Drawing a line under recent events and moving on

[NordHep]

In response to post #24859404. #24859729, #24859924, #24860149, #24860289, #24860359, #24860679 are all replies on the same post.

MikkHep wrote: You know what? If Bethesda decided to continue creating DLCs for Skyrim I would gladly pay for them.
But the concept of letting mod authors charge for their mods would be a downfall for the modding community.

However, Skyrim is a game with immense potential, imagine the extreme profits they could make by focusing a small team on creating DLCs for the game again. Personally, I have always thought that they should have just dropped ESO and instead focused on expanding Skyrim even more.
TES V is a game that could live forever. Like really, I have dedicated well over 700 hours to the game and I still play it...

pokenar wrote: I do agree I wish they'd have made 2-3 more DLC packs instead of making ESO, but I am excited to see what 6 will bring

lereddit wrote: Given how casualized Skyrim is compared to the older titles, I fear for the future of TES.

Let's just hope it won't be streamlined further

Madcat221 wrote: Gaaah! How many times must this falsehood be squashed? Bethesda Game Studios did not develop Elder Scrolls Online. That was done by a sister studio, Zenimax Online Studios.

MikkHep wrote: I am fully aware of that. But the money Zenimax spend on making ESO is the same money used for Bethesda's games. When they made ESO they used money that could have been used instead on furthering advancing Skyrim (just my opinion).

Madari wrote: Yeah it could be casualized. But compared with older titles, the modding tools are more powerfull, it has more mods than any other game over the internet.

Think about it, if next TES games will be more casualized, well It not be that bad if that helps Bethesda making more money to release better SDK and tools for the community.

Don´t get me wrong I also hate that change, and I myself introduced the series with skyrim!!
However I´m currently playing morrowind, and its greaat, the immersion, the old school RPG feel and the atmosfere.

lereddit wrote: Dunno, I liked the Oblivion modding scene better, probably because the ratio of good mods to bad mods was higher.

Oblivion is the game that introduced me to TES.
I find that Skyrim has the best mods, however I believe that the modding community for the TES games has become capable of making this possible thanks to the years of expanding the concept that initiated with Morrowind.

[Leonord]

In response to post #24860324.

vinak wrote: I have a number of issues with the TB interview...but In the spirit of moving on, I won't elaborate further.

As for donations. Mod authors have needed to be able to at least mention donations in the descriptions from the beginning. Their are a number of mod authors I would have happily thrown money at had I known I could.

I personally like how youtubers do it. y'know, something in the vein of: If you liked this mod, please leave an endorsement and donate. Here are links to my paypal, patreon, or whatever.

I can understand the complications with Bethesda preventing this though.

If you make a mod you are allowed to:

put a donate button in your profile
put a donate button beside the endorse/download buttons
put a donate popup when downloading the mod

Not many choose to use the popup but it is at their disposal. Try downloading my mod and youll see what I mean.

[zelazko]

Jesus Dark0ne you need to be more succinct with your writing. Edited May 1, 2015 by zelazko

[Fahrvergnugn]

In response to post #24859024. #24859239, #24860709 are all replies on the same post.

wulfharth wrote: Sometimes an idea once presented will persist as a part of the public consciousness forever. Finding out that Bethesda is in favor of individuals being paid to create content that adds life to their games will cause a massive change in the entire modding community.

Expect to see professional DLC creating studios in the future. Modders will soon have an opportunity to mod full-time and make a living from it. I wouldn't be surprised if these studios became sub-studios of Bethesda someday.

The downside is that the most professional and biggest mods will be paid mods (much like now). The upside is that there will be more DLC quality mods available and probably with additional support from Bethesda in terms of rigging files and code.

I have never failed to buy a mod for a TES game since Morrowind, and I've considered them all money well spent. I really look forward to the prospect of more of that type of content becoming available. The sooner this site adapts to this possibility, the better it will be able to stay a foundation piece of this community.

pokenar wrote: I was not actually one of those against paid mods, I just didn't like the execution. there were many many many issues with how bethesda and valve did it.

wulfharth wrote: Those percentages are pretty standard for a situation like that. If you read the Beth Blog, they will explain it. Valve was even going to share some of their cut with the Nexus.

Also, I think it's sad that people attacked modders who were trying to exercise an opportunity that was given to them. Nothing was taken away, an option was added for the modder.

It's old news now, but it's a sad day for artistic freedom. People think they don't have to pay for art because the artist enjoys their work. That mentality needs to change if modding is to thrive and reach it's true potential.

Modding is different than art in many ways. There are many aspects to consider. Mods can be buggy or incompatible with each other or with your game or system. This is exacerbated by the bugs or stability issues native to the game. Then there's the fact that many mods are dependent upon other mods. Then there are modders resources and frameworks. Would there then also be royalty fees? A paid mods system would be a legal nightmare.

To sum up my opinion on this, I think modders provide a very valuable service to these games, and they should get paid for it. However, I think a donation system is much more suited for this. Someone else made a good long post on it in a previous Nexus article, so I won't bother, but I think the current system could use some tweaks that remind users that they can donate to the mod author, and perhaps reward those that do.

[Boerner]

I really think that the rude people who went after individual modders and regard them as disposable are a very small, vocal minority. It's sad they managed to cast such a bad light on the modding community. Based on the overall number of downloads for these mods, the number of these people is laughably small. I'm just sad that they managed to drive of all these talented people with their hateful words while the ones quietly supporting modders kept quiet as usual.

[EvilDeadAsh34]

Money will eventually destroy everything. Greed is an amazing thing... No one can do anything just for the pure joy of it anymore. Every action has to be monetized. Gimme more, gimme anything, just gimme.

 

I will never pay for a user created mod. It does not matter what the mod would be, how epic it is, how integral to the game it could possibly be, i will not be forced to pay for them. Donations, okay. Paywalls, hell no.

 

And to the people who support paid mods i have one thing to say. Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

[Deleted3507349User]

One final serious thought before I personally put this behind me until it becomes an issue again; while many of the mods display very high levels of artistic talent indeed, the modding scene as a whole more closely resembles the hot-rodding scene for cars rather than youtube videos, fanfics, and so forth. Just because it's digital content is beside the point. Food for thought.

 

 

Now back to our regularly scheduled fun.

 

[Vesuvius1745]

The community will (and has) lost some folks, but I think in the long run this will galvanize the community--it will come back stronger than it ever was. I know this whole ordeal has motivated me to start working on some of my unfinished mods again, and I've heard of others being motivated to start learning how to mod themselves. Thanks to some great utilities and resources that have been given to the community for free over the years by some very talented programmers, the quality of mods have the potential to be quite extraordinary.

[SydneyB]

I had already read that article and listened to that interview, but I really appreciate that you add the links here. These days have been very interesting and I hope things now will calm down a little so all can debate about this topic like civilised people. I am sure things will change in the future and that there is a market for paid or patronised or supported by donations mods, and I hope it will be implemented in the best way for all of us, modders and users (after all, modders are also users of other's people mods) :)

[sh0d4n]

All i've learned from this is that everyone worships money. Neither side is truly wrong, and by that I mean there are no real sides, just lots of people living different lives, and wanting an outcome that best sustains them. Of course the less well off were the ones that stood to lose the most in this.

 

As soon as that headline hit "Paid mods now available on Steam Workshop" someone, somewhere was going to get hurt, and that is my reasoning for why it should never have been done in the first place.

 

All we can do now is be sympathetic to those that got hurt the most in all of this. And yes lets move on and try to forget it for a time.

Edited May 1, 2015 by sh0d4n