Video Game News and Miscellany

Necronic

Staff member
DICE games are amazing...if/when they're fully patched, the servers are stable, and you're not being bombarded by DLC offers.
Gonna agree with this wholeheartedly. Battlefield 4 is arguably the highest quality multiplayer FPS's I've ever seen. Doesn't excuse them for their DLC nonsense (not even counting BF "Hardline" or whatever it was.) But you can't argue that the game itself is bad.


Also, on another note, if you haven't seen it yet there is a cinematic trailer out for TOTAL WARhammer.

 
I think it's a great idea. Some of those mods require an obscene amount of work
At the same time, they will be pricing themselves out of the market. I mean... you start charge for the script extenders (that you need for EVERYTHING) or general patches? No one will pay for it and it's ether going to get replaced or be massively pirated.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Oh. Hrm. I seem to have gotten the split backwards. The person who writes the MOD gets 25%, not the game dev.

That seems a little stingy to me.
 
Figuring out who has rights to the mods will be difficult. Sure, some are made by a single person or small team, but many are community efforts. What happens when someone makes a small change to a group mod and tries to sell it as his own?
 
Wasn't the whole point of mods is that they were free? I like the idea of paying the creators for all their hard work. They deserve it. But this is basically DLC: The Next Generation.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I'm with TotalBiscuit on the point that there should have been a Patreon-style system of support as well. (i.e. Everyone gets the mod, and people who want to pay can, with optional extra rewards for those who do pay.)
 
I really think this is just Valve trying to undercut mod sites by offering devs SOME money as opposed to the NO money they are currently getting. But yes, Valve needs to drop their cut significantly unless they are sharing with the game dev.
 
So people are pulling this old chestnut again:



This is blood for blood and by the gallons. These are the old days man, the bad days, the all-or-nothing days. They're back!
 
Gonna agree with this wholeheartedly. Battlefield 4 is arguably the highest quality multiplayer FPS's I've ever seen. Doesn't excuse them for their DLC nonsense (not even counting BF "Hardline" or whatever it was.) But you can't argue that the game itself is bad.


Also, on another note, if you haven't seen it yet there is a cinematic trailer out for TOTAL WARhammer.

....This is an actual, legal, thing now, not a mod? Oh joy of joys if it's done properly.



As for the charging-for-mods thing: I can see the point. I don't see why it'd be 25% for the makers and the rest for Valve and the original creators. I mean, I don't know what take Valve takes from regular game sales, but I don't see why they'd get more from a mod sale...And the rest split between original creator and mod creator.
 
What if the most popular Nexus mods are removed from the Nexus by their authors, and placed on Steam Workshop for money?

Valve's move towards paid mods has a very strong potential to make the modded gameplay experience a tangible less rewarding one.
 

Necronic

Staff member
As for the charging-for-mods thing: I can see the point. I don't see why it'd be 25% for the makers and the rest for Valve and the original creators. I mean, I don't know what take Valve takes from regular game sales, but I don't see why they'd get more from a mod sale...And the rest split between original creator and mod creator.
Those numbers do seem to be a bit harsh, but my guess is that Valve really had to sweeten the pot to get the original creators into it. Things like this could potentially cause some serious legal headaches for some companies, for instance if they update their game in a way that irrevocably breaks a mod, is there any recourse for the mod owner? And valve taking a cut? The steam workshop is a pretty darn well executed mod engine. I generally hate installing mods on games, lots of "find the hidden directory, change the config file, install the new files but don't overwrite the existing files if they exist, then run as admin, but make sure you are holding a unicorn hoof while you launch it", especially on mod-heavier titles like Mount and Blade.

Either way its a great start. This is one more step towards a "maker space" world, which is always a good thing.
 
Those numbers do seem to be a bit harsh, but my guess is that Valve really had to sweeten the pot to get the original creators into it. Things like this could potentially cause some serious legal headaches for some companies, for instance if they update their game in a way that irrevocably breaks a mod, is there any recourse for the mod owner? And valve taking a cut? The steam workshop is a pretty darn well executed mod engine. I generally hate installing mods on games, lots of "find the hidden directory, change the config file, install the new files but don't overwrite the existing files if they exist, then run as admin, but make sure you are holding a unicorn hoof while you launch it", especially on mod-heavier titles like Mount and Blade.
From an update to Gas's article, they say the publisher/developer of the base game actually has control over the percentage that the modder gets, not Valve.
 
What if the most popular Nexus mods are removed from the Nexus by their authors, and placed on Steam Workshop for money?

Valve's move towards paid mods has a very strong potential to make the modded gameplay experience a tangible less rewarding one.
Already happening. Wet and Cold is a very popular mod, and while the original version is currently still available on the nexus, the latest version, which had received much hype for the upcoming improvements made to it, are now only available for purchase on the steam workshop.
 
Yeah, that's bullshit. I like mods because they extend the life of a game, and in many cases, notably improve it, for free. Not free? Not gonna use it.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I hope you have the installers, because when I finally get Skyrim in a few years, I want to be able to add some mods that were probably formerly free.

--Patrick
The only one that really needs an "installer" per se is the SKSE extender (on which all mods depend), and it isn't loaded via steam OR nexus. The rest, you can really just unpack from a compressed archive as you would any other.

That said.. uh.. I dunno if you want all the mods I have. Quite a bit of it is not lore friendly.
 
The only one that really needs an "installer" per se is the SKSE extender (on which all mods depend), and it isn't loaded via steam OR nexus. The rest, you can really just unpack from a compressed archive as you would any other.

That said.. uh.. I dunno if you want all the mods I have. Quite a bit of it is not lore friendly.
I imagine your modded game as being all the tit mods and the Macho Man Randy Savage dragon mod :p
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I imagine your modded game as being all the tit mods and the Macho Man Randy Savage dragon mod :p
Well, not QUITE. I do have patched body models (both for male and female), and yeah, they aren't NeverNudes, and some custom armor and the bikini vendor and the like, but what I meant was is I have some immersion breaking stuff like Zoidberg headcrabs, Kasumi from DOA as my follower, bears that play Misirlou on the lute, and that house. @bhamv3 knows what house I mean.

Now, that aside, I also have cool mods that do things like make the waterfalls look better at distances than they do in vanilla, and add/improve finishing moves in combat, altered character animations, better shadow processing, cool looking fields of grass, etc. But yeah, there's some boobs and pop culture references.

For example, here's Lydia in my Skyrim.

 
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GasBandit

Staff member
But this discussion just gave me a great idea for a mod. Maybe I can get some of that sweet, sweet, 25% steam cash!

I'll call it Blue Mountain Skyrim.

It changes the Dragonborn theme to "Hell Yeah" by Rev Theory and changes "Fus Ro Dah!" to "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!"
 
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