Is it strictly a developer decision to allow thier games to be moddable or not ? And how is it achieved ? Are moddable games “coded” differently than non-moddable games ?
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Moddable games usually have an intermediate scripting language in which the scenarios and behaviors are expressed. It is relatively easy to manipulate and learn through trial and error compared to compiled low level machine code that might also have copy-protection. The script operates on concepts that are closer to what then player sees, such as “move character to these coordinates”, rather than “load value into register A from a memory address”, “multiply it by register B”.
Developers of moddable games may have themselves released annotated examples of parts of their assets, as well as specifications for some internal formats. Games that are not moddable might employ protections to deter hacking, such as checksums and encryption. This could be done because the company wants to profit from selling new content for real money.
Moddable games usually have an intermediate scripting language in which the scenarios and behaviors are expressed. It is relatively easy to manipulate and learn through trial and error compared to compiled low level machine code that might also have copy-protection. The script operates on concepts that are closer to what then player sees, such as “move character to these coordinates”, rather than “load value into register A from a memory address”, “multiply it by register B”.
Developers of moddable games may have themselves released annotated examples of parts of their assets, as well as specifications for some internal formats. Games that are not moddable might employ protections to deter hacking, such as checksums and encryption. This could be done because the company wants to profit from selling new content for real money.
It’s like that because if the game is offline – all game files are located on your PC and you are free to change them as you wish.
When the game is multi-player, it requires it to communicate with the server, which you don’t have access to.
Yes, it’s a developer decision if a game is easy to mod or not. Modding is just editing game files. How easy that is for a user is up to developers. They can make the code harder to interact with or not. Sometimes though it requires extra effort to make a game in a way that’s easy to mod, which is why devs don’t always do it.
Another thing though that can massively decide how easy a game is to mod is modding tools. Official tools make modding games much much easier, but again it’s up to the devs whether to release those tools.
Again though, this is often extra work as the official tools they use to create the game are proprietary and can’t be released, so they have to make custom watered down versions to release for modders.
It’s like that because if the game is offline – all game files are located on your PC and you are free to change them as you wish.
When the game is multi-player, it requires it to communicate with the server, which you don’t have access to.
It’s like that because if the game is offline – all game files are located on your PC and you are free to change them as you wish.
When the game is multi-player, it requires it to communicate with the server, which you don’t have access to.
Yes, it’s a developer decision if a game is easy to mod or not. Modding is just editing game files. How easy that is for a user is up to developers. They can make the code harder to interact with or not. Sometimes though it requires extra effort to make a game in a way that’s easy to mod, which is why devs don’t always do it.
Another thing though that can massively decide how easy a game is to mod is modding tools. Official tools make modding games much much easier, but again it’s up to the devs whether to release those tools.
Again though, this is often extra work as the official tools they use to create the game are proprietary and can’t be released, so they have to make custom watered down versions to release for modders.
I assume you’re thinking of games like Skyrim. In which case you should know that Bethesda literally provides the modding tools to players and fully supports modding their games. That’s been a thing since Morrowind, and it’s confirmed for Starfield too.
For games where the devs don’t officially support it, which is most games, it depends on:
1. How locked down the games are. As in, things like the encryption used on the files. You need to be able to edit them and still have the game work.
2. How big of a community there is trying to mod it. Stuff like GTA has a lot of mods because of the huge community wanting to mod it.
Ubisoft games are pretty well locked down, which is why there are so few Assassin’s Creed mods, because it’s just too hard to do, despite the large community.
Moddable games usually have an intermediate scripting language in which the scenarios and behaviors are expressed. It is relatively easy to manipulate and learn through trial and error compared to compiled low level machine code that might also have copy-protection. The script operates on concepts that are closer to what then player sees, such as “move character to these coordinates”, rather than “load value into register A from a memory address”, “multiply it by register B”.
Developers of moddable games may have themselves released annotated examples of parts of their assets, as well as specifications for some internal formats. Games that are not moddable might employ protections to deter hacking, such as checksums and encryption. This could be done because the company wants to profit from selling new content for real money.
I assume you’re thinking of games like Skyrim. In which case you should know that Bethesda literally provides the modding tools to players and fully supports modding their games. That’s been a thing since Morrowind, and it’s confirmed for Starfield too.
For games where the devs don’t officially support it, which is most games, it depends on:
1. How locked down the games are. As in, things like the encryption used on the files. You need to be able to edit them and still have the game work.
2. How big of a community there is trying to mod it. Stuff like GTA has a lot of mods because of the huge community wanting to mod it.
Ubisoft games are pretty well locked down, which is why there are so few Assassin’s Creed mods, because it’s just too hard to do, despite the large community.
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