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Bethesda net refugees


Uncus

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Bethesda told us all, that the initial move to Jive (thus shutting down the old beloved Bethsoft forums) was to enable the hosting of mods on the platform for console players.

That was the reason Art.

Why the Jive set up could not be enabled just for the mods, and still leave the old forums untouched, was never explained.

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Cartogriffi has said on Discord that they're not using Jive at all for the mod site. He didn't say what they ARE using though.

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12 hours ago, Uncus said:

the younger generation seems to prefere it

This was in fact Bethesda's official reason for moving to Discord ("...chat with you where you prefer to be.").  I was initially skeptical.  But I have to admit that several of our fairly dead forums - Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout and Elder Scrolls lore forums, ect - are much more active on Discord.  

I was astounded to learn last May that there were fans of the studio who didn't even realize Bethesda had a forum.  Others said they knew Bethesda had a forum, but never bothered to register there or even to visit. 

The longer the Discord has been open the more I have come to believe that maybe Bethesda knew what they were talking about.  Maybe the majority of gamers these days really do prefer chat-based platforms like Discord.   I don't know, it's a mystery to me.   

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14 minutes ago, Pseron Wyrd said:

This was in fact Bethesda's official reason for moving to Discord ("...chat with you where you prefer to be.").  I was initially skeptical.  But I have to admit that several of our fairly dead forums - Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout and Elder Scrolls lore forums, ect - are much more active on Discord.  

I was astounded to learn last May that there were fans of the studio who didn't even realize Bethesda had a forum.  Others said they knew Bethesda had a forum, but never bothered to register there or even to visit. 

The longer the Discord has been open the more I have come to believe that maybe Bethesda knew what they were talking about.  Maybe the majority of gamers these days really do prefer chat-based platforms like Discord.   I don't know, it's a mystery to me.   

Well as I said the younger players seem to prefer discord, I have tried it but find it difficult to follow on large open chats but in smaller less crowded places it can be enjoyable. Having said that I do still like the old forum model for showing screen shots or fan art/ stories.

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Well you know why this is….It is the phone texting generation.  
You know…Five seconds of communicating, with thumbs text tapping keys in an unfathomable blur.  But all their ‘chat’ fits within sentences no longer than Twitters 140 char tweet size.  Bah!

It does rather grind my gears because those of us from last gen…Prefer to hold actual conversations about topics that interest us and this new gen style of making brief meaningless remarks of frankly, in many cases utter drivel, are driving real conversation out of existence.

Of course one must not dare to question text tapper motives or you are met with the infuriatingly ignorant “Ok Boomer”.

Suffice to say….this is I believe why Beth’s new site has so many people saying so little and any thought put into a response of over two lines is a complete waste of time….

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2 hours ago, Arthmoor said:

Cartogriffi has said on Discord that they're not using Jive at all for the mod site. He didn't say what they ARE using though.

I say let bethnet have their crappy discord thing.  I'm happy here.  Thanks for the new home Art:hug::redface:

Adventure on brother, Phat:blackhand:

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7 hours ago, Rotzi said:

But with CC the shitstorm wasn't nearly that big. Many people throwed their money happily towards bethesda for it, despite a lot of the things have better mod counterparts. Maybe it has to do with the changed playerbase and their acceptance of microtransactions and paid content. 

It's worth pointing out that Creation Club isn't "paid mods", though you can get mods that do the same thing. Most CC content is actually made by Beth. When a modder makes CC content they're contracted with Bethesda to produce it and have to satisfy Bethesda's QA process.

It's not so much "paid mods" as "modders contracted to do DLC".

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1 hour ago, Sigurð Stormhand said:

It's worth pointing out that Creation Club isn't "paid mods", though you can get mods that do the same thing. Most CC content is actually made by Beth. When a modder makes CC content they're contracted with Bethesda to produce it and have to satisfy Bethesda's QA process.

It's not so much "paid mods" as "modders contracted to do DLC".

Semantics Sigurd.  You have to pay for CC ‘creations’ which modify your game huh (apart from promotional freebies of course).  Whether the coding is done by a mod author under contract or an in-house dev programmer is a moot point as far as the customer is concerned.

In my book the real problem is you can’t try before you buy…and in some cases it is a tangible sum too, not just a couple of bucks.  By contrast you can load a mod from nexus or the Beth library and if it does not please as anticipated one can simply archive it, or uninstall, nothing lost for trying.  Not so with a CC offering, if it disappoints that's just money down the drain, which soon becomes uneconomic to keep doing hmmm!

A.

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34 minutes ago, Adella said:

Semantics Sigurd.  You have to pay for CC ‘creations’ which modify your game huh (apart from promotional freebies of course).  Whether the coding is done by a mod author under contract or an in-house dev programmer is a moot point as far as the customer is concerned.

In my book the real problem is you can’t try before you buy…and in some cases it is a tangible sum too, not just a couple of bucks.  By contrast you can load a mod from nexus or the Beth library and if it does not please as anticipated one can simply archive it, or uninstall, nothing lost for trying.  Not so with a CC offering, if it disappoints that's just money down the drain, which soon becomes uneconomic to keep doing hmmm!

A.

It's not really semantics. Paid mods was literally modders making stuff, uploading it, and slapping a price tag on it - the market was supposed to decide. This is micro-DLC, like the Horse Armour for Oblivion.

By all means, call it a cynical cash grab if you want, but it's DLC, not "paid mods".

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It's not semantics though. What the CC is is literally DLC as defined in classic terms from 2006 when Bethesda first introduced the concept.

What people don't realize is that this is how most game companies get their DLCs made. It's just that Bethesda contracted out to mod authors in some cases to do the work, where most other companies don't.

Part of the problem is that what we used to call DLC back then was relatively small stuff with very specific purposes. Larger things were called "Expansion Packs". Today, everything is just lumped in and called DLC when that's not necessary an accurate term.

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It's also worth noting that Skyrim initially got even less DLC than Oblivion, although Heathfire does allow for multiple customisable homes.

Actually, even Morrowind had DLC - but it was free.

I think CC would be less controversial if paid mods hadn't come first - something which was ill conceived and poorly executed. In reality, if that system had stayed up it would have drowned under barely street legal "outfits". That's the best case scenario.

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13 hours ago, Adella said:

SNIP

In my book the real problem is you can’t try before you buy…and in some cases it is a tangible sum too, not just a couple of bucks.  By contrast you can load a mod from nexus or the Beth library and if it does not please as anticipated one can simply archive it, or uninstall, nothing lost for trying.  Not so with a CC offering, if it disappoints that's just money down the drain, which soon becomes uneconomic to keep doing hmmm!

A.

Well the only CC content I have tried is when they gave us some credit to use, and then another time when some stuff was given away for free.  I've regretted it each time.  The fact is you can't turn the mods off in the CC like you can regular mods.  Regular mods I just uncheck a box, and done.  The CC I have to manually go into my PC's File Manager and delete files (hoping I'm getting the right ones).  What a major hassle.  Not every Role-Play I do wants or needs every mod I have.  In fact every game character I play has a unique customized set of mods to use.  I role-play, and not every role-play I do is exactly like the last one.  In fact I try hard to make them as different as possible.

So for me, the CC has other issues and I'll never touch it again.

But back to Discord.  I've tried to use it some, but every conversation is quickly lost in the traffic.  Never again will we have well thought out threads of hundreds of posts lasting months on one specific topic.  In Discord if you are thinking about it for longer than 10 minutes then you're thinking too hard, stop and move on.  I just hate it.

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12 hours ago, Arthmoor said:

It's not semantics though. What the CC is is literally DLC as defined in classic terms from 2006 when Bethesda first introduced the concept.

What people don't realize is that this is how most game companies get their DLCs made. It's just that Bethesda contracted out to mod authors in some cases to do the work, where most other companies don't.

Part of the problem is that what we used to call DLC back then was relatively small stuff with very specific purposes. Larger things were called "Expansion Packs". Today, everything is just lumped in and called DLC when that's not necessary an accurate term.

The free 'Plug-Ins' BGS gave us for Morrowind I thought were one of the coolest things a game company had done at the time.  Free official stuff!  Yeah!  Course I don't know if anyone can hold a candle to what CDK gave away in DLC for TW3.

The fact is there are some very creative people playing games and those with time that, if given the tools, make some great additions to these games.  Kudos to them all.  I can't see at this point BGS taking that away, but at the same time I know someone in BGS upper management is banging their head against a wall trying to figure out a way that they can make money off of this.  The CC was supposed to be the middle ground, user made content that was made official.  But it failed, IMO mainly due to the pricing.  Granted if you sell for more the content creator was supposed to get more, but would you rather sell 10 mods at $25, or sell 50 mods at $10?  I think their pricing format was just way off for the market when there are so many comparable mods out there for free.

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17 hours ago, Arthmoor said:

It's not semantics though. What the CC is is literally DLC as defined in classic terms from 2006 when Bethesda first introduced the concept.

What people don't realize is that this is how most game companies get their DLCs made. It's just that Bethesda contracted out to mod authors in some cases to do the work, where most other companies don't.

Part of the problem is that what we used to call DLC back then was relatively small stuff with very specific purposes. Larger things were called "Expansion Packs". Today, everything is just lumped in and called DLC when that's not necessary an accurate term.

Whatever you or they choose to call it... CC is not something that I can endorse, personally.  I have a permanent personal boycott on all things Creation Club.  IMHO, if it were truly DLC it would be available to purchase on Steam, like Dragonborn, Dawnguard, Hearthfire, Dead Money, Lonesome Road, Fah Hahbah... need I go on?  Those are DLC.  Creation Club is something else... and yes... it is a greedy cash grab.  If it were free or at least more affordable, I might have a higher opinion of CC, especially considering my many dear friends playing Xbox while I lavish in an embarrassment of riches with my plethora of mods on PC.  However, I do not now, nor will I ever use any content from CC in any of my games.

Art... you make exceptional mods that I just won't play without.  There is nothing on CC that I want or need.  Don't drink the Kool-Aid, friend.  'Tis poison... the poison of corporate greed.  That goes for our dear Sigurd as well... don't buy the company line.  It is the very nature of a corporation to put their share holder's interests above their customers.  Greed rules the day.  When if they would put the customer first... like it used to be when I was not a grey haired old geezer... Those same corporations would see more profit over time by growing their customer base rather than attempting to milk the faithful for every penny they can.  IMHO, Creation Club content should not only be free, but of better quality content.  

I won't be bullied or told what I should use or like or enjoy.  If BGS continues to launch BS like that Flop76 that isn't even a legitimate Fallout game then I'll just keep playing Skyrim and find other new games.  The lack of BGS output of anything of real quality in many years, a full decade for TES, already has me shopping elsewhere... Greedfall, Witcher franchise, Horizon Zero Dawn, the Outer Limits and many other titles have been my more recent game purchases, not BGS.  I don't play MMO's at all.  So, ESO was lost on me.  It's beautiful... but, it's an MMO.  That alone makes it unplayable in my eyes.  BGS lost it's way IMHO.  In my heart I long for their return to greatness.  Yet, their mistakes continue to pile up.  Creation Club as a cash cow was a HUGE mistake... it should be free.  Folks would flock to it and buy Xbox and copies of the game.  But, the corporate bean counters, marketing folks and other suits are blinded by greed and cannot see that you receive more when you give.  Call it a law of the universe, call it karma, call it Scripture... I see it as inevitable truth.  When all you do is take, take, take you eventually take it all and have nothing left.  You have to give to receive.  They'll never get it.  They are blind to it.....  Cannot see it..... Don't want to hear it.....

pl5928-see-no-evil-speak-no-evil-hear-no

Well... I've chewed this fat too long... It has lost it's flavor...  Time to ramble on elsewhere... maybe to Elsweyr... Hahaha :rofl:

Hope I haven't tread on anyone's toes too heavily.  I do love all of my friends here.  I just have some strong opinions.  Thank you for listening.  

Adventure ever on, Phat:blackhand:

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1 hour ago, phatbassanchor said:

Art... you make exceptional mods that I just won't play without.  There is nothing on CC that I want or need.  Don't drink the Kool-Aid, friend.  'Tis poison... the poison of corporate greed.

I don't see any kool-aid to be drunk here. I don't see it as the poison fruit of corporate greed or whatever. I see it as a halfway point between standard DLC and modders making purely paid mods like was done in 2015. It's a scenario that IMO is long overdue with this kind of thing given the increasing complexity and effort that goes into the work.

Are they doing it for money? Yes, absolutely. Why shouldn't they? That's what game developers do. They're not in it to give things away for free and never have been. The only reason they did it with Morrowind at all is because the company was expecting to be out of business, dead, and gone by the time Morrowind was released.

1 hour ago, phatbassanchor said:

I won't be bullied or told what I should use or like or enjoy.

Nobody is attempting to do anything like that. If you don't like the content, don't buy it. Although I think most people would scratch their heads wondering how you could know you don't like or enjoy it without first having tried it.

And I'll be honest here. I consider that "Forever Free" banner you post all the time to be one of the most divisive movements to enter into the modding scene in 2 decades. There is nothing inherently wrong with modders wanting to make money on the work they do. It doesn't make Bethesda greedy to want to sell micro-DLCs (for lack of a better term) that are in part made by members of the community. Some of whom went on to use that as a springboard for being hired by the studio. Contract work is a totally above board activity and is the backbone of a sizeable portion of the IT field in general.

If the common retort of "well get a real job" is the argument to be made, those people making mods won't have time to actually do that anymore and we're all worse off for it as evidenced by the stuff that makes the Hot Files on Nexus these days.

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4 hours ago, Arthmoor said:

I don't see any kool-aid to be drunk here. I don't see it as the poison fruit of corporate greed or whatever. I see it as a halfway point between standard DLC and modders making purely paid mods like was done in 2015. It's a scenario that IMO is long overdue with this kind of thing given the increasing complexity and effort that goes into the work.

Are they doing it for money? Yes, absolutely. Why shouldn't they? That's what game developers do. They're not in it to give things away for free and never have been. The only reason they did it with Morrowind at all is because the company was expecting to be out of business, dead, and gone by the time Morrowind was released.

Nobody is attempting to do anything like that. If you don't like the content, don't buy it. Although I think most people would scratch their heads wondering how you could know you don't like or enjoy it without first having tried it.

And I'll be honest here. I consider that "Forever Free" banner you post all the time to be one of the most divisive movements to enter into the modding scene in 2 decades. There is nothing inherently wrong with modders wanting to make money on the work they do. It doesn't make Bethesda greedy to want to sell micro-DLCs (for lack of a better term) that are in part made by members of the community. Some of whom went on to use that as a springboard for being hired by the studio. Contract work is a totally above board activity and is the backbone of a sizeable portion of the IT field in general.

If the common retort of "well get a real job" is the argument to be made, those people making mods won't have time to actually do that anymore and we're all worse off for it as evidenced by the stuff that makes the Hot Files on Nexus these days.

I've seen CC mods in action in my friend's games.  I have yet to see any CC content that was worth a penny, much less several pound notes.  The pricing is outrageous and the quality is subpar.  That's all I can say on that.  I already put forth my two cents on this Creation Club subject.  Don't really have any more to say that I didn't already... except to clarify that my remarks regarding bullying were NOT aimed at anyone here but rather at the corporate marketing mentality.  I just don't get it.  Also, folks do a job they have a right to get paid.  Traditionally, for mod authors that comes in the form of donations.  I'm a huge proponent of donations.  I live on a small social security stipend each month and still find the odd few dollars here and there to contribute when I'm able.  I'll always be a free mods with a tip jar type of guy.  In fact, I'm beginning the journey to learn how to do these things myself.  However, since I have a guaranteed government income that could be taken away if I even accidentally earn too much I'll be more inclined to have any donations go to charity.  My needs are rather small.  I value my dear friends over money.  So, I'm the wrong guy to debate that end of it, really.

However, there is one central point that I was making and will reiterate here... Corporations equal Greed.  That is the basic equation.  At present we are only a few hostile take overs and mergers away from a single global monopoly owning EVERYTHING!  The consumer no longer has a voice in the marketplace where only the stockholders voice can be heard.  The customer is no longer right.  

We'll likely disagree on many of my points.  However, I hope that I have not presented my opposing views improperly.  It is always my intent to remain friends, even through disagreements.  I deplore fighting yet most of the time I enjoy a hearty argument and will fervently engage topics at great length.  However, I've thoroughly ranted out all of my thoughts on the current subject in other forums.  So, with your kind permission, dear friend, please allow me to withdraw from this debate.  As I said earlier, the fat has lost it's flavor.  I cannot see any good to be gained by discussing it further and I certainly do not wish to hurt anyone's feelings or cause strife.  So, let's call it a draw and agree to disagree.  

Adventure on dear friends, Phat:blackhand:

PS:  I will never tell anyone to "get a real job."  Just thought you should know that. :) 

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The CC idea wasn't all that of a bad idea forever IMOP, the time of its release was a bit off, in the sense that it should have come out with the first ed of LE. My preference was instead for Bethesda to pull out all stops for Hammerfell, perhaps with a more definitive and documented CC model.

Phat's vision of forever free is beautiful, and a doff and a bow to that. In a somewhat dystopian corporate world it becomes something more like forever charity, so that probably is more the choice. A Hobson's choice perhaps, because corporate greed is charity enough for many of those who are actually employed in those organizations. :P

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The problem with paid mods wasn't greed or corporations or conception, or implementation or even execution.  Paid mods failed because a minority of mod USERS threw a tantrum.  A VERY BIG TANTRUM.  A tantrum complete with death threats, DOS attacks, super obscene toxicity, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Paid mods failed because a handful of users felt entitled to the free mods they had been getting and they were not about to give them up.  This toxic tide caused Steam to pull the plug on paid mods even as paid mods was taking it's first breath. 

Forever Free grew from that debacle, and is divisive by intent.  Forever Free is a promise to always kowtow to the toxic users and never go against their wishes, ever.  A move designed to get users to download Forever Free authors mods at the expense of "those greedy bastards" which participated in paid mods.  Forever Free deliberately pits one group of mod authors against another groups of authors, as Forever Free is just a way for an author to slap their chest and claim some mythical moral superiority. 

Phat wants folks to believe the rebranding of Forever Free as a benevolent collaboration, sharing, open source, cooperation of authors out to help each other.  Phat wants people to either ignore or forget that Forever Free is actually a marketing device which solicits to the users in the amoral minority which torpedoed paid mods in the first place. 

 

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To just go back to the Discord/forums issue (mainly because i don't know enough about mods to feel qualified to comment on CC etc)

Don't want to sound semantics pedantic but discord seems more like an old style anything goes chat room to this old timer here, not a forum ok perhaps some of the younger generation feel so too but why is there not room for both.

That's my beef with Bethesda, they have happily written off a whole generation of long standing contributors. It may come back to bite them, i agree with Adella its a retrograde move probably more to do with wanting to avoid criticism than anything else.

So basically they would rather risk more widespread criticism through the gaming net world when a game flops than through often useful constructive points made via an in house forum.

How very strange.

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There you are right Discord is a chatroom type format which in its self is nota a bad thing for one on one or group live discussions. However if you are looking for a place to store information then a forum is a much better to do that, and that is the main problem they are not equal they are different but do both serve differing purposes. So yes in a perfect world you would have both.

Just a word about CC, I do think that it is a thing that should not be dismissed out of hand. Say a moder or a group of modders have spent a year or more developing a new world space mod or a complete make over for a whole game or some large part there of. I feel they should be able to sell it through something like the CC if they want to. As long as the quality and stability is guaranteed in as much as these things came be, then I can live with that. It is nickel and dime reskins of a single item ect that I do feel less inclined to pay for. But then thats my preference and I can happily just let that pass me by. So to sum up I feel that CC should be reserved fo the big time consuming projects and small stuff is better off in a optional donation model.

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3 hours ago, XRAT said:

more to do with wanting to avoid criticism than anything else. ..... they would rather risk more widespread criticism through the gaming net world when a game flops than through often useful constructive points made via an in house forum.

They get plenty of criticism on Discord.  People who are intent on criticizing a game or developer will not let a mere change in software stop them.  It is the one thing that has not changed from forum to chat.

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22 hours ago, Pseron Wyrd said:

They get plenty of criticism on Discord.  People who are intent on criticizing a game or developer will not let a mere change in software stop them.  It is the one thing that has not changed from forum to chat.

Yes i get that but its also a lot easier to ignore noise on Discord given its nature and pretend its all just hot air as opposed to a more "considered" platform but it is what it is, a cynic might say Bethesda has previous.

Does not fill me with any confidence concerning their future games, should they eventually bother to release any this side of the century.

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Some final words regarding CC from me. Problem for me (aside from the often overpriced, in some cases not very impressive and bug-ridden content) is the horrible implemention on console. Having to download all assets to my harddrive without the intention to buy anything is just outrageous. Not to forget that they also made the games with broken CC "updates" more then one time unplayable. In fact, their last F4 CC "update" destroyed the game on xbone by making downtown a mere chrash- and freezefest. And bethesda seems to have no intention on fixing it. How long is it now, 1 year or 1 1/2? Really can't remember. If they would offer CC like other add-ons/dlc and i could ignore the potential gamebreaking "updates" i wouldn't say a single word about it. It is not the first time they broke the games on xbone: At one time they removed all insects in Skyrim, the other time they changed F4 to a rainbow-colored acid trip. If i could avoid all that i would even consider buying something (Not much there what i would want but for example, the backpacks for F4 and Skyrim looked always interesting to me) but not in its current state.

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Agree wit that my friend  Glad I’m on PC much better mod support. Its almost like they added mods to consoles but did not really know how to implement them.

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10 minutes ago, Uncus said:

Agree wit that my friend  Glad I’m on PC much better mod support. Its almost like they added mods to consoles but did not really know how to implement them.

Although the free mod implemention itself was ok. Far from perfect but when it was live the first time i think for many console players it was really exciting. I would say bethesda made a good impression to console players at that time. But CC is unfortunately the exact opposite to making a good impression. :wallbash:

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