Baldur's Gate 3 and real mod support

Baldur's Gate 3 is over. Officially support on the game has wrapped up and now the team at Larian have slid off towards their next horizon, some early whispers of which paint it as an even bigger project than BG3- which is a frankly insane proposition and I'll believe it when I see it. (Although if it's a Divinity sequel maybe I'll just write it off now. Never really got with that franchise, gameplay was good but the world sucks.) But they left something of an interesting parting gift given the history of Baldur's Gate, Larian and their relationship with UGC. Mod support is what I'm talking about and with the tools provided, the community around the game and the relative disappoint that has been modern day Bethesda- we might be looking at a... how was it Dwayne Johnson put it...  'a change in the hierarchy of (modding) power'. To be largely hyperbolic.

First Divinity. UGC was really not a supported endeavour by Larian until the Original Sin games. Not because they disapproved of it, it's just that none of their games were built to be able to handle it. In fact, the top comment on how to get Divinity 2 working with modern computers (a circus in of itself) is left by a Larian developer- because they know how important their community is. Alongside being able to access purchased games. But with the Original Sin games can an inbuilt mode known as 'Game Master' mode wherein players could build maps using the tiles and assets in the game and share these custom experiences around. It was fine, kind of like a simplified version of what Solasta would bill itself around. But it wasn't really 'mod tools' as one would traditionally know them.

In the lead-up to Baldur's Gate 3 it was actually really up in the air about whether or not the game would receive a successor to the Game Master mode. Nothing existed in the plans to create one and Larian seemed pretty iffy about whether or not they would commit to making one post launch either, whether that is due to the simple size of Baldur's Gate 3 making it difficult to commit investing that kind of extra time towards the development of such tools or simply because they were never all that popular in the community anyway outside of the specifically creatively-inclined circles. All I saw were crossed fingers from people who recognised that these were the most robust DnD tools on the market salivating over what would be possible if Larian took the plunge.

Of course any launch to the size of Baldur's Gate 3's has the tendency to rewrite your plans and ambitions before your very eyes- thus it came as very little shock to me that conversations about development tools were restarted around this time. But the world has moved on a bit since the Original Sin days, ambitions of modders have grown insane over the past few years- would a tailor made asset reshuffling Game Master mode really fit the talents of their new found audience? Pretty immediately the promises arrived not for in-house mess around tools but dedicated Mod Tools, the powers of which were left ambiguous and up to the imagination of the community to fill out- which of course immediately led to vastly bloated visions of Bethesda-style freedom that, even now, seems wildly egregious to propagate but you can't shackle the dreamers, I guess...

Now at the tailend of the official patch and content support for Baldur's Gate 3 has arrived those official modding tools and through them the real second life of this franchise can begin. Not that people weren't already throwing together mods- although those scrappy efforts to rejiggle existing assets into something new pale in the face of what injection software can achieve! Expect to see real creative visual overhauls to character creation, maybe even new models introduced into the base game- the limit really is the passion of the community at this point and with the tailor-made backdoor into the systems they've been given the only thing they can't do is remake the game to their twisted will. Oh wait... it took a couple of weeks but already the tools have been 'unlocked' so they actually can.

Some people seem a bit confused as to why the modding tools had the functionality to straight up remake the Baldur's Gate 3 campaign but that functionality was 'locked', however I think I understand the logic. Putting out the modding tools was basically a measure for providing their players as smooth as a process as possible for building onto their games without accidentally ripping out a core part of the original game and bricking their install as one might home-modding. As such, campaign editing tools- whilst powerful- would certainly open up a big backdoor to all those fiddly core systems that Larian cannot feasibly reinforce against the power of their modding tools. Therefore they officially support the weaker tools whilst leaving the more powerful capabilities there but not liable under their promise of support. At least that's what makes sense in my mind.

But now that those tools have been unlocked- what exactly can we expect going forward from Baldur's Gate and it's modding maniacs? The truth is that we don't know. The best cast scenario is that Baldur's Gate can become a platform for hosting tailor built player campaigns with homebrew set-ups, maybe even a fresh monster here or there and maybe even unique animations. We might see grand adventures within the Baldur's Gate 3 engine to match the scale of lesser Bethesda mods- and maybe even greater to rewrite the very DNA of Baldur's Gate 3 and create a targeted experience that challenges what the base game could even offer like some of the more ambitious Bethesda mods out there. But days are so early we cannot even reliably speculate on the limits- which it what makes this so very exciting.

I would love to see a vibrant modding community spark in the Baldur's Gate 3 wake because honestly- the game feels to big to be done now. Just as how the success of Skyrim sparked the biggest modding community ever who still feed into it come the modern day, does Baldur's Gate 3 feel like a worthy successor to that kind of love. Bethesda's biggest thorn of late has been them trying to play into UGC in a manner of ways that seem to gradually miss the point, and Larian seem hands-off enough to let this world blossom naturally in a manner we all love to engage with. Let mods be mods and game content be content. That is a mantra worth modding for, as far as I'm concerned.

Falling out

 

This ain't one of those pleasant everyday topics. This is a rant. A complaint against the powers that be that touches on merely the extent of my own burnished ego. No one is made better or whole by my whining, and accepting that in full public is how I'm going to get over the fact that I know Bethesda are working on this, but good lord am I just not in the mood to be understanding. It takes a special kind of idiot to do what Bethesda does so often and so fully, so I am going to rant, I am going to be upset, and there's nothing that logic is going to do about it. Because to be fully honest, it reflects so badly on Bethesda as caretakers that this was ever a conundrum to begin with, and perhaps we should start moving to a future where we tell the big B no! Work on your new damn games for once!

Fallout fever was going haywire for a while, and whilst the knock-on effect is going to be alive for a while- I'd say that the fever pitch has faded somewhat. People are knuckling down and waiting for the second season, passing away their rampant excitement into that box they bury under the church and then slather in concrete next to the emergency sledgehammer should it ever need to be recovered. The production may be talking big talk about how they are rushing to bring the next season "as soon as humanely possible", but considering that now it's not uncommon for a season of a show to take three years of production to bring out- that is straight meaningless. We'll still have buried this show and it's characters long before anything new can be shown off. And do you know what Bethesda did during this golden period of the show? Sabotaged themselves.

Your average gamer flocked to the properties they love in gusto, partaking in all the great vanilla games and stories kept therein, delighting in the eccentricities that the game developers laid out for them. The rest of us are well and used to all of these mods. We've been there, we've gone through the motions, we're fully done with them. We use Bethesda games as springboards to canvass out our adventures through mods- and that concept alone has kept Bethesda RPGs at the very top of single player RPG play charts for years creaking into decades at this point for some. I'd argue it's a core pillar of the company to develop with Mod Making intelligently included in the equation, which is why all the utterly brainless cries to move their new games onto Unreal Engine 5 so they'll look more 'conventionally pretty' always scrapes at my very mind. Unreal Engine games have never, and will never, be as accessible to mod as Bethesda's own propriety engine games, that would be literally the worst move that Bethesda could possibly take towards their future. That being said, that doesn't mean Bethesda don't sabotage their modding scene in other ways...

Fallout 4 has endured so very much, and us with it, in the struggle to be 'recurrently profitable'. The eye-wateringly bad 'Creation club' early days- where Bethesda tried to sell us various recolour mods for every shade of the rainbow, still stings in my mind. And even though they've largely moved past that, and reserve their paid-modding efforts for the largely substantial leaps- we're still scrapping at the dark ages. Make no mistake that this is no the breadth of Bethesda's ambitions, and I suspect what the team really want is to try and get one of those truly seismic mods on their service. Which in actuality would be great for console modders- it would essentially just be a brand new DLC for them to buy. As for everyone else... I shudder to think of the prices cooking up in that twisted head of theirs.

I've said before how insanely 'Bethesda' it is to have Fallout 4's mod-breaking modern version come out directly during the most profitable period for the franchise ever- but I could hardly have predicated just how badly they screwed things up. 'Just wait for the F4SE' I thought, 'as soon as that is updated- we'll have all the mods we need available'! Little did I know the extent of how bad things are. First off, Buffout 4 is AWOL. That near-essential mod that fixes engine problems and provides crash logs- hasn't been updated and no one knows if it ever will be. The creator just can't be found and given that the last time the mod had to be updated was four years ago- that's no great surprise. Who the heck is going to be Fallout modding 4 years down the line- we still don't get any new companion mods in the Fallout modding space!

But what if it gets even worse than that? What if they somehow managed to ship with a mod specifically detrimental to the best the community has to offer, large scale mods? Of course I'm not asking hypotheticals- Fallout 4's current version has a seemingly inherent bug wherein the game stutters whenever an NPC's data is updated- which covers quite a lot of mod types out there. Anything that updates enemies to keep them competitive with the levelling system, for instance, or maybe a mod that changes visual data. The stutters build with the more NPCs added- and though I don't think anyone has been brave enough to try it and post the results online- one could only wonder what big faction remixes do. The more NPCs loaded into the vicinity there are, the worse the stutters become. If you had a Brotherhood remixer and stood under the Prydwen the game would probably crash.

And that has just persisted. Bethesda left that in the final patch. And guess what- the only way it's getting fixed again is if the team go out of their way to patch the game on more time, which means another arbitrary round of updating script mods! In fact, I suspect the only reason we haven't already got the update is because the maintenance team are smartly waiting until they've figured out everything they broke with the latest update so they can safely fix it all with the next one. Because that is just the cursed cycle that all of us live within under the white sun that is Bethesda. Not to imply that Bethesda is dying- I'm sure that Starfield latest DLC reveal went great and we're all talking about how Bethesda is back right now. I don't know because I'm writing this blog literally 15 minutes before Summer Games Fest- but Bethesda wouldn't let us down again... right?

So this was a rant to basically say- good god does this company have it's hand firmly on it's ass recently- they can't even accept a free PR moment correctly. The only net positive thing they did was maybe update Fallout Shelter- oh wait- I forgot that Fallout Shelter has been abandoned for the past few years on every device that isn't a mobile! So that update didn't touch the Switch or PC version! (Yes, the PC version is the un-updated one! Kill me.) I just want to grab at the team and shake them by the shoulders- desperately pleading for them to nail something. Anything! I want to talk about how much I love this studio again but by god- they really don't want me to! I love their games but it's getting harder to convince myself of that as the years go by...

Starfield and the saga of paid modifications.

 'Unity' indeed...

The still growing future of Skyrim: Huge mods.

Future in the roots.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a game that is over 11 years old at this point, but for fans of the action RPG franchise, Skyrim is all we have to keep us going because the next main-line Elder Scrolls game probably isn't heading our way until the late 2020's. The Elder Scrolls Online makes for a half-decent stop gap; but there's so much potential in a brand new entry to innovate, improve, expand, and then be thoroughly disparaged by a bundle of folk who'll crawl out from under the furniture to serendipitously declare that Skyrim's systems were oh-so more complex and the new game is pathetically watered down by comparison. Because such is just the cycle of things. (I just can't understand Oblivion supremacists, I really can't.) As such, it becomes important for us fans to seek our comforts in the here and now, or 'coming and soon', to fuel our hobby until such a time that Bethesda gets bored of occasionally breaking entire load orders in order to add extra language options to their Creation Content mods, (I'm not joking, that was literally the reason for the last update) and gets to work making the new game.

To that end there's no shortage of mod creators dedicating their free time to crafting absolute wonders of creation of a high enough quality to actually be sold as full games. I know they're of that quality, because some of these mods end up getting key staff members head-hunted off the project by Bethesda themselves. (They don't even wait for the mod release most of the time. Imagine if they did that for the Fallout Frontiers devs! Yikes!)  Modding is, of course, a big part of Bethesda's identity, and there's decent evidence to suggest that Skyrim is going to, in the year of the Divines 2023, be the staging ground for yet another paid mods rollout attempt. As such, we should start to take the last few major unpaid mods seriously whilst they're still around to enjoy. In that vein; have you ever heard of Beyond Skyrim?

Beyond Skyrim is one of those projects that, when I first heard of it many years ago, I waxed lyrical about how cool it would be if anything ever actually came of it, and they shrugged my shoulders and assumed it would end up a dead-end pipe dream. Not to put too fine a point on it, but many ambitious mod projects do end up going nowhere because you're asking a plethora of random creatives to collaborate on a passion project that might not end up going anywhere for no greater guaranteed prize than the adoration of fans. And in the case of some collaboration mods (Fallout: Frontiers) not even that much. Beyond Skyrim just seemed ambitious beyond reason, pardon the half-pun. Expanding the borders of Skyrim to eventually cover every province on Tamriel and some further places besides? It seemed farcical to consider. But the projects have persisted.

In many ways it's nice just to see the incredible work that goes into bringing Vvardenfell to life in the creation engine, or remaster key locations of Oblivion's Cyrodill with that same architectural design but an improved overall fidelity. But then we start to see projects that envision lands that, when many of these projects first started, had no fixed reference material to draw from; Such as Eleswyr. Of course in the time since, Elder Scrolls Online has brought players to every individual province, but there's still a level of independent personality and driven creative passion sticking up the spine of these vast mew worlds mods being brought to the Skyrim world- most of which blossom into things that no Bethesda game has ever seen before. And with the scale of all of these expansions, all being worked on or at least planned on, simultaneously; it's all quite impressive to witness from the outside. I can only imagine the chaos from the inside.

Bringing the past games back to life has always been something of a dream for the Fallout modding community, and it's a dream that has really come to life in the ten year gap between the last main line entry and now. People tried to port Morrowind into Oblivion, and now the same is being done for Skyrim, as well as an 'Oblivion in Skyrim' project. Additionally, some truly pioneering individuals have gone that extra step to also port the storyline of Daggerfall into Skyrim, resulting in one of the most flat-looking, but still ambitious feeling port mods to ever grace the modding scene. For those who really want to replay those old Bethesda games but can't stand Morrowind's bad combat, Daggerfall's general antiquated presentation or Oblivion's... everything; these are promising, if largely ongoing and in development, propositions.

And then there are the wild total conversion mods that spark into attention every now and then. I talked about it a while ago, but the Westeros conversion for Skyrim based on Game of Thrones is still ongoing, probably revitalised in passion by a new show which wipes some of the distaste that Season 8 left in a lot of the fandom's mouths. Out of every mod project I've seen, and that covers a vast array of ground, I think the character models that the team have proposed to try and match the faces of the actors from the show are truly unparalleled. That and the architectural work going into to building tile-sets that match the buildings and interiors of the show with added inspiration from the book, all gives the impression that the passionate part-time developers of this mod have the spring-board for their own new style of game ontop of Skyrim's base to mind. The promise on top of that of branching quests are the only part where I draw some serious raised eyebrows. (We saw what happened the last time someone tried to play 'fan fiction' with this lore, afterall...)

All of what I've described so far have been mods that are in some way based on some sort of property, be it foreign to The Elder Scrolls or past games, drawing from that inspiration to form a baseline. But there has been one largely original 'new lands' mod that has swam into my viewfinders. Thras, promises to take players to the largely discussed by never visited coral home of the Sload slug people, a race that has only shown up in Elder Scrolls Online and Elder Scrolls Redgaurd at this point. Just the preview screens of some of the environments, and especially the animals, that the team has envisioned strikes with a creativity I haven't noticed in the modding world since I explored the incredible new lands Morrowind mods. The actual fauna in particular reminds me of the wild ingenuity behind the various species design in 'Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets'; a movie that was fun to look at if nothing else.

Bethesda's best ideas to support Skyrim in the many years between now and TES VI is to support modders, meaning that everything I'm describing is pretty much as good as the new 'DLC's of Skyrim's coming years. For some big mod teams out there, these multiyear projects is essentially their submission for gaming industry jobs, and Bethesda have expressed time and again how happy they are to accept such submissions with gusto. It's so amazing to get a chance to explore the best foot forward of creative fans across the whole of Bethesda's modable game library, and I've only touched on some of the dozens of really exciting projects being worked on simultaneously. Many internet communities claim theirs to be the best, but with the self-renewing and constantly developing nature of Bethesda's, I'd say this one has a strong foot forward in that regard.

Voice Acting and AI

 It's the future, but not as you know it

Voice acting is one of the most integral aspects of Modern Game design that contributes towards elevating a gaming experience to truly immersive precipices. At it's basic most principle, Voice Acting allows the voice of the fictional world to be made real and breathes that touch of humanity into the game, in a manner that is tangible and to which people can form an emotional connection. That isn't to say this is the only manner in which emotion can be established, but it's one of the most accessible ways, thus the steady improvement of video game voice acting standards has coincided with an increase to more emotionally charged narratives everywhich way on the gaming spectrum. Voice acting is so important to modern video games that even Bethesda lost their minds one year and decided that the protagonist of Fallout 4 should have a voice actor, (Hopefully they're never going to make that mistake again.) purely because most other modern games capitulated to that industry standard and it felt like the thing to do. Thus when the voice acting community feels like it's future is being threatened by the march of game industry technology, it inspires a serious degree of introspection in deciding where exactly the issue is and if accords can be reached.

Recently some controversy sprang up around the completion and release of a much anticipated mod for the 'Witcher 3: Wild Hunt' called 'A Night to Remember'. (Inspired by the teaser trailer for the Witcher 3 of the same name) The Mod in question acted as an expansion upon the events of the Blood and Wine expansion and would follow the protagonist Geralt on a whole new adventure for wrapping up a hanging quest line. There was just one nagging problem; The Witcher 3 was a highly cinematic RPG where every single character was voiced with memorable gusto, so how could the team emulate that base game content without a voice? This has been an issue in modding stemming all the way back to the days of Oblivion, when voice acting first became a standard in The Elder Scrolls. Suddenly most modded content, usually developed by a single person in their spare time who doesn't have access to multiple voice actors, really stood out from the vanilla game through merit of it being voiceless.

Some modders have found ways around this, most amusingly through the recycling of other in-game audio to form new sentences, which is a practise that has become frighteningly effective over the years. Others just resort to seeking out amateur voice actors or even hiring professional ones, whatever it takes to make that project which took years to drum up stick the landing. But usually, when it comes to recycling lines or hiring an imitator voice actor to take over from some character who's already voiced, like the protagonist Geralt from The Witcher, results are either restrictive or unspectacular. Especially when we're talking about a performance as iconic as Doug Cockle's, how do you live up to a voice like that? Which is where a whole new controversy-raising solution came into the mix when this mod's creator managed to make use of some AI tech.

Essentially, with my limited understanding of technology, it would appear that some sort of software has allowed previous voice lines of Mr Cockle's to be fed into an algorithm that then takes the sounds, memorises them, and reshapes them into entirely new lines. The effect is... really good. As in, if I wasn't already told that this was the case I'd have just assumed that the developer reused some voice lines and maybe dug into some cut content for the rest. Now bear in mind two facts as I say that, that I've only seen a little bit of it in action and there's bound to be some seriously notable slip-up in the full performance, and that this is Geralt's voice we're talking about here, which is rather characteristically monotone. I'd imagine that with other characters that tend to shift their tones and be just a tad more emotive we might have a few hiccups in the system. Still though, at face value this is some incredible technology.

Which is where the concern comes into it, because when it comes to mimicking the voices of voice actors one has to wonder about the potential impact this could have on the industry if it were to become a widespread practise. I mean, take a look at what decent CG has done to the acting world, wherein famous deceased actors can now have themselves digitally imposed into movies to reprise their roles and take on new ones, irregardless of what the actor themselves might have thought. There's a question to be raised there of morality and ethical treatment, which doesn't quite touch this voice acting issue just yet, but there are other parallels that do. Take, for instance, the fact that there's an upcoming movie with James Dean in it. Yes, the dead one. Now I'm sure an actor will be under the CG, acting as James and maybe even providing his voice, but that actor won't be getting the exposure and recognition that he would were he starring in that movie himself. With Voice acting you don't even need the body underneath, developers could cut out the need for voice acting entirely. At least in theory.

In practise there's a lot more nuance to this issue that makes it not the 'looming death knell to voice acting as we know it' that it might seem. Not least of all potential legal ramifications of copying someone's voice, as highlighted by voice actor Jay Britton over Twitter. Obsidian recently revealed how their use of such technology, in it's rudimentary state, is simply to give voice to lines that they write so that they can hear how it sounds and decide what works and what doesn't. As an amateur writer myself I can tell you that is a huge part of deciding the soul of your dialogue, so I can absolutely understand how this technology can be useful, without it also being harmful to the acting industry. And that's not to touch on all the imperfections that, no matter how good this tech gets, it will theoretically never master. (Or, at least, not until that AI Event Horizon I'm talked about before)

As this issue jumped about on the Internet, several voice actors came out to explain the many ways in which their job cannot be taken by a computer due to the many talents that only a human mind can intentionally work with. Some talked about 'breathing' in-between and during lines, which is said to be a big part of affecting the heart and intention of dialogue. Others mentioned the experience that an actor brings to a role, citing the famous story of Christopher Lee informing Peter Jackson how one would sound after being stabbed in the back, drawing from his own history in World War 2. One took a more antagonist approach toward technology in general, painting a dystopian hypothetical wherein an actor's voice and their character becomes iconic through no work of the actor in question, concluding how it's devoid of 'life' and 'art'. Most valid points, however I will push back a little as this is very much Art, just art of a different kind. Software art. And if you consider that invalid through sheer merit of it being from a computer then you might just find yourself fighting against windmills someday.

But as for today the argument is moot, because there truly is a lot more value a human being can bring to a role than an AI possibly could. One company behind a branch of this AI software has cited that this sort of tech would be ideal for a game NPC who needs to take in new information and respond to it, but given the inherently limited nature of a constructed game, as well as the fact that lines still need to be written by an actual person for the moment, I'd say there's little no real world example for that right now. Still, it opens an interesting, and frightening, proposition to what the future might hold for voice acting across the world, because you can bet your bottom dollar that the second this sort of tech becomes good enough to replace real people EA and friends will drop on it like Flies to excrements. I only wonder if there's anything between now and then we can do to protect those who's jobs might be threatened.

Skyrim's Lordbound

Ever expanding

Skyrim was the first game which really dragged me into the concept of modding and prolonging the story of the hero I loved to play as indefinitely, and anyone who's dipped their toes into the PC Skyrim scene can probably figure out why. Hundreds of talented makers have flocked to Skyrim's comprehensive modding tools over the years to make sure that it, and it's Special Edition rerelease, have almost always been flush with cool, exciting, game changing or just bizarre game mods to shake everything up. Much of the modding world as it exists today for the entire industry owes itself to trends started in the Skyrim modding boom, for example, Resident Evil 8 has already been hit with a mod to turn Lady Dimitrescu into Thomas the Tank Engine. Where do you think the trend of turning everyone into Thomas came from? It came from Trainwiz and Skyrim when he first turned Aludin into Thomas years ago. That's what I mean, Skyrim is sort of the starting point for a lot of modding trends, even if it wasn't the first big modding game or even the first heavily modded Bethesda game, something about it just made that game a flytrap for creativity amidst the community.

But whilst all these brilliant little mods have ever peppered Skyrim's online presence, I've always been drawn specifically to the large scale mods. The one's which demand a small team of talented folk come together in order to pool skills and resources and create something with as much polish, yet much more concentrated, of the main Bethesda team would be capable of. I'm talking relatively small quest mods when compared to the full game, but brimming with care, love, talent and time to the point where it stands out as some of most memorable experiences in the entire game. Skyrim's modding community has been blessed with so many projects in that vein, and whenever I see another on the horizon I just have to click my heels together in utter excitement. Which is probably why when I stumbled upon the in-progress details regarding a certain ongoing mod project called Lordbound, I knew it's something I wanted to talk more about on this blog.

Reading the press-content from the mod's page, Lordbound is a mod that has been in development (of some form, at least) for the past six years, aided by at least one fellow who's now actually working within the game's industry now. Presented not so much as a 'mod' but as an 'expansion', Lordbound's completed vision should offer players 60+ hours of content, 40+ new quests and 50+ new dungeons to explore. Now even acknowledging that as 'best case scenario' speak, I have to say that looking at face value on those statistics make it sound like this mod is promising a simply obscene amount of content. 40 quests? 50 Dungeons? I cannot imagine dedicating that level of effort in the heart of a single project unless what I was working towards an entirely new game. One that would be sold. But apparently this is going to be a freely accessible mod, which just kind of breaks my brain a little bit. (At least it explains why the team are still looking for members even after all this time; that's a lot of content ground to cover.)

Set in the 'Valley of Druadnach', (A name which, in the base game, was simple used to denote the homecave of the King of the Forsworn) this mod looks to explore the political tension of a strip of land laid out between the lands of Skyrim and High Rock. (And perhaps even a little sliver of the ever unmapped region of Orisinium, home of the orcs, judging from their name drop in this little affair.) The story will apparently explore trade route tensions and all those diplomacy-related story hooks that I always thought made for the best Elder Scrolls stories. Legends about saving the world are one thing, but Morrowind shows how interesting that sort of tale can be when tied to the very real-world implications it has on the everyman in the area. I'd imagine that this Lordbound questline similarly will have it's own twists and compounding circumstances, one's which I'm excited to feel out for myself.

An aspect about this mod which I really find myself liking is the familiarity of the location in question. It's not some alien culture from Skyrim, but a location just right next to it's play area, meaning that visually a lot of what you are seeing is inkeeping to the design rules established by Skyrim. Now witnessing whole new environments is cool and everything, but there's an extra level of ingenuity between taking the familiar and differentiating in way that's stubble and yet stands out. Even just looking upon the screenshot provided you can already see a visual style that reminds you of base Skyrim but with that little bit extra. Specifically I've noticed that the interiors tend to be really filled out with decorations that tell a story of being living in, and the lighting has been given great care when setting up. I also love the vague aura of the mysterious and supernatural seeped into some locations, really utilising throbbing deep green auras or mystic blues; some top design work even from the getgo.

Another thing I have noticed, both from screens and the trailer, is that the locations do have a tendency to air for the 'bigger' feel it terms of space used. This tends to be a habit from mod creators, as they see the opportunity to make a huge location and will typically shoot for it, however it's in fluffing up and filling that space which issues can occur. It requires a really disciplined eye for design not to make dead space really stand out, which is why a lot of the oversized conceptual art you'll see for fantasy games, and even Skyrim itself, tend to be scaled down for the final product. That being said, a lot of what I've seen for this mod hasn't worried me yet, the guys working on environment building appear to be fonts of creative design thusfar. I can't help wonder, however, if that might become an issue in the long run for making all those 50+ dungeons to the same standard. (But perhaps I'm just compounding on a nothing issue. I admit, I know nothing of this team's inner workings.)

Last but not least, is my favourite part of mods like these; the new armour sets. Good lord, do I love it when folk sit down and decide what sort of armour, weapons and clothing these new folk would wear in the environments designed for them. Of course, this part also take an extra amount of work for the dual modelling alone, (First and third person models) disregarding the added scrutiny things such as armour motifs and racial styles always elicits. Lordbound's team have been tantalising vague about the new items primed to show up in this mod, although what little they have shown, mostly renders before they've been implemented into the game, have this sort of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings vibe to me. (Which I'm a fan of, obviously.)

I find it amazing to think that even now, after nearing up to 10 years from it's launch, Skyrim is still juggling incredibly ambitious projects like this one, although I suppose that's a testament to the sorts of creative fellows that this series draws in. I mean just look at Morrowind, I count at least three incredibly ambitious new lands project in active development over there! Lordbound reminds of the OG new lands Skyrim mods, like Falskaar, in taking something we're familiar with and remixing a bit here, adding a lot over there, to show as something we've never seen before. So keep make sure you keep up on this one for when it launches, and see if it's enough to draw you back to the land of the Nords once more.

Skyros: The Game of Thrones game we never got

 You either win or you die

So Game of Thrones was a show from approximately four or five lifetimes ago. Remember that? The breakout fantasy epic which wove unpredictable intense storytelling, an unrelenting attention to detail, dozens of great characters, oodles of technical talent, more budget then anybody knew what to do with and Kit Harington to frankly dizzying success? We're talking about an epic fantasy story which was popular in the mainstream; can you comprehend how insane of a prospect that is? People haven't cared about a fantasy world that much since the days of the Lord of the Rings movies, and after the way Game of Thrones treated them they likely never will again. Game of Thrones was such a triumph over pop culture, that even went it very clearly veered off the rails into abject mediocrity, people still stood around for it a little bit, convinced to some degree that what they had sat through wasn't total trash, like it obviously was, because it couldn't be: it was Game of Thrones and Game of Thrones meant quality. There's some special level of black magic over the entertainment world required to pull those sorts of tricks off, and at this point I can only really think of Marvel being in the same position. But my point is, bemoan the series all you want for how it ran away with itself and vomited a pathetic final season up, for a time this series was the biggest thing in the world for several legitimate reasons.

One such reason, and in my opinion a very important one, was the raw look of the show; because good lord have we never seen a fantasy realised to such dizzying vivacity. Sets, costumes, shots, editing; everything from a production stand point in the series just soared into this overdrive state where the bar of possibility kept being pushed forward every year by this series. The result was a show that looked better then any other out there and a world which many still have ingrained in their hearts despite how all of it ended. Even for me, though I've managed to purge all the important names, dates, locations, and anything of value related to this now-tainted series; I still can close my eyes and remember the iconic cityscapes, those sweeping battlefields, those beloved character moments, that music, the feeling of actually being excited about something; in many ways I miss Game of Thrones. That's Game of Thrones as it used to be within my memory, don't think I could ever actually bring myself to watch the damn thing again. No way. But all that is to explain why, despite myself, I find myself interested in the Skyros Total Conversion mod for Skyrim.

I remember when Game of Thrones first started to take off, and hearing again and again people say "Huh, that Skyrim game really looks like Game of Thrones." Even at the time that would be a comparison which would have me pinching the bridge of my nose like any insufferable socially-awkward nerd out there trying to hold back from a burst of "Just because both series' deal with 'Northener' stereotypes doesn't make them comparative. The Witcher would be a much better comparison." But this was several years before Wild Hunt so nobody wanted to hear about the mature fantasy series they were sleeping on and just preferred to make surface level comparisons between the two screens with snow in it. (Because snow makes everything exactly the same) Yet I still had to concede, yes I suppose that visually there's an undeniable similarity. In that respect, I guess that if anyone wanted to make the digital rendering for Game of Thrones that HBO was too damn stupid to commission themselves, Skyrim would make the perfect engine on which to do so.

And so we turn to the world of modding, where the feast of games become fuel in the forge of the curiosity driven. 'Total conversion' is the name of the game here, and it's used to denote a mod project which seeks to change so much about the base game that it's basically features a whole new gameplay loop. Some total conversions even go one step further and are basically just whole new games complied with the original game's engine. Someone could feasibly, with enough time and effort, sit down and make the Game of Thrones videogame that HBO should have commissioned off of Bethesda years ago. (I'm not saying that would have saved the series, but it would have softened the blow) And it looks like fans already have. Several, in fact. I've seen a few projects to transport Skyrim into the lands of Westeros now, but most just fade away as soon as it becomes apparent how much work that would really be, or they simply just lost interest after the show lost interest in itself. Skyros, however... is another project. I have no reason to believe it won't go the same way as the others. It's literally inherited from two abandoned projects. (bad omen or nowhere to go but up?)

Skyros is a prototypical case of a project where the folk have looked up at the moon and said "I can get there, just need to build a ladder". That is to say, these guys think they can just sit down and create a full blown Game of Thrones videogame and I'm over here just stewing in doubt; but I love an underdog story, thus I remain interested. As of right now the team, whoever they are, haven't shared a great many of details about what exactly it is that they're working on, but they have let one person compile a handy video for them going over an overview of what they're working on basically just reading out their mission statement. The whole 'list of features' does sort of read like a death row inmate naming the many wild and impossible dreams they'd love to achieve before the end, but you gotta shoot for the moon to hit the stars, or however the expression goes.

Creating the landmass of Westeros is only one step of this project, you see, yet even that is a grand one. The team have admitted that the limitations of current hardware (and of the aging Skyrim Creation engine, no doubt) have forced them to take creative liberties with the size of the nations they are creating, but even then you can see that they're trying to match at least the grandeur displayed from the HBO series. (Though they refer back to the book at times, it's clear that the love for this project and the conceptual eye was inspired by the series.) What's more, these madmen (and madwomen) want to create a whole narrative storyline with branching quests that cover the events of at least the war of the five kings, if not the entire book series! They've already started using racemenu and other external tools and a lot of patience to create a handful of NPCs that resemble the actors of the show to a frightening degree, all in preparation of making them voiced players in a DLC-sized quest mod that defies sensible logic.

They've already started creating individual models for the various points of interest throughout Westeros, such as the Red Keep, and the Weirwood; as well as models of every weapon that would fit within this universe, and it all looks impressive, but insane. I mean, I know I keep harping on about this but I don't really think a project of this size can exist in the modding scene like it is. I've seen mods from all across the Bethesda landscape, even dabbled a bit in them before, and this idea rivals even the most ambitious among them. Now granted, the team are looking to expand and with a property as popular as Game of Thrones guiding the project there is a decent chance of interest coming their way, but that's also the biggest weakness I can see right now. Because, and I don't mean to seem totally oblivious, but we have no idea how litigious HBO can get. I mean we know they don't understand games, given that they commissioned a browser game from some sketchy nobodies in favour of a proper RPG that could have made them hundreds of millions in royalties, so that doesn't really bode well for a fan project like this. Say it takes off, more people come to it and it starts gaining attention, and then a HBO executive takes a gander at how models are being based off of a show they own, and NPC likenesses resemble their characters. I'm just saying this is a grand and inspiring idea that already seems to have real talented people behind it, yet I can't help but think it's also a naïve idea borne for a much more innocent world.

But we've looked at a similar indie team promising grandeur far beyond what seems sensible recently, and I seemed a lot more confident in their chances, no? Well that's because 'Friday Night Funkin': The Full Ass Game' is an expansion upon something the team have already proven they can do, and whilst Skyros has a handful of supremely high-quality assets to hand, actually building that landmass, coding and writing quests for a game, especially branching questlines, atop of treading a legal tightwalk is a whole other question entirely. (Trust me at least on the branching quest writing stuff. That's literally what I'm doing for my side project right now and it's soul crushing.) And yet I applaud the passion. I applaud the effort already gone into this project and, most of all, I applaud the fact that even after nearly 10 years, the Skyrim community can turn around and blow me away with the level of their belief in the game and what they can shape out of it. If that isn't emblematic of the very spirit of modding, I don't know what is.

Resident Evil: During The Storm

 Racoon City Rises...

So Resident Evil has been on a bit of a comeback for these past two years, now hasn't it? I mean if we're really tracking things to the source then I suppose you could say that 'Resident Evil 7: Biohazard' was when things started changing for the better, but that game did go through a little bit of underperformance thus I'll wager that Resident Evil 2 Remake was really what made the people with power turn their heads. (The money men.) Thus we're in an artificial renaissance for the franchise wherein the old games are remade seemingly until we reach Resident Evil 7 and then... does that get remade? (Will Resident Evil 9 and Resident Evil 9 Remake come out within a month of each other? What's the endgame here Capcom? Do you even have an endgame?) But whereas we have a whole new army of fans that are starting to buy into the appeal of zombies, bodyhorror and puzzles, there are those who have been there from the old school, people who never dropped off after Resident Evil 6 and even those who still prefer the originals to this day. 

I don't usually talk about mods too much on this blog, but that's not because of any unspoken policy or dislike towards them, I just rarely see something that looks so incredible I have to talk about it. Personally I have a huge amount of respect for those with the humility, love and talent to sit down and just create a mod for a game that they like, just for the love of the game in general or to put their mark on it. Over the years we've seen all kinds of community driven mod projects that have ranged from the thousands of armour and weapon mods for Bethesda titles, to total conversions for Half Life and everything inbetween. And for my part I've dabbled in a great many mods in my spare time, and being a little bit of a PC gamer sometimes mods are literally required in order to play some older games. (Or simply for those games to work in times when PC ports are buggier than all get-out.)

Total conversion mods, however, are the things that really blow me away, as that's when the basic game is modified and changed upon to the extent where the base game often isn't recognisable and instead one is simply just using the engine to make their own world or tell their own story. For this you have famous mods such as Skyrim's Enderal, Oblivion's Nehrim, Empire at War's Republic at War, (a favourite of yours truly) and, as is the point of today's blog, Resident Evil 2's During the Storm. Now to tie things back into my intro, where's not talking about the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2 but the old school 1998 original bought to life on PC through the 2006 Sourcenext port. (Which, for the record, is kind of a pain-in-the-butt to get ahold of today, but I'm sure there's always a way if you're interested.) Someone took this framework and decided to expand on this game with an entire conversion mod, and it is insanely impressive.

Taking place in the largely unexplored location of Racoon City, (Heavy sarcasm detected) the mod takes one of the 'Resident Evil: Outbreak' characters who survived that disaster, and Racoon City, in order to place them down in an semi-open world branching narrative storyline. Yeah- 'ambitious' doesn't even begin to describe the sorts of heights these developers are shooting for, and were I Brutus I'd probably be preparing my best stabbing knife. (Sorry, that was an atrociously bad 'Julius Caesar' reference. I'll see myself out.) According to the Moddb page, they want to create an 'Open world' akin to what Dark Souls employs, which I understand to mean a world made up connected areas and corridors rather than large open locations. (Don't think the engine could handle that) They'll be side quests that have a bearing on the outcome of the main story, thus imparting branching narrative opportunities, time sensitive objectives which don't cause a mission fail but might reflect down the line, an extensive cast of side characters and enemies who will be able to follow the player through cells. I know that last point doesn't sound quite as impressive to a layman but trust me; that is incredible.

You'll probably notice something about all the points I bought up, like how Capcom are currently employing exactly none of them with the Resident Evil's of today. (Except the 'following the player through doors' thing, I guess) Even with all of the modern day advancements and revolutions to game design, modern day Resident Evils are basically exactly the same in structure as their older counterparts. In fact, when thinking the RE3 remake in particular, there have even been some steps to actively stomp down on things like 'branching narratives' for whatever reason. And I'm not denigrating the new games for that, I think too many titles fall for the allure of other game's strengths rather than nurture their own, (Resident Evil fell for exact trap for 6) but that doesn't mean I've never wondered. Seeing such innovations actually be pursued, and by an indie fan-made mod no-less, is actually quite exciting.

One question I immediately had when I came across this was "how". Not the ins and outs, but just the basic 'how did any of this happen on the simplest of levels'. And now that I've looked a bit into it I think I understand it to be a use of the Resident Evil 3 development method, in that assets are being recycled in order to make new locations. However, this team have access to Resident Evil 2 and 3 for assets. (As well as Outbreak, I guess, but I'm not entirely sure if there was even a PC port of that. Or if it would even have any useable assets at all.) I don't know if anything new will me made in the general world building department or if match-ups and reshuffling will go to make up some of the 'new locations' they've hinted at, but there was a bit of talk about custom weapons so I'd imagine there would be. Also, I don't know what sort of black magic sorcery this team is working with but they're apparently projecting the game to the be twice of length of Resident Evil 2. How does that happen? I dunno, but I like it.

The team in question have bitten off quite the undertaking, and it's natural to throw a little sceptical shade about everything I've just told you because nothing should be taken for granted. However I will say that out of the 7 members of the team that I see listed on Moddb, there's some promising pedigree. Several of the folks have worked on other Resident Evil 2 mod projects and the director/main programmer has another big mod in 'Resident Evil: Mortal Night' that they completed several years ago; so there's receipts here. That being said, from what I've browsed through this seems to easily be the most ambitious thing that any of them have worked on (At least in regards to modding) and I just love the sort of people willing to step outside of their comfort zone like that. To go to these lengths to mod a game that isn't even readily available for the average player? There undeniable passion there.

Of course, with the tense I've been using you'll likely have become aware that this mod isn't exactly out yet. In actuality it's due for 2021 and we're just starting to see videos of the work they've done so far around about now, but it's all just jaw dropping for someone like me. Resident Evil 2 was actually one of the first horror games that I played which had an effect on me (Somehow I played 1 as a kid and barely even remembered it; go figure) so seeing anything new imposed onto this framework (I can't believe I'm referring to a complete game as 'framework') does something special to me. Of course, the game doesn't look impressive graphically so if you lack the nostalgia element you might have trouble seeing the scope of the work like I do, but perhaps you'll still be able to respect the effort and work some people are willing undertake for the hobby they love.

Here comes the Blizzard of our miscontent

Living long enough to become the villain...

Now that's a bit more like it. After coming across a whole generation of remakes and remasters that threatened to change my mind on the prospect of revisiting past projects, there's finally one to break that dangerous illusion before it set. On one hand, it's incredibly lazy and speaks to a certain lack of creativity on the part of the imaginers who spearhead these projects, but on the otherhand if you can take something great and make it even better, then why wouldn't you? (Heck, if this kept up I might have even forced myself to give those new Disney movies a shot.) Thankfully, one burning turd in the pile has come crashing at our feet to remind us all that good remakes are the exception, not the rule, and that far too often their conception is drawn by corporate greed and likely a little active disdain for an audience always asking for the envelope to be pushed.

So if you've spent anytime around the internet gaming community forums in the past week, you'd have been made aware of the fact that Blizzard is trending in the news once again, and it hasn't even been 6 months since the whole 'Chinese toadies' debacle. Do you remember during the Blizzcon right after that whole mess, when Blizzard Entertainment's President, J. Allen Brack, descended from his ivory tower to let everyone know an important message; "We're sorry!". J, (Who's first name I literally cannot find after a 3 minute google search) relayed how Blizzard had let the community and themselves down, but it would be okay because they were committing to making things right from here on in. "We will do better going forward," the man promised with all the sincerity of the Monkey and the Buzzard "But our actions are going to matter more than any words". Why, how very true Bracky-boy, you can make all the crocodile tears that you want but until we see a marked improvement from your office and the way you do business, ain't no one sane going to be cozying up to you guys anytime soon. That was a self imposed test that Blizzard ultimately failed with their very next game release, the remake of 'Warcraft 3: Reign of Choas': 'Warcraft 3: Reforged'.

For the uninitiated, Warcraft 3 is the last real-time strategy title out of the Warcraft franchise and, incidentally, one of the most influential video games ever made. This title defined RTS for many games going forward, established the popularity of a brand that would then go on to found the biggest MMO of all time: 'World of Warcraft, and built the archetype for a dedicated & creative modding community. Skyrim may boast the biggest modding community of all time, (or at least it did at one point, not sure now) but 'Warcraft 3' likely had the most ambitious. 'Reign of Choas' was a bastion for custom games that completely rewrote the rules of play, total conversion mods that were send-ups to franchises like DBZ and loving attempts touch-ups of the UI interface. (Which I'm told was garbage. I never played the game so I'll just have to take their word for it.) In fact, one such custom game for Warcraft proved so popular that is spawned a little spin-off title called 'Defence of the Ancients 2'. That's right, 'DOTA 2' and by transitive property, 'League of Legends' and the entire MOBA genre, own their entire existence to 'Warcraft 3: Reforged' and it's passionate community of minds. (So you can blame old-school Blizzard next time you see that same god-damn LOL advert by Nevercake. "Take that, rich guy, go buy an island somewhere and afford stuff; I'm trying to play League here with my many friends, who exist!")

It was with some fanfare then, that Blizzard announced back in 2018 how they planned to completely remake Warcraft 3 from the groundup in 'Warcraft 3: Reforged'. (And it was only 'some' fanfare, considering that was the same year that they announced 'Diablo: Immortal'. That particular travesty seemed to suck a lot of the air out of the room.) This was heralded with a long list of promises that was sure to set fan's hearts a-racing; there would be a remodeled UI, various narrative tweaks to bring the storyline in line with WoW's lore and, most exciting of all, brand new cinematic cutscenes for the various campaigns. These cutscenes were the star of their trailer, showcasing a decently rendered back and forth between pre-Lich Arthas and pre-dead Uther. Whilst this animation wasn't anywhere as good as Blizzard's irregular expansion announcement vids, (Which makes sense. Those probably take a couple of years to put together each.) it was still a grand step-up from the original game and had fans pumped for what other improvements the remake might have. Promise after promise leaked from Blizzard's chalice and the thirsty masses drank it up, never even tasting the healthy heap of arsenic mixed in.

But in the words of every adulterer ever; Promises are made to be broken, and so one could have guessed that Blizzard would break theirs, However, I don't think anyone could have imagined the extent to which this would reach. It started innocently enough, with the team sending corrections to news outlets that were calling this a 'remake'. Whilst that label was accurate to some degree, this title would have more in common with a 'remaster' with updated models, features and content, but the same basic beloved experience behind it all. Fair enough, it was good of them to clear it up. Then came a straight up walk-back. This one was, again, quietly announced by Blizzard to the necessary news outlets, and was concerning the narrative tweaks that fans were dubious about. They wouldn't be going through with it, just bringing everyone the same great story as before. It was around about this time that they began detailing how they wanted this game to feel like the original as much as possible because that was already such a strong foundation. Strong words, team. Speechcraft 100.

So some folk who didn't go the distance of setting up a Google alert for this title might be a little disappointed when the release date came, not everything was as promised. But again. Blizzard's incompetence overshadowed even the most pessimistic predictions. Once the game launched it became clear, not much love and attention had really gone towards this title. The biggest issue, off the bat, was the gutting of the online features that made the original title so enduring. There were no profiles, clans, competitive play or even custom games at launch due to a brand new online infrastructure that was established for this title. (A seemingly incomplete infrastructure.) Although, even folk who prefer the single player may have found themselves disappointed. The UI was unchanged, the updated visuals are practically unnoticeable unless you zoom into the character models (which no one does in an RTS) and do you remember those cinematic cutscenes? You know, the ones that Blizzard sold this concept on the back off? Those ones that are still up on their YouTube channel and which are linked on their official website promoting this game? Gone. Completely no-existent in this title.

There are a bevy of bugs and other missing features that afflict this title, but the only other big change in this game was Blizzard's approach to custom content. Firstly, they strictly laid out their rules for using custom assets on their map creator, which prohibits some of the best overhauls for the game from being ported to the new title, and they specifically changed their privacy notice to future-proof their game. Eagle eyed readers noted how Blizzard's new rules meant that anything created within their game would be the sole property of Blizzard, and fans had to waive away their moral rights in order to get access to these tools. That means that Blizzard could take ownership of anything cool built using their engine and they wouldn't be obligated to pay the original maker so much as a credit. (Way to treat the community that made your game so big, guys! what's the encore? You going to go around kicking over strollers?) All of this is done, rather transparently, to avoid another situation like DOTA 2 arising, which cost Blizzard millions, perhaps even billions, in potential revenue. (Just nipping all creativity right in the bud, hey guys?) 

And the icing ontop of all of this? The updated online infrastructure which rips away so many features, eliminates custom games (for now, at least) and enforces draconic copyright measures, has been implemented across the board. Meaning that all these systems aren't just present on 'Warcraft 3: Reforged', but on the original 'Warcraft 3' as well. All those 18 years worth of custom community content that kept this title alive, gone overnight, sacrificed to the Blizzard corporate puppet with Activision playing with the stings, in a theatre showing exclusively to the Chinese government. Blizzard haven't just ruined the legacy of one of their classic games, but the classic game itself. (Even EA couldn't manage that with Battlefront 2.)

So Warcraft fans were sold a lie, kicked in the nuts and left to fester, what's their next course of action? Well, get a refund of course! There's only the lingering problem that might make that difficult; and that would be Blizzard's particularly unfriendly refund policy. (Yep, the hole gets deeper.) In Blizzard's eyes, the second someone opens their software the company is completely relieved of all refund-responsibilities and will not cede to negotiations on that matter. This was something that was heavily put to the test in the wake of Reforged's release, as folk battled against Blizzard's systems to get their money back. Things got so messed up, that people on the official Blizzard forums were giving fellow consumers guides on how to force a refund out of Blizzard. Although these samaritans were then promptly banned for their troubles. (Because Blizzard are bringing their pneumatic digger for this hole.)

And that's where things currently are with Blizzard's latest disaster. Fans have review bombed this title's Metacritic to a 0.7 consumer score as of the writing of this blog. (which is only bottomed by 'Day One: Gary's incident'.) The bastions of consumer friendliness that once was has been transformed by Frostmourne and now stand as a lifeless shell of their former selves. (Get it? I replaced 'Activision' with Frostmourne- making it into a Warcraft 3 reference... well, I thought it was funny.) J. Allen Brack has straight up proved that his promises don't mean jack and now it's up to the audience to decided if enough-is-enough or if they have to wait for the next disaster to hit their wallets before they do something. Do they need to wait until Blizzard resell Overwatch to us and call it a new game? Or until Diablo 4 launches as a predictable buggy mess? When will the final shoe drop off this hydra-esque monstrosity and what exactly are the consumers ready to do about it? I guess this coming month will tell.

My Manuscript on the Monetisation of Modular Modifications

Take a little, give a little

Not too long ago I wrote a little piece about my opinion on mods; that practise wherein extra game content is made and played by members of the community without the involvement of the developers. In my years of active modding, I have found the experience to be involving and rewarding in providing scenarios that I could never have expected out of my favourite go-tos. Some games build entire communities around modding and others are maintained exclusively through the hard work of modders. All this perpetuates the spirit of sharing that dominated the philosophy behind, and the early life, of the Internet; wide spread sharing.

But it was not so long ago that the balance between creator and player was put in peril through the implementation of 'paid mods'. It has been a great many years since this incident and it feels as though the community's scars have mostly healed, the idea still lives on through a highly-curated storefront and most everyone has moved on. But as someone with far too much time on their hands, I find myself coming back to this time, now and again, tossing over this debate in my head. On one hand, some of these creators put in considerable amount of personal effort into creating fantastic content that sometimes surpasses the original creators; whilst on the other hand, the relationship fundamentally changes once money is involved. I find myself torn to this day. But let's ensure everyone is up to speed.

When I use the term 'Paid mods', I am specifically referring to the short-lived feature on Steam's personal mod hoster; Steam workshop. Valve wanted to try their hands at evolving this part of their service by including a paid mod feature, for which the platform would earn commission. In order to launch this in the strongest possible manner, Valve partnered with Bethesda in order to beta test this idea on, perhaps the single most modded game of all time, Skyrim. People have bought everything imaginable to Skyrim including, and I swear I'm making none of these up; Skyships, working wings, magic carpets, walking talking mushrooms, guns, a Super Mario land and a working train system. If any game was going to provide the perfect petridish of consumers to try out paid mods, it was going to be Skyrim.

Upon the first announcement, the reaction from the community was the very soul of conflicted. People spent their time discussing much of the same issues that I raised earlier; Some mods are so good that they deserve money but others simply don't. A lot of mod authors work on mods out of the love of the act, throwing money in there muddies the equation. And then there is the plain fact that when you try to throw a price tag on something that has always been free you'll get a lot of proud 'freeloaders' who don't want to hear about it. Few topics have wrought me to such a point where I find it impossible to pick a side, even just for myself. Valve and Bethesda watched all this discourse and then made the decision to go with it anyway. Afterall, this was a beta test, what was the worst that could happen?

In 2015, from April 25th to April 27th, (Right through my Birthday. Yay!) the paid mod service was up and running through Steam before being unceremoniously shut down. During that time, only 19 mods were made available to the public, with two being removed early due to copyright complaints, until the entire system was scrapped due to insurmountable backlash. We can still look back at the range of content available in order to get an idea for what we could have expected if they stuck with it. Chesko's Arissa was one the mods that I have actually played (when it was free.) Arissa is a well made, if short, companion mod that never got ported to Special Edition for some reason. Then there are some weapon mods, a few based of Valve properties (Dota 2 and Half life), a new location mod, a location redesign mod and a fishing overhaul.

As you can see there was nothing truly earth shattering in this initial rollout and as such we saw base prices fluctuate from $0.25 (For a sword) to $4.99 (For the companion). But the base price wasn't the be-all-end-all, because Valve introduced a pay-what-want system in order to allow purchasers to tip handsomely if they felt the content demanded it. This led to a slew misinformation campaigns, wherein people attempted to buy the fishing overhaul for $199, and then posted a screenshot of that price, pretending that is was the base. Efforts like this caused strain between the community and mod developers as unscrupulous elements tried to drum up false outrage. Valve and Bethesda likely saw the seeds of this behaviour and decided to pull out of the race quickly, in order to avoid causing lasting damage.

That doesn't mean that the practise went away, merely that they changed direction. (Here is were I start to get iffy about the whole scene.) Bethesda, independent of Valve, decided that they still wanted to try their hands at monetising mods, under creative supervision and protected through their storefront. In August, 2017, Bethesda introduced the 'Creation Club' into Fallout 4; a platform wherein minute pieces of content would be developed my Bethesda and certain partnered modders and then be sold for a small fixed fee. (Hello microtransactions.) The system was also included in their re-release of Skyrim; Skyrim: Special edition, at launch. At the time Bethesda sold this as a way to 'prepetuate your favourite games' but the general consensus is that this is an attempt to monetise an 8 year old game.

The Creation Club was created in order to ensure that all the content included in this new 'paid mod' initiative was entirely original and not pulled from being previously free. (Like a few of the original 19 were) This hasn't stopped accusations of plagiarism, like when they released 'Chinese stealth armour' and 'Enclave Hellfire Armour' for Fallout 4, not too long after an independent mod author had done so for free, but given that the assets do belong to Bethesda that argument didn't really hold much water. Since then the Creation Club has expanded on it's own to offer mods ranging from something as small as a collection of new alchemical ingredients, to something as elaborate as an indepth survival mode for Skyrim (That was a whole lot more fun than Fallout 4's free survival mode.) and a high-quality dungeon mod headed by some of the most imaginative minds in modding.

As you have likely picked up, I find myself at odds with myself over the Creation Club. On one hand it seems like a great way to prolong the life of these games with little pieces on inexpensive content that even supports modders. (Not directly, they are hired on commission.) On the otherhand, this may set a precedent for future Bethesda titles. I think part of the reason that the Creation Club's backlash has been fairly muted is because it was applied to titles that had already been released and came out in an acceptable fashion. What happens when new Bethesda games lack several small mainstays (Like the famous Daedric Artifacts)  in order to hawk them to us down the line? You may think that it would be insanely incendiary for Bethesda to do that, (not to mention short-sighted) but Bethesda have been on a roll of making bad decisions lately, what if that starts to seep into the main game's development?

I will always be on two minds about the topic of paid mods. I love the idea of being able to support modders and would appreciate it if more tools were implemented that made it easier to do so; but make it an obligation and things become questionable. Part of the fun of modding is scouring the web, looking for things you never though possible and then trying them out for yourself. It's an exploratory process with absolutely no strings attached. The Creation Clubs seems to be purpose-built not to challenge that, for the time being, but I find myself worried about how the future might manifest. But then, I am a habitual worrier, so I may being seeing smoke where there is none.

My Manuscript on Modular Manipulation otherwise known as: Modifications.

Oh, Just do it yourself then!

Gaming on the PC can be a troubling ordeal. One must keep on top of system requirements, driver updates, game patches and sometimes even the operating system itself. Oftentimes the hoops one has to jump through in order to get the base game itself to function makes the entire experience not worth your time. (Very few games are worth 8 straight hours of trolling through forums until you find an obscure fix on a necro-thread posted by the one games developers; Divinity 2.) But, as any PC elitist will parrot, the reward is the ability to enjoy the full breadth of what a game can offer, and what the community can offer.

Given the malady of humanity to crave the ever-elusive virtue of perpetuity, it should be of no surprise that many people never want to stop playing the games they love. Sometimes sequels can wane in quality or the direction can veer sharply from what you wanted, thus you are drawn back to your old faithful, content in the familiar. But what happens once you've done everything you can do with the product? What happens when there are no depths left to explore in your favourite game? Do you finally move on, or undergo a series of experimental medical procedures to alter your memory so that you may re-approach the game anew? Neither, you delve into the wonderful world of mods.

'Mods' is the term we coin to refer to modifications (get it?) to the base of the game. Different from User Generated Content, Mods can range from something as mundane as a retexturing to something as elaborate as a whole new DLC sized quest mod. (Not to knock any of those high-class retextures I see out there.) They are pieces of content developed and uploaded up members of the community with no ties to the studio who created the game and thus none of the limitations. Mods can stretch the limit of your imagination and fundamentally change the way that a game is played from the ground up. They can be that transformative if the right talent and passion is behind it.

In recent years the idea of 'modding' has started to catch on in the mainstream. Just look online and you'll find dozens of articles detailing 'the best mod to achieve this effect' or update articles following the crafting of some of the most ambitious mods ever like the, apparently soon to release, 'Skyblivion'. In fact, it is a little disingenuous to label mods as a PC phenomenon nowadays; during the marketing for Fallout 4, Todd Howard boasted at the Microsoft conference about how this game would be the first ever home console game to allow for modding. (Which wasn't entirely true, that year's Farming Simulator beat it out by a few months.) True, when Fallout 4 actually landed we saw that the implementation lacked the breadth of what was possible on PC, (Plus mods had to go through Bethesda so we didn't get anything truly outlandish) but this was a significant step to bringing this element of gaming to the masses.

But what is it that is alluring about the world of modding? Well if you ask people like Todd Howard, he claims that it all about the act of taking ownership of your game, filling it with content of your choosing and playing the way that you want to play. For some it can be the promise of a never ending story with constant adventures from now until the end of the Internet. Others may just like the idea of seeing something familiar shone in a whole new light that shifts the viewers perception. There is something deeply personal about the act of modding that makes it appeal to so many different people in so many different ways.

Of course, with how huge the world of modding is and litany of hosting platforms for those mods, there is no earthly way that I can provide an exhaustive list of mods, or even games that feature mods. I spend so much of my free time browsing through gaming forums from every type all over the Internet, and yet I still get surprised by a new one now and then. Therefore, I have instead chosen to focus on certain types of mods that each cater to a certain need from the community. This should help me rationalize this blog and provide something that is fairly coherent. (Although coherence is never certain when you're on this blog.)

Firstly, I will focus on the mods that attempt to fix certain aspects about the core game. These are the modifications that do not try to alter the creator's vision, but rather bolster it my delivering the much beloved 'unofficial patch'. Every now and then, time constraints or lack of resources can lead to corners being cut in the development process. Sometimes all this amounts to is a feature or area being trimmed down or cut, whilst othertimes this can be as serious as leaving huge bugs out in the open for players to deal with. Consumers may have to wait until a patch is released to address this issues, if that patch comes at all (Remember, developers must always be moving onto their next project.), or they could simply roll up their sleeves and get to it themselves.

Sometimes these patches are so imperative that they become absolute must-haves in the community. 'Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines' Unofficial Patch is renowned as the only way one can feasibly run that game on modern consoles (With a modern resolution.) Saints Row 2 similarly suffers from poor PC optimization that can make the game unplayable; celebrated mod, Gentleman of the Row, fixes many of these core concerns whilst adding a bevy of new vehicles and customization options. Things don't even need to be that drastic either. When 'NeiR:Automata' released, it was sorely lacking in settings, one discerning modder fixed this with a helpful patch that provided everything one would require from a settings menu, removing the need to prowl through a volatile 'Ini' file.

Then there are the customization mods. When a developer offers the player customization options, the intent is obvious; they want to engage the player's creative side and have them create an avatar for themselves that they feel personally attached to. This can be difficult, however, if the tools available to you are not broad enough to create your ideal character. Normally, the only solution would be to scale back one's ambition, but with modding you can reach for the exact opposite. Any game with a character customizer is just patiently waiting for the community to supplement it with modding options.

Games like X-Com 2 launched out of the box with mod support to help accommodate for these kinds of mods. Members of your squad could be fashioned with a modular customization system, ideal for additional content, and even attributed a voice pack, which players could create. As such it wasn't too hard to create an entire force of your favourite pop culture/ Video game characters to help fight back against ADVENT. Even the GTA games have been met with hundreds of clothing mods, dating all the way back to San Andreas. Creating your perfect character is very important to some people.

Software in tech is a fickle mistress, just when you feel you've reached her full potential, she reconstructs the goal posts next year. As such, graphics that look top-of-the-line today will undoubtedly be outclassed tomorrow in our endless march towards 1:1 animation. Some of your favourite games from back in the day likely still look as perfect as the day you met in your head, but dig it out and you may start to notice the crease of wrinkles and the sag of skin. (This personification bit is going a tad awry.) modders have you covered, however, with all the tools you need to spruce your game back up and have it looking good as new.

There are many examples of beautification projects in the modding community, such as the aforementioned retextures that one might find in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls world. This is when modders extract texture files and either do-them-up or just straight replace them with their own maps. Then there are lighting mods, volumetric mixers and texture blenders that all work together to blur the seams of the world to be imperceptible. ENB's bring all of these together to overhaul the visual atmosphere of your entire game world. And no, I don't know what 'ENB' stands for. (Best guess from me is 'Enhanced Natural Beauty')

Then there are the mods that bring something wholly unique and new to the game. Folk like me love the escapism of our favourite games so much that we never want the adventure to end, and with content mods it never has to. Modders have been adding new quests, lands and game modes to games ever since the days of Half Life and these are the types of mods that I personally live for. I find nothing more exciting then traversing back to familiar lands and finding things different, it's a new unknowable adventure every time.

There are countless dozens of examples of situations where modders have changed the fabric of a game with their content. I already mentioned Half Life and the slew of mods which comes from that  (One of which became a game of some reknown called: Counter Strike.) DOOM has it's several comprehensive level mods that put the Marine in whole new maps against hoards of monsters. Then there are total conversion mods like Oblivion's 'Nehrim', which uses the base game as a platform to tell a wholly original story in a modder crafted world. There are truly no limits to this kind of creativity.

Modding is one of those elements that I think best encapsulates passion that the gaming community inspires, a passion that few other communities do. How many pieces of art drive people to, not just take up the craft themselves, but actively modify that piece of art to make it their own? You find the odd dedicated fanbase who'll seek to re-edit movies (Like the famous Phantom Edit for the Star Wars Prequels), but nothing that rivals the sheer size and creativity of the modding community. I have dabbled in small, personal mods and I thus I can attest to the amount of love it takes to infuse some part of yourself into someone else's project. It's what transforms games from products into communities, and I look forward to see how it will evolve once it starts taking further root into the general gaming populace. Perhaps we'll start to see that next generation.