Bethesda: A Cesspit of Endless Theft and Greed

[mlee3141]

Bethesda is destroying the modding community with their joke of a platform, and their willful negligence of Modder's rights and concerns everywhere. After about a week, they have done nothing to address the issue of thefts on their platform, save for a DMCA policy that requires us to file complex legal documents every time our work is stolen! This situation is obviously not enough, and they have decided to spurn, and blatantly disrespect and disregard all modders with such statements such as calling us "hackers", and dehumanizing us with such tactics as segregating their respective platforms for the PC/ XBox1/ PS4, refusing to show modder's names on the downloads page at betheftda.aids, and ignoring (even encouraging, with their segregated platforms) the active culture of piracy on their site.

 

Now, you would think they've done enough damage to the modding community already, but no! They've taken things a step further in the throes of endless greed, and decided to make a quick cash-grab with their highly destructive and invasive "re-master" of Skyrim! I have every confidence that the upcoming "re-master" will not only break the millions of mods for Skyrim already out there, but it will offer no new features of worth whatsoever (such as a new story/ main questline, or a 64 bit exe), but instead, will use this as an excuse to open the floodgates to the console crowd, and throw the toxicity of paid modding on top of that! They plan to announce this at the E3 convention on Saturday, and when this is officially confirmed, I'm done with modding and the Nexus forever.

 

All of my mod pages will be nuked, and all of my future projects will not be published (even team efforts; I'll make things clear from the start.) I will still leave my website up though, and stay in touch with my friends from the Nexus. I find it very sad that it had to come to this, but I want to leave before the storm of the century hits. Things will get worse, I'm sure, when bethaidsda.FYouHackers start taking down sites like the Nexus to stifle out competition, and keep modding under their boot of tyranny and oppression. I won't be there to fight them on this, although I would dearly love to, but I'm sick and tired of all the drama and pure exploitation of the modding community.

 

Now then, what can you do to fight Bethesda in my stead? Make your voice heard! Boycott them! Flood them with complaints! Stop buying their games, stop uploading your mods to Bethesda.net, stop being silent and post exactly what you think of their wanton destruction on their "official" site! Share the experiences of modders like me who had to go through hell on earth, thanks to Bethaidsda, and are taking down their mods in droves, or retiring from modding altogether. Step up, and become a new generation of free modders, unbound by any but our own hearts and minds; driven onward by mutual respect! Don't let our sacrifice be in vain! As long as the free spirit of a true modding community remains, then we shall never truly die. Long live free modders everywhere!

[RabidGears]

The Skyrim remaster talk is just speculation. Nobody knows what they're going to announce on Sunday. Unless you have insider information or you're a clairvoyant then it's just speculation. Anyway, even if the speculation turns out to be true, nobody can make a judgement on whether it'll be good or bad thing at this stage. It could mean that they're going to go back and fix some of the long standing engine bugs that can't be fixed by modders. It could mean that they're going to resurrect the DLC they cancelled. Instead of throwing your toys out of the pram and posting dramatic rants all over the internet, just wait to see what actually happens.

[mlee3141]

I will wait and see. That's why I'm posting the rants now, and holding off any action until Saturday.

[VaultDuke]

You're a little overly dramatic it would seem. It might be usefull to take a quiet moment and consider why all this internet stuff is getting to you so much. You got yourself into the rabbit's hole too deep and are seeing evil at every corner (reddit, bethesda, what ever it will be next week)

Seriously, it's the second doom and gloom thread from you, and i haven't seen you express any joy you still get from gaming in any other thread (let alone ones you started). Doesn't sound like gaming and you are still in a healthy relationship. Maybe you need a gaming sabatical, idk. Or play some nintendo games or old classics. But right now it looks like you are just wasting your free time on a hobby you hate.

[mlee3141]

No, not really. I'm quite detached with this stuff. Now, I'm getting sick of it, and will stop modding. Simple as that.

[Arthmoor]

I'm sorry, you seem to have confused Bethesda with EA. Your rant would only make sense if you were talking about EA. You're seriously blowing all of this out of proportion. Giving a large corporate structure a whole week to decide something? It's not even Friday yet. You have no idea what kind of hoops approval for things at that level requires.

 

Also, some of us don't happen to agree that paid mods are a bad thing and you won't find any sympathy for advocating to deny us the option to do that at some point.

 

As for the Skyrim thing. If it's true, I'm all in favor because it would almost certainly mean Skyrim goes 64bit/DX11 and eliminates most of the problems the 32bit ceiling causes for the game. Bonus points if they throw in a fix for lip sync, the Papyrus string table issue, and their cackhanded memory allocation setup from Patch 1.9.

 

BTW, their E3 presentation is on Sunday. It's 3 days. Just wait

[mlee3141]

Modders already fixed the Lip Sync, and the artificial memory cap limit. 64 bit Skyrim would be a good thing; I agree, but I think this is just a ploy to make more money with very little effort, and get mods out to consoles as well. After all, why would they bother touching Skyrim again after 5 years of inaction, unless driven by the siren call of gold, simple and pure?

 

As for the paid mods thing, I respect your stance on that. Some people do it for fun, and some treat it as a business.

 

Oh, and a whole week is an eternity. I spent less time tinkering around in the CK during my entire modding career. If they really cared, they would give us more straightforward responses than the standard PR speak I've been reading over on their site.

[Leonardo]

As for the Skyrim thing. If it's true, I'm all in favor because it would almost certainly mean Skyrim goes 64bit/DX11 and eliminates most of the problems the 32bit ceiling causes for the game. Bonus points if they throw in a fix for lip sync, the Papyrus string table issue, and their cackhanded memory allocation setup from Patch 1.9.

I think the rumour for a Skyrim remaster is genuine for two reasons;  you mention the first reason, and the second reason is about the console.

 

Remember what happen to the PS3 players, people who bought Skyrim to PS3 would have to wait for the released DLC to be fixed at the same time Xbox360 players could play the DLC's before anyone else could.

 

IIRC in the end Bethesda had no other choice than to compensate PS3 players by simple given them a 10-20% discount of all released DLC's for the patience.

[VaultDuke]

FO4 has no noticable microstutter on my rig, while Skyrim with all combinations of tweaks i tried (the ones recommended, the ones not recommended, ENB, memory, frame rate limiters, all sorts of combinations in between), never would want to get rid of them completely. (here's hoping this isn't just because Skyrim runs as 60 FPS+ and FO4 doesn't, Skyirm also was much more fluid at 30 fps on my old rig)

This and the physically based rendering and look from the FO4 engine, i'll pay for an upgrade without thought. Skyrim is my second most played game ever, and the added benefits and longevity from a 64bit/dx11 engine would be well worth it for me.

Add in a few newcomers during the last years, that didn't experience Skyrim when it first released, + Console only gamers, that might be swayed by modding support, and i see a seizable number of sales well worth the investment of the upgrade (and let's not fool anyone, it wouldn't be from the main team anyway. Maybe that's even good for QA, who knows .)

[Arthmoor]

Modders already fixed the Lip Sync, and the artificial memory cap limit.

Ok. This is like the 10th time someone has used this in a reply to me about this very thing. So tell me. Why does that matter? "Modders fixed it" doesn't let them off the hook for having broken it. So why shouldn't they take responsibility and fix it officially? I see absolutely nothing wrong with that, but every time I mention it, someone just retrots "modders already fixed it" as if that should convince Bethesda not to bother at all.

 

64 bit Skyrim would be a good thing; I agree, but I think this is just a ploy to make more money with very little effort, and get mods out to consoles as well. After all, why would they bother touching Skyrim again after 5 years of inaction, unless driven by the siren call of gold, simple and pure?

They are a corporation. In case you are not aware, the job of a corporation is to make money. If they already did the work (and Todd basically said they did 2 years ago) then what's the harm in polishing that up and releasing it if the Board of Directors thinks it could make them some money on the side too?

 

Oh, and a whole week is an eternity. I spent less time tinkering around in the CK during my entire modding career. If they really cared, they would give us more straightforward responses than the standard PR speak I've been reading over on their site.

You have clearly never worked corporate IT related jobs before

One week is barely enough time for someone to submit the formal proposals to get the approval process started much less evaluated, discussed, refined, voted on, and finally approved.

Being a game developer who has an internet presence does not magically mean they operate in Twitter-time to pander to the impatient.

[RabidGears]

Modders already fixed the Lip Sync, and the artificial memory cap limit. 64 bit Skyrim would be a good thing; I agree, but I think this is just a ploy to make more money with very little effort, and get mods out to consoles as well. After all, why would they bother touching Skyrim again after 5 years of inaction, unless driven by the siren call of gold, simple and pure?

 

As for the paid mods thing, I respect your stance on that. Some people do it for fun, and some treat it as a business.

 

Oh, and a whole week is an eternity. I spent less time tinkering around in the CK during my entire modding career. If they really cared, they would give us more straightforward responses than the standard PR speak I've been reading over on their site.

 

Why is it some evil greedy thing for a company to want to make money? If they create a good product that people want then what's the problem? That's how the free market works. They're not a philanthropic organisation. If they don't make money then they go out of business. I'll gladly buy an updated Skyrim, and if it gets released on GOG, I'll gladly buy it again. And I'll do the same thing if they release remastered versions of Oblivion and Morrowind. You don't have to buy anything you don't want. You'll still have the game you already have, which can be modded just fine.

 

On the bugs: It would be much better for the lip sync bug to be fixed in the code than with a hack that someone did with a hex editor. Hopefully that fix won't have any side effects but when you do hex editor hacks there's no guarantee that you have a flawless fix.

 

Finally, when you say "more straighforward responses", were you expecting them to tell you every little thing that they have planned for their big E3 showcase event? That's not how it works. If they told everyone what they were going to do beforehand, then it would completely let the air out of the event.

[Korentin]

I really expect the "Skyrim Remastered" thing is just a port to the current consoles, but would be quite happy if I'm wrong. 

 

People really need to chill the f**k out about the other things

[mlee3141]

Well Arthmoor, looks like you were right. Bethesda's actually taking a step in the right direction, and working to resolve some real concerns. It's a great start; that means they're actually listening. Maybe this won't be a fiasco after all. I have a bit more respect for them now.

[mlee3141]

However, I'm still concerned about console porting for Skyrim. How long will it take for them to actually make the changes they talked about, and more? Will they do it before or after they release Skyrim re-mastered?

[Arthmoor]

If the rumors are to be believed, "Skyrim Remastered" won't be out until November. They have plenty of time to refine the system between now and then.

 

Let's give them a chance to work on this once they're back from E3 and have nothing in their way.

[lmstearn]

Really hope they move on to other things pronto. Away from those awful nerdy Nordy accents, too.

• Top priority is to clean up ongoing issues with the CK and get text to speech going.
• Pool all the resources into ES 6.

The 5 year interval between Oblivion and Skyrim is almost upon us- but how long before Argonia now? 2018?

[alt3rn1ty]

- but how long before Argonia now? 2018?

 

Speculation I know but that would be very nice, after the wonderful atmosphere bethesda have shown they can apply themselves to in FO4 ( especially Far Harbour, misty atmos ( much better realised than the occasional mist effects in Skyrim ), and anglers hiding beneath the surface ), the swamps of Argonia could be something special atmospherically.

 

I still feel that I was the most impressed with Morrowind out of the whole TES series, it felt a little alien, you were discovering not only new lands with unusual flora and fauna, and dungeons but also new races, and those distant forlorn sounds combined with always having that distant fog made you want to explore more. I know in that game the fog was a trick to hide the limited distant rendering, but I liked it a lot.

 

In Oblivion Phitt's mod Mudwater was a wonderful effort, those bug lamps and the tribal feel of the place, situated in Blackwood Forest, gave me a feel for how I envisioned an Argonia may be themed artistically if it ever came to our computers

 

Lots of good art and design, in the latest edition of the game engine and a lot of attention to detail in the atmos department .. I think Argonia could be very special indeed, and feel a bit darker than the other TES games

[Arthmoor]

I know people cringe at the mention of ESO, but IMO, there's a part of the Dark Brotherhood DLC that does a pretty damn good job of depicting a border village (or what's left of it) in Blackwood. Plus the Argonian stuff you find in Shadowfen in the regular game areas.

 

A lot of their native stuff resembles Mayan pyramids which is rather cool, and Bethesda has confirmed that ESO is canon so it's not like they just pulled it out of their asses.

[maboleth]

Well, I'm a bit of puzzled they didn't release more DLCs for Skyrim, but they probably planned 3 DLCs long before Skyrim was even finished and had to move on to other games that needed developing (F4). They were probably struck by surprise as well.

Just image, they invested ~89 million dollars into making of Skyrim and got more than a BILLION - and still going strong and selling like hotcakes! If Skyrim was a movie, it would be hugely, insanely successful. So probably this rumored uplifted edition has to deal with that success.

 

Better wait and see, too early to rant and quit.

[BlackPete]

Well, I'm a bit of puzzled they didn't release more DLCs for Skyrim, but they probably planned 3 DLCs long before Skyrim was even finished and had to move on to other games that needed developing (F4). They were probably struck by surprise as well.

The rumor was that they were actually planning more DLC but then they decided to quit after the difficulties/limitations with the consoles (especially the PS3). I think that they originally intended for there to be three "large" DLC and maybe two "small" DLC. As it turns out, we only ended up getting two large DLC and one small DLC.

[Deathbydestiny]

A Skyrim remastered sounds nice and all but I don't know if I can trust Bethesda not to screw it up somehow. If anything it will be Skyrim slapped onto the FO4 engine I imagine, which is great but how does that affect current mods? If it ruins that in any way then they shouldn't even bother. That said, I'd be willing to buy again to get it just to get the performance enhancements alone.

[alt3rn1ty]

I would imagine any new "remastered" plugins would need cleaning again with xEdit at least

( maybe even xEdit may need a bit of updating too )

 

USLEEP .. I wouldn't like to guess, hopefully not too many dominoes to pick up ..

 

.. everything on Nexus would probably need looking into that has plugins

 

Any texture / sound / mesh replacers I would think would be fine, depends how much Bethesda feel like updating.

 

The enhanced graphics may well be more than just the Bethesda HiRes DLC, it could mean they would be more optimal as per Fallout 4's new split textures in BA2's where the full resolution texture is a separate file and only loads as required ( instead of being loaded as the top mipmap layer of a single texture along with all the other layers taking up more VRAM .. as they do now with the current version of Skyrim ).

If the intention is for Skyrim to go console with mods, changing the way textures load to the FO4 format would be beneficial

 

 

I dont think we will know until its released, if its released.

[Arthmoor]

We'll know tomorrow since all rumors claim an E3 announcement. So unless they decide to troll people and wait for something later on, this time tomorrow it ought to be clear.

[lmstearn]

Another rant from Dark One.

•I have uploaded my mods to Bethesda.net and they are available for console users.

•I have not uploaded my mods to Bethesda.net for console users yet, but I will at some point.

•My mods will not be available on Bethesda.net for console users.

•My mods won’t work on consoles or would not be acceptable on Bethesda.net according to their rules.

•I give my permission for someone else to port my mods to console and for it to be uploaded to Bethesda.net by someone else. Please credit me, however.

Ideally, there should be some method added to the esp/m data that would make the mod unusable for the console if that is the author's intention. If the way forward is to encrypt the entire mod for this purpose, what's the best way of doing it?

[VaultDuke]

Not sure if serious or joking.