indiegames
March 4th, 2010, 20:05
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/03/500x_bc2.jpg The PC version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 might not support mods, but developer DICE has nothing but love for the modding community. Producer Gordon Van Dyke talked modding and modders in yesterday's Kotaku Talk Radio podcast (http://kotaku.com/5485687/the-newest-kotaku-podcast-is-oscar-mike-on-itunes-zune--more).
The decision to leave modding support out of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 seemed strange, especially with DICE showing such strong support for the modding community in the past. As Van Dyke explains, it wasn't a decision made out of spite, but simple realism.
"It wasn't a thought-out decision in the sense that 'no, we're not releasing tools.' Our feelings towards the modding community is not a negative one, but we had to be realistic in this situation.
"This version of Frostbite just really doesn't support (modding)," Van Dyke explains. "The way our tools are setup for Frostbite currently - this isn't the plan for the future - it's all within a network structure, so we have servers, a network farm, hard drives all over the place, caching systems. For the development team it's not even a realistic thing to try to pretend we could put out. So we just bit the bullet and were honest and were like, 'This is not something we can do with this game.'"
So it's a matter of tools, and the tools to allow modders to flex their creative muscle simply aren't in place yet. Van Dyke goes on further added emphasis to that "yet."
"One of those things that we're always going to consider is being able to get some of those tools out to the community so they can express their creativity in a way that was very beneficial to Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, and Battlefield 2. There's even a very cool Star Wars mod they developed for Battlefield 2142," he said, referring to the amazing First Strike mod, which can be found at Mod DB (http://www.moddb.com/mods/first-strike).
"I come from the modding community. That's actually how I got hired by DICE, so it's not this feeling of 'we don't like modders and we don't want them touching our game.' It's just realistic logistics and the way things were focused when this was built."
Be sure to check out this week's podcast (http://kotaku.com/5485687/the-newest-kotaku-podcast-is-oscar-mike-on-itunes-zune--more) for more from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 producer Gordon Van Dyke.
http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?p=1 (http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?p=1)http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=yIl2AUoC8zA</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=JihHg_eJG50:QO0Mwzznob8:yIl2AUoC8zA) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=JihHg_eJG50:QO0Mwzznob8:H0mrP-F8Qgo) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=JihHg_eJG50:QO0Mwzznob8:D7DqB2pKExk</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=JihHg_eJG50:QO0Mwzznob8:D7DqB2pKExk) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=JihHg_eJG50:QO0Mwzznob8:V_sGLiPBpWU</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=JihHg_eJG50:QO0Mwzznob8:V_sGLiPBpWU)
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More... (http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/JihHg_eJG50/bad-company-2-devs-have-nothing-but-love-for-the-modding-community)
The decision to leave modding support out of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 seemed strange, especially with DICE showing such strong support for the modding community in the past. As Van Dyke explains, it wasn't a decision made out of spite, but simple realism.
"It wasn't a thought-out decision in the sense that 'no, we're not releasing tools.' Our feelings towards the modding community is not a negative one, but we had to be realistic in this situation.
"This version of Frostbite just really doesn't support (modding)," Van Dyke explains. "The way our tools are setup for Frostbite currently - this isn't the plan for the future - it's all within a network structure, so we have servers, a network farm, hard drives all over the place, caching systems. For the development team it's not even a realistic thing to try to pretend we could put out. So we just bit the bullet and were honest and were like, 'This is not something we can do with this game.'"
So it's a matter of tools, and the tools to allow modders to flex their creative muscle simply aren't in place yet. Van Dyke goes on further added emphasis to that "yet."
"One of those things that we're always going to consider is being able to get some of those tools out to the community so they can express their creativity in a way that was very beneficial to Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, and Battlefield 2. There's even a very cool Star Wars mod they developed for Battlefield 2142," he said, referring to the amazing First Strike mod, which can be found at Mod DB (http://www.moddb.com/mods/first-strike).
"I come from the modding community. That's actually how I got hired by DICE, so it's not this feeling of 'we don't like modders and we don't want them touching our game.' It's just realistic logistics and the way things were focused when this was built."
Be sure to check out this week's podcast (http://kotaku.com/5485687/the-newest-kotaku-podcast-is-oscar-mike-on-itunes-zune--more) for more from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 producer Gordon Van Dyke.
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kotaku/full/~4/JihHg_eJG50
More... (http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/JihHg_eJG50/bad-company-2-devs-have-nothing-but-love-for-the-modding-community)