You have to PAY FOR OBLIVION MODS? OMG, WTF? FUBAR!

[suibhne]

2) If is incrementally more difficult to obtain the CS. True, a very minor point.

It's not a very minor point. Morrowind shipped with the CS and encouraged gamers to try it out; Oblivion gives the CS only one tiny mention in all of the shipping materials, and never points out that it can be downloaded or used by anyone who purchased the game. Maybe the end result won't be all that different - maybe the Oblivion CS would have only been used by people who knew all about it independently, before purchasing the game - but the barrier to entry is inarguably much higher.

 

[Thrawn05]

They may be using the download numbers to figure out how to approach TES V platform wise. If there are not a lot of downloads and mod community is smaller then MW's, they'll drop PC support and just use "premium add-ons" for the xbox version.

 

[oherror]

if they do that they so be it after the crap the pulled on oblivion i'm not buying the next one. I like morrowind a hell alot more when i first played it. Still do even though i'm throughly bored of it.

 

[Thrawn05]

if they do that they so be it after the crap the pulled on oblivion i'm not buying the next one. I like morrowind a hell alot more when i first played it. Still do even though i'm throughly bored of it.

OB is kinda like the movie Alien Resurrection, watching it makes your appreciate Alien 3 more.

 

[suibhne]

3) No NIF exporter. NPC and PC response strings limited to <45 characters. There are probably other ways, but those are the ones I remember hearing about off the top of my head. The lack of exporter is a big deal. I hope they are being honest when they say it is only for legal reasons.

Another nerf: game physics aren't applied to user-created items.

 

[bryce777]

Thanks for the update, o intrepid insider.

I really wish I could smash this guy'[s fingers so he couldn't type any more.

Ill mail you a plane ticket to NYC so you can come and try Mr. Tough guy talking smack from behing a computer monitor.

Have a great day.

Where's my plane ticket? get it for Bryce Martoq. ANy time is fine. bring a baggie for your teef.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

3) No NIF exporter. NPC and PC response strings limited to <45 characters. There are probably other ways, but those are the ones I remember hearing about off the top of my head. The lack of exporter is a big deal. I hope they are being honest when they say it is only for legal reasons.

Another nerf: game physics aren't applied to user-created items.

Understandable, Havok is a pretty expensive license from what i hear.

 

[Oarfish]

Understandable, Havok is a pretty expensive license from what i hear

WTF? It's not like the license is per pretend fork.

 

[bryce777]

Understandable, Havok is a pretty expensive license from what i hear

WTF? It's not like the license is per pretend fork.

That would be pretty funny....

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

if they do that they so be it after the crap the pulled on oblivion i'm not buying the next one. I like morrowind a hell alot more when i first played it. Still do even though i'm throughly bored of it.

OB is kinda like the movie Alien Resurrection, watching it makes your appreciate Alien 3 more.

I wonder if FO3 will have us all re-evaluating FO:Tactics in the same way.

 

[bryce777]

WHERE IS MY PLANE TICKET YOU PONCING NANCYBOY?

 

[Blahblah Talks]

2) If is incrementally more difficult to obtain the CS. True, a very minor point.

It's not a very minor point. Morrowind shipped with the CS and encouraged gamers to try it out; Oblivion gives the CS only one tiny mention in all of the shipping materials, and never points out that it can be downloaded or used by anyone who purchased the game. Maybe the end result won't be all that different - maybe the Oblivion CS would have only been used by people who knew all about it independently, before purchasing the game - but the barrier to entry is inarguably much higher.

Well, perhaps. But anyone making mods that are competitive with Bethesda will already know about it and/or have no trouble finding it.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Understandable, Havok is a pretty expensive license from what i hear

WTF? It's not like the license is per pretend fork.

unlikely the license covers the CS is what i meant.

 

[Drakron]

Dont be a idiot.

Half Life 2 uses Havok and guess what?

Valve released their plugins.

They are not license the entire havock engine, the mesh plugin simply have the havok values so its afected in the game by the havok engine.

I know a lot of people have no clue over how things work but you have to RETARDED OF THE YEAR to feed the crap Bethsoft gives about why there are no Nif plugins for 3D Max when another company released their own plugis for their game that use havok engine.

Bethsoft are simply a bunch of liers, if they dont want to release their plugin they sould just say it ... not hide under pathetic excuses.

 

[AZ]

Beth doesn't want modders to create "NEW CONTENT". Now modders can only mod things in the game.

Only Bethesda can create new models, and they want to use it as a cash cow. Beth just realized that they can make money on mods.

I can’t understand why people don’t see the bigger picture – Bethesda found a new way of making money, which means cutting out a slice from the mod community.

 

[Drakron]

Because they cannot brag about their modding community, make promises to said community and then back out of those promises to make a buck with a lame excuse about havok.

Bethsoft can make some money on those mods, the whole paying deal is because of the Xbox Marketplace.

Sure they will make some money, most for Xbox players that really have no choice but what does Bethsoft lead is destroying future sales.

Games tend to have a shelf life of about 2-4 months, after that sales are minimun and no longer a factor in the case of return investement but with modding those games can have a boost of sales since new content is being provided ... that is why The Sims have such a uncommon shelf life (of course expansions help).

The problem with horse armor plugin (and the others) is that it seens they were already completed by the time the game was completed, there were screenshoots of the horse armor in OXM.

Now if that was collectors edition items for the PC it would be something we could understand to a point, such things are not unusual (Jade Empire had a extra character model and extra a weapon) and more likely to be understanded but when assents are pulled in order to be sold later ... well that creates a rift, expecialy when said assents are put in a "hands off" that nobody can use.

Its locked content ... modding communities do no like locked content.

Bethsoft did not find a new way to make money, BioWare already have premium content for NwN and EA already sold their mini pack for The Sims 2 ... its not new (in fact The Sims community is know for having pay sites) but there is a cost to the community.

If EA decided to mimic the fan paysites I doubt many people would be surpised at that move but when Bethsoft that released new content for free for Morrowind decided to do the same the reaction is going to be diferent, there was a uproar when The Sims 2 come out and new people entered the Sims community that never knew about the pay site model being used ... why you think things are going to be diferent with TES community?

The fact I already seen 5 links to the horse armor illegal download in the TES Oblivion mod forum says a lot ... the facists mods over there can "temporary suspend" then until 1952 all they want but they will simply register again and post the link, it already been made a torrent with the tracker being in Pirate Bay (that is a censored work in TES forums).

Its not a 30$ expansion we talking about here, its a 2$ plugin ... what Bethsoft did will cost then in the long run.

 

[AZ]

You are right.
But, Beth won't release the nif exporter/importer, because they can make money whit it. This way they can make mods, that simple users can't.

Big difference between Oblivion and Sims that every Oblivion user made plugin is the property of Beth, while if you model something for Sims, it is yours, you can sell it - if you feel like.

 

[denizsi]

I made this shameless rant thread at ESF. Just thought some of you might find it funny. It's also quite a tolerant one, where I didn't spell one fuck or dick word. I dumbed myself down.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... try5398563

Of course, I don't think the poll will mean anything in the end, to anyone's side. But I just find a guilty joy in seeing the poll results

 

[Thrawn05]

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=341087&st=60&gopid=5398563&#entry5398563

I'm rather surprised at the poll number myself. I liked this post the best though.

I think they need to decide a pricing point on the patch first! Hmm, will it be $9.99 or $14.99 or $29.99? Well, depends on how much it fixes! Amirite?

BTW: Your Codex quote style is showing.

 

[Drakron]

Big difference between Oblivion and Sims that every Oblivion user made plugin is the property of Beth

That is what their EULA claims but its utter BS, they can make all the claims they want but will not stand up in court if they are against the law.

while if you model something for Sims, it is yours, you can sell it - if you feel like.

Except the EULA of Bodyshop and Homecrafter is clear that use of those tools are for non-profit only.

The Sims 2 pay sites did not come out of the blue, there was a process that lead to it (the bandwith costs) and it was not something done without Maxis/EA taking a stand (allowing a small free charge to cover site costs) and I think the reason they dont do anything is they are a bit scared of the idea (after all sites with 5.95 subcription fees have hosts that are not scared of EA shutdown notices and can afford legal assistance).

In the end they are not diferent, EA disallows comercial use as that is what happens and Bethsoft can claim they own everything if you even look at the page were the CS download is but if they go to court they will find out how copywrite is well protected in some parts of the world, the only reason they get away is because you have idiots thinking the EULA is a binding contract.

 

[galsiah]

The EULA covers materials produced using the CS - i.e., esps, esms and pretty much nothing else. I can claim the copyright to the text for scripts I write, and I can offer the text of scripts for sale.
Any artist can create models and/or textures for use in mods and sell them all day long. They just can't sell an esp / esm which ties those models in to the game.

If a modder tried to sell esp files, Bethesda would probably win in court. If Bethesda claimed ownership of a user made esp to sell it themselves, they might well run into trouble. If they claimed ownership of use written scripts or artwork they definitely would.

I doubt they'd try this - the EULA just goes overboard (as most EULAs do) so that there can be no doubt when they take reasonable action.

 

[dongle]

Pete has specifically stated that if TES was involved in any way they own any and all rights to the entire project. The example given at the time was custom meshes. Say I model a pirate ship in 3Ds Max, the way I did for Morrowind. I convert it to a TES .nif and make it freely available on my website. Now, later on I put the original 3Ds Max file up for download on a 3D resource site and ask for a donation for professional use, or I convert it to Sims format and sell it as a paid-for plug-in. (I did not do this, just an example) Pete says this would violate the TES EULA simply because I -thought- about TES while I was modeling the ship in 3Ds Max.

I agree this would never hold up in court. It is Bethesda's stance tho.

 

[Sabregirl]

By that logic Bethesda would *suddenly* own pieces of all sorts of franchises - say the predator mod or the soul calibur armor - or the infinite other examples of using IP from somewhere else.

How on earth could Bethesda really steal someone's art or IP simply because it was put in their game even though their tools were NOT used to make it. Total garbage.

Also I should mention it's apparently IMPOSSIBLE to define a new body model for a new race in the CS. You can add heads and tails, but that's it. No making races with new or different body plans - unless you equip afterwards. Way to screw up any potential modding ideas I had - even more than before. Would a simple entry box have been so hard? Fewer Body part slots, fewer clothing layers . . . . . why the heck should we bother anyway? Sounds to me like the basic *system * in Morrowind is still better in a lot of respects.

Compare with Pete's "We're hard coding much less stuff this time" statement . . .

-S

 

[Lumpy]

The ESP is Bethesda's property, the rest of the mod isn't.

 

[kohla]

slinky317

Bethesda Executive: So, update me. How’s Oblivion coming?
Oblivion Lead Designer: So far, so good. Unfortunately, though, we’re over budget.
Executive: Over budget? Well, we’re gonna have to see about cutting some corners then.
Designer: I agree. We pretty much got everything in, though. Graphics, most of the quests, housing, horses, the towns, horse armor, guilds, the works. We’re just finishing up now.
Executive: Great! Anything else?
Designer: Yeah, we just brought in our PC Optimization Team. Right now we’re still using the UI of the X-box version, along with some really bad LOD textures we had to throw in there that we actually got from Quake 1. But don’t worry, the team is going to fix all of that.
Executive: Excellent! Fire them.
Designer: What? Why?
Executive: Well, you said we’re overbudget. We can do without them. Trust me, they did this with that second Deus Ex game. And no one even noticed!
Designer: Sir, that game was pretty bad-
Executive: Nonsense! It’ll be fine. Next?
Designer: Uh… the Radiant AI. Yeah, heh, it’s a little bit harder than we thought.
Executive: Oh man. What can the AI do right now?
Designer: Well… they can walk around and stuff. But nothing we really promised. But we’re working on it!
Executive: Forget it. Trust me, the players won’t even be looking at the AI. They’ll be so fascinated with the graphics that they’ll forget they’re even in a game! You have the deer in already, right?
Designer: Yeah, the deer are in right now.
Executive: Good! We’ll just make a huge deal about that and everything will think our AI is great. “Look, we have DEER!” We can also script up some video and make everyone think that our AI is tremendous.
Designer: Well, if you say so. Now, about the voice actors.
Executive: Yes! We did get Patrick Steward and Sean Bean, right?
Designer: Yes sir, we did. Two of our designers had to sell their first born children, and one of our sound artists actually had to sell his soul, but we got them!
Executive: That’s so cool. Imagine, you’re in the game, and you go talk to Patrick Stewart anytime you want-
Designer: Ten minutes.
Executive: Ten minutes? What?
Designer: Yeah, he’s only in the game for about ten minutes. Maybe twenty, if you stretch it enough.
Executive: Oh, man. I guess we can still make a big deal of him being in it though. Well, we still got Bean, right?
Designer: Yeah, him we managed to get for the whole game. That’s why the guy had to sell his soul. Agents are a [censored], you know.
Executive: Right on. Now, I noticed we got a lot of NPCs in the game, so I figure we have about thirty actors, right?
Designer: Kinda. More like five.
Executive: Five actors?
Designer: Yeah. But don’t worry, they can do different accents. It’ll be fine. We think the player would never actually notice it.
Executive: Well, as long as you say so. Now, what about patches?
Designer: Patches?
Executive: Good answer. So, anything else?
Designer: Not really. But we’re still heavily over budget. We have to get a lot more money for this game.
Executive: Really? Wow. Well…. wait, you said horse armor was already in the game?
Designer: Yep, it’s fully functional.
Executive: I think I have an idea….

:shock:

 

[Evilhyde]

Wouldn't the next step be to hamstring modding tools / institute tighter restrictions on independent modders (like say...'no mods that duplicate, or are even similar to, what we are selling'), to the end of 'encouraging' people to buy into their new paytoplay model?

I don't see how it's any difference from the Morrowind expansions. The primary selling point of the Bloodmoon expansion was the addition of werewolves, yet some guy made his own werewolf mod which only required Morrowind (maybe Tribunal for the code) and Bethesda never made a fuss about it.

 

[crufty]

The ESP is Bethesda's property, the rest of the mod isn't.

I don't think thats the way the law works. And they know it.

Microsoft can SAY that any document you make with word is theirs, but that doesn't make it true.

Anyway, it's a moot point. Why Mod ES anyway, when NWN2, which seems to be mod friendly, js just around the corner?

If NWN allowed more than one henchman easily, I would still be playing around with it today.