Has Starfield 'no strings' modding really been confirmed?

[zanity]

People were certain Fallout 76 would have modding, then were certain FO76 would allow modding a year or so after release. TH carefully worded statements before and shortly after FO76 release to imply this. As we now know, FO76 remains fully locked down.

 

However, til a few days back I would have bet Starfield would follow Fallout and Skyrim, not FO76. But recent events have changed my mind.

 

MS now owns Bethesda- if Bethesda changes behaviour, it is to please the needs of the new boss. Well obviously FO76 didn't change to allow modding. But a few days back, Bethesda dropped a game via TangoWorks that had the third party Denuvo anti-copy protection. Concerning, but a day or so later Bethesda confirmed that Redfall would need a permanent always on internet connection to use SINGLE-PLAYER- a massive massive massive red flag.

 

As we should know, there are two classes of modding- light near useless 'modding' that can alter certain trivial aspects of a game- one can mod Fallout 76 like this, for all that is worth.

 

Then there is real, serious, decent modding as witnessed here on this site with FO3/NV/FO4/Skyrim. For this type of modding, the game owner needs full control of the game code and data. Like how Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk were released- in other words the game in a form that GOG could sell.

 

After the Redfall announcement, I don't believe there's a snowball chance in hell that Starfield will follow Skyrim or Fallout 4. Starfield will have a state-of-the-art code lockdown, and will almost certain follow Redfall in needing a permanent always on internet connection.

 

Now this is MS/Bethesda's business right, just as Dying Light 2 horrified its former supporters by going back on the model of Dying Light (1) and adding Denuvo just before release as Techland had the right to do.

 

A locked down Starfield cannot have the type of free modding we hope for by technical definition. Something Bethesda has happily lived for for years with Fallout 76. But TH has talked 'modding' even recently, so my guess is this...

 

I think Starfield will attempt to have some kind of business system for Bethesda curated modding, with the mods once again offering commercial advantage on some kind of Bethesda/MS store. Maybe Bethesda will create a 'licensed' modder contract, where willing modders can enter into a legally binding contract with Bethesda, and gain access to an unlocked dev version of Starfield, able to create mods for the store only.

 

This would leave type 1 mods (essentially changing simple data like some textures) outside the store, on sites like Nexus.

 

Microsoft is in a bad period, where its total incompetence in team management has left it with almost no first party games. Everyone knows this. Microsoft relies increasingly on gaming-as-a-service. Beth sees itself as an 'innovator' in 'business methods', and wants to become top dog in the MS gaming world. Beth's loyalty is 100% to its corporate masters. Old school 'anything goes' modding is 100% against Beth's agenda.

 

And in this sad sorry 'politically correct' age who here thinks the modding free-for-all witnessed with fallout and skyrim can ever be allowed for a title as commercially important as Starfield. In the fantasy of Starfield modding, Microsoft's no-no list would be literally endless. So Microsoft could issue a literally endless list of banned modding concepts, or just not allow this form of modding in the first place- if you were a MS manager, which option do you think you would choose?

 

I hope I am wrong. I REALLY hope I am wrong. I certainly wasn't wrong when it came to FO76- but most voices here were.

 

I've seen Social Media activity tear insignificant people into shreds over insignificant issues. Starfield is an event at the level of Avatar. Politicians and media outlets make bank over manufactured outrage. And since Nexus has 'bent the knee' over and over recently, outrage mobs know sites like this are very easy targets.

 

Everything factual runs against our desire to mod Starfield. Exactly what facts are on our side? That we really really want to? That isn't a business fact. That modding gave great value to earlier Bethesda IP? Microsoft doesn't accept that. Bethesda will say that may have been true in the pre-historic gaming past, but new gaming business models make such considerations irrelevant for the future unless modding is ruthlessly controlled and monetised.

 

Fallout and Skyrim modding was an accident of gaming history- a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime thing. Desperate failing companies have eventually released their entire internal game dev toolset, and witnessed not even one significant mod of value created for their games. For only Beth had created tools and game data structures that made good mods 'easy', together with conceptual worlds that so benefited from expansion and change and 'improvement' in so many different ways.

 

I've said it before. I wish Nexus had invested in its own open world game (say using the Unreal Engine)- not a commercial product but a beta framework like so many of those BBB open world survival games on Steam. Then Nexus could have hosted mods for its own gaming framework, and eventually split that initial framework into various genres, like fantasy, post apocalyptic and space exploration. Depending on others (like MS/Beth) is a really bad idea, and also intellectually dishonest when you think about it. At some point one has to stand on one's own two feet.

 

Maybe most of you think (hope) I am wrong. But how long has it even taken for Starfield to appear after FO4. With not one game from another company in the meantime with anything other than very limited mediocre modding. I've been playing a heavily modded Fallout 3 game and cannot believe my enjoyment (and yes I've played it at launch, and yes I have a system good enough to let me play current AAA games like the brilliant Elden Ring). Will mods ever draw me back to the massive disappointment that is Cyberpunk? That ain't ever happening sadly.

 

I love what the Nexus and modders have given us- I so want it to continue. Do not misunderstand me- I want Starfield to help this continue but no-one can tell me that Bethesda has not given us enough time to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. To still be dependent on Beth at this late stage when there were so many other viable options is not good.

 

 

[HeyYou]

Bet has flatly stated that they will support mods, in the same fashion as Fallout 4, and Skyrim. 76 is a multiplayer game, so, mods complicate matters there. Starfield, however, will be exclusively single player, so, I would expect that some time after the games release, we will see the CK for it released as well.

[RaidersClamoring]

There is definitely cause for anticipating disappointment as it is almost always the case with games that massively hyped features turned out to be underwhelming.

The fact remains though -- Paid Creation Club was a failure. Regular modding has been a massive win-win with it being responsible for the longevity of games that are over two decades old with sales certainly to a large degree depending on said modding activity, due to which Bethesda is monopolizing the spot of most modded games in history with a comfortable margin.

It's also a fact that modding as we know it has been reliant on Script Extenders to a massive degree and the xSE team absolutely loathes Microsoft. I imagine the merger was a major turnoff for them. The existence of future script extenders might be in jeopardy.

 

I'm not worried modding capabilities will be reduced to superficial things like reskinning guns or the likes. Pretty sure they will release a CK editor with access to game resources and an ambition that modders will help populate the thousands of planets with free content. Question is how is this going to work with procedurally generated worlds?

Also what technology will the UI consist of? If its some Microsoft tech this will probably entail some kind of interop hook into and from Unity. Microsoft loves interop, all drivers are still created in C and C++ afaik, their 'native' solutions on platforms like Android still rely on wrappers around the actually native languages. Personally I think it would be great if some of the programming will happen in C#.

[HeyYou]

Daggerfall used procedurally generated maps and such. Which presented problems all its own. I very much enjoyed game crashes followed by "the game has encountered a problem, you need to reinstall"...... Yeah. Starfield pulls that one, and people are NOT going to be happy.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

If Starfield had a "always be connected on the internet during game play, hard requirement" that would be a deal breaker for me...

[worm82075]

Straight from the horse's mouth - https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7F_9fdPlLoS4CPe_rO7Qi28nxJqkrXWQ

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Straight from the horse's mouth - https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7F_9fdPlLoS4CPe_rO7Qi28nxJqkrXWQ

Great find!

[Stealthfoot]

Bet has flatly stated that they will support mods, in the same fashion as Fallout 4, and Skyrim. 76 is a multiplayer game, so, mods complicate matters there. Starfield, however, will be exclusively single player, so, I would expect that some time after the games release, we will see the CK for it released as well.

They also flatly stated they'd support mods for 76 though too, something that never happened.

 

Honestly i have major concerns with how moddable starfield will be given the sheer amount of load screens, the fact that planets don't full load so you can't really explore on foot, ect ect.

 

For example when you go to space it loads a small cell, and when you try to board a pirate ship you get loading screen for the docking while you swap the model, you then get another load screen after that to load the ships interior.

I'm starting to unironically think that starfields biggest mod will actually be for fallout 4 with modders literally just ripping starfields improved gunplay into the game.

[South8028]

I will not download the game from a torrent (already available), although I am interested in looking at the file structure. First of all nif and hkx. Whether mods will develop or not depends on the availability of official 3ds tools, or maya (obviously, they will never be available for blender). As far as I heard, the game was supposed to have a new weightlessness physics. Who played ... Is it implemented, or is it just empty talk?

[SteelRat1962]

I'm unable to get any texture modifications to show in-game. So it could be that they've already locked it down.