Paid Modding is gone... or is it?

[Quisling]

I was honestly disgusted that Bethesda and (except for the AMA) Valve were nowhere around when they launched this. I've worked on fan sites in the past, and know a few community managers, and it's a basic rule you should be around to deal with complaints (and there will be some, whatever you're doing) when you announce something. I note, after a few platitudes they've basically disappeared again.

[Guest endgameaddiction]

Chesko is back on Nexus and people are continuing to support him as before. I think he's learned a valuable lesson. And really, at one point of time we've all done something we are not proud of. He dusted himself off and he's back to the drawing board. Good for him, I say. All the negative approach (even from me) could of just overwhelmed him and cause him to go into a meltdown. I was not supportive of what he nor other modders did by jumping into this cause and I won't be. But Chesko saw it in another way. I guess one who is loyal to Valve/Steam could easily believe their intentions were good. Since Valve is supposed to be for the community. Even though I despise Steam, I'm trying to just set aside that hate for a moment and look at it from their point of view.

 

If mods made by Bethesda were sold to begin with, none of this would of mattered. This doesn't matter if mods have always been free decades ago. Just because one developer chooses to monetize mods for their products doesn't mean the whole mod scene is completely over. People will just decide if it's worth their money to invest in the game and buy the mods. But because it was a system implemented on a free-to-mod community that has existed for a very long time with Bethesda, it was bound to be a problem.

 

If they plan to force this in the future, fine. Not a problem. I won't buy the game and I'll find some other game to buy and mod that supports the free-to-mod system. Only reason why I did say sellout was because, if it wasn't for the TES mod community (because a lot of these mod creators date back from daggerfall/morrowind) which was a free-to-mod community from the get go, modders such as these who began to follow this P2M trend wouldn't have been where they are. The mod scene for Bethesda games have been a foundation of freeware for any and all who want to enjoy the next level of their Bethesda games. Turning it into a profitable service ruins that foundation it was buiilt upon. And there's bound to be some crooked people ready to snag those files and rename it and upload it for a simple chump change that's not even worth braggin about. Let alone if you have a whole team working on a profit for that mere 25% garbage.

 

I think about the parents who mod and even their kids who mod. And then I think about how they could do such a thing providing a pay service to young children who play these games (because we all know many of them do). Or the little kids who make mods are so young and ignorant that don't even know the finanial world and corrupt BS going on in society that this dirty scheme is making Bethesda steal these kids creativity all for a decent profit in their pockets. That's is utterly shady stuff.

 

What ever happens, I'll be the one making the choice where I buy my next moddable game.

[Sacremas]

If pay to mod is the default standard with Fallout 4, I think Bethesda's going to take it hard in the wallet pouch and the game won't have half the shelf life of Fallout 3. Considering that many already just prefer the vanilla game, they'd get Fallout 4 on a heavy discount bargain bin, slap on an ENB maybe, play through it, and uninstall it. Let's see how Bethesda would like it three years from now to find more people playing New Vegas than Fallout 4.

[afa]

From what I recall and understand Fore and FNIS are a big deal because before FNIS there was no easy or at least a centralize way to put custom animation into Skyrim.

[Kendo 2]

If any blame can be laid on the situation with Skyrim and added animations it falls at Bethesda's feet.  Blame the devs who fucked it up to begin with, not the modder who fixed it.  If I'm the guy smart enough to fix something that was intentionally fucked up I wouldn't want the people responsible for that benefiting from my ideas, work and time.

 

I don't blame Fore in the least.

[Gameplayer]

From what I recall and understand Fore and FNIS are a big deal because before FNIS there was no easy or at least a centralize way to put custom animation into Skyrim.

 

Correct.

 

Thing is Fore likely either owns what he made, or there is a TOS license.

 

Either way it doesn't matter the guy is a programmer and the room to strong arm something is there.

 

Your mod could simply be incompatible with the next version of FORE.  Wouldn't have to argue in the least about it or worry about legal matters cause Fore provides said platform for free.  In the worse case the file simply becomes unavailable.

[Kendo 2]

We have no idea what software he used to create it.  There are plenty of free executable file extensions that have their own licensing.  If he used one of those he's bound by that license.  We have no way of knowing, and I don't think it really matters.  Like gameplayer said, he owns it or there is a license somewhere.

[Sacremas]

How exactly did Fore fix the animation system, what makes Skyrim so different than Oblivion and Fallout in that regard that FNIS as needed in the first palce? Bethesda kinda fucked up with the Papyrus system and the problems it's caused us (then again the scripting allowed in Papyrus probably allows a lot of mods that a more friendly Papyrus wouldn't?), but did they change other things as drastically? I was under the impression that the engine overall was mostly the same as in Oblivion, just with a new version number.

 

(going a bit of track, but the horse is glue by now anyway)

[Kendo 2]

The animations are no longer handled by the engine.  They're external files with the .hkx suffix and governed by various behavior.hkx's (dogs, atronachs, whatever).  In previous games they were handled by the engine and something like FNIS is unnecessary.  Bethesda COULD have left the anims in the domain of the engine; it isn't like it's doing anything else.

 

Without the FNIS crack there is no way to add new animations.  We would just be stuck with replacers for vanilla ones.

[bjornk]

It Looks As If Paid Mods Are Slowly Being Reintegrated Back Into Steam

 

 

 

Valve: "Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating."

Bethesda: "More games are coming to Paid Mods on Steam soon"

 

Just keep in mind that paid modding will return.

[WraithSlayer]

It Looks As If Paid Mods Are Slowly Being Reintegrated Back Into Steam

 

As was expected. Valve never said they were scrapping the idea, just that they made a mistake by choosing Skyrim.

[myuhinny]

I see nothing on the steam pages and this is still April (could be a late April Fools) so I'll believe it when I see it and if they do bring it back then I'll be hitting those paid tabs with adblocker like I did before so they get removed.

[Vykroft]

We knew that, the lust for money never disappear and Beth want his part of the cake too. So the new F4 Creation Kit, probably, will be tweaked for the new paid mod scene.

It sad, but is time to move to another game.

[Captain Cobra]

Not surprised, not looking forward to the shit storm either.  Glad I put off buying F4.

[myuhinny]

I think Beth has had enough cake they are lazy enough the way it is without more cake. They need to get off their ass and actually make games instead of putting out half assed games that need to be fixed by the community because they are full of bugs. I wonder if Beth would still be floating or would they have sunk like a turd by now if they had never uploaded any tools for their games. From what I have seen the only reason they haven't sunk yet is because their tools and the community are what keep them afloat. Why make a good game when you can make a half assed one sell it and make the community fix it for free.

 

After the last paid mod thing I stopped buying any of their game when they come out. I haven't even bothered looking at fallout 4. Now if and when I decide to buy a game from them it will be when I'm scrapping it out of the bottom of the bargain bin and it'll be cheap plus most of the bugs should now be beaten out if the game.

[RitualClarity]

At least it looks currently like it will be for the new game likely after the new FAllout 4 CS has been released. Now the community can speak their mind properly *hopefully* and buy or not buy mods from Steam. The market will dictate the value of the efforts to create paid mods. My biggest complaint was it was done on an old community with assets being traded and moved around daily. My current complaint likely will be stolen content and how they handle addressing this.

 

I suggest the patron approach for large framework systems where many can contribute (with a larger amount of money going to the artist ) to the project and chime in its development as opposed to the Steam approach which will likely take more money from the top to pay themselves and Bethesda.

 

 

 

[windpl]

At least it looks currently like it will be for the new game likely after the new FAllout 4 CS has been released. Now the community can speak their mind properly *hopefully* and buy or not buy mods from Steam. The market will dictate the value of the efforts to create paid mods. My biggest complaint was it was done on an old community with assets being traded and moved around daily. My current complaint likely will be stolen content and how they handle addressing this.

 

I suggest the patron approach for large framework systems where many can contribute (with a larger amount of money going to the artist ) to the project and chime in its development as opposed to the Steam approach which will likely take more money from the top to pay themselves and Bethesda.

 

You know it is not about improving moding but about valve/beth getting their cut doing literally nothing.

Their cut is their main concern, anything else is how to make us swallow it.

[RitualClarity]

 

At least it looks currently like it will be for the new game likely after the new FAllout 4 CS has been released. Now the community can speak their mind properly *hopefully* and buy or not buy mods from Steam. The market will dictate the value of the efforts to create paid mods. My biggest complaint was it was done on an old community with assets being traded and moved around daily. My current complaint likely will be stolen content and how they handle addressing this.

 

I suggest the patron approach for large framework systems where many can contribute (with a larger amount of money going to the artist ) to the project and chime in its development as opposed to the Steam approach which will likely take more money from the top to pay themselves and Bethesda.

 

You know it is not about improving moding but about valve/beth getting their cut doing literally nothing.

Their cut is their main concern, anything else is how to make us swallow it.

 

Yes... the patron approach is an alternative, placing mods on Nexus is another (donation option to the author) is another. There are many ways community members can give to the author without having it go through Steam to the pockets of the company(s) that distribute and create the content. .

 

It reminds me of this article however the original is apparently gone. . I believe STEPS can be trusted to copy it over without editing.

http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Open_Modding

 

 

[windpl]

 

 

At least it looks currently like it will be for the new game likely after the new FAllout 4 CS has been released. Now the community can speak their mind properly *hopefully* and buy or not buy mods from Steam. The market will dictate the value of the efforts to create paid mods. My biggest complaint was it was done on an old community with assets being traded and moved around daily. My current complaint likely will be stolen content and how they handle addressing this.

 

I suggest the patron approach for large framework systems where many can contribute (with a larger amount of money going to the artist ) to the project and chime in its development as opposed to the Steam approach which will likely take more money from the top to pay themselves and Bethesda.

 

You know it is not about improving moding but about valve/beth getting their cut doing literally nothing.

Their cut is their main concern, anything else is how to make us swallow it.

 

Yes... the patron approach is an alternative, placing mods on Nexus is another (donation option to the author) is another. There are many ways community members can give to the author without having it go through Steam to the pockets of the company(s) that distribute and create the content. .

 

It reminds me of this article however the original is apparently gone. . I believe STEPS can be trusted to copy it over without editing.

http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Open_Modding

 

 

I think that patron atm is best solution for both parties, well not exactly as now because now patron is infested with cash grabs.

By best I mean it would translate CC artist reputation to consistent financial support and creative freedom. But it need to sink some time before patron system will clarify. Because "donation" brackets and "rewards" are quite opposite of patron idea.

 

[ToJKa]

Not surprised, not looking forward to the shit storm either.  Glad I put off buying F4.

 

I wish i had too.

 

I think Beth has had enough cake they are lazy enough the way it is without more cake.

 

Then how do you explain F4's DLCs so far?

 

Well, like i said a year ago: it was fun while it lasted

[Vykroft]

Sorry for my English but..
I think that what they have done is pretty straightforward, they created a seducing modding ecosystem for the developer, full of tools (not written by them of course) and now they want to monetizare more than 10 year of modding, of effor and camaraderie. 
When? Now or next month or the next year, it doesn't matter when, they will try to do it because they own the original IP.

So...
What's in it for them?

Nothing? Everything?

For us the answers is simple, but for the average steam consumer how doesn't understand the difference is another story. They will never understand or even be aware of the HUGE contribution some modder had done to the ecosystem. And that is the reason why Beth/Steam will come again with the idea, no matter how much we fight to prevent it.

[WraithSlayer]

 

Then how do you explain F4's DLCs so far?

 

DLCs aren't free. His point is that Beth is putting the minimal amount of effort to make money, not caring much about the quality of their products because they pretty much expect the modding community to fix most things for them. And now they wanna tap into the modding scene as well, to make even more profit without any extra work.

 

I personally have no problem with the concept of paid mods, some DLC-sized mods do deserve a bit of money. But when you have Beth and Valve pocketing more than half of the total price, it's pretty obvious this isn't about supporting mod developers, it's about a zero-effort cash grab that exploits the modding community.

 

 

[Guest Harley Quinn]

I had never used to post here, but, like my daddy always said and imao, if you need to do the work of the others who has responsibility to do before, so

 

[Chaos63]

 

 

Then how do you explain F4's DLCs so far?

 

DLCs aren't free.

 

They are in CDPR...

[WraithSlayer]

 

They are in CDPR...

 

CDPR is in no way related to Bethesda, as far as I'm aware. I was referring to FO4's DLCs.