Submitted 3 weeks ago by iamthetot@piefed.ca to games@lemmy.world
The creator of one of the most popular Total War: Warhammer III mods ever has deliberately corrupted it so that it will no longer work with “unauthorized reuploads,” amid a row over the rights and wrongs of AI-generated modifications.
It’s sad to see a mod community impose the concept of IP on itself. But I can understand the frustration of seeing your project being shit on by slop holes.
Fair. Fuck AI and its defenders.
I only get a minute of ign per day, so I had to skim the article. I played a lot of TW Warhammer and this mod until a few years ago, and the cycle was always the same. New dlc would release that breaks the SFO(Steel Faith Overhaul) mod this guy makes, a couple weeks later the mod would update bringing the new content up to par with the rest of the mod. I never minded because I could just play the new content in vanilla for a campaign or two and the mod has always been of a high caliber rivaling and arguably surpassing the base game.
It sounds like what’s happening now is new content releases that breaks the mod, and rather than wait for it to be updated and updated right some people are using AI to get the mod in a functional state then uploading the whole thing as their own. The article talks about submods but those have always existed for SFO and been fine.
I’d hate for such an iconic mod to be taken down, but if other people are uploading his work wholesale because they’re too impatient to play without it, I don’t know that I can blame him.
Seems a bit hypocritical to say “you can’t make unauthorized modifications to the software I made” when the software is a mod made without authorization on top of a game someone else made.
It’s fine to say you don’t want AI contributions in your main branch, but to say people can’t fork it if they use AI goes against the ethos of open software / modding.
the article is confusing. i don’t know if I’m missing something or its poorly written.
but if understand I dont agree. There’s providing mods that run on top if a the game, and there’s reuploading altered versions of someone’s software. Both are “modified” but are very different things.
Your branch analogy also doesn’t seem applicable. i couldn’t find any open source community for the mod and the patreon implies its closed source. so if the author doesn’t want forks, tough luck.
True.
If people are against AI, they just won’t use the mods. But apparently people are okay with the AI in this case.
Worth noting, perhaps, that this game is A-OK with mods being made for it, as far as I can tell.
Good on him. I’d do the same thing.
The locked-down nature of the mod stinks, moreso this undisclosed DRM change, but the central piece is the terminal neuroprivilege of rando chuds. What (suddenly happened to them) LLM-magick can seemingly make up in their skills, doesn’t go to their manners, awareness and ability to read the room. Boo at them if they thought they are helping anyone by strongarming the non-problem, spit at them as they did it for their ego/rep/profit.
Recently, people have used AI to release sub mods of SFO: Grimhammer III that work with updated versions of the main, Creative Assembly-developed video game
This is not enough information, what does it even mean? The original mod does not work with newer versions of the game for some reason? What’s the motivation for the mods-of-the-mod? Seems like important context that is missing.
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
AI contributions are gonna ruin the stability of so many long term projects.
Grimy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s not what’s happening here though.
It’s people building mods that need his framework from what I understand, not contributing to his codebase with it. No harm done except to his ego.
Skua@kbin.earth 3 weeks ago
It looks like the article itself is being a bit misleading; the actual statement doesn't mention submods at all, but re-uploads of the original mod. Digging a bit further, it seems like the author is updating the mod to work on the game's most recent patch, and while he is doing that a bunch of people have used AI to update the mod to that patch and uploaded it wholesale as if it were their own work
FarceOfWill@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
This looks like some classic vintage modder drama with someone claiming only they can use what they publish, for a game the makers let them make mods for.
Just more so as ai means so many people can get involved and make that molehill into a really, really big mountain.
funkydutch@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Seems to be a common theme with modders and since way before AI. It’s weird.
Nihilore@quokk.au 2 weeks ago
And the fucking planet
terabyterex@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
nope. this is the tale as ols as time, modder is an emotionally unstable twat that through a fit because he is not in control of the world.
Pratai@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
You didn’t read the article and it shows.