I guess this answer is directed towards my post even if iam not mentioned clearly.
Everything you are talking about is like talking about a finished/launched game which is out of the early access. We are talking, about an early access game, that is turning "official DLC" mods, and paying their creators in gold ingots. Well, i like science fiction, but i couldnt even imagine that this would be even possible.
As talking about DOTA2 paying modders or CSGO. Which are both valve games (both where even mods..) and we both know where their strategy on mods leaded them: a clique of modders/employees is now established and specialized in modding the bloody skins . For exemple, in DOTA2, beeing an "outsider moder " (for skins making) is almost impossible now, in 2017, and valve mostly feeding always same people and btw they earn only 25% of the earnings, but even 25% is overkill just for this kind of skill. But well i guess that the real problem was from players that are stupid to spend 2.5$ on a single skin/texture, but this will be another debate..
If a company (well lets rather talk about a "studio", since wilcard is owned by Snail games) can afford 60k$ /month to pay modders/hobby people, what is the problem with hiring people that are skilled, get diplomas, and can fix the core bugs of ARK, that are ruining the gameplay for now 2 years.
I would mention, as exemple, that it took 2 years to fix simple achievements that were broken and that we didnt get ANY communication about the fact that they were broken (exemple: artifact archeologist: since march 2016 (last official post about this achievement beeing on steam forums: march 2016: since then we didnt have any clue about the status of this achievement). It took also 2 years between the launching of the bosses and the "fix" of them (if they even are fully fixed one day). This as been a long wait for millions customers. ESPECIALLY WHEN THEIR ARE FORCED TO LOGIN WEEKLY to avoid wipe.
Iam just lost about this kind of strategy, and for sure this will divide even more the modders community because there will be the "official" and the "non official", while back in the past in the video game industry we never had such discrimination on modders. for exemple good modders were often hired . To me we are either an employee or a modder, but not an employee-modder.
As i said iam mostly lost and also impressed (impressed by the overkill amount of dollars the modders are paid, which, be sure of this, will lead to a lot of jealousy or fights between modders: just look this guy traductor complaining about not beeing paid in the last post: lol) by this decision, and for sure this is a kinda a test project cause i would be surprised that my ark gets 15*12=180 DLCs in one year?! LOL
Well good luck with this and i just hope that it wont corrupt the modding spirit as DOTA, CSGO and everything coming from valve already did..
