The Modding Community : taking a page out of the Elder Scrolls


Pathfinder Online

Goblin Squad Member

Now, one of the strengths of the Elder Scrolls game is how easy, and prolific, Mods are for the games.

The purpose of this discussion thread is to argue the Pros and Cons of Goblinworks having 'events' every few months where people with the correct talents to create new skins/items for armor, weapons, creatures and even player races can send in their contributions, and Goblinworks organises a voting system with the contributions that they believe will work within the game, and turn down the rest.

The Pros ....

For almost no work on their part, Goblinworks gets access to some very talented people doing 'spot' work for them, and they get their Player-Base to vote for what they want, which helps the company tweak the game to be more fun for that Player-Base.

The Winners not only get bragging points for the new items/skins/meshes that appear in the game, but it also puts their name out in the market in game designing and related areas of expertise, helping them get a foot in the door, as it were, to job opportunities and expanding their portfolios.

The Players are getting new and updated content that they have voted for, and relatively little expenditure on behalf of Goblinworks ensures that more resources can remain devoted to the game's running costs.

Now, the Cons ....

This means people will have at least partial access to the source code of the game, meaning that abusive and/or 'cheating' Mods will become easier to create/find/use.

Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, none of these games are MMOs. So you can be a Half-Dragon Spellsword with a nudity addon and Alduin's younger brother as your companion, and nobody cares.

You take that into an MMO ... people are gonna get pissed. So that means that more resources are being spent on this 'cold war' between the Hackers and the Cheaters, who have been effectively 'given' free reign to do their thing because the 'code' is readily available.

And most of them will see nothing wrong with this. Talk to people who regularly pirate games and you'll run into the same mentality, "I want it, but I don't want to have to pay for it because it's too expensive!", and when told the price of the games is so high because of piracy, they will then respond with "Well then, they should lower the price then!"


Personally I am fine with players creating new skins and submitting them for competitions or new item models.

As to modding I vote a strong no. This is an mmo not a single player or small multiplayer coop game. If a majority vote for a mod you hate you don't have the opportunity to just log onto a server that doesn't use that mod.

Also the threat from hacks and cheats is a huge problem for mmo's. A single exploit can easily bring a game to its knees. For reference just look at the recent Neverwinter exploit.

Goblin Squad Member

Yes, and Goblinworks has stated that they're leery of the 'Running Battles' with the Hackers, because it's impossible for the Game Developers/Designers/Companies to ever 'win'. There will always be a coding hole or loophole that will allow somebody to 'game' the system and either cause a collapse or griefing that can damage the image of the game and company(companies) behind them.

Goblin Squad Member

There will always be potential for compromised security whether allowing mods or not. The came could garner significant advantage for exceedingly modest outlay while reaping the product of real talent. The real talent has opportunity to publish, to share their creations. I stand on the side of Art with a capital A.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

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Generating models and meshes requires no compromising access to the game code; is the suggestion to open something like the TF2 hat store, where user-submitted models/meshes are made available and the creators get some kind of recognition or payment proportional to the number of purchases of their work?

Goblin Squad Member

I'm just thinking of the potential for mischief. Would people be able to run their models and meshes on PFO before the models were approved for general use? Could someone make all of the foliage in a forest transparent to make it easier to spot their enemy?

Goblin Squad Member

We do have some Unity coders in the forum but it is most likely a question only our developers will really have a handle on since there is more involved than straight Unity.

Goblin Squad Member

Urman wrote:
I'm just thinking of the potential for mischief. Would people be able to run their models and meshes on PFO before the models were approved for general use? Could someone make all of the foliage in a forest transparent to make it easier to spot their enemy?

That rolls into the inevitably going to happen anyway category. see 500 stealth and/or darkness topics etc... If 10% of a characters right toe is possible to see, you can assume the ability to target and if line of sight rules count for the person to shoot, the person will be just as easy to attack as otherwise.

Goblin Squad Member

Urman wrote:
Would people be able to run their models and meshes on PFO before the models were approved for general use?

Unless the devs are signing the texture files (or something similar), then it will be possible to replace them with your own if you can figure out how. I don't really see any problem with that since it would only affect you.

Urman wrote:
Could someone make all of the foliage in a forest transparent to make it easier to spot their enemy?

You can generally already do this in any game through the normal video options - not by making it transparent, but by reducing the foliage slider to zero. They really need to allow that in order to allow players with crappy video cards to still play the game.

Goblin Squad Member

I'm not talking an in-game slider. I'm talking making trees basically invisible. I should have said vegetation rather than foliage, I guess.

In one game I played, some players figured out they could make the trees really small, so they didn't obscure visibility at all. It provided a significant advantage in PvP. (Eventually the devs found out about it and did something to the launcher to inspect the player's files and report the use of such cheats. Players were banned. There was much wailing.)

I'd think people modifying textures might be affecting others when their mods results in any game advantage. Is it easier for me in PvE if all goblins are bright red? Or in PvP if town guards are highlighted? Or in the production game if gathering nodes are more obvious? I hope GW will sign off on all mods before they were used in the game servers.

Goblin Squad Member

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Urman wrote:
... some players figured out they could make the trees really small, so they didn't obscure visibility at all.

This is the main reason I would prefer the game mechanics directly handle stealth and detection. Ideally, my client wouldn't even know about you unless the game mechanics had already determined I was able to detect you.

Shadow Lodge Goblin Squad Member

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I like the idea of there being a sort of RPG Superstar style regular contest to design new content for the game.

That would be pretty cool. Perhaps runners up in RPG Superstar could design new content for PFO?

Goblin Squad Member

while I like mods (from playing WoW), im not convinced that PfO should have them. The reason is that mods can make a BIG difference. So what you get are players at a disadvantage because they didnt use the latest mod or because they arnt good enough to create one.

However i think that the skin idea is 1000000% correct. Allow players to submit skins for various things in the game. They are reviewed and then touched up and put into the game. Give them 30 days of training for free and a small art credit for the game.

Goblin Squad Member

leperkhaun wrote:
while I like mods (from playing WoW), im not convinced that PfO should have them. The reason is that mods can make a BIG difference. So what you get are players at a disadvantage because they didnt use the latest mod or because they arnt good enough to create one.

That was my concern, but if Goblinworks was the sole arbiter of what could be used as a 'Mod', then that helps cut down on the problem, but for one reason or another, a number of players might reject using a specific mod and become unbalanced from the rest of the community, which can become a very big problem over time.

leperkhaun wrote:
However i think that the skin idea is 1000000% correct. Allow players to submit skins for various things in the game. They are reviewed and then touched up and put into the game. Give them 30 days of training for free and a small art credit for the game.

This is, I think, the best way we can support Goblinworks, Paizo and Pathfinder Online. Talented players who HAVE these skills can provide new skins and items to Goblinworks and Paizo, who can veto or tweak the new 'content' as they see fit, and the winners gain something for their efforts, either Goblin Balls, Skymetal Tokens or something unique, something that's not powerful In-Game but is otherwise a status-symbol for other players to look at and gush over.

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