Client-sided modding: Good or bad?

[Hybrid Dog]

There's no benefit for cheaters. When editing source code you can do a lot more, whereas when using CSM, you have to be aware of how minetest works (see source code).

[TumeniNodes]

CLient side modding is something people have been asking for, for quite some time now... and now that it is a "thing" people are concerned... :P

I can definitely understand people's confusion, in regards to a lack of full instructions but, it is still a new feature.
There are just not enough devs to focus on detailed wiki info... so they just add the basics.

If someone were to be able to offer to put the time into available info that would be great.
But it would need to be someone who understands it, (which is hard right now because it is new and will have bugs to be worked out), and there is potential which no one has yet exploited / explored.

It would be even better if a new, small team could be put together which focuses on csm, as a separate dev team, so that the current devs can continue focusing on the work they do.
Breaking to focus on all the info, would stall them from work they are currently doing...

This would be the procedure, in a commercially developed software.
New people would be hired and a new team assembled to focus on such a big, new, additional feature, so that everything else could remain on-task..., and keep running smoothly with no hicups.

But all of this comes down to there being enough people who are
#1 - able and acknowledged by the existing dev teams,
and #2 - willing to commit some of their time to the work involved.

That's how all this stuff works.

Any takers? I know I'm not qualified..., I'm just an artist, and I don't even understand half of what I do when making basic/simple mods :D

[rubenwardy]

exactly ONE client that was built with cheating in mind

There's been way more than this. Loads of people have made them, including me after being told that it was possible whilst playing a server in 2012... Cheat clients was a big problem in ctf, there was one at least once a week.

Currently all CSM allows you to cheat with is node detection, but this can be prevented by limiting the use of get_node. This is also hardly a problem, as finding ores isn't that hard with proper mining techniques. The only thing it would be useful for is not missing nyancats, which are so rare anyway

[Byakuren]

There's no benefit for cheaters. When editing source code you can do a lot more, whereas when using CSM, you have to be aware of how minetest works (see source code).

The benefit is that you don't need to build or know how to build minetest from source. You still need to know how minetest works if you are editing the source code, anyway. This benefit is more pronounced on mobile, where users are less likely to be able to build and deploy their custom Minetest on their phone, and where it is harder for people distributing cheat-enabled clients to publish them.

[Hybrid Dog]

Playing mobile is too inconvenient, don't do it. Cheats don't help you with the most important thing: building and digging individually.
rubenwardy, there is no nyancat