is it just me or . . . .

[FallenHeroX]

is it just me or as more new games come out mod editors and such become increasingly more complicated and sometimes mod editors arnt even released some how i got the feeling mods are being slowly being removed from games as new games are released because i took notice that mods are more rare among the new games or non exsistant.

[brokenergy]

It depends on the engine and the accessability of that engine, i.e DA engine is as accessable as NWN but not as much as Oblivion or Morrowind.

[Vindekarr]

Aye, even games with famously easy to use engines, like Relic's DOW-2(now actualy DOW 3 :). Im a nerd, i know these things) dont always work well as moddable.

 

With Dawn of War, the intention was to release a modding system for the famously simple engine ASAP, they eventualy released it as part of the DLC pack, Last Stand, and a few nice maps have come out of it, like Hive City(yes, it's a mod) but you ask a Dawn of War player about it, and chances are he or she will say "huh, mod engine? what do you mean mod engine?" Sometimes it just doesnt catch on.

 

Likewise sometimes the games are just too convoluted on a code level to run a mod engine properly. Cris Tailor wanted to ship Supreme Commander with a full modding system, but that never eventuated, to create the vast scale, they had to cut the mods.

 

And some people just dont like gamers modding their stuff, take Call Of Duty for example, it's modable, and there are some (fully legal, IW certified) mods available, but it's been limited to shiney new weapon skins and golden IMI Desert Eagles. Skins are about the only thing you can mod, and even then, that's not at all easy. Still, if you can even find one of the proper ones, everyone will be in awe of your shiny new Tribal-Pattern G36!

[FallenHeroX]

it could be that there trying to exchange mods for dlc

[Vindekarr]

Really depends on the studio.

 

Relic dont really do anything without getting the fanbase' input first; they've done the DLC for Dawn of War by adding the races that people have requested the most(hence why no Tau :) Yes Tau, we dont like ya!) which is why we've now got an ork campaign-because people kept asking for a story for the Orkz.

 

Activision will always follow the money, they tend to wait for others to find what's popular and then follow them.

 

Bioware can be counted on just to keep churning out basic games that follow the standard Bioware bluepring, RPG styiling, fantasy setting, start out as nobody, join an elite warrior order, beget companions, fight someone, multiple choice dialogue.

 

Bethesda... I doubt they'll scrap mod engines even if everyone else does, they know full well that modding's a big part of their game's popularity.

[FallenHeroX]

Really depends on the studio.

 

Relic dont really do anything without getting the fanbase' input first; they've done the DLC for Dawn of War by adding the races that people have requested the most(hence why no Tau :) Yes Tau, we dont like ya!) which is why we've now got an ork campaign-because people kept asking for a story for the Orkz.

 

Activision will always follow the money, they tend to wait for others to find what's popular and then follow them.

 

Bioware can be counted on just to keep churning out basic games that follow the standard Bioware bluepring, RPG styiling, fantasy setting, start out as nobody, join an elite warrior order, beget companions, fight someone, multiple choice dialogue.

 

Bethesda... I doubt they'll scrap mod engines even if everyone else does, they know full well that modding's a big part of their game's popularity.

 

atm bioware and bethseda are my 2 favorite game companys because theyve been making the most decent rpg games around

[brokenergy]

It's not really simple as "we don't make a tool-kit, so lets milk the game for DLC", more again accessability of the engine. The problem for BioWare in this case that they have only ever released two tool-kits (NWN and Origins) while most of their other games were modded by scratch (BG2, ME2, KOTOR and now DA2). Beth has more experience with tool-kits and hence are released closer to release. When BioWare get more experience about releasing in-house tool-kits and engine design, then you might see a better tool-kit from them but at this stage I doubt it. We are all stuck with Beth's tool-kit at the moment.

[Vagrant0]

It's not really simple as "we don't make a tool-kit, so lets milk the game for DLC", more again accessability of the engine. The problem for BioWare in this case that they have only ever released two tool-kits (NWN and Origins) while most of their other games were modded by scratch (BG2, ME2, KOTOR and now DA2). Beth has more experience with tool-kits and hence are released closer to release. When BioWare get more experience about releasing in-house tool-kits and engine design, then you might see a better tool-kit from them but at this stage I doubt it. We are all stuck with Beth's tool-kit at the moment.

I'd say that the engine and how things are added to it is the main factor. The reason why many games do not have their own tool-kits is because most of the assets and programming is locked in the game files and is of a format which cannot easily be decoded. Even in cases where a good portion of this is figured out by a community (Sims series), many things are still locked into how the engine handles them. Having a tool kit doesn't change this since those same components are still usually locked out by virtue of what the engine needs to function. The main thing that having a tool-kit as opposed to not having one is that portions of the game are more readily able to be accessed by modders. Of course having a tool-kit which was actually used to make the majority of the game (Bethsoft, DA, few others) also means that more is available to modders without having to code their own tools to mod a game. And on that note, for all the perceived flaws of official tool-kits, they are still far and away better at what they can do than most in the community could put together on their own.

 

But the point is that if the engine itself isn't setup to allow flexibility with game components, no amount of tools or modding can do much to force that flexibility.

[brokenergy]

Yeah I mentioned that too before. One could imagine why some developers can't try make engine that is more user friendly, both to themselves and to their fans but I don't really know what goes on behind the scenes to make a comment.