Disappearing mods

[dferstat]

I'm getting really worried about the Nexus site, simply because of the mods that are being removed from it.

Just off the top of my head I can think of three major mods just for Fallout 4 (CREative Clutter, Do It Your Shelf and now CWSS) that are no longer available on the Nexus. Not only is their absence a blow to mod users, but it's also a blow to the many mod authors whose own mods required these.

The recent disappearance of CWSS is also a blow to me. I'm working on a few settlements that I want to upload as blueprints soon, and I was going to use CWSS. CWSS is, of course, the go-to mod for bathroom fit-outs, having a wide range of easy-to-use pieces, along with appropriate animation.

Well, it was the go-to mod. While many older users will have already downloaded CWSS, newer ones won't be able to, so I'm going to have to go back the drawing board, and try and find another mod to replace it. Oh, and I'll have to cross my fingers and hope that the replacement(s) won't also disappear.

Of course, there's always the risk that any given mod might disappear from the Nexus. The Nexus has no way to guarantee that a mod author will always want their work available.

Conversely, the Nexus shouldn't be making mod authors want to remove their work. To the best of my knowledge, each of the three mods listed above was removed by their author(s) because these authors were unhappy with Nexus policies regarding control of the mods, more specifically regarding the much talked-about mod packs.

Some authors have written at length about issues that are important to them, such as interaction with, and feedback/endorsements from, users. They're also concerned about getting blamed if their mod conflicts with another mod it's packed with, as there's unlikely to be support from the mod packager.

They also don't want their hard work lining the pockets of mod packagers, especially when mods are created to be free-to-use.

I understand that it's important that the Nexus, as a business, has a solid financial footing. But if, to achieve this, mod packagers make money while content creators not only don't, but at the same time lose the only reward they do get (interaction with users) then I think that we've wandered into Faustian pact territory.

Not only that, but I fear that such a move may be self-defeating. The less attractive it is to create mods for the Nexus, the fewer people will post them there. The fewer mods, the less attractive the site will be for users, meaning less income from both memberships and ad revenue.

And yes, I know that there's been no announcement, official or otherwise, detailing what, if anything, will happen with mod packs on the Nexus. However, the simple inability to opt out of mod packs is clearly enough to make several authors remove their high-profile mods. The uncertainty on everything else probably isn't helping, either.

And what am I going to do? Am I going to keep trying to build my settlements, when people mightn't be able to use them because a dependant mod has just vanished? If I do upload, do I abandon any hope of trying to control how my mods are used, or distributed?

Perhaps I should, instead, start playing some of the other games I own, and say goodbye to Fallout for a few years, or at least until the dust settles at the Nexus.

[HeyYou]

Yeah, with the recent policy change, mod authors are not particularly happy. And all this in an effort to support mod packs...... (Nexus calls them 'collections'..... a mod pack by any other name....) So, the uncertainty factor for folks that pick and choose which mods they want to download isn't a model of reliability at this point.....

 

That said, I think those authors moved their mods to another distribution platform. (bethnet? AFK mods? Moddb?) If you can find a reliable source for them, just put links to them in your mod description page.

 

I wish you the best of luck, no matter what you decide to do.

[Guest deleted34304850]

i've never, ever encountered a situation whereby someone else can prevent a coder of any description from managing their property (the mod and its constituent parts), including deleting it should they wish.

there really is no excuse.

 

if its to support mod packs then it just shows you what a bad idea mod packs are. they cater to the lowest common denominator (the idiot trying to install mods who can barely hit the power switch) and to hell with everyone else, including the poor soul who may have spent thousands of hours developing something that they no longer control once they upload it.

 

i fully support every mod author who takes their work down from any site that inhibits their work in any way. good luck to you all, i hope you all get patreon accounts and get some kind of reward for your efforts.

[bismark236]

really? moderators? you remove the explanation for this? wow...not making friends here in the JWE community thats for sure

[Riwalena]

I am also very sad...


I came last night to check out one of Jenncave's mods page (clean and simple sanctuary - Fallout4). It was then that I read the news : Jenncave, Steve40...

These authors left because they no longer have the right to manage their own creations as they see fit (and probably for other reasons such as these packs).
I rushed to see if any other mod authors I follow had left as well.

I came here, went on some "discords" of my knowledge, to have more details.

I rarely show my gratitude or my enthusiasm apart from the use of endorsement, out of discretion.
I do this for most of the mods I use or download because I'm grateful for the content that all of these writers, creators, designers, programmers, etc., give -freely- to us, to me.

Even today my heart is in pain.
The feeling of a big mess.

[xrayy]

i had the same roblem with some of my presets and related mods. i was wondering why feedback got lower and lower while people chatted about my presets on russian and chinisese sites. searching with my name and the presets name if found sites offering an older copy of my presets even without asking me. a new experience for me at this time. who copies my humbe mods and why - i asked myself ?

i contacted the sites but i gave up on this. i think grabbing smaller mods and putting them in packages is easy (including to hide them). i found a bunch of them by coincidence. nobody asked me to include my mod/content. and my mods are low profile and low complexity. so i was really surprised.

there was a time people were interested in my presests . a peak was in 2018. i gave feedback to users while at the same time i found more and more unauthorized copies of my mods on other gaming sites (some asian and a russian one). and since then it is getting quieter and quieter around my mods on nexusmods, apart from some sudden sjort peaks of single mods from time to time (i have no clue why). the timespan that a mod on nexusmods is recognized gets shorter and shorter, and sometime i see these sudden peaks - i have no clue why. the fist two or three days people look my new mod, some endorsements, some nice or even very nice feedback and then you know...

some effect is probably due to lesser populartity of games like skyrim and fo4 currently. but it is somehow strange that a well received preset over 1 or two years and also other mods went from postive feedback so fast to zero feedback and acknowlegement and enorsement - apart from some lonely users stumbeling in.

taking the mods down is no solution. i did this in 2018 for a short time in a hot phase while five or more of my mods were uploaded on an asian site at the same time.

the "funny" thing: on this site was much more feedback (not in a language i understand) than on nexus in the meantime and a multipe of endorsements for the copies on these sites. - not on nexusmods. this "porblem was probably never completely solved. download and feedback numbers for my mods never recovered not even to some extent and we all know the reason behind...

 

so i'm disaffected regarding this topic and i don't think it is nexusmods fault or responsibility. it is the way things go and it is part of the globalization process. in the meantime i ignore all this stuff and maintain my mods like nothing has ever happend. there is no way to control this.

 

and some additonal story: i saw a thread where people exchanged arguments about making mod packages and why it is probably legal and not the responsibilty of the packager to check copyright.

so you see. no hope at all for this topic... cheers!

 

if you have a simple idea or a simple mod - be prepared that thousand other people or even more have this same idea in the same moment - even better and with more detail presented - just a few moments later uploaded :smile:

 

update - i was not aware of the announcement going round here on this site - till now. there is this announcement about mod collections und undeletable mods even for mod author (so far owners of the mods with full control over it) - is this announcement and this deletion ultimatium for mod authors serious or a bad joke ? i see an earthquake coming...

[Wolfar15]

It should be noted that the latest PC versions of Creative Clutter and Do it Yourshelf can be found on Bethesda.net. I have no idea about CWSS though.

[dferstat]

Steve40 tells me, via PM, that they haven't yet decided what to do with CWSS.

[Wolfar15]

Steve40 tells me, via PM, that they haven't yet decided what to do with CWSS.

Hopefully he puts it up somewhere.