Update: Hooded Horse communications director Joe Robinson responded to our request for comment and explained the situation around discussing Manor Lords mods on Discord.
Robinson says that the decision was made due to players complaining about an issue that turned out to be caused by a mod, which corroborates remarks made by Slavic Magic in our original story.
He says that Hooded Horse is "not looking to proactively suppress Manor Lords mods across the internet", but that the studio will "evaluate other spaces [besides Discord] where we gather feedback as needed" with regards to the mod moratorium.
According to Robinson, while Hooded Horse celebrates players' creativity, the team is currently focusing on "processing feedback and bug reports" during Manor Lords' Early Access period, and players discussing mods is not conducive to that work.
Original story follows below.
Original story: If you want to discuss Manor Lords mods on the game's official Discord, you might have to wait a while, as mod discussion has been banned until the city-builder receives official support for the feature.
Per a message posted by moderator JKM in the Discord server, discussing and "encouraging the use of" mods has been banned in order to "maintain the integrity" of the gameplay experience.
The message goes on to say that the decision to ban mod discussion was made "to ensure that players engage with the game's core mechanics as intended", and that it includes "discussions about how to acquire, install, or use mods".
According to the moderator, the rule against discussing mods will remain in place until mod support is added to Manor Lords, but there's "no estimated time for mod support implementation" at the moment, so that rule could last a while.
JKM also says that bug reports relating to Manor Lords mods "will not be addressed" since installing mods can lead to issues that you can only resolve with a fresh reinstall.
That stance is backed up by Manor Lords dev Slavic Magic, who said on X (formerly Twitter) earlier today that players should feel free to experiment with mods, but that they shouldn't report bugs if mods are used.
It's likely that this is why the rule has been put into place, but it does seem like an odd rule given that Slavic Magic has also commented positively on at least two Manor Lords mods: one adding none other than Shrek to the game, and the other incorporating VR.
If you're not familiar with Manor Lords, it's a city-builder with grand strategy and RTS elements created by small indie dev Slavic Magic and published by Hooded Horse.
Within just a day on release, the game attracted over 100,000 Steam players and soared past the million-sale mark, a particularly impressive feat given that it's also available via PC Game Pass.
You can check out Manor Lords right now on PC via Steam Early Access.
