VRChat should have a zero-tolerance policy to mod creation and should enforce its rights as the owner of the application
FairlySadPanda
Created in response to the unbanning of numerous mod creators on the 1st April 2021.
As creators, streamers and people who want a standardized and fair VRChat, we believe that VRChat should not tolerate any open modification of the client for any reason, not give justification to mod users via public announcements, and enforce its rights as the maintainers of the platform to prevent distribution of mod code on public platforms.
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Aléx
VRChat is not a competetive game... Mods improve the User Experience so much it sounds like youve never played vrchat
CyanoTex
I imagine mods are someone going:
-"Hey, this thing could be improved, so, I improved it!" (Portal placement mod - if you can't place a portal due to players being near you, the mod will let you choose where to place it w/ your mouse or controller)
-"Hey, I'd like to see how many players are in the instance w/o going to Social, so, I made an extension for it!" (Player list mod - lets you see who's in the instance, their FPS, their ping, how far away they are from you and so on)
-"Hey, I use expressions a lot but not all worlds have a mirror, so, I made a mod that lets me carry a mirror!" (Portable mirror mod - lets you spawn a mirror in)
xxx_red_xxx
A zero tolerance policy would create more tensions within the community and drive such people away to more open games such as CVR and Neos. I think their recent cooperation is actually a step in the right direction. A large number of mods available are non malicious and offer useful quality of life features and the devs don't even have to spend time or money on creating these features!
Julian Astrum
Slауnаsh
(Please note that those are my own opinions, and not reflecting the voice of the modding community)
Introduction:
Hey, I am Slaynash, a 20yo student, founder of one of the biggest and oldest modding community, and my main goal over the last 3+ years has been to improve the user experience of everyone, including vanilla users.
After reading all of the posts here (as of the 5 april @ 4pm UTC), I want to address a few points that in my opinion are interesting or useful to answer. There are a lot of points that are good on both sides, and I will keep notes of all of them.
Please also, like Tupper - VRChat Head of Community said, keep the discussion civil. Every point is good to take, as long as it's a well-written opinion.
- "Mods (or any 3rd-party content) are dangerous/may get your account stolen or worse":
Yes, and this is the reason why you should only use content from a trusted source. Lots of things on the internet are unsafe and may lead into your computer getting compromised.
As of that, the modding community I am currently part of has been created more than 3 years ago, and have strict policies to make sure everything is being safe for both the users (over 35k discord accounts) and the other vrchat players.
- "VRChat has tried to apply its rules to something unrelated to them (the mod loader)":
This is actually a misunderstanding. While VRChat asked for some changes about it, the mod loader itself had some references to "VRChat", and those are planned to be changed.
- "Mods give an advantage over vanilla users":
While some mods may give advantages over other users using malicious features, please note that the biggest part of the modding community is strictly against that, and most mods even include some securities depending on the type of world or "gamemode" to not impact the gameplay of other users in any way
If you think any point should be discussed, feel free to respond to this message or mentioning me
Have a nice day!
ReploidSham
I disagree completely with you. But it's partly because by default I have some vision issues that VRChat fails to address. In small instances, even, with the new nameplates I cannot find my friends. Well, apparently there's something for that. By opening a dialogue with modders, it's very likely my concerns and vision issues, and need to stick close to friends so I'm not constantly getting lost are more likely to be addressed.
Right now what is being seen is sort of a ceasefire between modders who had... have their source totally open and inspectable and VRchat, both sides having something to gain in functionality and/or recognition.
What this doesn't resolve is the actively malicious users, who I also was a victim of. I didn't upload a private avatar to have it stolen using my same ID. I found out later that was possible through another paid client that costs roughly 100 bucks. Like... why would you pay to cause that much grief? I was pretty annoyed about having to redo my avatars and stuff for that reason, so I can at least get that aspect. But right now my understanding is this is meant to eventually, or hopefully quickly improve the quality of the game.
FairlySadPanda
I appreciate that it is highly unlikely for the devs/mods to engage on this issue - I think the ban wave and then the screeching reversal is an indication of this being a mess of a set of decisions that I doubt there will be appetite to address - but I will lay my view our here now that we have had a few days to soak in the mess:
- The decision to announce the screeching reversal on the official Discord was wrong. It reads much more like VRC attempting to placate mod users or influencers who batphoned than a decision actually related to moderation. I find it hard to believe that the person who took the ban position and the person who then overruled it and reverted it are the same person. Moderation actions are not a suitable announcement for a server of 50 people, let alone tens of thousands. As a piece of both community management and moderation it fails in basic terms, and on top of this it manages to make VRC look worse than had the same action been taken but no announcement was made. It presently would be better if VRC deleted the announcement and denied this ever happened.
- VRC set rules for this platform. There is an element of trust about what the TOS of the platform means - that is, that moderation action is logical, and the moderation that is done is designed to be for the good of the wider game. The reversal of the banwave helps neither of these points. If moderation actions can be reversed with enough outcry, as appears to have happened (and if it is not, VRC should consider sharing with the community what the actual reason for the reversal was, given the hole it has dug itself cannot actually go deeper) then chasing clout becomes the passtime of those who want to bend the platform to their own ends. If the mod loaders are now Too Big To Ban according to VRC, the entire section of the TOS related to client modification might as well be thrown out. On the latter point, the only people who benefit from mod creators not being banned are mod creators and users - not the wider VRC community. Rewarding that subset will cause that subset to grow. After all, if the client mods are trivial to find and according to VRC they are "looking the other way" regarding them, why not just install random improvements? What is astonishing about then hole VRC has dug is that they began with an approach that was to try and fix a gaping hole in their community, and appear to have managed within 48 hours to have only made that hole far worse.
- The reality is that people are going to mod the game anyway, and creators are going to chase clout by making mods. There is no situation where people who have already gone "f- VRC" and built mod loaders are going to do anything other than be given an inch and take a mile. The notion that VRC is going to engage with this community is laughable. Even if VRC decided to halt all development of new features to implement stuff that people use mods to fix, there will be more mods, more exploits and abuse based on those mods, and more spiralling of this issue. There is never an end to this stuff.
As an aside, it is concerning that VRC - much like other times when they have made giant swinging moderation decisions - appear to forget that other communities are affected when action is or is not taken against a group. There are major world creation groups that are lividly against client mods. There are major event teams that hate them too. These groups have a valid opinion to consider on this topic, and appear to have been totally ignored in this instance.
EDIT: One final point - it is not a good look for VRC to ever have an approach of "well folks are just using mods to fix this if they care, why should we do anything". It worries me that it is such a short hop this current "we get it so we are looking the other way" attitude to one where VRC can just shrug and go "won't fix" to stuff they leave broken for years on end.
Tsukare
FairlySadPanda: There are two distinct issues here. I agree with you on one of them, albeit for reasons other than your own, and oppose you fully on the other.The moderation actions were heavy handed, then rapidly reversed. I concur, this is a terrible look for VRC. I don't think taking a step back once the outrage began is necessarily a mistake - but the team pressing themselves in between a rock and a hard place to begin with certainly was. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this initially began with modders who operate openly (ie: the ones creating non-malicious mods) being banned, and told that that they would only be unbanned if they removed their code hosted on github - some of these in particular weren't unique to VRChat, but were for all Unity engine games. This was a grave overstep on VRChat's part - attempting to regulate what happens outside of the game. I think it's outrageous, as did many others. This outrage resulted in the step back. Moderation decisions should not be public, but moreso moderation decisions should not be based on conduct done outside the game - most especially when it relates to creating mods that aren't even necessarily specific to vrchat.The other half of the equation here is the conduct it's self - Creating mods for the game, and the use of them. The other part of why the outrage was felt so intensely was because there is a broad sense of doing nothing wrong. Yes, it's a violation of the TOS, but I stress and reiterate that the users of these openly available mods -do not- affect your or anybody else's experience, and that's an extremely important distinction to make against the malicious mods - which don't spread openly and publicly via githubs and open discords, like the ones which were targeted in the ban wave. I argue that the real issue is that VRChat takes a hard stance in it, with no distinction between malicious and non-malicious modding. Overwhelmingly, the users of non-malicious QOL mods share your strong feelings about those who are out there to grief and spoil your experience. You specifically cite world creators and event hosts. The modders that were targeted in this ban wave are ones that create mods that respect world tags, and disable any features that would interfere in such a world, specifically to prevent abuse. These mods and their creators are not the problem, and banning them and their users is not the solution - the fact that they conscientiously limit themselves where necessary ought to be proof enough that they're not out to spoil your experience.You suggest a slippery slope - that if an inch is given, the modders will take a mile. I offer that the opposite may be true - if long as the lines of what is permissible or is not is blurred, or worse yet, every mod is equally forbidden, that there will only be more of a incentive to take that mile - if the punishment for running an improved IK mod is the same as the punishment for no-clipping, griefing, teleporting, and etc, and there's no reason not to go all-in.Rather than petition for strict and zero tolerance enforcement of a no mod policy, I hope that an amicable middle ground can be found, where it can be codified in the TOS what is tolerated and even encouraged, and what is not. I see modders as incubators of features that hopefully will become a standard part of the game, rather than as antagonists against it. What they create shouldn't be seen as a replacement for the dev team's continued work, but as an avant-garde supplement to it. I hope that you may come around to see the same things in them.
Alexx~
Many QOL mods are essential in getting VRChat to run stable on many systems, myself included, and while there are malicious mods that allow you to rip models and use them for other purposes, the amount of people who use mods for QOL purposes heavily outweigh them. That being said, with VRChat working with the QOL modders to make the platform better, I do think the TOS should be enforced to an extent after the fact. The point being banning everyone for it isn't gonna stop the troublesome ones, and is a major setback for the non-troublesome players who just use mods to play the dang game with a stable frame rate.
Tupper - VRChat Head of Community
Keeping this discussion open, no statement to give-- but wanted to say that we're reading and noting discussion points that people are bringing up.
Additionally, please keep it civil. Things have been personable so far, just want to keep it that way. Would like to have fruitful, decent, productive discussion rather than a thread I have to close because people aren't being nice.
FairlySadPanda
Tupper - VRChat Head of Community: TBH agreed. There is no reason for people to be uncivil (at least in text and to others - I swore more than once reading the announcement personally).
There is a line between "I have a strong opinion" and "I am being abusive to the devs" and hopefully folks do not cross it.
Kaugumme
FairlySadPanda: I'm glad that this works here at least, the people on the vrc subreddit have a way more controverse opinion about the topic of modding and you cannot even talk about why modding may be negative for the overall experience of vrc without getting a sh*tstorm. The subreddit mods dont really seem to enforce their own or the vrc community guidelines they praise to do so.
KuroshiBunny
And it isn't safe for Vrchat Players at all it'll only get worse within a matter of time so it cant be acceptable No matter what it is if it comes out good or bad mods aren't safe for VrChat.
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