Say there's an overwhelmingly popular mod that is released in a few months after Skyrim arrives and Bethesda sees it and aknowledges how much better it makes the game, would they consider remaking it to work on console versions as DLC?

I don't think I've heard of them doing anything like it for Oblivion, though so chances don't look good.

I couldn't care less really because the "vanilla" version of Skyrim looks pretty much perfect for what I want from it right now anyway and I will be enjoying it on my PS3 for a looong time I think lol, I'm still just interested to hear if this is a viable option Bethesda could take.

haha funniest thing i ever read in this fourm.

oh and no

Its possible for them to do this but I doubt it.

No

Free DLC
Xbox
Microsoft

Ha.


You want mods? You play PC.

It depends but most likely no outside of armor pieces.

Nope. There's lots of legal action through that, they'd most likely have to pay the makers of the mod unless they agreed to give them the rights, or something along the lines of that. Popular Oblivion mods were never ported over to the 360 or PS3, but you could (through some hard work) get some mods on consoles, but not to the extent that it is on PC.

Either way, you're out of luck.

Get a gaming rig.

If Sony and Micro don't allow mods on their consoles, why would they do that?

With permission the mod could be ported over but between Microsoft hosting the free content, legal documentation, etc. it becomes more of a hassle than what it is worth. There is once again talk about trying to make mods port over to the xbox (making your own mods and putting it on the xbox) but I've heard that tune too often to believe it will happen.

It is possible, all the mechanisms and capabilities are easily created, but it leaves a nice hole for hackers to strike at in the xbox.

edit: repeat last argument for ps3 and wiiuuuuuuuuuu

YEAAA CONSOLE nvde MOD!!!
you did say most popular :vaultboy:

Incorrectamundo! Infact if the console companies say yes it'd be very easy to do this. Sadly they might not because it might be considered as some kind of alteration to the console which is a big no no... But really they should review this. end of the day, first console to allow mods to be downloaded will skyrocket in sales and become way more popular and essential, possibly completely shadowing the other console.

take heed console companies!!!

He didn't say "free DLC", just "DLC". Logically, if Bethesda were to go to the work of re-making the mod to work within console hardware limitations and standards, testing it, ensuring it couldn't corrupt savegames, and then paying for the certification and distribution, it would be perfectly reasonable of them to charge a small fee, as with any other piece of DLC.


Depends what the mod contains. Anything in the .ESP is owned by Bethesda anyway under the terms of the EULA, so there'd only be an issue with original models, sounds, textures etc. And Bethesda would likely have to re-make those from scratch anyway to keep the art style consistent and make sure the consoles could run them properly.

But I agree, it's never happened before so no reason to think it will happen now, even if in theory it could .

^^^ He did say "free DLC" in the title. Regardless though, I really want some of the mods to make there way to the PS3. I don't mind having to pay a little bit if they're worth it.

According to Todd it's technically possible (pc mods apparently work on the xbox if you have a dev kit), but there are so many sites that host mods how would you identify one as most popular, and then even when you do they don't have any way to guarantee stability with 3rd party mods. Not to mention MS and SCEA would want money for hosting the files on xbox live and psn so they wouldn't be able to do it for free.

^
Always at least one.

Gotta love ignorance, there have been plenty of games with free DLC.

Now, aside from all the PC-elitism here... let's actually address this in the same tone that BETHESDA addressed this.


They've said they would LIKE to do something very similar to what was described here, too, if they could. And since there -are- none of these made-up rules that some folks seem to think Microsoft has against this process, it would actually be entirely doable. The problem comes in the form of 'Quality Control'. Before they ever allowed a mod to touch a console, they would need to be certain that:


A.) It works without causing damage to/breaking significant portions of the game.

B.) A system to 'remove' content from the game is designed and put in place.

C.) None of the mods chosen for usage on the consoles pose a risk of legal action to either Microsoft or Bethesda.


And that is just what -I- can come up with... I'm certain that everyone who is involved in this discussion over at Bethesda has far more things than just those three going into the process.

I don't expect to see it happen any time soon. But modding is a BIG draw of Bethesda's games... and they know that. Just because it hasn't ever happened on the consoles, doesn't mean that it never can or will. It's just a matter of time before they find the ideal way to tap the market.

Nice response, that makes a lot of sense. I have a feeling it won't be happening for this game, but maybe for the next generation of consoles and games it may be easier for them to do something like this.

You are incorrectamundo about him being incorrectamundo.

I find myself being like a broken record in having to explain why mods for gamesas's games on consoles just wouldn't work. It's very tiresome.

First off... you have no way of sorting mod load order, as all those tools are handled by third party programmers in the mod community. If MS/Sony are leery about mods, they'd DEFINITELY be disagreeable with these third party tools.

Secondly, conflict sorting. There's the xEdit application (TES4Edit, FO3Edit, FNVEdit, all the same app actually) which is yet another third party app that MS/Sony would have a fit over. Then there's also the Wrye applications (mash, bash, etc). Both are required to generate merged modules to resolve many conflicts between modules.

Thirdly, there are many mods that would make consoles keel over and beg for a quick death due to the significant increase in CPU/GPU load they cause. I recall J.E. Sawyer joking that PC modders would eventually dispense with the RAM-saving limit on companions for FONV due to the fact that RAM was "not an issue" with us. And that's nothing compared to the modules like ones that increase the number of filler NPCs, or ones that boost textures or add more trees or such.

Fourthly... a lot of the really popular mods require script extenders. These things work by DLL injection, which is a common cheating method for multiplayer games but isn;t an issue for single player obviously. If they'd be leery about mods, and against third party apps for load order management and conflict resolution, they wold be adamantly against script extenders.

Modding is not simple. If you got a console for its relative simplicity compared to the PC... then mods are definitely not for you.

To be honest, I don't want mods on consoles. Even in an ideal world where these theoretical console mod users all actually read the ffffffriendly manual, problems will still crop up. Us modders would have no way to figure out whether or not problems with our mods are related to the platform it's on.

Is it possible yes.

Will it happen no

This interview may be the answer to your question:
http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3076322

AusGamers: You always support the mod community as well and I know that this is going to have mod tools out of the box.

Todd: For download, not in the box.

AusGamers: Right okay, yeah.

Todd: In case people look in their box and they’re like “what?”.

AusGamers: Obviously the PC community really enjoys that a lot, but have you thought about giving that level of access to the consoles?

Todd: I have yeah. I think our PC mod community is one of the things that is great about our games. We’ve always supported it and we want to continue to do it. But a lot of our audience is on the consoles so they’re not experiencing that. So we have talked to Microsoft and Sony; “how do we do this?”.

The good news is that those things have started to happen with games like Forza 3 and sharing all your car stuff or Rock Band’s a really good example, where you can make your own tracks where you’re authoring them somewhere else then you’re uploading them to the 360.

There are still a lot of issues to solve with... because these aren’t instances like a song or a car you know, you could download a mod that destroys your game and we can’t have that. So we’re still... we have not solved -- even on paper yet -- how to handle security; how do we handle not messing up your saved games and things like that.

So it’s not going to be solved for the game’s release, but it’s something that we’re going to continue to look at because we think that it’s an awesome part of the game that the majority of our audience isn’t seeing.

AusGamers: Is there any opportunity going forward to actually take some of the PC mod stuff and port that to console for console players?

Todd: It actually works. If you have a devkit console you can take the PC mod files, put them on your Xbox and they work. They actually worked in Oblivion, Morrowind and Fallout 3. For all of those games, I can take the PC mods and put them on my Xbox. We have one system so we just need to figure out the logistics of: How do we get it there? How do we secure it? How do we make it safe? It’s something that we would really like to do.

AusGamers: Well that’s tantalising and pretty cool for the console players out there.

Todd: Yeah, it’d be awesome. Here’s this awesome thing and we’re not doing it right now. What do you think of that answer? [laughs]

Note to console gamers: You do not have a devkit console. Therefore you cannot make mods without violating your console's EULA and getting banned from both here and Nexus. Even then, the devkit console is meant for testing for that specific platform; the asset generation and level/game design still occurs on the developer's PC.