On console mods, theft and Bethesda.net

[FeralByrd]

In response to post #39478660. #39478845, #39479305, #39484655 are all replies on the same post.

Jebbalon wrote: Thank you Dark0ne, I for one enjoy your level-headed take on the subject. You have always had your finger on the pulse of the modding community and the Nexus reflects that.

My opinions...

- Bethesda.net is a "new wheel". It's ruff and not all that round. In comparison The Nexus is a badass Lamborghini. Given time, will Bethesda.net get better? Sure. Is the modding community and the console community patient enough to wait? Hell no!

- Bethesda's inability to punish thieves by banning them ... Can they? The CK, and ability to make mods, the in-game function to download mods and the Bethesda.net to upload mods is all provided as part of the purchase price of the game. The thief paid for all that. So can the company that provides all that really just pull the plug on them?? I think they can't and the thieves know it.

2 ideas I'd like to put out there...

1. For the Nexus - is there at all a way to add NMM into the in-game mod browsing functionality? Beth would have to release its API or whatever/however it works, but could that maybe be a possibility down the road?

2. For the community - Could there be a master file type mod released containing certain keywords or global variable that then would be required to have in order for mods to work? In my mod I'd simply add the keywords and make that file a master. The idea being that if my mod is stolen it won't work without the master file and I don't have to worry about keeping track of other sites because the master file mod is being tracked. So moderators and such only have to watch out for the master mod not all the other stolen mods. Of course bypassing that system would be too easy but it's just an idea to build on.

PonceMonster wrote: Most thieves are just careless children, if you didn't know... there's no way talking to them, so what's happening there has to do with bethesda just letting it happen. No one said anyone has to get cut off, but they certainly should get banned from uploading any mods.

Jebbalon wrote: I agree they should get banned - I'm just saying Beth may not be able to legally whereas Nexus is an at will relationship, you screw up and you get banned. On Bethesda.net it's not that easy I think.

Arthmoor wrote: They can legally bar anyone from uploading to their site. It might be argued that they sold the game with the promise of consoles being able to DOWNLOAD mods, but the PC version of the game and CK are required to create them, and to upload them, and there's nothing anywhere in the advertising or sales language that could possibly hold them to that staying available.

Plus, legally they can not allow the facilitation of copyright infringement, which uploading stolen mods falls under. So they have every authority imaginable to ban people from using the service.

And again, as Dark0ne pointed out, there is the issue of assets created outside the CK. Think of all the modders who have created custom weapons/armor. Those models and textures are definitely not owned by Bethesda, even if they are used in a mod created with their tool. To allow the distribution of those assets on their site without the permission of the copyright holder is unlawful.

[MrJoseCuervo]

I urge modders to keep their console brothers in mind when they make mods. Make sure your mods are in good working order and safe for them to use. We don't want any consoles getting damaged due to poor modding.

[UnoWild]

5,100 words and I read every singe damn one of them. Well done, GG !!

[Arthmoor]

In response to post #39475335.

icecreamassassin wrote: When I heard about all of Bethesda's forward movement into mod management with their hosting framework I immediately became a bit paranoid about what degree of control they were going to want on content and where it is posted.

This article is good because it does point out a very large ineptitude on Bethesda's part, one which was clearly illustrated in the paid modding fiasco; they have a bad case of the rose colored glasses. Meaning that everything they see is rosy and perfect. They do not plan their actions based on the lowest common denominator. As a pen and paper RPG designer myself, the one key thing of design that I always have to look at is, "How will people try and break and exploit the system within the confines of the rules". Bethesda clearly does not consider the fact that a large percentage of users are opportunistic little pricks. They need to plan for those people first and foremost and try and build towards their vision while dealing with the eventuality of people exploiting the system.

One key thing to keep in mind is that any mod which uses SKSE (and most large mods do) will probably never work on console, so implementing some SKSE can easily prevent a mod from being used on console. That said I have no problems per say with consoles getting mods; I think it's cool, but the cruz of the problem here is that Bethesda is stepping in and trying to push things that way while not doing anything to ensure it goers smoothly and that people are secure and property is represented fairly.

Bottom line, Bethesda has NEVER understood the modding community and frankly I don't think even respects it, their actions sure don't show it. It's because of the modding community that Skyrim is even still relevant. Robbin said it in his article; FO4's interest started to wane and so they rushed the CK to the rescue. They have always had a bad history of "release now fix later" mentality and frankly I think leave it to us to largely fix ourselves. It's just a bummer deal

One key thing to keep in mind is that any mod which uses SKSE (and most large mods do)

I keep seeing this one tossed around very casually. I'd personally like to see some kind of solid stats to back that up since IMO it's not something that's apparent with the stuff in my own load order.

Nexus has a requirements system that lets people specify SKSE as a required component. I wonder how hard it would be to pull actual numbers from that to get some idea of what percentage of mods actually require it?

[CliveBarker]

In response to post #39476840. #39478715 is also a reply to the same post.

Namea wrote: Within hours of the trailer release for the new enhanced skyrim I saw a popular modder in the Skyrim community getting high and mighty and saying something along the lines of "Great, now all the pathetic console peasants will be flooding my pages demanding mod ports to consoles."

Let me just say that anyone who uses the term "Console Peasant" seriously and without joking intent is automatically a douchenozzel in my mind. This particular creator is usually a b&@*$, she's arrogant and clearly thinks herself better than everyone but I STILL expected more from her.

Personally I am excited for console users to get mods. I am a PC girl all the way but my husband is a console gamer. We have similar taste in games and often play them together, at the same time on our differing platforms. It's a fun way to bond as we discover new things and get to be excited together about it. To me he's not a console peasant, he's just another gamer.

My dearest hope is that mods for consoles will be a turning point in this stupid separation between console and PC gamers. Finally a way for us to meet in the middle and people to start just enjoying that we have a hobby in common.

Which brings me to mod theft and the biggest problems with it.

Yeah, stealing mods sucks, it's a horrible thing to take something someone else has worked on extensively and release it as your own. While many modders are handling this issue with arrogance and punishing the whole community for a few asshats there are those who are seeing the larger issue with this: Console gamers aren't used to modding.

What does this mean? Anyone who has extensively modded games for years knows that sometimes crap goes wrong. Sometimes a mod breaks your game or is incompatible with another mod. Sometimes you as the user have to go in and figure out what's up because a mod author is not responsible for figuring out every possible configuration and incompatibility of their mod. Console users can't do that. They have no access to the internal systems. No way to open a mod up and look, no way to manually delete it or fix it. No way to go in and completely remove every part of a mod if a mod author leaves the community and the mod doesn't get updated.

And if they could, would they know how? Now my husband is terrible with computers. He really is. I build them for a living but that man can kill one in 30 minutes if left alone with it. I know that's not typical for console gamers but on the whole most of them have less knowledge of the technology behind their consoles than PC users have about their machines. This is going to cause problems as well when inevitably mods break.

This, more even than morality, is the problem with mod theft. Making a mod stable enough to work on consoles is not as simple as ticking a checkbox in the CK. Mod authors, at least the good ones, will want to optimize their mods and actually build them to be stable for console users. There needs to be a quality control threshold here. No more shoddily built mods coded by amateurs. I can fix those on my PC but on a console? A console user will have to deal with the consequences and will be unable to fix it. There has to be a screening process in place for the protection of save games across the board so to speak.

In the end this whole situation is new, strange, and for me at least exciting. There are a lot of kinks that are going to need work and it might take a while. If everyone just pulls their heads out of their asses and starts trying to work together we might actually get somewhere towards a more peaceful gaming community.

And as for creators like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this novel of a comment? Well screw them. She may think she's the cream of the Skyrim crop just because she's released popular mods but at the end of the day she's just another person behind a screen who ports assets she didn't create into a bit of software she didn't create to put into a game she didn't create. If she wants to look down on people for their choice of gaming platform she's going to need some serious stilts because from where I'm standing it looks like better people, better authors, and a better mentality will hopefully be on the rise.

PonceMonster wrote: Ey now, she has that right considering he's in the visuals department. Unless you can do what she's doing on console, then you should know better. For one thing, you can't just take her visual mod and put it on Skyrim remastered or Fof4. And I can't say that ENB would be recommended for use on consoles either, as it may butcher performance, altogether. As people might have mentioned, Fof4 runs like shite and it is better off that you stick with the visuals it had already and only use visual mods on pc, it's simply not optimized. And no it's not that they are full of it, it's that it's not that simple and you can't just tell people one way or the other, THAT THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. And even if she were to try and explain, how do you know it will even get to everyone. 15 minutes after she posts the damn thing, she could still be getting the same bs. And people hype console games a hell of a lot more than any mod, and so put those two factors together, and she's gonna get a lot of clueless people who couldn't even be considered a part of the community yet, already asking for her work to be on console already. Please understand their perspective, they're a hell of a lot more important and valuable than you think.

She has the right to do anything with her mods and to state her opinion no matter if that opinion or actions doesn't fit your own narrative.

You are contradicting yourself by using Ad Hominem. Let me clarify that to you since you are clearly unfamiliar with the concept:

You said:
"anyone who uses the term "Console Peasant" seriously and without joking intent is automatically a douchenozzel in my mind"

Some people say:
"Anyone who plays in console is a console peasant and an inferior being in my mind"

Do you see any difference?

Your whole wall of text its filled with contradictions and unfair points like this one:

" Mod authors, at least the good ones, will want to optimize their mods and actually build them to be stable for console users"

So by your logic, a mod author who doesnt want to optimize their mods for consoles is "bad?

Fallacy, that's the conclusion I take after reading your post. Edited June 18, 2016 by CliveBarker

[RaffTheSweetling]

That was an excellent article. Thank you very much, Dark0ne.

 

I have reflected on my own attitudes towards console modding, platform warring, forum abuse, flaming, dealing with each other in general, and I am satisfied that I fall in the category of "you're doing it right".

I was super amped for the Xboners at first, and even posted on Facebook to let them know how excited I was for them when they first got their mods, and in doing so I simply asked that they be mindful of not spamming Nexus mod pages with requests, but to have fun, because I know how fun mods are.

My little post didn't achieve a lot, that's not surprising, but it was the attitudes shown by console user a little bit later, towards theft, which turned my initial excitement into disgust.

My mood got so bad that I basically had to step away, because It pushed me very close to the edge, where I very nearly wanted to think of myself, and we PC modders, as better, but, the comments HERE, by PC modders HERE, demonstrating that 'PC "masterrace" superiority' bs mentality, allowed me to see things clearly once again.

There's just a douche problem here, and over there. A big one. And all the rest is just about Bethesda as a company not doing nearly a good enough job, and Dark0ne detailed everything that needed to be detailed perfectly in that respect.

 

Let's hope Matt Grandstaff reads this, because it's he, much moreso than we, who should be taking away something very valuable, and very important, from this article and the lesson it contains.

Edited June 18, 2016 by RaffTheSweetling

[Arthmoor]

In response to post #39470550. #39471095 is also a reply to the same post.

Everlive wrote: Literally, my only problem with mods on console (other than the theft going on) is a user problem. If a mod breaks or breaks your game, you can't just go into the files and try to fix it. That could make console modding a nightmare. Plus not being able to use third-party software is a huge limit (SKSE, Script Dragon, FNIS, ASIS, ect).
BUT, I am happy people can finally mod on console to a degree.

matortheeternal wrote: This isn't "my only problem", but I agree 100% on this being a huge issue. For me (and many others), modding is a lot more than just downloading mods. You manage load order, install order, patchers, and extenders, and it's only when you have the power to manage these things that high-level modding becomes maintainable. Consoles don't (and won't) ever allow this, because then they would be no longer be consoles, they'd be PCs.

No matter what, console modding is going to be a "dumb" version of PC modding. Honestly, modding + consoles is like mixing oil and water. It doesn't (really) make sense.

Things you can't do with console modding:
- SKSE
- SkyUI
- MCMs
- Engine-level bug fixes (See Crash Fixes and Lip Sync Bugfix mods from meh)
- Cleaning plugin files
- Automated patchers
- Automated load order sorting
- Merging plugins
- Extracting BSAs/BA2s
- Managing install order
- FOMOD Installers
- Any kind of modularity
- Building mods
- Editing mods
- Debugging CTDs
- Debugging load order
- Use the developer console to test things
- Use FNIS or other custom frameworks
- etc. ...

My point isn't that console modding shouldn't exist, but that we shouldn't break our backs trying to make it work.

Minor point: Cleaning mods isn't something users should be doing even on PC. That's entirely within the realm of the mod author to handle. So consoles not being able to isn't a valid point IMO.

Neither should users be extracting BSA/BA2 archives for stuff. So the inability to do so on a console is also an invalid point IMO.

[Kraynic]

In response to post #39475335. #39485650 is also a reply to the same post.

icecreamassassin wrote: When I heard about all of Bethesda's forward movement into mod management with their hosting framework I immediately became a bit paranoid about what degree of control they were going to want on content and where it is posted.

This article is good because it does point out a very large ineptitude on Bethesda's part, one which was clearly illustrated in the paid modding fiasco; they have a bad case of the rose colored glasses. Meaning that everything they see is rosy and perfect. They do not plan their actions based on the lowest common denominator. As a pen and paper RPG designer myself, the one key thing of design that I always have to look at is, "How will people try and break and exploit the system within the confines of the rules". Bethesda clearly does not consider the fact that a large percentage of users are opportunistic little pricks. They need to plan for those people first and foremost and try and build towards their vision while dealing with the eventuality of people exploiting the system.

One key thing to keep in mind is that any mod which uses SKSE (and most large mods do) will probably never work on console, so implementing some SKSE can easily prevent a mod from being used on console. That said I have no problems per say with consoles getting mods; I think it's cool, but the cruz of the problem here is that Bethesda is stepping in and trying to push things that way while not doing anything to ensure it goers smoothly and that people are secure and property is represented fairly.

Bottom line, Bethesda has NEVER understood the modding community and frankly I don't think even respects it, their actions sure don't show it. It's because of the modding community that Skyrim is even still relevant. Robbin said it in his article; FO4's interest started to wane and so they rushed the CK to the rescue. They have always had a bad history of "release now fix later" mentality and frankly I think leave it to us to largely fix ourselves. It's just a bummer deal

Arthmoor wrote:

One key thing to keep in mind is that any mod which uses SKSE (and most large mods do)

I keep seeing this one tossed around very casually. I'd personally like to see some kind of solid stats to back that up since IMO it's not something that's apparent with the stuff in my own load order.

Nexus has a requirements system that lets people specify SKSE as a required component. I wonder how hard it would be to pull actual numbers from that to get some idea of what percentage of mods actually require it?

I know that in my load order there are some that don't require it, but they lack (or have limited) configuration choices without SKSE. I don't suppose anyone playing on a console that has never experienced the mod would know what they were missing.

[tartarsauce2]

In response to post #39476840. #39478715, #39485735 are all replies on the same post.

Namea wrote: Within hours of the trailer release for the new enhanced skyrim I saw a popular modder in the Skyrim community getting high and mighty and saying something along the lines of "Great, now all the pathetic console peasants will be flooding my pages demanding mod ports to consoles."

Let me just say that anyone who uses the term "Console Peasant" seriously and without joking intent is automatically a douchenozzel in my mind. This particular creator is usually a b&@*$, she's arrogant and clearly thinks herself better than everyone but I STILL expected more from her.

Personally I am excited for console users to get mods. I am a PC girl all the way but my husband is a console gamer. We have similar taste in games and often play them together, at the same time on our differing platforms. It's a fun way to bond as we discover new things and get to be excited together about it. To me he's not a console peasant, he's just another gamer.

My dearest hope is that mods for consoles will be a turning point in this stupid separation between console and PC gamers. Finally a way for us to meet in the middle and people to start just enjoying that we have a hobby in common.

Which brings me to mod theft and the biggest problems with it.

Yeah, stealing mods sucks, it's a horrible thing to take something someone else has worked on extensively and release it as your own. While many modders are handling this issue with arrogance and punishing the whole community for a few asshats there are those who are seeing the larger issue with this: Console gamers aren't used to modding.

What does this mean? Anyone who has extensively modded games for years knows that sometimes crap goes wrong. Sometimes a mod breaks your game or is incompatible with another mod. Sometimes you as the user have to go in and figure out what's up because a mod author is not responsible for figuring out every possible configuration and incompatibility of their mod. Console users can't do that. They have no access to the internal systems. No way to open a mod up and look, no way to manually delete it or fix it. No way to go in and completely remove every part of a mod if a mod author leaves the community and the mod doesn't get updated.

And if they could, would they know how? Now my husband is terrible with computers. He really is. I build them for a living but that man can kill one in 30 minutes if left alone with it. I know that's not typical for console gamers but on the whole most of them have less knowledge of the technology behind their consoles than PC users have about their machines. This is going to cause problems as well when inevitably mods break.

This, more even than morality, is the problem with mod theft. Making a mod stable enough to work on consoles is not as simple as ticking a checkbox in the CK. Mod authors, at least the good ones, will want to optimize their mods and actually build them to be stable for console users. There needs to be a quality control threshold here. No more shoddily built mods coded by amateurs. I can fix those on my PC but on a console? A console user will have to deal with the consequences and will be unable to fix it. There has to be a screening process in place for the protection of save games across the board so to speak.

In the end this whole situation is new, strange, and for me at least exciting. There are a lot of kinks that are going to need work and it might take a while. If everyone just pulls their heads out of their asses and starts trying to work together we might actually get somewhere towards a more peaceful gaming community.

And as for creators like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this novel of a comment? Well screw them. She may think she's the cream of the Skyrim crop just because she's released popular mods but at the end of the day she's just another person behind a screen who ports assets she didn't create into a bit of software she didn't create to put into a game she didn't create. If she wants to look down on people for their choice of gaming platform she's going to need some serious stilts because from where I'm standing it looks like better people, better authors, and a better mentality will hopefully be on the rise.

PonceMonster wrote: Ey now, she has that right considering he's in the visuals department. Unless you can do what she's doing on console, then you should know better. For one thing, you can't just take her visual mod and put it on Skyrim remastered or Fof4. And I can't say that ENB would be recommended for use on consoles either, as it may butcher performance, altogether. As people might have mentioned, Fof4 runs like shite and it is better off that you stick with the visuals it had already and only use visual mods on pc, it's simply not optimized. And no it's not that they are full of it, it's that it's not that simple and you can't just tell people one way or the other, THAT THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. And even if she were to try and explain, how do you know it will even get to everyone. 15 minutes after she posts the damn thing, she could still be getting the same bs. And people hype console games a hell of a lot more than any mod, and so put those two factors together, and she's gonna get a lot of clueless people who couldn't even be considered a part of the community yet, already asking for her work to be on console already. Please understand their perspective, they're a hell of a lot more important and valuable than you think.

CliveBarker wrote: She has the right to do anything with her mods and to state her opinion no matter if that opinion or actions doesn't fit your own narrative.

You are contradicting yourself by using Ad Hominem. Let me clarify that to you since you are clearly unfamiliar with the concept:

You said:
"anyone who uses the term "Console Peasant" seriously and without joking intent is automatically a douchenozzel in my mind"

Some people say:
"Anyone who plays in console is a console peasant and an inferior being in my mind"

Do you see any difference?

Your whole wall of text its filled with contradictions and unfair points like this one:

" Mod authors, at least the good ones, will want to optimize their mods and actually build them to be stable for console users"

So by your logic, a mod author who doesnt want to optimize their mods for consoles is "bad?

Fallacy, that's the conclusion I take after reading your post.

I'm liable to use the term console peasant myself, but rather than the feudal nobility being portrayed as "noble" and the villeins being portrayed as villains... I was thinking more that peasants are stuck living on a certain swathe of land by the mechanisms of that system

it's highly likely this meaning got lost when the term console peasant was getting popularized, but was understood by the original group/initial creative drive behind the term

[AndyDocHolliday]

A Tree endorses this post. Robin Scott is worthy.