In-game mod manager

[Metropolitan]

As CO mentionned it several times, developing a modding community is the best way to extend the lifespan of a video game, bringing new contents making the experience better and better. It is pleasing to hear that there will be tools brought with the game to allow anyone to create his own contents.

However, it should also be known that the major rebuttal for a casual player to use mods is the complexity to install them and the difficulty to manage them properly. To prevent this, I believe the best way is to bring within the game a mod manager directly accessible from the main menu which would be as easy to use as are apps on an Android phone or an iPhone. An interface from which we could :
- browse available contents from the community to install (with all the regular features of number of downloads, ratings, comments and bug reports)
- enable/disable any custom content the player has installed in just one click

I'm aware such a tool would require to be managed in the long term, but I believe it is really necessary for anyone who would want the use of custom contents to become a mainstream practice among players. Have Paradox and CO already thought about that aspect?

 

[Sotrax]

Agree. Almost every game got at least one usermade "mod manager", but if we could get one direct to the release and made from the persons who understand the game complete, that would be a big plus. Without a mod manager it's a real pain to delete old mods, repair files and so on.

 

[eis_os]

I guess they will use Steam Workshop, maybe this time less buggy then in CIM2. If this is a good thing depends on your taste...

(If it has 10% of the features of my CIM1 ModManager this would be already a improvement compared to CIM2)

 

[Metropolitan]

The thing is that if it is easy for people to create their own residential or commercial buildings, we could expect the library of custom buildings to become massive. And in such a case, many of us (including myself); who enjoy a large diversity of buildings within their town, will be tempted to install many buildings. And here goes the need for an efficient mod manager.

I'm quite skeptical the steam workshop fits for this kind of need. Especially that, if the mod-manager is built in-game, it could check the mods used in every single savegame and recover them by himself without crashing. The mod usage experience would become largely better integrated to the game in itself.

 

[MrVrod]

I would LOVE an in-game mod manager!

 

[Bautz]

Would be cool to use Steam-Workshop to download and update mods, but selection which mods to use should be ingame.
What i really loved was the Nexus Mod Manager for Skyrim.

 

[Greygor69]

Would be cool to use Steam-Workshop to download and update mods, but selection which mods to use should be ingame.
What i really loved was the Nexus Mod Manager for Skyrim.

I'm sure they said in the livestream last night that there will be Workshop Support.


However I hope they learn from the issues Banished had before the developer changed it with lots of people uploading the same item developed by someone else to the Workshop.