1y ago

Starfield group fixing Bethesda's bugs say their job is tough as mods feel an afterthought

www.eurogamer.net Starfield group fixing Bethesda's bugs say their job is tough as mods feel an afterthought

Two months on from the release of Starfield, players are still waiting for Bethesda to address the numerous bugs which …

"What's more frustrating for those working on SCP, and the wider Starfield modding community, is how difficult it is to work with Starfield's code without official modding tools and support. This isn't helped by the delayed mod tools from Bethesda, which the company says are coming at some point next year."

Games @sh.itjust.works

Starfield group fixing Bethesda's bugs say their job is tough as mods feel an afterthought

www.eurogamer.net /starfield-group-fixing-bethesdas-bugs-say-their-job-is-tough-as-mods-feel-an-afterthought

69 12

52 comments

feel an afterthought
It's not a feeling, it is an afterthought
- Which is weird when you think about how dependent Bethesda is on the Modding Community.
  
  I see so many people excusing Bethesda's poor design choices and lack of content by saying mods will fix them.
  That may be true, but the publisher making hundreds of millions shouldn't be offloading their work onto the free labor of the community.
  
  It always impresses me how seemingly every corporation adopts this mindset of not needing the "little guy" to function. Like their company isn't made up of "little guys" that produce their given product.
  
  Honestly Bethesda games are just a modding sandbox for me. I've played hundreds of hours of Skyrim and I'm not sure I've ever finished the main quest. I know I've never taken a side in the civil war. The built in story and quests are important but my fun comes from downloading mods and just roaming like a wandering monk doing whatever quests I run into. Sometimes OP, other times with immersive mods or alternative perks or spells.
  I'm probably not a typical gamer as I've had hundreds on hours into BG3 and only made it to act 3 once so far and have yet to finish any of my runs before I decide to have a relationship with someone different or try a durge run, or evil, or realized I forgot to resolve some quest that is now closed. I'm not sure how long a full run is maybe 100 hours? But it's a lot to invest before I get bored and want to try something new.
  I also have a need to collect all the gimmicky items even when I know I have or will get much better stuff for the slot. I play Bethesda games the same way. Gotta run over and collect the book of arcane bow if I'm going to be an archer...
  Anyway, mods are a core part of the deal for me. They should prioritize them more.

Have you ever considered not working for a giant corporation to fix their products for them for free?
- I partially agree, but I assume these people get a decent amount of donations. There's a reason they keep coming back for each game. That said, Bethesda should be the ones paying them.

Wouldn't be surprised if mod tools never come at all.
If there's one thing I learned, it's that gaming companies will promise you anything to get on your good side. Take statements like these with the biggest grain of salt.
- They'll definitely release the CK.
  But it's not for the benefit of modders anymore. It's because of how they can monetize them like they did with Skyrim and Fallout's "Creation Club".
  Get modders to make what's essentially some minor DLC for you and offer it at a "small price" or with a "Special Edition upgrade" while those same modders are actually making waaaaay better mods and releasing them for free on Nexus or wherever (this is basically the state of Skyrim AE; some very notable modders did some cool stuff for CC, but their other mods were way fucking beyond those in terms of quality).
  
  I would argue the mods they don't directly make money from still increases their profits. People aren't still playing Skyrim for the Creation Club content, which is pretty much all garbage and actually makes the game worse.
- True but Bugthesda has got to know that mods and modders are the backbone of the longevity of their games by now, right? Without mods their games tend to be unplayable.
  
  If that was the case, how have they been so successful on consoles?

I sunk about 50 hours in but have decided to wait for mods to make the game more as it should have been like I did with Cyberpunk though CDPR at least fixed it themselves without relying on the modders.
- 3 years later. Starfield's been out for two months.
  
  I waited until CP 2.0 to play it. I can wait for SF 2.0 to play it. I am not a unicorn in this regard.
  
  A valid point but I played about the same amount of CP then waited til it was all done three years later before doing another, much more thorough and patient playthrough. Have done a similar thing here and will wait a fair amount of time before diving back in.

Lol, I love how they can't mention it in the article, but freeing the main bugfixing patch from Arthmoor's grasp is probably a bigger accomplishment than the patch itself.

If I had the slightest idea how to write mods I'd probably go ahead and add some space ships to Skyrim instead.
- Without the space it'd be just a 'ship'
  
  A NASA shuttle is still a space ship in the hangar
  
  airships?
  
  I mean there is plenty of space... Not airless space... But plenty of sky or fields to fly that beast.
  
  Oooh, pirates!

They should just wait until the tools are available tbh. Why bash their heads against the wall and waste all that time?
- This was my thought. Bethesda games are considered great because of the modability. Until the tools are released it seems like a hassle to do anything more than simple. Especially knowing that it will just be replaced when the tools come out.
  
  Plus you can spend the time roadmapping it/playing vanilla and really dial in what you want to do.

52 comments