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Pillars of Eternity and the merits of modding

mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
in Off-Topic
This discussion was created from comments split from: Obsidian Entertainment's Project Eternity.
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  • scriverscriver Member Posts: 2,072
    That's strange, as the only thing they've said is that there won't be a toolset, ie "TES CS or Aurora Toolkit moddable".
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    scriver said:

    That's strange, as the only thing they've said is that there won't be a toolset, ie "TES CS or Aurora Toolkit moddable".


    @scriver, maybe @LiamEsler can clarify on that, but from his previous posts it seems it will be very mod unfriendly. Like Mass Effect maybe, i.e. nothing more than few texture replacements.
  • TJ_HookerTJ_Hooker Member Posts: 2,438
    edited July 2014
    I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the Infinity Engine isn't particularly modder friendly either. And yet dedicated fans managed to work their way around that and, hey presto, mods happened. I don't see why a similar thing couldn't happen with Pillars of Eternity.
    Post edited by TJ_Hooker on
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    I wonder if they have encrypted their data files...
  • LiamEslerLiamEsler Member Posts: 1,859
    @mlnevese I think that's part of Unity's compile process, but I could be wrong. They wouldn't do it intentionally, in any case.
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    @LiamEsler‌ Encryption adds a serious problem to modding. It may even be impossible without hacking the game.
  • LiamEslerLiamEsler Member Posts: 1,859
    edited July 2014
    @mlnevese Hence my comments, yeah.

    Edit: Just to be clear, most Infinity Engine modding is done via 'hacking'.
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    edited July 2014
    @LiamEsler I understand what you are saying, however Obsidian whole stance on modding is still very disappointing. There is no excuse; if the problem is merely an economic one, as you suggested, I still believe there are many things they could have cut instead that are much less important.

    I don't normally comment on games that are not been released yet, but I thought that one of the selling point of the Kickstarter project was to engage backers so they could provide their feedback during also the development phase.

    On the bright side, I learned an important lesson: never trust a Kickstarter project ever again and always wait for the final product before getting engaged both economically and emotionally. For that at least Obsidian has my thanks.
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    edited July 2014
    Okay, I'd like the game to be modded as much as the next person, and do find it a little sad there will be none, but I still think you're taking this way out of proportion. It's not the end of the world or anything, it's just that making mods for the game will be slightly harder at first.

    Look, a bit earlier you said you'd rather have them cut off stuff from the game itself, like areas or quests or whatever, so that they could bring in mods. Do you have any idea how stupid that would be? Not everyone that likes to play games likes to mod them, and those people would only suffer for it. The game would lose important things, some of the professionally made in-game content that is supposed to make the game good in the first place, all for the sake of maybe a few fan-made quest packs and Mary Sue NPCs that most players wouldn't even know were there.

    But screw those people. All that matters is that you'll be happy. Oh noooo Kickstarter is objectively terrible and I'll never deal with it again because a project considers catering my subjective and narrow interests less important than catering the interests of most regular players, oh woe is meee.
    Post edited by Chow on
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    Chow said:

    Okay, I'd like the game to be modded as much as the next person, and do find it a little sad there will be none, but I still think you're taking this way out of proportion. It's not the end of the world or anything, it's just that making mods for the game will be slightly harder at first.

    Look, a bit earlier you said you'd rather have them cut off stuff from the game itself, like areas or quests or whatever, so that they could bring in mods. Do you have any idea how stupid that would be? Not everyone that likes to play games likes to mod them, and those people would only suffer for it. The game would lose important things, some of the professionally made in-game content that is supposed to make the game good in the first place, all for the sake of maybe a few fan-made quest packs and Mary Sue NPCs that most players wouldn't even know were there.

    But screw those people. All that matters is that you'll be happy. Oh noooo Kickstarter is objectively terrible and I'll never deal with it again because a project considers catering my subjective and narrow interests less important than catering the interests of most regular players, oh woe is meee.

    While I appreciate the content of your post, and I understand your position even if I don't agree with it, I really don't like your tone. I thought we were supposed to be respectful of each other on this Forums and argue without insulting each other.

    Back on topic: they are Obsidian, they are THE expert on cRPG, they are supposed to know better, they can't just release the game in an unmoddable state and hope that some genius modder will come up, against all odds, with a solution to hack the game.

    They should realise that even if there are people that don't like and/or install mods, they are very important. I don't think is an exaggeration to say that without mods for BG, there wouldn't be an Enhanced Edition, there wouldn't be a renewed interest for the game 15 years later and maybe there wouldn't be a Project Eternity too, if it's true the BG was one of the main inspirations behind the project.

    However, this will be my final rant, because this is me going from passionately trying to salvage the game, to not giving a !@$# anymore, at least until the first mod is released, if ever. And I mean a real mod, e.g. adding an NPC or additional quests, not one to change the haircut and the colour of the shirt of commander Shepard.
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    I am one of those people who love to mod too, you know. When I find a modding site I'm like a kid in a candy stores. But you're vastly exaggerating their importance here: you're putting them over just about everything else, even actual things in the actual game. Those take the precedence, and if making the game the best they could means making mods more difficult to make, then that's the way the cookie crumbles.

    None of us is a gaming developer here. We don't exactly know how it works, or how difficult it is, and we cannot say they're supposed to "know better". I'm sure they would have put mods there if they could have, but they couldn't: they don't do it for malice, they do it because they made the choice, because by adding mods they would have had to remove something more important than that.

    Mods are not what kept Baldur's Gate alive all these years. If anything, mods just brought it some food from the groceries every once in a while: what kept Baldur's Gate alive all these years, nothing more or less, is that it's a damn good game even today. What you're suggesting is to make Pillars of Eternity less of that, just to be sure there will be mods there. It would not be worth it.

    You're not "passionately trying to salvage the game". You're not even in the development project. You're just going on about your own pet peeve, that really isn't anywhere as important as you claim. Yes, not even the additional NPCs or quests: going by what you said earlier, you would have had the developers, the actual professionals, remove their NPCs and quests just so that the players could add theirs: I'd love to see some fan-made content, but let's face it, the vast majority of them are pretty much junk compared to what the developers themselves would do - and you would make such an exchange? It would not keep the game alive: if anything, it'd just kill it faster.

    And yes, I suppose my tone is not very nice. I'd just like people to take everything less seriously, instead of considering some ultimately incredibly minor thing the end of the bloody world.
  • CaloNordCaloNord Member Posts: 1,809
    Was it just me that remembers the first time people figured out how to mod BG? It was like the most amazing break through ever at the time. :)
    Still, I will still play PoE even if it can't be modded. I will however be sad after my 20th play through. Then I'll be very sad. Perhaps we'll get a toolset later. . .
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    Chow said:

    you're vastly exaggerating their importance here

    That's the whole point, I don't think I am. It's you the one that is underestimating their importance.
    Chow said:

    fan-made content, but let's face it, the vast majority of them are pretty much junk compared to what the developers themselves would do

    Do you even realise that some of those modders, that wrote content you just called junk, are now working as developers for either BG:EE/BGII:EE or Pillars of Eternity or both?
  • CaloNordCaloNord Member Posts: 1,809
    Chow said:

    fan-made content, but let's face it, the vast majority of them are pretty much junk compared to what the developers themselves would do

    Umm on the contrary. Some of the content the community has created themselves is of a quality equal to or superior to the 'official' content.
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    edited July 2014
    Erg said:

    That's the whole point, I don't think I am. It's you the one that is underestimating their importance.

    I don't think I am. Like I've said, I think mods are important and fun. They would make the game, in the long run, vastly greater and more awesome. On this part we are on the same level. However, let me just quote yourself from earlier:
    Erg said:

    I would rather cut the expansion, half of the cities, half of the NPCs and half of the story, than have a game that isn't moddable.

    This is NOT how important mods are. This kind of a move, what you suggest, would butcher the entire game. It would give the entire thing to the hands of the fans and modders, and even if some of their content did turn out to be amazing, it would still end up a clusterf-k of epic proportions, where everyone's game would be different and no one would have any idea what they're talking about or where the standards are.

    Imagine if half of Baldur's Gate's story and NPCs were added by mods. That's pretty much what you'd prefer, wouldn't it? Yes, maybe some of them, like Minsc and Edwin and the Firkraag sidequest, would be downloaded by nearly - and still just nearly - all of us, how many of you would even understand if I decided to talk about someone like Cernd?

    And how much more difficult would it have been for Beamdog to make this Enhanced Edition? They could only add the prime official content, and would not have been allowed to touch mods. Its modding issues still aren't doing that great, as I hear: we still wouldn't have any of those NPCs or sidequests, if they were mods instead of a part of the main game. The entirety of BG:EE would be half what it is right now, and maybe, a decade or two from now, so would be Pillars of Eternity: Enhanced Edition.

    You will never convince me that I am underestimating the importance of mods.
    Erg said:

    Do you even realise that some of those modders, that wrote content you just called junk, are now working as developers for either BG:EE/BGII:EE or Pillars of Eternity or both?

    CaloNord said:

    Umm on the contrary. Some of the content the community has created themselves is of a quality equal to or superior to the 'official' content.

    Yes. Operative word here being "some", and in what I said being "vast majority". It still leaves a few mods that are pretty neat, yes. But it's still very few, in fact, compared to most of what's out there. I stand by my point that most mods are pretty awful.

    Besides, with mods there's a lot more room for opinion. Someone here might think some mod is vastly superior to what developers would do, while another would consider it a terrible butchery of canon. Once again, there would be no standards to be set, nothing anyone would know for sure. Content being official and available for everyone would have those standards, while any mod, no matter how great you think it is, would not.
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    Erg said:

    I would rather cut the expansion, half of the cities, half of the NPCs and half of the story, than have a game that isn't moddable.

    Chow said:

    This is NOT how important mods are. This kind of a move, what you suggest, would

    Mine was clearly an hyperbole, it wasn't meant to be taken literally.

    My point is that Obsidian should have taken in account mods in advance in the first phases of the project and make sure there were enough resources for it. If Unity is not suited and/or too expensive, they should have chosen a different engine. It is most likely too late now, to do something about it, but this does not mitigate my disappointment.
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    edited July 2014
    bengoshi said:

    We all see that there're 2 points of view on whether the PoE moddability is the cornerstone of this game or not and whether it's a "make or break" for PoE or not. There's no need to become personal.

    Yeah, sorry. I just find what was said earlier, that half of the official game's content could easily be culled to get the mods in, was an incredibly thoughtless thing to say.

    Also I think it depends on the game too. In something like Skyrim and other games of the series mods are extremely important, vastly more so than in many other games. I don't think Baldur's Gate, or Pillars of Eternity, ranks all that high: not up to the levels of being a cornerstone that would cause the entire game to collapse if it's taken away, at least.

    Also because let's face it, Skyrim's writing is rather more poor than what Baldur's Gate has, and what Pillars of Eternity promises to be, so it's far easier for players to make something better in the former than in the latter.
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    edited July 2014
    Erg said:

    Mine was clearly an hyperbole, it wasn't meant to be taken literally.

    Those are just so hard to notice in the Internet.
    Erg said:

    My point is that Obsidian should have taken in account mods in advance in the first phases of the project and make sure there were enough resources for it. If Unity is not suited and/or too expensive, they should have chosen a different engine. It is most likely too late now, to do something about it, but this does not mitigate my disappointment.

    Maybe they did? Maybe they looked it through right at the start, crunched some numbers, and found it impossible to do when compared to some things that are even more important, such as actual game content.

    The issue is likely about far more than time and resources. There will be many other factors, such as how the engine would work out with them or how the whole mess of coding would crumble if mods were crammed in. Trust me, they will have looked it up far more than you ever could have, they will have thought this through more than you have, and they know more than we ever will. If mods aren't going to be in, there's a good reason for it.
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    Chow said:

    Those are just so hard to notice in the Internet.

    Are they? I find mildly offensive that you thought it was meant to be taken literally. Of course I know that they have obligations to fulfil concerning the content of the game. For instance, many people, including me, have already paid for the expansion, of course they can't cut it.
    Chow said:

    Maybe they did? Maybe they looked it through right at the start, crunched some numbers, and found it impossible to do when compared to some things that are even more important, such as actual game content.

    The issue is likely about far more than time and resources. There will be many other factors, such as how the engine would work out with them or how the whole mess of coding would crumble if mods were crammed in. Trust me, they will have looked it up far more than you ever could have, they will have thought this through more than you have, and they know more than we ever will. If mods aren't going to be in, there's a good reason for it.

    First as I said, even if all of this was true, it does nothing to mitigate my disappointment.

    Second, it isn't so hard to provide official support for mods. Divinity Original Sin did it, why couldn't Obsidian do it too ?
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    Erg said:

    Second, it isn't so hard to provide official support for mods. Divinity Original Sin did it, why couldn't Obsidian do it too ?

    It may well be, actually. They'd need to make modding tools, figure out how it works into the game and its engine, add some extra stuff in there to make it possible, and quite likely breaking something and resulting in a lot more work to be done. And even in the end, it would be more than likely to be a glitchy, buggy mess.

    If it were that easy, they would have done it.
  • TJ_HookerTJ_Hooker Member Posts: 2,438
    edited July 2014
    Erg said:

    I don't normally comment on games that are not been released yet, but I thought that one of the selling point of the Kickstarter project was to engage backers so they could provide their feedback during also the development phase.

    On the bright side, I learned an important lesson: never trust a Kickstarter project ever again and always wait for the final product before getting engaged both economically and emotionally. For that at least Obsidian has my thanks.

    Are you aware of some large group of backers asking Obsidian for moddability, who are summarily being ignored? Because it seems like you're just assuming that most people feel the way you do, and then concluding that Obsidian isn't listening to their fans, thereby breaking their promise of listening to the community. For instance, I, like @Chow, am opposed to the idea of cutting content in favour of increasing moddability. Just because they're doing something you don't like, it doesn't automatically it a betrayal, as you seem to think it is.

    And even if the majority of backers were in favour of this, I'm not sure that means it ought to be done. Listening to community feedback is one thing, but if you start leaving game decisions to community votes then you'll just end up with a game designed by committee, and I really don't think that's the way to go.
  • terzaerianterzaerian Member Posts: 232
    TJ_Hooker said:

    Erg said:

    I don't normally comment on games that are not been released yet, but I thought that one of the selling point of the Kickstarter project was to engage backers so they could provide their feedback during also the development phase.

    On the bright side, I learned an important lesson: never trust a Kickstarter project ever again and always wait for the final product before getting engaged both economically and emotionally. For that at least Obsidian has my thanks.

    Are you aware of some large group of backers asking Obsidian for moddability, who are summarily being ignored? Because it seems like you're just assuming that most people feel the way you do, and then concluding that Obsidian isn't listening to their fans, thereby breaking their promise of listening to the community. For instance, I, like @Chow, am opposed to the idea of cutting content in favour of increasing moddability. Just because they're doing something you don't like, it doesn't automatically it a betrayal, as you seem to think it is.

    And even if the majority of backers were in favour of this, I'm not sure that means it ought to be done. Listening to community feedback is one thing, but if you start leaving game decisions to community votes then you'll just end up with a game designed by committee, and I really don't think that's the way to go.
    That is a shortsighted way to think. Cutting content? Moddability means never running out of content. Studios, even ones as quirky or indie as Obsidian, run out of money and interest to add content; communities do not. People are still making mods for BG from what I have seen of the boards here.

    I don't like the idea that we can just count on another genius like Wes Weimer to make modding PE free and easy for us; you just can't count on that happening anymore. The idea that it can just be added after release is similarly foolhardy; modding is infrastructure, and infrastructure is easier to incorporate before a major project is complete than after.

    All that considered I'd gladly give up some content if it means making it easier and faster to get modding going. Long-term advantages are better than short-term satisfaction.
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    TJ_Hooker said:

    Are you aware of some large group of backers asking Obsidian for moddability, who are summarily being ignored? Because it seems like you're just assuming that most people feel the way you do, and then concluding that Obsidian isn't listening to their fans, thereby breaking their promise of listening to the community. For instance, I, like @Chow, am opposed to the idea of cutting content in favour of increasing moddability. Just because they're doing something you don't like, it doesn't automatically it a betrayal, as you seem to think it is.

    And even if the majority of backers were in favour of this, I'm not sure that means it ought to be done. Listening to community feedback is one thing, but if you start leaving game decisions to community votes then you'll just end up with a game designed by committee, and I really don't think that's the way to go.

    @TJ_Hooker you are misrepresenting my words based on your own extrapolation. I never talked about betrayal or large groups of backers or polls. All of those exist only in your post.

    I merely expressed my (negative) feedback on the lack of mod support and stated that next time I will wait and see how a project turns out before engaging. I fail to see what is wrong with that.
  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    edited July 2014
    Guys, I really think that sooner or later the game will be in large part moddable. If not from the beginning, then maybe with one or few consecutive patches. If BGEE team can externalise some things, surely Obsidian could do the same. @Erg take an example of CD Project RED team and the Witcher 2. They did release modding suite after some time, did they? I thing the whole thing will depend how much money will go to Obsidian pockets with the release of PoE. If it turns to be a success, the modding toll will come out, I'm rather confident about that.
  • TJ_HookerTJ_Hooker Member Posts: 2,438
    edited July 2014
    terzaerian said:

    That is a shortsighted way to think. Cutting content? Moddability means never running out of content. Studios, even ones as quirky or indie as Obsidian, run out of money and interest to add content; communities do not. People are still making mods for BG from what I have seen of the boards here.

    I don't like the idea that we can just count on another genius like Wes Weimer to make modding PE free and easy for us; you just can't count on that happening anymore. The idea that it can just be added after release is similarly foolhardy; modding is infrastructure, and infrastructure is easier to incorporate before a major project is complete than after.

    All that considered I'd gladly give up some content if it means making it easier and faster to get modding going. Long-term advantages are better than short-term satisfaction.

    So it isn't appropriate to assume that we'll have someone come along and make modding easier for people (a la Weimer), but it is appropriate to assume that we'll have talented modders coming out of the woodwork to provide a never ending stream of quality content?

    To be honest, I don't need endless amounts of content. I'd rather have quality over quantity. And yes, I realize that official content is in no way automatically better than mod content. But I trust Obsidian more than I trust the average modder. I'm sure, given time, mods will be released that rival or exceed the original content. But I'm not particularly interested in waiting for those, nor am I particularly interested in sifting through all the mods to find the diamond in the rough. I'd like a complete, expansive game that I can fully enjoy at launch. I don't replay games enough (and have a big enough backlog of games waiting for me) to require new content in perpetuity.

    Lastly, I think suggesting that we count on PoE's own version of Weimer to be a fair response, given what @Erg said: "And by moddable I don't mean TES Construction Set or Aurora Toolset moddable, but just moddable like BG." If his standard of moddability is BG, i.e. a game that is not inherently moddable but instead relies on community developed tools developed after release, then I would say that PoE appears to meet that standard. At the very least, we have insufficient information to conclude that it does not meet that standard.

    Edit: and just so I don't have to deal with the recurring straw man argument: saying that the average mod/modder out there isn't amazing is not is not an insult to every mod/modder out there. There are definitely some modders who are very talented and are making some great content. Just not all of them are.
    Post edited by TJ_Hooker on
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    TJ_Hooker said:

    Lastly, I think suggesting that we count on PoE's own version of Weimer to be a fair response, given what @Erg said: "And by moddable I don't mean TES Construction Set or Aurora Toolset moddable, but just moddable like BG." If his standard of moddability is BG, i.e. a game that is not inherently moddable but instead relies on community developed tools developed after release, then I would say that PoE appears to meet that standard. At the very least, we have insufficient information to conclude that it does not meet that standard.

    From @LiamEsler posts it looks like PoE will be much less moddable than BG was at release. Even before WeiDU, mods were possible in BG because it had an override folder and an huge amount of externalised stuff, all those 2DAs files for example. PoE will have none of those.

    I fear, as I said in my previous posts, that we will have the same level of moddability of Mass Effect, i.e. almost null. Where is the Mass Effect's own version of Weimer ? Not all games have one apparently.
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