Skyrim together: mod to play online
github.com
github.com
The effect is that a lot of people wasted their time modding their game , and this process is very time consuming(reading each mod instructions carefully, reading the bug reports and posts, executing the steps, starting the game and testing it) and modding is very error prone , some weird bug can trigger late in the game and ruing everything, disabling a mod can cause problems too , finding the cause of a crash is also very time consuming and maybe impossible.
In other games you have the concept of a mod pack (is a bit like a distro) but this is not possible with majority of this Skyrim mods, the Nexus website invented a concept of Collection that is a complex process that might work but has best results if you pay a subscriptions.
Anyway the recent events in open source community made me thingk abut Skyrim community, if Open Source projects with a big downloads or star counter get some money or some badges the developers might fall in the trap of Skyrim moders and wanting to bump their counters will restrict their distribution, I am afraid we will see licenses with restrictions like MIT + GitHub restriction where you can use the code only if you downloaded it from GitHub and from this specific repo(no forks or re hosting allowed). This seems impossible now but as we see in my example with this Skyrim community it will happen slowly.
There are open source and/or non restricted Skryum mod and I think most of this ones are inspired by Free Software philosophy.
(The one in TFA is an exception of course.)
You're creating, but your creation is totally dependent on the copyrighted work of someone else, and usually can't even be seen without it. "derivative works" bite that way.
The audience has already paid for the base game and there's not likely to be ways they can donate to you even if they wanted to. This is being worked on but still not quite there yet. Lots of the games customers feel they've paid enough already; which adds tot he usual "entitled user" problems.
People making mods tend to be non programmers passionate about an idea they had and wanting to make it happen even if they have to learn new things and extend themselves beyond their comfort zone. The social aspects of software development that encourage FOSS structures haven't occurred to them yet. Many will feel they're not "real" developers, this isn't "real" software, and thus those concerns don't apply to them or their work.
Since having a "mod community" is popular, many game publishers want to have one. They often have no idea how to foster a community and allow their inner demons to come out in their efforts to do so. If a mod scene has politics before the game is released, bail.
Even without that, however, mods are a grey area in copyright law. Publishers tend to let mods exist because they bring publicity to the game, but when modders start making money, they usually want a cut at best or sue and shut them down at worst.
Why is that so bad? Modders are just using Nexus as a way to host their mods and facilitate the community discussion. Some mods are huge after all, Nexus provides the hosting for the downloads, and software to manage them.
> The effect is that a lot of people wasted their time modding their game
Without a community site at the centre this process would be immeasurably harder. It's an inherently hard problem to manage hundreds of modders making independent mods and getting them all to work together. I'm not sure what the alternative is.
There are certainly reasons to not like Nexus, but I think you'd find modding somewhat requires a site like Nexus. You have to make both the consumer and the creator's experience easy enough that people will be bothered to do it. If I had to sift through 40 different personal blogs to download .zips of mods and load them, I just wouldn't bother.
Other problems are when a mod has a bug, you will very often see in comments things like
"I can share a fixed mod, the author is gone and I don't have the permissions, so JUST open the mod in this tool, and do this exact 12 steps" then the entire community has to do this process because you can't put a fixed version up.
So I would prefer it to be a collaborative community and less of a store where you pay with your download and endorsement.
I guess this is a community problem more than a technology one, so I don't really have any solutions to offer except to try and encourage modders to be more free with their releases. On the same token, maybe there should be more clear ways for the community to have collaborative control over mods and patches.
There are cases with mods that are broken now because of updates and because the author is not around to give their permissions the community can't put a fixed version up, they need to use convoluted steps to patch the original mod.
Would be great if modders would be inspired by programming open source/free software communities where at this moment you are allowed to fork and fix things, package/build for new platforms, mirror things on different websites.
The argument that a mod can only be downloaded from Nexus is a courtesy and not anything the mod authors can enforce. Likewise, you can just download the zip from GitHub and build. There’s no real control the authors can do to make sure their mod is downloaded from nexus. Hosting it anywhere else may be against the mod authors wishes but it won’t stop people from hosting the installer/archive.
The point is that the users likely don't want to only add one addon, but several. It's not permissable to create addon packs as a compilation of a known working combination. Nexus does have something that lets you install multiple add-ons like a package manager but few exists, because it doesn't work well enough if adjustments are necessary
Or maybe those users just think you’re wrong?
AFAIK most people use a package manager to install multiple mods and it works just fine in most cases.
In my opinion being able to install mods individually is much preferable to mod packs since you don’t have to add a bunch of stuff you don’t want and don’t have to wait for the pack compiler to update all the individual mods etc.
There are many concepts, plugins, scripts, load order, meshes, textures, ENB, patches, SKSE .dll files, SKSE loader and the address library, version issues etc.
Maybe you never tried Minecraft modded, it is easy for new people to get started and you still have all the options for installing mods one by one.
1 read each mod description, recent comments and bugs
2 install it exactly as described
3 always test, start the game teleport around
4 repeat
The issue is mods can conflict, and this conflicts cause crashes and most of the time there is no clue who is at fault, debugging crashes is very time consuming, try to Google "Skyrim CTD" you will see how many hours, energy and peace was lost because of this.
This new Collection feature is an attempt to automate some of this steps, it is an improvement but is not the correct solution.
It also does not solve the issue where some old mod has a bug but is illegal for me to publish a fixed version, at most I might be able to create a patch then create a list of instructions on how to get the original mod and patch it.
This could be fixed with "distributions" one big file download one install but keep the tools for people who want the options to customize. But packs are not "legal" and the just recent created collection feature is still buggy. The issue is with the licenses the modders use and the restrictions they put, not the website , I think the website people would want to fix this but they can't.
But that's not a failure. It's not some packaging problem that has persisted because of narcissism. I ENJOYED that time, getting to play with the very concept of the game in addition to playing the game itself.
The Nexus mods community is a godsend to a world that was so disjoint and chaotic, most people thought modding a game was just an urban legend. Thanks to Nexusmods, nontechnical players could mod their games with a single click on a website -- They created a mod management system on top of a game that didn't care to think of it -- and you're upset about it?
Contrary to your narrative, the modding community is filled with love and is built on sharing -- far moreso than the open source community. That you could see it as the opposite really just shows you've missed the history of just how far it's come -- all the while, being little more than a curiosity for a fraction of the gaming community.
I am proposing something similar to Linux distributions, you could start from a minimal install Linux install and install exactly what you want , or you could download some random script that install stuff one by one from a website, or genius idea have distributions like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Stuio, Mint, Ubuntu Crhistian and Satanic editions and if I don't have time I install the distro that matches my needs and has a community.
I tried a collection of mods and it crashed for me, it is impossible to debug stuff when you start with a big collection and a beta software mod manager and a game like Syrim that updates a lot lately.
That's an impossible task to put it lightly, especially if folks do it just because they love the game and see its potential beyond current limitations, but otherwise have real life to live. Exactly kind of user that's so demotivating to modders actually doing the work.
Comparing to Linux is ridiculous - its a single software thats here for 50+years (if I count where it all started), and various commercial companies + hobbyists invested tens of millions of man-days to get it into current state.
You realize that if you are so unhappy with anything communities have done, you can still play vanilla game just like all consoles have it?
The same is true for most other people. In the Free Software community the efforts of an individual that is willing to contribute back to the community would mean that the (current) issue would be forever solved.
I understand that you enjoyed that time, I did too. We're both on "Hacker" News after all. But the utility of that time multiplied by the scale of the community means that less effort went back to community contributions.
It seems like you feel strongly about this. You should make this solution.
Mods are very often hooking the same functions or editing the same files, so you need patches for many combinations of mods. Mods are usually created by single authors who stop playing the game and there's no organization to take over maintenance or coordinate anything.
I would've much preferred if I could just download a single rar file containing every mod already installed patched and configured by the mod pack author in a known working state. Stick it on the nexus and have it automatically increment the download counts of the component mods by one or whatever.
I think nexus bought them in the end which I did not enjoy because I always thought nexus was annoying wrt making an account etc.
Some amazing mods out there though. DarkNuts greater dwemer ruins was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in a video game and should ideally have been incorporated as an extended TES 3 goty, licensing etc aside. Tamriel rebuilt was mind blowing too.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/av4f5f/skyrim_t...
Don't release mods or tools without open licenses for content you don't own. It's a conflict of interest. By SKSE "fearing it could be used for profit" they are harming themselves. Open license, ignore it. You don't have any responsibilities of how it's used. That is in part why open licenses were created. Negation of liability.
That said, yes, the Skyrim together project is a money pit that last I checked is unmaintained yet makes thousands a month. With a moderation team that is none too friendly and doesn't take kindly to legitimate criticisms.
Tilted Online came along just fine with financial support from the community. That financial support was not mandatory.
Unfortunately when these things become marketplaces it seems like incentives shift and they quickly fill up with shovelware skins and texture mods. The weird and creative things get buried.
The link leads to github and gplv3 license? I don’t see anything related to money? Pardon my ignorance…
Thanks for sharing this, going to install and play with the wife tomorrow. Have been having tons of fun with the Elden Ring Seamless Coop mod released just a few weeks ago, serendipitous timing on this mod.
I think it would be a mistake to go in and expect (or demand) a perfectly polished experience. That they even managed to retrofit a multiplayer mode onto a strictly single player game is a completely mind-blowing achievement in my book - esp. given how well it works, all things considered.
This version "Reborn" is a complete rewrite of "Skyrim Together" which was available then shortly abandoned back in 2019/2020.
The team here has done a mind-blowing job, and this release in particular is extremely stable for what turning a singleplayer game into a multiplayer game is!