In the European Union, member states have agreed the EU Copyright Directive and are transposing it into national law. In the United States, the DMCA has set up stiff penalties for modding. Some nations have laws prohibiting modding and accuse modders of attempting to overcome copy prevention schemes. Modding may sometimes infringe the legal rights of the copyright owner.
The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games, such as Spore, through websites such as Sporedum & SporeMods
Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs are called unofficial patches. They can be single-player or multiplayer. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, and game modes.
Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. It is a term generally applied to PC games, especially first-person shooters, RPGs and real-time strategy games. The term can refer to the act of modifying a piece of hardware or software or anything else for that matter, to perform a function not originally conceived or intended by the designer. Major dev updates are posted to our News page.Modding is a slang expression that is derived from the verb "modify". You can follow Thrive’s development and join its active community at the various links in the sidebar. We also have an association formed to support the development. If you don’t have the skills, and don’t want to learn, you can now also support us on Patreon or with a donation. Talented artists, musicians, programmers and experts in any of the scientific fields we aim to simulate are welcome. Visit our Get Involved page to see how you could help. Anyone can contribute as much as they wish provided they have the necessary skills.
The game is and always will be free and open-source.
Thrive is an ongoing development project, and has already seen several releases of the first microbial game stage. You can download these early versions from our Releases page. Will you thrive?įor more information on Thrive gameplay, see our FAQ page and gameplay overview. Less successful evolutionary paths will vanish, and only one may progress through every crucial transformative step towards cell cohesion, terrestrial conquest, sentience, settlements, and space travel. Players will create and edit an organism on its journey from insignificance to the stars, using multiple creation tools to rise above their adversaries, themselves products of evolution by natural selection in the wider game ecosystem.īy collecting substances from the environment and processing them with a simulated metabolism, you can increase your species’ fitness rating, building resistance against extinction. We aim to explore the possibilities of simulation within a game context, pitting the player against the game environment as they wield the forces of evolution. Thrive takes many games as inspiration, from roguelikes to grand strategy games, but we plan on walking our own path with many game mechanics.
Seven stages are planned – Microbe, Multicellular, Aware, Awakening, Society, Industrial and Space – though for the moment we’re only focusing on the first of these, as the whole project is a massive undertaking. Thrive will encapsulate the player in the wonders of science and the universe, allowing them to manipulate the virtual world around them with editors to modify technology, culture, organisms, and entire solar systems.