SSE Bethesda.net... What can I do?

[Mudran]

My impression was also, that it was someone who wanted to solve conflicts and that was the reason why he was so angry about your comments - accusing him of stealing.

Of course it could lead to stealing a script, but if you are honest - how many programmers with a good knowledge of papyrus, stole an idea of an author, who created very cool mod, but poorly programmed. If you would have such fears, nothing is really safe...

Edited November 25, 2016 by Mudran

[Sulhir]

As I read the linked thread, the OP was complaining, not so much that authors didn't distribute source code, but that Bethesda had made it possible for them not to.

Bethesda made them unincluded by default.

 

They were never advocating theft. Decompiling a script to read it and modify it without distributing to others is perfectly legal, and should honestly be encouraged.

If they weren't advocating theft then their response was misleading to say the least. They never once spoke about intent or lack of intent to distribute but instead complained about their rights to someone else's work - rights they did not have nor asked to have.

 

They were never advocating theft. Decompiling a script to read it and modify it without distributing to others is perfectly legal, and should honestly be encouraged.

Decompiling is possible, not illegal, but not something that should be encouraged. If they want to learn how to script, which they claimed they did, they should look into it. There are classes that teach it, they are free, it's not hard to start They know very little about scripting as evidenced by their responses.

Two different mods creating conflicts with each other? No. The two mods are incompatible with each other as they seem to modify some of the same files. A scripting problem? Again, no. The mods are incompatible. Want a compatibility patch? Maybe they should look into asking the author. Author's not available? Maybe they should look into learning how to mod rather than reverse engineering someone else's hard work.

 

Fact of the matter is, the posters there responded with venom and entitlement rather than explaining that their goal was misunderstood. So while such a conclusion would not be permissible in court they lead one to believe that yes, they are stealing, know they are stealing, and think that the content they are accessing is their right. And that is my problem.

 

As for uploading a blank .esp - you can "delete" the mod, but it continues to be visible in your author profile due to the incredibly poor website management Bethesda currently has with their transition into their new website.

 

All I can say for those who disagree... just avoid Bethesda.net anyway. No harm no foul, don't wind up like me and have to find out first hand.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Sulhir

[lofgren]

Oh please. The OP was perfectly clear about what they wanted and why they were complaining and you went off and accused tbem of theft, in a way that made no sense no less. That would make me react with venom. Afterall, you reacted with venom by assuming criminal motivations when none were in evidence. I really don't understand your concern anyway. Source scripts are in no way necessary for pirating a mod, and are in fact incredibly helpful for learning modding. Just chill out, man.

[Sulhir]

You misunderstand as well as they do. It only goes to show how pervasive and how much of a problem this is. If you truly wanted to learn how to script/mod - take one of a hundreds of free classes available on any number of modding forums rather than stealing.

[lofgren]

That's not how I learned. I learned by looking at other modders' scripts. This is not an unusual approach, AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT.

[DoctorKaizeld]

That's not how I learned. I learned by looking at other modders' scripts. This is not an unusual approach, AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT.

as long as you arent using their scripts via copy/paste type methods, yeah there really is nothing wrong with it.

[Sulhir]

It may not be unusual or anyone see anything wrong with it but some authors do not release their scripts intentionally and there are far better resources out there than hacking.

[ishmaeltheforsaken]

If a mod author includes her scripts' source code, that's great, and looking through it can be a great way to learn. But no one is ENTITLED to that.

 

That's the issue. The OP's attitude (Beth.net OP, not this thread's) that they somehow had an inalienable to right to easily and conveniently vulture others' IP is incredibly distasteful.

[Deleted3897072User]

You can't learnt scripting just from reading other people's scripts, and you are fooling yourself if you think you can.

 

Scripting is a process leading to a product. It is the process that must be mastered. But the product does not document the process; it merely represents the outcome of it - a one-dimensional projection of a billion-dimensional act of creativity. Seeing a script tells you almost nothing about how the scripter came to conceive of it.

 

A scripter looking at my scripts will not say "Oh, so that's how to write a script to do that", he is much more likely to say "Hmm. I see how it works. It's quite neat, but I wouldn't have done it that way at all. I would have done it like this ..." and come up with some other solution that looks quite different but works just as well, if not better. That's why it's always a good idea to have a scripting buddy rather than working in splendid isolation. But it needs to be someone who already knows how to script.

 

In short, the argument that modders ought to release their source code so that other people can learn to script, is phoney.

[lofgren]

Decompiling scripts is not "hacking."

 

You don't get to decide how other people learn, so take your self-important pomposity and kindly shove it.