While I got reasonably adept at modding for Oblivion, I have a curiosity some of you more code savvy might know...

Assuming it is GameByro, can we reasonably assume it will still be based around the "nif" file structure? I realize it will likely take tweaking to make things compatible, but will NifSkope still be viable? Or are we going to have to essentially start from scratch and build new exporters for 3DS Max and Blender, and redo NifSkope entirely?

Apparently its a completely new engine....

confirmed to be a new engine.

We will still be able to mod to the same ability we have been right?

Oh GOD I hope not.

Bethesda!!! We need to know!! Are you guys using .nifs & .kfs? Can you at least tell us that?

I hadn't even thought of that! Ugh. :sadvaultboy:

As long as a plug-in can be made for Blender & 3DS Max... I suppose it's not all that bad.

How long will we have to wait for a new one though, if this ends up being something that doesn't use .nifs?

And, who says it isn't based on Gamebyro? Hmmm? All because it's brand new doesn't mean it doesn't ave the same base.

A new game engine could just mean a completely new SDK, doesn't have to not use Gamebyro.

I doubt Bethesda would ship the game without including modding tools, as it more than understands that one of the largest draws to TES is its vibrant, flourishing modding community.

Honestly, I interpreted the "new engine" when I first heard it as "doing what we always have done, taking the core of the Gamebryo engine, hacking off what we don't want, and sewing on everything we do, making a Frankenstein's Monster of a new engine that just happens to be somewhat compatible with Gamebryo standards."

Who knows, maybe they finally scrapped it entirely. But I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, either.

Remember the Infinity Ward incdident with MW2? Its possible.

Lets hope not :down:

With a new engine comes new possibilities.

Sure, it'll be rough at first, but I'm sure after a year or so, the community will be flourishing with amazing mods.

Thankfully, Bethesda is much more autonomous than Infinity Ward.

Well, honestly, I didn't start this thread to be about hypothesizing if they'll allow mods... It's almost a sure thing that they will...

But looking ahead, I'm just seeing what obstacles are going to be presented in order to get our mods into the game as we've become accustomed to... I'm certain that, with a functioning CS, we'll be able to adapt and mod anything eventually... I just wanted some sort of indication as to what hurdles we're going to have to be jumping over when the time comes.

I hope we get some that Blend naively saves in, like .3ds.

lol and here I thought I was a wishful thinker.

Well, you can always view it this way...

Todd Howard mentioned in August that the next game (which we now know is Skyrim) will have the quickest turnaround development time of any project they've done yet.

This may mean that the engine they created, plus tthe associated toolsets, have been optimized for creating plugins easily and quickly, including user modifications.

It's possible, at least... there's no real reason for everyone to keep posting only negative possibilities, is there?

It's only realistic to presume that IF the "new" engine is not .nif compatible; that the pioneers, like the ones that brought us Nifskope and the various export scripts for Blender and Max, may very well have to work their magic again. There are years of work and tutorials that we have all studied and benefited from, going all the way back to Morrowind. Not to sound to melodramatic, but people found a way create this hobby that we now take for granted. I don't think it's negative of pessimistic to accept that the community may very well have to start from scratch. It's scary to me, but also a bit exciting.

We have to wait for official info but mods will be supported.

After I stopped freaking out about it, I think you're right.

Could open up a lot of new doors that were previously sealed shut.

It's almost like the dawn of the new era of Modding.

There is nothing definitive. I also think that they may use a heavily tweaked gamebryo engine, but other people insist that 'new engine' means no gamebryo at all but something completely different made from scratch with different file format etc. Either they will answer this question in an interview in the future or we will have to wait for the game to come out.

If it is indeed a completely new engine then it depends on whether they release their exporter this time or not. If they don't release an exporter it would probably mean a long time without any new models at all and probably a very long time until you could do all the fancy stuff like animations etc. There wouldn't even be alternatives like the Civ4 exporter for Oblivion.

Which would kill modding Skyrim for me since I'm not willing to wait a year or two after release before I could start modding the game seriously.

So let's hope it's either still nif file format or they release their exporter.

I hope so! In all 5 years I've been modding (on and off) for Oblivion, I've never been able to get the stuff I made in Blender through Nifskope, damned program has to be the most backwards, finicky, useless, unforgiving, unintuitive, progress-hindering piece of software ever made. We're not on good terms. :brokencomputer:

Blasphemer!

can i have the reference to this please?

http://twitter.com/nickbreckon/status/14015054991069184# you go!

http://www.megagames.com/news/elder-scrolls-v-scheduled-2011-and-uses-new-engine


http://www.joystiq.com/2010/08/16/bethesdas-new-game-is-for-current-platforms-pretty-far-along/


Sounds like an upgraded version of their current tech. When Pete says "all-new" he's probably talking in marketing-speak (that is his job after all).

I read that as well, but the funny thing is that Todd never really said they're going to use an updated version of the Gamebryo engine. He just said what you quoted. At that time it sounded like they would use an updated Gamebryo engine so the magazines/websites simply assumed it and posted it in their news. But he never said anything like that and if the community manager says



then it would be surprising (albeit not impossible) if it was indeed only an upgraded Gamebryo engine. I hope that it is 'marketing-speak' though since I rather have a heavily improved, but moddable Gamebryo engine than a completely new engine without any exporters at all.

danke scruggsy and phitt

:foodndrink: