Steam Workshop

[Bison]

OK.  This is a pretty awesome addition to the Steam monopoly. 

The Steam Workshop is a central hub of player-created content and tools to publish, organize, and download that content into your games. Different games will utilize the Workshop in different ways. Some games, like Team Fortress 2, allow you to create and submit new items (such as hats, weapons, badges, boots, and more) for consideration to be incorporated into the actual game. Other games like Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim allow mod authors to publish their work directly to the Workshop, and let players subscribe to mods they want to use in their game.

Mods that download directly from Steam into the game for use and should theoritically work the first time out of the gate.  This might encourage more dev's to give modding tools to the community.

[jomni]

Not a bad idea.  I never install mods on my Steam games because of the hassle.  This makes things easier.

[LongBlade]

Great news. Thanks Bison.

[TheCommandTent]

Not a bad idea.  I never install mods on my Steam games because of the hassle.  This makes things easier.

I agree, same reason I did not use mods for steam games.

[Gusington]

*drool*

I wonder how well it will work in practice. And if it will affect the way some companies approach modding, like CA and the TW franchise. Fingers crossed.

[LongBlade]

There's already movement on this front: Portal 2 has landed in Tamriel: http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10353269-a-portal-2-personality-crash-lands-into-skyrim-literally

[Bison]

Anyone use the workshop for Skyrim or TF mods yet?

[Nefaro]

They've needed mod publishing/installation support for a long time.  I think it could have been done earlier.  It would be one of the few advantages I could see Steam having in the trade-off for running their client all the time.  I just hope they don't deliver too much bugginess.

I'm sure they 'borrowed' the idea from Desura, after seeing it has this kind of integrated mod support. 

[Sir Slash]

Gamespot regularly lists recommended mods for Skyrim about every week. Some are just plainly for fun but some look like they could really change the whole look and feel of the game. The improved dungeon and outdoor sounds mod would be one. Though I haven't actually tried any myself. The workshop site also has lists of top-rated mods and most mods includs screenshots and some videos of the mods in action to compare. I like to go there and browse through them when I want a quick Skyrim fix without playing the game.

[LongBlade]

I used the No Weight mod (or Weightless, maybe) which makes everyday items weigh zero. I still sometimes maxed out my carrying ability, but it made the logistics of lugging a bunch of iron, steel, dwarven, and other metals around a lot easier and when I wanted to craft something I didn't have to run home to do it.

[Bison]

I used the No Weight mod (or Weightless, maybe) which makes everyday items weigh zero. I still sometimes maxed out my carrying ability, but it made the logistics of lugging a bunch of iron, steel, dwarven, and other metals around a lot easier and when I wanted to craft something I didn't have to run home to do it.

You used the workshop to install the mod?

[LongBlade]

No, I went to Curse.com and downloaded their client. It installed effortlessly.

There are other places that offer free download managers - Ultimately I turned off Curse because I had stopped playing Skyrim yet it insisted on starting at the boot cycle.