Workshop opening up soon!

So 1.0.8 has finally been released which means that mods can finally be properly loaded without switching to beta branches.

You won't be able to load mods while playing in the Official Realm of the game but by turning on modding for the Vermintide 2 launcher you will be able to boot the game in the Modded Realm and run any subscribed Workshop mods you like.

(to turn on the modding for the launcher, edit %appdata%/Fatshark/Vermintide 2/launcher.config)

• The compiler now prints a log to the console window. So if you get any compilation or bundling errors, the compiler should at least give you an error message. It will also show it's progress so if it's taking a long time you can see what's taking that time.
  
• Mods are now loaded as soon as all the game lua scripts are loaded but before the major systems get instantiated so you are able to mod those classes before they get instantiated. This might be very early for some mods, but you can check out the game state callbacks described in the readme.txt to get a mod callback at a later time and do your initialization there instead.
  
• Speaking of which, mod game state change callbacks have been fixed so the GameStateMachine actually calls them before and after changing state.
  
• Some other load order fixes, removing race conditions, resolving ordering with UI code, etc
  
• Mods now use the .mod_bundle file extension to separate them from ordinary bundles (this is fixed byt the batch script that builds the mod, if you have your own you'll need to update it)

The Workshop is planned to be opened *soon*. I can't say exactly when as there are several other things that need to match up that could get delayed, but a likely window is in 1-3 weeks.

What does this mean? This means that the Modded Realm and Steam Workshop will be available to everybody. The Vermintide 2 SDK will also be fully available to everybody and not require any steam keys to access. I will also be moving all future updates to a new subforum for modding in the offical forums.

We have also internally been discussing doing some kind of stream during the days before the opening up of the workshop, so if you're very close to getting some mod that looks cool out the door and testable, see this as an added incentive to possibly get some free exposure ;)

Well there are several things on the roadmap after the workshop is opened. The dump of all the source data might be done before the workshop and if not, shortly after. This will basically mean you'll have access to all the uncompiled source data. Both for use as reference for your own creations or to include in your mods. The full potential of this won't be fully unlocked until we start getting the development tools accessible to you guys, but it will at least allow you to see how the file formats are set up and what assets exist in the game already to use.

Speaking of which, beyond QoL improvements, the real tools is the next big milestone on the roadmap. I have no idea when this will be ready, but given vacations etc I suspect it won't be until after the summer, but that's a complete guess on my part. It sort of depends on how well the Workshop is received as it will require a wider array of skills for the Mod Support Team.

Full support of Sanctioned Mods (mods that can't be sanctioned by Fatshark for play in the Official Realm) are also in the works and my aim is that Modders will be able to apply for Sanctioned status shortly after the Steam Workshop goes live. This is very unknown ground for us though, so it will start slow and hopefully ramp up as we get more familiar with exactly what impact this has on the game.

I think I didn't leave anything out. Questions? Ideas? Hype? :)