This is mostly a question for chaos, as I swear I saw him say that load order didn't matter, it was a bug causing load order issues in discussion about harmony Redesigned somewhere. But if anyone else has any insight, I love to hear it.

That's what I thought. Seems like a huge effort to do something of games should accomplish alphabetically. Kerbal has a a couple must load first type mods, Their folder titles start with 000(mod name) Problem solved. There's even one that must load last can you guess what it folder is called? zzz(mod name). Back from that tangent, thanks for the insight. The timing, and the author of the mod made me suspicious. Modders who work for the game they mod while hiding it is super skechy. Most of The CSL community is oblivious, you should have seen the downvotes I got on reddit for outing him in a thread about movable bridges he's working on. Why the hell isn't he making something like that as official content?

Why does someone who wants his code to run on your computer also want to be anonymous?

Also, why is reputable software always signed by the author with his real name? Why are code-signing certificates that developers must use always issued to individuals or companies based on their real names?

One reason is liability. In legislation (in many/all? countries) it is a crime to tamper or cause damage to computer systems, and as such malicious software authors seek to evade punishment by publishing malware anonymously. EDIT: Often, paid software is trust-worthy, as the author considers he's been paid for his efforts, while some free software relies on other forms of payment (advertising, spyware, "analytics", bundling "adware", or some other undisclosed form of generating something valuable for the author).

When I first contacted Felix Schmidt, he proposed inserting a bitcoin miner into his Harmony mod, and offered me to join his organization. He also requested that I help him become anonymous by keeping his real name secret, as well as Colossal Order (his employer's), also mentioning that if "people" learnt his identity, he would be harmed. When I refused to be part of his organization or submit to his demands, he banned me from his discord channel where he is the leader of the CSL developer clique/cult, and also had me banned form the CSL Community Hub, which is moderated by his employer, Colossal Order, but not before assuring me that he wants me to be a member of his discord, and would never try to remove my Harmony mod from his company's workshop. Empty promises, broken very soon after being made can only be seen as a means to gain some favour or advantage, and not as actual promises.

While there is no problem with gamer usernames/tags being anonymous, developer names must be real for liability (and other, like copyright, patent, etc) reasons. Where there are privacy concerns, one is free to use separate gamer and developer accounts, and not link them.

In my mind, since Felix believes he would be harmed, I can infer that this is because he is responsible for some illegal activity; being charged and jailed would be considered "harm". In my eyes, his demand for protection from "harm" amounts to admission of guilt.

Why does the Cities Skylines player community follow such individuals in high regard and give him cult-like devotion (some even openly said they knowingly accept his mediocre software, "no matter what")?

I can't claim to have all the answers, but I'm certain that any sapient person can make their own informed decisions, and be cautious where warranted.

Your unadulterated transparency continues to impress.

a "bitcoin miner" !?

Yikes. This sort of stuff blows my mind. Thank you for the cogent explanations, for those of us who have some interest but don't want to delve into what seems to be some pretty mucky business.

In the interest of disclosure, I'll mention how I hope to get paid for the effort I'm putting in with my mods:

1. Supply Chain Coloring was my first, tiny mod, written in a day or two. I get paid back by saving time when I play the game and can organize my industry more efficiently thanks to the information it exposes, instead of guessing.

2. Transfer Broker, my second mod written over a week or so, and still in active development, pays me back by also exposing some information that would otherwise be stupidly tedious to visualize, and by making match-making predictable, which saves me play-time I'd otherwise spend in frustration, scratching my head to understand why vehicles come from and go to unexpected destinations.

3. Harmony * - this is my third mod that I had no intention of tackling until Felix Schmidt broke my first two mods with his Feb 14 update, and requested me to immediately update to his new "API". This incident told me that by relying on his software, I'd only be at his whim, and I'd need to always stand by and be ready for the next requirement to "update" whenever he wants, or my two mods would be "broken" for at least a few of my subscribers. I needed a more reliable and mature patching library to depend on.

Initially, Harmony was only a patching library. I thought once implemented, with an update path that does not break existing mods, nor require other developers to jump and update their mods, I'd be done. It would have been a small additional cost to me, in the way of development time, but would save from future heart-ache and my mods being broken at someone else's whim. But, in his wisdom, Felix Schmidt decided to attack my superior library, as it is a threat to his ability to control the modding community through his library. This attack made it clear I need to take Harmony to the next level, which would require significantly more effort, and would only make sense if I could somehow get reimbursed for my time.

Since I had never planned to work on any thing Harmony, development time is an unexpected cost. I hope that by making it into a top-shelf Harmony Mod Manager, game developers who want to make their games moddable will eventually see my code as the "gold standard" in mod management, and will chose to buy the code and support from me rather than attempt their own, half-baked solutions. Mod management is a means to an end in any game, it is not by itself generating value. There is much more work that is needed to make it "the gold standard" I envision, but the point is my payment will not come from the end users, but through licensing fees from the game developers themselves, and therefore the code I am writing will have no need for a hidden way to extract payment.