Bethesda did say in a couple of interviews that whenever you install a mod the game will create a 'roll-back' save just in case the mod breaks things. Whether the game will force players to go back to this save if the mod is uninstalled, or whether players will merely be strongly advised to do so, hasn't yet been revealed.

It's also possible that the game will be somewhat more resilient to mods disappearing and play continuing on a, strictly speaking, corrupt save; although with the way Papyrus, quests and the whole game engine works it's hard to see how the game could handle that situation perfectly. I mean, if you save in a dungeon, uninstall the mod that adds that dungeon, and then expect to keep playing with that save, you probably deserve to have the save deleted and the rug pulled from under your feet

[edit]

Ninja'd - good grief, I'm typing slowly

I never implied I wanted info on your mod for a 13 year old game. Good luck to you with that. My questions arise from your apparent lack of knowledge on the subjects you seem to want to discuss.

Consoles themselves were NEVER attacked. Sony PSN servers were hacked and account info was compromised (some say multiple times) but I've yet to see any actual evidence that Xbox Live was ever hacked and all rumors that it has were never substantiated by any significant number of account compromises (that would happen if it were hacked). Again, these things had NOTHING to do with the console hardware other than the fact that the players use the console to log onto the game servers.

Also, DoDS attacks are NOT hacking a console or the servers, they are temporarily causing so much traffic that the Services will not work for players. This has an immediate and quite obvious effect, but does not put any player's personal information at risk.

I'm not going to say it's impossible that a malicious mod could never harm a console or the software on but since I've never heard of it happening on the PC (again, not going to say it's impossible), I seriously doubt it's going to start happening on a console mod.

I am wondering for a while now, how exactly they will implement this. Let's take me as an example. I don't install just one mod, but several of them (so 200+ ). And I uninstall mods I don't like, then install some new ones, then uninstall some more. Will every install trigger a backup of the most current save (or all saves?). Will every uninstall trigger a rollback, and to which save? And most importantly, is there inevidable progress loss?

Sure, I am a power user and the "worst case", but an average user will not only install one mod, he may have 3-5, 10, 20, .... something more than one. And he may also have an irregular installation/uninstallation pattern. It's not easy to design a good working system for this problem, so I wonder their system looks like.

As far as I can see, there are three ways a Fallout 4 (or other Creation Engine game) mod might cause a problem on a console.

1. Graphics overload: This could be by having huge textures or meshes, or excessively complex cells with too many objects, portals, textures and different meshes. This would most likely just cause the framerate to slideshow, it might crash the graphics drivers. I'd be surprised if it could damage the hardware.
2. Processing overload: This has been seen before with Skyrim mods, where badly written scripts start overloading the scripting virtual machine's stack, causing multiple simultaneous script failures. This can cause catastrophic slowdown and freezing or crashing, but except in extreme cases just causes certain quests or scripted behaviours of NPCs to stop responding.
3. The big one - buffer overrun: This doesn't ever seem to have been an exploited issue in any previous Elder Scrolls game or in Fallout 3, but in theory it might allow a mod to mess things up - if any such exploit has been left open, and if it could be used to do anything except crash the game. No evidence of this exploit in a Bethesda Creation Engine (or predecessor) game so far as I'm aware.

Apart from those three, I don't see how any mod could be malicious. The scripts aren't compiled to executable code, they compile to bytecode which is interpreted by a virtual machine executing in the game. And this virtual machine, being highly game specific rather than general purpose, gives the code being interpreted next to no access to the filing system or machine memory. Not much of a toehold there for malicious code, and no evidence that I'm aware of that it's ever happened.

The few instances of malware that have cropped up on mod download sites for Bethesda games have been in third-party written executables included in the download masquerading as mod installers; never in the mod files themselves.

I suspect they'll just say (as they did for Skyrim) "Don't uninstall a mod and carry on with the same game." They'll probably also say "Look, we added this neat new feature so if you try a mod and don't like it you can easily go back to a save made just before you installed."

If they're sensible they'll also say "Only install and try one mod at a time. Only uninstall and roll-back one mod at a time."

If people ignore the advice, and install and uninstall mods recklessly, well, they'll just have to learn the hard way .

I suspect that aside from the auto-back-up save file, it'll work much like on PC. I wouldn't expect an auto-rollback, but rather a warning message when you load a save that expects a mod that is no longer installed--it'll ask you whether you want to proceed with loading, and warn you that you might have problems with the save file. If the mod was minor, no problem, you load, you make a new save, and you won't see the warning again.

Since you're not working in a desktop environment, I guess they'll have a launcher program where you can load your mods, or perhaps a separate "app" to sort out your installed mods and load order. Whenever you change anything it could just make a back-up of your most recent save, or ask you if you want one or which save file you want backed up.

But progress loss is going to be inevitable in some cases. I think the best policy is to expect that--try the mod and decide early whether you want to continue with it. If you decide to uninstall it, you may well have to go back to your back-up save and go on from there.

Edit: Damn you, ninja!

This stance is something like a get-out-of-prison card. It's unrealistic to reasonably expect that people will only install one mod at a time. There will be more than enough mods that can be absolutely installed together, so it's also over-restrictiv. Not uninstalling mods is something they cannot reasonably expect for the same reasons. They just say such things to deny liability.

For Skyrim this was ok, because we PC people are used to being on our own when it comes to modding and we know nothing else.

But with Fallout 4 I have the impression that Bethesda didn't just implement a save backup system to deny liablity, but because they are seriously concerned about user experience. And when they really do, they have to be realistic this time. Also I think that console people may have different expectations than PC people.

Todd specifically said something about "automatic", I have the impression that it works without user involvement. Such a system could just make a snapshot of your save folder every time you install/uninstall something, but this would lead to a high number of save files. They could implement some algorithms/heuristics to only backup some saves, but then there will be situations where the wrong save is backuped. When not one but several mods have been uninstalled, which backup should be used?

I suspect that will be left to user choice. That's why I said I don't expect an auto-rollback. The back-up save is there for them so they don't accidentally mess up their only save (if they're foolish enough to have only one), since they're not used to this whole modding thing. But beyond that, I think the intention is to leave them to manage their mods and saves however they like.

It's true that console users might have different expectations from PC users. It's also possible that it is their expectations that, however understandable, are unrealistic.

Let's face it, how could Bethesda protect users from doing something bone-headed? If you install a mod that adds a sword, plus a mod that adds a dungeon, plus a mod that adds a new monster type, plus a mod that adds a companion, then make a save with that sword in hand, while fighting that monster in that dungeon with that companion, then uninstall every mod except the one that adds the monster type... how on Earth could Bethesda properly protect the user from an almighty FUBAR if they then try loading that save?

Except to say, in big, bold letters... "Don't! Just... don't."

And that's not even looking into the complications of running scripts and active quests.

At this stage it's impossible to say. I interpreted his comment as meaning that the game automatically makes a safe copy of your most recent savegame when you install a mod, so that even if you manually delete or overwrite that savegame you'll still be able to roll back to the safe copy if you uninstall the mod. But I've no idea if my interpretation is right. It's certainly straightforward (something I'm a great fan of in software development ).

It would also make sense if Bethesda implemented a sort of last-in-first-out system for installing and uninstalling mods, where you can only uninstall mods in the reverse order you installed them. That would go a long way toward protecting users from their own over-exuberance, although I can imagine that it would be far from popular among seasoned PC mod users. It might be more acceptable to new console mod users. That idea, though, is just my own speculation.

As with all these questions, we just won't know for sure until Bethesda say; even drawing on good knowledge of how Skyrim works (as the closest version of the Creation Engine) could be misleading

[edit]

lefty666, we have to get ourselves better organised than this

I can't even imagine what you'd do on a mod when your game starts crashing because of bugged mods. How do you manage them? How do you trouble shoot? how do you make merged patches, load order, etc? Brrrr...

Maybe console users will be limited to some arbitrary number like 10 mods (in the same way that many console games allow a limited number of save slots). With relatively few mods installed, load order is easier to sort out, there are fewer chances for conflict, and less need for merged patches.

But the hardest thing about mods is that once you've started, 10 mods is nowhere near enough!

Then you need a patch for this to tie that together with this one and then there's an update that takes up a mod slot and then so on and so on =)

And an update to one of your mods that breaks it all, leaving you to start all over again.

Not a lawyer but I do talk to my corporate lawyer at least once a week so I have an understanding of corporate law.

1) A company can be sued whether or not they have done something unlawful. They will be found liable if they violated the law. (just some nitpicking at your open sentence).

2) You are correct lawyers don't tell company bosses "we won't allow you to do this". Lawyers advise owners/bosses as to the legality of the decisions they are making and help draft documents/contracts with the correct terminology to avoid being sued.

I suspect their will be several disclaimers just like their are now when you play a multiplayer game and the disclaimer pops up "Online content not rated by ESRB". I would bet anything that before you can download a mod they will have a contract that you must agree to before you download any mods. This would help absolve Microsoft/Sony and Bethesda from being liable because of mods being malicious or damaging as long as said contract is written in a lawful manner.

That's exactly what I'm wondering about. I feel that Bethesda wants to do something but I also see no way they can do it. Maybe they have some real genius idea up their sleeves, or it is only an over-hyped auto-save mechanism?

That's true. But since I need something to do to kill time till Nov 10, let's continue to wildly speculate!

That's a very good point. As a mod author I cannot imagine to be able to give proper support without having a Papyrus log. My mods have verbose log statements to be able to precisely pinpoint what went wrong. But how to you log on the console? Consoles will make it a challenge to debug user problems for some mods. This could be a reason for mod authors to not provide their mods to console users.

When they do something like this I am pretty sure we will see a lot of merged mods offered as mod compilations for console users. I wouldn't want to debug such a mess.

What they've said is that prior to installing mods, a system recovery type of save will be made. Anything messes up- just go back to last known good.

I sill say the mods that get through will be quality controlled before being released to the console gamers.
It won't be the wild west of mods, where we can DL any old thing. I realize that it's still potentially a lot of mods to put in combinations to ensure they all work together (and probably set up patches for), but I don't see much option for them.

I don't think that there will be much quality control besides checking for illegal/unappropriate content. In my opinion the Bethesda people themselves have no clue which mods might work on console and which not (with that I mean they have no criterias/checklists), and the whole mods on console thing is a big public beta test. Doing internal tests makes no sense from a business perspective as it costs a lot of money and they don't gain much from it. Much more cost effective to let the users do the testing.

I agree. There's no direct income stream from mods, so there won't be a lot of dev involvement. This is user generated content, you take the good with the bad when you start playing with that. BGS is not making any guarantees of quality, they've flat-out said that they'll allow you to break your game with mods on console, just like on PC. It'll be largely up to users to experiment with the mods and figure out what works and what doesn't.

I tend to agree this is going to be a massive public test to see if the concept of user content can possibly be "managed" by a manufacturer controlled system. Yes, there has been user content on consoles since the PS2 (Tony Hawk games, for one), but the extent of the content was very limited and controlled by the game software capabilities.

This level of modding is a completely different beast and I think the reluctance of Sony to openly join the hype is them simply sitting back and letting Microsoft take all the risk for the "testing" phase. This entire project could easily get way out of hand for Microsoft and Sony knows it. I'm sure Microsoft sees it as a risk (not sure if the see how much it could hurt them given the right set of circumstances and potential media attention if the wrong mods become simple to install), but seems to be willing to take the chance to gain any sort of advantage in their current gen console war with Sony (that they are currently loosing).

On the other hand, if it goes well and without hitches, Microsoft will have a head start on this possibly expanding from a single game to others but I'm not sure it will actually make any difference in the console wars overall. Bethesda has recently stated that less than 10% of PC players actually use mods. While I find that number a bit low, but since I'm part of the modding crowd, my vision is likely skewed. I certainly can't see that number being higher for console players (unless it is just ridiculously easy to use mods and/or manage them....which I doubt) and I think anyone that would chose Xbox One over PS4 just because it has mods for FO4 right now (rather than 6 months from now) is not going to be a huge number.

I had the opportunity to see a bunch of mods running at same time on a X360 hacked. Apparently, it works well.

None of them required NVSE.

I agree about the testing phase.

I do not agree about the 10% , being a long time pc gamer and modder myself. I think it is much higher. Success of long time sites such as Planet Elder Scrolls, ElricM, and Nexus tells me that it is much higher than 10%

I do not think it will be safe to install tons of mods on the consoles. They are simply not built to do this.

I do not think Sony will leap in and jump on the band wagon.. They are "waiting to see" as you said.

This might be a big nightmare for everyone.

Also how exactly are they going to control the installation and content of console mods.

There will be no console construction set.. Only the PC construction set.

I'm sure it costs, but at the same time, imagine pitching mods for consoles to console makers, and giving no re-assurance people will actually be able to play them. Sounds promising, no?

Just go to Microsoft and say: "We have here something that might help you win the console war ...." After hearing "win" Microsoft will be in without listening further. And then go to Sony and say: "Microsoft is about to win the console war, unless you are also in". And then Sony will be in. You see it is very easy .

I don't think you need elaborate quality control to convince console makers. I think a portal where users can rate and comment mods is enough. Also Todd confirmed that they will let you break your game with mods, this does not sound like they want to implement some quality control from their side but more like the users are the quality control.

I'm not saying that tactic wouldn't/didn't work. But consider that Bethesda has stated they wanted to do this long ago. Seems to me, if it were that easy, they'd have done this by now.

It will be interesting to see what goes into all of this.

Not so easy I think.

+1