FF7 Workshop-ish Site

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Too many restrictions for nothing! Gamers are giving credit already by buying the game... as soon as people don't gain money out of modding everything else is just meaningless information imho... and nonetheless free promotion to their own game.
 
Can we have that post stickied somewhere? Or placed on the copyright thread thing?
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Before we go around citing this as fact I'd like to have a professional's take on this. This is just a layman's understanding of this matter.
 
US copyright law is incredibly tricky. I don't know what it's like in Japan, or anywhere in Europe.

It's generally accepted, at least in the states, that a post-purchase EULA is not a legally binding contract. Whatever restrictions are in there are safe to ignore. As far as mods are concerned, there are three things to be concerned about:

1. Technically, S-E owns the rights to the characters. We do not have any legal right to make our own models based on these characters. Even if the polygons and textures are entirely ours, it's still no more legal than fanfiction (which is also technically less than legal in most countries). Thankfully, S-E has ignored this.
2. Technically, S-E owns the rights to the music. Not just the recordings, but the songs themselves. We do not have any legal right to make remixes of those songs, even if we use no samples and no portion of the original data. Again, S-E has looked past this.
3. Many of our mods are based on the game's original content or official promotional materials. Higher-polygon models made from the originals, upscaled backgrounds, higher-res character portraits... every time we distribute any of these, we are technically infringing on S-E's copyrights.

Here's the good news: Square-Enix knows full well this site exists. It is plenty aware of the extent of our mods. Heck, some of our members are Square-Enix employees. In spite of all this, we have never received a cease and desist order. While it's impossible to pinpoint exactly why without any official word from S-E, it seems likely that our strict policies on piracy are a definite factor in our favor. While we use their content, we only do so in regards to the game it was originally from, and only with legal copies.

As for a well-organized Steam Workshop-esque mod download and install system... I'm fairly confident they would have no problem with that, as long as we continue to require legal copies of the original game (and as long as we don't charge; that's a big one). I'd be far more concerned about the feasibility of creating such a system (time investment, bandwidth) than about Square-Enix wanting to stop it. If anything, I would think easier access to mods would boost sales of the game.
 
Thank you everyone for providing your feedback so far.

The concept that I've visualized so far would be much easier in collaboration with Pitbrat however, since I have no experience with the inner workings of modding FF7 other than running the Bootleg installer and understanding how it launches them in a specific order via Batch based on the parameters that have been saved within the profile.

Now, I'm thinking the site would have essentially 5 different roles.

Anonymous:

- Can download mods manually. Similar to how it is done today on the site.
- Has access to everything except for the installer itself.
- This filters most of the traffic just clicking "download installer". Only bandwidth that would be used would be the html, css, images, etc with links to the mod.

Authenticated User:

- Can subscribe to mods that don't conflict with other mods. Basically every mod will be in a specific category based on what kind of mod it is, but will also have a relationship with other mods that it would conflict with. Any individual mod chosen within that relationship would make it impossible to subscribe to the other mods in that same relationship. This would essentially rule out the possibility of a user subscribing to two different mods that aren't compatible with each other.
- Can choose to be notified if a mod update is available.

Mod Developer:

- Can upload a mod to the website and the mod would go into a "pending review" status.
- Once the mod has been reviewed and accepted, the page will be pushed to public and anonymous, authenticated, and other mod developers will be able to see the content.
- Any additional revisions, including new file links, would put the new revision into the pending status as well as keeping the already existing accepted revision public.
- Initially after acceptance, the page will only have a manual download link and once it is implemented into the installer, the additional "subscribe" button will then be available.

Moderator:

- Has access to an admin panel that shows the current mods that are pending.
- After reviewing the mod for copyrighted content, the moderator can then set the mod as "public".

Installation Moderator:

- Has access to a separate admin panel, that shows all mods that are currently accepted, but have yet to be implemented into the installer.
- Once Bootleg (as an example) is set up for this mod, the new Bootleg then replaces the existing build, and the mod can be then marked as being able to be "subscribed" to. So basically mods can be queued up for the next version of Bootleg.

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I'm still thinking about the different possibilities of how the installer can be programmed. It would make it much easier to work with Pitbrat on this, in order to have his existing Bootleg run in the background of the initial installer.

One of the possibilities is the installer will automatically generate a filename extension based on what was chosen. For example: Installer+12+54+62+12.exe. The numbers would be the corresponding mod pages. The installer will then automatically pull the download based on the link on the chosen mod pages and then afterwards send the parameters to Bootleg to tell it which mods to install. Error handling would also be required in the installer to know if the download was successful or not. Check out Ninite.com as an example of this setup.

Everything web development wise, is fairly easy to do, just a bit time consuming.

What do you guys think?
 
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If everyone else seems to think it would be fine, I have no problem with it.
 
Also, I'm still trying to figure out how the transition from authenticated user to mod developer will work. The more automation the better. Either way, I hope that my quick thrown together concept sounds good.
 
I think, IF this were to happen, that it would be a good idea to keep everything here, such as technical info and conversations, and use this other site for distribution of releases and such.
 
It sounds exactly like Steamworkshop, which I like very much  :)

I would have to agree with CNH, the site for hosting the Workshop should only be for the installer process. I would like any communication and technical support to link back to the Qhimm forums.
 
It sounds exactly like Steamworkshop, which I like very much  :)

I would have to agree with CNH, the site for hosting the Workshop should only be for the installer process. I would like any communication and technical support to link back to the Qhimm forums.
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I wholeheartedly agree. Keeping development separate from the casuals is exactly what is missing in the Steam workshop. After I finish up a few other web projects, and as soon as I hear Qhimm's and Pitbrat's opinion of this setup, I'll get to work on a prototype. Hosting, discussions regarding bandwidth costs, etc can come after a proof of concept in my opinion.

Also, if they give it a go, and everyone seems to show support in this project, I would love if someone with Photoshop template skills could whip something up for me. I can rip up any PSD into a site, I just don't have the creative know how to make one on my own. Buying a template is also a possibility, but I'm sure people in the modding community can do a lot better.
 
Qhimm's and Pitbrat's opinion
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Good luck. Qhimm doesn't come around anymore and PitBrat is busy with life. I could try to contact him, but I can't guarantee anything.
 
Yeah, Qhimm is gone, but Pitbrat just posted a day or two ago saying he's busy but still alive.
 
Well now that FF7 is available through Steam, do you guys think an official workshop will ever be integrated? Don't want to waste my time on a prototype if it'll be implemented soon anyways.
 
There's no way in hell they'll use Steam workshop. I wish they would, but they won't.
 
I can't imagine a SE game ever being on the workshop either. I'd prefer your ideas anyways, since it directly streamlines with what we do here.
 
Well now that FF7 is available through Steam, do you guys think an official workshop will ever be integrated? Don't want to waste my time on a prototype if it'll be implemented soon anyways.
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No they wont. They didn't care about the game so much. All what they do is to hold it high enough as needed to have a good base for an eventually remake.
They will made a remake, maybe at the end of the PS4 lifetime or in the middle of the PS5 lifetime. It's money, which they would make for sure after all.
 
Ok, then I'll work on it regardless. Maybe it'll give them an idea of how to integrate it officially when the time comes. Now all that's left before I start working on the project is input from Pitbrat :)
 
saftle: If you have not seen it, my launcher/wrapper that lets you activate / deactivate mods without having to alter the game files might be useful for this? I don't know if you would need me to make changes to my launcher for it to be useful, if you think of something that would be useful, please tell me and I will see if I can add it in  ;D
 
Ok, then I'll work on it regardless. Maybe it'll give them an idea of how to integrate it officially when the time comes. Now all that's left before I start working on the project is input from Pitbrat :)
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He's around... are you in contact? How's this project coming? I think it's very exciting. I think if this happens in conjunction with the new wrapper from Iros, it'll fuel a lot more energy into future mods, since they will be more easily accessed, installed&uninstalled, tested, discussed and developed.
 
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SE is extremely particular about their ownership rights of even the smallest fragment of an original texture. Workshop integration is a pipe dream. I like the idea of the wrapper, but I don't see how it can ever work with an unconverted re-release without a completely new driver. Even so, I think it's a good direction for future projects.

I'd like to see more consistency in the way that mods are packaged and installed.
 
You should also think about different tabs for the versions of the game.  Like since some mods work on the old version but don't work on the new re-release one.
 
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