It has been a while since the last development update, where we talked about reaching a decent milestone of reaching an alpha state, and lot has happened since then, on personal levels and passion/business level. The gist is, we've gained a lot of experience with the tech we're working with, and have developed different infrastructure systems/projects that would help DEG Mods increase its censorship-resistance and be less reliant on centralized services and infrastructures, all the while rebuilding DEG Mods from the ground up with said new experiences and fix core issues that has been present since day one. With that said, let's get into all the updates.

The changelog

New:

• Rebuilt DEG Mods from the ground up, code and design
• Multiple different nostr login methods (browser extension, remote signer)
• Created a Guides page
• There's now an option to tag if a mod is for a game running on an emulator (that has a platform selection with suggestions), under the assumption that said game is not available on PC natively
• Implemented the DNN ID system (a new project Freeden developed related to nostr IDs and DNS)
• Extended the Web of Trust system with 'Follow Depth', and toggles to enable or disable it for mods and comments
• Introduced Proof of Work system to reduce the chance of spam as posts or comments
• Share system (to socials)
• SEO system now set in place
• Linktree system (no need to use a third-party service)
• Category and tag suggestions, updated with time depending on creator requests
• Notification page
• A new section under a mod post to showcase more mods by its author
• Best effort numbers to show the number of available mods
• The ability to mark a mod that's for another mod
• The ability to link to dependancies (other mods or software or files)
• The ability to add a featured video (.mp4 link, youtube link, or vimeo link) in a mod post
• Encrypted Direct Messages implemented (two types)
• Mod Jams (think game jams, but for game mods)
• Payment Targets (set where people can send you money)
• Supporters page, ToS, FAQ

Improvements:

• Clearer, simpler, and more intuitive UI placements across the whole platform
• Simplified UX flows across the whole platform
• Much faster load times across all pages and posts
• Featured images and screenshots now show a preview of what was uploaded
• Downloading and uploading mods now show a progress par along with the speed of the upload/download
• Added various limits on character counts when attempting to publish a mod post, and with item counts (number of screenshots, mod files, etc) to have a high chance of the mod and blog posts be properly decentralized, along with media upload limits (that can be increased in settings but unadvisable), as well as limiting the file size of media (featured images, screenshots, profile pictures, etc) when they're being auto-downloaded/fetched to prevent abuse and have a smoother experience browsing the platform (with an option to fully fetch media that has exceeded the limit if desired)
• Creators now don't have to wait for the site to updated with new games being added so that they can publish a mod for a game that isn't there, they can now manually type the game name (advising to be as accurate as possible) and publish the mod under that manual input
• Updating DEG Mods' game database is now easier (updates the game db will happen faster now)
• Numbered pagination (pages) is now present, even without an aggregation server, and updates dynamically as more mods are discovered on the nostr network
• Replaced the nostr login system with a standard implementation type, rather than the previous package-dependant one, resulting in higher functional reliability and maintanence
• Option to switch from uploading to servers one at a time to multiples at the same time (those with fast upload speeds, and depending on the mod size, would appreciate this toggle)
• Box art images for games and banner images as well for them are now decently populated (from a third-party centralized source, and overtime they'd be replaced with decentralized sources)
• Ability to rearange screenshots
• Shortened post addresses
• Ability to search for mod names from servers directly (best effort, in advanced search)

Changes:

• Mod posts are now utilizing a new nostr event structure (old mod post types will still appear on the site, tagged accordingly as 'legacy' with a button for creators to migrate to the new type. Later on, legacy mod posts will be discoverable after enabling a toggle)
• DEG Mod's centralized malware scanning as an option is now no longer available, it's all third-party now with two suggestions and a custom option (DEG Mod's centralized malware scanning might come back in the future as a seperate service)
• Moved the FAQ section from About to its own page
• Default of de-rendering media and links in comments remain, but now you can toggle them on in settings
• Clearer indication of what's been moderated after disabling admin moderation in settings
• Split mod search into local search (main field) and server search (advanced search button)
• Restructured the category system for mod posts to be more comprehensive and easier to use, and this results in a more precise and comprehensive search as well
• Removed the events aggregation system/server (it would've been still a nice to have, but to save on resources and be less reliant on it, it was removed)

Fixes:

• The platform won't break if the DEG Mods relay fails
• Various bugs with the download and upload flows
• Non-games were showing up in the games list
• Opening posts or pages in new tab now load properly

Other:

• Because of this overhaul, specifically about how the mod post is constructed, mods will be now visible in other similar projects we're working on where it makes sense to show them

Mod Jams

The big new system in this update is Mod Jams. Similar to Game Jams, where you and/or with others team up to build a game prototype that's based on an announced peculiar theme within (usually) 48 hours. We thought it would be interesting to see more and more mod jams in the modding scene, and encourage others to do so by having this system in the first place, and also run a few mod jams ourselves every now and then with prizes, along with initiating other marketing activities involving it. These types of events usually don't happen, so let's see if we can change that.

Other projects

Since the last development update and til now, we were figuring out solutions to various problems we've been facing or will face, one of which is the fear of having the DEG Mods domain (degmods.com) taken down or seized for whatever reason, and so we started to figure out if we can develop a decentralized DNS system, one that's better than all the current ones out there and that's human readable/memorable/usable (basically solving Zooko's Triange), and we did manage to figure that out and developed a prototype for it, and it turns out to be a very powerful solution. It still needs to be rebuilt again and cleaned up, but basically a person can get a top-level domain (think something like .com) with a one time "purchase" (so no recuring payments), and from it you can have many domains without needing to pay anymore than what you already did. No one can seize it, take it away from you, or change anything with it without your permission. Freedom domains basically. That TLD also acts as an ID as well. There's a lot of benefits to this, which we'll talk about in a different post somewhere else. One thing we'll say though, if you'd like to help this DNS project, and if you know someone that works with any browser that you've used or like, then we'd appreciate it if you had them contact us and aim to integrate this new freedom DNS system into the browser they're working on, so more and more people would have access to said freedom domains.

The other issue we've faced is the Discord one, where we didn't want to create a place on there for the DEG Mods community to join and discuss in, only for us to be forced to censor people, have unrealistic labor expectactions of us demanded by this service, or get unjustily censored and have the whole space wiped and negatively affect people's accounts on it because of their association with the space, as well as having ourselves and every member reveal private information about themselves just to be in this space, only to end up getting doxed and risk their saftey. What did we do? We started to build an alternative without any of these headaches, and it's almost done, and more information will be shared about it soon.

We also started and developed a Nostr desktop signing tool that gets maintained by us, because we didn't want to rely on others to maintain a tool that our users need to user to even interact with some or most of what we build, and it also doubles as an important tool for the DNS project, as well as the game store project.

Lastly (for now), we've also started working on, what we consider as a long-term project regarding its development and success, a game store and client/launcher that has the same values as DEG Mods, one that'd provide censorship-resistance and being permissionless, a proper freedom version of something like Steam, GOG, Itch, and so on, where developers don't have to worry about complying with strict demands, worry about a sales cut, being forced to change their games, or players worrying about losing their accounts or games library. This project is called DEGA.

Considering all of these projects, it seems fiting to have them under a seperante development brand or entity, and that brand/group will be named "Freeden".

The business side

We're still working on to make this project work on the legal side and still dealing with its headaches, however, many hurdles have passed regarding it, and hopefully we'll be able to start operating in a legal business sense soon, but not in the way you might think, at least not at the start.

The gist of what we mean here, is that DEG Mods will remain unincorporated, to be fully unchained as a brand and the development team and founders behind it, and will work with another entity that will that will have its own version of DEG Mods running for itself, utilizing the same tech we're developing (like any other person or company can) and they'd simply donate or "hire" us to continue doing what we're doing with this platform. This is just one company that will do this and potentially many more will do the same deal. This sepertates the core team and contributors from the project and from the legal/business side, where all of these three parts are seperate from each other.

The marketing

Not a lot of marketing done during this time period, as we've been doing all of this infrastructure work and building other connected projects, along with personal and legal reasons, however, with the rebuild of DEG Mods complete and reaching this milestone, we should be able to increasing our marketing efforts, and as utilizing these other projects for cross-promotional purposes.

What's to come

Considering this rebuild of DEG Mods, expect faster updates with new features and systems being implemented, bugs being fixed quickly, and other general maintanence applied more frequently. Basically, things will get a lot more interesting and fun from now on, and we don't want to spoil things here in this post.

What we will say though, the next major thing to get released will release in the start of many "DEG Mods" out in the wild, increasing its censorship-resistance, decreasing people's reliance on "DEG Mods", and decreasing DEG Mods reliance on centralized services/systems, making it much more resistance to censorship attack attempts so that people will alway be able to get mods from the DEG Mods Network.

Final thoughts

It really has been a while since we shared much of anything, but thankfully this milestone has been passed, and we're happy that we'll be able to continue working on improving and enriching DEG Mods with more value so that people can have a proper freedom platform to sharing their mods with others and get mods from, or rather through, it.

We hope you enjoy DEG Mods and benefit from all that we do to make it the final permanent solution to the censorship problems in the modding scene. Have fun gaming and modding!