Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis @ GC 2008

I can't say if mods will be supported or not. I guess that's up to Lar.

But since I'm one of thes guys who love breaking all the games they buy immediately after finishing them, I'll tell you a secret:
The Oblivion community developed some very interesting tools...
But shush, it's a secret!

Sounds like we could be getting our own version of the TES Construction Set

Usercreated cities, NPC's, quests *drool*

The ability to mod a game is very beneficial i can't think of any disadvantage and yet there are so many advantages. I support it 100%.

Oh, but there are disadvantages. Think 'Hot Coffee'...

Sure, but that was a bit of a stupid thing to have in the code by Rockstar.

Developers can't be accountable for 100% user-created content, hot-coffee just unlocked something.

And to be honest, the possibilites are far worse. I mean it isn't a long stretch from Half-Life 2 Garry's mod to some porn mod... tho it hasn't been done yet AFAIK.

I agree with Dragher.



So what.. the creators of Half Life can't be hold responsible for that if someone would make it right?
So who cares..

Yeah, 'Hot Coffee' wasn't a mod.

Modders are usually people who love the game and want to create new content that other fans will love, too. I'm no expert on what's out there I'll be the first to admit, but I never yet heard of a Modder who created anything that made such a huge storm as 'Hot Coffee' did

Mostly Modders are respectful of the original game or at least trying to be amusing, after all.

I agree that Rockstar shouldn't have left those resources in the game, but any malicious modder can really hurt a company PR-wise. Even just allowing people to mod dialogs, might have a person with bad intent add slanderous, pornographic, violent, racist, and what-not text in the game.

Not much people will do that, I agree, but the slightest chance of it allowing to happen might be a decisive factor for many developers to disallow modding.

It might be free publicity, but such publicity is always bad publicity for a game, with the best case scenario being that the ratings bar is pulled up (massively decreasing your target public), and the worst case scenario your game being pulled from the shelves.

Either scenario is bad, especially for a small company such as Larian Studios.

Don't get me wrong; I personally prefer to have modding capabilities in games, because I'm also one of the many who likes changing the game more than playing it. But I can understand if any developing studio decides not to do it.

Disclaimer: Please note that this post does not reflect any decisions made for D2. I'm not saying modding will be able in D2, nor am I saying that it won't be. You'll just have to wait for more information on this from someone who has the authority to give it. Sorry about that.

I think the biggest worry with many studios is probably the reverse-engineering aspect of modding rather than anything the modders might do.

A large part of the press may be utterly ignorant and disinclined to check their facts, but I've yet to hear of any adverse PR created by a genuine game mod. I certainly don't blame any company that wants to protect the secrets of its game engine, though - which is the livelihood of that company, after all.

I never heard of a game company getting sued for user made mod's.
Worst that happened was with that Hot Coffee mod like said before here. And it just caused the game to get rated as an adult game. And that wasn't user created, it was already in the game, tough you needed to hack the game.
IMHO, even higher ratings wasn't necessary, if you intentionally mess with your game, then don't cry if you see naked pixels

Well said indeed.

I myself really hope that Divinity 2 will be modable because some of the stuff people make is amazing.
A very good example is the Oblivion modding community, never have i seen such an amount of superb mods. I think it would be very good for the game.

I agree, the only reason I'm playing Oblivion on my PC is because a modder created an app., called Oldblivion, that allows the game to play on older computers(reducing shaders, removing bloom & dynamic lighting, etc.)

Mods can allow for even greater sales and publicity, but if you get the wrong, immature modders that create inappropriate mods , it can really ruin the games publicity.

I'm sort of on the fence with this subject, also because I'm a console gamer.

Too be honest i don't agree with you guys, i understand your point but it's something that only happened once to my knowledge with "Hot Coffee" and we allready discussed that.
Oblivion has mods that makes everyone totally nude, showing everything.
Has the game been banished to oblivion? I think not.

Several days ago I argues at the Drakensang forum that an modding editor (I was referring to NWN2 at the time) which is more technically oriented - I heard that Obsidian did so to evoke a better qualkity of mods - rather suits the rather technically gifted ones than the rather storytelling gifted ones.

I was thinking that the technical aspect in our brain was rather embedded in the one side, and the storytelling aspect rather in the other - I was referring to maths and language, then.


In the end, I argued ( and I still believe so ) that people who are good at technics tend not to be good storytellers.

Which means in the end that a technically well-made mod not necessarily isn't a story-wise good mod.

I was thinking that shooter games, for example, are technically often very, very good, but do they also tell a good story ? I was rather thinking of Crysis, then.



If this kind of theory is true, then it means that in order to give good storytellers, who have the disadvantage of not being gifted in the technics of modding, a chance, we would need a modding editor which makes things easy for them.

As long as they don't need to spend their energy on the technical aspect, the more they have enery free to spend on the storytelling aspect.

The only question is, of course, whether we and the public in general want this ...

Interesting theory, Alrik, but I don't think it's entirely the case.

It's certainly true that the storytelling side and the technical side are very different skills, but that doesn't mean the same person can't have both.

When we're talking about Modding we're not really talking about having to get all that technical, either. No Modder has to design their own engine or anything like that, so as long as they can find a good set of instructions on how to use the editor it's a matter of time and practise.

For the most part, editors seem to be getting easier, too (Excluding the horror that is NWN2, which you appear to need a degree in Absurdity Theory to operate), making it more likely that storytellers will be able to use them without any real technical expertise.

Modding can be quite a few things,
It could be writing, designing, concept art, gameplay design, programming, texturing...

Its true that ppl tend to lean more to one side of skills, the more technical or the more artistic. But I for one am someone who can do both quite well. Downside is that I don't excell in any of those skills, I'm not bad, but not great either. call me a 'jack of all trades'.

Point is Alrik, practice makes perfect. You choose an interest and learn it, improve on it, get good at it. But that takes time, and it changed you. If you then find a new interest completly different its indeed hard to learn it, since you are chockfull of other skills & knowledge. But this doesn't mean you can't become a good programmer if you excell in artistic skills, but it will be bloody hard.

And offcourse, there are things like talent, but imo even talent isn't something you're born with.

I'm currently playing Star Wars Battlefront I very much,
but I couldn't even understand anything with the editor. It remained a book with seven seals to me, as we say here.

I'd like to produce maps for this game, but everything is so technical I cannot understand it, sorry.

That's my personal "worst example".

If someone would really take the time and explain everything to me, step by step, and in my own language, then I would understand it, I'm sure.

But this modding kit was so much technical ... The overall game doesn't tell any story either.

Any news yet ?

Yes.

A video.

By Xanlosch.