Yet Another Illegal Mod Compilation

[Hana]

Skyrim: The Journey

 

Yeah, nothing like advertising it right in the mod authors face.

 

If that link is finally deleted by the mods at BGS, here's the rundown. Courtesy of Russia, a torrent of 450+ mod compilation is floating around out there. Here's some highlights of the list that I saw;

 

Alternate Start - Live Another Life

Better Dynamic Snow

Book Covers Skyrim

Cloaks of Skyrim

Cutting Room Floor

Deadly Combat

Deadly Dragons

Dragon Combat Overhaul

Dual Sheath Redux

Dynamic Loot

Enhanced Lights and FX

Falskaar

Footprints

Frostfall

Fuz Ro D-oh

Guard Dialogue Overhaul

Hunting in Skyrim

Inigo

Interesting NPC's

all of JK's town overhauls

Lore Weapon Expansion

Merge Plugins XEdit Script

No Snow Under the Roof

OBIS

Pure Waters

RaceMenu

Realistic Needs and Diseases

Realistic Ragdoll Force

SKSE

SkyFalls

Skyrim Flora Overhaul

SMPC

SkyTest - Realistic Animals

SkyUI

SSME

SMIM

T3nd0s Skyrim Redone

The Wheels of Lull

Unique Grasses

Unique Uniques

USKP

UDBP

UDGP

UHFP

Wearable Lanterns

Wet and Cold

Wyrmstooth

 

I have the full list and the link to the Russian site that it's on. If anyone wants it, PM me, I'm not advocating it in public.

Good luck trying to do anything about it though.

 

[Jon]

Yeah, this Journey guy was advertising it on the Skyrim subreddit.

 

There is also "Skyrim Perfectly Modded" which has its own website, and, get this:  the idiot even solicits donations.  "Donate to me for stealing others' mods!"

[VaultDuke]

oooh, first time one of my mods turns up on a stolen collection, i feel flattered (though in this case, the permissions on it allow this, so no pitchfork for me).

sometimes i wonder what these people are thinking. what's the benefit of lumping all together in a torrent, that's the most stupid thing i have ever seen. piss of every modder around and for what? fame and glory? that colection wouldn't even be worthy of that if they had been given permission.

Oddly enough, they are very open about their sources, unlike most such people. definatelly looks like a thing from a completelly different mindset.

[Leonardo]

If that link is finally deleted by the mods at BGS

The thread isn't deleted it's just moderated by hidden it.  I got an error message saying I don't have permission to view it.

[zilav]

Russians (ukranians and other post ussr countries) in general don't know english well, if any at all. If you say them "come get it from nexus for free" the response will be "huh?". That's why different mod compilations are very popular there - they get everything in one place, probably even translated. There are packs for Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim and other games. I bet the same is in chinese community, but their internet and sites are more reclusive to know for sure.

 

Nothing you can do about it. Majority of docs and guides being only in english doesn't help either, only supports simple one click download packs as that one.

[VaultDuke]

I know the japanese community has a very good site that hosts translations. I mean i get you point, the language barrier is a big thing for many. But not caring for authors' consent is a whole nother story. A lot of non-english communities understand that.

[Arthmoor]

Thing is, if all this was was a list of translated mods, available for individual download, I'd have no problem with it as my permissions are clear on that.

 

They're also clear that consent is required for any other form of distribution. Consent that was obviously not obtained for all of my stuff that's in there.

 

Best anyone could do is report it to Bethesda and let their Russian division handle it. I would expect nothing to come of that though. It's Russia. They don't have proper copyright laws there.

[VaultDuke]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=384110242&insideModal=1

oh wow.

[Arthmoor]

Best thing to do with "guides" like that is report them. Advocating piracy isn't something Valve takes lightly. They just need to be made aware of it.

[Quonomonna]

This is what I wrote to the guy who did the perfectly modded compilation:

 

In all fairness, the amount of time and effort you put into this is at least as much work as making a major mod and I really don't think you give yourself enough credit.

If I were the author of a mod, I would be grateful for the exposure a mod pack would give me and be thankful my work could be appreciated by others.

Long ago, I was once involved in the Neverwinter Nights Modding scene.  It was great.  So many people got involved and came out with all kinds of great content.  They worked together to create vast community projects and so on.

Then a sequel came out and something different happened.  It became about money.  People started getting job offers then all of a sudden everyone was worried about getting credit and people not using their work, and all about permissions and it was no longer a free market of ideas just for the fun of it.  Money ruined the Neverwinter Nights 2 modding scene. The content created for it is about 5% of what was created for NWN 1.

 Eventually they moved onto Skyrim, and I'm sure some of the same modders from NWN worked on Skyrim and they will know what I'm talking about.  I think.  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe everyone was too close to the forest to see the trees.  (A saying that I always thought was backwards somehow)

As complex as it is to successfully mod Skyrim to any significant degree and as much effort as it takes, I am surprised there was not more cooperation in creating mod packs like these.  They should be downright ubiquitous.

There are, I think, 2 other mod packs that I know of - one has like 250 mods and another has 330-something.  Yours had the most, so I got yours! My only regret is that my ADSL has crappy upstream and I will not make for a very good seeder.  Right now there is only ONE.

So much work behind all of this....I hope you get the recognition you deserve.  Thank you again!

 

 

********************

 

If you disagee, that's fine.  But I have spent the last 2 months trying to get Skyrim to work with a lot of mods and I kept finding more and more and it was just an endless struggle to keep it all together.  No one should have to put up with all of that just to play the game.  You guys should all be coming together as a modding community to create modding packs.  But ego is in the way here.  You're more worried about getting credit and having your name out there than people enjoying your work. 
 

Obviously, this whole post isn't going to apply to everyone here, but is a response to the general attitude I'm seeing here.

 

AND by the way, the game itself is not included in his download!!! You must own the game to put on his modpack, so what's all this about piracy?

[VaultDuke]

The NWN community has never taken anyone's work without permission and giving credit. The way NWN modding is structured necessitated the need for a mod pack back in the day with the internet we had. NWN2 did fail for different reasons than you think.

I can tell you never actually created anything for the games you moded. You consumed. And your gratitude towards those that did create that content you so enjoy doesn't even go as far as respecting these persons' expressed rights with their own creation.

So put off those rose tinted glasses and walk a mile in someone else's shoes and we can talk.

[zilav]

Welcome to the modern consumers society where the only learning experience is to consume in more efficient ways.

[Arthmoor]

It's pretty obvious you have no idea how modding works, at all, in any community. What you describe is probably the worst possible thing that can happen - mod packers stealing peoples' stuff, distributing it, and then having the audacity to collect payments for that work. These people you are praising are scumbags, nothing more. They have no value to the community whatsoever.

 

The modders who spent thousands of hours actually MAKING the stuff get nothing, but the mod packer sends the people to us when they can't support the stuff they've stolen because the packers ALSO know nothing about making mods.

 

As for the piracy accusation, I stand behind it. It was true then that they were packing Bethesda files in it, and it remains true to this day on the sites carrying the mod pack now. That's piracy by any sane definition of the term.

[Leonardo]

<snip>

 

********************

 

If you disagee, that's fine.  But I have spent the last 2 months trying to get Skyrim to work with a lot of mods and I kept finding more and more and it was just an endless struggle to keep it all together.  No one should have to put up with all of that just to play the game.  You guys should all be coming together as a modding community to create modding packs.  But ego is in the way here.  You're more worried about getting credit and having your name out there than people enjoying your work. 

 

Obviously, this whole post isn't going to apply to everyone here, but is a response to the general attitude I'm seeing here.

 

AND by the way, the game itself is not included in his download!!! You must own the game to put on his modpack, so what's all this about piracy?

Dude, let me tell you one thing.  If you don't change attitude fast, I mean really fast, then nobody in this community or any other community for that matter wants to have anything to do with you.  Period!

 

As we say in Sweden, it's how you make your bed then bed is what you're going to get when it's time to rest regardless if the bed are comfortable or not.

 

If you can't get a modded Skyrim to work then don't even try to blame other people in the community by saying this what you just posted, which I consider to be the worse garbage I've ever read.

 

However, if you really want to know how to get a modded Skyrim to work, then for gods sake just ask nicely and I'm sure, no I know that there are a lot people in this community who is willing to assist you.  That's similar to what I said to this guy here.

[BlackPete]

@Quonomonna:

 

I agree with Leo. Nobody's going to like you with that type of attitude and I wouldn't be surprised if you end up losing access to their work as a result.

 

Mod authors work very hard on their creations so it should be their decision as to whether they want their work packed into a compilation like you're describing. If they are not comfortable with it being packed together (and I'd assume the majority of authors are not) then their wishes should be respected. If you run low on "mod slots" as a result, that's just the way it goes; try looking into eliminating some that you don't absolutely need.

[lmstearn]

One has to possess special quality to be able to pull off a legit mod compilation. in fact, of such disposition and intent (let's say entrepeneur/negotiator with a touch of genius?) we have not yet seen.

And it would surely require a fair bit of dedication and input - and time. Was it Disraeli who said:

 

Industry need not wish.

[VaultDuke]

One has to possess special quality to be able to pull off a legit mod compilation. in fact, of such disposition and intent (let's say entrepeneur/negotiator with a touch of genius?) we have not yet seen.

And it would surely require a fair bit of dedication and input - and time. Was it Disraeli who said:

Industry need not wish.

But on the other hand, the need for such packages is next to none, since the community manages to provide tools and services such as xedit, universally agreed on good modding practices, bashed patchers, merge tools, Step guide and Gopher tutorial. There isn't a lack of collaborative effort in this community as evidenced by packages such as USLEEP, SkyUI, SKSE, Skyrim immersive Creatures and Armors. Not to mention many of the still in development new lands mods. None of these projects required ungodly amounts of charm and socials skills from their leads to pull off. I wonder why that may be ;P

[lmstearn]

Another angle is a compilation of "condensed" versions of.mods. We all know a lot of folks that didn't want to go and read the full "War and Peace" could get a good idea of what it was about with a Reader's Digest version.

Or a compilation of tasters? Present to folks a very boiled down of some of the features of popular mods wrapped up in one package. Not everybody's cuppa, but who's going to complain if it brings in more customers?

But it's all blah until problems associated with uninstall are resolved.

[Arthmoor]

The only successful compilation I've seen was the big graphics and sound overhaul for Morrowind. It succeeded because the person in charge is a valued member of the existing community, they got permission from all rights holders, they don't collect donations for the effort, and they provide all of the support for the package themselves.

 

To this day, I have never seen someone in the Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas, or Skyrim communities who has these qualities and is willing to do the support work for it. I don't anticipate this being true for Fallout 4 either.

[Leonardo]

To this day, I have never seen someone in the Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas, or Skyrim communities who has these qualities and is willing to do the support work for it. I don't anticipate this being true for Fallout 4 either.

IIRC there was actually one Oblivion modder who tried to obtain permission, but stop working on the project since he couldn't get permission for some mods.

 

The thread could still be at officials so search there, but I don't remember the name of this modder so I cannot provide a link.

[Arthmoor]

I think I remember who you're talking about but that's been at least 6 years now. I seem to recall the person trying to do that was a relative unknown in the community though. Which is probably why they had trouble securing permissions from the various authors.

[VaultDuke]

It'll be interesting to see how the upcoming NMM mod order sharing feature will evolve. If we can share our load orders and have NMM download and install them automatically, i can see how packages could become popular, without inheriting all the downsides (less flexibility, updates of individual components, distribution rights) of pre-mod-manager style all-in-one packages. Some necessary features would probably include the attached distribution of fitting bash, skyproc and compatibility patches.

[Turija]

The only successful compilation I've seen was the big graphics and sound overhaul for Morrowind. It succeeded because the person in charge is a valued member of the existing community, they got permission from all rights holders, they don't collect donations for the effort, and they provide all of the support for the package themselves.

Agreed.  And even the MGSO 3.0 compilation is really not all that well-suited to beginner modders because (1) it has not been updated in a while so a lot of it is well out of date (2) some of the outdated mods included in the compilation were buggy leading to bugs and errors such as broken quests on Solstheim unless you update animated containers to the newer version where the original author fixed this problem; (3) many of the meshes in MGSO are not well optimized, so it is not that friendly on your hardware -- some of the meshes can be updated with optimized meshes by Stoperstar and Pherim; (4) MGSO has a handful of bugs, with unofficial patches by both John Moonsugar and Spirithawke; and (5) if you do all these updates and fixes and then later decide to rerun the MGSO "Options" to change some of your initial choices, it will overwrite all of your updates.  

 

Bottom line is even with MGSO, it takes quite a bit of work and knowledge (or research) on the part of the end user to get it working well enough to provide a satisfying gaming experience.  It's not just plug and play, unless you want missing meshes for a common table, broken quests on Solstheim, unnecessary stress on your hardware, daedric armor (worn by a major character) that looks weird, lanterns with collision that block your way through some of the games tighter passages, doors that don't lead where they are supposed to, etc. 

 

The whole concept of a user friendly, idiot proof mod compilation that will work smoothly on a wide variety of computers, is very very difficult to implement.

 

And of course, anyone who wants to undertake such a Herculean task it should get permission rather than just stealing stuff. That should go without saying.

 

Finally, I am going to climb up on a soapbox here for a second . . . People who want someone else to do the hard work for them kinda get on my nerves a bit because it comes off as entitled and frankly a bit lazy.  Three years ago I didn't know a darned thing about modding and my knowledge of computers was limited to a basic understanding on a fundamental dictionary definition level of the difference between analog and digital and a knowledge of how to cut and paste.  If I can study using google and online guides and asking for help here and in other forums and learn how to do it anyone can.  People on the internet are incredibly generous with their time when complete strangers ask for help.  Instead of asking for an idiot proof mod compilation, people should be asking for help learning how to mod their own game.  Why give a man a fish[ystick] when you can teach him how to fish? [climbs down off soapbox]

[lmstearn]

You can lead a newb to modding but you can't make him Xedit.

The world is absolutely full of nice GUI based programs, but it's not enough apparently.

[The Madzookeeper]

sorry to necro a thread, but i have a question about this. From what I've seen about this the guy who made the journey took two years getting all of those mods to play nice together, making edts, etc, as necessary. how many people have the know-how and time to actually do something like that? i mean, would your average modder ever even have a chance of making something like this actually work?

 

i'm not questioning the legality of it or anything like that, i don't disagree with anything like that. but isn't there some value in someone taking that much time getting something like this to work... and then being willing to share it with others? isn't this at least reminiscent of the old FCOM convergence for oblivion? (admittedly without the permissions obtained). i mean, if you're putting that much work into it, isn't it sort of a mod in and of itself?

 

again, no question on the legality of this at all, or the "right or wrong" side of this. just wondering about the technical aspects of it more than anything, since two years tweaking and so forth is... rather more than pretty much anyone is going to put into simply getting mods to play nice together.

 

EDIT
 

question answered in the chat, nevermind.