It’s up. Sorta.
You heard about it first when Pete Hines briefly teased it at our #BE3 Showcase. And now, to help celebrate QuakeCon, BethesdaNet has arrived. While this is just the initial phase of the platform’s launch, BethesdaNet will soon become the centerpiece of our community, bringing everyone together with content, news, forums and much more.
In the coming weeks, we’ll begin transitioning our forums from their current home to a new destination on BethesdaNet. Stay tuned for updates.
So it’s a community hub? I don’t see the brouhaha.
They want their own steam platform, no?
I don’t know if they’re going to get aggressive like EA and compete with Steam, or if it will be like Ubisoft and be sort of a side thing.
If you check out the “What is BethesdaNet?” post, they talk a bit about where they’re headed.
Over the course of the coming months, BethesdaNet will continue to roll out new features, including innovative ways to connect with our games and each other. Indeed, BethesdaNet is already being used to support The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited across all platforms, and will be at the heart of all our games going forward. Take DOOM SnapMap, for example: BethesdaNet will allow players to create and share their creations with anyone, regardless of platform. BethesdaNet will also give players access to new features in our games and support new ways for players to create and share all kinds of content. And that’s just for starters. We’ve got some top-secret initiatives that’ll change the way you experience your games!
We’ve got some top-secret initiatives that’ll change the way you experience your games!
Like paid mods?
And as a thank you to their customers they’ll let them purchase collector edition forum icons for $50 a piece!
My fear is that they’ll restrict mod distribution to their own little garden, then start charging for them.
Even if they don’t charge for them, just restricting mods to their system could fuck things up. Steam Workshop and Skyrim is a decent example. It’s a good place to easily scoop up some basic mods, but if you want things like ridiculous guts-spilling gore mods or all of the rope/moss/water arrows Thief toys you need stuff like the script extenders, which aren’t easily added via things like Steam Workshop.
I’m hoping they’re just making it an optional thing like Steam Workshop, so consoles can get SOME mods (Although god help them if things go bad and they can’t access the console) but they can still be added manually to keep the horizons open. If the do lock it down it very well might end up killing Fallout 4 for me. I enjoy Bethesda games reasonably well on their own, but 90% of why I buy them and play them as much as I do is because of mods.
Edit: Not to mention there will probably be a file size limit, so that could neuter things like big texture packs, large additions of new monsters, big weapon/armor packs, etc.
Oh god, the kvetching on this forum. Not everything new is bad, people. I swear some of you just enjoy being outraged.
I read it as some mild concern and some huehue paid mod jokes. I think most of the rabid outrage is on the rest of internet. I’m just confused why Bethesda think we need this… thing. Whatever it ends up being.
I don’t see a lot of ‘outrage’ in any of the posts above.
If the above is outrage what do you call the rest of the internet?
I am outraged he thinks I’m outraged!
I don’t like Bethesda, so I feel outrage only about FNV mods.
It’s not like Bethesda is doing anything “new” which is imo the biggest concern. Noone needs another Origin and despite all the moaning I prefer a centralised platform with Steam instead of having a future in 10 years where every big gaming company wants to do its own thing.
All that will yield is a meta-layer which handles storefronts for you.
Monopolies are always a bad thing [except in this one instance because reasons].
Since monopolies aren’t universally a bad thing, your sarcasm kind of fails on at least one level ;)
I believe we have an economist or two amongst us, who may wish to now expound on natural monopolies.
I think anyone who has played an elder scrolls game kind of rolls their eyes at the idea of going through Bethesda for mods. Agree with the others that if you use more than a few small mods, you probably aren’t going to be able to rely on the built in mod manager or steam workshop to carry the day.
Not to mention that they could kill the goose that laid the golden mod if they handle it as poorly as steam has. A lot of the value in their games is added by players and bethesda doesn’t even have to pay for it.
What they should be doing is watching the various nexus sites and hiring the best modders.