About a week ago, I was browsing the TW Center forums, looking up stuff about Shogun 2: Total War. I ran across a topic that was talking about a recent interview, in which the a developer said that they are changing the file format from (some code format, TW Center is down so I can't check) to binary format, which some modders said would kill modding other then reskinning. Some in the topic were pondering whether The Creative Assembly were doing that to encourage DLC sales, as there wasn't much incentive when you could download mods off the forums for free (most of the DLC are just additional units for Empire: Total War).
As we've seen with Oblivion, sales seemed to be much stronger on consoles then they we're on the PC. At the same time, pirating on the PC was gotten much worse. I fear that, while Bethesda might not actively discourage modding, they won't support it as they have in the past. This could take the form as a less comprehensive and harder to navigate Construction Set, a PC port rather then the other way around, or many hard coded features that give modders a hard time working around.

They weren't going to, UNTIL YOU PUT THIS IDEA IN THEIR HEADS!!

lol, if bethesda ever did this were all going to blame it on guiltfeeder566 now.

I wouldn't worry too much about Beth doing it. Sure, sure they could but IMO modding is one thing that keeps the TES games going. PC people take the game and make it something ideal too them

Modding is the only reason anyone still plays TES games. Morrowind and Oblivion would both be dead and buried under the heaps of old games by now otherwise. So I don't really see Bethesda killing of such a lucrative continuing sales stream. After all, I can still walk into Gamestop or Best Buy and find Morrowind GOTY on the shelf, when nothing else from 2003 is anywhere to be seen.

QFT. The reason I keep coming back to Oblivion over and over each time I stop playing is for the amazing modding community that continues to amaze me. Beth would never do something like this, they know thats half the reason anyone still plays the TES series. Plus if they wanted to do this I'm sure they would've thought of it before now and done it with Fallout 3. I think we're safe, don't worry. Oh, not to mention nobody would buy the PC version if it wasn't for the modding. I know I would've stuck with my 360.

But if it does happen.. its your fault now. :flamethrower:

Oblivion wouldn't have sold so much on the PC version if it wasn't moddable.

So whos up for a lynching i have many pitchforks and torches available.

If Bethesda wanted to boost console sales and the awareness of their DLCs, they should instead make the game easier to mod, work with the modders (up to and including having "maintenance dev team" in charge of patching post-release bugs discussing bugs directly with them via a bug tracking system), and offer "featured" free mods from the community for the console users in their shop.

I doubt it, one doesn't exclude the other. Quests with good voice acting and new models/textures are going to be wanted anyway. Beth are fully aware of how much the community appreciates there mod friendly approach. That said depending on what kind of third party solutions they use modding might be harder or easier in next game. If they use a lot of third party tech they won't be able give out tools that use that tech. Think havok physics was one of reasons we didn't get a 3dmax exporter. But yeah they are not going to intentionally limit modding. And community will find a way anyway.

Didn't they do this for Morrowind? There were lots of free plugins for Morrowind. I personally think they really need to start working with modders directly to produce the DLC. No offense to Bethesda, but I was disappointed with the Oblivion DLC other than Shivering Isles. I think having some modders around for ideas would be beneficial for them.

No, what I meant was: Offer their own non-free DLCs along with free "featured" mods from outside modders in the same shop.

Makes the shop more useful, allows for the console users to experience some of the more awesome mods available for the PC as well, keeps the modders happy(-ier), and Bethesda gets a better contact to potential future employees.

Of course, it's a bit more of work on maintaining and support the old game ...

todd howard on morrowind (sorta gives an isight to what they think on the matter as far as i can tell)

With Morrowind, there are two moments. One was E3 2001 when we first showed it off to a large number of people. It was fantastic to finally be able to show all our hard work and the reception to it was incredible. People stayed and watched the demo over and over, some up to two hours. The other is the community for Morrowind plug-ins and mods. To this day I'm still amazed at how it's grown and what kind of new life people have been able to breathe into the game. I'm so happy we released the Construction Set. Not everyone uses it by a long shot, but The Elder Scrolls experience would not be the same without it.


so if they injoyed seeing the modders *breath new life* into the game then why wont they do it again?in they did it for oblivion, if they where smart they'd do iy again wouldn't they?

Gimme one,
On-Topic:
I wouldn't have bought OB if it weren't for modding,
and I don't think I'm the only one

Based on Fallout there are two conclusions to be drawn in my opinion:

1. Fallout 3 is as modable as Oblivion, despite the fact that the mega selling console versions don't benefit from it directly.

2. Fallout New Vegas features a lot of things based on popular mods like Fallout Wanderers Edition, Weapon Mod Kits etc. So mods can be a very good guideline for developers to see what's hot or not. So this is beneficial to the developers as well as the console players.

Just my two cents, don't feed guiltfeeders guilt to much!

http://web.archive.org/web/20041209090930/www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/goods/posts0600_1.asp

PS. I found these talks thanks to http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1103091-mwob-developer-posts/page__view__findpost__p__16138016. I'm trying to know these guys.

You do relies that consoles are also pirateable as well? Don't single out PC just because they are "pirated".

If you want a good example of how important modding is to this game, just take a look at the traffic on this forum. The game's been out for years now yet there's almost 3 pages of posts made just today. I doubt very much if Bethesda would do anything to compromise that amount of interest in one of their games. If modding for Shogun 2: Total War revolves around just adding new units to the game, then it's in a completely different ballpark from the Elder Scroll games, and Fallout as well. There's so much more you can add to these titles. Just look at what OOO does to Oblivion, it's almost like playing a completely different game altogether.

Personally I don't think that initial sales would decrease much if the next TES title wasn't moddable. Probably nothing worth mentioning. We didn't even know whether FO3 would be moddable, but (as far as I can tell) it still sold extremely well before they announced the GECK. The majority of people don't even use mods (consoles) and even the ones who do would probably buy the game anyway. I know I would, just to see what it looks like.

But I think the longevity is what matters. Not because people come back to play the game years later. They already bought the game, so Bethesda isn't making any money with them (except for a few who switch from console to PC maybe). But the advertising effect is huge. I remember that in a (rather) recent interview Pete Hines said that Oblivion and Morrowind still sell great 'because our sales guy stays on top of it'. What a joke. Just google any word and you'll end up with a link to an Oblivion mod. No sales or PR guy could do what the billions of links to images and sites do that only show up because Oblivion has so many mods. No matter what you want, be it Star Wars, Halo, Anime, Lord of the Rings - you end up with Oblivion. You can't avoid the Elder Scrolls titles when browsing the internet. That is nothing you can do with regular advertising efforts, no matter how many million $ you spend.

That's true almost every time I google something I get TES stuff, I even saw a pic in an essay

Money money money. Sapping creativity since time immemorial.

Ive just finished a part of my degree course on this very thing, how gaming has evolved and where it is going. Let me sum this up

"professional suicide."

Can you imagine nowadays actually buying a game where there is absolutely no, or highly limited modability? You wouldnt find the game on the shelves outside the bargain bucket section a year later. You certainly wouldnt find people talking it up much, if at all. Modding is pandoras box to the gaming industry. Once opened you cant shut it, because all it takes is a competitor to offer it and youre out of business, or at least out of pocket.

A perfect example is the old 2D world war 2 game sudden strike. An absolute masterpiece, and boy did that get modded to the hilt!! So they move to 3D and bring out very limited modding tools then shut down any hint of modding beyond that already provided, plus they hard code difficulties in. The result? I bought it, then binned it. Where was sudden strike 4? There will never be one. The whole game has been forgotten. From literally hundreds upon hundreds of members of the 2D forum, all clamouring for more and more mods, the game selling, well even now! Whereas Sudden Strike 3? A few dozen members after 6 months.

Bethesda have absolutely capitalised on a massive market for this game. Console players and PC players are different and the impetus to buy a PC and buy a PC version to allow massive modding must surely have been a weight on the shoulders of console players. I will have a console by the end of summer. I will buy Oblivion.

If I had a console and saw the mods, I would probably buy a PC. If there were no mods, I would stick with the console. So, the question is, do Bethesda want to keep the PC and console markets? Oh yeah.

And would I buy TESV if it couldnt be modded? Not in a million years. Id look to the competition, and so would all of you.

If this were to happen they would massively lose sales on the pc. And i'd then hate besthesda.

There's another game I love to play that isn't moddable because the developer/publisher patently refuses to release CS's for their games. This particular game came out in late 2009 with rave reviews - it's now pretty much dead. Combine that with the fact that it's rather short and there you go - dead game. I still frequent their forums and there have been numerous requests for a CS, but the answer is always no. And guess what: somebody posted a question on the forums recently asking for recommendations on what to play until the next game from this developer/publisher came out and guess what the number 1 recommendation was: get Nehrim. I think there were some people that went and bought Oblivion just so they could play Nehrim...

I think Beth would be really stupid if they stopped releasing CS's for their games...

So...because Creative went a certain direction, Bethesda will in turn kill their own ProfitCow? that they've already been milking these past two releases?