Quigley says YES to modding! EA says NO, and we'll ban you!

[oldbrokenlink 43]

Ocean Quigley's tweet saying modding is allowed, but not supported, for now

https://twitter.com/oceanquigley/status/299566347438936064

https://twitter.com/oceanquigley/status/298666482643111937

 

EA Customer Support states users WILL be banned for modding

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1aartc/ea_customer_support_states_users_will_be_banned/

[jarichp 3]

Ocean Quigley's tweet saying modding is allowed, but not supported, for now

https://twitter.com/oceanquigley/status/299566347438936064

https://twitter.com/oceanquigley/status/298666482643111937

 

EA Customer Support states users WILL be banned for modding

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1aartc/ea_customer_support_states_users_will_be_banned/

Ea cust support are uninformed.  ignore them. 

[oldbrokenlink 43]

i'm cautious fellow

 

but i want offline save so hopefully someone will create it. or else i'll get int here and do it myself. its rather easy. sadly they are telling us nothing but lies.

 

the funny thing is within just a few days modders are exposing them for what they are. just lies.

 

i mean did u see how they did offline mode its just a single variable the variable is the time delay between checks to see if you are online. change that and you can play off line, you still have the drm, but not those needless checks. ok off line mode is not complete without local saves, and at present you still have to save on their servers, but that is probably less than a week away, surely not more than a month. the code exists to serialize and deserialize the map to the server all you have to do is write that image to the file system and get it from the file system. its a matter of finding where in the scripts they do that and apply simple change. easier than what i originally thought would have to be done. since online stuff is totally not needed. i originally though it was to some extent. but now that we know its all happening on client anyways. the thing is you dont want to tamper with the drm since that will really upset them. so they can check for your license and your rights. plus people are working on allowing editing of full maps. now that debugger is up and running things will move more quickly. so i can just sit back and wait for mods and spend my time on modding other games. cause it appears this game is more than covered by some excellent modders.

[SirChick 184]

Ignore customer support they are bots and follow pre-written text they just press a button relevant to your question and it submits a pre-made message.

[oldbrokenlink 43]

will if mods are going to be allowed i want to use the one that removes the fudge on population. i rather see my real population and see the sims running around correctly not the way there are now. lets hope it is allowed so we can have it like sc4 or other sims games

 

i look towards using all sorts of models and textures and fixes, ect. that sites like this one comes up with.

 

sadly im just programmer so i really cant crete models and texture so this site is great.

[jarichp 3]

relevant

Indian here, I have a friend who works in the call centers. The reps you talk to, they don't know anything about the product they support.

The system works this way, Can you immitate foreign english accent? YES? You are hired. Do you know what EA/DRM/Online Game is? NO? Doesn't matter. Here, take this fat book. Memorise the FAQ answers. You get 2000 rupees for every FAT book (for each game or product) you memorise. THEN? You are hired. Your name is John and you get 7K rupees a month.

AND YOU GET YOUR NEW EA SUPPORT REP

[warrior 169]

Ea also say you won't get banned. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1ab6cp/ea_customer_support_states_users_will_not_be/

[pjburrage 1]

Think this is people confusing 'talking about modding' on the official fourms, and actually modding/hacking the game. Not uncommon at all, Sports Interactive will not allow discussion of putting the correct team names/competition names and making the German national team correct on Football Manager due to licencing issues, nor will they accept any talk about pirating the game.

[oldbrokenlink 43]

Ea also say you won't get banned. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1ab6cp/ea_customer_support_states_users_will_not_be/

aye the modders won

 

now can they hire some of the modders who where able to get offline mode working and fire some of the maxim/ea employee who said it was impossible

[warrior 169]

Ea also say you won't get banned. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1ab6cp/ea_customer_support_states_users_will_not_be/

aye the modders won

 

now can they hire some of the modders who where able to get offline mode working and fire some of the maxim/ea employee who said it was impossible

 

I think you're the second person I've seen who says maxim, why?

[oldbrokenlink 43]

 

Ea also say you won't get banned. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1ab6cp/ea_customer_support_states_users_will_not_be/

aye the modders won

 

now can they hire some of the modders who where able to get offline mode working and fire some of the maxim/ea employee who said it was impossible

 

I think you're the second person I've seen who says maxim, why?

i plead the 5th

[Ocram's Razr 964]

The Maxoids are the good guys here. They don't deserve all the vitriol poured on them. Other people have more blame.

--Ocram

[elavery 1,013]

It is Maxis' product and they have the final say on everything, they have said this themselves.  They deserve all credit and criticism due to them.  This notion that they are mindless drones who have been overrun by EA is a fallacy.

[macvirt 361]

EA always has the final word. Maxis is a brand name. Nothing more. EA purchased all the relevant rights. 

 

But indeed, there is a very potential conflict here between the people who work for this project and EA. Especially now that EA has disallowed all modding discussion on their forums, and now that they have introduced unspecified arbitrary statements again on how hacking will result in banning, but refuse to comment on what constitutes hacking ..... while modification of packages is perfectly in line with statements from Ocean and others that it is modding, something the game is explicitly designed for .... 

[oldbrokenlink 43]

what scares me off is that ea banned people for just changing bf3 to have nice real colors.

 

so u pay over $100 and wake up and your account is not accessible and you cant run any of your games or you cant run the game they've locked you out

 

and they wont undo it.

 

so the only thing u can do is create a new account and buy the games again

 

steam at least just vac bans you for a specific game and from ranked only

 

so you can play ranked

 

the only time steam locks your account is when you do a charge back and then its until you resolve it with them.

 

 

plus games like cities xl let modders do whatever they want. ive not seen anyone abuse it. hundreds of very nice mods at xlnation.net

 

these people look like not the kind of people u want to mess with and end up banned. well until maxis offically supports mods and then see what they support

 

 

in the mean time it looks like we will have full offline mode with local saves, ect its not technical problem or very hard to do, the problem is will you get banned for playing offline and doing your own saves.

 

plus it should be easy to fix most things, but again, will you get banned for it.

[elektrichead22 10]

what if we design our own marina free of charge that has a pos affect? will that mod be banned and considered a hack???... i am so confused?? if we came up with our own traffic model mod (which i know alot of admins have on this site) will that be considered a hack if we don't charge for it.... I am really upset.... Kinda want an answer because I will drop this game as fast as I dropped dark spore soon.

[macvirt 361]

what if we design our own marina free of charge that has a pos affect? will that mod be banned and considered a hack???... i am so confused?? if we came up with our own traffic model mod (which i know alot of admins have on this site) will that be considered a hack if we don't charge for it.... I am really upset.... Kinda want an answer because I will drop this game as fast as I dropped dark spore soon.

 

It is possible. The latest EA decisions leave a gap of rules or even guidelines on what they consider the difference between a hack and a mod. It's rather unnerving really, since for a lot of people quite a bit is tied to their Origin account, to say the least. Equally there is still no information on any policy regarding content contributions. I could understand it if EA had a problem with people releasing their own free content parallel to EA's DLC's. 

[moaku 74]

They would require to have balls to ban for modding / using mods...

Because they don't want the game to go offline, and by banning moders/mods users, they'll greatly encourage them on focusing on an "offline mod", which some are already working on.

So basically they are trapped, and there is not much they can do about it, but accept it and go for an offline patch, it's only a matter of time now. One way or another, we'll have it.

[Hoipus 292]

what if we design our own marina free of charge that has a pos affect? will that mod be banned and considered a hack???... i am so confused?? if we came up with our own traffic model mod (which i know alot of admins have on this site) will that be considered a hack if we don't charge for it.... I am really upset.... Kinda want an answer because I will drop this game as fast as I dropped dark spore soon.

 

It is possible. The latest EA decisions leave a gap of rules or even guidelines on what they consider the difference between a hack and a mod. It's rather unnerving really, since for a lot of people quite a bit is tied to their Origin account, to say the least. Equally there is still no information on any policy regarding content contributions. I could understand it if EA had a problem with people releasing their own free content parallel to EA's DLC's. 

It's a win-win situation for EA. If they take a no-tolerance approach, the user either won't attempt to mod the game, ensuring they play by the rules, or the users will try to be cautious, and make one origin account for each game, so it isn't a total loss if an account gets banned. This allows EA to artificially inflate the amount of origin subscribers they have.

[oldbrokenlink 43]

its becoming a business strategy to ban players and get them to buy again

 

warz does it and so does ea and even steam to much lesser extent.

[Comrade Kc 7]

If a mod is made to play in offline mode (having to call it this is kindove ironic in the first place, because it just takes it from a mmorpg to a "G") and they ban you from online mode, then play offline 

[Srafty 7]

It's a win-win situation for EA. If they take a no-tolerance approach, the user either won't attempt to mod the game, ensuring they play by the rules, or the users will try to be cautious, and make one origin account for each game, so it isn't a total loss if an account gets banned. This allows EA to artificially inflate the amount of origin subscribers they have.

 

this is what ive done from day dot, im yet to have a single game banned (origin, steam or anywhere). however if or when i do, thanks to the hackers, ill still be able to play the game, i just wont be paying for it again... since around 2008 its been unsafe to purchase a game outright (rushed games since stock crash), so now i "try" before i buy. if they ban me from any one of my origin accounts then ill do the try and never buy from EA again approach (something i have alraedy doen with DLC - ill never buy DLC from EA again becuase of how they attempted to force it on BF3 players "buy or u wont get in a server" well maybe one day i will give them a second chance but they have a lot to prove first)...

lets be honest its probaly partially because of people like myself that EA is trying to keep everything online, but hot damn, if they would just go back to maknig decent games i wouldent need to do the try before i buy thing (and i wouldent need 10 billion origin accounts). blizzards Starcraft and wow seriees along with the black ops side of CoD are about the only 2 franchizes i will buy out right atm (prepurchase), once upon a time id pay for any game i was intrested in withoug t needing to try it first, but game quality simply went down hill with the stock value of the companys that make them.