moho25

I'm going to keep this short, as over the weekend this thread went into a different direction, which is fine. It's no strawman. As I said, I hesitated to use it, as I anticipated someone would respond about like you did. You might disagree with it, but there is a certain parallel. If you want to wax philosophical about it, that's fine. There's been a lot of that in this thread, and much of it simply amounts to people attempting to justify their beliefs, behavior, or potential behavior. None of it changes the reality of the current situation. It wasn't ambiguous, and I think part of the problem is that despite that post being the impetus for most of this thread, it got muddled in a debate about "open modding". Open modding was not what Syn's post was about. Despite me not adhering to that philosophy, I certainly have no problem with debates on the topic, and if that's what STEP supports, that's entirely their right and prerogative. I also don't begrudge any mod author who decides that's the right thing for them. However, while I appreciate the disclaimer STEP attached to the top of the post, I suspect that if STEP didn't advocate for open modding, the staff might have read Syn's words in a different light. And that would have changed the tone of this entire thread. ------ One thing I'm not quite clear on regarding STEP's open modding policy when they work with mod authors. So, if a mod author decides to work with you, they essentially sign away the rights to their mod? It becomes "open modding" and any changes can be made to the mod once they are no longer around? What about while they still are around? Can anyone who wants to fork it? Or, can anyone simply take the assets and use them in another mod? And, all mod authors presumably are made aware of this and have to consent when they sign on to work with STEP?

Okay, then let me provide more context. SynthetikHD's post was a direct reply to this one that preceded it: Neither post was hypothetical. Hishutup specifically presented a problem with abandoned mods on Nexus. SynthetikHD's non-hypothetical solution to this problem was as contained in his post. You might not view SynthetikHD's response with the level of seriousness as I and others do, which is fine, but it was certainly not a hypothetical response to a hypothetical situation.

I want to quote the post that began this discussion: There is not a mod creator alive that wouldn't find this post horribly abrasive (there's always an exception to the rule, but you get what I mean). This not a hypothetical situation. SynthetikHD was suggesting a course of action in response to a problem that is actively affecting the modding community. This post *encourages* users to blatantly disregard the wishes of a mod author, and do as they want. If they don't like "the law", then don't obey it. The ethics of the law are debatable. You like "the jerk's" mod and he won't let you re-upload? Who cares? Do it anyway. He can't stop you. Don't accept the status quo. "Simple." STEP's advocacy about open modding aside, this post is what you are defending right now. These words are why s/he was (rightfully) downvoted. If someone started spewing racism in their posts, hiding behind the guide of "ethics are debatable", and "I'm allowed my opinion", I'd expect the community to respond with downvoting and for STEP to respond in kind. Obviously, that's a much more severe situation and I hesitate to use it, but it gets the idea across. I have to say, that I'm shocked by STEP's attitude toward this.

I'm not talking about the future; I'm talking about what the current situation actually *is*.

@TechAngel85 -- FYI, looks like I cross-posted with you. I had been typing my reply off/on for about 30 minutes without reloading the page.

@TechAngel85 -- But SynthetikHD *is* both legally and ethically wrong. Wishing something were different, doesn't change how it actually is. Opinions about the facts don't change what the facts are. Take any college-level course on ethics and copyright law and it's very clear what the ethics and legality of this situation is, which is exactly why people are downvoting. And, no disrespect intended by pointing this out, but isn't removing downvotes suppressing the opinions of the voters on this issue? Forum voting systems are in place exactly for this type of situation -- for the community to show agreement or disagreement with the words of others. Those words will often be opinions. @SynthetikHD -- By your own explanation, your opinion amounts to: "I disagree with the modder's wishes/the concept of closed modding, and since no punishment is enforceable, I should be able to do what I want." I'm not going to beat this horse to death, so I'll keep this short. This attitude is, frankly, appalling. It is *exactly* what many modders fear. It's the same argument that promotes piracy. This entire situation comes down to one thing: respect. An attitude like this is entirely disrespectful to the mod author. It's also several other things I'm not going to say, as I don't want this post to come off as a personal attack. The statement above prioritizes the user's desire above the content creator's wishes, and make no mistake, every mod uploaded to Nexus or any other credible site has permissions attached. Not to mention, any unique work created by any individual is de facto copyrighted -- at least in the U.S, and I'm pretty sure in the U.K., as well.

As a mod author, I would hope not. Nexus can't change their TOS retroactively. Not legally, anyway. They might decide to change it moving forward, but it any change can't apply to existing mods. If I go AFK, I expect them to respect my wishes. I'll be as pissed off as the next gal, if I lose the ability to use certain mods by transitioning to SSE (if I transition to SSE), but every mod author has the right to set permissions for their own work. Some modders embrace open permissions, others do not. I respect both viewpoints, but I fall into the latter camp. Many of us pore thousands of hours of work into our projects, and, well, it is -- and should be -- our choice.

Nice to see that confirmed.

It's already been said by Gopher, myself (see post above), and many others. It's still speculation at this point, but I'd say it's likely.

This was my thought, as well. I'm very much looking forward to being able to use an ENB and some decent weather mods, but I'm actually not entirely impressed with that game footage. It looks orange and muddy. Yes, it's obviously sunrise/sunset in those shots, but there are good ways and bad ways to do that, of course. Something a bit funny, is I can actually see a decent amount of the user base not particularly liking these changes, as they are so drastically different from the bleak feel of vanilla Skyrim. It'll be very interesting to see what folks think when it's released.

I'm really conflicted about this. On one hand, I agree that the bump up to DX11 is a good thing, and if there is also a bump to 64-bit (has this been verified yet?), then that's also great. I think both these are indisputable improvements, and would be the best reason for PC users to take the free upgrade. What I'm not certain of is if these provide enough of an advantage to compensate for the disadvantages to modders and mod users. 1. It will inevitably fracture mod support. With every new DLC, Legendary Edition, or Special Edition, things get more fractured. A majority of modders within the community start making the new DLC mandatory, or switch to the new edition of the game (USKP to USLEEP, etc). All new content is placed into the new version of the mod and they stop supporting the old version. If a user doesn't have the money to purchase the new edition -- or if they simply don't want to -- then they are out of luck (yes, I know SSE is free, but the point remains). Since few serious mod users are going to play Skyrim without SkyUI or the Unofficial Patch, it becomes a forced upgrade based upon how those two mod teams handle the situation. 2. It will result in more issues with incompatibilities. After 5 years, more and more modders have dropped off the grid. Depending on how this plays out, it's possible folks will have to make very hard decisions about which mods to keep using. If the SSE is different enough that even half of ESPs need an upgrade to function, that's still a lot of mods. This issue will be compounded by the fracturing of support of various mods. If mod X depends on ver# of mod Y to work properly, and mod Y isn't getting ported to SSE, then the user can't use either mod. 3. The complexities of paid-for mods. This throws an entirely different wrench into the situation. It exacerbates the issues with fracturing and support if we end up in a similar situation to last year, where mod authors were only going to put new features into the paid-for mods. And, then we get into the problem with authors resorting to hiding their mods to prevent theft. As a mod author (Mass Effect 3), I understand this kneejerk reaction, but all it does is punish your user base. 4. It wipes the slate clean (to a degree). People may view this as good or bad, but it applies to both mod authors and users. Mod users will need to re-consider every mod in their load order to see if it's now redundant. Mod authors will need to reconsider if their mod is redundant, or if it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. As active as the Skyrim modding community is, that's a lot to ask at the ripe age of 5 years. I have no doubt that some will do it, but that's sort of the problem... some. For Skyrim PC players who don't use mods, the SSE is a no brainer. But for those of us who do use mods, I think the situation warrants a good bit of caution. I'm finding it hard to be excited right now. I've actually just upgraded to a new machine -- something I've been trying to do for over 3 years, in large part so I could mod Skyrim exactly how I wanted. Now... I'm not sure what to do. I don't know whether to wait for the SSE to come out, allow 6 months for the dust to settle, and then get started. Or, just say screw it, resign to sticking with the Legendary Edition (which I haven't even installed yet), and get started now. Since I do a lot of research as I pick and choose mods, the whole process will take me a few months, which further complicates the issue =/

Well, that took a while to read :) A couple things I'm now wondering: 1. Several pages back someone mentioned True Daughters of Skyrim, but there was no follow up. This is a texture replacer, not a mesh replacer, and there are versions for CBBE, UNP, and vanilla. I've been meaning to test this texture in game, but it looks gorgeous from the posted screencaps. Reminescent of Mature Skin -- at least when looking at the body; I'd like to see better close ups of the face. There are also alternate normals to effect physique. 2. Mature Skin now seems to have a vanilla version... as of this past June. So, what's the status of this project, especially in light of the above? Between all the talk of WSCO, TechAngel85's edits, and now SP's edits that are included in TRF. Would be interesting to know if WSCO, TDoS, and MS fit SP's edits to the vanilla mesh. I might be able to test this sometime during the next week or so.

Gotcha. Thanks for the quick reply. Will need to reactivate that one then and let BOSS mess with the load order. By the way, this is addressed in the DLC section of the Skyrim Installation guide (which includes multiple options that use combinations of Vano's mod and some other optimization techniques) and in the HRDLC section of the DDSopt and Texture Overhaul guide (which discusses repairs to the HRDLC including the Unofficial High Resolution Patch as well as the use of Vano's mod).I looked in the DLC section, and unfortunately, at least to me, this was not clear -- there really is very little about the new UHRP in this section (no links to the download page on Nexus yet, either). Not surprising considering it came out only a few days ago. I had checked the wiki on Sunday or Monday and at that point I didn't see anything about it at all. Suggestion: A "tab" for the Unofficial Patches might not be a bad thing to add to the Skyrim Installation page of the wiki. They might be mods, but they are in a class of their own, so to speak. It would be an easy place to locate all the information regarding all 5 UPs. Unfortunately the DDSopt guide and procedures are a bit over my head and not something that I'm using. I try to stay out of that section of the wiki as it tends to confuse me more than anything else. I'm already using 3 new utilities to re-mod my game, and that's already pushing my skills, lol. Please remember that there are going to be folks with different levels of computer knowledge using this site. Not everyone is going to feel comfortable delving that deep into things. That being said, I always look in multiple locations before taking the time to ask a question on any forum. So, if I'm asking, it means that I have exhausted searching and still haven't found an answer to my question. Apologies if you felt I was wasting people's time.

Both opinions are based upon the fact that it is possible to cheat. By default it is balanced and works as vanilla with a ton of extra features. I really don't feel that's a fair or valid reason to reject a mod. Said NPCs have also been removed in the latest versions as well and replaced with configuration books in the River wood trader but can still unlock all via that tool. Yes, I was looking at the configuration book in game and the default settings are quite nice. Everything stays hidden until you discover it, just as in vanilla Skyrim, and if there is something you don't want to see, you don't need to have it displayed at all. This to me is no different than any other UI-related mod, in that respect. No cheats are necessary. I'm not clear how the previous versions of the mod worked, but according to the mod webpage there don't seem to be any added NPCs, nor do any of the vanilla NPCs sell "purchasable answers". A new version was posted just yesterday. With Cartographer's abandoned (apparently) this does seem to be a very nice substitute, and STEP can provide a recommended configuration of "default".

Ah, very good to know :D Thanks!

As per Farlo: I'm going to look into Atlas a bit more. See if folks tend to have any problems with the included scripts.

@Farlo -- Gotcha. Thanks for the info. Will do if I find anything else that's dirty and unlisted. I'll update the CMM thread with your comment, as well.

Having already used TES5Edit to clean the update and DLC files, and having read up on as much literature as I can find, is there a guide that more clearly states which mods are safe to clean and which are not? From what I understand, it's always best to let the mod author clean the mod (as indiscriminate cleaning can break a mod), but if a mod is dead and yet still compatible with the current version of the game, this is no longer possible. Is STEP's position then to not use the mod in question? The Creation Kit's wiki says to essentially clean "everything" short of the Skyrim.esm and Unofficial Patches, but this goes against the tutorial posted by Gopher, who recommends that only mod authors clean their mods. Any advice would be appreciated. These questions also relate to my post on Cartographer's Map Markers, which is currently in STEP's 2.2.0a Core Mod list.

Gotcha. Thanks for the quick reply. Will need to reactivate that one then and let BOSS mess with the load order.

Having just read this thread, but still not fully understanding everything that this new patch still does, I was hoping that it would render both the High Rex DLC Fix mod and the Bethesda Optimized HD DLC Pack (at least mostly) redundant. Is this correct?

There doesn't seem to be a thread posted for this mod, so I'm going to go ahead and start it. The Cartographers Map Markers This mod is currently on STEP's list, but seems to have over 200 dirty edits. It also doesn't seem to be maintained anymore, so asking the mod author to clean it and reupload isn't an option. I have used TES5Edit to clean the Skyrim Update/DLC files, but I am unclear at this point whether it is safe to clean this (or any mod) myself. According to Gopher's tutorial, mod cleaning is best up to the author, and I am aware that certain mods will break if you clean them. The logical alternative mod is Atlas Map Markers with Dragonborn and Dawnguard Addons, but this is a heavier mod that has at least 1 script file, so if folks are trying to avoid as many scripts as possible, they'd probably rather use Cartographers. It should be noted that this mod is actively maintained and has markers for DG, DB, and Blackreach, plus it includes many vanilla locations that Cartographer does not. Opinions?

Dragging and dropping works (only if sorting by the priority column), but double-clicking does not work -- it just opens up the "information" context window. There is no way to edit this number in that window. Ahh, and F2 does work. That's a handy shortcut, but for people not well versed in Windows shortcuts, they won't know to press F2. Scrolling over the priority numbers doesn't give you a hint, either.

Yeah, I tried that also. No dice. EDIT: Ah ha! Ok. You MUST have the mods sorted by priority in order for this to work. They cannot be sorted by "name", for example, or it won't let you drag and drop at all. This nugget of info should be put in the Wiki for folks :] Thanks for the idea. I had tried it previously, and it wasn't working, but I hadn't tried sorting by priority yet.

Hey folks -- I feel like a complete moron asking this, but I'm working with MO for the first time and just starting to enable a couple mods and set up load orders. I'm having an issue with setting the priority, the issue being I can't figure out how to do it. I've used guide on the STEP wiki, and poked around the program myself. Apparently I should be able to right-click on a mod in the left pane, and that should bring up the context menu where I can select "set priority". Only, this option is not present. Nor does it seem to be included in any of the other options within the context menu. I've also tried double clicking/right clicking on the "priority" rank for the mod itself. No luck. Ultimately, what I'm attempting to do is prioritize the new UHRP above the USKP, as since USKP is set to a high priority, it is over-writing textures from the just released UHRP. To be clear, as far as .esps go, USKP is first, followed by UHRP which will overwrite portions of it. Any help would be appreciated!

Yeah, I was expecting some incompatibilities. Luckily, Bronze is going to be making CoT-compatible version :)