keithinhanoi

Visual rendering engine-unimpressed. I'll pass on release day. However, bargain bin / Steam Christmas sale, after I've actually done FO 2, 3, NLV...? Okay, ready! Because, bawstuun.

Apparently, a shark bit the main undersea internet cable coming into Vietnam recently - again! - and so I really hadn't noticed the difference. And yes, I'm currently using a premium account (and what a joke it is VN, sharks notwithstanding!) If FO4 has any kind of "halo effect" on interest in Skyrim mods, I would be very happy, because with (from what I can tell) Skyrim mod downloads / endorsements seeing a slowdown recently, I haven't felt so justified in the months of work I did on the latest AOS update. *Sigh*

One concern with this mod is the fact that in order to make the edits to landscape records, the parent worldspace cell records have to be included, which is what any other mod with exterior worldspace edits (not necessarily to the landscape) will also have. Not knowing what anyone might be using for other mods, the default for those parent worldspace records has to be vanilla plus any USKP fixes. This means the mod's plugin needs to load as early / high up as possible so that changes made by other mods don't get reverted back to vanilla state. For this reason, the author has included an .esm version of the plugin, which should presumably load just before Hearthfire.esm or maybe after the USKP .esm (not sure, and this would need to be checked). Point being, load order is very important, and if included in STEP, whether to use the .esm or .esp verison is an important consideration. After that post, Arthmoor stated that landscape data edits are not something that will be considered for the UP, basically for the reasons I've outlined above.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but will the STEP patch be updated for AOS soon? I've had one person ask on the AOS comments thread. I don't have much time for modding from now on, but please let me know if help is needed.

You and all are very welcome. If a misspelled word due to a sticky key is the only issue with the update I will be so ever pleased...

I have just released AOS v2.5. The main new features / improvements are the three I mentioned in my previous post (just above). Here's the full final changelist: Please enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions or find something that isn't working as expected! I'll be actively monitoring for comments / questions on Nexus and here for the next two weeks, but after that I will only be able to check in very infrequently.

Really great work, DY, especially with your extremely thorough testing standards. Maybe it's just my eyes, but the red text on the dark gray background is really difficult to read. Maybe another warning text color would be better?

Many thanks for the heads up! Those last two will be very useful for the mod end-users. I understand the reasons why they'd be disabled by default, but at least for trouble shooting it's something people can suggest enabling when somebody cries about CTD at startup. Do they both actually show a dialogue on screen when the game is running, or is it just a log file message?

</tinfoil hat> <propeller hat> On a more serious side note, Wrinkly really should apply to work on Google's Google Apps UI team.

Well, AOS has always supplied loose sound files, and there's no intention to change that, so honestly, I don't see how a system not being able to read sounds from BSAs would result in AOS' sounds not playing as well. Since installing the sound files manually to the /Skyrim/Data folder worked, it seems the issue involves the mechanics of MO in some way. But I'm still at a loss for any further ideas on the reason why this is happening.

No offense to the author, but this is just not worth the full .esp plugin slot. Doing this tweak and putting that edit in one of the plugins already in your load order should be everyone's first lesson in how to use TES5Edit.

I'd wait. If you look at the ENB Forum thread for 0.269, you'll see that Boris has been updating it several times a day since it was released.

Okay, well I spoke too soon. Somehow I also got the blank LOOT UI, using MO 1.2.18 installed in my /skyrim directory, with my skyrim installed to a non-boot volume using the Steam Library Folders feature. So no UAC. TBH, I don't know if I fired up MO by clicking a Nexus download link, but my fix was just to quit LOOT, run it outside of MO, quit it, and then when I ran it using MO, the UI displayed fine again. I will try the steps to reproduce the issue and then if that checks out, I'll use the --single-process arg. But what does that arg do, anyhow? Disallow multi-threaded processes? Does it make LOOT slower? The only unsafe thing is to change the load order of your plugins and then load your save of an in-progress play through. That can wreak all kinds of havok - the least of which being orphaned script instances and issues with aliases not working.

I'm having zero problems running the official LOOT v7.0 as an executable in MO 1.2.18. I just installed over and older LOOT 7 beta, and it simply worked. I am so glad that there is now only one version of LOOT as the standard. It's been difficult to know which load order to say AOS patches are based on when LOOT 6 and LOOT 7 produce somewhat different orders. So I had to make sure they will work regardless of the load order of the plugins they're providing compatibility for.

The author claims s/he is working on a ICoW patch, coming "soon". Crossing my fingers. And toes.

You're really showing your age by using the euphemism "making whoopie," z, but then so am I for also knowing what it means! Definitely making whoopie could a big factor for not modding - as a married man I guess I forget how important that was in my earlier years... As for May dip in AOS' stats, I'm not sure that Krypto is right about the numbers for May being totaled at the end of this month - when I hover over the Y axis line, it shows the date of that stat as May 1 2015, so the drop was between the totals for the month of March and the month of April.

If true, then it will drop even more after Witcher 3 is released! ;)

I've noticed Nexus Mods has added an optional Stats tab to each mod's page, which the author can make visible to all users or only him/herself. I turned it on to the public for AOS, and noticed a major dip from April to May this year in the number of downloads / endorsements. Both numbers went down by over 50%, which seemed strange. So I headed over to Nexus Mods's Network Statistics page, which I've never bothered to check, to take a look at the overall trends. I now see that since 2012 there has been a fairly large drop each year in the spring months. Any ideas what that is caused by? Finals in school / uni / college? Despite that seemingly regular drop, looking back at the download / endorsements for AOS - it actually is disturbingly low. Since October 2013, the monthly downloads has never dipped below 20k, and the total for last month was a little over 9k, and the endorsements is similarly low compared to the past year and a half. Page view is also at an all-time low for the life of the mod. So does anybody have any ideas what is going on there? Has any of you noticed these kinds of trends with other individual Skyrim or other mod stats?

I'm happy to report that the next update for AOS should be ready within two weeks. I am in the process of double-checking all the updated and newly added compatibility patches for any edits needed for the last round of changes to the main plugin. Since LoRd KoRn and I have been through three waves of changes / additions / improvements, we've decided the update shall be AOS v2.5. In addition to a number of small fixes and improvements, the three main aspects of the update are: A complete overhaul to AOS' magic sounds implementation to bring compatibility with mods that add magic effects (eg., Perkus Maximus, Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim, Forgotten Magic Redone, Wintermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim, etc.) The addition of an Ambience sound volume slider that controls nearly all looped and random exterior and interior environment sounds Improvements to rainy weather sounds - most importantly, the addition of interior thunder sounds heard during rainstorm weatherHere's the complete changelist as it stands right now: For anyone really interested in the technical details of the magic sound implementation overhaul, here it is: A lot of time was spent making and testing the changes, and I even had a small group of volunteer beta testers for the magic sound implementation overhaul, who all confirmed they did not get any looping magic sounds or other issues when using the updated AOS.esp plugin. Also, I am working with fadingsignal to incorporate the system for interior rain and thunder sounds used by AOS in to his True Storms mod, which will help maintain compatibility with AOS, and hopefully be appreciated by anyone who isn't using AOS as well! Finally, I just want to mention that yes, I am aware that CoT v5.0 has been announced, and I promise to make a AOS + CoT 5.0 compatibility patch, but outside of that, after AOS 2.5 is released, I am taking a break from modding while I prepare to move back from Hanoi to the USA where I need to find work and a place to live in order to sponsor a "green card" for my wife, so she can then come over with our daughter hopefully in time to start kindergarten there. If anyone wants a pre-release copy of the main AOS.esp plugin (only for Skyrim + DG + DB right now, sorry) for compatibility patch making purposes only, please PM me, and I'll give you a link. Otherwise, I kindly ask that you wait for the final release that gets posted on the AOS page on Nexus.

Oh, a couple more things before I slip back into the dark again. Confirmed by Arthmoor: All of the refunds from Valve to people who paid for a mod, as per the Steam User terms of agreement, are paid back to the user's Steam Wallet. So, Valve will get that money either way. Valve / Bethesda still has not contacted the mod authors after pulling their paid mods off the Skyrim Workshop. So there's no word on whether they will receive any compensation for their mods' sales."Hung out to dry and wither in the wind" is certainly how I would feel...

Hishy, I don't think that's the main reason at all. He is leaving out of total disgust over the events of the past weekend. See here.

Well, I guess I lied. I can't click in TES5Edit very well while eating lunch, so I've been doing a bit of reading, and popped in to share. The landscape of things has been altered. The few of the effects I'm aware of: Isoku says he will return, with the newest version of iNeed / Wet & Cold coming to Nexus. I also received the e-mail from him, and I don't care what anyone thinks about the way he handled communication after the opening of the paid Skyrim mods - I am honest shocked and humbled that he would even consider coming back after seeing the things people have said. Shezrie, on the other hand, has left modding completely, returning all recent donations with a very kind note, and there's no trace of her or her mods on Nexus or Steam Workshop. Very disheartening. Arthmoor has publicly stated he is deeply disappointed with Valve / Bethesda pulling out so quickly, and is seriously considering stopping modding. He's also commented on the same thing I noticed, which is that for some reason(s) he did not receive nearly as much flak as many of the other authors who published paid mods in the initial opening. Nevertheless, his mods are still available both on Nexus and Steam Workshop, where the comments threads for which I checked things seem to be business as usual. Chesko is still MIA, and as mentioned, some users are apologizing and "begging" for him to return. Nexus activity shows he's still logging in, mods still available as before, and Steam Workshop is empty. Laast, whose Purity mod seemed to have gotten the most sales until it was pulled with all the others, is leaving modding as mentioned. A complete shame, but with great civility and graciousness, he has posted the mod as a kind of final gift to the members of the community who've supported him. I've had some number of interactions with him, and I'm really saddened to see him go. ramccoid, author of numerous popular high-quality Skyrim re-texture mods, seems to have possibly exited modding out of disgust over the turn of events. All of his mods are now hidden with the message "I've had enough."Also, here are a couple of good reads: The uncertain future of paid mods by Scott INtense!, the founder of ModDB Paid mods are dead: PC Gamer reacts - reactions from 7 PC Gamer writers, with all kinds of interesting viewpoints

I've still been able to add a note to the seller for all the donations I've sent in the past few days. It's got a limit of only about 200 characters I think, so I had to choose my words carefully. However (and this is something of a downside to using Paypal), both the transaction page and the receipt I receive in my e-mail have the recipient's e-mail address. So, if I wanted to, I could send a follow up e-mail to fully express my appreciation and sentiments. I haven't chosen to do so recently, but I have done that in past, though I promised not to exploit having the mod author's e-mail. The downside of this is, of course, it costs anyone $1 to get a person's e-mail to be used for nefarious purposes.

Interesting read on the history of the WoW modding community and the changes Blizzard took them through, especially since I was too busy with life at the time and missed out on that whole thing. I find it fascinating that for the WoW modding community they went bezerk when Blizzard announced paid mods were no longer allowed, even though the vast majority of add-on creators (all but two) offered free mods. It seems an opposite view from the vocal majority of Skyrim mod users over the past weekend - from that article: Regarding that Bethesda Blog entry, Why we’re trying paid Skyrim mods on Steam (Updated), some background is revealed, as is their mis-informed point of view, in a number of statements. They claim there's a link between allowing Oblivion to be modded and having to change the rating from Teen to Mature, "costing us millions of dollars." Does it cost millions of dollars to secure a Mature rating, or are they just talking about the loss of potential revenue from teens? I think they are forgetting to acknowledge they extended their audience age range upward, and give too much credit to the loss of the teen audience merely due to the M rating labels. Then, it's explained that the idea for a Steam Workshop with paid Skyrim mods has been on the table since 2012. For nearly 3 years! Then they say "Three years later and Valve has finally solved the technical and legal hurdles to make such a thing possible, and they should be celebrated for it. It wasn’t easy." So why did they have to rush during that final critical step of rolling out the new service? The people making the decisions on this in the past three months clearly forgot everything they learned about change management theory while studying their dime-a-dozen MBAs - if they completed an MBA, that is. Then, a bit later: "Opening up a market like this is full of problems. They are all the same problems every software developer faces (support, theft, etc.), and the solutions are the same. Valve has done a great job addressing those, but there will be new ones, and we’re confident those will get solved over time also." Yes, the solutions are all the same - take a hands-off approach. Let the content creators and the rowdy bunch of Steam subscribers sort it out, and Valve only gets involved if they absolutely have to. It's cheaper that way. Next, "There are certainly other ways of supporting modders, through donations and other options. We are in favor of all of them. One doesn’t replace another, and we want the choice to be the community’s. Yet, in just one day, a popular mod developer made more on the Skyrim paid workshop than he made in all the years he asked for donations." So how does Bethesda intend to show us that they are in favor of donations and "other options"? Is that by not restricting or regulating the donations system on Nexus? Okay, if true, then great, it's back in "our" hands, and we just need to convince Robin Scott / the Dark One of a system that will work (more from me on this further down.) What I don't understand, though is why they didn't actually ask the community, if they are claiming the choice should be ours. Where was the consultative step in this change? Oh wait, see my comment above, re: MBAs and change management theory. Then, in hindsight - the incredible ironic statement about a popular mod developer making more on the paid workshop than in donations. Completely got it wrong. Nexus has never allowed users to ask for donations. Robin Scott has made that very clear. So it's an unfair comparison right there, let alone the donation system is clunky at best and doesn't encourage the level of donations people may be willing (or able) to make. Adding insult to injury, until I hear otherwise, I assume that because Valve / Bethesda have pulled all paid mods and will be refunding everyone who bought one, it means they won't be paying the mod authors who took that risk anything. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.) Nevertheless, I will concede to Bethesda that the relative success of sales of a few mods just over the weekend does show there is a definite willingness on the part of some portion of mod users to pay for mods. So we're left with that revealing information, and the opportunity to do something about it, on "our" terms. On Bethesda's revenue share for paid Skyrim mods: "This is not some money grabbing scheme by us. Even this weekend, when Skyrim was free for all, mod sales represented less than 1% of our Steam revenue." Um, how is that even related? And your using sales from the initial 2 days after rolling out just a little over two dozen paid mods? It doesn't prove anything. Total red herring. But here's an argument I can say might make a little more sense: "Even now, at 25% and early sales data, we’re looking at some modders making more money than the studio members whose content is being edited." But then again - are we comparing money made per day? You can't apply the scale of sales in the first two days for the rest of time. And aren't the studio members staff who are paid a salary, with health insurance and benefits? Again, apples and oranges. Anyhow, regarding the 25% cut to content creators, they finish with "If it needs to change, we’ll change it." Well, if they ever want to make anything from Skyrim mods, they probably should give it a good long think. The last two bits in the blog entry talk about the modding community and how Bethesda is "part of it," and that they are fully against DRM, and "Most people don’t know, but our very own Skyrim DLC has zero DRM." I'm not sure which Skyrim DLC they're referring to, but the DLCs are of course worthless without Skyrim itself, which has accompanying .dll files requiring Steam to be installed with your account active as we all know. Whatever. As for Bethesda's claims of being a part of the modding community, I will again point back to my comments about change management theory. Main tenet which applies here being - let everyone know about the coming change and hear out their concerns before implementing it. I've just checked, and as the Dark One announced earlier this weekend, if a mod author has turned it on for their mod / mod file downloads, a pop-up window reminding you of the option to donate will appear with the donate button when you download a mod file, and a Donate button will appear at the top of the mod's Nexus page, right next to the Endorse button. Similarly, if the mod author has turned on the option, when you view the mod author's Nexus user page, there will be a Donate button (with the British pound symbol on it) at the top-right-ish corner. Really, I haven't seen any mod authors saying they hope to move towards a career in modding. Everyone who has stated they'd like to receive money for their mods has just said only that. They would appreciate receiving something for all that work and time. So, I'm going to copy-paste my current pie-in-the-sky concept for a donation system that I typed up over in the SMIM comments thread: Now that Valve has pulled out from their paid Skyrim mod initiative / scheme (for the time being), we're left to ponder about how to make this work in a way that doesn't "ruffle people's feathers" too much. I know Robin Scott / Dark One doesn't want people "begging" for money or soliciting donations (or endorsements for that matter,) but there has to be some way for mod authors to communicate that donations are actually a motivating factor for them, and also to change the donations system into something that people are more willing to use. I envision a system where donations can actually be set to "micro-payments" (fractions of a dollar / Euro / etc.) which a much larger number of people may be willing to use than sending individual 2-5 dollar / Euro payments. I've seen people post that they would feel guilty sending anything smaller, but if you consider the idea of "economy of scale", there's really no reason to feel guilty if we know lots of people are also sending "just a little to help out." Only 1 out of a 100 people may be inspired to give $1, while 20+ out of that 100 may be fine with giving $0.20. It's really difficult to swallow the idea of donating $1 each to the authors of 200 mods, but $.20? Sure, maybe over two or three months. And I honestly believe there are a lot of mod users like me out there who would feel the same. Of course, make it a "donate what you like" system, so if someone actually wants to give more, then power to them! Unfortunately, I don't see a donation system website or API, etc. that works like this, "out of the box" - though I haven't looked much yet. Patreon is interesting, but it's more "subscription" based and doesn't seem like a good fit for Nexus. EDIT: I see the Dark One has posted his response to Valve's / Bethesda's "pull-out" announcement. The comments thread for his post prove quickly that the wounds are still very much open and festering over the series of events, with two galvanized and polarized groups duking it out in what seems will be a never-ending cyclical argument over who should be labelled as entitled and whether anyone owes anything for anything. I'm going to go back to finishing that AOS update now, and try hard not to read another forum thread until it's ready. See you all in some days...

I'm dead in the water where the AOS patches are concerned. I've contacted LoRd KoRn to (unfortunately) put him on the spot to take a stance on the whole thing before I proceed. I told him he may want to set aside some time to read up on what happened and soak it all in. ------------------ As I'm looking through the increasing list of "under review" paid mods, I notice, with great irony, that despite Valve calling this new venture a "community curated workshop" and having this message above each mod "under review": ... comments are currently blocked. So I can't asked questions like "Is this actually newer than your Nexus version?" or "Did you ask X if they agree for their assets to be used / your mod to take advantage of X's mod to enhance your mod's features?", etc. Nice system. ------------------ EDIT: I guess I don't have to worry about making an AOS + Purity patch because the Skyrim mod pirates on Reddit have already taken care of that: Clicking through that link I see that at least one person is already working on setting up a pirated Skyrim mod site. Arrrrrrgh. (and not in the way a pirate would say!) I've just had one of my front upper teeth yanked out of my head this morning, and seeing all of this gives me even more of a headache.