So, it's been a little over three months since release. The "beta" (unfinished) version of the mod tools were released nineteen days after the game's release, which was admittedly pretty good. Sins, from the early beta period, was advertised as a "data-driven", easily moddable game. At every point this was emphasized: there was even an icon used in a few avatars released that had the Sins logo with a wrench and MODS on it.

It seems, however, that Stardock and Ironclad aren't taking this promise, and therefore, the future of this game itself, very seriously.

My concern at this point is that with both companies working on separate projects that the modding scene has been abandoned. I can count on one hand the amount of posts from the devs in the modding section within the last couple months. I'm not asking why we don't have the "final" mod tools yet, though that's not an unreasonable question. I'm asking why at this point nobody seems to care anymore.

When DoV migrated from Empire at War, it was simply because of these early promises by SD/IC. We were tired of having no control over most of our ships abilities, behaviors, and so forth. At this point, we've been given a lot of neat stuff as far as buffs, abilities, particles and such go. But those are relatively specialized. You can't build a TC mod around particle effects.

Amplifying these concerns is the fact that many systems were designed quite differently from normal RTS games. Was it due to the rush to release? Probably not - they've been that way since the beta. Why are entity files parsed so oddly? Why, in a bizarre change from convention, are "classes" of ships linked to certain shipyards? Who thought this was a good idea when the classes themselves are hard-coded? It's OOP gone horribly wrong. Why can one shipyard have two pages but not three? Why can the other shipyard only have one and five ships? Is this a failure of how the UI was designed, or something deeper?

The fact that these parts of how the game works are so integral makes those who dismiss the problems as being possibly fixed in the "final mod tools" seem more than a little silly. Of course, the fact that we aren't hearing anything makes it anyone's guess.

So, in summary, the question is simply this: with all due respect, do you care? Should we give up expectations of "final mod tools", should we hold out waiting for you guys to even comment on what's going on? Should we continue planning and developing our mods, as if they'll never exist?

P.S.: This is not a new concern. I think I speak for most modders on this: we just want a straight up-or-down answer to this question. I know Haeso's been adamant about it in several posts, and of course many of those in the wishlist thread, as well as some private conversations I've had with other modders. It seems being subtle about it hasn't really worked, so don't take this thread as being as overly argumentative or dramatic, it's just necessary for all of our sake.