I wonder if the procedural generation algorithm(s) will be open for modding? Will it be scripts, or will it be imbedded into the game code itself? If that turns out to be moddable, then I can foresee some really good stuff coming out if it.
If the modding community is going to get free hands and things goes as expected, they are most likely going to completely overhaul the game one way or anotherI'm sure it will
At least, I dream about few mods... I would want to pilot the Normandy, the USS Enterprise, the millenium falcon, the Swordfish II,... to come across a Reaper, to take a part in a pod race, to explore the city of thousand planets, to take vacations in the Fhloston Paradise, to use a Zorg ZF-1 Pod Weapon System... Oh damn, it's just endless
My only fear, is that Bethesda is going to try to monetize it somehow. But hopefully Microsoft will prevent it, but again that could screw things up, if they are allowed. But guess we have to wait and see, and hopefully they have realized the value of an active and "free" modding community.
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The modders are going to find ways to improve it regardless. Seeing some of the things they have made for FO and Skyrim, which one would normally think wouldn't be possible, I think they will mod the hell out of this game if allowed. At least that is my guess.
Possible that Bethesda want to add some kind of creation club, but I'm not sure that Microsoft is really interest about that
From what I see, Microsoft want to "use" this game to promote their consoles and to encourage players to subscribe to Game Pass.
You want to play Starfield on console, buy an Serie S/X. And if you subscribe to the Game Pass, in addition to the hundreds games already available, you'll get Starfield day one for "free"
I hope they learned last time, theres the creation club but its a pale shadow of what they originaly wanted. Also Skyrim owns all it popularity too mods on pc pretty much. You can pretty much see when modders started moving over too Special edition modding thx too SKSE and other scripting functionality becoming more availeble on the steam charts ^^
Heck even Skyrim (non SE) still gets a couple of thousand players every day. Its 10 years old now and has 2 editions after it.
Most likely not.
They've been procedurally generating their landscapes since Daggerfall with the exception of Morrowind (fully hand-made) and they've never given us access to whatever tool they use to do it. It all happens in-house.
We frankly don't need it anyway. Every single one of their game has provided more than enough land real estate to create almost anything you fancy. Massive mods like Path to Elsweyr (amongst many other) that create entirely new zones were hand crafted and the landscape wasn't the longest part, not by a long shot. The creation kit has always been more than enough for landscape.
Like @Notserious80 pointed out, they tried before and I do believe they've learned. The pushback from the community was exceptional. Bethesda showed they didn't understand how the modding community works. They abandoned the project extremely fast. They've found other ways to monetize it - by selling new special releases of Skyrim with mods tacked on for example. If Starfield proves as popular as Skyrim, I'm certain we'll see extra editions of it over the years too while they finish work on TES6.
I've no worries Starfield isn't going to be the game where Bethesda tried their predatory monetization of mods again. If they ever try again.
Agreed with the above.
I think Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 are the model they will follow with Starfield, rather than trying to monetize the single player experience. While the actual Bethesda Game Studio finishes off expansions for the game and moves on to TES6 the "other" Bethesda Game Studios team in Austin or whatever will basically take Starfield and create a multiplayer version of it. Just like Fallout 76 is basically Fallout 4 with multiplayer added and a cash shop I am sure that "Starfield 76" will be similar.
I don't mind that either. I never played Fallout 76, but I would have if it wouldn't have been such a broken disaster and blatant cash grab. If Starfield is actually good and they make a multiplayer version of it that actually has NPCs, story content, etc... then I'd likely give it a go - seems like it could be cool.
They very well might create a Starfield online game eventually if the IP proves profitable enough. The setting certainly lends itself well to MP.
Just to clarify my position, I do believe there will be a creation club within Starfield. Maybe not straight off the bat but eventually there will, I am certain of it. It's really just a voluntary opt-in program for the few modders who want to monetize their work. It's not very popular though since Bethesda takes 75% of revenues if I remember correctly. It's 25% for your hard work. Most modders make more from donations and other pledge websites like Patreon. It's not a threat to modding as we know it.
Looks.. pretty much as I expected. Lot of crafting, building, looting, exploration, bit janky combat. They amped up rpg elements a bit, and it's downright depressing that even Bethesda is now hardcore rpg studio next to CDPR at this point. Starfield backgrounds almost seem like a jab at Cyberpunk's lifepaths.
I think even mainstream audience is really hungry for a good, deep rpg, with plenty of different skills and ability to express yourself.
How the game will turn out will ultimately come down to how much quality quest content Bethesda can fill those "1000 worlds" with. They don't really have a good track record there.
I think even mainstream audience is really hungry for a good, deep rpg, with plenty of different skills and ability to express yourself.
How the game will turn out will ultimately come down to how much quality quest content Bethesda can fill those "1000 worlds" with. They don't really have a good track record there.
Monetization was never the issue for me with the Creation Club. As far as I know, a better version of everything offered by it was available for free on Nexus. My problem with it is that they kept changing the executable every time they added anything to the CC. That got annoying really fast. Every time they alter the executable, they break some of the most important mods. If they do that again, I might hold off on the game for a year or two even if it turns out to be great.
With that rationale you might as well avoid it for a while anyway. There will be patches regardless of the creation club and every patch will break major mods as they've always done in the past.
Not criticizing your rationale FYI, just saying if the issue is broken mods it'll be an issue for the first year or so anyway.
Im guesisng we wont be seeing much mods untill it stabilize tho. And also i got pissed about the CC updates, skse breaking because of mods im not even using because they have too patch the game is pretty annying and ended with me just disabeling auto updates all together ^^
Oh no, if there is enough interest from the modding community it won't change a thing. Updating a mod to work with the newest executable is pretty easy. It can get more complicated if they decide to change systems your mod uses but updating a mod to work a new executable version is something anyone could do by themselves, it's not complicated if you're willing to spend a bit of time learning how to do it.
Assuming the tools release at the same time as the game, which they probably won't, you'll see plenty of mods a week in. I have no doubt about that. I know plenty of mod creators who buy Bethesda's games only to create mods and Starfield will be one hell of a playground. I'm certain it'll be extremely popular amongst creators.
Even without the tools, people will start messing with files and modifying them. Even without tools you'll see a surprising number of mods a week in. It's the same engine, there won't be any major departure from established procedures. People will create stuff.
yea your probably right, i did start too "update" stuff after awhile sinc eit was just so frustrating too wait. Still got issues with some stuff since its a giant clusterbomb with mods relying on each other ^^
Yea i think it will be some time before the tools gets released too, hopefully they will have stabilized the worst hotfixes by then. Also i tend too wanna play trough the game atleast once original before i start too mod it.
Might be right, but its an updated engine. Might not be compatible... Not much info on whats changed so ill be interested in seeing the changes ^^
Same, I usually do one vanilla run before I start modding the crap out of any moddable game. Usually it's a quick run through the main story. Although these days I have so little gaming time that there may be essential mods appearing before I finish
Likely won't be a problem. Oblivion/FO3 were Gamebryo and then they updated it massively enough to rename it to Creation Engine with Skyrim/FO4. Didn't stop people from making mods within the first week of release. The basic structure of their games has remained the same throughout it all.
Kinda like the REDengine got update between TW3 and CP2077 yet people used the same tools they used for TW3 to create mods within the first few weeks of CP's release.
I'm honestly not worried, Bethesda's games are far more mod friendly and Bethesda has learned to embrace the modding community as part of their games. They'll keep things simple I'm certain of it.
You might be right. But I didn't think they would release a game like Fallout 76 either, or make 100$ subscriptions for it or that Blizzard would make a Diablo mobile game with such scummy design as they have. Just as I didn't think CDPR would release CP in the state they did and with so many lacking features.
My point being that nothing in this industry surprises me anymore and the best bet seem to hope for something acceptable, but expect the worse.
Not the same situation at all.
Your examples are all developers trying to monetize their own IP. Trying to monetize modding is entirely different. You are now effectively trying to monetize other people's work and giving them very little for it. Not to mention that the modding community has established itself as being free, passion-led projects for decades now.
Not at all comparable. There isn't really any comparable situation out there.
The exact monetization scheme might not be, but that were not what I were referring to in the first place with that comment. But aimed at some of these companies behaviors in regards to how they can monetize their games or take advantage of players/fans or what you can call it.
To me, Blizzards way of monetizing Diablo on mobiles are equally as scummy as Bethesda trying to exploit the mod peoples work. Equally to when AC let you buy booster packs for levelling up faster, when you know that this will obviously affect the gameplay or when EA keeps releasing more or less the same game each year, trying to fool customers that they have improved it, when they have basically just changed the name of a functionality.
The amount of things going on in this industry when it comes to these things, makes little difference to me, it shows how and what these companies are willing to do. So all im saying is that, if Bethesda should try to do it again, just using another excuse for why it is needed this time, I wouldn't be surprised at all. I obviously hope that they don't do it.
But to think that it is completely unexpectable, I think is a bit naive given how many examples of these things we have.
So different in the early years...
That is because the focus of the industry shifted. It use to be to prove they were not just toy makers and what they did was a serious art form.
The investors back then viewed it less like Oil stock and more like a patron that yes someday could at least get their investment back.
Sadly true, used too be made by gamers for gamers. Now its a multi billion market. And most companys arent happy with making alot of money, they need too make ALL the money. I bet the developers and so on still are gamers (perhaps not all) but its gotten all corpo on us
I never said I didn't expect them to try some kind of mod monetization again after their previous debacle.
In fact, they've already done so with the release of Skyrim Anniversary edition. They've effectively monetized mods into a new Skyrim release. It's slightly scummy but far less than what they had previously tried. It's was way less "invasive" if you will than their previous attempts.
Your examples are still comparing apples to oranges. The dynamics are vastly different. Simply put, modding does not exist unless people want to create mods. Bethesda understood this when they first tried to push monetization onto the community. They realized that the only possible outcomes if they kept pushing would be that the community would go underground or stop producing. They're also keenly aware the main reason their games remain relevant for as long as they do is because of mods. To this day you can mod Skyrim, an 11 years old game, to a point where it looks and plays as good as any recent game.
It is a vastly different situation from Blizzard and Diablo Immortal's typical mobile game predatory tactics. One is a very lucrative business (I have no doubt Diablo Immortal is making bank) and the other is damaging to your profits. They have seen that. I'm fairly convinced they will never try taking control of the modding scene again. It would require a drastic change in the community for it to work. They'll figure out more minor ways of doing it that aren't really a threat to the modding community, like the aforementioned Skyrim Anniversary Edition
Well, in all honesty that was to be expected. We want better and bigger games all the time and we don't want to pay more for them. Companies are scrambling to find ways to make as much as they can from their products without alienating their customer base. It's a complicated situation to say the least. Sure we can reduce it to greedy investors and companies execs but that's only part of the truth.