So they say in the sticky:
"The team is working to get it released as quickly as possible. As soon as we have more information to share, we'll let you know."

Call me a glass-is-half-empty person, but I read this as "We'll release the kit about one month past the release date of our first DLC for the PC, which of course will mean two months past when that same DLC appears for the XBox"

The delay is just a play to garner more sales for their DLC.

I think it's more about adepting it to the common user rather than delaying it on purpose. Either that or removing some settings that were ment for developers only, like hardcoded options.

And on regards to the DLC, they haven't even announced anything yet.

Suprise suprise companies actually want to make money selling their stuff. I would've done the same in their position, its something we simply have to get used too. Im just happy we get the CS at all to be honest.

It's probably fairer to say that they are trying their best but need to spend resources to fix the PC issues before releasing the Creation Kit. No sense releasing a modding kit for a game that some people are having trouble getting to run.

Mainly removing licensed stuff, and replacing CVS features (that allowed several peoples to work on the same file simultaneously) with something that will run on single computers without access to a version management server.

Even if they released the CK today, I doubt that we will be able to create plugins that compete with the DLCs so fast. We might be able to beat another set of horse-armor or player houses, but not a Fallout-Style DLC.

Many reasons

Making it user friendly
Writing user manuals/tutorials
Removing bugs
cleaning up the interface

It's more of the latter option. Bethesda is busy stripping out the parts of the CK that they are not allowed to legally distribute to the public, and removing the settings that effect hardcoded options. This is mostly due to licensing terms and the fact that Bethesda wouldn't like someone to modify their game's code and redistribute the executable. Really, I don't think any game developer would unless they were full on open-source.

I'm sure it'll be out in the coming weeks.

Relax guy. They do this every time. They say they may release one, or the will, and two weeks or so after launch they release it. Fact is, most of them are probably focused on bugs right now. I'd rather many other people actually be able to play their game, rather than us be able to mod ours. Not that it maters, we'll all gt there eventually.

As for why it's taking so long. No idea. They didn't tell us. Maybe they have to strip out anything from it that isn't their property. Maybe they need to make a build that removes all the console stuff so people playing on 360 and PS3 don't mod their game (as that would get Microsoft and Sony mad at Bethesda). Who knows. Bethesda is an extremely secretive company, most are, but they also tend to be rather fascist about framing the discussion, about controlling who says what about their games. Up until this Mojang bull they pulled, it was one of my biggest issue with this company, second only to their lack of artistic integrity.

Just be glad that they are not making the CK the first DLC for the PC and making you pay for it !!

That's too pessimistic. You have nothing to base it on.

Perhaps they're busy patching the game into an ALMOST playable state.

Not to get out off topic, but just out of curiosity, what are you refering to?

Unbelievable how Bethesda can be slagged off for "when" they release a free tool that they don't actually have to give us in the first place! Good job I'm not in charge there, if I'd seen this thread and others like it, I'd be tempted to say "Ok, no kit then!"

May also surprise people to learn that Bethesda are a business! That means they need to make a profit to stay in business which means they need to maximise sales, not that I think the reason the kit isn't out yet is because of this, it's more likely it's because it's not ready!!

Lastly, to be "A delay" there has to have been an agreed release date, Bethesda have never promised us a date for the kit to be released so how can it be delayed?

Just a thought!

Beats me why, has anyone contacted them and asked? All else is just conjecture. I just hope its released as soon as poss.

Ironically, people are too lazy to do it themselves and wait for someone else to do it for them. And then they can complain about it.

Lol do you really think mods affect their dlc sales that much? If they make a good dlc people will still buy it even if there's mods available.

CK will come out soon enough. I don't think most modders are done playing the vanilla version yet anyway. Although I already know a few minor and major things I would like to change myself.

And if they don't make it available, they can sell [censored] ones.

I agree, no sense in slagging them off, however for them to say no CK or release a massively underpowered or slimfast version with limited modding power would be massively self defeating and hurt their pocket considerably. For one I would certainly call Skyrim my last purchase as to mod is all for quite a lot of people I should imagine. A similar thing happened with a game called sudden strike. The 2d game was good in its day but it was the mods that eventually put it into classica status. They released a 3d version and the modding scene collapsed because the developers released a really poor modding kit and refused to allow custom items to be developed. The vanilla game was played, then forgotten. The scene ended. The game got forgotten about and by the time the modding tools were released (to a select and limited few - self included) there was no point. The game had no following. Very few games nowadays can be released and expect much of a long term existence if they cant be modded.

Bethesda need modders to keep the game fresh and link the old community into new games. Fingers crossed that the Bethesda of Skyrim are the same Bethesda of Morrowing and Oblivion fame. I can honestly say that up to now they have been the best of the best.

As a sidenote, that's especially true for singleplayer games like Skyrim.

On the bright side, Skyrim is probably the TES game to date least in need of a massive CS overhaul, dduno about you guys but I'm ok waitting a while...

Totally agree with you and I'm sure Bethesda love seeing what mods are made and impressed by the quality of a lot of them, my point is simply that it's something they give us by choice, it's not an entitlement

Always conspiracy theorists in video game forums...

Man, cool out. Bethesda may not always make the best decisions (though often I'd blame ZeniMax for that), but when it comes to the modding community they've always done right by us. You can expect the Creation Kit in the coming weeks, most likely along with a massive amount of documentation and perhaps video tutorials on how to do every little thing you could ever ask.

The game has only been released for five days, and we have not even had a major patch yet.

I can understand complaining if we still have no information in a month or two, but it hasn't even been a week since release yet.