hexorcist

My flavor of the month has been C#, but whatever is fine with me since I'll be in the minority of any developers that are involved with it. If I don't know whatever language you guys choose I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult for me to learn (I've got experience as far back in time as Pascal so the number of languages I at least have an understanding of is pretty vast).

It's not just one nation. That law was signed as a treaty by many nations, yours is probably included. To know for sure look at Section 102 of the "Further Reading" link in my edit, click each link in section 102 and look for your country's name. Pretty much if your country is part of the UN, you're covered by those very same laws. Who said Nexus would actively be involved in this project? If that's the case I withdraw my support for it as I do not wish for such a project that I work on to be involved with any entity other than the individuals who create it.

As I stated in my first reply to you, meddling with DRM in any way is illegal. It does not matter if you claim "it's just an image!", use encryption, etc, it is still illegal. Reverse engineering is one thing (figuring out how it works), actively bypassing it is a completely different set of rules. Edit: Further reading

This is not feasible on the legal side of things, unless things go differently than I expect. With the integration of Steam means that the CK should have DRM attached, and no matter how you do it, meddling with the DRM of an exe is prohibited by law. If the DRM is not on the .exe then there's one option where this can work, if someone creates a tool to disable the Steam integration then it would be legal -- but you can _not_ release the patched .exe, you would have to release the tool instead. (Note: By "on the exe" I mean if the DRM exists at all with the software.)

Actually, this is something I've been considering looking into since the news that Steam would be integrated into the CK. It's not a bad idea, and it would take a long time - honestly, I don't care about time frame as long as I don't have to deal with Steam. The major issue right now is file formats. They're not fully understood and if they go the way Oblivion did, many things about some files (ie: save games) will never be understood - at least, to date. That should be the starting point in my opinion - go help Rick and the others at UESP figure out the file formats. "Legal issues" with something like this are non-existent, that's why I've been able to create tools for modding games that "do not allow" modding. One example would be Fable 3. Lionhead pretty much hates modders, but we still mod their games because they can't stop us - I even go on Lionhead's official forums and poke them in the eye about modding their games (no proxy). We are truly lucky that Bethesda does love modders though, otherwise this would be too much of a PITA to consider at this point. However, as long as you do not utilize any of their published data (ie: strings from the strings files, bsa file content, etc) you can pretty much do whatever you like as far as writing tools for the game goes -- with one stipulation, you can't mess with the DRM on the exe, which this project shouldn't. If you want to discuss details surrounding legal ramifications about it feel free to message me (note: if you're not a US citizen then I probably wont be able to detail much for you unfortunately - UK citizens can probably message me also, if it's too specific I'll say so). As for developing such a tool, I wouldn't be able to go full-time on something like that because of family needs but if you need a little light-work done here and there I'd be happy to help where I can.

Did you enable it in the "Data Files" section of the launcher?

Good info to know, thanks.

I'm not going to encourage fears because I don't believe they'll start charging for mods. However, this statement is much broader than you might think. Apple's marketing team used the same type of "trick" with the App Store.. "you can vote on your favorite apps and download them for free!" .. which is true, as long as your "favorite app" isn't one that has a cost related to it. I doubt it. Steam has nothing to do with consoles as far as I know. For someone to say "Oh, we're going to take this company that has no experience with consoles and just .. bring them in for mods!" .. is a bit silly, I think. Not to mention that company has to be trusted by both Sony and Microsoft? My "silly" goes to "doubtful". I will not say that I'm doubtful that Bethesda wants to get mods to consoles, but I doubt they're going to do it via Steam and have a big ol' 4-some with 2 companies that have been at each others throats for years... and erm, 4-some in golf, pervert. Many of us aren't 'jumping to conclusions', just wondering what's going on with all the Steam integration all of a sudden. It's not unlike humans to be curious or to speculate about things like this. Some people do take it too far, but for the most part we're just suspicious.

My question is, why do people keep saying "they're fixing bugs in the CK" ? It's pretty obvious to me that when they say "you get the same exact tools the devs use" it means.. well, you get what they had - if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me (as it has been every TES installment so far). More likely is that right now they're integrating Steam into the CK, at least in my opinion.

I dont know if the social term of "pirate" can be applied to this situation because they're free, but either way it's copyright infringement.

Peer Schneider is who I sent my email to :)

I actually sent an email to their VP of Content 2 day ago regarding my file (Alchemy Assistant), with no reply yet and it's still on their site. Note that they're owned by IGN - a US based company. They probably wont even bother with it until they receive C&D letters.

I'm not frustrated with the release date directly, but indirectly yes. My issue is that it's being pushed back to integrate Steam -- not to fix bugs with it (Bethesda says it's the exact tool their devs used to make the game right? Good enough for them, good enough for me.) I'm anti-steam and I'll admit it upfront. I posted my list of issues just since Skyrim's release on another thread, and it was a good 5-6 points. Why do we need buggy/bloated code added to what the devs were using? It doesn't make sense unless there's something in it for Bethesda. Just a minor note edited in, just because I'm anti-steam doesn't mean I'm a pirate - I purchased the game just as everyone should that wants to play it.

The first has been done (I've downloaded it, haven't tested it yet though). It can be found here: http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1227 The R button thing is a request I made on a mod, though the author of that mod hasn't answered whether or not it would be possible, if you want to watch it you can find it here: http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1380

Many of the mods that had the "unfinished folder juggle" that you speak of were different options for the same mod. Yes you can argue that all they had to do was write a little script for OBMM (if they used it) that would automatically install whatever, but not everyone uses OBMM - and even if they did, not everyone had the time to learn the syntax of the scripting supported in OBMM.

You bring up a fine point, that was one of the doubts I have about Steam's Workshop. Lets also not forget that just because your local/city/state/national law says something, doesn't mean the same is true for the next street/city/state/nation over. Figuring out the wording of each individual locale's specific laws is more than enough to cause headaches so they may outright prohibit the "likeness" mods all together. What would happen if a dependency (ie: a certain model/mesh/etc) is prohibited for this reason? Snowball effect or do they allow the mod that has the requirement as long as they don't package the dependency with it? The more I think about it the more it compares to the "app store" - not all apps are approved to be on the app store by Apple. "Likeness" has no bearing where I am, but I definitely see your point. Too many "what if" scenarios right now, guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I doubt the Workshop will be able to run the game and take a screenshot for every mod that is created, but I could just be silly. I also doubt the workshop can effectively determine what a mod can do and write a readme for it, but I just might be an idiot. These issues that are pointed out aren't the fault of The Nexus, it's the fault of the author of the mod.

I've read most of the comments, and I'm not going to reply to them specifically, so what I may say may go against your theory/idea/whatever but I'm just tossing in my 2 septim. Steam is crap. Those who love the idea fail to see some very serious flaws, maybe because they haven't experienced them, maybe because they're in love with the idea of a centralized distributor of whatever games they enjoy. In my experience Steam has: - Removed data before downloading a patch to replace it (which disabled me from being able to play the game) - even though automatic updates was turned off - Removed language files when I changed my language (forced nearly 2Gb of downloading for the new files) but did not make copies so that when I changed back to my preference it could easily replace files where needed - I had to re-download the language data (see all the languages in my app "Alchemy Assistant" -- it was a PITA) - On many large items that I've downloaded the speed has been equivalent to that of dial-up speeds from 15 years ago thus causing a much longer delay in being able to do what I wanted to do - Deleted a game that I purchased years ago for whatever unknown reason (as far as I know, Steam has nothing to do with this game anyway) - Kept me from playing a game because the Steam login-server was "busy"...... for two hours I'm sure there have been other times where Steam's failure has caused me to be irritated, but those are the ones that are the freshest in my memory. The simple fact is, Steam can't touch the Nexus sites just as Curse and the others can't. It's been around far too long, and has built a good reputation with the modders as well as the users of those mods. All of my Skyrim mods will be Nexus-exclusives (I will block Steam's uploader if I have to, that' what firewalls are for). Based on the above list, I have many doubts that Steam can handle the mods for Skyrim. One such doubt is, will it be able to handle load order? I'm not sure about others, but any tool that I use specifically for downloading mods should be able to handle that. Doubts aside, I do see this going the way Curse did with their "Curse Client", where you can pay for a "premium" account that allows you to download multiple mods at the same time instead of one at a time, but I don't see them charging for a specific mod as we're accustomed to getting mods for free and the first time they try to charge someone for a mod they'd high-tail it back to Nexus. Steam may not do this initially, just as Curse didn't, but with time I can see this happening because of the increased cost of bandwidth (every time Skyrim is updated many mods will have to be updated, thus causing their download servers to reach levels that they're not intended for - as proven in the dial-up speeds we currently see on occasion). TLDR; Nexus isn't going away. Steam already has a lot of catching up to do, not just on the number of mods available either. That's my 2 septim.