So, About Shogun 2's Moddability.........

[Zipzopdippidybopbop]

What the title says. CA, you have a chance to redeem yourself in the eyes of the TW community.

I know that you are trying the policy of *no mods = DLC = profit* but what you dont understand is that by cutting down on moddability you in fact lose out. I dont remember what vanilla RTW or MTW2 is like, because great mods like Roma Surrectum and Stainless Steel keep these older games fresh and exciting! In the long term, by opening up the upcoming game for moddability you in fact increase long term profits.

And sell your DLC, we will still buy it, as long as you pull the wool from your ears and see what the die hard fanbase is asking. A good example of a gaming company that sells games well and encourages mods would be Bethesda Softworks. Their works on Oblivion and Fallout 3 are outstanding, and the modding tools are spot on (I myself have modded Oblivion beyond all recognition). A good example of a gaming company that has recently suffered a drop in sales due to ignorance and lies would be the Creative Assembly. Where are the modding tools? Where is the NTW unit editor? And where is my full release of ETW?

I sincerely hope my questions are not falling down on deaf ears, as I know that CA staff prowl this site. So hear my plea, and turn from this dark path you seem set on following. Dont make the same mistakes with Shogun 2 as you have with ETW and NTW. This is your chance, dont make a balls up of it!

PS - anyone got any thoughts? Any suggestions or constructive criticism is welcome.

EDIT - im not implying that CA are scheming behind modders backs in a Legion of Doom setting, im implying that CA have given us empty promises and given us no help regarding modding whatsoever.

[.Mitch.]

1. I would like to see them make a new game moddable.. It wont happen.
2. I wish people like you would stop telling a multi-million dollar company running for 10 years how to do business. Seriously you think you know how to make more money than them ?!?!!? WRONG.

[Zipzopdippidybopbop]

1. I would like to see them make a new game moddable.. It wont happen.
2. I wish people like you would stop telling a multi-million dollar company running for 10 years how to do business. Seriously you think you know how to make more money than them ?!?!!? WRONG.

Well whoever they got trying to make them money is seriously making a balls up of it now arent they?

And this is what the thread is all about, hoping that CA see enough of this to finally act.

[Geleco]

Well whoever they got trying to make them money is seriously making a balls up of it now arent they?

And this is what the thread is all about, hoping that CA see enough of this to finally act.

1. Do you even know how much money CA makes?

2. The people you see complaining about N:TW and E:TW are mostly the hardcore, TWcenter/Org players. They don't make up a large enough profit for CA to even give two about them.

[Achilla]

There is no kind of anti-modding policy ... more like, lack of active support.

It turns out games like Rome and M2TW had mod-friendly structure out of coincidence, and all that CA did was release some documentation, not 100% willingly. ETW/NTW were nice to 'mod' from game designer perspective when you have the tools, however for modders without professional tools it is a nightmare, with a dozen things completely locked, as nobody knows how to change them efficiently.

They'd have to design future game with modding in mind since the pre-production stage, at the moment when the entire decision-making on the internal design goes. Clearly, releasing their professional tools was too much, and they didn't live up to their initial promise of bringing mod tools for the Empire.

The games get more and more complex, it already turned out that we can no longer efficiently mod majority of the game with simple text editors ... if they don't want to actively support us, instead of passively watching, modding will die and that's a fact.

[Zipzopdippidybopbop]

1. Do you even know how much money CA makes?

2. The people you see complaining about N:TW and E:TW are mostly the hardcore, TWcenter/Org players. They don't make up a large enough profit for CA to even give two about them.

Well, stats show that NTW was a flop in sales compared to previous sales.... I wonder why?

And once again, look at companies which encourage modding - this makes a replayability factor, unlike NTW which is a one day wonder in comparison to SS6.2 - in fact im playing as the Byzzies on SS at the moment!

[CamilleBonparte]

Let us create Lord of the Rings and mythology mods for this game and I will buy everything you release.

[Recon5000]

Completely agree with you Emperor Xenophon. the only games that I keep installed on my computer is from the total War series and Bethesda Softworks Elder Scroll series (including fallout 3). I install mods and mod a little for both of these titles and it amazes me the quality of work these moders release, but it is unfortunate that my two favorite companies have different stances towards modding.

Bethesda Softworks with its encouragement and modding tools has produced a massive modding community that will stun and awe any fan. the Total War community produces great work too but has unfortunately with Empire not been let to its full potential because of the difficultly CA has made modding it... I might buy the DLC if i was still playing Empire like I am still playing Medieval 2 and Rome.

[Nanook1]

Imagine if some other company like Valve made the Total War games... Instant ability to mod.

[Recon5000]

Valve is a very good example of a company that listens to their community, how they give some free DLC for their games says it all.

[Clodius]

I know that you are trying the policy of *no mods = DLC = profit* but what you dont understand is that by cutting down on moddability you in fact lose out. I dont remember what vanilla RTW or MTW2 is like, because great mods like Roma Surrectum and Stainless Steel keep these older games fresh and exciting! In the long term, by opening up the upcoming game for moddability you in fact increase long term profits.

You've perfectly highlighted what for them is the key problem and are misunderstanding completely that what to us was a feature is to them a business model-destroying bug.

All commercially-produced video games require an element of built in obsolescence - how important that element is depends on the owner's business model.

When CA were an independent company producing a new TW game every couple of years they were quite happy to have people buy the game and then spend the next two years playing modded versions as this maintained interest in and loyalty to their brand during the long hiatus-period when they had no new product - and they didn't care whether anyone was buying any other games as well because they had market dominance in their own little niche.

CA are now just a division of Sega are a $multi-billion multinational corporation who market a whole stable of games across multiple genres and platforms.

To their almighty marketing department the idea of anyone modding and playing a single game (which is pretty much what I've been doing with the iterations of TW since 2000) for years on end is literally anathema - their whole business model requires you to buy, play for a few weeks (or at most months), get bored and buy another game.

And that is that - the age of easily moddable games is now largely over (except perhaps for a couple of relatively smaller companies like Bethesda who operate a different business model with much longer gaps between major releases).

You want to bring it back? Find a few hundred million dollars, make Sega an offer they can't refuse and take CA private again.

Nothing else except perhaps the development of some infinitely moddable open source platform for gaming will make any difference.

Certainly telling them endlessly that they with their marketing degrees, MBAs and six or seven figure salaries are wrong while we sad obsessive-complusive gamer-geeks are right will have no effect whatsoever.

[Gen. Uziel]

The thing is Valve is getting steam sales money... It means that they can take a different approach on the games business. Looking at CA and having TW games as their cornerstone, I doubt they'll change their policy with Shogun.

But if they do, + rep for everyone there.

[♔Mandelus♔]

Well ....

again the same fairy tales about DLC = reason of restricted modding. This is not true, because you can still do the same with modding what is mostly given until now as DLC: Unit Addon's!
So there can't be anything a competition to DLC or a reason of something when still possible to do.

However, this time, as I told many times, my decision is clear: If again the same way in sum restricted in modding as in ETW and NTW = I will not buy this game.
Also i must not do because it is a TW game and I must have it. No, I have still fun with ETW + DMUC and to be honest, I like gunpowder area much more and my passion is beside this more the ancient area of Rome. Also comes out Patrician 4 next and I will buy this too, because I played Patrican 2 (3 was the foreign version of 2 in several non german languages, silly system) many years!

[MathiasOfAthens]

Not going to happen mate.

Games without modding support do not create a fanbase that will stay with the game after the next title has come out. For example: If ETW had modding support and there were several unique mods coming out for it, maybe even one for Asia or Shogun, well how many people would then purchase Shogun II when it did come out.

[Juggernaut]

For example: If ETW had modding support and there were several unique mods coming out for it, maybe even one for Asia or Shogun, well how many people would then purchase Shogun II when it did come out.

RTW had Chivalry TW. That didn't stop people from buying M2TW.

[Hobbes]

1. I wish people like you would stop telling a multi-million dollar company running for 10 years how to do business. Seriously you think you know how to make more money than them ?!?!!? WRONG.

There are other companies, which may be even bigger than the CA, and they support modding.
Bethesda has released powerful modding tools for Oblivion and Fallout 3
Firaxis likes their modding community they want to have sex with it. In the CIV V page they say unprecedented modding capabilities. They ing say that. Go in civfanatics and see how many mods there are. They even inculded fan made mods in their expansins for Civ IV.
Bioware released some cool toolsets for NWN and NWN2.
Valve has released map making tools for HL and HL2.
Far Cry has a SDK as well.
So does Command and Conquer.

So, do you think that these companies are stupid? Firaxis doesn't know how to make money? Valve doesn't know how to make money?

There are also free content delivery tools available that make playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates and setting up the mods so that non-technical people can play. Steam for Half life 2 mods is an example.

From wikipedia. CA seems to like steam and Steam seems to like mods.

Empire Total War sales: 810.000
Civilization IV sales: 3.000.000
Half Life 2 sales: Over 6.500.000
Oblivion: Over 3.000.000

Talk about million making companies...
CA is a dwarf compared to these guys...

[♔Mandelus♔]

The really only point where modding was a competition to the game was and is until now in my eyes NTW. When ETW was announced, people still talked seriously about modding a NTW thing and also we have a NTW Mod with RTW base still. So it is clear that this Mod was a competition to NTW, no doubt.

On the other hand, no Mod is normally a competition, because to play a Mod you have to buy first the basic game, eh?

[Clodius]

Well if Shogun2 is closely modelled on Shogun1 in terms of factions, units, generals and provinces (and the mention of 8 factions rather suggests it is) then I wouldn't feel the compulsive need to mod it that I had with the MTWs and RTW as it should not have the huge problems with historical accuracy and balance that these had.

In fact IIRC I never even played a Shogun1 mod I was so happy with the vanilla version (hell I even liked the Legendary Geisha as having to race against time to destroy her faction before she killed all my faction heirs added a new level of challenge to what would otherwise have been a foregone conclusion campaign).

So assuming Sega lets CA release a complete game and not a hopelessly bugged beta version I will buy it even without mod tools - just as I bought NTW.

[Heathen Hammer]

There are plenty of well-respected and huge companies, who produce easily moddable games. The path of "screw our fans, they'll buy our crap anyway" is only short-term successfull. Because at some point people, including hardcore fans, will lose their interest to the TW series, because friendliness to customers is an important issue.
Shogun 2 is CA's last chance not to lose respect of the fans - in many cases it IS an important factor.

[MaximiIian]

I honestly don't care if it's moddable. I never fiddled with mods except for RTW, and that was because vanilla RTW was borderline unplayable.

As long as it allows me to do a money cheat, I'm golden.

PS) You know, if CA had made games that didn't need modding, we wouldn't have such a vibrant and successful modding community. Think about THAT!