Should there be modding in the game?


cekivi

Should there be modding in the game?  

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Should there be modding in the game? It's a question that comes up a lot especially when it concerns difficulty levels, animal behaviour and weather. However, @Raphael van Lierop has said in the forums that he's not in favour of modding since it would change the game to the point where it isn't The Long Dark any longer. I was wondering what the community's opinion was and whether there was a middle ground. Personally, I'd love to be able to add custom items (e.g. scoped rifle, ice fishing auger) and my own maps which, realistically, I would never have time to build! :silly:

However, I'm also of the opinion that as far as the overall game and atmosphere is concerned the developers have a really solid handle on what makes The Long Dark great and I have no interest in messing with it. So, community input is good... but only to a certain extent! :big_smile:

What are your thoughts?

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While I use mods for both Oblivion and Skyrim, I don't want to use mods in this game. The biggest issue I have with mods is that there are just so much junk out there, especially for Skyrim. I can't tell you how many hours I spent scrolling through endless reiterations of the same boob jobs topped by face of ten-year-old girls just to find a decent suit of light armor that my self-respecting female character could wear without cringing. And let's not start with overpowered weapons that simply cannot be gripped by said bimbos because they're so freaking big, the "humble adventurer's home" that can house not only the PC's matching set of twelve bimbos, the token big male sword, vampires and werewolves, half the NPCs and all the dragons in Skyrim with saunas and palm trees and mannequins to show off said useless armor.

I think mods to add desired items sabotage the intent of this game, which is to basically survive with what you've got on hand.

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1 hour ago, starfighter441 said:

Ermm.. no, just no.

Let's just play the hand we are dealt.  I'd like a scoped rifle too, but dumped in the apoplectic after world, I'll take a Rifle Nr.4 and be bloody grateful to have it.

Actually, thinking about it I'd be ecstatic to have the sights of a Nr. 4 Rifle.

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I'm going to vote no.  While I love my Skyrim and Fallout mods - some of which have improved the game far beyond the vanilla game - they are a mixed blessing.  There's 1% that are pure gold and high quality, 99% of the rest is trash.  Modding would end some of the debates on whether we should have certain features like harder wolves, pack hunting wolves, spears, stone arrowheads, etc, it would fundamentally change the experience.  I'm going to trust the designers to make decisions on what features they want to make available.  I'm enjoying the choices they made thus far, some of which they changed over time.  To date, this is the most stable and complete Early Access game I have played, and worth every penny.  I'd like to keep playing the game that they create, rather than the amalgam of competing visions from player mods.

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1 hour ago, Vhalkyrie said:

I'm going to vote no.  While I love my Skyrim and Fallout mods - some of which have improved the game far beyond the vanilla game - they are a mixed blessing.  There's 1% that are pure gold and high quality, 99% of the rest is trash.  Modding would end some of the debates on whether we should have certain features like harder wolves, pack hunting wolves, spears, stone arrowheads, etc, it would fundamentally change the experience.  I'm going to trust the designers to make decisions on what features they want to make available.  I'm enjoying the choices they made thus far, some of which they changed over time.  To date, this is the most stable and complete Early Access game I have played, and worth every penny.  I'd like to keep playing the game that they create, rather than the amalgam of competing visions from player mods.

So you're saying I'm a little overly optimistic by assuming the community would only create the best 1% of the mods? :big_smile:

Does everyone feel the same way about additional maps?

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I for one actually see a huge potential in TLD for modding.

And I'm not talking about adding any fancy stuff like new items, maps, animals or abilities but simply about changes that influence the game's difficulty and/or balancing. In other words: wildlife AI + detection range, numbers of animals and items, weather patterns and weather durations, indoor & outdoor temperatures, the calorie amount of meat, the length of day and whatever else you can imagine. Nothing that changes the feeling or spirit of the current game, but the very details that influence its difficulty level.

Not a single week goes by in which no new posts arise from people who either ask for a more "realistic" mode (Pilgrim wildlife AI + Stalker weather & items) or a nightmare mode (Stalker wildlife AI, but way less animals & items) or some other kind of new mode.

The Devs have stated repeatedly that they want to stick to the current three modes and this is probably a good idea. Their staff isn't particularly big and their working time is limited. They simply can't create (and especially test & balance) all kinds of modes that people ask for. Modding, on the other hand, could provide such experiences.

Enabling mods would imho be a win-win situation for the Devs: They could concentrate on their own 3-mode vision and let members of the community create those additional experiences that are constantly aked for. What's better than having someone work for you for free?

I'm totally optimistic that at least some of the mods created by the community would be enjoyable and balanced. Modding is working fine in most other games and TLD's community is both more dedicated and more mature than any other I know.

I thus bet we have some capable modders around here who would be willing to devote a lot of time and effort to create a well-wrought and balanced mod. And presumably even more people who would be willing to test their creations, give them feedback and help to polish those mods. :)

@everyone who dislikes modding: If you don't want to play TLD mods in general, no-one would ever force you to. You need to actively install that stuff. If you don't install any mods, you always keep the original version of the game. Hell, you would probably not even see that mods for TLD exists unless you search the Steam Workshop for them.

TL, DR:

+1 for modding. Not in order to change the game's overall feeling, spirit or mechanics, but to provide additional difficulty settings and experiences.

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You can argue for modding in TLD, and I agree, it would be cool.

But OTOH, I love TLD in its current state. There are only a couple of things that I really wish for, but I can play without them.

And you're right, @Scyzara, you don't have to download and install mods if you like the TLD vanilla version just fine. Like with the Elder Scrolls modding community, there would be a core of very skilled, talented and thoughtful modders that do not alter the original vision of the games, only make them better in the sense that missing content is added, patches are released (yes, I'm looking at the Unofficial Patches!), and performance/stability is improved. But it's getting harder and harder to find those jewels among the repetitive crap that's out there (Skyrim is the worst).

At the same time, I respect the devs decision. I know how I would feel if something I worked on so long and so hard, spent so much of my blood, sweat and tears to bring to life, was altered beyond recognition by someone else whose vision is alien to my own. And given that this is a small team, I am even more awed and respectful by the quality of their work, and I would feel that it is disrespectful to try and "better" a game that is so close to perfect as this one is. Bethesda, with its larger teams and bigger budget, just can't seem to crank out the quality that this one already has.

Maybe down the road, when I've played Story Mode through two or three times, explored all of the maps, accidentally achieved all of my Steam badges, and am starting to get bored, I might welcome new maps. But that would be after the devs have finished with their episodes!

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Most definitely yes.

Im yet to see a game where modding ability would ruin experience. Not to mention that mods significantly prolong shelf life of a game and increase sales, which is good. 

And at the same time purists can just play vanilla game, they are not losing(or gaining) anything really.

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  • Hinterland
On April 2, 2016 at 3:14 PM, cekivi said:

Should there be modding in the game? It's a question that comes up a lot especially when it concerns difficulty levels, animal behaviour and weather. However, @Raphael van Lierop has said in the forums that he's not in favour of modding since it would change the game to the point where it isn't The Long Dark any longer. 

 

Just to be clear -- I'm in favour of adding Mod Support to The Long Dark (that's why it's in our roadmap). My comments about not wanting to release it are related to timing -- I wouldn't release mod tools before we've had a chance to launch Story Mode and establish what the game and world is, before opening it up to the community. We've also discussed wider Workshop support so people can create their own items, etc. We believe in the importance of letting our community express themselves through the game, or even create other experiences based on what we've made, but we want to get our full vision for The Long Dark out there before we open that door. :)

(Keep in mind that I was modding UT and Half-Life and Neverwinter Nights in the "old days", when trying to break into the industry, like a lot of you are today! And I've seen how modding has helped grow the communities around games like Skyrim, Fallout, everything Valve makes, and others. So...I get it.)

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Absolutely yes. Sandbox has huge potential, and we already know there are a multitude of experiences people want to see, many of which are just incompatible. I have loads of respect for the very professional job being done to craft an experience here. I want to see the end result of what Hinterland build, the culmination of their vision. But after that? Some people want animals to be far more scarce, and for hunting to be a much more patient and involved exercise. Others want to fell trees and build their own homesteads, or plant crops and whittle little figurines on their porch. Some people want pets, or sleds, or skis. Somebody probably wants to tame half a dozen wolves, hook them up to a sled, and zoom around the map. Then whittle a figurine about it. Who am I to deny someone that joy? 

I say don't let this new world break you. Break it instead. :P 

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On 4/8/2016 at 8:40 AM, Dirmagnos said:

I wannt a jetpack.

I think I could craft one for you, soon as I warp in my advanced power armor crafting station.  Gonna take a lot of scrap metal Dirmagnos. so I think we are going to need to set up shop out at Desolation point.  At least there we'll also have access to a forge and a workbench...

 

 

On 4/3/2016 at 5:11 PM, Vhalkyrie said:

I'm going to vote no.  While I love my Skyrim and Fallout mods - some of which have improved the game far beyond the vanilla game - they are a mixed blessing.  There's 1% that are pure gold and high quality, 99% of the rest is trash.  Modding would end some of the debates on whether we should have certain features like harder wolves, pack hunting wolves, spears, stone arrowheads, etc, it would fundamentally change the experience.  I'm going to trust the designers to make decisions on what features they want to make available.  I'm enjoying the choices they made thus far, some of which they changed over time.  To date, this is the most stable and complete Early Access game I have played, and worth every penny.  I'd like to keep playing the game that they create, rather than the amalgam of competing visions from player mods.

If I'm not playing TLD, then I am playing Skyrim or one of my modded Fallout titles.  But imho, I think the modding community could help to flesh out the ever growing wish list items that the players would like to see.  If that can relieve some of the programming burden for the development team while bringing lore immersive mods to the table, I say let's get started.  

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36 minutes ago, piddy3825 said:

 But imho, I think the modding community could help to flesh out the ever growing wish list items that the players would like to see.

Yeah, I think it would be good to let people make wish list items.  I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the hygiene suggestion, for example, so I don't want to see that in the base game.  But if people want it, then yeah, modding will let them fill that gap.

As much as I love Skyrim (913 hours played) and my Climates of Tamriel (and others) mods, there are some really horrific mods out there that debase the game, imo.  That's just what makes me cringe about the idea of modding for TLD.

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38 minutes ago, piddy3825 said:

I think I could craft one for you, soon as I warp in my advanced power armor crafting station.  Gonna take a lot of scrap metal Dirmagnos. so I think we are going to need to set up shop out at Desolation point.  At least there we'll also have access to a forge and a workbench...

Ohh, yes yes yes, il also take power armor as well. I mean proper one, not this shit that Bethesda turned it into in F4. Cover it with wolf pelts, will look damn badass.

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  • 2 months later...

Yes. Mods have one important thing no matter how ridiculous, they are optional. Would some ruin the long dark experience? Probably. But they only do because you choose to put it there and I rather have the thousands of great ideas I'm sure the community could come up with than not do it because we worry for a few. 

I really really need a difficulty level with weather being merciless, less animals but them being a way bigger threat than right now. And there is so much more that could be done and the community would be willing to do. Devs have an idea and they should stick to it. Mods can give you the ability to change some things, and they should be able to.

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I voted for complete modability (is that even a word?), although I am fully aware of the risks that entails. First, there are a whole lot of very creative minds on this forum, the reddit and the steam community and I am absolutely sure some of them will produce high-quality mods. I am also aware that we're gonna get a lot of...well, I can't think of a worksafe-word to describe what I'm thinking about, so I'm gonna self-censor here.

Another reason is that maybe, just maybe I'll finally take up coding and mapping (I used to do some mapping for Empire Earth though) to make my fanfic come to life, but I guess that's a pipe dream considering my limited attention span when it comes to numbers :D

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+1 on the mods

 

BUT lets be realistic about it, Make the mods have to be DEV approved, things that don't break the immersion of a great game. That was my opinion in a similar discussion and it still holds true

But as Scyzara stated, you have to actively look for and install the mods yourself, so ANY mod released a player would still have the option of installing them or not.

Mods would be a great addition to the game, and  create an even more close knit, diversified community. Especially if we had player created Maps, challenges etc

 

 

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14 minutes ago, TSmith said:

+1 on the mods

 

BUT lets be realistic about it, Make the mods have to be DEV approved, things that don't break the immersion of a great game. That was my opinion in a similar discussion and it still holds true

But as Scyzara stated, you have to actively look for and install the mods yourself, so ANY mod released a player would still have the option of installing them or not.

Mods would be a great addition to the game, and  create an even more close knit, diversified community. Especially if we had player created Maps, challenges etc

 

 

I don't think Dev-approval is feasible. Hinterland is working with limited resources, and hiring extra people to sort through all the mods could seriously mess with finances.

Mods are a bit like anonymous image boards - you WILL get an immense pile of insert-word-I-cannot-say-here, but you will also, rarely get absolute gems that make it all worth it. It should be up to the players to decide which mods they'll play with - if I want all my wolves to look like Thomas The Tank Engine, who's to stop me?

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