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Directionless, we stumble in the dark corners of the Internet looking for mods, player-made content that can alter the core gameplay or merely swap out the graphical assets of a given title. We navigate sketchy fansites that require login information and attempt to evaluate the quality of what's available.
Searching for mods is a real pain in the ass. Just about every PC game available requires players to jump into a search engine and seek out these modifications with little-to-no help.
Installing mods is even more daunting to the uninitiated. You'll need to swap out files, run unsigned executables, and hope nothing breaks. Did you remember to back up first? Looks like you'll need to reinstall the game!
Despite this, modding is infectious: I've dabbled in a little myself — from Doom and X-Com to Fallout 3 and Civilization 4 — which is why my ears perked up when I first heard about Civilization 5's in-game mod browser, a new function that allows players to search, share, install, and manage user-created content without exiting the program. Firaxis hopes that the browser will ease new players into the wild world of modding by streamlining much of the process.
I sat down with Lead Designer Jon Shafer to ask him some questions about the feature and other exciting aspects of Civ 5 modding, such as the world builder and the tinkering possible with the gameplay development tools. Hit the jump for a little of what you can expect this September when the game releases exclusively for PC.
Bitmob: What was the inspiration for including an in-game mod browser for Civ 5?
Jon Shafer: The main thing we wanted to do was just bring modding to more people because — obviously — modding is something that’s a really big deal within the Civilization community. It was an idea that I had early on in development.
Because at the moment with Civ 4 and any of the previous Civilization games, you have to go to Google, search for “Civ mods,” and figure it out yourself.
In spite of that, modding has been really popular — a lot of people really enjoy it. So, we figure, “OK, if we can actually put something in the game that lets people get to stuff, it’s just going to make modding even bigger.”
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Bitmob: How to you think the browser will change the way people think about mods for PC games?
JS: I think modding is a big deal within PC gaming in general. It’s something that really separates it — especially so — from console gaming. And you kind of saw something like this with Spore as well. In the game, you have the ability for players to submit things and share them with everybody.
And my hope is that that becomes the model for a lot of good PC games — that you’ll have this portal where you can go and share things. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the game from Stardock called Elemental. They’re trying to embrace that sort of thing as well, and they’re going to use a lot of the modding stuff that previous games have blazed a trail for. That’s something that’s really going to help strategy games in particular but also PC games as a whole.
Bitmob: How exactly will the mod browser function within Civ 5?
JS: From the main menu, you’ll go into the mod section and then into browser. Once you’re there, it’s just another screen inside the game. You’ll just be able to search and sort and do all kinds of things depending on what you’re looking for. You’ll be able to rate mods — just thumbs up, no thumbs down. We don't want to open the system to griefing. [Laughs]
You’ll be able to sort by what has the most thumbs up. You’ll be able to see what people really like and sort by type of mod. You can sort for just maps, for certain tags, like World War 2, or whatever you want.
Bitmob: Will the browser allow users to manage already installed mods? Some programs, like the Fallout 3 Mod Manager and Torchleech for Torchlight, allow users to easily turn mods on and off and mix them together.
JS: Yes. You’ll be able to enable, disable, and install whatever you want. We have a guy who’s been working on that for a while now, and he’s really into it. We’ve got a lot of really cool things with it.
Bitmob: If a conflict arises between mods, will users be able to resolve them easily from the browser?
JS: The browser itself is not designed to resolve conflicts, unfortunately. We’ve tried to design the mod system such that modular elements are possible and combinable, but if somebody changes one unit’s strength value and another mod changes that same value to something else, then there’ll obviously be a problem with that.
Bitmob: Does the browser at least notify the user that a conflict may exist?
JS: I’m not sure.
Continue to page two for the rest of the interview.
Bitmob: Starcraft 2 boasts robust modding capabilities, and Blizzard has shown off the game as a third-person shooter or a survival-horror adventure. Do the Civ 5 modding tools allow players to do similar things and create entirely different experiences?
JS: It’s possible. Something that we’re looking into releasing is the gameplay SDK, which is the game code. It’s the same thing that we did with Civ 4.
And people who are really into it can actually rewrite the A.I. and the game rules. You can do just about anything that you want, as long as you change a lot of the core graphics stuff. With Civ 4, for example, modders have done some really cool things, and it'll be the same with Civ 5. It’s going to be just as powerful.
Bitmob: So are there any types of games that players might expect to find in the mod browser that are different from Civilization itself?
JS: It’s hard to say right now. We’ll have to see what people make. I don’t know if you’ve heard of a mod called Fall from Heaven. We’re definitely excited about mods like that, and certainly things of that scope where you can change the genre dramatically to something completely different. And that’s the standard now for fantasy strategy games.
Obviously, it’s all on the modders. We want to enable them and see what they come up with.
Bitmob: Do you have anything else about Civ 5’s modding capabilities that might interest players?
JS: Something that I personally think is really cool is the stand-alone world builder. This is something we’ve talked a little bit about before, but it’s incredibly powerful.
It has undo and redo. You can import Civ 4 maps into the world builder and convert them into Civ 5 maps, including all the units and cities and stuff on it — the conversion process will just do that for you automatically. We’re hoping that the first week Civ 5 is out, people will use that function and port all of the Civ 4 stuff over to Civ 5, so everything will be out there already.
The world builder is something that we’re really, really excited about. It’s very powerful, it’s stand alone, and it’ll be really easy for people to just jump in and start playing around with things.
You can generate random maps from within the world builder and then tweak them if you want to just set up something. You can make a scenario out of it. You can put units and cities and other stuff down. You can change diplomacy — who’s at war with whom — all sorts of things like that.
At the base, it’s a map builder, but there are all sorts of other things attached to it.
Civ 5 releases for PC on September 21, 2010. Visit the Firaxis and Civilization 5 websites for more information.
