The Possibility and Ramifications of Modding

Before you bombard me with gameplay balance and "the content in DkS2 will be fine on it's own!" lectures, please hear my proposal. I joined Souls with the PC version, as I do not, could not, and may never own a ps3. I love Dark Souls (with all of its charm and wonderful, speculation inducing lore) to death. I have both Dark Souls and Skyrim. I have heavily modded skyrim. I have 400 hours approx. on both games. I stick with Skyrim because it is heavily modded and has a university library's worth of relatively interesting lore. I stick with Dark Souls because . . . well I'm sure you already know if you've played the game for an hour. Every game can have content add-ons, I see no point in these arguments of "we won't let you mod our game because it's just fine on its own". Mods, finished game or not, can at least quadruple the life-time of a game. They also serve to attract people who like experiencing new content, potentially increasing a games audience.

Each Time I play skyrim, and use a really exceptional looking modded weapon (magic is, for the most part, equally awesome in DkS as in modded skyrim IMO), I grieve for the possibilities that will never fly because of Skyrim's utterly and sickeningly simplistic melee combat system. Say I modded a lance into skyrim. No matter what weapon type it is, I can only perform a left or right slash with it. In dark souls, it could've been modded in as a spear, and then it would be a proper lance. Of course, how would you balance such a weapon in a Souls game's already delicately balanced combat?

I have this idea, where mods are subdivided into two groups: Offline mods and online mods- HEAR ME OUT! All mods could be subject to some sort of balancing system on creation (although I see no reason why modders would not utilize self control ad balance it themselves). If it adds a new zone, nothing would need to be done. New enemies? perhaps a souls-per-enemy measuring guide? new weapons and possibly spells could be subject as well. The nature of armor is ambiguous at the moment, as many players are calling for an "armor does not provide mega-bonuses, just defense, add trinket slots" reiteration. So perhaps armor sets can replace or even be acquired with their statistical equivalents. I'm out of ideas, now I'd like to hear some of yours.

If you would be so kind as to refrain from saying "lol shut up", "no to everything you say"(because I know for a fact that I got SOMETHING right), or "the game is fine on it's own, nub" without any sort of constructive criticism or tact, I will be eternally grateful.

Personally, I'm open to ideas.

Some history, in case you didn't know: Miyazaki expressed an interest in mods after the PC port was announced. He said he liked the idea but the Dark Souls team was too small and inexperienced to pull it off properly. Looking back, we know that Dark Souls II production had by that time started and there were devs who had to be pulled from the new game to work on the DkS port. This was probably one of the big reasons for the PC version's bare-bones conversion.

On to your idea. First, dividing mods between online and offline goes against the grain of the historic Souls series. Shuffling between 'online' and 'offline' modes is done dynamically, in-game, all the time. Unless you're talking about playing as though you didn't have an internet connection... but if some mods required that, I don't think it would be very popular.

A really big issue is balance. I'm sure you've noticed, but Dark Souls is online and Skyrim isn't. PvP in DkS matters a lot to many players, and From has historically had trouble balancing things they put into the game. Imagine how difficult it would be to balance things they don't even plan for! To pull it off right, From would need lots of beta testers (which would require lots of money) and only PC fans would see a benefit from that investment.

So, I'm not sure about gameplay mods. It would take some convincing. I'm 100% for graphics mods, though.

Honestly I feel modding should just stay away from Dark Souls. Yes for Skyrim it works and it is fine but the biggest problem with modding and Dark Souls is that the single player and multiplayer are just to cojoined. Skyrim is only single player, no multiplayer while Dark Souls has both and they both are rather intertwined with each other. Unless they stripped out the invasion system (which I doubt they will) I don't think they can impliment modding as heavily as Skyrim can. You of course have a good idea I won't deny, but unless the invasion system gets pulled (and again I doubt it will) I just don't feel comfortable with the idea of modding in Dark Souls.

client side reskins and remodels.

could be done via steam workshop system and can be voted upon and released thru updates and obtained thru an exorbitant priced merchants as an ember that you can modify armor with at smiths?