I can't say anything about Mass Effect since I never played it, but both the Baldur's Gate games have plenty of mods for new NPCs and quests and areas. I'm fairly confident Pillars of Eternity will too.
I can't say anything about Mass Effect since I never played it, but both the Baldur's Gate games have plenty of new NPCs and quests and areas. I'm fairly confident Pillars of Eternity will too.
Unfortunately, I don't share your confidence, but let's agree to come back here in about 5 years or so and we'll see who is right in the end.
After all, I'll be the first to rejoice if I'm proven wrong
If I may ask, why not? You've seen what the community has done to Baldur's Gate, and you must've seen some other ridiculously intricate and complicated projects elsewhere in the gaming world, such as Skywind or turning Final Fantasy VII to an NES game or whatever else. People like you and I have a great deal of time in our hands, and in boredom great things will happen.
If enough people reckon Pillars of Eternity to be an awesome game and worthy of carrying the mantle of Baldur's Gate, there will be mods.
Guys, I think it's pretty clear you have completely different approach to PoE and its future modability and any consensus is unlikely. @Erg has every right to do with his copy whatever he wants. I failed to understand his reasoning even after reading all his posts, but nobody should force him to play a game he don't want to play. Just let it go and let's back on topic:)
But that's what the topic is! It's the merits of modding. What else is there besides talking about how important that stuff is and whether we can play the game more than once without them?
The games it was based on had an override folder from day 1.
I have to ask, what kinds of things could you put into the override folder on day 1? In my experience, the things that go in the override folder are files that have been extracted and edited with tools like Near Infinity. Tools which didn't exist from day 1.
The games it was based on had an override folder from day 1.
I have to ask, what kinds of things could you put into the override folder on day 1? In my experience, the things that go in the override folder are files that have been extracted and edited with tools like Near Infinity. Tools which didn't exist from day 1.
@TJ_Hooker, the override at first was mainly used by the developers (e.g. to patch the game) that had their own tools, later modder were able to create better tools (these better tools are now used by the developers themselves).
I may be mistaken, but given the limitations of the engine that's not possible for PoE, i.e. developers have of course access to the game resources, but in a such way that isn't and maybe never will be available to modders.
For example, in Mass Effect, to go back to my favourite example of a game that is not very moddable, developers can add a new NPC (e.g. in a DLC), but modders can't, or at least no one was able to do it so far, despite the game popularity.
But that's what the topic is! It's the merits of modding. What else is there besides talking about how important that stuff is and whether we can play the game more than once without them?
Mods are the difference between playing a game more than once and playing it for years.
I don't know, I played Baldur's Gate for years before I realized there even was a modding community.
Speaking very pragmatically--and this should in no way suggest that I'm against modding in general--the moddability of a game actually hurts a developer's longevity. Or does no one remember the episode of Hey Arnold where Arnold sold everybody watches that wouldn't break, only to discover that eventually no one wanted to buy new watches because their old ones lasted forever?
It's actually in a developer's best interest to create amazing games that leave players wanting more; if you release a game with an okay story but a great set of modding tools, you'll end up with players that spend ten or fifteen years playing nothing but that one game--and adding no new revenue to fund future projects.
Don't get me wrong, modding is great, and there are some fine modders out there. But I hesitate to say that modding is a boon to the developer. The emphasis should be on creating great games, not on creating merely decent games that rely on fan-created content to shine. If you can do both, awesome--but I do question the sensibility of condemning a developer for favoring their own content over that of the fans.
But that's what the topic is! It's the merits of modding. What else is there besides talking about how important that stuff is and whether we can play the game more than once without them?
Mods are the difference between playing a game more than once and playing it for years.
There are numerous people on this forum alone who have been playing BG for years without mods. There are multiple people in this thread who have been playing BG for years without mods.
It's actually in a developer's best interest to create amazing games that leave players wanting more; if you release a game with an okay story but a great set of modding tools, you'll end up with players that spend ten or fifteen years playing nothing but that one game--and adding no new revenue to fund future projects.
And this is exactly the attitude that is making gaming so God-awful in the present - people concerned over future profits and the next game over making great classics in the present. And it's why, in the cultural sphere, gaming remains a second-class citizen, looked down on by the likes of the "real" artists who paint or write or make movies.
Mods are the difference between playing a game more than once and playing it for years.
I disagree.
You're free to be wrong.
How is he wrong? Now if you had said "Mods are the difference for me between playing[...]", then it could just be a difference of opinion. As it stands, you made an absolute statement, so all it takes is a single case where someone played for years without mods to prove you wrong. We have such a case in this very thread. So it is actually you who is wrong.
It's actually in a developer's best interest to create amazing games that leave players wanting more; if you release a game with an okay story but a great set of modding tools, you'll end up with players that spend ten or fifteen years playing nothing but that one game--and adding no new revenue to fund future projects.
And this is exactly the attitude that is making gaming so God-awful in the present - people concerned over future profits and the next game over making great classics in the present. And it's why, in the cultural sphere, gaming remains a second-class citizen, looked down on by the likes of the "real" artists who paint or write or make movies.
You think people who make movies aren't concerned about future profits? Really, I'd say the reason that video games aren't considered art is because of how new the genre is. I think I remember reading that people thought the same way about movies when they were relatively new.
It's actually in a developer's best interest to create amazing games that leave players wanting more; if you release a game with an okay story but a great set of modding tools, you'll end up with players that spend ten or fifteen years playing nothing but that one game--and adding no new revenue to fund future projects.
And this is exactly the attitude that is making gaming so God-awful in the present - people concerned over future profits and the next game over making great classics in the present. And it's why, in the cultural sphere, gaming remains a second-class citizen, looked down on by the likes of the "real" artists who paint or write or make movies.
You're missing the point. A modder uses someone else's work to tell their own story. For some developers that's great--like you say, it expands the player's available content for the game and makes it even bigger than it was at release. It lets players customize their experience, which is awesome.
For other developers, who are spending a lot of time and money to create the game you loved so much you wanted to mod it in the first place, they would rather create good games that stand on their own.
Both methods are absolutely valid, and both methods are vital to the success of the art form. Star Wars thrived for decades on the work of Expanded Universe fiction writers such as Timothy Zahn. Lord of the Rings thrives on being a solid stand-alone work with Tolkien's words and no one else's.
Both works have stood the test of time--one on its own merits, the other on the merits of others. Video Games are the same way.
How is he wrong? Now if you had said "Mods are the difference for me between playing[...]", then it could just be a difference of opinion. As it stands, you made an absolute statement, so all it takes is a single case where someone played for years without mods to prove you wrong. We have such a case in this very thread. So it is actually you who is wrong.
Morrowind was released in 2002 - here are some other games that came out that year:
Find me one other game from that list that still has an active, vital community going without the benefit of mods, still playing that game (not that franchise).
You're missing the point. A modder uses someone else's work to tell their own story. For some developers that's great--like you say, it expands the player's available content for the game and makes it even bigger than it was at release. It lets players customize their experience, which is awesome.
Exceptionally talented modders use someone else's work to tell their own story - quest mods and story addons are at the higher end of it in terms of their increased technical complexity and amount of effort required. Most work to improve the base aspects of the core game - more diversity in weapons or armor, better AI, improved combat rules, adding immersive detail (such as ambient noise, which a lot of games seem to neglect using these days - probably because they're too busy fretting over budgets for the next game and neglect it), alterations to the rules and dynamics of combat to suit different playstyles. Yes, what comes along with this is the raft of nude mods and sex mods which the media love to latch onto, but people are pervs *everywhere* and that's hardly something exclusive to the modding community.
The point is, modding isn't about "hijacking" the core game - more often than not, it's about making that game even better in its core being than anyone might have originally thought possible.
For other developers, who are spending a lot of time and money to create the game you loved so much you wanted to mod it in the first place, they would rather create good games that stand on their own.
Both methods are absolutely valid, and both methods are vital to the success of the art form. Star Wars thrived for decades on the work of Expanded Universe fiction writers such as Timothy Zahn. Lord of the Rings thrives on being a solid stand-alone work with Tolkien's words and no one else's.
You seem to have this idea that working in modding is like asking someone to make a completely different game in a different genre - that's hardly the case. It's asking that the playerbase be given some of the infrastructure used to develop the core game in the first place. The Skyrim CK is exactly that - a tool used by the Bethesda devs themselves to build content into the game. In the case of Baldur's Gate, the Override directory, likely used by their devs to test out alterations to the game before they were "baked in" to the .BIFs, was that handhold.
Find me one other game from that list that still has an active, vital community going without the benefit of mods, still playing that game (not that franchise).
Morrowind still has an active gaming community, not because it's got mods, but because it's a bloody good game with interesting setting and lore and many character options. The fact that it can be modded is largely irrelevant to the issue, and if it weren't such a good game in the first place then there would be much less mods and interest to it.
Exceptionally talented modders use someone else's work to tell their own story - quest mods and story addons are at the higher end of it in terms of their increased technical complexity and amount of effort required. Most work to improve the base aspects of the core game - more diversity in weapons or armor, better AI, improved combat rules, adding immersive detail (such as ambient noise, which a lot of games seem to neglect using these days - probably because they're too busy fretting over budgets for the next game and neglect it), alterations to the rules and dynamics of combat to suit different playstyles. Yes, what comes along with this is the raft of nude mods and sex mods which the media love to latch onto, but people are pervs *everywhere* and that's hardly something exclusive to the modding community.
The point is, modding isn't about "hijacking" the core game - more often than not, it's about making that game even better in its core being than anyone might have originally thought possible.
I think I'd rather the developers did the absolute best they could first, make it so that mods such as that would not be needed. It will make the whole thing so much more simple, and the vast majority of players, those that never cared for the mods in the first place, will thank them.
The alternative would be like just hastily stitching the game together somehow, adding modding tools, and kicking it out with the words "The fanbase'll clear it up." That just seems vastly irresponsible to me, and if adding the modding tools was impossible without a great deal more work, or making the game otherwise inferior, then I think they made the right choice.
You seem to have this idea that working in modding is like asking someone to make a completely different game in a different genre - that's hardly the case. It's asking that the playerbase be given some of the infrastructure used to develop the core game in the first place. The Skyrim CK is exactly that - a tool used by the Bethesda devs themselves to build content into the game. In the case of Baldur's Gate, the Override directory, likely used by their devs to test out alterations to the game before they were "baked in" to the .BIFs, was that handhold.
Skyrim is of vastly different genre than Baldur's Gate is, one that puts player freedom over all else and basically allows them to do anything they like. But more importantly, it's also a glitchy, buggy mess that crashes a whole lot and that has a great deal of gameplay issues that no mod has ever managed to fix. With Skyrim mods are not an option, they are a necessity, and even with them it's far from a flawless game.
What few such issues Baldur's Gate had were almost entirely fixed by Enhanced Edition, and what few mods Baldur's Gate has I could easily go without: I've played the games for a decade and could go for another without missing a beat, with or without mods, and my opinion on Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment is the same - if to a slightly lesser extent - and I am likely to think the same of Pillars of Eternity. Are you saying I'm wrong?
@terzaerian - I have a game from that list that is still going strong. Final Fantasy XI. Now, before you go screaming "That's an MMO!" I will mention that you didn't set a limit on what it could be. Also, I doubt people are playing it for the "franchise" because its a 10+ year old game, and there's a new Final Fantasy MMO, as well as Lightning Returns.
I'll agree with @Chow on this one though. Skyrim is a buggy piece of poop of a game, a good buggy piece of poop of a game, but a buggy piece of poop of a game nonetheless. Mods are a necessity if you want to have a relatively bug-free experience via the Unofficial fixpacks, and if you run into a game breaking bug you have to go report that to the people that maintain the unofficial fixpacks, because Bethesda isn't going to fix Skyrim anymore.
Mods shouldn't be required in order for you to be able to play a game because the developers were too lazy to do the work. Mods shouldn't be mandatory, they shouldn't be a requirement, and you should be able to play the vanilla game without worrying if you're going to run into a game breaking bug.
I think Pillars of Eternity is going to stand strong even if it barely has any mods. Kind of like how Divinity: Original Sin is still #1 on Steam's top seller list. It only has like six mods to its name after a month being out in the world.
I'm sure that Pillars of Eternity is going to stand the test of time too like how Planescape: Torment, and Jade Empire has.
I hope nobody takes offense to this, but sometimes, I feel like PC gamers are a bunch of spoiled little brats sometimes. They can't mod a game? Time to throw a tantrum, and whine about the developers being bad because they didn't make something that catered to me, because in the end the developers should only listen to me!
I hope nobody takes offense to this, but sometimes, I feel like PC gamers are a bunch of spoiled little brats sometimes. They can't mod a game? Time to throw a tantrum, and whine about the developers being bad because they didn't make something that catered to me, because in the end the developers should only listen to me!
@SapphireIce101, I don't know about others, but I for sure won't take offence to this.
You can think of me as you like, if it makes you feel better. After all, it is just easier to dismiss entirely someone else opinion like that, than discuss in full its implications.
Besides, I don't usually take offence because of empty accusations. For example, you can call me thief, but I would not take offence, because I've never stolen anything in my life (actually that's not true, I've stolen a toy to one of my friends when I was 5 years old, but then I realised on my own that it was wrong and I gave it back with my apologies).
Edit: by the way DA2 is IMO a godawful game that I will never buy (despite having enjoyed DAO). Maybe, if it had a toolset, modders could fix it and it would be worth buying after all. But what do I know? I'm just a spoilt child throwing a tantrum.
And to be honest, I'm not against modding. In fact, I'm trying to make a mod for BGEE. I'll even admit that my "spoiled child" paragraph may have been out of line. Oh, and people still made mods for DA2 without use of a toolset.
How is he wrong? Now if you had said "Mods are the difference for me between playing[...]", then it could just be a difference of opinion. As it stands, you made an absolute statement, so all it takes is a single case where someone played for years without mods to prove you wrong. We have such a case in this very thread. So it is actually you who is wrong.
Morrowind was released in 2002 - here are some other games that came out that year:
Find me one other game from that list that still has an active, vital community going without the benefit of mods, still playing that game (not that franchise).
Now you're just moving your goal posts.
Also, I would argue that requiring there be an active community as proof that people are still interested in the game is biased towards games with mods. It's entirely possible for people to be playing the game without participating in a community. I played Baldur's Gate for years and never participated in any sort of community related to the game until this forum. However, a modding scene makes it more likely for people to form a community due to the sharing aspect of modding.
I think I'd rather the developers did the absolute best they could first, make it so that mods such as that would not be needed. It will make the whole thing so much more simple, and the vast majority of players, those that never cared for the mods in the first place, will thank them.
However much polish or content the developers add is never going to be enough. Bugs *will* escape QA, people *are* going to complain about there being not enough content. Not putting the tools rectify those situations into the hands of the players is just a guarantee that those criticisms have the last word. And modding support is the "canary in the mine" that tells you whether or not a developer really is dedicated to making the game the best it can possibly be - not including it is a grave warning sign; i.e., the canary dropping dead.
The alternative would be like just hastily stitching the game together somehow, adding modding tools, and kicking it out with the words "The fanbase'll clear it up." That just seems vastly irresponsible to me, and if adding the modding tools was impossible without a great deal more work, or making the game otherwise inferior, then I think they made the right choice.
That's been Obsidian's track record in the past anyway, with games that did (New Vegas) and didn't (KoTOR II) have modding tools released. It's a bit hypocritical to give them the benefit of the doubt when you're implying Bethesda leans on the fanbase to finish its games.
@terzaerian - I have a game from that list that is still going strong. Final Fantasy XI. Now, before you go screaming "That's an MMO!" I will mention that you didn't set a limit on what it could be. Also, I doubt people are playing it for the "franchise" because its a 10+ year old game, and there's a new Final Fantasy MMO, as well as Lightning Returns.
Fair enough. MMOs are, in a sense, on the opposite end of the spectrum from a modded game - where player alteration of the game is completely restricted by the developers to facilitate fair player interaction within the game. It's a legitimate choice to make, in and of itself, and one I have indulged in (and enjoyed) - but nowhere near as much as modding and playing mods. It is hardly a necessity for a single-player game.
Mods shouldn't be required in order for you to be able to play a game because the developers were too lazy to do the work. Mods shouldn't be mandatory, they shouldn't be a requirement, and you should be able to play the vanilla game without worrying if you're going to run into a game breaking bug.
So by this logic, if POE launches, and there are a lot of game-breaking bugs (and going by experience, with Obsidian in, say, New Vegas, or KoTOR II) there will be, then you're perfectly fine if Obsidian just shrugs its shoulders, says "we did QA, it's your problem now" and speeds off into the sunset, leaving you with a broken game AND no way to fix it? Do you not see how insanely shortsighted that is?
I hope nobody takes offense to this, but sometimes, I feel like PC gamers are a bunch of spoiled little brats sometimes. They can't mod a game? Time to throw a tantrum, and whine about the developers being bad because they didn't make something that catered to me, because in the end the developers should only listen to me!
Again, yes, those selfish, horrible modders, outpouring their passion for games for the benefit of everyone playing them into improvements people can utilize for free. What terrible people!
Comments
After all, I'll be the first to rejoice if I'm proven wrong
If enough people reckon Pillars of Eternity to be an awesome game and worthy of carrying the mantle of Baldur's Gate, there will be mods.
I may be mistaken, but given the limitations of the engine that's not possible for PoE, i.e. developers have of course access to the game resources, but in a such way that isn't and maybe never will be available to modders.
For example, in Mass Effect, to go back to my favourite example of a game that is not very moddable, developers can add a new NPC (e.g. in a DLC), but modders can't, or at least no one was able to do it so far, despite the game popularity.
Speaking very pragmatically--and this should in no way suggest that I'm against modding in general--the moddability of a game actually hurts a developer's longevity. Or does no one remember the episode of Hey Arnold where Arnold sold everybody watches that wouldn't break, only to discover that eventually no one wanted to buy new watches because their old ones lasted forever?
It's actually in a developer's best interest to create amazing games that leave players wanting more; if you release a game with an okay story but a great set of modding tools, you'll end up with players that spend ten or fifteen years playing nothing but that one game--and adding no new revenue to fund future projects.
Don't get me wrong, modding is great, and there are some fine modders out there. But I hesitate to say that modding is a boon to the developer. The emphasis should be on creating great games, not on creating merely decent games that rely on fan-created content to shine. If you can do both, awesome--but I do question the sensibility of condemning a developer for favoring their own content over that of the fans.
For other developers, who are spending a lot of time and money to create the game you loved so much you wanted to mod it in the first place, they would rather create good games that stand on their own.
Both methods are absolutely valid, and both methods are vital to the success of the art form. Star Wars thrived for decades on the work of Expanded Universe fiction writers such as Timothy Zahn. Lord of the Rings thrives on being a solid stand-alone work with Tolkien's words and no one else's.
Both works have stood the test of time--one on its own merits, the other on the merits of others. Video Games are the same way.
Prove me wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_in_video_gaming
Find me one other game from that list that still has an active, vital community going without the benefit of mods, still playing that game (not that franchise). Exceptionally talented modders use someone else's work to tell their own story - quest mods and story addons are at the higher end of it in terms of their increased technical complexity and amount of effort required. Most work to improve the base aspects of the core game - more diversity in weapons or armor, better AI, improved combat rules, adding immersive detail (such as ambient noise, which a lot of games seem to neglect using these days - probably because they're too busy fretting over budgets for the next game and neglect it), alterations to the rules and dynamics of combat to suit different playstyles. Yes, what comes along with this is the raft of nude mods and sex mods which the media love to latch onto, but people are pervs *everywhere* and that's hardly something exclusive to the modding community.
The point is, modding isn't about "hijacking" the core game - more often than not, it's about making that game even better in its core being than anyone might have originally thought possible. You seem to have this idea that working in modding is like asking someone to make a completely different game in a different genre - that's hardly the case. It's asking that the playerbase be given some of the infrastructure used to develop the core game in the first place. The Skyrim CK is exactly that - a tool used by the Bethesda devs themselves to build content into the game. In the case of Baldur's Gate, the Override directory, likely used by their devs to test out alterations to the game before they were "baked in" to the .BIFs, was that handhold.
The alternative would be like just hastily stitching the game together somehow, adding modding tools, and kicking it out with the words "The fanbase'll clear it up." That just seems vastly irresponsible to me, and if adding the modding tools was impossible without a great deal more work, or making the game otherwise inferior, then I think they made the right choice. Skyrim is of vastly different genre than Baldur's Gate is, one that puts player freedom over all else and basically allows them to do anything they like. But more importantly, it's also a glitchy, buggy mess that crashes a whole lot and that has a great deal of gameplay issues that no mod has ever managed to fix. With Skyrim mods are not an option, they are a necessity, and even with them it's far from a flawless game.
What few such issues Baldur's Gate had were almost entirely fixed by Enhanced Edition, and what few mods Baldur's Gate has I could easily go without: I've played the games for a decade and could go for another without missing a beat, with or without mods, and my opinion on Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment is the same - if to a slightly lesser extent - and I am likely to think the same of Pillars of Eternity. Are you saying I'm wrong?
I'll agree with @Chow on this one though. Skyrim is a buggy piece of poop of a game, a good buggy piece of poop of a game, but a buggy piece of poop of a game nonetheless. Mods are a necessity if you want to have a relatively bug-free experience via the Unofficial fixpacks, and if you run into a game breaking bug you have to go report that to the people that maintain the unofficial fixpacks, because Bethesda isn't going to fix Skyrim anymore.
Mods shouldn't be required in order for you to be able to play a game because the developers were too lazy to do the work. Mods shouldn't be mandatory, they shouldn't be a requirement, and you should be able to play the vanilla game without worrying if you're going to run into a game breaking bug.
I think Pillars of Eternity is going to stand strong even if it barely has any mods. Kind of like how Divinity: Original Sin is still #1 on Steam's top seller list. It only has like six mods to its name after a month being out in the world.
I'm sure that Pillars of Eternity is going to stand the test of time too like how Planescape: Torment, and Jade Empire has.
I hope nobody takes offense to this, but sometimes, I feel like PC gamers are a bunch of spoiled little brats sometimes. They can't mod a game? Time to throw a tantrum, and whine about the developers being bad because they didn't make something that catered to me, because in the end the developers should only listen to me!
You can think of me as you like, if it makes you feel better. After all, it is just easier to dismiss entirely someone else opinion like that, than discuss in full its implications.
Besides, I don't usually take offence because of empty accusations. For example, you can call me thief, but I would not take offence, because I've never stolen anything in my life (actually that's not true, I've stolen a toy to one of my friends when I was 5 years old, but then I realised on my own that it was wrong and I gave it back with my apologies).
Hey , who said this thread wasn't about me ?
Also @Chow and I aren't the same person.
Edit: by the way DA2 is IMO a godawful game that I will never buy (despite having enjoyed DAO). Maybe, if it had a toolset, modders could fix it and it would be worth buying after all. But what do I know? I'm just a spoilt child throwing a tantrum.
And to be honest, I'm not against modding. In fact, I'm trying to make a mod for BGEE. I'll even admit that my "spoiled child" paragraph may have been out of line. Oh, and people still made mods for DA2 without use of a toolset.
Also, I would argue that requiring there be an active community as proof that people are still interested in the game is biased towards games with mods. It's entirely possible for people to be playing the game without participating in a community. I played Baldur's Gate for years and never participated in any sort of community related to the game until this forum. However, a modding scene makes it more likely for people to form a community due to the sharing aspect of modding.