Yet Another Illegal Mod Compilation

[fireundubh]

There absolutely is value in these packages, but many in the modding community are very sensitive about credit, permission, and authorship.

 

If the creator of a compilation (i.e., editor) satisfies the legal and moral requirements for including each mod in a compilation, there would be no cause for complaints and takedowns.

[Arthmoor]

Well there would still be plenty of cause for complaints due to the support issues alone. Contrary to popular belief, these modpack makers don't do that properly and are well known to send those kinds of issues down the line to the mod authors. Which in turn is one of the reasons why nearly all mod authors are against granting permission for this sort of thing to be done in the first place.

 

Secondly, it just makes lazy mod users out of the people who want these. People who have no desire to learn how it all works. People who can't troubleshoot their issues. People who then become thorns in other peoples' sides when somehow they find your threads despite the modpack maker not pointing them out. They make nuisances of themselves with your outdated stuff and talking about things you've long since fixed, updated, or removed.

 

So IMO, there really is no value in these packages at all.

[Turija]

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.

Sounds like you got your question answered, but since you necro-ed the thread and compared this compilation to FCOM, I wanted to mention that FCOM is quite different from the type of compilation discussed in this thread. The type of compilation discussed in this thread is designed to be an easy to install compilation of numerous graphical and gameplay mods so the end user doesn't have to learn how to mod or make any choice about what mods to use. FCOM is a series of rebalancing tweaks and conflict resolution patches designed to allow four of the biggest Oblivion overhaul mods to be used together. FCOM isn't exactly easy to install either; it's aimed more at people who already know how to install mods and want to push their game by combining four big overhauls that were never designed to be used together. Plus, of course, FCOM got permission first.

[fireundubh]

Well there would still be plenty of cause for complaints due to the support issues alone. Contrary to popular belief, these modpack makers don't do that properly and are well known to send those kinds of issues down the line to the mod authors.

 

I think we can complain about people who don't do things the right way all day long, every day, for the rest of time, but compilations don't have to be the products of dunderheads.

 

 

Secondly, it just makes lazy mod users out of the people who want these. People who have no desire to learn how it all works.

 

Nobody should need to know how a car works to drive it. If I had to put together individual mods to achieve Enderal, I just wouldn't even try, and I know my shit.

 

 

People who can't troubleshoot their issues. People who then become thorns in other peoples' sides when somehow they find your threads despite the modpack maker not pointing them out. They make nuisances of themselves with your outdated stuff and talking about things you've long since fixed, updated, or removed.

Those folks exist regardless of whether they're using a compilation, and I'm pretty sure that people who go out of their way to find your threads ARE trying to troubleshoot their issues.

 

 

 

That said, I don't think compilations are as useful now as they once were; they made more sense before Mod Organizer. But they still simplify complex procedures and dramatically cut the amount of time you have to spend in a mod manager, and I can't imagine any one thinking that's not a good thing. Hell, compilations could be distributed as MO profiles without any of the data: preordered profiles with metadata that instructs MO that each mod needs an update, and then you can just check all for updates and download and install each mod one-by-one. If Nexus allowed MO to download directly, or if MO could download from other sources, and if you could save presets for .fomod installers, that whole process could be automated.

 

Compilations can be done properly and there are better ways to achieve their results. It's just that the effort-to-reward ratio is so low that anyone competent enough to do it doesn't have any interest.

[Arthmoor]

What you're talking about there with automated profile downloads and MO is something NMM is already working on and should have done soon. It would also function more equivalent to what Steam Workshop has been doing for 4 years - collections. One click, you download a set of mods. Most mod authors would have no issue with this as it isn't a pirated download at its heart. It's a set of instructions for the mod manager of choice to go fetch files with. That would effectively eliminate all of the issues with stolen content, outdated mods, and bogus support issues.

 

Of course, that would still leave folks like me who wish MO would die in a fire, but hey. Maybe they'd see the light and stop being dumb about the way they handle BSA files

[Artaios]

Are you talking about MO specifically or about mod organizers in general? It sounds like you prefer NMM over MO. Did I get that right?

[Arthmoor]

I prefer Wrye Bash over all others