dont want to put my money into a game thats 5+ years old. So im left with this... 40 bucks is not that much but just throwing it away is not acceptable. if id known about the demo a few months back id be good right now but im in this dilemma..

ok im done venting, by the end of this week i will decide to buy or not to buy

sidenote- i played starcraft back in the day(14-15yrs old) and was hooked, now play Halo Wars, Civilization Revolution, n gears2 on xbox

[danny_1990 0]

Alpholy, can I just say...your english is very confusing. Hey, I'm just being honest, you know?

[alpholy 0]

Originally posted by: danny_1990

Alpholy, can I just say...your english is very confusing. Hey, I'm just being honest, you know?quote>

I have corrected the article.

[GMT 389]

Just to catch the drift here: what kind of mod are they reffering to?

I mean, there's a quadrillion mods here and on other sim city sites that revamp the game but not interfere with legal policies.

So there's two ways to get an interpretation in this:

either the respective mod was indeed too much to be considered legal OR Monte Cristo is very picky when it comes to changing the game whenever it goes beyond custom content.

[alpholy 0]

It refers to all mod not created by Monte Cristos.

[moaku 74]

You have a solution to avoid this "anti mod unfair crash"... Just reinstall your game and do all updates until 383.... Once 383 is installed, quit the launcher, edit Version.cfg and adapt it to match the lastest version to avoid your game being updated...

What mc don't get is that the more "evil" they are with restrictions, the more anger they will make to their custommer... and a geek community angered can do miracles sometimes

However, there still is at least 1 way to use mods in lastest build, but it's not an easy way...

Anyway it's a matter of hours or days... They're fool if they think they can stop the modding scene now It's too late... that's what we get when rushing an unfinished game... The more restrictions they put on, the more "agressive" and "with no scrupules" the modding scene will be... it's sad that it's the path they choosed... but anyway, it's the situation where we're going on...

[DazzaDazza 29]

I don't see what is so confusing about what he is saying,

All the mods uploaded onto this site recently now don't work because of this new patch.

This was always going to be a problem with moding CXL, because the game changed so much, the people that crated the mods have to constantly have to update there work. , maybe its not a problem for same people but I can see that wearing a bit thin on some other people, and they would stop uploading there work Thus stopping what made SC4 a grate game over so many years.

I can understand it you wont to use these mods in PO, but for single player that's a bit annoying, maybe MC should give us a "sand box" mode like they promised then we wont need these mods

[Glenni 1,444]

There are several others games i can spend my money on, and CXL won't be one of them, i'd rather get something for PC that i can actually mod... come on, a PC game that's a badly made sim city clone should at least allow you to have mods for single player. ESPECIALLY when they removed all the real guts of it that it originally had. Or wait, maybe it never did in the first place! Now there's a thought... hmmm

...and you don't even have to be a fanboy of Sim City to dislike it either, i have friends that aren't particularily into City Simulators but have an open mind to try it out, yet even they found it flawed, and last but not least it basically forces you to pay for the planet offer if you need to implement mass transit in your cities...

Congratulations, Monte Cristo!

Edited for derogatory bashing.

--Liv

CXL Forums Moderator

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: alpholy

It refers to all mod not created by Monte Cristos.quote>

Monte Cristo actually supports mods that "add content, but forbids mods that modify the game rules"

Le point important c'est qu'on va différencier 'contenu' et 'modding'. Le modding consistant à changer les rêgles du jeu n'est pas une possibilité pour Cities XL en ligne (essentiellement pour des questions de triche et de gameplay), par contre les nouveaux contenus comme les T-shirts, les bâtiments etc seront au contraire les bienvenus. quote>

source

[moaku 74]

Definitely not true...

I have done a mod that adds a larger bulldozer and terraformer which do not alter existing files, and guess what ? It don't work anymore on 392...

[citiesxlfan42 27]

Monte Cristo actually supports mods that "add content, but forbids mods that modify the game rules"

Pah!!! They don't even have a BAT artist, rather a lot editor!!!(I don't know how to quote!)

Yes, RorciaK the game IS still alive,thanks to THIS website and several others. On this site alone, we have over 10,000 mods, and the number rises every day. And the game is sold at any electronics store or dept. store. for about $10!!!

Any city building game is kept alive HERE! Well, except Monte Cristo's failure.

City Life ain't THAT bad, is it?

[Stef42 0]

I think it's 100% correct what MC has done now, mods only mess up the game and certainly the online feature

That unfair..

Mods for Solo, fine to me!

[moaku 74]

Stef: That's the problem... now it's "Mods for nobody"... not even for solo... Even if making a "Solo only" solution would have been easyly possible by many different ways for them...

[mikeregan 0]

I can see M/C doing this for the PO portion of the game but not the solo mode.  Simcity4 creators seemed to appreciate the input from the public and were not threatened by it. Too bad M/C is so paranoid. We were all expecting more from M/C. I'm ashamed of myself for buying the program and I hope others re-consider their future purchase.

Edited for inappropriate comment.

--Liv

CXL Forums Moderator

[IntoxiNation 0]

Simple Solution for MC - Sandbox mode. That was basically the mod that most used before the update. If MC created a sandbox mode for offline, then some anger might be diverted. There are people who really don't care about the "game play" aspect of city builders, but rather just build really big and cool cities.

Likewise it would be nice if MC would actually publish their policies some where. I have checked the manual and their site and can't find them. Let's think about the problem this causes. Simtropolis is hosting a mod file for CXL that is a violation of MC policies, yet MC has stated that Simtropolis is one of their defacto support forums. To a new user this would be really confusing - "why is it a violation for me to download a mod file from a site considered a support forum for the game?"

It does look like the mods have been removed by the Simtropolis folks - good job! It would just be nice if MC was a little more forthcoming on what can and can't be done. It really helps keep the honest people honest. Sure more mods will popup, if anything MC just gave the mod writers a great incentive/challenge, and MC will most likely disable those in the future, then the whole cycle repeats.

Just my 2 cents on this new development, and one that got me also on the upgrade.

[Mathew_MC 0]

Time for an update on the modding situation, I guess.

Currently, any modifications to the files will impact both solo and online game. And a "money tree" mod is perfectly fine when used only in solo, but becomes cheating as long as it is used online. And though I know the modding community has no intention of cheating or using mods to illegal means, I can tell you some players are doing so.

Unfortunately, the opposite statement is also true: any measure we might take to make cheating harder might cause issues for legit solo modding. At least, until we integrate changes to clearly separate both: such changes are currently under development and should take the simple form of a separate folder in which modified files could be added for solo and ignored when playing online.

Some of you will probably think this comes late, and it probably does, but though the basic idea is indeed simple, it takes a bit longer to technically implement it. On the other hand, solutions against online cheating cannot be postponed that much as they can ruin the game experience of other players. I'm sorry that in the meanwhile it means more workarounds for players who only want to play solo and mod their solo games.

Alpholy, the wording in the answer you received is a bit awkward, as it is not our policy to prevent solo modding, as I explained above. The only thing is we cannot provide support on modded clients. But as soon as this "mod folder" system is ready, modding will be made much easier.

Gregory's quote in French is a bit out of context here as it only refers to the online part of the game ("en ligne") and was in a thread about a mod that only modifies the textures for an avatar t-shirt.

I hope this will clear things up a bit on our position.

PS: As a note, a "sandbox mode" for solo, with infinite money and such, is also under development.

[GlobexCo 33]

Originally posted by: Mathew_MC

Time for an update on the modding situation, I guess.

Currently, any modifications to the files will impact both solo and online game. And a "money tree" mod is perfectly fine when used only in solo, but becomes cheating as long as it is used online. And though I know the modding community has no intention of cheating or using mods to illegal means, I can tell you some players are doing so.

Unfortunately, the opposite statement is also true: any measure we might take to make cheating harder might cause issues for legit solo modding. At least, until we integrate changes to clearly separate both: such changes are currently under development and should take the simple form of a separate folder in which modified files could be added for solo and ignored when playing online.

Some of you will probably think this comes late, and it probably does, but though the basic idea is indeed simple, it takes a bit longer to technically implement it. On the other hand, solutions against online cheating cannot be postponed that much as they can ruin the game experience of other players. I'm sorry that in the meanwhile it means more workarounds for players who only want to play solo and mod their solo games.

Alpholy, the wording in the answer you received is a bit awkward, as it is not our policy to prevent solo modding, as I explained above. The only thing is we cannot provide support on modded clients. But as soon as this "mod folder" system is ready, modding will be made much easier.

Gregory's quote in French is a bit out of context here as it only refers to the online part of the game ("en ligne") and was in a thread about a mod that only modifies the textures for an avatar t-shirt.

I hope this will clear things up a bit on our position.

PS: As a note, a "sandbox mode" for solo, with infinite money and such, is also under development.

quote>

Thank you for the answer.

The sandbox mode (as well as the map modifier) was designed to help solo players in building a realistic town.

A solo player, after putting a real world map as layer, was able to rebuild the real city without problems of money.

I agree with your policy against the cheats in PO mode, but I hope we'll find soon in our SP menus a "sandbox" button.

And yes, it means more workarounds or modders, so I hope that in future MC won't close all the doors for modders.

(adding a map as layers isn't a cheat, don't you think?)

[Livin in Sim 83]

Thanks Mathew!  OK, I'm going to reopen this thread.  Please discuss only the issues and refrain from remarks directed personally at others.

--Liv

CXL Forums Moderator

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: Mathew_MC

Time for an update on the modding situation, I guess.

Currently, any modifications to the files will impact both solo and online game. And a "money tree" mod is perfectly fine when used only in solo, but becomes cheating as long as it is used online. And though I know the modding community has no intention of cheating or using mods to illegal means, I can tell you some players are doing so.

Unfortunately, the opposite statement is also true: any measure we might take to make cheating harder might cause issues for legit solo modding. At least, until we integrate changes to clearly separate both: such changes are currently under development and should take the simple form of a separate folder in which modified files could be added for solo and ignored when playing online.

Some of you will probably think this comes late, and it probably does, but though the basic idea is indeed simple, it takes a bit longer to technically implement it. On the other hand, solutions against online cheating cannot be postponed that much as they can ruin the game experience of other players. I'm sorry that in the meanwhile it means more workarounds for players who only want to play solo and mod their solo games.

Alpholy, the wording in the answer you received is a bit awkward, as it is not our policy to prevent solo modding, as I explained above. The only thing is we cannot provide support on modded clients. But as soon as this "mod folder" system is ready, modding will be made much easier.

Gregory's quote in French is a bit out of context here as it only refers to the online part of the game ("en ligne") and was in a thread about a mod that only modifies the textures for an avatar t-shirt.

I hope this will clear things up a bit on our position.

PS: As a note, a "sandbox mode" for solo, with infinite money and such, is also under development.

quote>

That is awesome news - thanks! I actually had that mod, but didn't know it worked in planet mode, which is cheating. To me it was great to "experiment" in solo mode and figure out what does what and start getting an idea of sizes, etc of different items. That was the only way it had any affect on my online playing - just knowledge of what is exactly what.

I do think a custom map mod would be great for solo play also. I always liked building in SC4 using a Cincinnati area map, since we have such a neat geography. Of course a tool developer by SC to take a relief map or DEM and covert it to a playable map in solo mode would be awesome (hint hint).

[warrior 169]

At least, until we integrate changes to clearly separate both: such changes are currently under development and should take the simple form of a separate folder in which modified files could be added for solo and ignored when playing online.quote>

I'm glad you saw the light, I suggested this in the beta but was answered with Not going to happen.

And RorciaK: You will not exactly be playing a game(Simcity 4) that is 5 years old, the modding community means that it is not finished yet, plus it is much cheaper than CXL and there's no on going cost. I know of one jaw smashing, ground breaking mod that will add something that has been missed since the game was released, and that is it yet to be released. So the game is not 5 years old, even when it was released it was ahead of it's time. Simcity 4 = more functionality for less money = no brainer!

[sthudig 0]

Originally posted by: Mathew_MC

Time for an update on the modding situation, I guess.

Currently, any modifications to the files will impact both solo and online game. And a "money tree" mod is perfectly fine when used only in solo, but becomes cheating as long as it is used online. And though I know the modding community has no intention of cheating or using mods to illegal means, I can tell you some players are doing so.

Unfortunately, the opposite statement is also true: any measure we might take to make cheating harder might cause issues for legit solo modding. At least, until we integrate changes to clearly separate both: such changes are currently under development and should take the simple form of a separate folder in which modified files could be added for solo and ignored when playing online.

Some of you will probably think this comes late, and it probably does, but though the basic idea is indeed simple, it takes a bit longer to technically implement it. On the other hand, solutions against online cheating cannot be postponed that much as they can ruin the game experience of other players. I'm sorry that in the meanwhile it means more workarounds for players who only want to play solo and mod their solo games.

Alpholy, the wording in the answer you received is a bit awkward, as it is not our policy to prevent solo modding, as I explained above. The only thing is we cannot provide support on modded clients. But as soon as this "mod folder" system is ready, modding will be made much easier.

Gregory's quote in French is a bit out of context here as it only refers to the online part of the game ("en ligne") and was in a thread about a mod that only modifies the textures for an avatar t-shirt.

I hope this will clear things up a bit on our position.

PS: As a note, a "sandbox mode" for solo, with infinite money and such, is also under development.

quote>

Thanks for the update...I see maybe a ray of hope here, and I agree with everything you just posted. I agree a separation of Solo and PO in a more profound way is definitely a good way to go. I am also catching hints that you are re vamping the solo mode entirely, which the game sorely needs. I'll keep a closer eye on whats going on now. Sandbox is good, but I would also like something with an economy that I can adjust in difficulty, yet still have all my buildings unlocked.