Mod Friendly Games

[furzball]

I know, essentially all games are moddable. But some are obviously more difficult then others. Currently I'm working on these games

-fall out 3

-oblivion

-Final Fantasy VII

-Final Fantasy VIII

-Sins of a Solar Empire

-Second Life

 

Obviously 4 of these games are mod friendly while two of them (big clue, Square Soft made them) are only moddable because the endeavors of other people making their own programs and ways to mod the game.

 

I'm curious as to what other games are good to mod / are mod friendly. I'm also wondering if I should just say heck with it and get into my own game development.

[Vagrant0]

Offhand:

Galactic Civilizations 2 (although the modding community has kinda died)

Halflife 2

TeamFortress 2

The Sims Series (if you're desperate and like playing with CGI dollies)

Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2

Dragonage

Freelancer (kinda (really) old, impossible to find, but recall it could be modded)

 

I know there are a few others out there with mods that change minor aspects within the game, but can't think of any other mods that have any particularly large modding capability.

Edited April 20, 2010 by Vagrant0

[Thor.]

Offhand:

Galactic Civilizations 2 (although the modding community has kinda died)

Halflife 2

TeamFortress 2

The Sims Series (if you're desperate and like playing with CGI dollies)

Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2

Dragonage

Freelancer (kinda (really) old, impossible to find, but recall it could be modded)

 

I know there are a few others out there with mods that change minor aspects within the game, but can't think of any other mods that have any particularly large modding capability.

 

You forgot the Kotor series they can be modded quite easy, fable lost chapters also can be modded, there is a app you can download on a certain site, cant think of it though right now.

[DarkWarrior45]

Anything that is made with Unreal Engine or Epic Games' UDK and is available on the PC. The maps are openly available within the file system and can opened with the Ueditor.

[Povuholo]

Morrowind too of course. :tongue:

 

I myself can work with the CS for Morrowind and Oblivion, and the GECK. I wish I could figure out Hammer, the editor for the Source games... I want to give making a Left4Dead (2) map a try at some point. :smile:

 

Also Dwarf Fortress is very very moddable.

[TheTerminator2004]

Anything that is made with Unreal Engine or Epic Games' UDK and is available on the PC. The maps are openly available within the file system and can opened with the Ueditor.

 

Thats not entirely true. A lot of Unreal Games, such as Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge have all modding support disabled. I believe theres an option at compile-time to disable the editor etc for an Unreal Game, and the editor needs various extra files and stuff included with the game for it to work.

 

Saying that, not all games without modding support have it specifically disabled. People have managed to get Mirror's Edge's editor to work (albeit with a lot of bugs, missing functions, and broken features), though you need to copy some files from UT3 or another game with the UnrealEd available. There've already been several custom maps made for it.

[LHammonds]

Arma][ - Military Simulation

 

Spring Project - Free RTS engine which got its start by making Total Annihilation truly 3D with an updated game engine. Many mods exist for it now.

 

Gundam RTS

 

 

Kernal Panic

 

 

Pure

 

 

Spring 1944

 

 

Star Wars Imperial Winter

 

 

The Cursed

 

 

XTA

 

 

Rigs of Rods

[DarkWarrior45]

Anything that is made with Unreal Engine or Epic Games' UDK and is available on the PC. The maps are openly available within the file system and can opened with the Ueditor.

 

Thats not entirely true. A lot of Unreal Games, such as Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge have all modding support disabled. I believe theres an option at compile-time to disable the editor etc for an Unreal Game, and the editor needs various extra files and stuff included with the game for it to work.

 

Saying that, not all games without modding support have it specifically disabled. People have managed to get Mirror's Edge's editor to work (albeit with a lot of bugs, missing functions, and broken features), though you need to copy some files from UT3 or another game with the UnrealEd available. There've already been several custom maps made for it.

 

Why are they copying files from other Unreal games? They can just download the UDK and work from there. The UDK "is" Unreal Engine 3, so you're using the same tools that EA used to develop the game. The only difference between what EA has and the UDK that you download is that EA gets the source code to the UDK as part of the license they have with Epic Games. What is happening with games such as Mass Effect is that the developer/publisher has chosen to "cook" the game, basically it prepares the game for a port to either XNA or the PS3 SDK, in which it locks the maps down.

[furzball]

Spring project seems interesting since I could make RTS games for my dad, his bud, and me. We get together weekend nights to beat the heck out of eachother in strategy games. For the past three years however, it's been Sins of a Solar Empire. Only reason I can still stand it is cause I mod it and they accept.

 

Dragon age looks like my next step up. Maybe I should get a new desktop though.

[TheTerminator2004]

Anything that is made with Unreal Engine or Epic Games' UDK and is available on the PC. The maps are openly available within the file system and can opened with the Ueditor.

 

Thats not entirely true. A lot of Unreal Games, such as Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge have all modding support disabled. I believe theres an option at compile-time to disable the editor etc for an Unreal Game, and the editor needs various extra files and stuff included with the game for it to work.

 

Saying that, not all games without modding support have it specifically disabled. People have managed to get Mirror's Edge's editor to work (albeit with a lot of bugs, missing functions, and broken features), though you need to copy some files from UT3 or another game with the UnrealEd available. There've already been several custom maps made for it.

 

Why are they copying files from other Unreal games? They can just download the UDK and work from there. The UDK "is" Unreal Engine 3, so you're using the same tools that EA used to develop the game. The only difference between what EA has and the UDK that you download is that EA gets the source code to the UDK as part of the license they have with Epic Games. What is happening with games such as Mass Effect is that the developer/publisher has chosen to "cook" the game, basically it prepares the game for a port to either XNA or the PS3 SDK, in which it locks the maps down.

 

Wrong. Most games made in Unreal 3 have had various modifications made to the engine by the developers - adding the cover mechanics in Gears of War, adding the level streaming tech in Mirror's Edge, etc etc. You need the modified editor to be able to access the modified engine. The editor is built into the exe file of every Unreal 3 game (just add the "editor" argument to the shortcut), but it needs several other, seperate files to run - mostly icons for the various buttons, I think.

 

So, for games where the developers haven't bothered compiling the editor out of the release version of the game, provided you can get those files, you can launch the custom editor for that game. If you can't get access to the custom editor, you can't mod the game. There are often further complications as well, of course - as you said, some games have been cooked, which restricts what its possible to edit. Others utilize other technology on top of Unreal - Mirror's Edge, for example, uses an external renderer to bake all the lighting, and without which, its impossible to do much without completely screwing all the lights in the level up. Which means the majority of Unreal games without proper modding support, can't be modded at all - or can, but only in a limited fashion.