So no mod support...

[pevergreen]

Mods are probably viewed by CA/SEGA as "lost sales", as are second hand game sales.

Likely correct. They got rid of the second hand problem when they switched to steam.

At least they are being honest.

I think part of the difference is before it was text files. It wasn't hard to do yourself (RTW/M2TW) with the introduction of new file formats etc, its harder to mod.

[al Roumi]

If the game is good out of the box I'm ok with this.

If however the default game is poorly balanced like RTW/M2TW/Empire, it means no sale because there is no opportunity for that to be fixed.

What he said.

It probably need not be said (again, for the nth time), but recent form indicates that the above is a massive caveat.

Were it not for Darth Mod, Empire would be a waste of time. And Darthmod is by no means the answer to every gaming desire -or TW flaw (I hope Darth himself might think that fair).

But... Darthmod, and all the minor mods which it has encluded, were all done without the promised Mod tools.

Personaly, I'd be more upset if people like Darth said they would discontinue their modding.

[caravel]

They got rid of the second hand problem when they switched to steam.

This is one of the many reasons why I'm opposed to Steam.

As to mod support, there has been none since ETW, so what's new? I disagree with the assertion that people buy the games because of a particular mod. This may be the case in the small minority of sales, but on the whole SEGA/CA makes its money selling new full priced games to new customers - not to the same few thousand members of a particular online forum.

I'm afraid that most TW players don't post on these forums and haven't heard of any of the mods - it's dangerous to assume that we somehow reflect the "consumerbase". Most people buy a game on the strength of what's advertised or based on reviews. Mods are discovered later on by more seasoned players that participate in the discussions online. To be clear I support modding and the inclusion of modding tools, but I can easily see why CA are blocking modding (not to say I agree with their business model - quite the opposite).

Thanks for clearing that up Martok-san