107 réponses à ce sujet

[Enigmatick]

I would sooner expect it in Dragon age to be honest. Laidlaw seems genuinely adamant about it.

[AlanC9]

Again, we're back to bigger mods. I conceded this approach would work for bigger mods.

I didn't see how size mattered. Except possibly as a technical limitation? I can see how doing a lot of different decryptions at startup could become unworkable.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I didn't see how size mattered. Except possibly as a technical limitation? I can see how doing a lot of different decryptions at startup could become unworkable.

Because bigger mods are more work to replicate, and less likely to irritate people by not being free.

The question was what was to stop people from breaking big mods into small pieces in order to charge more for them. I asserted that the market would police that, because the smaller the mod the easier it would be to copy.

Then you asked whether encryption would help, and I raised issues about the prospect of requiring all mods to be encrypted, or by making mod distribution a closed system, one of which would be required to stop that behaviour pertaining to small mods.

And then you started talking about big mods like the NWN premium modules, which are (I would argue) different in kind from things like mechanical or UI tweaks.

What topic do you think we're discussing, because at this point I'm confused.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I would sooner expect it in Dragon age to be honest. Laidlaw seems genuinely adamant about it.

He does, but I'm going to need to see some progress on that front within the next DA game before I'll start to expect actual mod support.

[slimgrin]

People need to realize certain engines are not conducive for modding. Frostbite is likely one of them. I know the devs bragged their engine is too hard to mod. But they might be right, in that technically, it's just too much of a pain. 

[AlanC9]

The question was what was to stop people from breaking big mods into small pieces in order to charge more for them. I asserted that the market would police that, because the smaller the mod the easier it would be to copy.

Who are the "people" doing the breaking-up there? The original mod creators? I thought the market would police that mostly by the smaller mods not selling well compared to large compilations. I didn't think that other people doing outright copying was a solution to anything. Though reverse engineering can be, since anything that can be easily reverse-engineered really shouldn't be a paid mod in the first place.

[UniformGreyColor]

I was thinking of NWN Premium mods. Only the paid mods would be encrypted, which would happen as they were put on the store. AFAIK that worked out fine; if there's an editable copy of Wyvern Crown of Cormyr around, I've never seen it. The mod creator would still have his original unencrypted files, of course.

Granted, this was technically easier for NWN since modding the original game maps wasn't a thing.

 

Actually, I have no problem with big polished mod sets that a dev team would make where it included many different mods within a package that you would have to pay for. The reason for this is that the programmers and dev team working on that stuff should know the game engine better than your average "tryan ta make a buck" average Joe mod maker. But I do agree that there is something very novel about donating to mods on a voluntary basis and only ones that you will use. Both options should be available IMO.

 

Again, we're back to bigger mods. I conceded this approach would work for bigger mods.

 

There are a couple ways I can see this working. For one, if there are certain mods that come in a package that greatly change fundamental things in the game like the way combat is done and is a relatively large undertaking, I see no reason why a dev team shouldn't be able to charge for an option that so much changes the way the game is played. And I would just assume that things like aesthetic mods would come in a package type deal. I did like the way Guild Wars 2 handled aesthetics -where for example, you can pay for a color kit to tint your armor in the way you want. there were colors that were more rare than others and usually those were more desirable as well. There were a lot of options there. They also had an online marketplace where you could buy and sell things with in game coin. An in game system like that in a single player game for mods would be revolutionary if implemented correctly.

 

We really don't know if EA forced anyone to adopt to Frostbite, the only thing we know is that EA is the parent company for BioWare and DiCE.  Normally by now if a developer or publisher has done something that people inside the studio doesn't like I will have seen a former employee will have anonymously said to some game publication how they were forced into this decision and that hasn't happened yet with Frostbite.

 

What about contracts?

 

[Edit] The fact that there is an 'alternate look for Triss' in TW3 and the ability to customize Skyhold in different ways is evidence of what the modding community has done for games from a developer's standpoint and I hope the trend continues.

[Sanunes]

 

It seems very much like EA created incentives for developers to use Frostbite, likely something like exempting FB license fees from their budget, but not doing that for competing engines, and not approving budgets that contained engine development.

 

I could see EA preferring that people use Frostbite because it is in-house and having incentives to use it.  I just haven't seen any information indicating that EA has done anything to prevent developers from not picking it and I won't say that it isn't EA isn't strong arming studios either.  Its just that I would have expected it to be more widely reported around the internet by now since this has probably been in the works for several years by now and with the intense emotion towards EA someone would have picked up on it.

 

What about contracts?

 

I don't know all the specifics around Non-Disclosure Agreements and Non-Compete Clauses and there could be some language in contracts that prevents people from talking, but information seems to make its way out despite restrictions like that in some fashion.  I could be wrong, but there are plenty of developers that talk about the hell of making games for certain studios and it seems to be fairly open.  I could see that maybe having some level of restriction about a game while it is still in development, but after the game is released I can't see too many contracts holding a person back from talking for then it seems to be a no-win situation.