Older source code files plz

[twin knoll]

highships: conquer the khiva

[gritty rain]

the game is basically dead so there's nothing we have to lose

[elfin spire]

Sorry, can you explain in detail what you'd like?

Also in which way is the game dead? People love using that term and I have no idea what they mean. It's still playable, it's still getting bug fixes, it's even still getting minor features. The multiplayer servers are still running. It's not a live service game and no one is paying a subscription.

[fair crater]

its defeatism, execute the architect at once

[twin knoll]

we mean you've more or less moved on to new projects

so why not let the community enact their wildest desires

[elfin spire]

So yeah, my complaint up there is specifically against the word "dead", which bothers me. As for making the source code available, here's some thoughts / obstacles:

• You'd really want the most up to date code so you can actually patch the up to date version of the game, not a buggy old one.
• As is inevitable with source code mods, modders will have to endlessly play catch-up to keep their version synced with the main one. I've seen so many cool game mods become, uh, dead because they stopped being compatible with newer versions of the game.
• I'd have to carefully handle how to communicate to players that yes, if they're playing a source modded game, they're trusting the modders to run arbitrary code on their machine.

Finally, and this is the most difficult and annoying thing, and it's important to me that you read this carefully:
I depend on the money from selling A:CtS on Steam to live. If I release the source code, people may read this as a signal that the game is now free, or should be free. That it's "abandoned" or "open source" and that they don't need to pay for it. I don't think anyone reading this right now will think that. But once it's done, I have no control over how other people interpret this action. And I really really cannot afford losing the money from A:CtS.

If you think that's an unrealistic worry, consider how often people mildly misinterpret things on the Internet.

[fair crater]

I'm no professional but I think the easiest way is to add a tag identifying them, and then a warning before the player enables them Abt the potential dangers. There could also probably be a system to identify if the mod uses suspicious code

[fair crater]

I think that's fair enough

[gritty rain]

wait really, like how much a month

[left vault]

damn bro

you coulda just told us

[sterile jackal]

Fair, gotta make a living somehow.

[stark compass]

Imo the game is far from dead at the moment.

Just needs more advertising, youtubers and stuff.

[twin knoll]

I mean not trying to dictate anything but i doubt open sourcing it would lower revenues by much, as long as you signal that the game isn't actually abandoned/end of support. There are tons of games with public source code which are still lucrative. Mindustry was free from the release day but it still nets a lot of profit to the dev to this day. People will continue buying the game as long as there is a community and active dev. Also the majority of people who would treat it as "free" most likely already got it for free, through torrenting. TLDR i doubt people will view the game as free unless it completely loses all of its community/activity