Merging Mods - Possible? Ethical?

[Drakeero]

I've recently gotten the massive Mod Archive and I am having a fun time browsing through it. All in all I can easily put together a rather large list. Some big ones like OOO and MMM, Weather: All Natural, [FCOM if I had the skill to do it], and a bunch of small ones like the new Jade items clutter.

 

But being the sucker I am, I like looking over the huge amounts of items, armors, weapons, and location additions. Since conflicts are such a problem and I figure there is a point at which Oblivion doesn't want more mods is it possible to open up multiple mods with one set at the active mod, and transfer everything over into a single plug-in that is now conflict free rather then trying to load multiple .esp's?

 

Also, if you refrain from redistributing these modified super-.esp's, is it still ethical if the original authors didn't want their work modified?

[DarkeWolf]

The issue here is distribution/publication.

Back when I used to play morrowind, I had MANY of my mods thrown into a single, larger mod. Such as one mod for all my "must have" armors, one for my "must have" races, one for houses, and stuff like that. Once they were tested with compatibility of course ;)

 

Distribution is the key factor. What you do there in your own home, is your own business. But if an author has made it known that they dont want their mods tampered with, or distributed, then posting them here, or advertising them here, (such as posting shots of the mod in the imageshare, or in the forums) is a no no.

Same with if another modder wants to use another modder's work. If they dont have permission to use it as part of their own work, they can't post it here.

[David Brasher]

The conflict-free part is not exactly true. If you merge two conflicting mods, they no longer "conflict." But depending on the nature of the problems, those problems are likely to still be there, unless there is a clean override where the mod you placed with higher priority in the merge list entirely overides and replaces all conflicting content pertaining to that one specific conflict. So lets say one mod adds a field full of picturesque boulders and another mod adds a fine mansion. You are going to end up with a messed-up merged mod with all sorts of picturesque boulders sticking through the walls of your fine mansion.

 

Like Darkewolf said, you are free to merge all the mods you want, but unless you have permission from all parties involved, you may not share them with anyone.

[Drakeero]

Oh yeah, by merge I didn't mean just slapping them together. I meant go through, find the source of conflicts, and trim out or add stuff to make them play nice. And thanks for answering the question. I ask because I recently tried a short-lived translation project that was dangerous to announce because the original designers were so xenophobic that just hearing that it was being translated could make them very angry and they'd stop distribution completely. I know that we're not as extreme over here but it would probably be polite to ask anyway. Edited December 16, 2010 by Drakeero