Was Modding ever confirmed on Skyrim? it's been a good while since i've been back to this forum?

Yes, I'm pretty sure it was confirmed. The 'creation kit'.

Yup! It was confirmed that the Creation Kit will be released alongside Skyrim, here and on the http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/01/19/new-creation-kit-to-bring-modding-tools-to-skyrim/.

Edit: :ninja:

Todd Howard has indeed confirmed that they will release the Construction Set (now called the Creation Kit) when the game releases.

edit: ninja'd twice. Dang.

Isn't Creation Kit also the name of their new engine, or am I mixing something up?

Creation Kit = replacing the Construction set
Creation Engine = replacing the Gamebryo engine

Unless proven otherwise, its more like:

Creation Engine = Stripped Gamebryo renderer and made our own. (+awesome optimization and new features)

No offence to Bethesda, I love them, but I can't honestly see them building a 100% brand new engine in the time they had. And given that gamebryo was just the renderer, means that back with Morrowind, they had to build everything from scratch, so they only needed to strip the renderer and slap a "new engine" label on it. Not that I have a problem with this, but until 100% confirmed that the engine used in Fallout3/NV was thrown out the window (Put in some random file on a system computer) and they started coding a brand spanking new engine, this is what I will believe to be the case.

Maybe you should get some facts straight before you complain about pretty useless things to complain about:

"To do that this time, we knew, like before, we had to start over. We needed to reinvent large parts of the game and its technology. We started with the graphics renderer, and how we would bring the scale of snow covered mountains, dynamic weather systems, and massive dragons to life along with the small details of how people lived; from the forks they used, to the fish they caught, and the meat they cooked. We then rewrote all the major graphics and gameplay systems including lighting, shadows, level of detail, animation, interface, scripting, dialogue, quest systems, melee, magic, and more. All of those changes made it into our internal editor as well. So much had changed that we decided to call the engine and editor by a new name, the Creation Engine and the Creation Kit. We can't wait to see what all the brilliant mod makers do with these tools." - http://www.elderscrolls.com/community/welcome-back-elder-scrolls/


"Though Skyrim's Nordic setting is a more rugged environment than the Renaissance festival feel of Oblivion's Cyrodiil, the new setting isn't lacking in breathtaking views. To create a diverse country filled with steep mountain passes and dense forests, babbling brooks and violent waterfalls, glacier coastlines and snowy tundras, Bethesda went back to the drawing board and rewrote every major system powering the gameplay experience. The result is the newly dubbed Creation Engine and Kit." - http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/b/xbox360/archive/2011/01/17/the-technology-behind-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim.aspx

Obviously Bethesda has used the knowledge they've gained from upgrading the Gamebryo all these years, and implemented some of what was good in that. But still, totally rewriting every major system anyway.

most likley its my ineptitude at reading and understanding but....

isn't it still Gambryo? you can take things apart and reassemble them all that is fine and well.

but isnt it still Gamebryo?

just a question.

How would it still be Gamebryo? They've re-written all the major features. They've definitely used the experience they've got from upgrading Gamerbyo, but that doesn't make it the same engine, lulz...

Don't really see why you think it still could be Gamebryo. If there's something I've missed, please enlighten me.

hmmm, I guess we shouldnt be so hooked up on the Gamebryo bit, thing is Im at a lost why past games like Redgaurd including scaling walls, climbing ledges and a multitude of other effects, in essense but not by much being a bit more free from the ground than in Oblivion and Morrowind, and more interaction with the environment. where as the latter didnt have ladder climbing or Environment moves you interactions, hell is was hard getting controllable ships in both games.

sigh, Im just hoping the same limitations are not present in this current build, there was only so much you could do, as much as that may be.

Someone's been under a boulder @OP. Also lets pass the "Is it a rehashed gamebryo?" discussion even if Omega X ment no harm by it. If it is it's impressive and I understated the programmers. They might even be in John Carmack's league. But that probably isn't the Case, even with games like Epic Mickey and Rift still made using their own, key word MODIFIED, Gamebryo engine. I feel the Creation Engine was built from ground up with some bases from their previous work. Possibly in the vein of one version of Windows to the next. And it seems impressive, especially with current examples being from the xbox 360 which is basically an outdated PC box(And thr console I primarily own). They still have time for tweaks. The quality seemed reminiscent of say Modern Warfare 2 in any of its snowy maps. Give or take it was either a little bit worse, matched it, or was borderline better. As a fully open world game unlike Mas Effect 3 and possibly rivaling or beating the Witcher 2 its impressive. Lets see how they can push it. And modders will possibly love the kit and engine aswell. ((EDIT: And to Omega, as Todd H. stated things like ladders were tough on their modified gamebryo engine as it would produce a multitide of bugs which is why they weren't included. This is most evident in Obsidian/Beth's New Vegas where ladders acted like door points in places like Hoover Dam))

I'm no expert... so correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the actual engine they make have to do with... just rendering? Physics engine is very seperated I think?
I too think climbing would be amazingly amazing though in Skyrim. I hope they implement it, but for some reason I feel that it's not gonna be in :confused:

The Gamebryo Bethesda has been using since Morrowind was ONLY the renderer. Period. They have clearly stripped that for Skyrim. I can rearrange the chocolate chips on a cookie and its still a chocolate chip cookie, but If i remove the chocolate chips, it is no longer that type of cookie.

Which is why I said i'd stop focusing on the name *gamebryo* since yes it was just the renderer, what im hoping for is a larger spectrum aspects and details in the game at its base

I wonder if the mesh format has changed as well, or if they are going to stick with NIF's (NetImmerse Format for Gamebryo)

If the mesh format changes, that's going to set the modding community back a while - especially if it's another proprietary format that will have to be reverse engineered.

yup. CK. pretty much any BGS game has a modding tool. Ones that they actually make that is, (I am pretty sure that NV uses geck but idk) they did not announce it for FO3 when it came out until a little later I am not sure but I think it was because they were not sure that enough people would want to mod it.

the modding community is very strong and intwined with the development of TES games.

The mere idea of a TES game without mods

*shudder*

You are right. It's very unlikely they will use the nif format since that would require them to license the Gamebryo engine. It is more likely that it will be some custom format.
I do hope that they will release the necessary exporter to create such files. They do released the nif exporter for Morrowind for 3ds max 3 and 4.
With an exporter it wouldn't set the modding back too much, but we will still need an editor like NifSkope and importers. So it would be also good if they would release the file specification, so we wouldn't need to reverse engineer that back.

The Dark Side is strooong in you...

They didn't want to release one for oblivion when it was released(or was it before it was released? can't remember which). When Oblivion came out and Todd was asked in an interview if a modding engine would be released, he said something to the effect, that creating a modding engine is extremely expensive and that they had no current plans to release one. That raised a bit of a storm with fans and the constant complaints/threats of fans not buying the game that made them relent and release a modding kit. I think they learned their lesson.


With that said, I am bummed that the game is still just a modified gamebyro renamed. They just renamed it because so many people online were complaining that they are tired of gamebyro because its so dated and old looking by today's standard (which is true, I love fallout but daaaannngg, it ugly to look at). Now, I could smell the PR machine BS a mile away when they suddenly said its a brand new engine. A lot of praise has gone into the trailer, but oblivion's trailer was just as pretty too. One thing I noticed is the ugly people are still in the game, look at areas where you can see people at the background, pause the video and you can see they are still fugly. The only person that looks ok is the guy at the end that the main character is fighting, I guess he is a important NPC. I know their are screenshots of some nice looking NPC's, but which am I going to believe, some still PR shots or their own video?