Well, but these things were done without mod support of the company.
I said it once, I say it again: The Sims only survived that long because of Mods. But you know what? It is not officially supported. There was,in all this years, only one an official mod tool and that was only for walls and floors in the Sims 1.
Official mod support would mean, Frontier needed resources (time, people, money) to test the quality of mods. It would also mean, it would make bug fixing even harder, as they also had to test the game with at least the most popular mods. If you smack "official support" before any mod, then everything changes. And yes, at the moment Mods would indeed be problematic for selling DLCs, in my opinion. I agree that many players would switch out modded animals with original ones, once they are released. Nut not always.
I wish they would give us a way to include animals without overwriting others at the end of the lifespan of the game. Maybe also theme makers toolkit (which also were controversial due to bad quality of some items). But until then, people should use and make mods at their own risk. And not demanding that mods will be served to them on a silverplate.
That's not how it works.
"Mod support" does not mean the company actively reviews mods and works directly with the modders. Mod support simply means the developers make the game easy to mod, for ex. via releasing a "Dev Kit".
The Sims has mod support. It is not a "modding tool", HOWEVER the game is specifically made in such a way as to easily accept mod files. Literally all you have to do to mod The Sims is drop a .package file into a "Mods" folder. The game even very specifically has mod-related options in its menus- including an INGAME OPTION to disable/enable custom scripts. With The Sims, it is MADE to be able to easily load new files. The same thing goes for Skyrim as well.
ARK and Atlas released a "devkit" for their games that allows them to add in new dinos, systems, recode things, and so on, and then upload those mods to the workshop and easily install them. Wildcard does not review mods. Wildcard does not test mod quality. They DO on occasion have "mod spotlights" and will hire modders to integrate their mods into the official game, but they do not sit there and manually review mods.
When we ask for "official mod support", all we are asking for is:
A. The tools to be able to add things to the game, i.e. a dev kit,
or:
B. A way for the game to easily be able to read and load new files, scripts, and so on, without NEEDING an official tool, and being able to put mod files in a mods folder and just... load them. All it should require for the game to recognize a new animal is to drag and drop a folder with an animal OVL, OVS, so on, and a custom OVL with animals.fdb file for behavior coding. Right now, we have to /replace/ existing animals in order to make new animals, and the game will not load any new files- only replacements. There is testing going on currently on adding new animals, but it's estimated to only be possible via sacrificing scenery objects and using their files for the new animal- which... we shouldn't have to do that.
We are not asking for quality testing. We are not asking for Frontier to review mods. All we are asking for is for Frontier to stop making the game intentionally difficult to mod, and instead make the game more receptive to loading new files/scripts/so on so that modding is easier.
Modding Planet Zoo could be as easy as it is in the Sims, Zoo Tycoon 2, Skyrim, or etc- but atm it's just needlessly complicated and a lot of things are straight up impossible when really, there's no reason for them to be.
but trying to be Practical. OK i am no Great Constructor and have full Admiration for those whose Designs are Stunning and use Occasionally. Please be Civil this is a Great Community
