RIP spirit of modding...

[TheBawb]

That was, unquestionably inspiring DarkRider. Well said.

[sa547]

Hear! Hear!

[mALX]

I can gaurantee with how some things go, there might be some cases coming up within the first three months of mod theft. Even though "technically" mods you make could be in a sense property of the company, any assets you make with this violates liscenses.. and even if you have a liscense you could still bring suit for theft of IP you yourself made. Steam is going to have to do a lot of policing and research into making sure mods belong to the owners and aren't being ripped off and someone else profiting.

From what I read it is the responsibility of each modder to keep tabs on their own mod assets to make sure they are not being stolen and sold, which means watching constantly.  A lot of modders have been pulling their mods from Nexus.  

 

One mod has already been taken down for using FNIS without permission;  which clearly states on his mod that it is not to be used in any mod sold for money.  

 

So at least they did respond when FNIS complained;  which is more than they have been doing up to this point with stolen assets.  

[sa547]

Funny, I find myself recalling http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ahzirr_Traajijazeri

Edited April 25, 2015 by sa547

[oldladyonthemoon]

I think this article answer your question.

I read part of it. At one point Chesko mentions "the next level" of modding that would bring more stuff like Falkstaar because the modders would get more support. How wrong he is; stuff like Falkstaar would have never existed because money spoils every thing.

 

I notice that and I can't blame you for doing that.  If I were you I would probably relax and do something else perhaps playing a little, but not necessarily play Skyrim. Just wait and see what happens before you decide what to do next.

Not playing Skyrim? No way! I love that game, I feel at home out there. I'll never be thankful enough to Todd and his team for making it, even if the writing part of if has serious downfall. And I'm not done with modding; I'm just putting it on a hold right now. After all I have all the time in the world to comlete the Pale Pass.

 

My only problem is with "publishing or not publishing, that is the question".

Edited April 25, 2015 by ladyonthemoon

[sa547]

Good Gods, what?

 

http://skydevgru.tumblr.com/post/117316514373/skyrim-no-longer-has-a-no-update-option

 

[DaMage]

All I can say is that the Bethesda Forums and Steam forums are having their communities tear each other apart as users and modders attack each other over this. The nexus community however is having a much more civil conversation and the same thing here. I'm starting to think one of the outcomes from this is that people just move away from the traditional mod creation places.

 

One good point was the mod tool makers were not consulted on this. The guys that make niftools and the blender plugins have done so for many modding communities....these tools are used by most mods for models. Now I am sure these guys will have the same stance as SKSE and not have a problem with making paid mods. But not every tool maker is going to be as nice. How long (most likely in future games) before we see mod making tools that cost money to use? Bethesda has a terrible track record with providing tools that work (and never have given model making/exporting tools). That is my biggest concern, when I started I couldn't have paid for modding tools, and if things drift that way younger modders will look to other games.

[oldladyonthemoon]

 

Good Gods, what?

 

http://skydevgru.tumblr.com/post/117316514373/skyrim-no-longer-has-a-no-update-option

 

 

Not sure I understand but opting out of updates is also impossible for the Creation Kit.

[oldladyonthemoon]

... How long (most likely in future games) before we see mod making tools that cost money to use? ...

The modders for future games will probably be forced to publish their mods on Steam, for a price. That's the next step Chesko was referring to.

[schatten]

The modders for future games will probably be forced to publish their mods on Steam, for a price. That's the next step Chesko was referring to.

Undoubtly, the next Bethesda release with a toolset will force you to it. Without the option to mod offline, you are forced to use their infrastructure and not able to release mods to other sites (legally).

 

(At least that's what I would do.)

[HeyYou]

Undoubtly, the next Bethesda release with a toolset will force you to it. Without the option to mod offline, you are forced to use their infrastructure and not able to release mods to other sites (legally).

 

(At least that's what I would do.)

And if Beth does that, they will find that a large percentage of their fanbase simply disappears. Modding is what has made these games popular, and kept them popular. There is still a rather large Morrowind modding community, 14 years after the game was released. Mods are the ONLY reason that is the case.

 

I thought the SKSE team included a provision that it was NOT to be used in any commercial venture? (mod that requires payment)

 

The tool makers aren't going to make money off their tools. At least, not yet. But, folks will use them to make money for themselves.... How long before tool makes either start demanding payment for their tools, or, simply stop releasing them?

 

No, paid modding was just a truly bad idea. It is going to have exactly the opposite effect that Beth/Valve claim. Beth and Valve will make some money off this, the modders will not, and all they will have accomplished is dramatically changing the landscape of the once-dedicated modding communities. It is really a drag to see greed destroy a great hobby.

[oldladyonthemoon]

I thought the SKSE team included a provision that it was NOT to be used in any commercial venture? (mod that requires payment)

Well, if they did, they changed their minds. Someone of the team posted a comment in one of the numerous thread related to paid mods on the Behesda forums stating that the team wouldn't:

 

1) make skse paid,

2) forbid paid modders to use their tool.

Edited April 25, 2015 by ladyonthemoon

[vometia]

And if Beth does that, they will find that a large percentage of their fanbase simply disappears. Modding is what has made these games popular, and kept them popular. There is still a rather large Morrowind modding community, 14 years after the game was released. Mods are the ONLY reason that is the case.

I don't wish to come across as unduly pessimistic, but I have been both employee and customer of various companies where an executive has made a very destructive and stupid decision on the basis of short-term gains: the general attitude seems to be that, come tomorrow, the fallout will be somebody else's problem to deal with.

[sa547]

This maybe the most callous statement ever made by an ex-modder 3rd party DLC dev (caution: explicit language):

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33r0r9/a_genuine_appeal_to_the_true_sons_of_modding_the/cqnvk2z

 

As much as I disagree with their sudden about-face, I'll continue to use SkyUI 4.1 until someone comes up with an open-source/CC version that doesn't come with strings attached (remember that the SkyUI code is in Github unless they nuke it and turn it into close-sourced payware). Now if he wants to make a buck, he ought to apply to Beth and see what happens.

[Vouivre]

At this point people who know what they're doing and if they're on these teams and do not agree with the lead developer's choice to go for profit. We might be seeing them leaving the team and start up their own project that is completely freeware. All of that this is going for some is helping companies see who only want to do things for money. And some companies will hire them because greed rules. Other companies will hire them for the passion and either make good on that passion and let them create wonderful things, or drain them into a very jaded developer whom retires from the industry long before retirement age.

 

Now I still plan on doing modding, and perhaps even go back to Oblivion in time and make some new mods for that, but also return to projects I started but never finished. As for future tes games, or moving onto fallout I don't know. However other games that offer modding capabilities whether in the rpg and fantasy genre, or something more modern I don't know. The fact that how the various sites sounds makes it clear. The rift in the community is split, and as bad as Nexus has been, the fact that they're remaining free and donation based, means a lot. We'll be looking for other places to host our mods and I'm certain that there'll be a compilation of sites that host mods for free.

 

 

Edit: So TotalBiscuit has a video out talking about this whole thing and he has some sound points on this.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Vouivre

[DaMage]

I thought the SKSE team included a provision that it was NOT to be used in any commercial venture? (mod that requires payment)

They do, they release using the MIT license. However the team feels that if they tried to take action and enforce the license they are more likely to get shut down on legal terms (since hacking the exe is a real grey area) than actually achieve anything. And if they were shut down, modding would be killed off and nobody wants that.

So TotalBiscuit has a video out talking about this whole thing and he has some sound points on this

As someone who follows TotalBiscuit's work, the video is okayish. He approaches it from the wrong standpoint as he knowingly states he has never been a part of a modding community. The first third is about the positives, the rest is the many problems with this....though he misses some of the more specific problems like sharing, team mods and legal problems. He also followed the video up with a 10min audio log to further expand some of the problems that he didn't explain well and had feedback about.

 

Video: https://youtu.be/oGKOiQGeO-k

Audio Log: https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/thanks-for-the-thumbs-d

[Vouivre]

I'm calling it here and now, since Gabe basically endorses this mindset. Since Dota and other games started because of basically the total conversion(basically making a game from the main game's resources) we'll in time see that someone will take Skyrim and make a game, then sell it. I'm calling it right now, this is what's going to happen. The downside, unless they dig very deep and can manage to overwrite the settings in Havok at the engine level to where the full 16x16 quads for heightmap can be used without bugs, the sizes of workspaces will be minimal. HOWEVER Guild Wars 2 uses a system of massive zones, that all lead to one another via basically a "portal" This will be how a massive game could be done using Skyrim. hundreds of times more work but that's how it'll be done.

 

I am wondering now though how many of these people own either a Liscensed version of 3ds max, maya, mudbox and other autodesk products right now before the buying mods, how many use unliscensed versions and finally how many use gimp/freeware. Because selling models made in an unliscensed version of 3ds max is against the agreement. How to prove that though would be difficult.

[oldladyonthemoon]

They do, they release using the MIT license. However the team feels that if they tried to take action and enforce the license they are more likely to get shut down on legal terms (since hacking the exe is a real grey area) than actually achieve anything. And if they were shut down, modding would be killed off ...

Oh, hardly! The vast majority of existing mods, and among them very good ones, do not use skse.

[sa547]

Oh, hardly! The vast majority of existing mods, and among them very good ones, do not use skse.

Yes, but I use EFF, Racemenu, Enhanced Blood Textures, A Matter of Time, which all need SKSE and gives the game further flexibility. Furthermore the current version of SKSE has a memory patch which actually put to an end to frequent CTDs that plagued gameplay since Skyrim's launch.

[oldladyonthemoon]

Yes, but I use EFF, Racemenu, Enhanced Blood Textures, A Matter of Time, which all need SKSE and gives the game further flexibility. Furthermore the current version of SKSE has a memory patch which actually put to an end to frequent CTDs that plagued gameplay since Skyrim's launch.

I don't have ctds playing Skyrim, but I also don't use tons of crappy mods...

[oldladyonthemoon]

What could we do to protect our mods from thieves who would like to make money out of them?

 

I was thinking about something similar to the copyright thing. When you copyright something, you must "declare" it somewhere, mustn't you? (Sorry, I'm completely ignorant of those things.) It would be a place where all modders unwilling to sell their mods would announce them, describe them the most thoroughly possible and sign them. This, for the official part of it.

 

Now, how could we protect our mods from theft, from the inside? By putting something inside the mod that would make it immediately noticeable by the acquirer if he acquired it unintentionally illegally. A message popping up would do but it's not sure that people wouldn't be able to decompile the pex files. Any idea?

[sa547]

I don't have ctds playing Skyrim, but I also don't use tons of crappy mods...

(offtopic) Whether you even just play vanilla, the memory patch helps because normally the game only allocates 256 mb of memory and then another 256 should the first one fills up, but if you have something that adds a lot of static objects in a cell, or you have a lot of NPCs in one place, the game engine may soon be unable to handle more than what those two 256mb buckets contain. Not only CTDs but also infinite loading screens. Those limitations were there because the game was originally made to be ported over to the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

 

With the memory patch enabled on runtime, you can allocate up to 768mb of memory for the first "bucket" and then 256 for the next "bucket', taking greater advantage of your PC's capabilities, which means you can do anything you want to Skyrim and more.

 

Also, nobody's going to stop you from using SKSE, disregarding the ongoing modders' crisis.

 

(ontopic) There were attempts at preventing asset theft, such as placing one's name in a mesh or texture, or a mechanism to prevent tampering. But even then the only way to deal with a stolen mod on Steam is to file a DMCA, and for a mod to be uploaded, the uploader has to submit personal information plus his tax info depending on where he/she lives.

Edited April 26, 2015 by sa547

[oldladyonthemoon]

What's that memory patch you're talking about?

[brendan62]

Any modder that signed up for this pay for mods crap deserves everything he\she gets, both in getting ripped of by steam\valve to the flaming he\she will recieve.

 

Nobody should support this its the tolling of the death bells for modding , my work is free for people will always be free and if nexus continues to support this by recieving a cut (and at least makes a stand against it) all my nexus stuff will be removed and i will just open my own site and host my stuff there.

 

I encourage everyone here to also make the same stand if Nexus continues to support this sickening development do the same as i intend to move all your stuff from nexus \ steam and put in on sites like this at least this will slow the funeral down a little.

 

Dont allow big business to destroy another of our pleasures

[oldladyonthemoon]

What happens if someone choose to share their crumbs of the sales with TES Alliance?

 

http://i.imgur.com/CHfs0GR.jpg

 

My head starts to ache...