As for the future of XCOM, Firaxis is open to the possibilities. Regarding the potential for mods and user-created content, DeAngelis notes that "it wasn't one of our core pillars when we started the project," but the team understands how important it is to the community. "It's something that we'd like to resolve going forward, but we still have quite a few things on our plate that have been planned for a while."
If you're cynical, like me, that reads as "we'll maybe talk about mods after we've milked the DLC for all their worth". Not that you can hold it against Firaxis. After all, they're a business. But for people who care more about mods than they do about lacklustre DLC it's a blow.
In other modding news, modders have been making inroads in to modding the UPK files for XCOM. While there's little progress on being able to repack the UPK files themselves, advanced modders have been able to mod the UPK files and get them to load in their games. Unfortunately the process is relatively complex and there's no easy way to distribute these mods to the masses. Yet. Work is underway to change that, however, and with Firaxis being less than helpful on the modding front for XCOM thus far this is going to be our best bet at modding the game at least for the foreseeable future. Stay tuned.
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A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time beingIt seems a trend sneaking in that Firaxis and certain game developers in general fear giving real modding support to their games.
I see it as two major "reasons" from a marketing perpective why they would do this:
So as to 1)Save development time for other projects (such as DLC) or 2)Fear of losing DLC sales because mods provide better features.
If this really is the case then why are literally THE most succesful games centred around allowing access to modding and providing modding support? Their DLC donot suffer either... There are even early access games far more widely known than XCOM because of the overwhelmingly open modding support.
I wish they could see the potential sales boost it can bring, because extra advertising is given by devoted modding communities on media like youtube and even just plain word of mouth. I know people who have never even heard of XCOM....!!!
Firaxis is really missing out on all that free marketing mods give a game and the sales boost that comes with it. That said modders have already done such amazing things despite getting the cold shoulder when it comes to modding support for XCOM.
And I am sure XCOM:EW sales will suffer because of this, ironic isn't it? The fear of losing sales because of modding support, leads to lack of attention from the gaming community as a whole.
I just think this game deserves a larger audience than the die hard fans of the series, and real modding support would have brought that.
My hat is off to those modders who stick it out through the tedious process editing in all their changes they have discovered. I tried my hand at some and was able to get an XCOM I liked far better than vanilla, but as time permits and frustration sets in about the limits on what can be done. Not to mention the overwhelmingly time consuming browsing through countless forums and their pages. It is unfortunate that is the the only place to find out how to get specific changes done for the latest edits, until the wiki is up to date.
For now it seems compared to so many other games, the XCOM modding community will be fairly quiet, except ofcourse for the handful of diehard modders who keep that modding flame alight.
I really hope things can get better for XCOM.
Errr.. yes.. You are aware I was not talking to Dark0ne..
ActusReus , you are aware that Dark0ne IS the Founder of The Nexus sites and I'd bet he has modding on his mind most of the time.
Relax brother ... we're all friends here.
And what keeps a game like that still alive? Not the dlc's, not the "jawbreaking" graphics and effects, nothing even remotely related to the legal policy and stuff like that. It's the modding community. Take that away and you have nothing.
On a side note related to the current XCOM modding... yes, it took several years for JA2 to become moddable, and it all began with hex editing, like Xcom EU is now. So I have faith
I loved the original XCom but I wouldn't even think of buying it until it is heavily modded or they devs fix what they left out. How can a game that ran on a 386 have more depth that a strategic combat game released in 2012?
I only wish all devs were criticised for not making it easier to mod their released products. Also you do know that this is a modding community don't you? Therefore the question of support for modding capability is likely quite high on the agenda..
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