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.
The locked-down nature of the mod stinks, moreso this under-explained 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.
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.
AI contributions are gonna ruin the stability of so many long term projects.
That’s not what’s happening here though.
Recently, people have used AI to release sub mods of SFO: Grimhammer III that work with updated versions of the main
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.
Crazy to get downvoted just for pointing out the guy didn’t even read the article. Get a grip.
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
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.
No, it’s someone protecting the work they did because a bunch of hacks steal it, modify it with AI and submit it as their own work.
no harm done except to his ego
And the fucking planet
Seems to be a common theme with modders and since way before AI. It’s weird.
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.
You didn’t read the article and it shows.
yes i did
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, without asking permission. In response, Venris corrupted their own mod so that it stops working with these uploads, and threatened to make SFO: Grimhammer III private.
there were mods that used his mod and dudnt affect him in any way
It does effect him when they use shit AI and fuck it up- as people will blame him because his fucking name is all over it.
I’ll tell you what, give me some shit you created. Just, let me have it do so with whatever I please. And I promise if it’s bad, it’ll point directly to you.
That sound cool?
in all honesty: this is an error reporting problem.
way too many games with modding support have piss-poor error reporting that makes it insanely difficult for inexperienced users to figure out what exactly went wrong, so they blame the first mod that the log shows…which is usually some framework or other large mod, since those, by their very nature, come up a LOT in the logs.
this exact problem is decades old and has fuckall to do with AI, and everything to do with devs of (officially) moddable games not providing proper troubleshooting methods to their userbase.
Good on him. I’d do the same thing.
Fair. Fuck AI and its defenders.
Everyone picks their own hill.
I pick Bobby, thanks.
“That’s mah purse! Ah don’t know you!”
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.
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.
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.
