The Elder Scrolls Megathread XVI: Loremaster Extraordinaire - Games

the day i make any of my characters into followers is never

[QUOTE=LeonS;47598825]the day i make any of my characters into followers is never[/QUOTE] Isn't that how Sophia was created? That turned out so well. I almost didn't want to throw my monitor out the window and eat my cat.

what are you even talking about

[URL="http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/54527/?"]Possibly the best reason ever to die of alcohol poisoning[/URL], is what I'm talking about.

yes i know about her but how was that related to never making a follower

I vaguely recall Sofia coming into existence cause someone wanted to make one of their Skyrim characters into a follower? I dunno my joke sucks /explains it

I always wondered if it was possible to use that one mod where you store a character and use it as a follower with the portal stone could let you extract it and make it a real follower mod

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;47598873]I always wondered if it was possible to use that one mod where you store a character and use it as a follower with the portal stone could let you extract it and make it a real follower mod[/QUOTE] I think [URL="http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/54509/?"]that[/URL] was discussed at some point, but you're probably better off just saving your character's face and putting the actor together in CK manually.

Obvious problems aside (valves terrible implementation, and only giving the author 25% of the cut), I really strongly believe that mods should be donation only. 1. Some of these mods are approaching DLC price points. Can you honestly say that a compilation of 'shitty' armors is worth 10, or even $15 when official DLC is the same price? IMO if there is a price point, it needs to be cents on the dollar. You can say 'if you don't agree with the price, don't buy it.' Fair enough, but really that's only going to encourage piracy. If you're going to sell something it needs to be at a 'fair' price in relation to official released DLC material. You can call them 'entitled' (lol) or shame them, do what you want. But at the end of the day I guarantee that pirates won't give a fuck, and be more hesitant to donate, the only person who is going to lose in this situation is the developer of the mod. 2. There is nobody to stand behind their products. Would you buy something from a random dude off the street? Probably not. I don't see how this is much different. With official DLC at least the developer can stand behind their product and take accountability for it. If a mod is broken by an update to the game, you're now out of the money you spent, and the developer of the mod has NO obligation to fix it in a timely manner, or at all. This leaves the consumer to either A. Bitch and moan about how the mod doesn't work B. Let someone else pick up the mod and fix it, release a fix- C. Now that its paid, I'm going to take a wild guess and say fixes will be taken down for attempting to 'steal' work from the artist. 'oh but eagle if the consumer just bitches and downvotes the bad mods then only the good mods will remain, or maybe valve will issue refunds if it doesn't get updated after x weeks' Yeah but are you telling me that you're honestly OK with being a gunnie pig for potential game breaking mods in order to warn other people, or that valve is really going to be on top of doing something like that? Good, because I'm not. 3. This only encourages developers to rely more on the community for shit that they should have done in the first place. Imagine if you will that all the unofficial bug fix mods were $5. This is shit that shouldn't have to be done in the first place, the developers should be fixing the game as it goes on, instead of dumping it on modders and as a modder you are literally paying beth for your own work in valves current system, work that should have been done BY BETH THEMSELVES IN THE FIRST PLACE. Now I understand that isn't the case with Skyrim right now, but think about future games that may follow this business model. FO4 for example, lets say gets released with several large, borderline game breaking bugs. A few weeks pass and no update is available, when someone makes a bug fix mod for the game and charges $2-5 for the fix. Now I'm not saying this will happen, but I will be very surprised if it doesn't. 4. Legality: There is a huge legal and moral grey area regarding making profits off of mods directly. Using tools developed by Beth, and oftentimes assets created by other people is definitely shady. Donation for the most part relives this. I'm no lawyer, I won't pretend to be, but I'm sure we'll see some people getting in legal trouble over this, there have already been DMCA notices sent to some mods. What we need is a 'Buy me a coffee!' button on every mod we download. If we like it and think its an okay mod, we can donate 25 cents, and if someone else really loves the mod and it completely changed their gaming experience, they can donate $5 or $10, and more importantly all profits need to go towards the modder. There is no way in hell anyone can say that Valve or Beth is justified in taking 75% of profits, making money off of someone else.

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;47598727]all you idiots pirating mods, i would not be surprised if the next TES game (if bethesda continues the paid mod feature), only allows mods that are tied to your account on the steam workshop[/QUOTE] If they did that, it'd be suicide, I sure as hell wouldn't buy the next TES game if that were the case, when I bought Skyrim I knew I wasn't going to like it, there are better fantasy games out there but none of those have the moddability of Skyrim, it's possible to shape the game into what you want it to be and I would not be willing to pay more money on top of the game's original cost to achieve that, the cost would add up very quickly and I'd be left wondering if the result was really worth it. There's still a lot of things I'd like to see done in Skyrim, but for the most part I'm pretty happy with the current state of my game and as far as I'm concerned the way I have it set up now is what I paid for, not vanilla Skyrim.

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;47598773]whether or not you think it's worth that 49 cents (!!!!), the creator has still valued it as such[/QUOTE] That the fuck does that have to do with anything? I could say a dog turd I found at the side of a road is worth x amount of money, doesn't mean it actually is. Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them, no more and no less. And no one (with at least a quarter-functioning brain) is willing to pay for mods, not least mods that were formerly free.

[QUOTE=MegaJohnny;47598717]The count on the Nexusmods homepage has gone down by 4 in the last hour. I don't know if that represents Apollodown's protest (good on him) or if that's another 4 mods going paid.[/QUOTE] who?

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;47598773]whether or not you think it's worth that 49 cents (!!!!), the creator has still valued it as such[/QUOTE] Except the creator isn't going to get any of that 49¢ unless he gets 200+ subscribers. Then he only gets about 12¢ a subscriber. He wants money for his creation? Tell him to put up his PayPal address, I'll gladly send him 50¢.

I wonder who put a DMCA notice on wet and cold. The mod uses a [I]ton[/I] of content from various mods meaning the revamped "new and improved" 2.0 version already has a bunch of cut content (pretty much anything from cloaks of skyrim or winter is coming as well as umbrellas). The snow shoes, facemasks and hoods are all from other mods as well, but I don't know which creator put the notice up. They were absolutely right to do so. I've been trying out the paid versions of iNeed and Wet & Cold and neither of them are worth the recommended price. The only noticeable difference is that Wet and Cold has less content and runs slightly better. [editline]25th April 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=lavacano;47599064]Except the creator isn't going to get any of that 49¢ unless he gets 200+ subscribers. Then he only gets about 12¢ a subscriber. He wants money for his creation? Tell him to put up his PayPal address, I'll gladly send him 50¢.[/QUOTE] Most nexus users already have a donation page accessible from their profile page. They're not allowed to advertise it on the mod pages themselves (so no e-begging) and they're not allowed to cut content and promise it back in exchange for payment (which is what the workshop pretty much does).

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;47599049]who?[/QUOTE] Dragon Combat Overhaul, Civil War Overhaul, Epic Music Overhaul, Combat Drama Overhaul etc etc His descriptions are dumb and look like they were written by an excitable 12 yr old

And unlike the workshop, donating via the nexus utilizes paypal and the nexus itself doesn't take a single percentage of the money. It's a flat donation that goes directly to the mod creator. Some people have suggested that the nexus should give you a small window asking to consider donating before downloading a mod (same way it tells you the required mods and such), which sounds like a good idea to motivate donating, or even raise awareness that the option exists to begin with.

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;47598873]I always wondered if it was possible to use that one mod where you store a character and use it as a follower with the portal stone could let you extract it and make it a real follower mod[/QUOTE] Not with that system. That system uses your savegames to load player stuff. You can actually export your player character's look with a console command and import it to the creation kit. [url]http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Console#spf[/url]

[QUOTE=Vehk;47598844][URL="http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/54527/?"]Possibly the best reason ever to die of alcohol poisoning[/URL], is what I'm talking about.[/QUOTE] Dat last name, Slagman.

In case this hasn't been posted yet, sign the petition against paid mods: [URL="https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop"]https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop[/URL] I'm personally not against paying for mods. What I'm against is Valve and Zenimax taking the majority share of the profits. What really gets me though, is the fact that Valve is removing "copy-cat" mods. In other words, they are giving paid mod authors MONOPOLY RIGHTS, so that there can be no free alternatives. If they allowed "copy-cat" mods, free market forces would cull shitty mods that are easily copied, and only high quality mods that have a lot of time and effort put into them would actually earn anything. The only way Valve is going to prevent people from making free alternatives and posting them on alternative modding sites like the nexus or even just plain out pirating the mods is by introducing a DRM system for mods, only allowing workshop mods to be installed. This is the end of modding. I know a guy who has never played half-life 2 because it requires DRM, and thus you don't really own the game. I used to think he was nuts. Now I see the truth in his arguments. I thought that valve was better than this. I thought that they would never take away the right to play the games we purchased from them. But its even worse. They are destroying the games we love so that they can leech off of the work of the community, taking for themselves the fruits of the labors of the modding community, and in return giving authors just a pittance. The VALVe I once loved is dead.

[QUOTE=Vehk;47599105]Dragon Combat Overhaul, Civil War Overhaul, Epic Music Overhaul, Combat Drama Overhaul etc etc His descriptions are dumb and look like they were written by an excitable 12 yr old[/QUOTE] Apollo pulled his yesterday.

Pretty much the instant the system was revealed to the public about 75 mods disappeared off the nexus. According to Dark0ne, these were mostly anxious modders who wanted to see how things would turn out and decide whether or not they should monetize or keep their mod online (and whether or not people would still the mods and upload them to the workshop for money). This also means that some of these people were contacted about the whole system and already knew shit would go down. Dark0ne himself admitted he had been in contact with steam for a while and personally warned them of the impending backlash to which they said they were prepared, but they weren't expecting a response [I]that[/I] violent. Chesko got it toughest, for now - he's pretty much out of the modding community for an indefinite amount of time, after all these events. I predict Isoku will start getting shit on all over since unlike Chesko he didn't have the decency and intelligence to pull his mods out of the workshop immediately and is instead insisting on keeping them up, which lead to one DMCA strike and a shitton of backlash.

[QUOTE=En_Carlson;47599140]The VALVe I once loved is dead.[/QUOTE] and to think i once had an ambition to work there fortunately that dream was crushed a while ago so it hurts a bit less, but still

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47599113]And unlike the workshop, donating via the nexus utilizes paypal and the nexus itself doesn't take a single percentage of the money. It's a flat donation that goes directly to the mod creator. Some people have suggested that the nexus should give you a small window asking to consider donating before downloading a mod (same way it tells you the required mods and such), which sounds like a good idea to motivate donating, or even raise awareness that the option exists to begin with.[/QUOTE] The donation popup is a real thing now, mod authors can turn it on if they want. [img]http://i.imgur.com/tlqvoiR.png[/img] That's all we need. Everyone wins. Paid mods are not "supporting the author", it's making a business. Surprise surprise, people think charging $1 for a sword in a single-player game is a bit cheeky.

[QUOTE=MegaJohnny;47599269]Surprise surprise, people think charging $1 for a sword in a single-player game is a bit cheeky.[/QUOTE] I fully support community-made cosmetics in multiplayer games (I've bought my fair share of cosmetics on Dota 2 which entirely revolves around the concept as well as League of Legends, the skins of which sometimes originate from the community) and I think it's a really solid way of helping a game live on, but it only works for multiplayer [I]and[/I] for cosmetics. Skyrim manages to fuck both of these concepts up by being single player and having most of the weapon/armor mods be overpowered as fuck.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47599288]I fully support community-made cosmetics in multiplayer games (I've bought my fair share of cosmetics on Dota 2 which entirely revolves around the concept as well as League of Legends, the skins of which sometimes originate from the community) and I think it's a really solid way of helping a game live on, but it only works for multiplayer [I]and[/I] for cosmetics. Skyrim manages to fuck both of these concepts up by being single player and having most of the weapon/armor mods be overpowered as fuck.[/QUOTE] Another big difference is that Dota cosmetics get (properly) assessed for quality and style guidelines. With Skyrim they're trying to pull the caveat emptor garbage again. It doesn't help that, in the case of Isoku and perhaps others, the author had mentioned the update as being in the works for a while. I remember being excited for the new Wet & Cold myself. Having it suddenly be paid is a great way to make your fans feel like you've pulled the rug out from under them.

This whole thing has inspired me to continue work on my Silver Hand Revamp mod as a summer project (to be released for free, ofc) So I guess something good came of this?

[QUOTE=MegaJohnny;47599353]Another big difference is that Dota cosmetics get (properly) assessed for quality and style guidelines.[/QUOTE] Yeah...sometimes...maybe.

[QUOTE=MegaJohnny;47599353]Another big difference is that Dota cosmetics get (properly) assessed for quality and style guidelines. With Skyrim they're trying to pull the caveat emptor garbage again. It doesn't help that, in the case of Isoku and perhaps others, the author had mentioned the update as being in the works for a while. I remember being excited for the new Wet & Cold myself. Having it suddenly be paid is a great way to make your fans feel like you've pulled the rug out from under them.[/QUOTE] SkyUI 5.0 was teased in a twitter post a few days back and then SURPRISE it's now a paid mod. I'd seriously consider getting a backup of current SkyUI 4.1 if I were you, there's no telling if the mod creator decides to follow the Midas path with an update that adds advertisements.

[QUOTE=MegaJohnny;47599353]Another big difference is that Dota cosmetics get (properly) assessed for quality and style guidelines.[/QUOTE] to be honest, tf2 has the same and we still got [I]this thing[/I] somehow [t]http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/468674753120929934/CC98B8A1B519537FDF883104638BB55131C03C9D/637x358.resizedimage[/t] I'm not sure Valve can really be trusted to "assess for quality and style", though I don't play Dota2 so maybe they do a better job there.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47599419]SkyUI 5.0 was teased in a twitter post a few days back and then SURPRISE it's now a paid mod. I'd seriously consider getting a backup of current SkyUI 4.1 if I were you, there's no telling if the mod creator decides to follow the Midas path with an update that adds advertisements.[/QUOTE] Thankfully Mod Organizer doesn't have anything to update mods automatically. If someone tries this shit with a mod I've installed, I'll be able to read up on it.