One thing I love doing when returning to a game after quite a long break is reading patch notes and anything else that I can get my hands on. Most times such stuff many would consider to be dry. I on the other hand find it rather information. There was one rather short post by developers of Valheim that caught my attention.

Modding has been and will continue to be quite a hot-button topic in the gaming industry. There is also quite a wide stance on it. Some developers throw down an iron fist and go after anything attempting even a simple UI change while other developers go full hog and let the players run wild.

You then also have the developers that refuse outright to ever engage in saying anything about it. I find a topic like this the gaming community around that game needs some kind of outline if nothing else on the company's stance on modding itself.

Valheim falls in quite an interesting place. You can play it solo in your world. You can also play it co-op with others. You can even if the server allows bring the character you have played on other realms into theirs. This can create all kinds of different series and advantages for certain players depending on the modifications and rates they were playing from one realm to another.

The developers behind Valheim are one of those kinds of companies that took the bold path of releasing back in May their thoughts about mods. Most importantly they gave the community their stances regarding different aspects of it.

I always think it’s great when game developers let it be known what they want or don’t want to see regarding mods. While many times it’s not great news for the gamers it at least lets everyone understand where such a company stands. In the case of Valheim, they seem to have taken quite the middle of the road on many things and even spoke up about what they don’t like.

First I always think it’s great when dealing with co-op games to have some kind of alert and warning to a player they are playing on a modded realm. It’s great to see they have reminded the gaming community such a feature already exists in the game. This also I feel sets the player base on a path road that moving mods is at least permitted in somewhat and not going to be something people worry about the developers cracking down on things for no good reason.

While many gamers would love to see full-on official support of mods I feel Valheim's stance on not doing so to be quite a vailed one. From what I’ve looked into the developers behind the game are not a massive studio. Despite that, they put out quite a fun and amazing game that receives many updates over a given. As such they are not looking to guarantee any kind of compatibility with newer versions of the game and player-created mods.

As a gamer who sometimes chooses to use mods in games and sometimes not. I fully expect any time a game patch comes out that many mods will break and you often have to wait around sometimes far too long for your favorite mod to get patched to work again. I feel most of us gamers are rather reasonable in thinking that way as well.

You do however have those kinds of gamers that go into massive tirades when a game gets patched and whatever mod they love using broke. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen people go after the developer of a game for such instances even though they had nothing to do with the mod they were using. So I feel it’s just reasonable to offer no kind of guarantee about mods working in the future as players can sometimes get way too heated over a mod.

It is great to see at the very least they have for the most part no issues with people making mods for the game. I think we have all seen far too many giant studios out there going after a tiny mod creator for making their game better than they ever could.

People who make mods for games often have such enjoyment and love for that game they just can’t help but want to add to it in some way. It is great when modding communities don’t feel like they have to hide in the shadows when providing such things to a game.

One trend I’ve always hated in the modding community is people charging money for the mods they create. I feel it’s one thing to ask for a donation and support. It’s another thing to flat-out demand money or not use their mod at all. I also feel that is a great way to get no one to use a mod. A decent game with a ton of mods and you have little reason to pay for something when many will offer something similar for free.

Another trend I’m not happy with is game developers demanding a cut of any donations or money made by someone creating a mod. While it’s understandable both parties spent time creating something. It just feels like there needs to be certain lines in the sand drawn to keep things from getting out of hand. It also feels like there is just a certain spirit about modding from the old days that sometimes gets overlooked.

It’s great to see Valheim asking people to not require payment to use a mod. While also not demanding as far as I can tell any cut of any donations. There are so many older games out there that people end up picking up due to an amazing mod and the extended life a mod can give a game. So it would seem rather silly to demand a cut of anyone’s when it’s other people driving further demand to a game or keeping it alive and kicking.

As far as any mods I’m using myself for the game. I’m not using any at all. I rather like so far at least the normal game as it was intended. This is also not a game yet where I’ve put thousands of hours into it and feel like I need something more than mods can give. Perhaps one day I’ll start loading up the mods. For now, however, I’m just fine playing it as is.

Final Thoughts

It’s always interesting to see the take certain games have regarding mods. It’s also fun to watch how this space over time evolves some for the good and others not so much. What I do so is if I ever get bored of Valheim I can always go the modded route.

Other Content

• Valheim | Eikthyr Takedown
• Valheim | A Rough Start

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Valheim.