Mods with this kind of content will be banned, so please don’t bother uploading them.” (On the plus side, this moderation does mean that publishers might feel a bit more comfortable opening themselves up to mods.) To quote the Skyrim Creation Kit wiki’s page on the Steam Workshop: “We won’t host offensive, copyrighted or trademarked material on the Skyrim Workshop. The other big problem is that Steam is a moderated service, which means that the mods you’ll see will never, ever be all of the mods that exist. A shame, particularly considering how much success SimCity 4 had with mods. Even aside from the Steam aspect, many major publishers have traditionally been a little wary of heavily associating themselves with mods because of potential legal issues, so it’s possible that the Workshop will largely be populated with a plethora of independent games. It’s true that all three of those are EA products, but it’s a dangerous sign that some of the titles most likely to get a boost from user-generated content are highly unlikely to use this new, user-friendly service. The new SimCity, which is reportedly likely to gain mod support sometime after launch, is unlikely to support Steam Workshop simply because, as an ea game, it’s unlikely to turn up on Steam. The same goes for The Sims 3, which is still going strong. Dragon Age: Origins has a sizeable modding community, despite the game’s lack of direct support for mods, but – age notwithstanding – I’d be surprised if it ever turned up on there. Second: this is a problem, because there are publishers out there which would doubtless rather focus on their own digital distribution platforms than give you a reason to shop on Steam. “The Steam Workshop is related to Steam? I would never have guessed!”įirst: shut up. “Good lord,” I hear you cry, your monocle slipping from your face as your eyes widen in mock surprise. The second problem – that the Steam Workshop is a Steam product – is a bit more thorny. More games will come to the Workshop and, while some will certainly focus entirely on cosmetic additions, there’s no doubt we’ll see plenty more games with full mod support. But seven games, one of which isn’t actually out and another of which is purely cosmetic, isn’t the most awe-inspiring of numbers.Īgain, though, that’s not a big problem. There’s no denying that the list comprises games of generally high quality (nearly half of them are Valve products, for crying out loud) and two of the most popular titles for modders – Skyrim and Civ V –are included. Ready? Okay! Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, DOTA 2, Skyrim, Civilization V, Dungeons of Dredmor, and, of all things, Naval War: Arctic Circle. It’s so small, in fact, that I can list them all right here. The first is the most easily forgiveable: right now, the selection of games that support the Steam Workshop is incredibly sparse. In short: the Steam Workshop is quick, tremendously easy to use, and contains plenty of features that make installing and using mods a painless experience.īut there are a few problems which, while not the fault of either Valve or the Steam Workshop system itself, are problems nonetheless. Better still, there’s a reason why that button is “Subscribe” rather than “Install”: the game will automatically check the Workshop for updates whenever you launch it, so you don’t need to manually check back on a regular basis. No more faffing around with precise install locations, lengthy command lines, separate shortcuts for each mod, or esoteric errors (which, admittedly, are four things that don’t crop up all that often any more, even when trying to mod games that don’t inherently support them). Once that’s done, all you need to do is select it and it’s good to go. The next time you launch Civ V and click on the in-game Mods tab, Vanilla Enhanced will automatically download and install. When you find something you want to install – the Vanilla Enhanced Mod for Civilization V, say – then you just click the Subscribe button next to it, aaaand… that’s about it. If you have a game on Steam that supports the Workshop, then all you need to do is highlight the game in your Steam library, click “Browse Workshop”, and hunt through the list of mods (assisted by an able search function, user ratings, and – if you’re into the sort of thing – user comments.) ![]() Steam Workshop is, in essence, a very simple way of installing, updating and activating mods for your Steam games and it’s one of the most ludicrously simple ways of doing so that I’ve ever seen. ![]() Fundamentally, there’s nothing wrong with it – in fact, it works so well that I’m damned if I can think of a single technical flaw with it. I haven’t quite decided what to make of the Steam Workshop.
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