Why do devs wait so long to release mod tools?

[loregamer]

I always found it odd that Bethesda and other companies wait months, or perhaps even years, to release modding tools. Bethesda in particular should make releasing their game with Creation Kit priority numero uno.

One instance of devs totally flopping was Warhorse with Kingdom Come Deliverance. They waited 4 years to finally release the Official Kingdom Come Deliverance Modding Tools. That modding toolkit is super robust and you can do anything. But did anyone use it? Nope, LOL. Because they waited too long to release it. A total flop

Even Oblivion doesn't have a Creation Kit available yet months later. That is a huge fumble, in my opinion. If I were a gamedev, I'd want day 1 to be when people start modding so my lazy *** can let the modtroons start patching stuff. You guys agree?

[Lancaster]

WotC really pushed hard to limit what you could do with BG3 modding tools.

[logincrash]

Because all devs are ******* (in both the "homosexual" and "annoying" senses of the word).

[Tweed]

Morrowind shipped with the construction kit on its own CD.

[Oyster Sauce]

They hate video games

[J1M]

Seems to be a mix of being ashamed of the rough edges on the tooling and lack of funding to release something that "makes no money".

[stormvermin]

They don't want you having too much fun, lest they risk a situation where players enjoy modding <old game> forever instead of purchasing <new game>.

[Cedric]

Well, modders are proto-***** **** and pissing them off is its own reward. I liken someone modifying your game a little bit akin to someone molesting your daughter.

[rusty_shackleford]

a lot of internal tools barely function with lots of known quirks that they just work around instead of fixing because fixing it would take time away from working on doing things

[logincrash]

Well, modders are proto-***** **** and pissing them off is its own reward. I liken someone modifying your game a little bit akin to someone molesting your daughter.

Why are you selling your daughter then, you pimp?

[Cedric]

a lot of internal tools barely function with lots of known quirks that they just work around instead of fixing because fixing it would take time away from working on doing things

This is the actual reality, for you non-developers. Pretty much every internally-made tool made to make a game is hilariously rickety, hard to use and borderline dangerous.

Oh and usually they have no documentation either or it's scattered in 17 different places, most of which no longer work here.

Tidying this all up and making it usable to normies, and God forbid, explaining how to use it, would be a pain in the ***.

Now they could still release those, and sometimes they do. Just look at Arcanum or Grim Dawn.

[Cedric]

Well, modders are proto-***** **** and pissing them off is its own reward. I liken someone modifying your game a little bit akin to someone molesting your daughter.

Why are you selling your daughter then, you pimp?

Well, it's the Weimar Republic so I guess people want her to be a working girl.

[loregamer]

I liken someone modifying your game a little bit akin to someone molesting your daughter.

If that's true then I'm a full blown rapist

[ThulsaDoomer]

a lot of internal tools barely function with lots of known quirks that they just work around instead of fixing because fixing it would take time away from working on doing things

This is the actual reality, for you non-developers. Pretty much every internally-made tool made to make a game is hilariously rickety, hard to use and borderline dangerous.

Oh and usually they have no documentation either or it's scattered in 17 different places, most of which no longer work here.

Tidying this all up and making it usable to normies, and God forbid, explaining how to use it, would be a pain in the ***.

Now they could still release those, and sometimes they do. Just look at Arcanum or Grim Dawn.

You're acting as if the developers weren't equally ******** and barely knew how to use their own stuff. Bethesda used their construction/creation kits to make the games, and they were still broken and undocumented when the developers used them, let alone when they handed it out to the public. Skyrim's dialogue system, for example, had little to no documentation when the CK came out and if you actually look at its usage ingame, it's incredibly simplistic and has little room for inventive uses. A stark downgrade from even Morrowind.

Game developers just got ******* lazy and everything now revolves around profit or appeasing shareholders. Or in the case of indies, they are just using existing engines with their own tool kits, there's nothing to release.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

I think it is because developers nowadays use tools that they buy from other companies, not maid by themselves. They can't release other companies tools for free.

[loregamer]

If I were Bethesda, I would absolutely block the release the games until Creation Kit were ready to release as well, considering the massive amounts of people that solely play the game just as a sandbox for mods

[rusty_shackleford]

If I were Bethesda, I would absolutely block the release the games until Creation Kit were ready to release as well, considering the massive amounts of people that solely play the game just as a sandbox for mods

Console sales dominated all their games

[Breathe]

They don’t want everyone to know how incompetent they are.

[Rand]

Because they have morons worrying about "trade secrets" and imbeciles like Tim Sweeney that make modding Unreal Engine very difficult requiring special game designs to make it easy for end users (so most don't commit the effort for it).

AND console *******.

[Rand]

If I were Bethesda, I would absolutely block the release the games until Creation Kit were ready to release as well, considering the massive amounts of people that solely play the game just as a sandbox for mods

Console sales dominated all their games

Since Morrowind. Their last real RPG...

[Vaako]

My guess would be they want to wait until all dlcs have released so that people are that starved for content that they will buy the dlc before the modding tools come out. Or they just suck at planning and in putting these mod tools together.

[J1M]

I guess the other thing is that nowadays Unreal makes it a lot easier to obscure the game files and some suit that doesn't play games will find a reason to be scared about letting players touch them. UT2003 just handed you all of the assets and scripts to play around with.

[Tweed]

a lot of internal tools barely function with lots of known quirks that they just work around instead of fixing because fixing it would take time away from working on doing things

This is the actual reality, for you non-developers. Pretty much every internally-made tool made to make a game is hilariously rickety, hard to use and borderline dangerous.

Oh and usually they have no documentation either or it's scattered in 17 different places, most of which no longer work here.

Tidying this all up and making it usable to normies, and God forbid, explaining how to use it, would be a pain in the ***.

Now they could still release those, and sometimes they do. Just look at Arcanum or Grim Dawn.

When LG decided to release DROMED to the public they gave fair warning that it had no tutorials and an unfriendly manual because it was the real dev tool they'd used to make the game. In the end it was a fantastic idea though.

[loregamer]

When LG

Got confused since I read this as "When Loregamer"

[Rand]

Looking Glass, the makers of Thief and System Shock.

[rusty_shackleford]

When LG

Got confused since I read this as "When Loregamer"

larian games, the maker of baldur's gate 1 & 2

[Rand]

When LG

Got confused since I read this as "When Loregamer"

larian games, the maker of baldur's gate 1 & 2

Ignore Rusty here. He's off his meds or something again.
The editor called "dromed" is what Looking Glass used to make the Thief games. The real ones, anyway.