I know this is Baldur's Gate 3, not Neverwinter Nights, but I really, really loved the way it was so easy to create and share whole adventure modules with NWN. Some of the fan-created content gave the core game a run for its money in quality and depth. This gave the game almost infinite replayability, beyond just repeating the same story in different ways. I'm not so sure that will be possible with the incredible tightly designed maps like in the early access: clearly it's more complicated than plopping down tiles on an isometric map.

But if this could become a general engine for infinite content... yeah, wow.

My understanding is that a modding kit will be available either with the full release or soon after.

Hopefully sooner than later, or we risk losing momentum. And of course I wonder if improvements have been made in terms of mod support.

Is there any word on whether that kit will allow creation of whole campaigns, or is it just for modifying existing behavior (creating new items and spells or whatever)?

I agree. Any video game I can't interfere and meddle with isn't giving me the full experience.


Based on Larian's recent history, I would anticipate it'll cover everything. My main hope isn't so much what will be included but that it'll be easy to use: previous editors were powerful but could be somewhat cryptic.

TBH the previous editors had some glaring flaws: no easy custom modules, no voice/sfx mods and no audio mods at all, And voicesets have always been part of BG modding.

Hopefully. That was beyond my scope, I mostly (actually entirely) just did 3D modelling previously. My frustration was with the Bethsoft ones in that they actually removed stuff in subsequent releases like generating lip files; which I guess was some licensing issue, but it was irritating that it was removed rather than resolved.

I couldn't even get the editor to work, that's why I didn't mention 3d assets. Of course, full 3d import-export would be great.

Norbyte's Contraption is what you need for that: it also contains a utility to convert meshes between Granny 2 and an actually usable format. It'd be demanding too much to say "oi! Norbyte!" but y'know. Maybe.

I'd love to go back to the nwn era with the homegrown mods and realms to explore and rp.

That would be a blast. It's still early so I'm sure it will be modded to heck by the time it's through!

I would happily pay another $60 just for a robust Neverwinter Nights style module toolkit for Baldur's Gate 3.

+1, as long as it works with ease of use and we are given semi-unlimited freedom

They actually made a pretty good effort to accommodate this with DOS2. I've seen some pretty stellar custom maps, and the DM mode is really good. However, I would wager that it sadly saw very little use. It has to be _very_ user friendly to achieve any sort of momentum, and it also needs to support persistent worlds IMO. Todays games just don't lend itself to user friendly module creation that well. Map design alone is something that was reasonably easy in NWN1, but jump ahead to NWN2 it became a lot harder. Modules were easier to make in NWN1 and the current online community is bigger for NWN1 than for NWN2 for just this reason. I'm pretty sure it would be much much harder to do in this engine.

I would pay too for an easy editor. Considering that there will probably be a Baldur's Gate Act, and looking at the dimension of the current map, it's easy to say that BG map alone can allow people to conver a huge number of existing D&D adventures and campaigns with limited need for extra maps.

If someone is smart in WOC, they should see the opportunity and start releasing campaign packs as DLS for BG3, even unrelated to the main story. I would buy each one of them, I fear...

IME, Glasses (the DOS editor) was not that intuitive and had a steep learning curve, but it could be coaxed to do what you wanted and was reasonably comprehensive; and, for me, it didn't seem to crash to often, something I've had elsewhere and lost lots of work in the process. "Elsewhere" being Bethsoft's Construction Set/GECK: don't get me wrong, it's a much easier editor to use and has lots of nice features at your fingertips, but it crashes a lot and it's guaranteed to make a mess of your saved date requiring TESedit or something like it to clear it up afterwards. Then there's Bioware's Toolset, when it is actually provided, which is if anything more cryptic than Glasses but has maybe the same capability.

Anyway, the point is that if it's anything like Glasses, it'll be useable. Hopefully it'll be a little easier and won't be quite so suspicious of its user for quite so long!

Oh, are we talking about that disaster the Dragon Age editor was?

Developers have no idea how much money they can milk by releasing a NWN1 style Toolset, DM Client, and 50+ multiplayer capable game. As has been said, NWN1 is 20 years old and still has a relatively large, albeit shrinking community of die-hards.

Think about that. 20 years of DLC. 20 years of small expansions.

Sell the Toolset and DM client as separate products. People will buy them. Sell DLC that is little more than new weapon models, clothing models, faces, placeables, tilesets, races, classes. People will buy them. For 20 years.

All that really needs to be considered is making sure that you don't release all of this in such a way that it breaks people's ability to play together on the same server. Make player options require player purchases to use, but not to participate with one another. Let builders buy all of the other stuff. They will.

Of course, I don't want to be gauged like that, so expansions are better, but hey: I'll spend thousands over 20 years.

My problem with DOS2's toolset is that you couldn't actually make single-player adventures, like in NWN or Shadowrun Returns. You could only make things that required a live DM playing in real time with a group of live players. You couldn't write dialogues and set quest triggers and such. So for my purposes, it was useless. I want to author adventures that people can just download and play on their own. (Or play cooperatively with their friends, whatever.)

Yeah, and they could rent out servers for people to make NWN-style persistent worlds, and probably make bank.

Correct. Custom modules/campaigns. Even warcraft 3 had them, before Blizzard RUINED EVERYTHING with Reforged-

The biggest issue with NWN and NWN2 which I believe may be why we do not get more games like them is the inability to monetize additional content. Both communities, while small are still very much alive and active with Persistent Worlds, but the simple fact is that all of this free content is just giving consumers of the medium a reason not to buy the next thing that comes out. I wonder if the prevalence of games like Fortnite whereby Epic Games has monetized contributions of private "content creators" gives Larian the ability to provide a platform to allow for content creation (single player mods, persistent worlds, and simpler stuff like UI changes, tactical/strategic (aka difficulty) mods, etc.)? If Larian were to find a way to have some kind of money sharing with folks that create custom mods then perhaps having a full on modding community for this and other RPG's would be a more popular gaming offer.

Honestly, I would pay full price for modules like Curse of Strahd/Horde of the Dragon Queen etc. created in BG3.

Like the

I think they didn't monetize a bunch of stuff with NWN just because back then, microtransactions was not really a part of gaming. Now though, with microtransactions being the Status Quo, they could monetize the crap out of additional chunks of content. Even if modders are making content for free, the developers could make better-looking, shinier, more polished stuff and it would sell. Just calling something an "official" add-on or module would automatically make it more appealing to a lot of people than just amateur mods. They could sell asset packs, new races/classes/subclasses, their own "official" adventures, cosmetic options for characters, and like I mentioned before, rent out servers for persistent worlds. With how huge D&D is right now, if a true, modern, user-friendly, graphically attractive version of the NWN toolset and DM client came out, it would probably be even more popular than the original NWN was.

Bethesda tried that.

Bethesda is kind of shit, though.

The base game is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The mods (and possible DLCs) are where it is really at. I am almost certain I would buy many, many modules for $15 or so if Larian developed and sold them. Let's hope the future is bright.

DM mode, fan modules and the ability for those with the patience and skills to do things like add additional sub classes that Larian don't manage to do would be great.

In fairness, a lot of mod content is significantly better than official stuff, NWNs best content came from the DLA team, it was so good Bioware hired a bunch of them and a lot got made official. Similarly, a lot of mod content for the elderscrolls games is also significantly better quality than official stuff. it's just that for everything of that quality, you'll have hundreds of things that really aren't that great.

With luck, we'll see people look to implement missing content for BG3 in the same way we have for Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Yes this. Basically: shut up and take my money.

Glad to read OP and some posts like this, who has the same idea with me. I also wrote
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=705609&Searchpage=1&Main=92331&Words=%2Bmodding&Search=true#Post705609
Such post about NWN style "DM mod" modding tool.

Let's pray WotC and Larian both are convinced and agreed to develop such tools, and make a good model to protect their copyright and make more $$$. This is win win for players, fans, and developers.