I’m picturing the number of messages they’d receive the day the update hit. People suck. Most will understand that they need to hold off on updating if they want to play the mod, some will seek support when it breaks. Some of those will say “that makes sense” and disappointedly wait for the mod to update, some of those will get angry. I certainly wouldn’t want an inevitable flood of angry emails a few days after the big release.
Yup, if you use mods, it’s a good idea to set the game to update on launch through the game’s properties menu in its steam library listing.
Since a F4SE nodded game is going to launch through the script extender’s launcher, that keeps the game from updating automatically when starting a play session.
I also like to make a copy of my game folder and save it off in another drive so I have a backup.
Never heard of this project. I mean sounds like a cool mod, but why is this news, and why does a mod need to care about a release date? They’re not selling a product, they can release whenever lol.
The Fallout 4 script extender will be what breaks after the next-gen update, so the Fallout London team will have to just wait and see what happens and then change the framework before making everything compatible. These problems are why Fallout London’s release date got pushed back indefinitely.
They can’t release the mod until the Fallout 4 script extender gets updated to work with the update, since (like most mods) they rely on F4SE to add additional capabilities to the game.
I’ve had it for a couple of years but just never got around to playing it. Was excited to do that now after watching the show but after the update it just instantly crashes after clicking “play” on the launcher (completely fresh install, all drivers etc updated). This seems to be very common too, tons of posts about it on the steam discussions. Sadly not super surprised, it’s Bethesda after all.
I was disappointed in myself for buying it when it first came out. I hope there has been a LOT of patching, because at release it was boring AF. Especially coming from FO3 where dialog options and story branching actually mattered. In FO4 I remember purposely choosing the dumbest dialog options and the game just led me where it wanted me to go anyway.
This disappointment was compounded by me also buying Just Cause 3 at the same time… Holy shit what a garbage weekend that was. That was the day I vowed to never buy a game on presale again.
Pretty sure this was fully intended. You’re getting a bunch of band new buyers from the TV show. This can be a way to direct them towards their CC and away from free mods.
I doubt it. Most people seem to regard Creation Club content as something different than regular mods. You can check out the content that’s available here but a majority of it is closer to the paid skins found in online games than what people typically associate with modding and meaningfully altering a game.
I think Bethesda knows this and most people looking to mod Fallout 4 are probably going to continue working with what’s available.
I made sure to download my copy of FO4 from GOG since it hasnt updated yet. Shame London won’t release on GOG (who will be hosting it) still while they work on fixing it for the new version.
Yep, I had to grit my teeth and fork over those $10 in GoG for the 1.10.163. I think I will be buying from them first before Steam from now on. Glad they have auto updates disabled options too.
Every single time this happens, people act like its the first time. Game updates -> Script Extender breaks -> Mods reliant on it break too. Every. Single. Time.
I used to run a popular mod that made an indie beta game even more popular. Guess who almost all of the final testers were before release? My whole team. We were clearly the most devoted people to the game and knew best how to break it. It was nice to get a head-start on our new mod (which we pivoted to be the equivalent of Steam Workshop or an app store before those existed). Of course, the creator became a dickwad years later and we all ended the mod and the game is dead.
but this is a game that basically lives and dies by its mods, and this is an update that (arguably) changed nothing anyone who is still playing the game cares about after years of stability. why fix what isn’t broken?
Supposedly, the biggest change was simply removing the launcher. Because in order to be steam deck verified, it can’t have the intermediary launcher that interrupts the game booting.
But removing that apparently broke a lot of other things for a lot of people. Supposedly, doing a fresh install helps. Apparently the update fucks some stuff, but a completely fresh install will be buttery smooth. At least, that’s the scuttlebutt. But that doesn’t include mods which have been broken, (and many which aren’t being actively updated anymore, because why bother updating a mod for a game that hasn’t had an update in years?)
Can’t help but feel for the developers here. I get that Bethesda has no responsibility to keep 3rd party Devs updated, but surely someone on the team would have noticed the potential for community engagement and worked with those putting the time and effort into the IP.
My understanding is, they didn’t know what to get ready for. It’s like somebody saying “I’m going to change the game a lot, watch out!” So what do you do then? Sit around and not develop anything for 2 years because it might be based on code that will change?
It sucks that this was the outcome as it’s going to require a ton of work from the modders, but to expect that a major publisher would involve the unofficial modding community in the release of official patches feels insane, even if they do have a sizable following.
In fact, I prefer it this way. I want the publisher to keep their fingers out of what the modders do as much as possible. Things are their best when the publisher is ignorant of their work. Less chance that the Eye of Sauron that is their legal department starts checking over mods for potential copyright lawsuits
“This thing they announced for last year, then pushed back to this year and released to coincide with a massively hyped TV show was a complete surprise to us.” Is that really FO:London’s stance? I mean, I feel for them that it sucks, but to call it a surprise feels straight up disingenuous.
How do you prepare for an update when Bethesda don’t tell you what is changing? It says in the article they had literally no correspondence from Bethesda until the update dropped, so the only thing they could do was keep developing and hope not too much broke in the process.
That being said, from what I understand is that the script extender broke, so they’re just waiting for an undefined time until that gets fixed for the latest update.
There’s a pretty extensive API, capable of more than most games that advertise modding support, but it can’t do literally everything anyone could think of, so people reverse engineer the game engine to make it possible to do even more things (hence it being called a script extender rather than the modding API). It’s the mod reliant on reverse engineering the executable that break, not the ones using the modding API.
Imagine if Bethesda actually really listened to and catered to their modding community instead of just trying to monetize them. They would be legend right now.
I get this project is a big deal for some folks but having a hard time accepting the argument that I shouldn’t get a better visual/overall game experience because of a mod I’ll never play and their apparent lack of communication with Bethesda. They just expected to be that high of priority? Am I reading this wrong?
Edit: reading through comments I’m a little more sympathetic to modders writ large than I am this team specifically but I get the frustration. Bethesda could’ve done everyone a solid and given a little heads up. Still, it sounds like this project has been massive in scope and basically any changes were going to cause them issues so that’s worth considering here too.
Considering mods, whether you like it or not, are a massive reasons for these games’ lasting appeal, yeah I’d consider it a big deal. You may not use mods, and hey good for you, but the billions of downloads from Nexus mods solely for these games in particular shows that many others do.
Regardless, ignoring all of that, the Skyrim Script Extender Team was in contact with Bethesda before Special Edition released, giving them time to work on an SE version for when the day came. So it was perfectly reasonable for the Fallout Script Extender Team to expect the same.
One route might be to push out a new release for a month or something on a beta branch so that modders can see what breaks and provide some time to fix it prior to it being pushed out to everyone.
Take longer to get updates out, but reduce windows where mods are broken.
They’re saying this will take more than 2 months. They’re upset because it effectively undoes a lot of their work, which sucks, but that was always going to be the case unless bethesda went out of their way like a year ago to tell them what was coming. And remember, these guys aren’t even in the creator club or in any way communicating with Bethesda. I just think it’s a little unreasonable to be so independent while expecting Bethesda to anticipate their very specific needs.
I wish Bethesda did and maybe I’m being too generous but idk. Just not really sure I am 100% sympathetic to their plight here.
So, I’m not saying that I agree with them slagging on Bethesda here. Hell, they haven’t even released their mod yet. Doesn’t break things for their players.
But there is legitimately an issue where Bethesda pushes out an update and mods break. They have talked to a few of the very core mod creators early before to help alleviate breakage, but it can still leave mod-using players with a broken environment for some time.
Obviously, Bethesda’s primary responsibility is to people playing vanilla, the stuff that they release.
But there are a lot of modders and people playing with mods, especially a decade after release.
Some of it is just a hard technical problem. There’s gonna be some degree or breakage at updates.
But I think that it’s also true that there are a few things that Bethesda could do to help alleviate the breakage beyond what they have.
Plus, you know, even aside from mods, doing a beta branch does have some benefits. Lets Bethesda find out about some bugs before they push an update to everyone. They won’t catch everything with internal testing.
Like I said in my edit, I’m not entirely defending Bethesda here. I’m just trying to look at this case specifically and not let their entire history color it, as difficult as that may be. FOLON is somewhat turning this into a blame game, where I don’t think anyone’s really at fault except arguably Bethesda in that specific case.
Even with all of that in mind, Bethesda should have been in better communication with modders. There’s no doubt here. They are critical part of the overall success and staying power of their games.
From a business/PR standpoint, Bethesda missed a great opportunity to regain some rapport with the community post-Starfield
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My dude, we’re talking about Bethesda. The community fixing their broken-ass games is a time honored tradition.
Why do they need to release for the newest version? If they were going to release soon anyways, just release for the old version of Fallout.
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I’m picturing the number of messages they’d receive the day the update hit. People suck. Most will understand that they need to hold off on updating if they want to play the mod, some will seek support when it breaks. Some of those will say “that makes sense” and disappointedly wait for the mod to update, some of those will get angry. I certainly wouldn’t want an inevitable flood of angry emails a few days after the big release.
Yeah it doesn’t help that the Steam version would likely try to auto-update and I don’t believe there is an easy way to downgrade.
I could be wrong about that latter point. There might be an option in the properties menu similar to how you can opt into betas.
Yup, if you use mods, it’s a good idea to set the game to update on launch through the game’s properties menu in its steam library listing.
Since a F4SE nodded game is going to launch through the script extender’s launcher, that keeps the game from updating automatically when starting a play session.
I also like to make a copy of my game folder and save it off in another drive so I have a backup.
You have to disable automatic updates manually but it is possible.
I know it’s been possible to downgrade Skyrim after updates, but not through any official means, might be the same with FO4, not sure though.
Seriously, especially if it really screwed them over. And I thought he was just celebrating this?
Never heard of this project. I mean sounds like a cool mod, but why is this news, and why does a mod need to care about a release date? They’re not selling a product, they can release whenever lol.
Do you think under a communist gift economy, release dates for media wouldn’t matter?
It’s in the article, dude:
They can’t release the mod until the Fallout 4 script extender gets updated to work with the update, since (like most mods) they rely on F4SE to add additional capabilities to the game.
I’m disappointed in myself for buying FO4 recently.
If you just bought it, just play it. You don’t need mods.
I can’t play fnv without wmx anymore. I’m spoiled. Does fo4 weapon mod good?
FO4 has built in modding for weapons and armor. There are some great expansion mods that add mods too.
Dammit I just gotta buy this game already.
I’ve had it for a couple of years but just never got around to playing it. Was excited to do that now after watching the show but after the update it just instantly crashes after clicking “play” on the launcher (completely fresh install, all drivers etc updated). This seems to be very common too, tons of posts about it on the steam discussions. Sadly not super surprised, it’s Bethesda after all.
This is untrue. Without the boner points to nearest valuable loot mod the game is unplayable.
I was disappointed in myself for buying it when it first came out. I hope there has been a LOT of patching, because at release it was boring AF. Especially coming from FO3 where dialog options and story branching actually mattered. In FO4 I remember purposely choosing the dumbest dialog options and the game just led me where it wanted me to go anyway.
This disappointment was compounded by me also buying Just Cause 3 at the same time… Holy shit what a garbage weekend that was. That was the day I vowed to never buy a game on presale again.
Just Cause 2 was so much fun!
And nothing will ever beat FO:NV.
4 has been ok.
BGS: because fuck you, that’s why.
Pretty sure this was fully intended. You’re getting a bunch of band new buyers from the TV show. This can be a way to direct them towards their CC and away from free mods.
I doubt it. Most people seem to regard Creation Club content as something different than regular mods. You can check out the content that’s available here but a majority of it is closer to the paid skins found in online games than what people typically associate with modding and meaningfully altering a game.
I think Bethesda knows this and most people looking to mod Fallout 4 are probably going to continue working with what’s available.
I made sure to download my copy of FO4 from GOG since it hasnt updated yet. Shame London won’t release on GOG (who will be hosting it) still while they work on fixing it for the new version.
Yep, I had to grit my teeth and fork over those $10 in GoG for the 1.10.163. I think I will be buying from them first before Steam from now on. Glad they have auto updates disabled options too.
Every single time this happens, people act like its the first time. Game updates -> Script Extender breaks -> Mods reliant on it break too. Every. Single. Time.
I used to run a popular mod that made an indie beta game even more popular. Guess who almost all of the final testers were before release? My whole team. We were clearly the most devoted people to the game and knew best how to break it. It was nice to get a head-start on our new mod (which we pivoted to be the equivalent of Steam Workshop or an app store before those existed). Of course, the creator became a dickwad years later and we all ended the mod and the game is dead.
but this is a game that basically lives and dies by its mods, and this is an update that (arguably) changed nothing anyone who is still playing the game cares about after years of stability. why fix what isn’t broken?
Supposedly, the biggest change was simply removing the launcher. Because in order to be steam deck verified, it can’t have the intermediary launcher that interrupts the game booting.
But removing that apparently broke a lot of other things for a lot of people. Supposedly, doing a fresh install helps. Apparently the update fucks some stuff, but a completely fresh install will be buttery smooth. At least, that’s the scuttlebutt. But that doesn’t include mods which have been broken, (and many which aren’t being actively updated anymore, because why bother updating a mod for a game that hasn’t had an update in years?)
Can’t help but feel for the developers here. I get that Bethesda has no responsibility to keep 3rd party Devs updated, but surely someone on the team would have noticed the potential for community engagement and worked with those putting the time and effort into the IP.
I remember hearing about the current-gen upgrade a long time ago. Why is this a surprise?
it was announced quite literally 2 years ago. that is plenty of time to get ready for
I have no idea how modding works, but how would they get ready for a patch without having the files in advance?
My understanding is, they didn’t know what to get ready for. It’s like somebody saying “I’m going to change the game a lot, watch out!” So what do you do then? Sit around and not develop anything for 2 years because it might be based on code that will change?
Have they never had to deal with a Bethesda patch before!?
It sucks that this was the outcome as it’s going to require a ton of work from the modders, but to expect that a major publisher would involve the unofficial modding community in the release of official patches feels insane, even if they do have a sizable following.
In fact, I prefer it this way. I want the publisher to keep their fingers out of what the modders do as much as possible. Things are their best when the publisher is ignorant of their work. Less chance that the Eye of Sauron that is their legal department starts checking over mods for potential copyright lawsuits
“This thing they announced for last year, then pushed back to this year and released to coincide with a massively hyped TV show was a complete surprise to us.” Is that really FO:London’s stance? I mean, I feel for them that it sucks, but to call it a surprise feels straight up disingenuous.
How do you prepare for an update when Bethesda don’t tell you what is changing? It says in the article they had literally no correspondence from Bethesda until the update dropped, so the only thing they could do was keep developing and hope not too much broke in the process.
That being said, from what I understand is that the script extender broke, so they’re just waiting for an undefined time until that gets fixed for the latest update.
The script extender breaks with every update and is usually fixed within a week.
For a company that relies 100% on modders for their games, you’d think they’d have an actual modding API built into their games by now.
if bethesda relied 100% on modders then fo3 and new vegas and morrowind and oblivion and skyrim would have completely failed on console. did they?
There’s a pretty extensive API, capable of more than most games that advertise modding support, but it can’t do literally everything anyone could think of, so people reverse engineer the game engine to make it possible to do even more things (hence it being called a script extender rather than the modding API). It’s the mod reliant on reverse engineering the executable that break, not the ones using the modding API.
Imagine if Bethesda actually really listened to and catered to their modding community instead of just trying to monetize them. They would be legend right now.
I get this project is a big deal for some folks but having a hard time accepting the argument that I shouldn’t get a better visual/overall game experience because of a mod I’ll never play and their apparent lack of communication with Bethesda. They just expected to be that high of priority? Am I reading this wrong?
Edit: reading through comments I’m a little more sympathetic to modders writ large than I am this team specifically but I get the frustration. Bethesda could’ve done everyone a solid and given a little heads up. Still, it sounds like this project has been massive in scope and basically any changes were going to cause them issues so that’s worth considering here too.
I’d be surprised if they’d do something substantial. They only do that to keep paid DLCs and mods afloat.
Considering mods, whether you like it or not, are a massive reasons for these games’ lasting appeal, yeah I’d consider it a big deal. You may not use mods, and hey good for you, but the billions of downloads from Nexus mods solely for these games in particular shows that many others do.
Regardless, ignoring all of that, the Skyrim Script Extender Team was in contact with Bethesda before Special Edition released, giving them time to work on an SE version for when the day came. So it was perfectly reasonable for the Fallout Script Extender Team to expect the same.
I agree FSET got done dirty
One route might be to push out a new release for a month or something on a beta branch so that modders can see what breaks and provide some time to fix it prior to it being pushed out to everyone.
Take longer to get updates out, but reduce windows where mods are broken.
They’re saying this will take more than 2 months. They’re upset because it effectively undoes a lot of their work, which sucks, but that was always going to be the case unless bethesda went out of their way like a year ago to tell them what was coming. And remember, these guys aren’t even in the creator club or in any way communicating with Bethesda. I just think it’s a little unreasonable to be so independent while expecting Bethesda to anticipate their very specific needs.
I wish Bethesda did and maybe I’m being too generous but idk. Just not really sure I am 100% sympathetic to their plight here.
So, I’m not saying that I agree with them slagging on Bethesda here. Hell, they haven’t even released their mod yet. Doesn’t break things for their players.
But there is legitimately an issue where Bethesda pushes out an update and mods break. They have talked to a few of the very core mod creators early before to help alleviate breakage, but it can still leave mod-using players with a broken environment for some time.
Obviously, Bethesda’s primary responsibility is to people playing vanilla, the stuff that they release.
But there are a lot of modders and people playing with mods, especially a decade after release.
Some of it is just a hard technical problem. There’s gonna be some degree or breakage at updates.
But I think that it’s also true that there are a few things that Bethesda could do to help alleviate the breakage beyond what they have.
Plus, you know, even aside from mods, doing a beta branch does have some benefits. Lets Bethesda find out about some bugs before they push an update to everyone. They won’t catch everything with internal testing.
Like I said in my edit, I’m not entirely defending Bethesda here. I’m just trying to look at this case specifically and not let their entire history color it, as difficult as that may be. FOLON is somewhat turning this into a blame game, where I don’t think anyone’s really at fault except arguably Bethesda in that specific case.
Even with all of that in mind, Bethesda should have been in better communication with modders. There’s no doubt here. They are critical part of the overall success and staying power of their games.
From a business/PR standpoint, Bethesda missed a great opportunity to regain some rapport with the community post-Starfield
Or they could just keep the legacy endpoints intact while still adding new features.
No, this is a bad idea because it makes too much sense.
It would’ve shaved one month off their currently undetermined new release date it sounds like.