Does this mean that games cant be moddable?

[Bloodwork]

A modder's version of the Unreal Editor could for instance only create exportable blueprints, but not actually compile a game.
That blueprint could then be imported by a moddable game. The blueprint could contain just a model, just some code, or any combination.

This wouldn't be very different from KSP modding in Unity. To create a model you fire up Unity to import an fbx/blend file, place it in a hierarchy, and export it to a custom file format through tools provided by the KSP devs.
You never actually run the game in Unity yourself, just use some of the tools in that editor.

At least one reasonable sugestion in this thread. Modders don`t need C++ source code, they need simple tools to add/modify content. That means a relatively simple scripting language and 3D model import. Blueprint for that seems very appropriate. Add some kind of simplified level editor on top of that and you have the right recipe for a great modding community.

[ambershee]

Yeah, we have no intention of distributing the C++ side to our game, as the vast majority of gameplay implementation would be handled using Blueprintable entities - our level generators and game objects are blueprints. The trouble is, that this means that the most effective way to allow 3rd party extension is to allow people access to create new blueprints, which would require a part of the editor to be included with the game. Implementing a scripting language on top of an existing scripting language (Blueprint) seems quite silly, and largely a waste of time when we just want to build a game.

I can easily other game wanting people to be able to map for them, so they would want to include a fairly complete working editor.

Let's keep an open mind as we go into this. For moddable games, I see great benefits to keeping the overall development community together with a common base of experience, common asset Marketplace, and common GitHub branching structure.

We can't predict exactly how this will play out, but our experience with triple-A licensees is that everyone benefits by integrating with the mainline code regularly rather than diverging. For games that grow and are extended over time, you're getting the benefit of 100+ programmers improving the Unreal Engine with each release.

Sadly this isn't realistic. I don't know any AAA game that would continue to integrate changes post release (except perhaps taking specific changelists to fix important engine issues). Most developers will keep taking changes during early development, but then stick to a particular build as they get closer to shipping the title and only take critical changes. At Microsoft, we made significant changes to the engine, particularly the renderer and when a new build came around it would take a dedicated engineer about a week to integrate the changes in the new build into our own project. Each new build we took would introduce new issues and instabilities that needed dedicated fixing time, as you would expect.

In our case, we have neither the means nor the willingness to continually integrate changes post-release. I want to release a stable product mid-2015 and I expect the last build we'll take and migrate to would be late this year. We cannot keep integrating new changes after that date - what if you change the a core system such as the lighting in 2018? Are we expected to go back and make significant changes to our three year old product just to keep our game accessible to modders?

The reality is that Epic's engine version and our own will increasingly diverge and become increasingly incompatible over time. Epic's tools, and content on the marketplace will become incompatible with our own game, so there is no benefit to us, or people wanting to mod our game for us to have access to things like the marketplace.

[Lord Iheanacho]

D@mn... No offense Tim Sweeny, but I think this idea may actually chase away modders than help them (unless they make their own game instead).

I promised my fanbase I would provide them user mod content support (obviously free of charge), but seeing they too have to pay the monthly subscription just to mod my game? Hell, they might as well just go ahead and make their own game entirely, since it kind of defeats the purpose of modding existing games if they are going to have the full access to making a full-fledged game at their disposal.
No way in hell will my fans want to do this just for modding, especially for a game such as this one:

http://www.indiedb.com/games/army-men-3

*sigh* Back to struggling with UDK I guess...

[RikimaruKF]

When it's all said and done, at the end of the day I guess it's really up to the provider of the software. That being said, yes it does suck that there is no clear, EASY way to provide a mod friendly experience for the users of the product, without having to pay money, or sweat blood trying to compile a second language, on top of the blueprint language.

I agree that this is not ideal for a majority of us who would wish to allow our users to make mods with ease, however I suppose we'll have to respect the decision of those @ Epic. If they find a way to integrate a non-subscription, mod friendly environment, (perhaps a 'lite' version of the engine, that doesn't have access to the marketplace, and can only be used when opening it with a project that communicates with project [kind of like an ID card] that's being modded). If that doesn't make sense, I'll try to explain myself again - I'm kind of bad at explanations.

[fred64]

I know this is an old thread, but very interesting one. I think that the engine has evolved so much in the last 3 months (wow 3 months only...) we can now have better answers, this is why I am resuscitating it ...

I am trying to figure out moddability for my project but would like to have some guidelines from Unreal or more expert community members.

I see modding at 4 levels:
1. modding text / ini files per actor or component to change game behaviour (think about a vehicle game where parameters are adjusted by users)

2. creating meshes for a game (static/skeletal) to be loaded by an actor at runtime

3. creating new levels (I believe you will need the editor for that anyway)

4. Actually scripting the game in some form of language (LUA, Javascript)

I think that a common method/set of guidelines for modding UE4 bases games could have a huge benefit for anyone following the forementioned guidelines as we could use a common set of tutorials to mod several games, as long as they are UE4 based.

It would also make a very interesting Twitch topic....


Thanks in advance
Fred

[PadaVinson]

What if you want the guys making mods for you to be able to earn revenue for their mods?

[darthviper107]

What if indeed

[Hyperloop]

Would allowing end users the ability to edit textures/add new meshes via some for of config that doesn't allow them access to the source code or EU4 tool violate the EULA? I'm thinking of minecraft as an example - it's easy for end users to create a texture pack simply by placing the right resources in the correct folder.

[S0T0]

Would allowing end users the ability to edit textures/add new meshes via some for of config that doesn't allow them access to the source code or EU4 tool violate the EULA? I'm thinking of minecraft as an example - it's easy for end users to create a texture pack simply by placing the right resources in the correct folder.

The adding new meshes would be iffy but the texture editing would be fine if you're loading it externally.

[Anthony]

The problem with restricting modding to textures and data only pretty much guarantees a short lifespan for the game being modded, at least in terms of player community. The more moddable a game is, the longer people will play it. I think in most cases, if we want to support modding in our games, we're going to have to come up with our own ways of enabling it, such as providing custom, external level editors.

If what i've seen in another thread is any indication, we'll be getting .Lua scripting eventually, so that should make it easier, though i prefer to work with .xmls, though i'm not really sure how to use them in the engine,

[Tim Sweeney]

What if you want the guys making mods for you to be able to earn revenue for their mods?

This is allowed under the UE4 EULA.

Either you can sell their mods with their permission (and you pay the 5% royalty due on your revenue), or you can allow them to sell their mods directly under the UE4 EULA governing their use of Epic's code/tools (which requires them to pay the 5% royalty).

Does that make sense? We're really excited about the prospect of moddable UE4 games and want to make this scenario as practical as possible.

[Marenz]

This is allowed under the UE4 EULA.

Either you can sell their mods with their permission (and you pay the 5% royalty due on your revenue), or you can allow them to sell their mods directly under the UE4 EULA governing their use of Epic's code/tools (which requires them to pay the 5% royalty).

Does that make sense? We're really excited about the prospect of moddable UE4 games and want to make this scenario as practical as possible.

Well, it would be nice if you would address some of the concerns that people mentioned earlier

• What if we don't want to give source level access? Is it possible to provide just enough headerfiles so they can compile their mod as a .dll/.so and it can be loaded at runtime?
• The concern mentioned earlier of having to keep updating a released product just to stay mod-able with the current EPIC marketplace
• I think many people start modding by simply playing around with what they find. Any barrier to this, no matter how small (20$ subscription, an extra download, etc) will prevent this precious starting point for many potential modders.

It is particular painful that the editor can't be made accessible. Thinking back to UE3, UT2004 times, that was the mod tool no. 1. and made it very easy to start.
If users can mod our game only with source code access + epic license + editor... I think I would need to recreate a map editor.. meaning loads of work and probably never as powerful as the actual editor..

[zeOrb]

Well, it would be nice if you would address some of the concerns that people mentioned earlier

• What if we don't want to give source level access? Is it possible to provide just enough headerfiles so they can compile their mod as a .dll/.so and it can be loaded at runtime?
• The concern mentioned earlier of having to keep updating a released product just to stay mod-able with the current EPIC marketplace
• I think many people start modding by simply playing around with what they find. Any barrier to this, no matter how small (20$ subscription, an extra download, etc) will prevent this precious starting point for many potential modders.

It is particular painful that the editor can't be made accessible. Thinking back to UE3, UT2004 times, that was the mod tool no. 1. and made it very easy to start.
If users can mod our game only with source code access + epic license + editor... I think I would need to recreate a map editor.. meaning loads of work and probably never as powerful as the actual editor..

I'm understand correctly, that you don't want to give modders full access to your game files , but you want to give them full access to UE4 editor completely free?

[Marenz]

I'm understand correctly, that you don't want to give modders full access to your game files , but you want to give them full access to UE4 editor completely free?

I want to enable them to make new maps for which you need the editor. Not necessarily full access though. They don't need any source code level access at all. Not sure how that works together with blue prints.

[HeadClot]

Just curious -

Would it be allowed to redistribute our asset and blueprint files for modding under a open source license or custom license?

Further more - Would Unreal Engine 4 be able to load modified versions of these files at run time or at start up?

- HeadClot