Mods in Cyberpunk 2077?

[Marquis_deShade]

The only reason that might keep them from releasing it, would be their own ego, as the single creative vision of the game. And that's certainly their prerogative. But other than that.. not much else really.

I, personally REALLY x 10bazillion want modding support, but, I'm going to have to voice disagreement with "ego" as being the sole and only reason CDPR won't release a toolkit for modding.

I'm not a developer, and I've never worked on a game development team, and because of that, I'm pretty sure I don't know ALL the very specific reasons that people outside of CDPR wouldn't really understand as to why they might not release a toolkit. I can, however, imagine things like concerns about their proprietary personal property, REDengine, and the access to that a dev kit might offer, that the government of Poland itself has invested MILLIONS of $ into the development of being an issue.
As such, a National Government's interest in the welfare of CDPR's proprietary game engine itself could very well be a gaint stop sign on anyone else other than internal CDPR, and the Polish Government having access to, and working with REDengine.

Here's an article about that, in case you're unaware:
CD Projekt Red Gets $7 Million from Polish Government ...

There could also be lots of other reasons, very valid reasons we don't get a modding toolkit.
There's always factors we don't see and might be entirely ignorant about that could play huge factors in decision making with any organization. We all like to armchair referee everything from politics, to video game company management, but, when it comes down to it, I don't have the clearance, nor likely the understanding of all the factors even if I had the clearance to see those factors, to know what all the very valid reasons for any X decision might maybe be.

With that, yes, there's a ton of great arguments to release a mod toolkit.
I want modding. Most of us want modding.
However, let's recognize that we might not know the unknowable, and that there very well are unknowable factors that might play a part in putting the NOPE to modding.

 

[Sild]

I, personally REALLY x 10bazillion want modding support, but, I'm going to have to voice disagreement with "ego" as being the sole and only reason CDPR won't release a toolkit for modding.

I'm not a developer, and I've never worked on a game development team, and because of that, I'm pretty sure I don't know ALL the very specific reasons that people outside of CDPR wouldn't really understand as to why they might not release a toolkit. I can, however, imagine things like concerns about their proprietary personal property, REDengine, and the access to that a dev kit might offer, that the government of Poland itself has invested MILLIONS of $ into the development of being an issue.
As such, a National Government's interest in the welfare of CDPR's proprietary game engine itself could very well be a gaint stop sign on anyone else other than internal CDPR, and the Polish Government having access to, and working with REDengine.

Here's an article about that, in case you're unaware:
CD Projekt Red Gets $7 Million from Polish Government ...

There could also be lots of other reasons, very valid reasons we don't get a modding toolkit.
There's always factors we don't see and might be entirely ignorant about that could play huge factors in decision making with any organization. We all like to armchair referee everything from politics, to video game company management, but, when it comes down to it, I don't have the clearance, nor likely the understanding of all the factors even if I had the clearance to see those factors, to know what all the very valid reasons for any X decision might maybe be.

With that, yes, there's a ton of great arguments to release a mod toolkit.
I want modding. Most of us want modding.
However, let's recognize that we might not know the unknowable, and that there very well are unknowable factors that might play a part in putting the NOPE to modding.

They're pretty much independent, almost self-owned, using an in-house engine over which they have full control, yes, goverment grant included, it's just that, a grant, with the engagement on part of CDPR to make progress. So yea, perfectly doable, IF they want to.

I've yet to see a way Bethesda lost something by giving access to it's engine for the purpose of making mods. If anything there are several games worth of content which people must buy the base game to access. There are precedents for this, it's a win across the board. It's as simple as that.

CDPR are highly known for their creative focus. And the need to have full control over what they are making. And that extends post release as well. As I said, understandable, but very much an ego thing. And it has served them well in the past.

 

[sv3672]

They're pretty much independent, almost self-owned, using an in-house engine over which they have full control

RED engine 3 actually depends on a fair number of third party middleware, possibly more in Cyberpunk 2077:

Spoiler

If the licensing of any of these does not permit free redistribution, that makes the release of a fully functional toolkit more difficult.

I've yet to see a way Bethesda lost something by giving access to it's engine for the purpose of making mods.

They lost a lot of reputation, something that is apparently not considered to be of value by Bethesda, but is very important to CDPR. It quite likely also holds back the development of Creation engine that full official mod support is now essentially mandatory, while RED engine can afford to use anything that is the best for solving a given problem, even if it comes at the cost of impairing mod support. So, as far as I can see it, there are in fact significant disadvantages to excessive mod focus in the long term.

The only reason that might keep them from releasing it, would be their own ego, as the single creative vision of the game. And that's certainly their prerogative. But other than that.. not much else really.

It is a valid reason though for a developer that treats its work as art, and cares a lot about its reputation, rather than just maximizing short term profit.

 

[Sild]

They lost a lot of reputation

They gained a lot of reputation, as a company that highly values mods, yes. They didn't loose any, not because of mods that is.

So, as far as I can see it, there are in fact significant disadvantages to excessive mod focus in the long term.

Definately, but that's not what we were discussing here. Mod focus would be a different beast than some semblance of decent mod support like people seem to be asking for.

It is a valid reason though for a developer that treats its work as art, and cares a lot about its reputation, rather than just maximizing short term profit.

I agree. Except for the reputation part. You're not really losing by showing some support to modding. You only stand to gain from it, strictly reputation wise. Besides, compared to other requests like perspective or turn-based, it would be one decision that would have absolutely no impact on the experience. Because it isn't really a part of the game.

 

[sv3672]

They gained a lot of reputation

How so? I do not recall any people thanking them for supporting mods, or claiming that the company is "better" than others for this particular reason. If anything, the fear of mods being eventually taken away does a lot more damage than not having significant mod support in the first place.

They didn't loose any, not because of mods that is.

When you have a modding community that outweighs the developers by far in terms of manpower, that eventually becomes damaging in many ways. Just a handful of examples:
- Terrible reputation for being this lazy developer that deliberately leaves work to modders. It does not matter that it makes no sense to assume a sane company would actually do that (most people play without mods, and reviews are based on the vanilla version), the stigma is there, it turned into a meme.
- It is hard to take the story or lore seriously in games that are primarily seen as modding sandboxes, and where the overgrown community wants to dictate the creative vision.
- Games are data mined and picked apart for cut content and any imperfections. Much easier when the tools for doing so are readily available. Anything that is found is a source of bad PR.
- Accusations of plagiarism, it is kind of difficult to avoid accidental similarities to some mod the developers probably never heard about, when there are tens of thousands of mods.
- The reception of new games suffers because of being compared to extremely modded versions of the previous iteration.
- Regular modding related controversies and review bombing. Negative reviews because of technical issues related to mods (e.g. patches breaking some script extender).

Edit: small scale modding support like in The Witcher 3 is generally beneficial, though, so I guess at least something similar could also be in Cyberpunk 2077 if it is feasible.

 

[eobet]

Yes, I would like for people to be able to mod third person perspective into the game.

 

[Marquis_deShade]

They're pretty much independent, almost self-owned, using an in-house engine over which they have full control, yes, goverment grant included, it's just that, a grant, with the engagement on part of CDPR to make progress. So yea, perfectly doable, IF they want to.

I've yet to see a way Bethesda lost something by giving access to it's engine for the purpose of making mods. If anything there are several games worth of content which people must buy the base game to access. There are precedents for this, it's a win across the board. It's as simple as that.

CDPR are highly known for their creative focus. And the need to have full control over what they are making. And that extends post release as well. As I said, understandable, but very much an ego thing. And it has served them well in the past.

Well, over in the Developer Answers to CP Questions Thread
One of the devs was just now a little more forthcoming about what might be on the table ... in the possible future, regarding modding ...

As for if modding support will be our priority at some point- we will see. Right now we want to fully focus on making the game, it's core features and so on. What happens next? Nobody knows But we do know that community would love to use and create some mods, it is something we will keep in mind, for later tho.

As such, CDPR is VERY aware of our extreme enthusiasm when it comes to having hope for modding. Thus, we can continue to hope knowing they know, and knowing they know we know they know.
In the mean time, lets be excited that this game is even a thing to begin with! It's going to be so amazing people will name their children after characters in the game.

 

[Sild]

How so? I do not recall any people thanking them for supporting mods, or claiming that the company is "better" than others for this particular reason. If anything, the fear of mods being eventually taken away does a lot more damage than not having significant mod support in the first place.

You probably weren’t around when Skyrim came about. Every one was praising Bethesda about their treatment of the modding comunity and how much that has done to their games. Take a look on Nexus Mods. Every download is basically a thank you.

- Terrible reputation for being this lazy developer that deliberately leaves work to modders. It does not matter that it makes no sense to assume a sane company would actually do that (most people play without mods, and reviews are based on the vanilla version), the stigma is there, it turned into a meme.

Games have had fan fixes since forever. And it is nonsense. The bad state their games are in is mostly due to the limitations of their old engine and apparent incompetence at developing another, that's the stigma, not because they released a devkit.

It is hard to take the story or lore seriously in games that are primarily seen as modding sandboxes, and where the overgrown community wants to dictate the creative vision.

We’re talking massive modding again.. fine. The story and lore can be taken seriosly in games that feature modding support. I know I did, but, I only modded after I got tired of the vanilla game (Skyrim - Fallout). If you go in it just for fooling around or using it as a platform for creating some cool stuff, that’s your business entirely. I never recommended Skyrim to people because of the mods. They are just a passable alternative.

Accusations of plagiarism, it is kind of difficult to avoid accidental similarities to some mod the developers probably never heard about, when there are tens of thousands of mods.

You can’t accuse anyone of anything when you don’t own any of what you make, as is in the case of mods. Easily doable through a short entry in the EULA

The reception of new games suffers because of being compared to extremely modded versions of the previous iteration.

Haven’t seen any rewiews of any game stating that the game is bad because previos modded x game is better. I’m really interested in any examples you can provide.

 

[lilfro1]

You probably weren’t around when Skyrim came about. Every one was praising Bethesda about their treatment of the modding comunity and how much that has done to their games. Take a look on Nexus Mods. Every download is basically a thank you.



Games have had fan fixes since forever. And it is nonsense. The bad state their games are in is mostly due to the limitations of their old engine and apparent incompetence at developing another, that's the stigma, not because they released a devkit.



We’re talking massive modding again.. fine. The story and lore can be taken seriosly in games that feature modding support. I know I did, but, I only modded after I got tired of the vanilla game (Skyrim - Fallout). If you go in it just for fooling around or using it as a platform for creating some cool stuff, that’s your business entirely. I never recommended Skyrim to people because of the mods. They are just a passable alternative.



You can’t accuse anyone of anything when you don’t own any of what you make, as is in the case of mods. Easily doable through a short entry in the EULA



Haven’t seen any rewiews of any game stating that the game is bad because previos modded x game is better. I’m really interested in any examples you can provide.

Yea I agree completely here, I've never heard of anyone bashing the reputation of Bethesda for mod support? That doesn't really make sense to me, even looking at the reasons given out. Anything I've seen of people talking about Bethesda mods has been overwhelmingly supportive and thankful. And I'm pretty sure it's up to the person if they want to think of a game has modding sandbox or not. I loved Skyrim's story and only started adding in mods after I had completed it. All Hail The Mods!

 

[Rawls]

You can’t accuse anyone of anything when you don’t own any of what you make, as is in the case of mods. Easily doable through a short entry in the EULA

... and yet I see it all the time.

 

[sv3672]

Every one was praising Bethesda about their treatment of the modding comunity and how much that has done to their games.

Regardless of whether that is true, I admittedly have not seen such thing for years. So, the point about mods having a negative effect on the developer's reputation in the long run still stands, even if they are beneficial at first for a short time.

Take a look on Nexus Mods. Every download is basically a thank you.

It is at best a thank you to the modder, not to the original game.

Games have had fan fixes since forever. And it is nonsense. The bad state their games are in is mostly due to the limitations of their old engine and apparent incompetence at developing another, that's the stigma, not because they released a devkit.

My point was about the perceived state of the games (which are very much playable without any mods, bugs or not). The availability of large scale fan fixes makes the vanilla product look subjectively worse than if those fixes did not exist. By the way, ditching an old engine is also much easier when it can be done without community outrage due to upsetting the massive modding ecosystem already built around the outdated tools.

You can’t accuse anyone of anything when you don’t own any of what you make, as is in the case of mods. Easily doable through a short entry in the EULA

It does not matter if the accusations have any legal weight, or if they are even true, it is very bad PR.

Haven’t seen any rewiews of any game stating that the game is bad because previos modded x game is better.

I was talking about community reception, not professional reviews, and it is happening all the time. "Why is X (from lengthy list of nitpicky features) not in game N+1, when modders already implemented it in game N? Lazy developers!"

Yea I agree completely here, I've never heard of anyone bashing the reputation of Bethesda for mod support?

Never claimed anyone is being bashed directly "for" mod support. However, it can become a liability in the long run, it is something that seems beneficial at first, but comes with strings attached. So, from the developer's point of view, it might be smarter to keep it small and limited like in TW3.

 

[NescioNomen]

... and yet I see it all the time.

Because not all moddable games have that short entry. I can only guess at the reasons for that.

 

[Sild]

Never claimed anyone is being bashed directly "for" mod support. However, it can become a liability in the long run, it is something that seems beneficial at first, but comes with strings attached. So, from the developer's point of view, it might be smarter to keep it small and limited like in TW3.

Any kind of decision in any kind of industry is subjected to criticism. Some founded, some less so.

Can it be handled better than how Bethesda did it? Absolutely? Are most complaints not related to mod support per se but for personal preferences and limitations of the approach they took? I would say yes, They are.

Bad PR is inevitable whenever something becomes big enough to garner a considerable interest. No TPP? Bad PR, too few RPG mechanics? Bad PR. Should they base all their divisions on some arbitrary measurement like what people might say of those decisions? And what might happen 10 years from now from a lack of foresight? No, you learn from then, you do it better or, I guess, not at all, sure.

Modding, and support for it will benefit a game much more than the lack of it. We are at the end of the day talking about the game and not CDPR business direction. And even so, a solid Modding community with the right tools WILL maintain enough interest in a game to be considered a good business decision.

 

[SystemShock7]

A few more things about modding and mod support...

"Mod support" is not a well defined term.
A developer doesn't necessarily have to support modding for modders to be able to mod a game. Obviously, it is more difficult to mod a game if they don't offer some level of accessibility to game files. "Mod support" could be simply a dev statement like "sure, mod if you can" to offering the tool they use to make the game. On the other end of the spectrum, not supporting mods could be as simple as saying "we don't support mods" to actually taking measures to prevent modding, such as going after mod sites, always-online so game files could be checksum'd from a remote location, etc. And still, games can be modded with things like dll injectors. The most obvious example is game cheats or game trainers, which you still can find in games with strict anti-cheat measures.

3rd party software in dev tools could be tricky.
It depends on the licencing agreement between the game devs and the 3rd party sw devs. If we take Bethesda's dev kits as an example, we know they disable some features in them because of those licensing agreements, but we also know that much of the 3rd party sw in game is available, working at the engine level (like Havok, for example). Yet, you can create an entirely new game with their dev kits.

Bethesda's reputation doesn't suffer because of mods. It suffers because they release buggy games with (IMO) lame stories. Yet, undoubtedly, every time Bethesda releases an ES (except for ESO) or FO game (except for the last one) it is modders who fix a lot of those bugs. So a lot of people buy the games, knowing they are buggy, but also knowing they will have the means to fix many of the bugs themselves.

Bethesda's games have greatly benefited from mods, and so have gamers.
The longevity and replayability of some of Bethesda's games is directly related to mods. Morrowind is still selling for $15 a pop. A good reason for it (I'd argue probably the only reason), is mods. For example, if you look at the nexus site, the last Morrowind mod was uploaded yesterday (Feb 26 2019). As I am typing this, it has 413 total views, and 27 unique downloads. And Morrowind was originally released in 2002. That is 17 years ago. And people are still playing the game.

As for criticism one way or the other, well, that's the nature of the business. Especially in the gaming industry, negative criticism has become the norm, be it in game forums, youtube, Twitter, etc. Negative criticism generates clicks; seems people like to pile on attacks, no matter how silly the argument is. This particular forum is rather civil in its criticism of the game, but I don't think I have to point out other forums like EA's or Ubisoft's as examples of uncivil forums.

 

[Sardukhar]

So Lilayah, one of our forward-facing Reds (people who are briefed on and allowed to talk to us) just posted this in Dev Answers:

"As for if modding support will be our priority at some point- we will see. Right now we want to fully focus on making the game, it's core features and so on. What happens next? Nobody knows But we do know that community would love to use and create some mods, it is something we will keep in mind, for later tho. "

So that's kind of encouraging! Right?

 

[Metropolice]

So Lilayah, one of our forward-facing Reds (people who are briefed on and allowed to talk to us) just posted this in Dev Answers:

"As for if modding support will be our priority at some point- we will see. Right now we want to fully focus on making the game, it's core features and so on. What happens next? Nobody knows But we do know that community would love to use and create some mods, it is something we will keep in mind, for later tho. "

So that's kind of encouraging! Right?

Quite so, indeed! Better than a decisive no as hope dies last

 

[Sild]

So Lilayah, one of our forward-facing Reds (people who are briefed on and allowed to talk to us) just posted this in Dev Answers:

"As for if modding support will be our priority at some point- we will see. Right now we want to fully focus on making the game, it's core features and so on. What happens next? Nobody knows But we do know that community would love to use and create some mods, it is something we will keep in mind, for later tho. "

So that's kind of encouraging! Right?

Ofc. The fan base will try their damnest to mod this game anyway, especially if they love it, cause that's how the modding community takes off really. If they don't like a game, there's no real incentive to mod it.

So, why not help them out a little? Anyway, here's to a good game, moddable or otherwise.

 

[SkylerModder]

The part about plagiarism is interesting, as if you read the EULA for a Beth game, it clearly states that all mods created using the Construction Kit and any Bethesda assets belong to Bethesda, not the creator. (It has been that way since Morrowind.)

"If You distribute or otherwise make available New Materials [Mods], You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks {Zenimax} the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit."

[sigh] You are spreading misinformation. Bethesda does not and cannot claim ownership of the mods people create. What that line you quoted stipulates is the granting of licensing which is not the same as ownership. It is to allow Bethesda to use a mod as if they were the actual owner such that they won't need to ask you for your permission first but it does not grant them actual ownership. It is a subtle but very important distinction.

 

[Rawls]

It is a subtle but very important distinction.

I mean, for legal purposes as far as Bethesda cares it's pretty much the same thing.

 

[SkylerModder]

I mean, for legal purposes as far as Bethesda cares it's pretty much the same thing.

It's not Bethesda I'm concerned with about this; I'm clearing this up for the end users reading and/or parroting this tired "mod authors don't own their mods" bullcrap. Licensing is not the same as ownership and it is important for people to understand that.