Could you please Obsiadian release modding tools for moders or any tools to edit game files?

[Voltron]

Seriously, modding in this game in currently dead apart from great IE mod. It is so dam hard to change any items, skills or develop new ones, or create new character, textures for armors/weapons, hairstyles, maps- EVERYTHING is just impossible.

 

I don't understand that. Every RPG developer knows that mods are what keep players playing their game even for years! Look at BG2, at Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Skyrim!

 

Seriously- what is your problem with giving people modding/editor tools or just some tool that they can use with Unity engine to simply change stuff without some HEX editing for hours.

 

Please, RPG games even if great are being carry later by mods. I like this game, but as always I know how much great things would dedicated moders add to this game and you even didn't dream of make.

 

Take example from Techland and their Dying Light game- they realeased FULL modding tools for their players with source code even. Just to keep game fresh and fun.

 

Please, Obsidian. Please.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Voltron

[ShadowStorm]

How is the IE mod great? It's better than nothing I suppose. But unless it's developed a lot more, it falls short of greatness by a considerable margin. 

 

Let's not blow things out of proportion, even to make a point.

[Emc2]

Seriously, modding in this game in currently dead apart from great IE mod. It is so dam hard to change any items, skills or develop new ones, or create new character, textures for armors/weapons, hairstyles, maps- EVERYTHING is just impossible.

 

I don't understand that. Every RPG developer knows that mods are what keep players playing their game even for years! Look at BG2, at Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Skyrim!

 

Seriously- what is your problem with giving people modding/editor tools or just some tool that they can use with Unity engine to simply change stuff without some HEX editing for hours.

 

Please, RPG games even if great are being carry later by mods. I like this game, but as always I know how much great things would dedicated moders add to this game and you even didn't dream of make.

 

Take example from Techland and their Dying Light game- they realeased FULL modding tools for their players with source code even. Just to keep game fresh and fun.

 

Please, Obsidian. Please.

The game is not made like your traditional RPGs. This game has no (or at least very little) global assets, and most of the locations are hand-crafted. Also, the process of making new assets is a lot more time consuming process than in Skyrim for example.

 

Obsidian has said they would like to support modding as much as they can without spending too much resources on making the tools easier to use and licensing them. They are currently using many commercial programs to make the content, making them open to public will not be easy.

 

It is still possible to make new content through mods, the problem is there is very few people willing to take on the task and who have the skills to make them with the limited tools.

 

Someone can maybe provide sources to most of this information. I think it should make you feel better to know that they want to support modding (heck they even made a Nexus for it) and are doing what they can to provide some tools.

[luzarius]

The problem is the unity3d package and asset files.

 

Unity should let developers save unity3d files in XML format. In XML format, we could easily add pointers to new resources.

 

The reason why I can't add new voice acting to the game is due to the middle layer VOAsset list housed in a encrypted unity3d file. *sigh*. Custom companions should be able to have new custom voice acting.  Bester made a mod that lets us open and save unity3d assets, but it hasn't been updated for a while and is currently broken, probably due to all the new patches coming out.

 

The list goes on.... A game as epic as this deserves modding support. Hopefully we get exposed unity3d files in POE 2.

Edited April 28, 2015 by luzarius

[VahnXIII]

I agree with this though my modding days are limited. Whenever I start installing mods into games, I spend more time shopping and installing mods than i do actually playing the game.

 

I would like to see this available for PoE though.

[Cronstintein]

I'm with OP on this one.  Obsidian saying they want to help modding happen and actually doing it  are two different things.  As it stands, PoE is a long way from being mod-friendly.

 

2d backgrounds isn't really an excuse, the old IE games had the same deal and they were modded extensively.  Even if creating new maps is difficult, adding npcs, items, dialogue, quests, etc should be reasonably straight-forward.

[Tigranes]

Most games offer limited modding capabilities because.... guess what, it's hard and costly. NWN1 toolset was a massive, massive investment - and the actual main campaign became an afterthought because of that. TES is well funded and also benefits from churning out multiple games in the same engine with a modder toolset designed from the start. 

 

I believe Unity assets make things difficult - and of course the pre-rendered backgrounds, which was also a major problem in IE mods. I don't know if that makes mods merely difficult or impossible, though, I hope it is the former.

[Bryy]

I don't understand that. Every RPG developer knows that mods are what keep players playing their game even for years! Look at BG2, at Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Skyrim!

 

Seriously- what is your problem with giving people modding/editor tools or just some tool that they can use with Unity engine to simply change stuff without some HEX editing for hours.

Those games released mod tools because they created and owned the engine.

 

Obsidian did not make an engine for PoE.

 

As for modding currently being "too hard"... welcome to software development.

[Elerond]

Obsidian used Unity's tools mostly to make PoE, which means that they don't have any toolset that they could mod and release to public.

 

For example Chrome Engine that Dying Light uses is made and owned by Techland, which is reason why they were able to release mod tools.

 

But you can use Unity to mod PoE, but PoE many mods that people probably want make need owning Unity 4.x Pro version, because of middleware used, but Obsidian is looking for possibility to port PoE to Unity 5, which should give people ability to do those mods with Unity's free version. Although I guess that people need to make their own conversation editor tool, because I don't think that Obsidian wants to give out one they use.

[LeonKowalski]

The game is not made like your traditional RPGs. This game has no (or at least very little) global assets, and most of the locations are hand-crafted. Also, the process of making new assets is a lot more time consuming process than in Skyrim for example.

 

Obsidian has said they would like to support modding as much as they can without spending too much resources on making the tools easier to use and licensing them. They are currently using many commercial programs to make the content, making them open to public will not be easy.

 

 

Almost all of that was through unnecessary choices, almost all of them bad choices.

 

I'm not talking about Unity here ... because Unity is almost 100% irrelevant. At most it would have presented a hurdle for importing new character models, but that would have been worked around in the end. Everything else which is relevant to modding they could have done with documented data formats and open tools (there's an Iron Python interpreter on Unity's own asset store for instance). Having a well architected seperation of engine code with game code in python would probably have resulted in less of a buggy mess ... not having their world/dialogue editor would be a pain, but this would be enough for some small mods (balance patches for instance).

 

Given the way patch 1.04 went I think they have a mess of poorly architectured overly interdependent code on their hands.

Edited April 28, 2015 by LeonKowalski

[Cronstintein]

Shadowrun Returns was made with unity but it's super modabble and even shipped with modding middleware.  Clearly Unity is not the controlling factor here.

[McMayhem]

It doesn't so much have to do with Unity or the efforts in creating the tools to mod the game. The big issue comes with the licenses for plugins that they use in the game. Back in the days of NWN1, Bioware pretty much did everything themselves (except for some codec plugins) so they didn't have to worry about the licensing issues. 

 

Now, however, developers who use external plugins like WWISE or FMOD have to buy a per-game license that extends only to their team. In order to allow the community access to these tools, they would have to buy another license that would allow them to do that, which would cost a lot of money. Instead, they chose a similar option to Kotor2 and just left the files as accessible as possible.

 

Still, a modding forum at the very least would be nice. It really isn't that difficult to do and there has already been a number of community members who support such an idea.

[scrotiemcb]

Now, however, developers who use external plugins like WWISE or FMOD have to buy a per-game license that extends only to their team. In order to allow the community access to these tools, they would have to buy another license that would allow them to do that, which would cost a lot of money. Instead, they chose

to use stretch goal money to develop strongholds instead of things we'd actually care about?

[McMayhem]

If they explain their stretch goals, and you keep giving them money... yea.

[scrotiemcb]

They should have done it already, but better late than never. A Kickstarter for modding tools would probably be popular enough to raise requisite funds.

[View619]

They should have done it already, but better late than never. A Kickstarter for modding tools would probably be popular enough to raise requisite funds.

 

I suspect that they won't get nearly as much support for another POE-related KS, due to the game not living up to expectations of the die-hard BG/IWD/PS:T fans.

[Tigranes]

 

They should have done it already, but better late than never. A Kickstarter for modding tools would probably be popular enough to raise requisite funds.

 

I suspect that they won't get nearly as much support for another POE-related KS, due to the game not living up to expectations of the die-hard BG/IWD/PS:T fans.

 

Guess playing BG2 over a hundred times (literally) doesn't qualify me as a die-hard fan. It's tough being a gamer these days!

[View619]

 

 

They should have done it already, but better late than never. A Kickstarter for modding tools would probably be popular enough to raise requisite funds.

 

I suspect that they won't get nearly as much support for another POE-related KS, due to the game not living up to expectations of the die-hard BG/IWD/PS:T fans.

 

Guess playing BG2 over a hundred times (literally) doesn't qualify me as a die-hard fan. It's tough being a gamer these days!

 

 

Nah, you have to sing about the glory of IE games from the rooftops while never expecting any new games to top them!

[Voltron]

Shadowrun Returns was made with unity but it's super modabble and even shipped with modding middleware.  Clearly Unity is not the controlling factor here.

 

Exactly. PotD would be awesome to mod around. I wonder why Obsidian dont see potential in mods. They are in nowadays bread and butter of RPGs.

Look and DA: Inquisition. Ignoring fact that is was awfull and super bad "RPG", it is not moddable almost at all and all what modders do are chaging colors of stuff. And nobody remember about this game anymore. Mods are what keep RPG fresh, since RPG world is big enough that there is always room for changes.

I know PoE is not Skyrim, but you have to admit that Skyrim is best example. Installing some mods make it just different game!

Edited April 29, 2015 by Voltron