Dunkelseele

Cease/Desist by Colorado Police: Well I just hope the whole rights-issue will not be coming down on the mod scene as you predicted. Since corporations in the US are pretty trigger happy when it comes to law suits defending their intellectual property. Hot Coffee: Sorry, I guess I didn't made my opinion on this very clear. Hot Coffee was a disaster for Rockstar, not so much in financial terms, but publicity-wise. So they tried to prohibit modding or at least file access for GTA IV. It didn't work of course. But now they had 4+ years to watch and observe how the modding community worked to extend the replayability of their title. Im pretty sure they learned the lesson - so code that is supposed to not be seen will be deleted before shipping and modding will neither be supported nor prohibited exessively by R*.

Okay, so there's a few facts that some of you need to get straight: PC-Port: We've had numerous sources and evidence saying R* will release a PC version of GTA V, and even if that is not enough for you sceptics: Think hard, would you turn down a sure multi-million dollar revenue by selling PC versions of GTA V, and even if, how would you communicate it to your shareholders? After all, R* is a stock corporation. 'Nuff said, GTA V will come for PC, maybe with a delay, maybe as a horrible port, but it will come. Modding: One can't say too much about it yet, but the engine is the same as for IV (RAGE with improvements of course) and as such the basic structures will be the same. There will be a virtual cdimages system (and I would bet the internal structure is largely the same), there will be numerous .dat-Files which contain raw configuration data for cars, ped-handlers, engine, etc. and there will be textures and models with largely the same specs as in IV. Heck, I would'nt even be surprised if you can port cars from IV 1:1 to V without too much trouble. Scripts however may need to be updated or rewritten with new handlers and hooks. Probably the weather system is also completely new, due to different weather in different locations opposed to global weather in IV, who knows what they changed in that part of the code as well. Just stop for a moment and watch the collection of script-mods and tools that is available today for GTA IV. Then zoom back into 2008/2009 and think what was possible back then. LCPDFR together with great enhancements like vdhs police helper 2000 or braveheart's policing script are turning the game experience around completely (for good!). Script hooks for .NET allow a broad base of developers (even newcomers) to write script mods for the game. Creating a new skin for one of the thousands of new cars out there is possible with OpenIV and a decent graphics program in mere minutes. It took time, and it will take (substantial less) time for V to develop the necessary tools and workflows, but V will be just as heavily (and possibly more) modded as IV was. Just because the game world is so much bigger, theres so much more tuning, clothing, driving, flying, fighting etc. Last point: Rockstars stance on modding: They may have been a bit unsure how to handle it (one may say there where very sure to try and ban it with some of the earlier patches) but ultimately: What developer has been successful with banning modding? They are no idiots. They see just as well how much of an afterlife GTA IV has just because of modding. Compare the number of people still playing the console versions (where no modding is possible due to its closed nature) and the PC version with a rich enhanced gameplay. And they also see - and this is where it gets important - how well the modding scene for GTA IV is behaving. How many mods made it to the media in the US or elsewhere, creating a media-no-clue-what-theyre-talking-about shitstorm against Rockstar? That's right, none. So downside of modding for GTA IV? From Rockstars point of view? None - at - all. So will they be nice and release modding tools? SDKs? Heck even some specs? You can be sure they won't. It's just not how they are. They never took a step towards the modding scene. But they sure won't take steps to try and ban modding as well. So it's entirely up to the modding scene. Sorry, this kind-of rant got longer than expected. Well, as good a introduction to the LCPDFR-forums as any other, right? : ) Best regards,