No Mods for Battlefield 4

[Shawn Zipay]

Speaking with PC Gamer, DICE's General Manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson confirmed that Battlefield 4 will not support mods.

Is there any chance of Battlefield 4 being moddable?
Karl-Magnus Troedsson, DICE GM: We get that question a lot. I always answer the same thing, and then the community calls me bad names. We get the feedback, we understand it. We also would like to see more player-created content, but we would never do something like this if we feel we couldn’t do this 100 percent. That means we need to have the right tools available, we need to have the right security around this regarding what parts of the engine we let loose, so to say. So for BF4 we don’t have any planned mod support, I have to be blunt about saying that. We don’t.

But it is something that we are thinking about for the future, where we are going with the product, et cetera. So user-created content is something that’s very interesting to us, but I’m sorry to say that we will not have mod support in BF4.

When you say you’re thinking about it for the future, what do you mean?

Troedsson: When we think about Battlefield as a franchise, moving forward, it’s a big franchise. And we’re talking about this, almost as strategies for the company—where are we going, what are we trying to do with the franchise, et cetera. And this is definitely one of the areas that we have been discussing quite a bit.

While that is disappointing to hear, nobody should be too surprised at this given that Battlefield 3 also did not support mods.

(via PCG)

[SgtMattBaker]

I blame DLC. If there were fantastic mods like PR and Desert Combat no one would buy DLC.

[jimykx]

Arma II had mods and proffited TONS of money thanks to it. And they also have DLC that people buy because this DLC is cool and is also required to play the cool mods.

[Rogue Warrior]

Surprise, Surprise....

You can't blame the DLC, You need to blame the BS $19.95/month cheaters, and DICE themselves! Karl-Magnus Troedsson says "We need the right security around this regarding what parts of the engine we let loose." Hey KM wake the F8ck up, its already out there, so instead of catering to these little fag hackers and cheaters that "sit in their Mommies basement, and tell there parents the charge on the credit card isfor there WOW subscription" Listen to the modding community and MAKE IT HAPPEN!

[CptainCrunch]

Yeah, no surprise here.

[Thortok2000]

I think I'm one of the few who are not crazy about mods for games, especially for games that have dedicated servers.

Everyone likes to play with their own set of rules. I, for one, tend to want to play the game with the developer's set of rules. No hacks/cheats or exploits, and generally respectful behavior to each other in terms of communication or griefing, but other than that, all weapons allowed, all play styles allowed, all areas of the map allowed, all maps and all game modes, all vehicles, all everything.

I especially don't like mods when it comes to experience-based unlocks. What prevents a server from being modded in such a way that people can join the server and get 'fast xp' with little effort, unlocking things that others will have difficulty unlocking? I recall 'achievement servers' in TF2 that have maps and modes specifically for the unlocking of specific achievements.

On the other hand, I respect that some mods can actually be pretty fun. Scouts and Knives was a really popular one for CS, so much they made several maps for it. User-created maps themselves (although again, some maps were really good but unpopular, some maps were really bad but very popular, fy_iceworld comes to mind). There was also a Warcraft 3 mod that towards the end of my time playing original CS, I tended to only play on WC3 servers.

And of course, some mods become so popular that they steer the developers into adding them as features in future patches, expansions, or games. The ever-popular 'gun game' mode is one, not to mention Zombies, which I'm not sure started as a mod or a mode.

But for the most part, unless the mod has guidelines approved by the developers, I don't like the idea of them being on ranked, xp-earning servers, because of the potential for exploitation. I also don't like there to be a lot of different mods for the same game, because it splinters the community and then becomes difficult to find a server to play on that has the mod and ruleset you want.

The problem I have is that my particular way of playing, unmodded, all weapons/vehicles/etc., all playstyles allowed, is unpopular. In COD4 it was martyrdom and rocket launchers, and no C4 on objectives, people disliked akimbos in MW2, people will kick you if you RUN in some servers on Black Ops 1 and 2, etc.

Some people suggest 'find a better server' or 'make your own server' and again I say that my preference is unpopular. Servers I like exist, they sit at 0 players a good majority of the time, or have over 100 ping because they're on the other side of the world, or they don't speak English, or something. Part of the reason I don't create my own server is I can't afford it, but I can only imagine finally getting one only to see it sit empty the majority of the time, too. Waste of money.

I would rather the game (or tightly designed mod) prevent people from being able to do something than to have to have admins come in with their rules. Often I would be trying to unlock challenges or achievements for particular weapons and simply could not do so because I could not find a server that allowed me to use that weapon!

On the other hand, games like WoW allow you to have 'addons' which allow you to customize and sometimes automate certain parts of the experience. Mods are tightly restricted by Blizzard as to what they're allowed to do. Often popular mods either get patched to not work at all if Blizzard doesn't want them, or Blizzard makes similar features part of the default UI for everyone. I could go on and on about the number of UI features that were inspired by popular addons. The game's UI is incredibly better than when it was first released several years ago.

So, I like developer-approved player-created content. But free reign for player-created content? No thanks. So when I see a developer say no mods allowed, I'm actually kind of thankful.

[CptainCrunch]

I never liked mods because they always messed something else up.

[jimykx]

I wouldn't mind seeing something like the Far Cry 3 or the Portal 2 user friendly map builder. And they could still release new DLC with new weapons, vehicles,maps, equipements and props(from the new maps) for the map builder.

[Anarchy1]

I'm not really a mod fan either. I've only used mods for a few games. The Elder Scroll games, Civ V, and the early CoD games. And only for minor things like bug fixes and HUD redesigns and so forth. I don't like full conversion mods, or anything that takes away from the base game.

CoD1/2 were the only games that I enjoyed playing on a custom maps as well. Frankly most maps people made are terribly made.

So yeah, I'm not really upset. But for the people who do like mods, it would have been nice to include them.

I suspect the reason they don't have them has to do with licensing costs. The extra money they could gain for a sales boost wouldn't offset those costs.

The idea that they don't release mod tools so that they can release DLC is silly IMO. Other games with mod tools like Civ V, Skyrim, and so on all have mod tools and their DLC also sell extremely well. I don't think there is any negative correlation between DLC sales and mod tools.

[CptainCrunch]

The idea that they don't release mod tools so that they can release DLC is silly IMO. Other games with mod tools like Civ V, Skyrim, and so on all have mod tools and their DLC also sell extremely well. I don't think there is any negative correlation between DLC sales and mod tools.

Yeah, I always found this to be weak as well. BF1942 had mod tools and DLC (expansion packs back then). The percentage of people that bought it back then is about the same as it is today. (I assume that through polls and interviews over the years with various companies and devs at various websites as well as Premium members in Battlelog)

[l=l-ONeill-l=l]

For one Mods keep game alive. Example Bf1942, Bf2, CODs games lasted much longer after their release date, just because mods,
Second majority of people still play developers game because they like it, but you can only play the same maps for so long.

[hawtcakez]

Blah, I'm dissapointed but we have to realize that they are in a way pioneering there way into this one...a lot of this stuff is new to the gaming industry. I'd rather have them focus on gameplay rather than letting the game be modded...

[eradicator8]

Nor I could care less.
Development of BF4 is already 80% done. Why would they release the engine for a game they have not even released yet. From a business perspective that is just plain silly.

The mods for BF2 were kept alive as there was no developement on the core game. EA/Dice had moved on. But if the release a new BF game once a year the modders wont have any time to develop a playable mod.

However when BF4 releases they should release the source codes for the old engine and let the modders have some fun with it. Then allow them to release it through EA. Then EA will have some advertising and a continous income on BF3.