I wanted to revive this discussion to emphasize the importance of mod support. To me, and to a great number of other PC gamers, full modding tools are a fantastic bonus.
So, I'll direct this at CDPR for the first time in... well.. ever, I think. But obviously it's intended for discussion's sake, too. Anyway:
Mods are what have kept me playing Skyrim for well over 1200 hours. Does that translate directly to increased revenue for CDPR (or Bethesda, in that case)? Well... Yes, actually. In two ways:
Word of mouth
This is harder to quantify, and so I won't attach as much significance to it. Regardless, it's impossible to ignore - when I tell my friends that I was able to get that much bloody playtime out of a single game, they've purchased it to find out what the fuss is about. Same deal with The Witcher 3.
Free marketing & positive PR
Every time a modder releases a completely free mod that happens to be of particularly high quality, your game's name is in the news again. I know, because I work in the field myself, and have covered great mods many times in the past. Speaking from experience again, these articles get thousands upon thousands upon thousands of views (sometimes tens of thousands), and my outlet isn't even that big. Think about what you could achieve with PC Gamer's "Best Mods for X" article. Heck, you don't have to imagine, CDPR, because you've already seen it happen with even the limited tools you offered for The Witcher 3.
In conclusion...
I try to appeal to your business sense because I know that's probably one of the bigger concerns - is the dev time needed to create good modding tools worth the expense? Are the challenges you'd face in doing so worth the effort?
CDPR, you've never struck me as a short-sighted company. It's what sets you apart from your competitors, actually. You care about quality, you know the value of long-term player loyalty. So please take your long-term thinking and apply it to mod support - years upon years of seeing Cyberpunk 2077 strewn across headlines in a positive manner, extra sales from word of mouth and simple "Holy sh*t, that mod looks amazing" moments... I'd say that's worth it.
You do not have to release mod tools on launch. I don't care if it takes 3 months before they launch. Or even 6! Just tell us they are coming, and make them good.
The absolute worst thing you could do is offer no mod support at all, so if the best you can do is something like TW3's ModKit, fine. I'll take that over nothing at all. I know there are many considerations given the impressive features you have in 2077 (the interactive scene system, to name one). But don't worry about that. It just needs to be functional. Let the modders sort out the details; let them decide their limits and fix the quirks themselves.
They have said that Multi player will come after release.
And, Multi player and Modding don't mix well.
They have said that Multi player will come after release.
And, Multi player and Modding don't mix well.
Unfortunately, mod support is "not a priority," which could translate to "it's not gonna happen" or maybe it just means what it says and they aren't focusing on it right now.
Mods have no impact on multiplayer, and also, I don't think they said anything about multiplayer coming after release.
That would be outstanding news. I'll look for it, but I didn't see it anywhere.Tell that to the GTA5 gang
It wasn't with the Witcher 3 either, yet we still received a ModKit. And unlike with The Witcher 3, we got a confirmation that they'll take modding into account way ahead of release, right here on this forum, though i can't look for it right now. I think @Sardukhar re-posted it here a few pages back.
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?
That would be outstanding news. I'll look for it, but I didn't see it anywhere.
And the ModKit is definitely appreciated, though obviously not on the level of their past support, unfortunately. I would take something like the ModKit over nothing, but I'm hoping for better tools. I'll be grateful for whatever we get, so as to encourage future mod support from them. The last thing we want to do is look a gift horse in the mouth.
Yeah, 6 months post release sounds about right. You don't want to wait too long (a year+) because by then the hype starts to die down and its "too little, too late" for many modders, but so long as CDPR keeps cranking out good DLC, that may not be an issue.Personally I think mods should be allowed but not right away. like something that is added in as a minor update after 5-8 months down road. Make us enjoy game as developers intended it to be for a while before letting us mod in aliens or ray guns or god mode or any number of other things that im not thinking of off top of my head. But Mods deffinatly add to replayability of a game as they alter some things either by alot or just enough to make it feal like its a new game
I'm not kind of person that relies on mods to enhance his single player experience, mostly because many mods that I have tried out that were recommended to me by other people ended up being rather disappointing and sometimes even made the experience noticeably worse (like KOTOR2 Restored Content Mod), while those very same people keep insisted that it's actually better then original, which I can only blame on placebo effect.
I didn't care for the story mods for the Witcher games as well, mostly because I couldn't escape the feeling that I'm just playing someones non-canon fanfiction and since The Witcher games were already a glorified fanfiction of the original books, it was like playing a fanfiction of a fanfiction, so basically a double fanfiction. Plus because the entire gameplay and the story was tailored specifically for Geralt pre-established character, I don't think it rendered itself for much of a leeway regarding the gameplay changes and storytelling.
That said, with Cyberpunk more diverse gameplay style and emphasis on character creation/customization, I believe it opens for it many more opportunities on both of those fields, which would definitely translate into much more diverse and interesting fan created mods. Not something that I would personally use of course, but I would have no objections to. For that reason I do think that game should have a modding support added at some point after release. Plus with Bethesda fall from grace in terms of their mod support (among many other things), it would be a perfect opportunity for CDPR to get into that business. So no pressure from my side, but it would be something that I would gladly see.
With all the adult themes and sexy stuff, I would love to see how creative the pervy mods get. Look at what has been done with Skyrim.
I have the dubious distinction of being the first modder to release a modesty mod for Skyrim ... and probably the first modder to release modesty anything for Elder scrolls.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3681
If CDPR releases a modkit for CP2077, I hope is not the same thing as the Witcher 3's "modkit"... I guess you could call it a modkit, but it was merely a file replacer.