92 réponses à ce sujet

[Steppenwolf]

Conduit0 wrote...

BasilKarlo wrote...

The people who made the engine have openly said that it being unmoddable was one of their goals.

If it was unmoddable it would be useless as a game engine, as it would be too rigidly designed to be adeptable to other styles of games. Since we know its already been a adepted to a race game and an RPG, its safe to say its adeptable enough to allow modding as well, even if that wasn't DICE's idea. Besides, like I said Warfighter has mods available, so clearly a FB2 game can be modded.

Well first off, you have no idea what you're talking about. You're conflating 2 entirely different things. The developers using the engine have access to tools that modders will never have access to, even if a toolkit were made available for Inquisition. The engine could probably be used to make a sequel to The Unfinished Swan but that has no relevance to the discussion at hand. At all.

[Plaintiff]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Being "mod-friendly" has not been a design goal for the vast majority of Bioware games. If it was, they would release toolsets, which they don't do often at all.

This is not an entirely true statement. At least, having a mod-kit is not the only way Bioware can make a game "mod-friendly."

For instance, audio files could be compiled separately from one another when different characters are talking. This could let you edit out what Hawke says and leave in what Aveline says, for example. Instead, it is one long audio file for the entire interaction. Modding out Hawke's lines to say something different is inherently difficult and involves editing the audio file, adding your own prompts to initiate the file to kick off and time it perfectly up to the animation the way it was before. All of that is rather difficult just to edit a line that Hawke says (or change Hawke into a silent PC).

That's just one example. I'm sure someone more familiar with modding could come up with a dozen more without batting an eye. 

Games are often made with their performance in mind first, user modding/editting in mind last. A toolkit makes that easier, more often than not, but it is usually doable from a standpoint of editing the data segment by segment and doing a lot of your own coding. 

I don't understand the in's and out's of why Frostbite 2 is viewed as being extremely unfriendly to mods... but I believe those who say it, simply because they are people who know a lot better than I do.

Well, I just mean that moddability of  their products hasn't been a priority for most of the studio's existence, so people shouldn't really be surprised or upset if one of Bioware'sgames proves difficult to mod.

I daresay someone will find a way around it, but being a console player, I don't really care if they do.

[BrookerT]

 This is what Alan said on why a toolset is unlikely:

"A large issue comes from the types of middleware that Frostbite intrinsically uses. The source control schemes and so forth that are already a sunk cost for a game developer, but actually require licensing for people to use (or we sell the toolset at a hugely inflated price) it.

Finding a way to strip this stuff out and still have it work is a completely nontrivial task.

While for the end user this can be kind of "well crap," it does provide huge savings in manpower investment compared to creating our own engine and whatnot. DAO's engine has its roots in Neverwinter Nights. Much of that infrastructure was still there, but increasingly we found ourselves licensing things and spending less time on making sure the workflow was ideal for end users especially if it was "more than good enough" for our content creators.

So those are some of the risks posed that influence whether or not we'd release the toolset for public use, without even factoring in things like "What does DICE have to say about it?" since that's stuff I have no visibility into.

Mark Darrah I believe made a comment regarding "never say never, but..." and that's probably the safest way to look at it. If we can make it happen without requiring gigantic amounts of investment of our time, then it's much more possible. It's just not a priority. Sorry."

And this is what Gaider said about mods:

"Yeah, just an additional comment that "not a priority" shouldn't be taken as "the modders aren't important to us". Sure, their potential audience consists of PC users only, but that's still a significant number of people... and, despite comments about DLC, they're really not competition on that front. Mods are, in fact, a boon that extends the lifespan of the game on PC's. Players who are still playing a game are more likely to buy DLC for it. So it actually helps us on that front, if you think about it.

So ideally we'd do it. The priority that trumps everything else, however, is just getting the game we're making out the door. And for that we need the toolset to simply work... with a new engine, that's a herculean task unto itself which fully occupies our tools programmers and then some, and they're the guys who would be needed to retrofit said toolset for public use. And that's assuming the middleware issues can be resolved, which neither I nor Allan could speak to.

So, yes, that would be exceptionally cool. But, no, like Allan said I really doubt it can happen-- certainly not on release, anyway."

Modifié par BrookerT, 08 mars 2013 - 07:20 .

[Conduit0]

BasilKarlo wrote...

Conduit0 wrote...

BasilKarlo wrote...

The people who made the engine have openly said that it being unmoddable was one of their goals.

If it was unmoddable it would be useless as a game engine, as it would be too rigidly designed to be adeptable to other styles of games. Since we know its already been a adepted to a race game and an RPG, its safe to say its adeptable enough to allow modding as well, even if that wasn't DICE's idea. Besides, like I said Warfighter has mods available, so clearly a FB2 game can be modded.

Well first off, you have no idea what you're talking about. You're conflating 2 entirely different things. The developers using the engine have access to tools that modders will never have access to, even if a toolkit were made available for Inquisition. The engine could probably be used to make a sequel to The Unfinished Swan but that has no relevance to the discussion at hand. At all.

Nothing you've said in this entire thread has relevance to the discussion, but it sure hasn't stopped you. Besides, my point is still correct, if the engine can be altered by someone, it can be altered by anyone, and therefore can in fact be modded by third party sources, even if it is significantly more difficult to do so. Though I do find it amusing how you've managed to ignore that I've already proven that games using Frostbite 2 can be modded twice now. I understand of course, you can't have facts getting in the way of your pessimistic conspiracy delusions.

[MichaelStuart]

Would a in game map editor be possible?
Something like the Sims build mode. It wouldn't be much, but at lest it would be something.

[Conduit0]

MichaelStuart wrote...

Would a in game map editor be possible?
Something like the Sims build mode. It wouldn't be much, but at lest it would be something.

That would still require a full toolset.

[Fast Jimmy]

Conduit0 wrote...

Nothing you've said in this entire thread has relevance to the discussion, but it sure hasn't stopped you. Besides, my point is still correct, if the engine can be altered by someone, it can be altered by anyone, and therefore can in fact be modded by third party sources, even if it is significantly more difficult to do so. 

This is faulty logic.

"An iPhone can be built, so that means it can modified." This is a similar statement, but it is not inherently true. Yes, anyone can open their iPhone up and tinker around, either in the software or the hardware involved.

However, the physical and software design of the phone not only make it difficult, but actively prevent it from happening. Jailbreaking your iPhone may make it not work properly, may cause other apps you own to go haywire and may, ultimately, ruin your phone. Similarly, in order to even open up an iPhone to remove the battery, you need specialized tools, tools originally only owned by those who had bought the service repair kit from Apple. 

Contrast that with an Android phone, which is an open source engine, moddified and adjusted with very basic tools and which gives any user who can slide off the back face plate access to the battery/sim card/phone guts. It is two very different design approaches that wind up with very similar end-user experiences. One design is to not let anyone change the underlying functionality of their phone, one doesn't prevent this at all (and, in many cases, encourages it). The added stability and ease-of-use when developing for standard hardware and software for Apple app developers is a huge boon, compared with the non-standard, adaptable Android. So while users get more control over how their device operates with Android phones, app developers have a harder time accounting for all the variability.

Think of the Frostbite 2 engine like Apple. Think of the Lycium engine like Android. Its better, cheaper and easier for Bioware to work with Frostbite 2. It just also means that the tools, software and knowhow to modify their games is not widely available. You can't pull out the files and start tweaking them with a standard software development kit. It literally takes coding knowledge, working in a computer language like C++, at which point you might as well be coding your own video game for the amount of work involved. Heck, its arguably harder, since you are trying to build something inside a house that someone already built, but for which you don't have any blueprints or any tools to see the infrastructure of the existing house.

Again, I may be oversimplifying processes I don't have the firmest grasp on (and please, if anyone more in the know has any challenge or feedback to what I am saying, please correct me), but this is the gist of what many people are saying. Only people who are tried and true computer programming coders can open the FB2 games up and edit them, with very specialized tools to boot. The chances of them understanding exactly what they are modding is mostly an effort of trial and error, since there is no "How To Kit" shipped with a game with instructions on how to hack them (that's why people prefer a toolkit). If you get someone (or a team of people) with the skills, time and desire to do all of this, then they can make a mod. Maybe even a few tools they made in the process that can take some of the soul-crushing code monkey work out of it. But this can take months, sometimes years, and really you never see the quality of content out of such projects that you do from mods that can be made within the first month of releasing a toolkit. 

[Blazomancer]

Jimmy put it very nicely. It is exactly what I was thinking when I heard about the complexity of the new engine. Yes, there are lots of brilliant coders out there in the world, who can come up with something worthwhile given time. But I think it's highly unlikely that without an easier to use toolkit, we're going to see as many(any?) mods as we did for Origins and even DA2, to some extent. After all, not all the modders of the fandom are hardcore coders, I reckon, are they? Let's wait and see what's in store!

Modifié par Blazomancer, 08 mars 2013 - 01:32 .

[Conduit0]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Conduit0 wrote...

Nothing you've said in this entire thread has relevance to the discussion, but it sure hasn't stopped you. Besides, my point is still correct, if the engine can be altered by someone, it can be altered by anyone, and therefore can in fact be modded by third party sources, even if it is significantly more difficult to do so. 

This is faulty logic.

"An iPhone can be built, so that means it can modified." This is a similar statement, but it is not inherently true. Yes, anyone can open their iPhone up and tinker around, either in the software or the hardware involved.

However, the physical and software design of the phone not only make it difficult, but actively prevent it from happening. Jailbreaking your iPhone may make it not work properly, may cause other apps you own to go haywire and may, ultimately, ruin your phone. Similarly, in order to even open up an iPhone to remove the battery, you need specialized tools, tools originally only owned by those who had bought the service repair kit from Apple. 

Contrast that with an Android phone, which is an open source engine, moddified and adjusted with very basic tools and which gives any user who can slide off the back face plate access to the battery/sim card/phone guts. It is two very different design approaches that wind up with very similar end-user experiences. One design is to not let anyone change the underlying functionality of their phone, one doesn't prevent this at all (and, in many cases, encourages it). The added stability and ease-of-use when developing for standard hardware and software for Apple app developers is a huge boon, compared with the non-standard, adaptable Android. So while users get more control over how their device operates with Android phones, app developers have a harder time accounting for all the variability.

Think of the Frostbite 2 engine like Apple. Think of the Lycium engine like Android. Its better, cheaper and easier for Bioware to work with Frostbite 2. It just also means that the tools, software and knowhow to modify their games is not widely available. You can't pull out the files and start tweaking them with a standard software development kit. It literally takes coding knowledge, working in a computer language like C++, at which point you might as well be coding your own video game for the amount of work involved. Heck, its arguably harder, since you are trying to build something inside a house that someone already built, but for which you don't have any blueprints or any tools to see the infrastructure of the existing house.

Again, I may be oversimplifying processes I don't have the firmest grasp on (and please, if anyone more in the know has any challenge or feedback to what I am saying, please correct me), but this is the gist of what many people are saying. Only people who are tried and true computer programming coders can open the FB2 games up and edit them, with very specialized tools to boot. The chances of them understanding exactly what they are modding is mostly an effort of trial and error, since there is no "How To Kit" shipped with a game with instructions on how to hack them (that's why people prefer a toolkit). If you get someone (or a team of people) with the skills, time and desire to do all of this, then they can make a mod. Maybe even a few tools they made in the process that can take some of the soul-crushing code monkey work out of it. But this can take months, sometimes years, and really you never see the quality of content out of such projects that you do from mods that can be made within the first month of releasing a toolkit. 

Your anology doesn't work, an iPhone is a purpose built device, it has no flexibity because its designed for one purpose and one purpose only. The Frostbite 2 engine is inherently flexible so it can be altered to fit whatever needs a game designer has. Which means if Bioware wants their game to be mod friendly, they can alter the engine to make it easier to mod.

But my main point is that all the crying about how FB2 is unmoddable is based entirely on experience with a single game. Yes Battlefield 3 is virtually unmoddable, however a single game intentionally built from the ground up to be unmoddable does not provide conclusive evidence that every game using the FB2 engine will be inherently unmoddable.

[Fast Jimmy]

A phone is designed for one purpose? Really?

So I can't run my schedule, facetime with my friends, research topics online, handle financial planning, trade stocks, order groceries, play games, track my diet and workout, monitory my sleep patterns, check my email, take calls, use a GPS, read books, watch YouTube videos, update Facebook, watch sports, listen to music, register for my air flight and do about ten thousand different things with a phone through the iOS or Android platforms?

Okay... sure, you're right.

iOS is the Operating system for the iPhone. No matter what an app developer does with iOS, they can't make an iPhone any more hackable. They can make their app as customizable as they can, but it is still iOS that holds all the keys when it comes to changing how the core programming works.

Bioware is using the Frostbite 2 engine. They can work to make their game as customizeable and malleable as they can, but ultimately it is the underlying functionality of the engine which is going to create issues.

[Blazomancer]

I'm guessing that a developer probably purchases the license to use a engine along with the middleware included in it and can't really modify it to their heart's content, right? And most probably they would require DICE's permission if they at some point decide to fabricate a toolset? I wonder, if bioware makes full use of the in-game destruction and stuff that frostbite allows, is it going to be easy for modders who don't have much programming expertise?

I'm not aware of how many mods people came up with MoH Warfighter. But I guess I'm not mistaken when I posted in the OP that without dumbed down tools for the average user, the number of mods that we'll see will be a bare minimum. I hope I'm wrong with that assumption. I seriously do.

[Rorschachinstein]

Blazomancer wrote...

I'm guessing that a developer probably purchases the license to use a engine along with the middleware included in it and can't really modify it to their heart's content, right? And most probably they would require DICE's permission if they at some point decide to fabricate a toolset? I wonder, if bioware makes full use of the in-game destruction and stuff that frostbite allows, is it going to be easy for modders who don't have much programming expertise?

I'm not aware of how many mods people came up with MoH Warfighter. But I guess I'm not mistaken when I posted in the OP that without dumbed down tools for the average user, the number of mods that we'll see will be a bare minimum. I hope I'm wrong with that assumption. I seriously do.

The Frostbite engine is a monster to work with.  Your assumption is actually spot on.

[slimgrin]

I don't buy the complexity bullsh*t from Dice. Fact is, neither they or EA want the game modded. And so it won't be modded. Case closed.

You want moddable games, you buy from a different company. 

Modifié par slimgrin, 09 mars 2013 - 04:37 .

[Conduit0]

You know what, forget it, if you guys want to run around dooming and glooming without a shred of real evidence to justify it, thats your choice. As the meme goes, I wash my hands of this nonsense.

[Fast Jimmy]

Conduit0 wrote...

You know what, forget it, if you guys want to run around dooming and glooming without a shred of real evidence to justify it, thats your choice. As the meme goes, I wash my hands of this nonsense.

And if you want to ignore the only real evidence that exists, not to mention the statements of DICE and Bioware about the difficulty in either delivering a mod kit or in having modders do anything with their system, instead of just assuming things will magically change because you hope it will, that's your choice. As the meme goes, I'm making like a tree... and gettin' the fork outta here!

[Steppenwolf]

Conduit0 wrote...

You know what, forget it, if you guys want to run around dooming and glooming without a shred of real evidence to justify it, thats your choice. As the meme goes, I wash my hands of this nonsense.

You keep saying there's no evidence while ignoring the evidence. I wash my hands of you. You're not interested in discussion.

[slimgrin]

Conduit0 wrote...

You know what, forget it, if you guys want to run around dooming and glooming.

Dice has said explicitly, no mod tools for their engine. The last mod tools we got from Bioware were for DA:O...how long ago was that? No doom and gloom here, just reality. I'd bet my bank account: no mods allowed for DA:I. None. At all.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Saibh wrote...

I would prefer an engine that allowed for a much better base game that unfortunately didn't allow modding. The DA modding scene is not the life blood of the game, as it has been for some others in the past.

Unfortunately, both DA games have been vastly improved by mods.  I would go far as to say that DAO - one of my favourite games ever - would be merely mediocre without a few basic mods like Detailed Tooltips (solving DAO's documentation problem) and No Follower Auto-Level (dramatically increasing possible party compositions).  Not to mention the ability to undo the 1.02 spell nerfs.

Given that I disagree with so many design decisions in modern games, mods have become wholly necessary.  A game that is less moddable is a less good game, simply by virtue of it being less likely to contain gameplay features I like (which have almost certainly been added or improved by mods).

[Blazomancer]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
...I would go far as to say that DAO - one of my favourite games ever - would be merely mediocre without a few basic mods like Detailed Tooltips (solving DAO's documentation problem) and No Follower Auto-Level (dramatically increasing possible party compositions).  Not to mention the ability to undo the 1.02 spell nerfs....

My experience was exactly the same. Without mods, I wouldn't have bothered to play the game more than twice.

[Oshunsar]

Any official want to say a word in this?
No?
Thought so...
I know an awful lot of people including me that want it to be moddable. DA Fans have a lot to contribute a limited set of designers never would think of.

[Toasted Llama]

oshunsar wrote...

Any official want to say a word in this?
No?
Thought so...
I know an awful lot of people including me that want it to be moddable. DA Fans have a lot to contribute a limited set of designers never would think of.

Somehow it feels like you're necroing.

Anyway, you clearly didn't read the earlier posts as the devs have already stated that they would LIKE to make the game moddable but it would take such an considerable amount of man-power from the programmers simply because the frostbite engine is so complex and difficult.

It's not about "oh we don't care about modders!", it's more that it will take alot of resources to make it mod-friendly and, while mods extend the lifetime of a game, it is only a small portion of PC gamers that use mods. (If this surprises you and you think they are wrong; it seriously is a small amount, considering the mods aren't usually downloaded by the millions, rather in the thousands, but copies of the games DO sell in the millions)

Spending resources in making the game mod friendly and cutting down on other resources basically means you're giving the finger to console gamers as they will never be able to access that content.

[KC_Prototype]

What do you mean 1000 of hours? You still can without mods. That's what this game is for. Why do you need to have fun with mods?

[Nightdragon8]

guys isn't not just EA's stance or BW statnce, you do realise that EA does not OWN the frostbite engine right? the makers of the frostbite engine are effectivly leaseing it to EA and thus BW to use in there games.

So BW can't just go and make a creation kit that can clearly allow people to do what they want.

Bethesda made there own engine, and in DA:O and DA2, it was BW's own engine well really it was an older engine that was soon to become abadonware. So they where able to make creation kits.

Also DA:O mods have even made story changing mods, one where you can romance Ser Gilmore and take him along in fights. Thats how far you can go with a proper toolkit. With DA2 no toolkit so it was just limited to pretty much retextures of clothing.

That and weapon and armor mods, Hair mod (that finaly got pulled over from DA:O) Sorry BW your hairs still sucked in DA2,

A few tweeks here and there and some trees to allow Merill to cast heal... (really BW no heal ona mage?)

[Angrywolves]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Conduit0 wrote...

Nothing you've said in this entire thread has relevance to the discussion, but it sure hasn't stopped you. Besides, my point is still correct, if the engine can be altered by someone, it can be altered by anyone, and therefore can in fact be modded by third party sources, even if it is significantly more difficult to do so. 

This is faulty logic.

"An iPhone can be built, so that means it can modified." This is a similar statement, but it is not inherently true. Yes, anyone can open their iPhone up and tinker around, either in the software or the hardware involved.

However, the physical and software design of the phone not only make it difficult, but actively prevent it from happening. Jailbreaking your iPhone may make it not work properly, may cause other apps you own to go haywire and may, ultimately, ruin your phone. Similarly, in order to even open up an iPhone to remove the battery, you need specialized tools, tools originally only owned by those who had bought the service repair kit from Apple. 

Contrast that with an Android phone, which is an open source engine, moddified and adjusted with very basic tools and which gives any user who can slide off the back face plate access to the battery/sim card/phone guts. It is two very different design approaches that wind up with very similar end-user experiences. One design is to not let anyone change the underlying functionality of their phone, one doesn't prevent this at all (and, in many cases, encourages it). The added stability and ease-of-use when developing for standard hardware and software for Apple app developers is a huge boon, compared with the non-standard, adaptable Android. So while users get more control over how their device operates with Android phones, app developers have a harder time accounting for all the variability.

Think of the Frostbite 2 engine like Apple. Think of the Lycium engine like Android. Its better, cheaper and easier for Bioware to work with Frostbite 2. It just also means that the tools, software and knowhow to modify their games is not widely available. You can't pull out the files and start tweaking them with a standard software development kit. It literally takes coding knowledge, working in a computer language like C++, at which point you might as well be coding your own video game for the amount of work involved. Heck, its arguably harder, since you are trying to build something inside a house that someone already built, but for which you don't have any blueprints or any tools to see the infrastructure of the existing house.

Again, I may be oversimplifying processes I don't have the firmest grasp on (and please, if anyone more in the know has any challenge or feedback to what I am saying, please correct me), but this is the gist of what many people are saying. Only people who are tried and true computer programming coders can open the FB2 games up and edit them, with very specialized tools to boot. The chances of them understanding exactly what they are modding is mostly an effort of trial and error, since there is no "How To Kit" shipped with a game with instructions on how to hack them (that's why people prefer a toolkit). If you get someone (or a team of people) with the skills, time and desire to do all of this, then they can make a mod. Maybe even a few tools they made in the process that can take some of the soul-crushing code monkey work out of it. But this can take months, sometimes years, and really you never see the quality of content out of such projects that you do from mods that can be made within the first month of releasing a toolkit. 

sigh. True.