All games should be modable!

[LegendaryDude]

Well, just as the title says. I personally think that every game should be modable, come with an editor, and have community created content. It happens often enough that something the players create vastly improves or adds to the original game. Skyrim is the best example with it's roughly 40.000 mods in NexusMods alone, but there are also a ton of other mods for a ton of other games. Like the guys who made a complete remake of Half-Life 1 with Half-Life 2 graphics, and gave it away for free. Or the GTA 4 mod that gave you the abillity to play as Iron Man, shooting rockets, flying around, etc. Just 2 examples out of a vast sea of possible creativity. Thousands of players can just come up with more ideas than a development team of a few hundred people at most.

So, what do you guys think? Should stuff like the Creation Kit that comes for free with Skyrim be the norm these days? Just imagine the possibilites... Imagine Dark Souls being as modable as Skyrim. Hundreds of bonus hours of gameplay, entire new continents... I think i just drooled a bit.

[Holtzmann]

Hell. No.

I understand mods are what keep a lot of people playing certain games, but mods (specially gameplay mods) can also fracture the playerbase hard if you're not careful. Let the developers choose what they want to do (include or withhold modding support) instead of making sweeping statements like that, Dude.

[Tech614]

Sometimes it's good to just sit back and enjoy a developers artistic design then worrying about ways to screw it up.

Content mods made by legit people that don't suck are cool, but those are few and far between. 99% of mods suck ass.

[Remilia]

Ones you are asking for doesn't work so well in a multiplayer game...

[Triptych]

Creative and hard-working people can certainly do some great things with a moddable game.

But I'd never expect or demand it by default.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It really depends on the type of game; sure, single player and third party run servers ought to have mod support, but some games like WoW and Magic ought not.

[Deleted]

If by design, devs don't want their game to be modded, there's a reason. Anyway, I'm way more into community created content, than being able to shoot rockets as iron man in GTA4.

[Moogie423]

While, I don't think that a company should go out of it's way to release modding tools, I do believe that embracing the growing modding community would be a good PR move.

I personally would not be able to play any Fallout or Elder Scrolls game without mods. When I'm buying a new game, one thing I look at is the developer and publisher's stance on the creation of custom content. Some games I pass up if they have archaic views or believe that everyone should play the game exactly the way they designed it.

Some games are just infinitely better with added content or features from modders. Take Sim City for example, the latest iteration. Had they not insisted on an always online DRM for it and allowed custom content, they would have sold many more copies, as the lack of custom content was one of the biggest reasons given when people chose not to buy. When EA finally reversed it's decisions, Sim City started selling again.

[Ærion]

Ones you are asking for doesn't work so well in a multiplayer game...

Unless the gameplay itself is re-modded to be usable in multiplayer. Remember the Source engine? remember how many multiplayer games sprang from it? Remember WC3 and that viral mod which made a whole bloody genre that doesn't seem to want to die out?

@OP:
It requires an inordinate amount of effort to make "a new continent" for anything outside of 2D-platformers. Most mods are either of a graphical nature, or add small things like items or simple quests. While it is true that when such effort is put in something fantastic is made, it's the exception to the norm.

You gave as example the 40k mods for Skyrim; I can assure you, the absolute majority of those are filth, and the rest is divided into interesting, QoL, and perverted mods.

I do, on a fundamental level, agree with you that all games should be modable (mmos included, look at addons); but I don't agree that anyone and everyone should make mods. The time it took me to find the few good mods that I needed from Nexus is... daunting... Sifting through an ocean of shit is never fun.

[Wolfheart9]

If by design, devs don't want their game to be modded, there's a reason. Anyway, I'm way more into community created content, than being able to shoot rockets as iron man in GTA4.

Notch originally didn't want Minecraft to be moddable.

Just sayin'.. Sometimes it's not always a good reason.

[kail]

Ones you are asking for doesn't work so well in a multiplayer game...

Counter Strike did fine with mods.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Ones you are asking for doesn't work so well in a multiplayer game...

Dota 2 has mods; players create content, vote for it on the workshop and the clave adds it to the game.

[lordjust]

Well, just as the title says. I personally think that every game should be modable, come with an editor, and have community created content. It happens often enough that something the players create vastly improves or adds to the original game. Skyrim is the best example with it's roughly 40.000 mods in NexusMods alone, but there are also a ton of other mods for a ton of other games. Like the guys who made a complete remake of Half-Life 1 with Half-Life 2 graphics, and gave it away for free. Or the GTA 4 mod that gave you the abillity to play as Iron Man, shooting rockets, flying around, etc. Just 2 examples out of a vast sea of possible creativity. Thousands of players can just come up with more ideas than a development team of a few hundred people at most.

So, what do you guys think? Should stuff like the Creation Kit that comes for free with Skyrim be the norm these days? Just imagine the possibilites... Imagine Dark Souls being as modable as Skyrim. Hundreds of bonus hours of gameplay, entire new continents... I think i just drooled a bit.

Not everything was planed to be moddable like GTA4. You have mods for GTA4 that are made with the same professional tools that Rockstar used and people reverse engineered some things to make it work in the first place. Same thing goes for like Dark Souls or even Skyrim where you have modding tools available but the community wanted to do more. If the community really wants to mod a game it will create mods even if it's just a model or texture change or something by editing the some things in the RAM with scripts.

One big problem with modding are the modding tools. Most tools developers use are self made and even other people from the same team can't work with them because they're so personalized and "modded". For something like the Skyrim Modkit developers have to invest a lot of time to create them and have to look very close what's possible to do with these tools to not use licenses they aren't allowed to use for free.

[Kathandira]

The only reason I say no to making all games modable, is because it will give dev's/publishers more reason to release incomplete, buggy games.

Look what happened when DLC became a thing? Day 1 DLC and Day 1 patches and so on. Allow every game to be modded, and you will see what we have now, 10 fold.

[axell]

Firstly lol at the people who don't want games to be moddable because in their opinions they "fracture" the playerbase or they "suck". I cannot even comprehend their reasoning for not wanting other people play the game the way that they like, without affecting anyone that doesn't want to.

The only problem with this is that most game developers use very custom made in house tools. Preparing them for public useage does take time and effort. Especially creating documentation and making everything modular. But other than that the more the merrier. Even multiplayer mods! Some of my best mp games were on modded HALF LIFE 1 maps.

[Graeham]

I strongly disagree. It'd have too much of a negative impact upon the development process of many games if they have to have the capability to support mods shoehorned in. I have no issue with games such as Skyrim supporting such things but as with multiplayer capabilities it isn't something that needs to forced at every possible turn.

[Deleted]

Counter Strike did fine with mods.

Yes. I remember. The original CS, before any source shit or whatever came after. It did so well with mods. Aimbot, that's a mod. Wallhack, that's a mod. Those models which have X/Y coordinate bars on you so you will be shown through walls, that's a mod. Being able to have a wider than default FoV, and have three screens so you can always see what's happening to the left or to the right of you without having to move your camera, that's a mod. Enabling bunny after it was basically disabled in game, that's a mod. Speedhack, that's a mod. Teleport hack, that's a mod. Faster than normal RoF on guns, that's a mod.

I'm not sure how CS clan matches and whatever is the equivalent of clanbase, are these days, but they used to be pretty damn strict.

[Holtzmann]

If a game needs mods to be enjoyable for a significant fraction of its playerbase, I consider it a failure of the developers to keep players engaged with their game.

Counter Strike did fine with mods.

Counter-Strike was for a long time a mod. But what it had were skins, and even those were very often disabled on servers because people found ways to fiddle with those for their own advantage.

[Ferocity]

The only reason I say no to making all games modable, is because it will give dev's/publishers more reason to release incomplete, buggy games.

Look what happened when DLC became a thing? Day 1 DLC and Day 1 patches and so on. Allow every game to be modded, and you will see what we have now, 10 fold.

I agree, on one of the game forums players were discussing how such and such design decision is game-breaking, part of players were replying: "just mod it out".

Obnoxious DLCs also became part of it - patches which twist gameplay balance upside down, and yet again - you don't like it - "mod it out".

Imo, games should be released minimum 99% complete and without requiring any mods. There should be no patches outside of 1-2 if some game-breaking bug was found. Only games where I can see modding be totally OK - strategy games. In all others - it serves as excuse to release flawed game.

There is also difference between making game moddable via supplied tools and making game moddable due to fans' efforts (resource extractors, etc.). I am always up for the latter but the former keeps leaving bad taste in my mouth after seeing original games.

[ACES]

I don't think any games should be modable. Games need to represent the vision of the developer, not the player.