JannixQuinn Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 I don't blame Princess stomper for anything personally. I never asked anyone to contact her or to start any threads on my behalf? Am I angry the thread was locked? Of course, and I said my reasons earlier in the thread. This also isn't the first incident I've had with issues arising from my mods. I get loads of abuse in PMs which I handle as best I can. I didn't want a massive debate over this, its a personal decision which has been building up over a lot of different issues. I'm pulling my mods because I no longer want to maintain them. I've already started to lapse answering noobs who can't get stuff to work. Anyway, as I said, don't punish stomper or buddah over the choices they made. I don't really agree with them, but perhaps thats just the policy they go by. The Beth forums have some really strange ways of looking at things, as others have stated. Whatever. If people leave, they leave. A couple of people asked if I'm leaving the community, which isn't true- I'm just not modding anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herosinger Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 A couple of people asked if I'm leaving the community, which isn't true- I'm just not modding anymore.That's very good to hear. But it's not illegal to redistribute altered meshes and textures from vanilla Oblivion and if fact we have express permission to do so as well as altered music. But as was said already the DLCs are to be treated as a game themselves and each has it's own license but since it's content relies solely on Oblivion for it's function they (unlike vanilla) may not be altered and redistributed without reliance on the original content contained within them. That to me is very simple and I just don't see how any confusion could ensue from that. Very cut and dry and IMHO any attempt to befuddle that fact is merely an attempt to get around the rules that are very clear.It is very much impossible to force a mesh or texture to rely on a plugin (at least as far as I know). My purpose in this argument is not in any way to choose sides. I'm much more interested in finding a working understanding. It is obvious to me that many do not understand (for good reason, in my opinion). That lack of understanding should be addressed. In my experience, rules for rules sake are near impossible to truly understand, and understanding is required before a rule can be supported effectively. In other words: there must be a reason for the distinction I stated previously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagrant0 Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 The "blind eye" is really more of selective ignorance. If it's illegal to distribute meshes, it's illegal to distribute meshes. How is an edited mesh from vanilla Oblivion any different than an edited mesh from KotN? True, a player can't use the .nif in Oblivion if they don't have Oblivion, but they could very well use it in any number of other forms. Textures follow the same rule. A plugin that has a required master absolutely does not restrict the use of individual resources the mod incorporates. In my mind, this is where the confusion lies.Which was what I was kinda getting at. The rules aren't clear, and any attempt to clarify them would likely only result in screwing over those who have managed to go along un-noticed. The resources themselves are not taken from one game and put into another. Even though the official mods may have seperate liscenses, they still use the same base. So long as there is no intention to provide an alternative to buying the expansion or mod, minor resources from larger expansions like KotN and SI should be open for use. Even if someone were to get an exact copy of the armor, or a few buildings, that's all it would be. It wouldn't be additional quests, it wouldn't be additional areas, it wouldn't be additional play time, it would just be a mesh. The smaller official mods don't quallity for this argument BECAUSE almost all they are is an extra mesh. And you're right, there is no way to make a mesh require a particular expansion. If you retextured an order sword, you can make the .esp require SI, but can't actually make anything about the mesh, or any of the textures it uses not work within a game that doesn't have SI. If you make this illegal, you aren't affecting only a few modders, but are affecting alot of modders, and essentially make the expansion worthless to anyone who wants a modded game since even an altered world map, or updated LOD data falls under this sort of issue. And given how SI is completely merged with the .esm, it can be difficult for some to know what is, and is not part of SI. Heck, the same could be true for anything which isn't resource based. Even abilities, creatures, dungeons, or scripts which are linked with SI could be made to work with the standard game. There were certainly attempts at making hungar, seducers, and golden saints with non-SI resources, before SI came out, it wouldn't be hard to substitute one for the other, or something similar to make a mod containing references based on SI settings, to work in a non-SI game. And then we're really splitting hairs, what about similar scripting, if someone uses the same two functions next to eachother in their own script as there exists in some SI script, does the mod need to require SI. How about a weapon change script, because they use the same concept as a SI script, does the mod maker have to take a polygraph to prove that he didn't take that idea from a SI item? But I digress. The simple fact is that the rules aren't clear, and extremes could be sought out. If we ask, the lawers get involved, and modding as an open activity will probably become illegal or much harder in the process. Some decision needs to be made, but at the same time, it needs to be made by someone who understands that a few meshes, or borrowed lines of script are not an alternative to purchasing an expansion. To suggest this is the case would be to devalue all the other work that was put into making that expansion happen. Re-use of meshes is just an unfortunate requirement for any sort of retexture. And any re-arranging or re-weighting of vertices should be treated as a new mesh. Even those people at EA understand this much, many of the body and item meshes available to download for the sims2 were based off of meshes that came with an expansion. Even though this is the case, they realized early on that it was going to happen, and they could either spend loads of money tracking down and punishing those who did it, or just allow modders to make use of it, and in turn, both keep interest alive for their game, as well as encourage people to buy the expansions for those things that require them. And you know what, it works. As tight fisted as I am, I even bought a couple of their expansions just so that I could use some of the modded content without having to strip down and rebuild things. So essentially what I'm saying is that if some resources are made fair game, more people may be inclined to buy an expansion. I havn't bought KotN or any of the other official mods for this exact reason, I cannot use anything from them in any other mods. Although I bought SI, I don't use it because I can't retexture, or use anything from SI within any other mod, and have to make all mods, regardless of where they are situated, require SI just in the odd chance that I used some mislabeled SI clutter, static, or idle. Maybe fun to play, but useless to the modding community which keeps the games alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenghisKhanIT Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Has anyone thought about the FACT that when Bethesda released Oblivion, the ONLY mods they expected to see (using the construction set) were .esp plugin files. There were no tools released for unpacking their BSA files or converting DDS textures, creating NIF models or KF animations. Hmmm, LHAmmonds, I do not agree. Even if there were no tools for unpacking content at game launching time, they knew there will have been in the near future. It has happened with every game since DooM and after all, BSA format is not much different than DooM's WAD or Quake's PAK, and extraction tools have always been around for them. Total conversions do exist for nearly every well known game out there, and they could not exist without contents unpacking utilities. They knew it was going to happen also to Oblivion. I am very sorry to hear that another great modder has pulled his works. This is always sad. I see it as a waste that a problem with one mod is going to destroy the good done by tens of successfull and original ones. I do really hope that JQ will come over this anger moment and will come to rethink his decision which, in the end, is his and his alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark0ne Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 I also want to echo Stomper's words on not bashing Bethesda. Oblivion and Morrowind are pretty much the only main stream games I know that have come out with an SDK to boot; no waiting 1 month - 2 years for an SDK to be released. This is an awesome achievement. The whining of the community when Oblivion was released without some seemingly important tools is one of the reasons why Bethesda aren't focusing much on an SDK for Fallout 3 (or they're being extremely tight lipped about it). The thought of Bethesda not releasing an SDK for Fallout 3 is mind-boggling for me when you look at how integral the modding community is to the reputation of Morrowind and Oblivion. The games are good, but the mods, for me, are what tip it into the realm of awe and wonder. To not release an SDK seems so so so daft to me and it seems, unfortunately, the naysayers in this community have contributed to their reluctance to commit to an SDK for Fallout 3. The more the community complains to Bethesda about the tools they release, the tools they don't HAVE to release, the less likely it is we'll see as open a modding community we have at the moment for the next ES game. NB. "complains" does not mean constructive criticism, "complains" means sending hate mail, shouting down the name of Bethesda, massive forum hate directed at Bethesda etc. for not releasing all the tools they could have, or all the features, etc. This definately isn't directed at Jannix but rather the people who are quick to curse the name of Bethesda simply because they're protecting their rather funky license and modding policies. Their policies are their own, and while you might not agree with them whining and complaining will only make matters worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giskarduk Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Well im certainly no fan of beth forums moderator team, not after watching an 8 page thread slagging me off grow until i eventually posted at the end saying how this was typical of crap i had to put up with and suddenly one moderator remembered what rules they where supposed to be enforcing and closed it. Or the time when a user said i was the devil him self and tried to drum up support for further attacks against me on beths forums. Inciting to riot would have the be charge against him and beth moderators did nothing to him. Or when my kvatch thread got closed because a bunch of well known fcom mod makers decided to force them selves and their mod making ways down my throat without actually knowing how to make or test mods like mine. They caused me a lot of trouble and got away with it scot free I asked them to leave my thread 3 times so i could continue modding in peace, a simple request they out right ignored so they could stay and stir up even more trouble. The moderators over there where so blind to what was going on it took giant size 7 yellow fonts to alert them to the crap i was getting. No moderator over there ever delt with the trouble i got on beths forums, all they ever did for me was lock my threads and they needed a massive hint that it was way passed fixable now and thread locking was all that was left to do. Some of the moderators over there actually caused me trouble and even Buddah said stuff he should have known was stirring things up. Like reading about Donations and saying it sounds like pay to play to him when all my mods where on nexus at the time for free and only my guides where and still are private. When a guy people believe is usually ok says things like that, i get a world of crap. Btw that was a copy right issue just like this one, only it was always a totally bollox arguement and i had not even used that forum for a month when that came up. The flamers where just following me around bashing me whilst people like Buddah landed me in it by making statements like that. Buddah even said to one guy that forums where for posting on after the other guy said he felt like kvatch aftermath was a band topic on beths forum. At the time there was 3 locked kvatch threads started 1 month after i left because the flamers couldnt let people ask questions without locking the threads. The flamers ruled beths forum then and Buddah didnt even notice. Given that Buddah is normally a pretty cool guy, if even his comments can cause problems for modders because of the hyper sensative nature of all chats on beths forum, how do you think we fair when flamers do it delibrately ? Seriously nobody but those effected had even the remotest idea of just how bad it got for the rest of us and clearly still is. No lessons have been learned, moderators are still not helping over there and problems still getting worse. If what i said sounds like trouble, understand im a calmer person today and all that is 100% true and all happened to me personally before i quit beths forums for good and stop caring what people wrote. Jannix is currently enjoying pretty much the same sort of treatment as i did, and im guess Alienslof will have similar stories. I make this post not to finger point, but to make a point, things are bad, theres little or no real effort to moderate properly over there other than locked or deleted threads and those responsible are not getting punished, they still exist over there and are still doing the same things. I know, ive been lurker there since i left and spotted the usual suspects doing their usual crap. Tip for moderators on beths forums before dismissing a post as helpful over there, read the whole post. Many people started posts with "I love your mods....But" and ended by convincing them selves that i had added some minor feature just to annoy them and had to die for that crime. Before anybody asks, Jannix told me about his issues months ago, so i know its relatively similar experiences from the user side of things. Giskard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jntk Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 gee, it seems like modding is a quite dipressing thing to do. I hate beth Forms it seems like almost all the people there are no-life-flamming-trolls-who-just-like-to-b*tch-about-stuff. Like that haplo guy from before. Who happenes to be banned now. (thank you Buddah) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giskarduk Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 gee, it seems like modding is a quite dipressing thing to do. I hate beth Forms it seems like almost all the people there are no-life-flamming-trolls-who-just-like-to-b*tch-about-stuff. Like that haplo guy from before. Who happenes to be banned now. (thank you Buddah) It is a depressing thing to do.....> IF < you use beths forums. Thats the point im making, the solution is to stop using the forums and it works very well. People out here are much nicer, friendly types you can have a reasonable chat with. Unlike beths forums. Giskard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark0ne Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Ok, first of all these forums aren't really a place to vent on the actions of volunteers on another forum. While I don't want to limit people's free speech too much I also don't want these forums to be the place where disgruntled ex-official forum members come to vent on official forum moderators and events over there. Hope you can see where I'm coming from in that regard. In regards to your post though I didn't see mention that you PM'd moderators asking for assistance. Did you do this or did you just expect the situation to be resolved? I suspect that the moderators over there are like the moderators here; they can't possibly go through every single post every single day so they depend on the community to help them out. EDIT by LHammonds: Dark0ne said the very thing I was about to add except please do not actually reply here as it is offtopic. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giskarduk Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Ok, first of all these forums aren't really a place to vent on the actions of volunteers on another forum. While I don't want to limit people's free speech too much I also don't want these forums to be the place where disgruntled ex-official forum members come to vent on official forum moderators and events over there. Hope you can see where I'm coming from in that regard. In regards to your post though I didn't see mention that you PM'd moderators asking for assistance. Did you do this or did you just expect the situation to be resolved? I suspect that the moderators over there are like the moderators here; they can't possibly go through every single post every single day so they depend on the community to help them out. Out of respect for nexus i avoided naming the people that attacked me or failed to do their moderating jobs. I know it leads to them coming here and causing problems, thats why such details are absent. It was not needed to make my point anyway and if more people made their points that way, few would get offended. Buddah: In case you do not understand, the files you said sounded like i was selling where not only on nexus the whole time and never where removed when I quit, unlike Jannix and AlienSlofs files. But you had moderated users for causing trouble in my mod pages your self. So you had seen my mods where available for free download when you said it looked like i was selling them. I saw you say what you said and decided you had probably forgotten or had a seriously dumb moment. Unfortunately other users credit you for speaking the truth and that led to weeks of pain for me. Giskard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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