I believe the "workshop" interface you saw in the video is the interface you use to break down items and use resources to place items for your settlement. Pretty sure it has nothing to do with steam.

This is something that would interest me too.

I dunno if I would want to save those designs, as I would want each one I made to be unique, try different layouts and concepts.

Granted, I'm fully expecting a lot of my settlements to get blown to hell, but that's the price of real estate in the wasteland.

That's exactly why I think this idea would work better as a literal blueprint. We would need the appropriate resources before we can construct anything, but the blueprint would effectively automate the process. We could then tweak the design to make it more 'personal'.

Definitely. Because isn't this about the only way we'll be able to download settlements from mod forums like Nexus? I could see trying to download a specifc house/building or town the way we can now with previous gen games like Skyrim and F03/FONV. So not too hard to stretch this concept to shareable blueprints. Would save a ton of time for design and innovatively challenged folks like myself.

I see some problems with this and how it should work.

Technically it wold be more like an mod where you cut anything than the items build on one foundation. Think of an typically housing mod who simply add it pre build.

Other option might be an ready made house you build if you have skill and raw materials.

It will be hard, one thing I would like would be saved character presets. Easy to make and pretty nice to have, in short you save your preset and it shows up with the other presets.

I don't mean to sound like 'debbie downer' but if we have pre-made character builds and pre-made settlement blueprints where is the fun of creating your own? Part of the enjoyment is thinking and experimenting to see what works best.

Pretty soon every one will have a cloned settlement. Why bother making your own when someone else's is so much better? A developer sees the most popular settlement download and then that become the standard for the next game when they decide to remove the feature because it is 'too much trouble to implement'.

We already have to use someone else's voice for our not so original 30-something characters Jack or Nora. Even our baby is already named.

I'm sorry but it is beginning to feel like all of the imagination is slowly being svcked out of this game and it not even out yet.

What's the point without multiplayer?

No, that's just lazy. Build your own town

All I was suggesting is that some people prefer to have a template to work from, and there are even those who will just dive straight in with the first preset as their MC and go with that. Me personally, I like to build my character from the ground up, and I will often takes my time with the various choices we are given to develop them further. And the same will naturally apply for any settlements I put together. But the 'blueprint' option would be useful for those who don't care so much for the design process, or for anyone who would simply like a little inspiration.

As for the predetermined names, I'm quite certain that this will only affect our non-player spouse and child. The protagonist, as will all of Bethesda's games, will almost certainly be an open book. And I'm sure that even the possible background elements that have been hinted at will be flexible enough so as not to affect creative freedom.

I certainly wouldn't be in favor of system that simply drops a completed settlement into your world. Rather, what I refer to in the OP would be something that takes shows the details of a settlement from a bird's eye view, allowing players who have the blueprint to recreate it (on their own). Screenshots makes some of this possible by themselves, but a dedicated system could simplify the process by breaking the settlement down by levels (ground level, 1st floor, etc) and the materials required for each component and level.

Yes, I think something like this would be fun and if the number of people asking for face codes or sliders for character creation is anything to go by it would be pretty popular. There are many people out there who just aren't good at this kind of thing but really like to have a cool character/stronghold and others (like me) who are addicted to building and creating and look for any excuse to make something new

I am actually wondering if the map editor that ships later will actually work a lot like the town editor in-game.

It seems like an intuitive way to build a new area so I would not be surprised if that was how you made mods in the map editor.

Obviously the map editor has more tools available than that, but if the "building" part was the same then almost anyone should be able to at least whittle out a "new house" mod or a "town" mod on their own since the game itself would be teaching them how to use at least part of the toolset...

This sounds like a real possibility. When Todd said "this is how we create all our NPC's" at the start of the showcase, I would imagine that their own version of what we saw would have actual data being displayed so they can track subtle changes and make sure each NPC is unique.

I think that was the idea; recall that FO4 almost certainly had paid mod support built in ~before it blew up on them.

This is very true. I wonder then if they had any plans to do with paid quest mods, at least with regards to voice acting.

EDIT: I mean in terms of pulling in 'high profile' quest mods and giving them an official status with proper VA.

Paid quest mods sounds like not so much fun

I imagine it would've been say .99c a quest?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they scrapped the whole paid mods nonsense. I'm just thinking in terms of what they had planned for Fallout 4 when paid mods were still a thing.

I don't think this is the same idea we've been talking about. Though now I'm curious, where did we hear about FO4 having paid mod support?

No worries man I understood. I guess that's the story of a lot of games now: "What could have been"

Inferred. They had spent years [IRRC] setting this up. Skyrim was to be the test game (built before), but FO4 was built during the deals, and so [I think] almost certainly would have had built in support for the paid mod framework they were planning.

(What that support may have been ~who can say; but it could have included DRM measures to check for validly purchased mods.)

Ugh. I'm not opposed to paying content creators, but it just seems so...out of place. Maybe its just because free mods have been a thing for so long.

I'd rather just build my own settlement. Adding such a system in would be more trouble than it's worth. If you really want to share settlement plans, this forum would probably be a good place to do so.