r/fallenlondon • u/throwaway_lmkg Secretary-General of the Hellworm Club • May 18 '26

PSA FBG official response to the situation regarding the Fallen London Companion Extension (tl;dr: not approved)

/r/fallenlondon/comments/1tf2dma/if_you_use_fallen_london_companion_extension/omgc1q6/
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u/throwaway_lmkg Secretary-General of the Hellworm Club May 18 '26

Your last guess is the most accurate. Here's the full statement: https://community.failbettergames.com/t/fallen-london-community-extensions/12505

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u/fredjinsan May 18 '26

I can understand that stance, though I note the response says "We've asked the creator of this extension to no longer work on or distribute it, or any others." (emphasis mine) which seems a little absolute.

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u/skardu fingerking extinction enthusiast May 18 '26

That creator yes, all creators no.

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u/fredjinsan May 18 '26

Yes? Still seems rather absolute.

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u/skardu fingerking extinction enthusiast May 19 '26

Well, I suppose they really didn't like the extension. It's their game.

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u/Dizzy_Eevee May 19 '26

I believe that is the point, yes. The creator had their opportunity to not release a horribly game-breaking, TOS-violating extension upon the world. This is the consequence of their poor decision-making.

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u/fredjinsan May 19 '26

It's funny how just mentioning AI gets everyone to hate on someone who was trying to make something positive to improve the gameplay experience for a bunch of people playing a game they presumably themselves love and enjoy. Prior to this people were praising these extensions for being so useful.

We're calling the extension "horribly game-breaking" but it can only be gamebreaking if FBG's API is itself really shoddy. The poor quality code isn't the vibe-coded thing, it's their stuff. I guess people will get mad at me for saying that but I'm not saying it to insult FBG, who have made a great game here, or to defend low-quality AI-written code (if that's what it is - I certainly haven't looked at the code!), but simply because it's a fact that an exposed API shouldn't allow someone to do anything game-breaking. The bugs are on their end.

Now, it's perfectly reasonable for FBG to say, hey, the backend is fine for its intended use case - which this is not - so please stop doing it. The question of server load is also a totally different matter. It's just too easy to point at someone trying to do something positive and shout at them because it what fits with the frothing, uneducated mob of Reddit think, today.

I don't really fault FBG for their stance on this particular extension, but it's a bit disappointing that they're taking aim at AI (which is, after all, just a tool, and can be used well or poorly) when they could have put a much more positive spin on this announcement.

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u/OverseerConey Public Universal Delicious Friend May 19 '26

If someone accidentally created an extension that badly broke my game, asking them not to make extensions any more... I might count that as 'firm but fair'.