Through interviews with numerous prodigious legacy Diablo modders and scarce snippets from Blizzard, we will delve in to a trove of opinion, fact, and speculation.
Modding has a long history with the Diablo series. Entire modding communities have popped up around the web (see the Phrozen Keep) devoted solely to this formidable practice. In Diablo I, we saw an entire expansion added by third-party company Sierra (Diablo I: Hellfire), and post- patch 1.10, Diablo II's modding community virtually blossomed. However, both games still lacked any form of modding toolkit as seen with newer mod-friendly games.
Of course, with Diablo III coming as a very modern game, the lack of a modding toolkit in a user-created content age is something of a pitfall. Laz (whom we interviewed last year: Overhaul Diablo II with Median XL), developer of the popular Median XL mod for Diablo II, believes that "[...]there is no real reason to fight to the death with an inflexible game engine when you have Starcraft II's world editor." And other fantasy ARPG's with editors, to boot.
The lack of an editor isn't the only thing making mod developers angsty. The lack of multiplayer LAN suport in Diablo III has been a source of consternation for some. We asked Soulmancer (whom we interviewed last month: Unlock Diablo II with Hell Unleashed), creator of Diablo II mod Hell Unleashed, how he believes this may affect the future of modding with the Diablo series, and his response wasn't particularly bright: "Diablo at its core is a multiplayer game and if mods in Diablo III are going to be strictly limited to single player it is doubtful you'll see much motivation from developers and players to create high quality and in depth mods."
Soulmancer isn't the only mod developer to recognize this challenge. Laz of Median XL shared his sentiments, noting that "the lack of any (legal) multiplayer options whatsoever in a multiplayer oriented game may prove to be fatal for the popularity of any mods that struggle to the surface [for Diablo III]."
While Blizzard did consider making an editor available to the masses, more recent considerations led them in a different direction. Various Blizzard representatives have stated that modding isn't necessarily something they want to discourage, but something they have decided not to support. In an article on ShackNews, Jay Wilson even admitted that many game designers got their start in modding games over the years.
Later, in an interview at the 2009 Blizzcon, Leonard Boyarsky graced the subject when he was interviewed by Joystiq:
Official Blizzard Quote:
We talked about it early on and we considered it but the way we put together our maps and the fact that it's random ... it's very artistic-centric. And, on top of that, the fact that it's so random it's like, would people just change the random number generator? You know what I mean? [laughs] We don't hand-build our dungeons anyways, but the way we build our maps kind of makes that prohibitive. But we're always looking at what the end users might want so we did look at including a map editor and we just said that it's never been a big part of Diablo.
Oh, the irony.
LAN, a feature whose usage could never really be tracked in prior games with any degree of scientific accuracy, was among one of the earliest things to change in the transition from Diablo II to Diablo III. As early as summer of 2008, the same year of the announcement at the last WWI, Blizzard stated:
Official Blizzard Quote:
We’re not supporting LAN play. We’re basically focusing on making the best multiplayer experience we can, and that’s all through Battle.net. There are tons of features we’re going to be supporting both for cooperative play and competitive play. One of the things we can talk about with the new Battle.net is security. Fixing some of the problems we had with the earlier Diablos — item duping, cheating, and griefing — we’re going to be addressing all of those things with the new Battle.net, as well as some pretty awesome competitive play ideas we’re working with right now. So that’s going to be the biggest advance, especially for previous Diablo players, to see all these we’re planning. It going to be really awesome.
These combined factors are a major hurtle for would-be Diablo III modders, and a major deterrent for legacy modders in adapting to the new game. Many games could be said to have survived for as long as they did due to their modding capabilities. As we look toward another stepping stone in the Diablo saga, we can only hope that it will last as long as Diablo II did.
But will the preclusion of modding tools for Diablo III hurt its longevity? Soulmancer responded that "there is no doubt that the ability to mod does preserve the longevity of games for certain audiences and there are plenty of examples of this, such as Oblivion (which is still popular only due to it's modability.) Some people don't care for mods at all, and some people love 'em, whether it's playing them or creating them."
But not everyone is on the modding toolkit bandwagon. True Mage, creator of Diablo II mod Battle for Elements (whom we interviewed last year: The Battle Beyond Sanctuary: Battle for Elements), went as far as to say, "To be honest, I would even prefer to see absence of modding support in Diablo III, as well. It is always more interesting to explore unknown mechanics than just make a mod and the second reason it will get rid of many cheap cut-corners works proudly named 'mods' for us."
Regardless of how legacy modders viewed the preclusion of a solid game editor in Diablo III, opinions of the plausibility, and even necessity, of modding in Diablo III were as varied as they were sincere.
To get to the root of what created the modding communities for the legacy games, we asked Soulmancer what he believes contributed to the growth of the Diablo modding community. He presented us three considerations:
A dedicated, motivated and knowledgeable community of players and developers as well as the release of the official 1.10 patch were two huge factors in Diablo II's modding evolution over the years. But there was also a multiplayer option: TCP/IP, LAN and Open.net.
While multiplayer is now a vapor in the wind, the first two factors are still just as, if not more, applicable to Diablo III. The wealth of modding knowledge, or perhaps logic, that legacy Diablo modders can bring to the table, combined with the possibility that Diablo III will be open to modding in much the same way as Blizzard's other more modern releases (through things like XML scripting), could make Diablo III's modding future brighter than previously anticipated.
Perhaps the easiest way to see this is by looking to the past. Mod developer Mordor (whom we interviewed last year: Return to Diablo I with "The Hell") brought us back to the days of Diablo I, which was about as mod-unfriendly as it could get, and yet there were still some great mods, even, as mentioned earlier, an entire third-party expansion. Mordor continued to state that "[...]if there are some crazy devoted fans for Diablo III in the world, there will be decent modifications for it, I'm sure. Another thing to remember is that modding is not about simply changing a game to make it different, it's about improving the game, making it better. The better the original game, and the more complete it is, the less work we modders (of my kind) would have to do."
Whether or not Blizzard is open to modders tinkering with their work, and whether or not modders are up to the challenge, may be some source of debate, but in the end, many of these doubts will only be resolved once we finally have the game in ours hands. Long-time developer Onyx at the Phrozen Keep (whom we interviewed last year: Back to Hellfire with Diablo II) had this much to say: "I think we'll find our way through Diablo III's structure, anyway, and I'm optimistic about Diablo III modding, but it's too early to speak."
Mods were never on battle.net. They were on LAN.
Blizzard has never supported mods for any of the Diablo series of games. I think there will be mods for D3 since the game is going to be popular. Lack of Multi-player will lower the amount of players that will be playing mods but I do not think it is going to have that large of an impact. The thing that will hurt mod makers is if you need to log on to battle-net to play offline single player.
It is likely going to take time for the mod makers to make any good mods since they will need to learn mechanics of D3 engine and possibly needing to create tools to mod D3. I think most mod makers will also be playing D3 for some time as well before they start to mod to get ideas on their mod.
[edit]
Maka: I believe there are more mod players that only play single player. The thing is you usually do not hear too much from them.
In my eyes, there's no way they are going to allow LAN. A mod-friendly LAN-like feature in battle-net? Maybe, but again, extremely doubtful.
You can only go so far to modding a game if its not designed to be modded and the source is not open. The time one would need to spend to mod without any support is astonishing and depressing to even consider. Its all good and well if some people are dedicated enough, but that won't make modding alive or important.
And indeed I see no bright future at all here. Until they actually openly state that the game is in some way modding friendly, there's nothing to be happy about here.
Modding should never be closed off. It should never be a doubt. A game should always, always, always allow modding to some level. Give us the source, even. That is how gaming grows as a whole. Its a sin for any developer to ignore this in any way.
I have heard from d2 mod makers and some of them prefer that Blizzard does not support mods. Those mod makers prefer to find out about the mechanics by themselves or as a community and posting on what they did. In D2 it got easier to mod with 1.10 since it opened up more options in the text files. Also at the time the mod making community was at it's most active time. If there were editors and other mod making tools than it would be too many mods out and most of them would be very, very bad. It would be more difficult to find the good ones.
The mods that I played that changed the game the most is Median MXL, Battle for the elements (BfE) mode from TrueMage also made many changes.
The thing is to try different mods until you find one that you like.
I respect your opinion in regards to mods for diablo.
What the fuck are you guys' problems? If mods were allowed online, obviously they would be separate from the normal game and probably not as secure.
Its incredibly selfish to say you don't want mods in the entire game when it doesn't even have to affect you. Seriously, what the hell. Modders aren't here to force it down your throats.
On another note I'm no fan of modding either. I have played world of warcraft since its open beta, untill about a year ago. Since the beginning of that game, several mods were invented that I believe had a negative impact on the game, for instance; damage meters, gearscore and quest helper. Damage meters and gearscore forced everyone to conform to the standards. There were ultimate builds, and if you didn't use those, you sucked. Period.
I do however fully support the effords of the Diablo 2 mod makers. These enrich a game and give rise to a new generation of game developers, while not interfeering with the gameplay of the masses, since it was only usable in a private setting.
Of course. Blizzard is all-mighty.
You sicken me. I'm quite happy you don't intend to keep this discussion going.
I think those fears are unwarranted honestly. Seriously you could make the same arguement about MMORGP's and that having multiple servers "divides the community"
Certain mods cater to paticular audiences depending on the theme of that mod. say "an open world pvp mod" or an "extreme difficulty mod" for example... This allows specific players to play in their favored niche when they become bored of the official content. Obviously Diablo 3 isn't going to have any issues with how many people are playing online. Any custom content/modded servers that you could connect to through battle.net would obviously have seperate character ladders that would be specific to that satelite "server or mod" to prevent any cross contamination or compatability issues between the official game and other mods.
If they made it so you have to authenticate your key and login to battle.net but then have something of a "custom game" feature that allows you to connect and play different mods like you can for SC2 that would be very cool ... Or just change their stone age private server policy's and allow modders to run their own b.net servers separate from the official battle.net and include some key authentication feature... The only reason I still play SC2 online is because of the custom game feature...
Either way, anything is better then "single player only" for any mods and user created content. They have hyped battle.net 2.0 as their "be all, end all" solution for all your multiplayer needs; yet at this point they have failed to provide any service for user created content.
We have action rpgs such as Torchlight 2, Grim Dawn and Neverwinter 3 on the horizon. all of which will include world editors as well as flexible multiplayer options. I'm pretty sure Blizzard could show some innovation or ambition on this issue.
Do they really want the multiplayer experience to be super-immersive and open-ended, complete with user mods?
I think the term is 'gimpware'.
That's a matter of opinion. Blizzard develops their games to appeal to the widest possible audience. fun, simplistic, polished, casual... That's not a bad thing at all but their are other niche's of gameplay that are excluded in this vision... Say for those who prefer brutal open world pvp, or an enhanced PvE mode, improved monster AI, or those who enjoy more complex/expanded character customization and features... Blizzard has done a lot to simplify and dumb the game down to make sure there is no room for confusion, such as removing manual stat points and simplifying attributes.
It is their game, and their vision may be the best f6or the largest player base as you see in WoW, but in this a lot of minority groups with more specific/focused play styles will be left with more to be desired for. Not really finding their place amongst the majority. In which case players often quit and move on to new games or play mods.
I personally really enjoy developing custom content, but half of my enjoyment comes from people who can enjoy it and play together online. Torchlight 2 may not be as significant and epic as Diablo 3, but a world editor, flexible multiplayer and potential supported software for player run servers certainly makes it far more appealing in terms of modding and user created content. More so than purely having to manual fumble through and modify XML tables that can only be legally available for single player...
That's exactly what I'm talking about - could it be because the SC2 audience doesn't compete with the WoW subscription base in any meaningful way? :dry:
Any mods in the sense of WoW are essentially considered third party hacks in Diablo II and will be in Diablo III. We're mostly talking about content, total game overhauls, etc., although there are some *tools* people have modded for research and stuff.
I'll be reading the full artice soon enough to add some input