Do you get banned for modding?

[Dudeandahalf]

Hi, i'm new to modding or even pc-gaming for that matter and i have a question.

 

I just made a steam-account and downloaded the fallout games and dark souls 2 and i would like to mod them. I saw you could make the games graphically better and that you could add more guns to the fallout games. However before i started, i wanted to know if you could get banned for modding a game? I'm only interested in modding if this isn't the case, so is this safe? or are there differences? and if so, could you recommend a place where i can learn how to install mods?

 

Thank you!

[micalov]

No you do not get banned from modding Fallout 3 on the PC, the game has an official editor, Darksouls 2 unsure as never played it but maybe it you use some cheats online you would get a VAC ban but not 100% sure how that game works.

 

VAC is basically steam multiplayer anti cheat thing and VAC ban bans you from servers that are VAC enabled, so in a general sense you can only play with people playing on non VAC enabled servers.

This is more in the traditional online multiplayer death match sense though, how this equates to Dark Souls online system I do not know myself.

[M48A5]

"Hosting 117,670 files for 182 games from 48,371 authors serving 9,184,551 members with 1,087,691,239 downloads to date"

 

From this page: http://www.nexusmods.com/games/? Links to all the games currently supported by Nexus mods and community.

 

Please read the Terms of Service regarding the rules for uploading mod files.

[Rabbit1251]

Double post due to site slowdown. Sorry.

 

 

Rabbit

Edited June 7, 2015 by Rabbit 51

[Rabbit1251]

You do not get banned for PC modding (except for the VAC thing as mentioned by Mr. Micalov which I know nothing about). You do get banned for despicable actions like theft or copyright violations (piracy of games or DLC's, taking someone else's work and calling it your own or ripping components from other owned sources without the proper permissions). It's all pretty common sense stuff. Just using the mods from Steam or the Nexus will not get you in Dutch with anybody. If you are going to use the Nexus for modding I do suggest that you download and install the Nexus Mod Manager (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/modmanager/?) to download, install and manage all of your mods. It will save you a lot of trouble.

 

 

Rabbit

[DrakeTheDragon]

Let's keep in mind it is very unlikely the OP was talking about getting banned "from here". This whole website is all about modding games.

Getting banned from this site, "nexusmods", for modding a game you are allowed to mod would be... I don't know what to even call it.

 

So this is almost 100% positively about getting banned "from Steam" or similar platforms for playing a modded game, which is what the VAC ban related replies are all about.

 

For modding a single player game you most certainly won't get banned from anywhere ever. You may loose those things they call "achievements" perhaps, or be rendered unable to earn any, or at least I heard of cases where this happens when the game detects a mod of some sort. But if the company the game comes from allows modding, and there's mods for the game even hosted on the Steam Workshop or similar, chances for this are also rather slim.

 

Multiplayer games, where modding may very well give you an advantage over your 'competitors', is a whole different story, and this is indeed where things might get dangerous when using mods on a public server or similar. But they usually have 1) ways to prevent it rather effectively, and 2) will make you aware of this restriction at so many places it'll be unlikely you'll ever be able to miss the rule that using mods is not allowed for this or that game.

[obobski]

Just to add to what's been said: no there's no risk for running various mods from Nexus for Fallout 3 (or Fallout New Vegas). As far as VAC - I don't think Fallout even supports VAC, but multiplayer games like Counter-Strike do. Basically what VAC does is check for hacks/cheats running on your system (like stuff that makes your aiming easier than it should be) and will kick players who try to use them on VAC servers (and a VAC ban will prevent cheaters from joining any VAC-enabled server). Not all multiplayer servers for games that support VAC will implement it though - there's plenty of "custom" servers for games like Left 4 Dead (and I'm sure Counter-Strike and HL2: Deathmatch) that run mods, for example to add different guns, use non-Valve maps, allow more players to join than is conventionally possible, etc and those servers won't have VAC enabled because they're running modded games. AFAIK any multiplayer server that also enables the console also will not run VAC (because the console can be used to cheat). And of course in single-player it won't matter - you can cheat as much as you want in single-player even in games like Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike.

 

Basically, there's nothing to fear with VAC unless you're trying to hack/cheat in a conventional multiplayer match in supported games, like Counter-Strike. You can read more about VAC here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7849-RADZ-6869 (has a link to all VAC supported games too).

 

As far as achievements go, I know that Fallout New Vegas will disable achievements for that session (e.g. you have to quit and restart the game) if the console is opened, but it will not disable achievements just because mods are running (at least none that I've ever seen). That said, IME the achievement detection thing is a little spotty even when the console hasn't been opened, so it's nothing I worry about (I've had it give me achievements twice, fail to register achievements, etc - its bonkers). I would assume Fallout 3 behaves similarly on Steam; I have the GFWL version and it behaves that way (achievements disabled per-session on console open).

 

No idea whatsoever about Dark Souls though, sorry.