Personally, I don't like the idea of it. We DO NOT need the stupid shop from TF2/Portal2 in Skyrim. I can understand some people mite want to do that, but I am concerned this will stop people from being able to upload to MOD sites if it gets 'accepted' by the devs... in fact, this could throw a big spanner in the mod community... We DO NOT want another Horse Armor fiasco, but I can't help but think that this is a really bad idea for this game...

On the other hand, it would be good for mods who have done a lot of work... but I wounder how easy it would be to patch things though it....

So far all this thing has been used for is TF2 ITEMS. Nothing like what we will see be made for Skyrim. Nothing that needs patching......

So... what do we all think of this?

Good? Bad? Whatever?

It's not exclusive; we can still use our normal modding sites. This is just an alternate source for people who want it automated.

It's a way for companies to provide an effecient method for the customers to create a ton of solid, free, highly artistic and robust content they'll have in a database they can then use when selling upcoming DLC and future games. Woot!

But seriously it's not a bad idea at all. The community regularly comes up with all kinds of stuff in general and I'm not talking about for TF2 I just mean everywhere for all kinds of games. The concept is a good way to make it far easier to do that type of stuff in a more organized way, with far less propensity to create conflicts with other things etc etc. It may have drawbacks but it also has merit.

The Workshop will probably be way more visible to the more "casual" players than a site like Nexus.

But I'm concerned if Workshop will implement any kind of BOSS-type sorting method... I'm going to guess not.

The problem were all going to run into is you can't use two programs to install mod. They will keep separate records of data overwrites and conflicts. That's going to be a big problem.

Need more information before making an informed opinion.

How will it deal with conflicts? what level of censorship will there be? and will a system be in place where modders can get mods with stolen content in them removed?

You can bet no nvde mods will be there. For sharing armor, weapons, etc it will probably be cool, but Skyrim Nexus will still be the default mod place.

My problem is more with the mods that get accepted, and go up for sale. How easy will it be able to fix bugs in them, and how will it work if there also on other mod sites. Will they have to be taken down if they get accepted?

There my main problems with it. Not before, but after you get accepted.

Bad, for reasons that I envision they'll manage to work in:

• DLC packs will probably show up in the Steam Workshop, and have price tags associated with them, and may even show up in featured or "spotlight" areas.
  
• Other types of advertising may show up, be it Steam or gamesas oriented, or even third-party. The community would have no control over advertising like they do on their own sites.
  
• Low levels of control over Steam-oriented content mean that people will be reposting others' work, essentially stealing intellectual property and reposting it with their own name.
  
• If your package is included as a "sales item for a game", like with a mod pack or DLC (and actually sold to users), the modder gets a portion of the fee..? So it's commercializing modding, something we've been forbidden to do for the last ten years?

There may be other pitfalls we don't know of yet, but we do know that Steam would have full control over their portal, and won't listen to requests for changes from the community, only from Bethesda.

I'm way more interested in Nexus Mod Manager. Any solution provided by Bethesda/Valve won't have support for essential tools because, frankly, I am sure they don't have any clue what they are doing.

They're just wasting their time. The community will come out with a much better mod manager that will also end up being able to sort your mods and solve mod conflicts with fancy merging utilities.

But it's nice to see that Beth is attempting to support the community anyway.

The article on Beths blog does say the content will be free, lets not assume it's going to be a repeat of TF2.

If it's any consolation we're working with the BOSS folks at the moment to integrate the API they're working on in to NMM. Automatically ordered mod lists in NMM for maximum compatibility? Yes please

First of all, OP took that straight from the TF2 page. That has no bearing on the Skyrim Workshop. Way to take something unrelated and twist it around, bro.

@Jaga
DLC hasn't even been announced. This is a pretty big jump in logic you're making here. And if so, so what?
Nexus has advertisemants as well. Take a look through the TF2 Workshop by the way. Do you see any ads?
People taking others "intellectual property" (lmao) can and does happen everywhere else.
When has Bethesda done microtransactions? You're looking at a thing for one game and saying it probably will happen to another!!!

Seems like a rather ghastly idea, but as long as it doesn't inconvenience me in some fashion, I'll be happy to ignore it completely.

So I'm indifferent, assuming it won't break or limit something I do want to use (ie, not STEAM Workshop).

None of the content on Steamworks will cost money..

Odds are talking to the folks at Valve and integrating it into the CK is the reason it's gonna take them so long to release it, so I say eff that.

I'm looking for clarification on that point. The Blog article states "Using the Workshop, you’ll have free user content with the push of a button.", which doesn't suggest there won't be paid for content, just that there will be free content. Have I missed something? Am I reading in to it too much?

I'll stay with the Nexus for as long as possible. Dark is doing a fairly good job over there.
Not that he'll ever see another cent from me again after his shenanigans but nevertheless
it's good to have all mods in one place where you can track them, talk to the creators etc.

It's a good looking, very feature rich and nicely laid out and very user friendly site. I really
don't see the need for this Steam Workshop - unless, there's something we have not been
told yet. Something that will upset us greatly. Hmmm...

Good!

Frankly the idea of having my mods hosted in a semi-official fashion is reassuring. Apart from tesnexus and pes, I don't trust other mod hosting sites all that much. I'm from morrowind, and if any of you mod this game you will probably know of sites like elricm, which everyone trust until one day it's gone. So in that regard, a semi-official alternative is great. The key is to upload your mods to more than one place, and this is an interesting alternative.

And btw, I do wonder if this is a first step towards bringing mods to consoles, as I said in another thread. After all, steam is partially available on ps3, so who knows...

Assuming bethesda/steam intends to commercialize Skyrim mods seems to be jumping the gun a little bit. They mention the words free, and make no mention of a paid content program, so I think for now we should just all assume there will be no monetization of user generated content lest we fall prey to the bad habits of wild speculation and rumormilling.

It is a terrible thing, however we knew it was coming given that the recent trend for gaming companies and these hosting sites has been ....how can we make money from YOUR hard work and get away with paying you nothing or an insulting pittance.

This is a very, very sad day for this modding community.

I know they said we can use other sites, what I want to clarify is whether the Creation Kit is going to be automatically uploading our mods to Steam whether we want it to or not. Call me suspicious however given that we are talking about a software that updates your game even when you have switched automatic updates off....

+1 ---- we will not know until they actually release it - will it require that mods are submitted and approved before being made avaliable and who approves them if so - How will it handle 2 separate mods that both retexture existing game items - will it allow the user to chose which remains or will it be based on the popularity of the 2 mods in question as to which is used - will there be restrictions placed on what can be added\removed from the game by a mod ? will it allow the use of mods from third party sites or will using it remove those mods from use (ie. if they do not allow a nvde Mod will it allow one to be used that is added from another site or will it require that all the mods it loads be only from the Steamworks library.) What will the TOS require that modders permit as far as the usage of their mods ( Will using the service require accepting the current EULA which more or less means you give up all rights to any content you upload or will modders retain ownership of their works and be able to remove them after submission if so desired ?)

No way to know right now so no way to say if it is good\bad so we'll just have to wait and see -- but if it is anything like the rest of STEAM (ie. updating your game after you specifically set it to not update automatically --- and not allowing you to undo the update even if it breaks your game, etc.) then I wish they would have just left it outside of this new trend of theirs to tie everything to STEAM.