Note on Names and Acronyms (Put Cursor over any Acronym to see the Full Name)

• ZM=Zenimax Media (Publisher)
• BS=Betheda Softworks (Publisher)
• BGS=Bethesda Game Studios (Developer)
• SW=Steam Workshop (Online Mod Repositry)

Notes on Responsibilities

• ZM owns both BS and BGS along with ID Software (Devs) and other Dev teams.
• ZM make all the decisions.
• BS publish all ZM owned Devs and other independent Devs.
• So BS tells BGS what to do and when.
• BGS only develop The Elder Scrolls and Fallout Franchises. Nothing else and most of the time, when gamers say "Bethesda", they actually mean BGS.
• ZM and BS are fully aware of this fact and BS has the word "Bethesda" in it's name for this exact reason. It makes a great shield for deflecting critisism.

Engine is most likely to be Void (ID 5) not Gamebryo

A lot of people think the engine will be an improved Skyrim Engine (Gamebryo).
Simply based on poor graphics and wishful thinking by modders, wanting the easy option.

I may be a modder who wants what's best for modding, but I honestly don't think that's the easy option.

It may slow things down to begin with, but a new custom built engine, with no 3rd Party content, means an SDK without chunks ripped out as well.

In the end though, what modders want doesn't matter at all.

All that matters is what ZM want.

Skyrim Engine (Gamebryo) is a possibility of course, but logic says the evidence is against it.

1^st The Engine must be Only 64-bit.
Simply because PS4 and XB1 are only 64-bit, PC is for all practical purposes only 64-bit ("AAA Gaming" requires this now).

Gamebryo is only 32-bit and now officially only a mobile gaming engine. They are not upgrading it or making a new engine for 64-bit consoles.

So BGS would be developing it alone.

Yet not actually own it alone.

Whereas the new Void Engine is entirely owned by ZM, who also own ID Software and BGS.

ZM also own BS and numerous dev studios.

They are a major AAA publisher and forcing all their in house devs to use the in house engine makes more money. Like EA's force use of the Frostbite engine for all their in house games.

This reason alone is enough to for ZM to dump the Gamebryo Engine

Indeed this is the only real factor involved. nothing else makes any sense at all from a AAA Publishers perspective.

2^nd The "Poor Trailer Graphics" Argument.
BGS games are never great graphically.
Consoles limit the graphics, Skyrim had 512×512b Textures, so it could run on consoles and the HD patch pushed it to 1024×1024b=1k, while Mods push this from 2k all the way to 8k.
So I expect 1k or at most 2k for Fallout 4 at Launch.
Certainly low enough, for the launch graphics quality, not to mean anything about the engines full capabilities.

3^rd The Paid Mods Debacle.
This isn't specifically about how bad an idea it is. It's about, what I think, was the hidden plan of Valve and ZM.
In my opinion this was why BGS games are Steam only rather than on Steam and other platforms.

Valve play the long game and this was a joint enterprise with ZM from day one.

1. Fallout New Vegas is Steam only establishes it's "Harmless" to modding.
   1. They failed here at the first hurdle. Game Auto Updates break mods the mod friendly fix is to give the player control for each game.
   2. To this day the only temporary work around is to run Steam in offline mode, which is no support for modding at all.
2. Skyrim and Steam Workshop
   1. This was meant to dominate modding, one click install and auto updating mods. Modders will love that.
   2. No most modders hate it.
      1. Auto updating mods is many times worse than Auto updating games but for the same basic reason, many times squared.
      2. Modding is a complex weave of intertwined components and every additional mod doubles that weaves complexity.

4^th The Fallout of Paid Mods
Valve finally admits they know nothing about modding.
Of course they don't, to Valve the Source Engine Mods are a free source of game testing to decide which is wsell them.
Their online SW games are a free source of 3rd party DLC, not mods.
ZM know nothing about modding, BGS may but they don't make the decisions.
My opinion is paid mods don't work in the free open source communal enviroment of BGS games and never will.

Whether you agree with paid mods or not, there are some basic red lines that must never be crossed.

Publishers like ZM

• You don't sell the game, stating mods can't be sold and then later sell mods.

• Sell the game with paid mods from the start, then I won't buy it, but others may.

• If you want a cut of the mods money, you must continuously support modding.

• Simply releasing a butchered and limited version of your SDK isn't accceptable, when money is involved.

Retailers like Valve

• Don't even try to sell mods, you are not needed or wanted, you provide no added value.

• You don't even support modding at all.

Specific to Valve about the SW.

• When the Workshop already exists for free, you deserve no money from mods, even if they are not free.

• Make auto updates optional for each game and mod. Without it SW is worse than useless, potentially game/mod breaking.

• Instead just provide the mod download as an archive, leave the installing to the user and actual mod managers.

• Modding isn't that simple, stop fooling new modders into thinking it is.

5th Fallout 4 and the full introduction of Paid Mods from release.
Anyone who doesn't accept that this was the reason for the Skyrim "Trial" happening is deluding themselves. Anyone who thinks it was done to benefit the mod makers, is mistaken.

This is all for the benefit of ZM and Valve. They would have taken more than 75% if they thought they could.
We will likely never know the original plan. but exactly what modding is allowed in the new engine, will reveal some of it.
A completely new engine and clean break from the 32-bit files, is the best option for ZM and Valve.

Hopefully it's a dead and never to return plan, time will tell us that even if E3 doesn't.

The simple fact that the plan ever existed is another indication for the Void Engine.

Summary

• What modders and Gamers want, is irrelevant.
• What BGS want, is irrelevant.
• Only thing that is irrelevant, is what ZM want.

• No matter what that may be, if ZM decide no mod SDK is released, it won't be released.
• If ZM decide to make modding as difficult as possible, it will be done that way.
• I don't think they will do these things but, I don't decide, only ZM decide.
• Like all "AAA Publishers", ZM make decisions that make them more profit, not more popular.
• Void Engine is entirely owned by ZM and will make them more profit, simply by having no royalties to pay.
• Void Engine will be the Engine used in Fallout, for this reason alone.
• Only Time will tell us the truth, for now we can only speculate

As long as it's cellular-structured for exterior gamespaces with an override-structured modular asset management modules, it'll be good.

What we see in the trailer looks like an updated version of Skyrim's engine to me. I honestly doubt they switched over.

Yeah it looked last gen port, not buying the new engine angle.

A couple of things you missed:

BGS does not own Gamebryo software but they have purchased the source code and have been modifying it like crazy since then. There is probably very little of the original source code left.

Code written following Best Practices is not 8-bit, or 16-bit, or 32-bit, or 64-bit, or 128-bit, or 256-bit, or 512-bit or 1024-bit or any-bit. It is just a series of text files. What makes the executable 32-bit or 64-bit is just a compile/link setting.

ZM may make the rules and give the orders, but the last known order they gave to BGS was "take the ball and run with it".

Looks like Creation (Updated Gamebryo) to me. Give away is the animations, still as iffy as ever. Almost a BGS trademark.

Bear in mind, you can't just swap a development team over to a new engine, they have to learn that new engine, what it can do, what it can't do, etc.

At best, it's Creation with some new bells and whistles, but definitely not Void.

Bethesda Game Studios is most likely using a updated version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's Creation Engine, updated to also support 64-bit Windows. It could also be using the VOID engine.

Also I doubt paid mods will return.

Gamebryo not being upgraded any more doesn't matter as Bethesda bought the source code and has been updating it on their own anyway (see; creation engine). FO:4 could be using the void engine, but updating the creation engine to 64-bit seems more likely, if only because BGS has spent so long working on that engine and tweaking it to their liking. I don't think there's any evidence that points to them using anything other than an updated creation engine. They may be, but the more logical assumption is that they've continued to update gamebryo as they have been for many years now.

They also wouldn't have gone to the time and expense of tweaking and updating Gamebryo to Creation to only use it for one game.

On the other hand Fallout 4 has been in development as long as Oblivion, this is not the two years total conversion mod FO3 was.

But I agree trailer feels like FO3.

True, but I'd hate to have thought they'd spent all that time working with a new engine just to come out with something that looks like it's on Gamebryo/Creation

That would be a little disappointing.

Wait, if it gets confirmed that it's not Gamebryo...What are the Engine Gripers going to complain about??

We have a very structured social order here.

For starters, Bethesda moved on from Gamebryo to their own in-house upgrade of it, the Creation Engine, which they can do with as they please (including a 64-bit upgrade); all of the reasons you stated they'd switch over to the Void engine already exist for the Creation Engine. Second, Steam has never been a problem for me modding New Vegas; maybe it was different when the game launched and was receiving updates (which have always broken mods), but you absolutely do not need to run Steam in offline mode to mod New Vegas. And you'll have to provide a source on the consoles being 64-bit only; I've been asking about that forever and I can never get a straight answer.

Do you honestly think this was some elaborate master plan Zenimax and Valve started years ago with New Vegas to eventually start charging money for mods? This is conspiracy nonsense.

The paid mods argument contradicts itself btw. It takes time to develop a game and the decision which engine you have to make early on. You don't develop a game at this scale in a few months.

Pretty sure it is Creation (updated Gamebryo). You can tell by how it looks.

Some asfwe

512*512 textures was required because of the 512 MB memory limitation.

Yes larger textures are also harder to render however more linear games manages better textures as they don't need many in memory.

This is not an issue on current gen, textures are also significantly improved. Current limitations is that the game has to run smooth on PS4/ One.

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Do not see the relevance of paid mods here, they selected Skyrim as a test case as its has an active player and moding base with lots of mods.

This was far smarter than trying it on an new game where you would get lot of bad overpowered and expensive mods and more people would pay because the lack of alternatives.

it failed hard because of community backlash and legal issues, lots of mods had used content from other mods, this was ok then mods was free, not then money is involved.

Auto updates and mods don't work well together, auto updates of mods is also an bad idea, luckily this can easy be disabled unlike auto update of games.

My recommendation would be to honor no autoupdate but have an security override on it.

Required payment for mods is pretty unrealistic. First mods require lots of testing, developer has to be able to add and remove files perhaps work on multiple versions.

He must also pretty much be able to run betas, as in sending mod to friends for testing.

Trying to handle this will be very hard, DRM on data files generally don't work anyway.

last lots of mods are just tweaks, stuff who fixes minor errors/ features. Not something you would take payment for.

Finally steam workshop and probably that SKSE does not support hacked games has helped against piracy, not sure how much but ZM looks at the diference in sales between Oblivion and Skyrim.

Yes its other reasons, Skyrim is far more polished, and more important more pces was able to run Skyrim at launch over Oblivion on launch.

Also about the idea that only what ZM wants counts, you forget that BGS and Todd has actually free hand todo whatever he/they wants.

They are the cashcow of Zenimax they know that and ESO the big Zenimax project....? Let's not talk about that if we talk about money.

^ This. Pete Hines said in a video interview was it in 2013? Or 2014? That Todd Howard gets free reign to do whatever the hell he wants to do.

Rereading and spotted this bit. What is the Workshop, but support for mods?

Actually, reading it mostly just seems to be a rant against paid mods rather than offering any evidence that FO4 will be on Void.

My point is the engines abilty isn't defined by the size and quality of Textutres used, BGS never use the maximum size of graphics the PC is capable of, just the maximum the worst console can use and still make the World space in one seamless whole.

They'll reduce textures readily to increase worldspace so the quality of the graphics means nothiung about the engine used.

As for

Zenimax is firmly entrenched as a "AAA Publisher" they run many more Dev Studios than their Flagship BGS one.

Ownership of the engine used for all those studios becomes a major factor for making money and like it or not publishers are all about making money, not games.

Dev Studios make games for publishers. The publisher takes the profits

Access to the source code isn't important if they don't own the code, if ZM can buy Gamebryo out and take full ownwerhip of the Creation Kit, then that does change things, that's a big if though.

This idea that 64-bit doesn't matter and code is somehow separate if it's in text files, right so code written for an 8-bit computer works just the same as code written for a 64-bit one.

No what you describe is how you can get 8/16/32-bit code to run on a 64-bit machine, but it doesn't take advantage of the extra power available and the reverse doesn't hold true.

No 64-bit code can be made to run on a lesser bit machine, take the simple matter of size of available worldspace. A world space that's actually 64-bit is much greater than one of 32-bits.

Look at 64-bit consoles capabilities, almost all of the improvement over last gen consoles is due to 64-bit.

Consoles have a seriously bad power bottleneck, they can't utilise the true potential of their existing hardware, due to lack of power, which is limited to 300W by their design as living room uner the TV boxes.

Their struggles to even manage 1080p ans 60 FPS are due to lack of power, amply demonstrated by the improved performance of the Kinnectless XB1.

The hardware they contain is fully capable of reaching the 1080p goal if given enough power.

So no what you describe isn't utilizing the power of 64-bit, just being able to run on 64-bit, isn't enough anymore. Games must use it raw power as well

At that time no one knew when the consoles would move up to 64-bit, so basically you are right, they didn't plan to do it, circumstances changed.

Yes I do think trhat was the entire purpose of the Steam Workshop from day one and Valve are known for making these sort of long term plans, Steam itself shows this planning in action.

Valve has monetized many of their own mods, not just the online ones on the Workshop. Games like Gary's Mod and Black Mesa, they've been quite successful at it, in fact, from their viewpoint.

My opinion is they thought, Steam Workshop would become the dominant force in Skyrim Modding from day one.

They intended to introduce Paid Mods all along, their record speaks for itself and Skyrim was meant to have this happen much sooner.

The fact that it never became the goto place for Skyrim mods, set the plans back, until they finally used Skyrim as a Lab Rat for Fallout 4.

I hope it's killed paid mods in BGS games, but Valve said in their shutdown post, they haven't given up on it.

They won't give up on it, if we ever accept it for one non valve game, we accept it for all, in principle, if not in fact.

I expect they'll try next with smaller modding communities, a small outcry they can survive.

Valve aren't the champion of PC gamers, they're Valves champion and only that.

The fact we only get refunds when they're forced to in the EU courts, after years of no refunds, tells you all you need to know about Valves motives.

I don't think paid mods can work, modding is communal and iterative in nature, all mods stand on the shoulders of those who've gone before.

Whenever it's tried it splits the modding community apart, but if it's ever tried with BGS again, it must be done from the start.

You cant sell a moddable game on the understanding that mods can't be sold, then sell them later.

Tell me before I decide to buy your game not after, I bought Skyrim as a modding sandbox, I won't do that if I know mods are actually 3rd Party DLC.

It's Creation Engine, unless they decided to re-brand an updated Creation as 'Void' (which I doubt, and that still ain't idTech; it'd just be a rename of Creation/Gamebryo). At this point I can't muster the energy to explain the reasons why in any detail, because this'll all be confirmed (in my favor) in a week or less anyway.

If it's not Creation Engine, or a modified CE, I'll dip my balls in boiling water and film it for you all. But it is CE, so... I told you so.

I want to see.. no actually I don't

Hell, I'll deep-fry my balls and eat them.