Kinda bummed most mods today are just model swaps, config tweaks, or single item changes

[sn00zer]

I grew up in the age of HL1/HL2 mods. There were thousands of levels, weapons, and full on games being released (shout out to USS Blackstar and Dystopia). But nowadays it seems like most mods are just the stuff mentioned in the title of thread. I assume this largely due to games looking so damn good that modders just cannot compete. Making a full character model in HL1 engine versus Fallout is potentially a day of work versus a month of work. As a result, you just dont see big mods much anymore.

I wonder if that sort of mod scene moved to itchio given the level of effort you would put into a HL1 game can just be put into a smaller complete game. I havent really dived into itchio yet, but I am wondering is there any sort of communities out there that capture the mod/shareware communities of old.

 

[Mórríoghain]

Or ENB bloom fuckfest. I swear every time I look at Skyrim mods they are all shiny depth of fieldy anime girls.

 

[TC McQueen]

The problem is that most games don't come with SDKs that allow players to whip up new stuff without too much hassle. XCOM 2 gives you 50GB of assets (not counting the additional stuff that comes in the War of the Chosen SDK) and the full tools to make new abilities, map assets, enemies, classes, and rework existing elements, and that game has a huge Steam Workshop list.

Hell, a scrub like me made a few mods for that game, and I don't even have any real UE programming knowledge.

Honestly, the main reason modding isn't really a thing anymore is that A) asset making is super hard, and B) a lot of games make it super hard to access data and/or insert new stuff. If something isn't designed for mod support, you need to be able to call in folks who're willing to do the R&D to insert new stuff before the folks with good ideas but no coding/asset creation abilities can make anything.

 

[newmoneytrash]

i mean modding is much harder now

 

[Deleted member 1722]

It is probably going to be a while, but I believe Valve said after the new HL is out they are going to release the tools.

 

[Deleted member 2620]

Games being more complex is an element, but a bigger element is that the tools to make your own standalone games are more sophisticated and accessible than ever. Things that used to be massive multiplayer mods for UT or whatever can now be standalone games, and it makes sense for them to be.

 

[Deleted member 61002]

All depends on the community surrounding the game and the tools available to that community. There are probably 100,000+ Doom 1 and 2 WADS out there, Super Mario World has tons of romhack as does Mario 64, Sonic the Hedgehog has a very lively community of modders who do everything from model swaps to full fan games with dozens of levels, the entire Elder Scroll series is famous for this, Left 4 Dead has thousands of fan made maps, and so on. However, a lot of these games are either older (therefore more likely to have the source code out there and far easier to create new assets) or were built from the ground up during development with the idea that there would be fan created content (Doom 2016, Left 4 Dead, Skyrim, etc). How would you go about creating fan content for a game like The Last of Us? Set aside the fact that there is no PC release so no direct access to the source code and that emulating PS3 still has a long way to go, if you are going through the trouble of creating PS3 level assets from scratch you may as well make your own game at that point.

 

[GarudaSmiles]

It could also be do to more games releasing in general. People spend less time obsessing over each individual game than they used to.

 

[Anno]

I've mostly assumed it was because the barrier to entry for game development has come down enough that people who would've worked on mods in the past now just work on some indie Unity title.

That said as someone who mostly plays strategy games and cRPGs it feels like the mod scene is still pretty healthy?

 

[Moist_Owlet]

yeah we aren't in the UT2K4 days anymore. I miss carball.

 

[EVIL]

These days it just makes more sense as a hobbyist to start an indie project from scratch with unity/UE4 or CE and be able to earn some money off it with full control instead of modding an existing game and deal with all of those technical shortcomings and not really being able to commercialize the effort.

 

[Sheev]

Skyrim and XCOM have some cool ass shit.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

good mods are getting shut down

 

[OmegaDL50]

When people use over bloomed out ENB or even Anime bullshit as a reference for Skyrim mods seems to be a case of just not looking hard enough.

When we factor things like Wyrmstooth, Falskaar, Undeath, or even Project AHO exist which are basically micro expansions themselves with a deluge of new quests alongside the new locations and npcs. Or additional changes that Frostfall, Hunterborn, and pretty much anything made by Arthmoor provides.

Sure there is a ton of nonsense to waft through but sticking to the most endorsed lists on the Nexus or even New Quests or Landmass extensions you can find plenty of decent content worth checking out.

 

[justiceiro]

Well, you just mentioned the most popular fps of our time, and the most mod friendly company out there, for sure, so...

You should check this little game called dota 2 and its mods. Tells me how deep you think they are.

 

[DPB]

Have you played Enderal? It's better in most aspects than Skyrim, and even rivals it in terms of scope.

 

[Dremorak]

The game needs to be built to facilitate modding otherwise you're just going to get hacked together model swaps etc.

Thats why Minecraft, Halflife, Unreal, Bethesda games, etc are all very moddable, they have tools and have been made with modders in mind.

 

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Warcraft 3 Reforged is due in a few days. I'm sure someone will make a Battle Royale mod for that.

 

[VariantX]

I'm guessing its way harder to dig into games and make changes and additions these days than it used to be. Lots of things tend to be model swaps because theres no way for the public to be able to add something brand new to the game instead of replacing something and tricking the game into loading it.

 

[DvdGzz]

Just got back deep into Diablo 1 due to The Hell 2 mod. So much goodness. Like 60(6 or so main classes and then subclass+specializations) classes, new items, and targeted loot similar to D3 it seems. Also a run when not in combat even in dungeons makes it so much better, especially when backtracking. It isn't on Nexus though, and yes, most mods on there are nude or lighting mods...

 

[ArjanN]

There's definitely still a decent sized mod scene, but yeah it depends on the game. Honestly if you're going to make a huge mod, you might as well just try to make your own game. Modern engines/tools have made that a lot more achieveable.

 

[strudelkuchen]

Enderal: Forgotten Stories on Steam

Enderal: Forgotten Stories is a total conversion mod for Skyrim that is set in its own world with its own lore and story. It offers an immersive open world, all for the player to explore, overhauled skill systems and gameplay mechanics and a dark, psychological storyline with believable characters.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Theswweet]

Dark Souls 1/2 seem to have pretty great modding scenes. Is Sonic Generations still getting community support? I know that Sonic Unleashed Project was a pretty big deal at the time.

 

[Facism]

Or mods for mods which was also great.

 

[Deleted member 18021]

Part of it is it being harder to do these days with most games, the rest of it being just remembering the good stuff.

Something like 90% of Call of Duty mods back in the day were "realism" skins or sounds, "realistic" damage configs, or just straight up stealing the audio from Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan and having it play in the background regardless of the context.

 

[Free Time Hooligan]

XCOM 2 gives you 50GB of assets (not counting the additional stuff that comes in the War of the Chosen SDK) and the full tools to make new abilities, map assets, enemies, classes, and rework existing elements, and that game has a huge Steam Workshop list.

Click to shrink...

wait... w-what? 😧

 

[TC McQueen]

wait... w-what? 😧

Click to shrink...

Yeah, they announced it at some convention pre-release and everyone got hype, because they knew some crazy stuff was coming.

 

[RLCC14]

It's like fangames. What's the point of doing all that effort into something that's basically just free advertising for a brand, and you can't even make money off it?

 

[leburn98]

I think it depends on the games you play. The last three significant mods that I can think are PUBG, DayZ and GTA V RL/RP mods. Just so happens that two of them are mods for ArmA 2.

I also think that there is a very real fear of having your mod shutdown. Publishers are now making too much money off of DLC/MTX and therefore do not want a free mod to chew into those profits. Rockstar came very close to shutting down GTA V mods for example but due to public outcry they pulled back. They would never admit it, but we all know that their main concern is effecting profits made from GTA Online.

As others have said, free standalone tools like Unity, Unreal, etc. are also allowing young developers get in to games development without having to tie yourself to a particular game/property.

 

[Vilam]

There's no reason to make mods like that anymore. Anyone with the talent or people to pull those off should (and are) just making indie games and making actual money.

But yeah, it was a nicer time.

 

[RocketDarkness]

The GBA Fire Emblem games have a pretty large modding community. Steam Workshop also provides some good stuff, and makes it easy to find/install if the devs are willing to support it.

 

[VariantX]

It's like fangames. What's the point of doing all that effort into something that's basically just free advertising for a brand, and you can't even make money off it?

Click to shrink...

Being a modder or a hobbyist modeler making skins for games was a way into the industry before game design schools and courses were a thing since you actually had a portfolio of work to show for it

 

[RLCC14]

Being a modder or a hobbyist modeler making skins for games was a way into the industry before game design schools and courses were a thing since you actually had a portfolio of work to show for it

Click to shrink...

That was then, not now

 

[VariantX]

That was then, not now

Click to shrink...

Good thing I wasnt talking about now.

 

[sleepnaught]

It is probably going to be a while, but I believe Valve said after the new HL is out they are going to release the tools.

Click to shrink...

They said they'd consider making the tools, but it didn't seem likely.

 

[texhnolyze]

But people also keep asking Bethesda to move on from Embyro engine.

Modding is still niche, and devs can see that. There's too much work to tinker their engine to cater to the modding community.

 

[nded]

I think the people who would have made the kind of mod OP is talking about are now making their own games from the ground up and selling them instead.

 

[Free Time Hooligan]

Yeah, they announced it at some convention pre-release and everyone got hype, because they knew some crazy stuff was coming.

Click to shrink...

I've played through the game twice and have never even thought to check the workshop. Now that I know this I'll have to play through a third time.

 

[Calvarok]

These days it just makes more sense as a hobbyist to start an indie project from scratch with unity/UE4 or CE and be able to earn some money off it with full control instead of modding an existing game and deal with all of those technical shortcomings and not really being able to commercialize the effort.

Click to shrink...

this is 100% of the reason imo and i fully support it

 

[TheMango55]

Or ENB bloom fuckfest. I swear every time I look at Skyrim mods they are all shiny depth of fieldy anime girls.

Click to shrink...

That's because the game is 9 years old and all the gameplay mods that people want have already been made, people who like gameplay mods have moved to other games.

anime girls though are apparently evergreen.

When Starfield and ES6 comes out the good mods will come back, assuming Bethesda doesn't abandon having an easily moddable engine so that they can make a game like everyone else makes, which people seem to want.

 

[Enduin]

Mount and Blade mods are pretty massive total conversions and still going after all these years. Bannerlord is coming soon too and will be substantially more modable with actual dedicated tools to do so. Which should be pretty insane since Warband doesn't and yet there's dozens of unique mods for the game that are remarkably huge.

Hell nearly all of the official paid expansions for Warband were developed by modders and based on mods.

Skyrim and Fallout 4 both still have pretty substantial modding communities that are creating everything from skins to full on remakes, unique expansions and original standalones games. There's FO Miami, New Vegas remake, Cascadia and a lot more. Then there's the crazy Beyond Skyrim mods like Skywind. Plus stuff like Nehrim and Enderal.

Indie titles might be bigger now given the ease and profitability, but there's still lots of people doing big things with certain established games and genres.

 

[Katarn343]

The game needs to be built to facilitate modding otherwise you're just going to get hacked together model swaps etc.

Thats why Minecraft, Halflife, Unreal, Bethesda games, etc are all very moddable, they have tools and have been made with modders in mind.

Click to shrink...

I'm surprised that many people just completely dismiss this point. Modders need access to dev tools / mod tools to make those kind of big mods.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

I think mod tools give games a long life unfortunately it seems that developing/releasing said tools isn't a priority to many devs/publishers. Here is hoping that Valve manages to clean up their Source 2 work and get it all out in an SDK in a timely manner. Beyond the HL:A Hammer editor. Such a release would probably bring a boom in VR content.

 

[Sinatar]

You need access to SDK's and source code for real modding and that's very very rare to see these days.

 

[arcadepc]

There are complete game overhauls too like Falcon 4.0 making it look like a modern game.

Unfortunately with DRM on, in many cases it is advisable to use a no-DRM or in case of Steam a pirated version for mods to work.

Eg for dragon ball fighters, you need to be offline and download a modified exe file. No different than playing a pirated version.
Djmax has even its own anti-tamper that scans the hard drive. As if to say, if you want mods, get the pirated version even if you own the game. And then they complain about piracy...

 

[Deleted member 50658]

I mean games were A LOT smaller back then and the studios making them also A LOT smaller and it does not seem like that is slowing down so don't expect any change.

 

[Cantaim]

It's only been proven viable for people that make porn mods so far. But I'm not entirely unconvinced that things like Patreon could be a great way to facilitate a more diverse modding scene for some games. This is gonna be difficult though because you'll have to
1. Have a game with an already heavily active mod scene
2. Have a game that has easy tools for people to develop mods for your game.
3. Have a game where it's easy to develop custom assets for it

like if Skyrim were to launch right now in 2020. I'm positive that you'd see 2-3 decently sized patreons for it by the end of launch month alone. Each producing a variety of custom assets for the game. Only downside for it would be that the mod creators would have to put out a useable prototype once a month odds are. So we'd probably get lots of bloat in relation to spells, armors, and weapons lol.

 

[Why_So_Serious]

I still remember the Max Payne kung fu mod. That was awesome. And then Mafia mods. They added so much to the games. Even Max Payne 3 mods were amazing.

 

[boris_feinbrand]

For any substantial mod you need a dedicated and invested community behind it. Not many games have that.

 

[Rodney McKay]

When I attempted to replay Mass Effect: Andromeda on PC I tried out a few mods for it that actually did improve the game in a few ways.

I hated PeeBee's eye makeup so there was a mod to remove that or make it less stupid looking, there was one to make the ground vehicle much faster, one made the crafting system have less of a hassle, and another made rare materials easier to get.

Sadly even though the game was a little better, it couldn't fix how bad the game is at its core and I stopped playing half-way through.