The closed beta for Fallout 4 mod support on PS4 is looming, with part of the effort involving updates to the game’s world-building Creation Kit. The latest improvements arrived last Wednesday and included an interesting tidbit — crafters will need to link their Steam and Bethesda accounts together in order to upload mods.
The announcement is up on Bethesda’s official forums, with the relevant section below:
Uploading mods to Bethesda.net requires Fallout 4 ownership via a Steam-linked Bethesda.net account. To link your Bethesda.net account, start Fallout 4, select Mods, and log in. This automatically links your Bethesda.net account to your Steam ID.
Apart from the obvious bookkeeping benefits for Bethesda, there’s a policing upside too — the developer can enact harsher penalties on those who find a way to abuse the system, say by stealing content or uploading nefarious mods.
A banned Bethesda account isn’t the end of the world… but your Steam account? That’s quite the ouch. The decision of course would rest with Valve, but I’m sure Bethesda has enough sway with the company to implement this if it wants.
For modding enthusiasts, PS4 mods still carry a few creative caveats:
PC textures are used. Memory and performance issues may occur. We are working with Sony on optimal texture exporting support in a future update.
Sound files are currently not supported. PS4 sound format is a proprietary format. We are working with Sony on sound file processing support in a future update.
PS4 Mod Storage limit is approximately 900 MB at present. Please do not upload mods larger than 900 MB. We are working with Sony to increase this limit.
It’s mentioned that the closed beta is “close to ready”, which isn’t that surprising considering PS4 mods were originally slated to arrive sometime this month.
Comments
17 responses to “Uploading Fallout 4 Mods Now Requires Linked Bethesda And Steam Accounts”
Not to the nexus it doesn’t 🙂
Yeah, which is why Nexus has somewhat regular problems of stolen mods being uploaded. At least with this system Bethesda can shut down the accounts of thieves here. It seems like a good move.
And charge for them. Dont forget that.
I don’t see any hint of a paid mods system here, but even if there were, it would be up to the mod author and not Bethesda if they wanted to enable a fee.
http://www.pcgamesn.com/fallout-4/fallout-4-skyrim-nexus-mods-bethesdanet-stolen
Seems there’s quite a lot of the opposite going on with Bethesda paying zero attention right there dude.
Of course Bethesda pays attention. Robin Scott’s original post does note stolen mods were being actioned, but the process is slow and not the kind of streamlined system Nexus uses. His post also makes no mention of Steam linking, which was only announced two days prior. On Bethesda’s side of things, part of the problem is that there’s no cost to banning bethesda.net accounts because anyone can just make a new one.
The Steam linking mentioned in this article above is in closed beta right now and was only announced a few days ago. It’s being added to make sure that uploaders have a copy of Fallout 4 on their account, and that the Steam account itself can be blocked from uploading mods if they’re stolen. Instead of just making a new bethesda.net account, thieves would have to make a new Steam account and buy another copy of Fallout 4 just to upload some more stolen mods, a significantly less appealing process.
Bethesda bans mod thieves currently and have been for a while, it’s just been too easy to get around the ban. This change is a step towards making it so that ban is a lot harder to bypass.
Have they un-fucked the mod system yet so we can use any mods?
On console or?
PC, ever sinced it happened i just stopped fallout 4 and forgot about it. really depressed me
There was an update saying that, with some mods, you had to refresh your mod listing from time to time if you grabbed them from the Beth mods page. Oddly enough, that was a warning I saw over at Nexus.
I thought that was a general thing for mods. It’s something I’ve always done with mods personally give they’re rarely, if ever, stable when used, let alone used in notable to large numbers…
If you’re using the in-built ‘mods’ section in Fallout 4’s main menu then I have no idea, but I do know that the Nexus is totally on top of which .ini file updates needed to be made to get mod support back.
Worst case scenario, you just delete all your .ini files then do a ‘file verification’ through Steam to get them re-downloaded – clean – and update the couple lines that need altering, but for the most part I expect it shouldn’t be too hard to also just run the Nexus Mod Manager and follow its prompt with instructions about which lines USED to be needed, but aren’t any more and can be removed.
(All the stuff in the .ini about enabling specific mod directories for SCRIPT/TEXTURE etc can be removed, now. Leaving them there just increases load times.)
In Appdata/local/fallout4 theres a file called plugins.ini
Turn off “read only”, then list your mod esps by their names in there as follows:
*Armoursmith Extended.esp
*Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch.esp
Etc..
Including the asterix will ensure they are enabled. Save the file, make it read only again, and launch your game through steam. Make a copy of the file too because launching using NMM or repairing the game resets the plugins. As long as you launch through steam your mods will remain active.
I know it sucks but this beats having to enable the mods through bethesdas menu every time you launch the game!
Typo in the headline!
Where?
There should be a comma after mods.
Er. I don’t see how that makes any sense.