Skyrim: CS: You know what would be something...?

[Kliban_Katz]

I'm one of those lowly people who don't have awesome gaming PCs and I'll be forced to play Skyrim on 360 (I recently inherited one) until I can build a better PC. With these lovely fancy consoles that allow us to either run from disc or install a game and download DLC, is it possible to play CS-fan-made content?

Yes, you would still need to use the CS on a PC to build the mod and therefore need a PC install of Skyrim, too, but you would be able to export it and transfer the .esp data over LAN or marketplace to your console or other users... I think it would be do-able at least for mods using stock assets, but introducing custom meshes and textures would only be a step further, right? Script extenders or other mods like that might not be so easy, though... The modding community is already huge-- this would only help expand it.

I had a similar thought process back in the days of Morrowind on the Xbox when Bloodmoon and Tribunal came out for PC. Bethesda emailed me saying it might not be do-able to have them all on one disc or be able to play the expansions on console. Several months/a year later, with no thanks to me, the dual-layer GOTY came out for consoles. You're welcome. lol

SO, is it physically possible to export mods for download and use on consoles?? (Or is this old news and been done? I'm not a console gamer..)

[Mannimagnus]

There's been speculation about it for quite some time, Bethesda just needs to nag Sony and Microsoft enough, look here:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/UESPWiki:News/User-Generated_Content_in_Skyrim

Hopefully one day, it would be great if it could be done.

[_echo]

No. Because...

1.The CS needs the game data, so without the game on PC, the CS is useless.

2. If your PC cant run the game, then how would you expect it to run the CS? Game editors are always more demanding then the games themselves as they display the raw, unprocessed content.

3. There is no ability for quality control. Your saves could become corrupt and consoles have no way of backing up saves. Plus, consoles have limited hardware, and Skyrim will be using basically everything the systems have for the game itself. Its already been confirmed that loading times on consoles will be long initially due to heavy caching. Mods would only add to the loading time.

[Kliban_Katz]

No. Because...

1.The CS needs the game data, so without the game on PC, the CS is useless.

2. If your PC cant run the game, then how would you expect it to run the CS? Game editors are always more demanding then the games themselves as they display the raw, unprocessed content.

3. There is no ability for quality control. Your saves could become corrupt and consoles have no way of backing up saves. Plus, consoles have limited hardware, and Skyrim will be using basically everything the systems have for the game itself. Its already been confirmed that loading times on consoles will be long initially due to heavy caching. Mods would only add to the loading time.

The link Mannimagnus posted seems promising.

1. Yes, CS needs game data and would be useless without it. I'm well aware of this. Therefore mod creation would still be a pleasure exclusive to PC users (unless a limited version of CS with game data is released for the purpose of modding for consoles, but with that comes possibly more ability to hack), but could be enjoyed by both PC and console users alike. There isn't anything really inhibiting mods from being used on consoles, aside from the formality of getting Sony/MS to go along with it, according to the UESPWiki blurb. There's apparently a market for it. Exclusive console users are accustomed to only having what they are given (DLC), so not having the ability to create mods directly won't pose a huge problem. Having a PC that can mod it (if you were really beat on modding for your console) is only an added bonus. And, in that case, these people should probably just get the PC version.

2. My PC runs Oblivion, but needs modding to run smoother since my hardware is all integrated (Streamline, low-poly meshes, etc. etc.), however the CS runs and I can mod with no problems. I suppose it's an issue that varies by machine, but it's not that big of a problem. UDK won't boot on my machine due to shader issues (needs 3.0), so perhaps the issue might be something like that that you're referring to? I'm sure the Skyrim CS wouldn't run on my particular rig, but that doesn't mean it's the case for everyone else.

3. It is the same for PC users, no? And people with Android phones? (The market is not as heavily regulated as the Idevices') Corrupted files are always a possibility when you begin loading outside content onto any machine, but it's still done and is still popular. Loading time is known to be increased on PCs with heavy modding (and is made worse on a low-end machine) but that doesn't stop anyone. Hasn't stopped me. It's prerogative above all else. Because of the fixed specs of consoles, some mods would make no sense to have available (hi-rez textures, retextures, poly-increase/decrease-ers, etc.) but mods that add content would be fine. Perhaps content needs to be confined to stock game data, but it'd only be a partial trade off. It's amazing what can be done with vanilla data. Save game corruption comes down mostly to responsible gaming and modding, I think, but it could pose a problem for console users who are unacquainted with the way things work.

I can understand your points, echo, but I feel like most of the problems you are presenting are either negligible or already accounted for.

[syscrusher]

2. If your PC cant run the game, then how would you expect it to run the CS? Game editors are always more demanding then the games themselves as they display the raw, unprocessed content.

With respect, _echo, I have not found this to be the case with Oblivion. I do my modding on a high-end Thinkpad laptop, but it's a machine that's optimized for things other than gaming. I run Linux as my native o.s., and then have VMware Workstation version 8 installed on top. Windows 7, 64-bit, runs inside a virtual machine with 3G of RAM (the physical computer has 8G).

Within that environment, as you can imagine, I feel every little *twitch* of performance problems. What I have found is that the CS runs flawlessly, with no noticeable lag. So does Blender. The game itself works flawlessly (that is, no crashes), but I experience a fairly low frame rate.

So overall, I would say that in this environment the game editors run with great performance, whereas the game itself is "usable for testing" but not fast enough to really play for long periods.

YMMV, of course, but I would say that my situation at least proves that game editors are not *always* more demanding.

As an aside, VMware version 8 is way, way faster for gaming and game editing than version 7 was.

[gmillar]

I think that ultimately it's just going to be too complicated for the dinosaurs that are consoles. Add to that Microsoft and Sony's need to control every single thing and I don't think we'll see it in this generation. The only possibility I can really see for user-created content on consoles is if Bethesda were to take some of the best mods and repackage them into an official DLC.

[Kliban_Katz]

Which, gmillar, would be what I call a little slice of heaven on earth. Nothing would validate our work rather than having it praised by the devs in such a way. But it would have to be free. Because we all work for free, essentially. I think it would cheapen the whole thing if it came with a price tag. Compensation would be nice for those lucky few, though, I won't deny it.

[Fuzz]

You can use PC mods with a jtagged Xbox 360 console, there is a tool that lets you convert a PC mod into an "official" DLC pack.