Factorio Forums

The question is in the title.

Allow me to elaborate. You see, currently Factorio seems to be developing in depth: developers are creating new kinds of things and new concepts, but usually you get only one-two things that represent a concept. It's not uncommon to see topics like "Add new belts" or "new weapons" or whatever in Ideas and Suggestions, but the thing about them is that they are all based around already existing concepts. Either it's not going to be implemented or you get a link to a mod that already does that.

And most "Big Mess" mods that I know are essentially a filler for existing concepts. I have nothing against Bob's mods and Angel's mods, but if you were to take a look at them, you would see that they don't add [almost] fundamentally new things to the game, but rather expand already existing concepts. "Bigger, better, stronger, but still the same thing" seems appropriate.
On the other hands mods like Rampant AI or even Tank Wagon do add completely new concepts to the game that radically change the gameplay (maybe not so much for Tank Wagon, but you gotta admit it changes your oil stage significantly).

But in vanilla we have some kind of generic "Boiler", generic "Steam Engine", generic "Solar Panel", generic "Accumulator", generic "Inserter" and so on. Those things are enough to represent some concept for modders to expand later, but the question is whether it is truly what Factorio is going to become. Will this game be a playground for modders and therefore "make your own game"-like game or is it going to be a self-sufficient game to provide more than enough content when it's released? Maybe a mix of both?

Some examples:
Garry's Mod is a "make your own game" game. It has robust modding system and no one plays vanilla anymore because it is so horribly empty, but it is a good base for addons. Download a ton of addons and get 3000 hours worth of content to toy with.
A game like, say, OpenXCom (which is basically a renewed UFO: Enemy Unknown) is self-sufficient and although there is a modding system in it, trust me, it's very inflexible and you cannot even program new things with it. But it's fine because UFO: EU is a complete game and you can play it vanilla just fine without ever feeling like there is not enough variety.
Minecraft and something like Transcendence are more or less a hybrid of two, but mostly still "make your own game" kind of games. Both are complete games that can be enhanced and modified wildly with mods, but you can play it vanilla too and be fine with it.


So which one is Factorio going to be?

I think it's very much like minecraft. The game itself is really fun vanilla and it is designed not to overwhelm the player or have too many redundancies. On the other side, there is really robust and insanely flexible mod system, so the modding community can make the game into anything. I presonally play with vanilla game and a couple of not very invasive mods, becouse I don't like to be overwhelmed and prefer to utilize everything I'm given.

My vote is for a mod playground.

This may not be the answer you're looking for and I may have misunderstood exactly what you are asking, so bare with me a bit.

Game development, by it's nature, is a very long and complex process. I used to make servers for a small online game that had a 'make your own game' format. Yea, I could pop out a quick and simple server in a day if I wanted, but to make a complex and we'll balanced economic server that provided any kind of depth and detail would literally require months of planning and design. And at the end, might end up failing anyway and being scrapped either because the design was flawed from the start, because something minor was overlooked and was critical to the design, or just because I simply planned beyond what the games tools allowed due to forgetting the exact limitations.

Making a game may seem simple, but it is not and time is limited. I'm sure the devs would love to make factorio the perfect game but the fact is it is impossible to make a perfect game because time is limited and it is impossible to please everybody.

They literally cannot add everything players want. For starters it would yield a ridiculous amount of items, but more importantly, not everybody likes all aspects of the game nor all aspects of every mod.

A healthy mod community fills the gap and allows for players to customize their game to their liking to get the most enjoyment out of it. Thus allowing everybody to be happy by basically providing the options they want in a game. Plus, mods expand playability. Any game that can't be modded (at all or even just easily) will get boring after a while. No matter how much you love it, there will be a limit to how often you can do the same thing over and over, there will become a time when you have seen and done everythingbthe game allows. Mods circumvent this issue allowing nearly infinite replay value to a game.

Both. As stated already, the game itself has a lot of content. But people do want more.
Now, modding, especially in the early access stages, is a good way to give players more contend without the devs having to useressources for it (I am aware that some mods were done by devs).
There are some economic and moral implications to that, but lets not get there.
Instead, lets look at some other aspects.
The Problem with Mods is that they break, or at least, change the balance. And with a Game like Factorio, you might find out about this hours into the game. Might be too easy, or too hard (usually too easy). And there is the Multiplayer aspect. Join a Server and you might find a different Game each time. Things that worked before might not anymore, you might have to change everything you know. That doesnt make stuff easier. Plus, a Mod might always be abandoned by its Dev.
That said, mods are a great thing, BUT the game itself should, at least once it leaves Early Access, provide enough content to feel finished and have more than the "generic" items. The Mods should, imho, focus on things like creating a whole new industry or other stuff. Not basics like the Barrel Mod (again, talking about the finished game, not early access).