This question is 100% not meant as an insult...

[BUCKinFL]

but in Skyrim, there were many total overhauls of the NPC faces, especially the women. Anyone who played Skyrim, knows the people were horrible looking, especially the females. But, the modders somehow had the ability to quickly and easily replace those faces with absolutely stunning faces. Anyone who saw Bijin Wives, or Bijin Warmaidens, etc...knows what I'm talking about. You can find those on this site under Skyrim mods.

 

So my question is simply, did Andromeda simply not attract the modders with the skill to do that? Or is it simply that Skyrim's Mod Creation Kit, had tools built into it that made it easy to do those faces?

 

 

One reason I ask that is because I can't help but assume that a person with the right skill set, would be able to take the character creation mechanics, already a part of the game for the Ryders, and use that...turn it into a mod, that allows them to make all new NPC faces/heads for the NPCs, especially the females. I've seen the mods for the females, and they are just texture mods, which do help just a tiny bit, but for some, like Lexi and PeeBee, the effect isn't very drastic, because it's the shape and contours of the head and face that need to be reworked. But I do not have that skill set, and it appears anyone who does, has simply not done it. This leads me to assume that Skyrim simply had that as part of it's tool set for modders. Way too many people made very beautiful faces for females in that game.

 

 

I do believe that the character creation mechanics COULD be ripped out of the game, to create heads and or faces, that could then be turned into mods for the NPCs, but I also assume that this would not be a quick, and easy job, and at this stage...4 years later, you aren't likely to find a modder interested in doing it, even if they have the skill to do it.

 

So this makes me wish for Bioware to add this to a mod toolkit for the next game, so modders can make better looking NPCs, for those who want them.

[Thandal]

The short answer is "BioWare can't do that." And while it may be true that the (relatively) low(er) numbers of players of ME:A compared to more popular games resulted in fewer modders even being interested, there's more to the story.

 

ME:A uses the Frostbite engine. Modding games that use FrostBite is much more difficult than for those using many others, especially the Gamebryo/Creation Engine used for the Elder Scrolls games.

 

Plus, unlike the Unreal Engine used for the earlier ME games, or what BioWare had done for their own Eclipse/Aurora engine used for the first two games in the DA-series, DICE (the developers of Frostbite, then named "FrostByte", and now owned by EA) have never released a tool kit for modders. Their only public comment on the subject was, "Maybe someday..."

 

Oh, and all of EA's AAA games are now required to use Frostbite since; they own it, and it makes it easy to port the code to all the relevant platforms (PC, Xbox, PS, and even Swtich.)

[BUCKinFL]

Ah...well, I would think that the real issue is having a proper toolkit. Without that, the modders will be severely handicapped. If they did that, more modders would show an interest, and like it or not, many players go where the modders are. The more great mods there are, the more fun to be had. And, TES has proven that it doesn't make players not want to buy the new games. They don't say, "Why buy Skyrim when I am still having fun in Oblivion?" No, they buy Skyrim BECAUSE they are having fun in Oblivion, and or Morrorwind. They at least suspect that they will have just as much fun in Skyrim, so they buy it.