Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2015 2:04:59 GMT -5
<abbr> Jason_X: </abbr>I like to vote on things. I voted for my browser choice by switching to Pale Moon from Firefox after Mozilla's CEO got in hot water over Prop 8, and after Mozilla decided to install HTML5 DRM in Firefox. I vote in local, state and national elections. In this case I'm just voting with my wallet for the vendor I find most pleasant to deal with. geishaboy: HERP A DERP I feel smart now. I'll, uhhh, re-post my original post in the morning when I am not running on fumes. Firefox and Valve will both see zero impact from your choices here, so you're really only impacting your own life. Guess we can only make the decisions we feel we can live with, though.
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TonicBH
Junior Member
8-bit Alex Trebek is judging you.
Posts: 79
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Post by TonicBH on Apr 24, 2015 17:48:27 GMT -5
I think this is needed considering some people put great work into mods and probably would like to be compensated. It's an interesting idea, but the current execution's a bit flawed.
Give it some time to iron out the initial problems and it'll probably do fine. At worst, we at least have some dumb terrible paid mods to laugh at.
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Post by dooz on Apr 25, 2015 1:12:13 GMT -5
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Post by Roxymandias on Apr 25, 2015 2:47:59 GMT -5
www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/65034/?The most ideal, implausible thing that could happen from this is Desura or GoG dethroning Steam. The second best thing would be for Valve to just stop selling mods and act like nothing ever happened. Such a shame to see a company that used to be famously decent to their community has been doing so much lazy / exploitative stuff this last year.
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Post by TheChosen on Apr 25, 2015 3:16:35 GMT -5
There's probably gonna be some copyright clashes too, like imagine if someone puts a price tag on that mod which adds Kenny Loggins Danger Zone to the game? And what about if someone puts up someone else's mod for sale? Then we run into the more innocuous but still troubling issues of mods based on existing content. The Doom community almost treats this as a tradition; the fact is, a lot of people make up for their lack of ability to create new sounds and models and such by basing their work off of others'. This opens up a lot of cans of worms that, in my opinion, really ought to have stayed dormant. And boom, this happened www.pcgamer.com/creator-of-removed-paid-skyrim-mod-gives-his-side-of-the-storyEDIT: More context, from the mod author www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33qcaj/the_experiment_has_failed_my_exit_from_the/Valve has also stated that its up to community to police and upkeep this new modding scene, just like with Greenlight and the Workshop overall. Because that obviously worked well before.
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Post by Feynman on Apr 25, 2015 7:09:03 GMT -5
Yeah, there are so many mods that require existing mods to function that the whole thing will be a nightmare.
Even aside from mods that use assets provided by a different mod, what about mods so crucial that their functionality is required for hordes of other mods? SkyUI is mandatory for a large number of other mods to work, as well as mandatory for making the interface not shit to use with a keyboard and mouse. It's being converted into a paid mod. Now every mod that requires it is locked behind a paywall by default where they weren't before. What happens when you want to use Mod X and it requires multiple other mods to work? If they all go paid then you get a situation where massive amounts of existing mods are walled off until you buy all the prerequisites. What about bug fixes? There are unofficial patch mods for Skyrim that fix a lot of bugs. What happens when the next open world Bethesda game appears and someone rushes to make unofficial fixes just to lock them behind a paywall? This gives the makers of key mods a huge amount of power over the modding community, not to mention consumers.
Then there's the issue that this changes how and why mods are developed in the first place. Mods, as they existed before, existed outside of commercial and market influence because as a general rule money was not involved. This is important because it means mods are less likely to be driven by market trends, and more likely to be driven by creativity. One you introduce money, that changes. Now mods are driven mainly by market forces. The main motivation for making a mod becomes "how can I best make money from this?" This encourages mod makers to follow trends and design for profit rather than for quality. It also strongly discourages the sharing of information and resources. In the early days of Skyrim modding, modders would share information about cool things they discovered, which helped rapidly advance what modders were able to do as a whole. But when the next open world Bethesda game comes out, who's going to want to share when being the first to create an important mod means making a ton of cash? This system encourages modders to keep their discoveries and information to themselves.
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Post by personman on Apr 25, 2015 12:37:43 GMT -5
I wouldn't be surprised if there will be someone to make an alternative to things like SkyUI made free or those who might buy the files and then just upload them somewhere like a torrent site. I mean, you can already do that effortlessly with the official dlc, just take the esp and bsa archives and copy them. But still this whole things is just awful. It also bugs me how I have to pay for something that may have fatal incompatibility issues or what have you that the average user may not run into well after 24 hours. Of course that just brings up the total lack of quality control across Steam again, Oi.
I guess on the bright side this may lead to me finally uninstalling Skyrim someday. I love tinkering with mods just for the heck of it but if I literally have to jump through hoops to literally pirate this stuff or something? That is just stupid.
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geishaboy
Full Member
Like that movie Drunken Master, minus the kung-fu
Posts: 190
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Post by geishaboy on Apr 25, 2015 18:55:39 GMT -5
Quick question as I'm completely out of the loop and don't even use steam (!), was it possible for people to sell their mods before? I'm guessing it wasn't allowed on steam, but were private sales somehow banned?
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Post by Weasel on Apr 25, 2015 19:38:40 GMT -5
Quick question as I'm completely out of the loop and don't even use steam (!), was it possible for people to sell their mods before? I'm guessing it wasn't allowed on steam, but were private sales somehow banned? There have been mods that have been donationware before, and mods that became commercial products (Counter Strike, among others), but this is the first time there has been actual support for it on an online storefront.
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Post by Snarboo on Apr 25, 2015 20:18:44 GMT -5
Quick question as I'm completely out of the loop and don't even use steam (!), was it possible for people to sell their mods before? I'm guessing it wasn't allowed on steam, but were private sales somehow banned? Selling mods has always been a bit of a grey area. There's some precedent there with Doom and Quake, both of which had unauthorized, third party mods and episodes that were sold, such as Perdition's Gate for Doom 2 and Shrak for Quake. Shovelware discs were also common well up until the late 90s, which is when dial-up internet took off. IIRC, there were some legal cases surrounding such releases, and it was determined that legally, companies couldn't stop them if they required the base game and used completely original assets. That may have changed, however, assuming there was a ruling in the first place!
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Post by Weasel on Apr 25, 2015 20:34:56 GMT -5
IIRC, there were some legal cases surrounding such releases, and it was determined that legally, companies couldn't stop them if they required the base game and used completely original assets. That may have changed, however, assuming there was a ruling in the first place! I can't find any actual documents on this, but I recall there was at least the threat of a lawsuit towards Sierra On-Line regarding an unofficial Duke 3D expansion called "Total Meltdown," and another one from Blizzard regarding unofficial add-on maps for Starcraft. The two happened about the same time, and that's about when the unofficial expansion movement sort of tapered off. [edit] AH HA! Here's one!
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Post by JDarkside on Apr 25, 2015 20:35:45 GMT -5
So to sum it up,
1) Users now have to pay money for once free things, and in some cases, things that are necessary for some games to actually function.
2) Mod creators get jipped at 25% cut, despite doing all of the work.
3) Valve has no idea what constitutes as valid on their mod store.
4) People are fearing the fast death of modding communities because this particular set up turns modding into a new form of business.
5) Valve is letting their community police things (because that never goes wrong, wouldn't you agree lady who made a simple bisexuality mod and had her life threatened on a daily basis because of it?).
6) Valve is blatantly trying to get a monopoly on user created content through financial incentives.
This is blatant exploitation, plain and simple.
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Post by Snarboo on Apr 25, 2015 20:50:51 GMT -5
So if this thread on the official Bethesda forums is to be believed, there are now mods where the free version has pop-up ads in it!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2015 21:06:15 GMT -5
How did anyone think this was going to work out?
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Post by Snarboo on Apr 25, 2015 21:19:59 GMT -5
How did anyone think this was going to work out? I assume this is a case of more money than sense, which Valve has increasingly fallen prey to. :p
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