When I release the game, what tools can be released with it to modders? I’d definitely like the level editor to be available. Also a lot of game logic is done in C++ and blueprint, so it seems like the same tools available to licensees would have to be available to modders.
Hopefully these new license terms don’t kill the possibility of a modding community that exists in previous Unreal titles.
I’ve seen some other topics that say level designers may have to pay $19 for the editor which may not be the end of the world but is still a bit restrictive and cumbersome. Before, people could just download mod tools for a game and go to town, now things are getting a bit more closed off. Even Cryengine doesn’t have this limitation since modders could create custom logic with Lua scripts and still have access to the editor itself. It would be great if some adjustments were made to allow releasing modding tools in some way that still restrict access to certain things.
If I release a shooter, I’d potentially want modders to be able to add new guns for example, or new monsters, or create custom maps or custom multiplayer modes. It could even be done with blueprint only and without source code or C++ access. If the editor is the only thing available to modders, they’d still have a powerful set of tools like they do with UE3, without taking a step back.
The EULA doesn’t permit redistribution of Epic’s source code, Epic’s tools, or tools based on Epic’s tools to the general public. So if you create your own tools/editor that aren’t based on Epic’s tools/editor, you could distribute that to end users. If you wanted to distribute Epic’s editor to end users, those end users need to be licensees. But, as you said, it’s now quite affordable.
In short, Epic doesn’t permit distribution of its editor/tools to non-licensees.
Keep in mind UE4 is pretty new, maybe in future they will let produce limited editor (a with full you can make new game) which can be redistributed. You could implement scripting system like lua for yourself
Even if the price is as low as it is with the mentioned option of paying just one month, that would still be killing a vast amount of potencial modding work.
I hope that Epic finds a solution for redistributing most tools of the editor, even if limited in some way (not very restrictive though) without legal problems. They could for example make a simpler free version of the engine, like a “Starter UE4”, with limited resources, so modders can try the engine and if they like it afterwards pay 19$ once (or mantain the subscription, as prefered) and access the complete engine, with some kind of system for preventing losing the work done in the starter version and making easy the migration of content. This would be nice for starters in general too.
This is what I’m hoping for eventually. I love C++ though and am happy they use that mostly in UE4. It would be cool if modders could use blueprint at least so I don’t have to do the work of adding lua parsing, which I’m probably just not going to end up doing in the first place.
This is exactly what I’m thinking. I really hope some kind of solution is found. I wonder if it would be possible to release the full editor to the public for free but with limited blueprint support. Maybe if only existing classes can be extended in blueprint, so that modders can create new weapons, enemies, powerups, gamemodes, etc… but they will have a hard time creating a completely new game. There’d be no C++ access either.
If someone really wants to, they’d probably find a torrent of the editor anyway and make mods that way. I would definitely never try to release a commercial product with torrented versions of the Unreal engine, but I can see modders taking that route, especially the younger people. Most of us are older now and able to shell out $19 like it’s nothing, but I remember getting my start doing this kind of stuff back with DooM when I was 12 or so. If I was a 12 year old kid again, I’d either not bother with modding or even be interested in it in the first place with these kinds of restrictions, or I’d be driven to try it out and torrent the tools anyway. The thing that got me into modding and level design back then was how available tools were.
