Bethesda Softworks Forces Website to Pull Modding Tool

[DraQ]

I really hope this decision bites them in their filthy, bloated corporate ass.

Look how Epic profits from not interfering with modding community even whensaid modding largely consists of transfering large amounts of actual content back and forth between games.

 

[Elwro]

I really don't get what the point of the mod was anyway. Can't people who like Morrowind play Morrowind?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Blizzard are letting a similar project, converting Star Craft assets (sounds, music, icons) to WC3, go ahead with Project: Revolution (in spite of the EULA). What's Beth's problem? Worried the Mod may outshine their future efforts? They sure do know how to shoot themselves in the foot - alienating the modding community, that's kept their franchise alive, is an EPIC fail.

Well, they've been doing it from the start, actually - I can say that as an ex-modder of some renown.
a. They refused to provide adequate documentation for Morrowind, and pleas for better documentation/fixing glaring bugs in CS/making it function a bit better remained largely ignored.
b. When it comes to Oblivion - it became even worse, due to 'horse armor' stuff that moddders can churn out in great quantities, for free and in some cases better quality.
Oh well, let them kill themselves if they want to. When modders turn away and they will continue to release games that require as much mods to be enjoyable as there is original content in the game - they will SUFFER.

Wait, you're THAT Balor? Never realised that, hah.
And yep. All that, alongside freely banning high-profile modders like Qarl from their boards based on dodgy reasoning, and proceeding to disallow discussion of their mods to some extent, shows that Bethesda pretty much hates their modding community.
I wish I'd never wasted my time with it.

 

[Naked Ninja]

There are many reasons why this is so; among others, it is important to protect the original licensor's rights when Bethsoft has licensed a resource to use in a game. That license may allow use of the resource in that game alone, and Bethsoft is duty-bound to prevent the resource from being used in any other game, including their own.

You guys are being jacknuts, this is a totally legitimate reason. When you buy a license for something software related, be it art or code, you generally license it for a single product at a time. Which means it can't be transferred to a second product without violating the contract you legally bound yourself to. For example I personally have bought art assets from 3rd parties such as barrels and whatnot, I own a license to use them for 1 and only 1 product. After SoW if I want to use the barrel again in my next game, yes, I need to go pay the license cost again. I am duty bound to protect and enforce the original contract I agreed to when I bought the license, to protect the artist's rights, even in the face of third party actions.

Can you prove that all assets in Morrowind are 100% Bethesda's to do with as they wish? Even big studios use contractors. If no, just give it a rest please.

 

[Brother None]

You guys are being jacknuts, this is a totally legitimate reason.

Aye, third-party licensing is also the reason the Fallout source code was never released, and nobody complains about that.

Can you prove that all assets in Morrowind are 100% Bethesda's to do with as they wish?

What? Bethesda is the one telling these guys they can't do what they're doing, isn't the burden of evidence on them?

 

[bylam]

When you buy a license for something software related, be it art or code, you generally license it for a single product at a time. Which means it can't be transferred to a second product without violating the contract you legally bound yourself to.

While I understand and agree to a certain extent with what you are saying, the only way this could really affect Bethesda in any way is if they released or condoned the modding tool.
The legal issue would be between the mod and the original content creator, and Bethesda have nothing to do with it (apart from that the content is being transferred between their products).
So why is it legitimate that Bethesda run to shut him down?

 

[Naked Ninja]

What? Bethesda is the one telling these guys they can't do what they're doing, isn't the burden of evidence on them?

Huh? You expect them to come down and post the details of licences they have signed on community modding forums so that modders believe them when they say "cut it out, we can't legally let you do this, it breaks contracts we signed.". Perhaps you want a day-pass so you can go to Beth HQ and rifle through their legal departments paperwork?

Don't be silly, this is an entirely credible reason and most reasonable minds would understand and accept it. Unfortunately your average forum dweller is as far from "reasonable" as it is possible to be. Keep believing Bethesda "hates modders" lads, thats obviously why they go to all the effort of releasing powerful modding tools with each game, tools which take a lot of dev time to get fit for public consumption. Because they hate you. Here, have a tinfoil hat.

 

[Brother None]

Huh? You expect them to come down and post the details of licences they have signed on community modding forums so that modders believe them when they say "cut it out, we can't legally let you do this, it breaks contracts we signed.". Perhaps you want a day-pass so you can go to Beth HQ and rifle through their legal departments paperwork?

No, I expect them to clarify "we can't let you do this because of 3rd party licenses." No coming down and posting details, I never said that.

You seem to have missed how they don't provide any reason at all for doing it. So blaming it on 3rd party licenses is just jumping to conclusions, there's no evidence for it as Bethesda isn't officially supplying any reason.

Also note how, according to Grandstaff's statement, it applies to *all* content going from one game to the other. How likely is it that all content has 3rd party licenses involved? Everything. Music, voice-overs, graphics, textures, anything and everything.

This as opposed to the example of Interplay and Fallout, where it's been clarified that the source code can't be spread because it uses the MILES sound system. Easy enough to do.

Unfortunately your average forum dweller is as far from "reasonable" as it is possible to be.

At least they're not contrite for the sake of being contrite. That's one of the most annoying traits in existence. VDweller has it. As do you.

You could possibly recognise that telling someone to stop doing something without clarifying why, thus being both an asshole and risking that it's repeated because you never clarified what the limitations are, is not a nice thing to do. But that'd be agreeing with other people, can't do that.

Keep believing Bethesda "hates modders" lads, thats obviously why they go to all the effort of releasing powerful modding tools with each game, tools which take a lot of dev time to get fit for public consumption.

I'm not a modder and so I don't know how powerful their tools are. Are you a modder? Do you have any reason to disagree with the people posting here who have a long history of modding Oblivion and/or Morrowind and aren't happy with the tools or support Bethesda provides?

And no, "it's better than nothing" isn't an answer.

 

[Naked Ninja]

the only way this could really affect Bethesda in any way is if they released or condoned the modding tool.

You realize they released the modding tool the mod was created on right? The construction kit is their tool which enables the content to be ported across. While it is a bit of a gray area,the modder signed the EULA with Beth not the artist and is using Beths tool to do it's thing. Beth cannot knowingly allow that license to be circumvented, by actively enforcing it they are protecting their contractors. You think that makes them assholes? Not at all. That is a very nice thing to find in employers in the industry, good business practice. It's not like they sued the pants off the modders, they contacted the guys and told them the reasons why they had to stop. There is no malice in that. Vilifying them for this is just being a nutjob.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Keep believing Bethesda "hates modders" lads, thats obviously why they go to all the effort of releasing powerful modding tools with each game, tools which take a lot of dev time to get fit for public consumption. Because they hate you. Here, have a tinfoil hat.

What support have they shown for modders other than the tools? Sure, those are great, and I still take my hat of rank off to them for including them. But other than that, they've offered no support, banned high-profile modders for typically dodgy reasons that they never explain, banned discussion of certain mods because of mild sexual content, rarely if ever offered help with the CS, and never shown any gratitude or recognition to any members of the modding community (up until they stopped even pretending to be professional and started hiring janitors as level designers etc, at least). Compare that even with Bioware, who held mod contests, interviewed and offered job positions to the best and most well-known modders, and offered regular help with projects and problems.

 

[Naked Ninja]

I'm not a modder and so I don't know how powerful their tools are.

I'm a professional programmer and game developer, let me assure you, the ES Construction Kit is one of the best modding tools I've ever seen and is a fantastically designed piece of software. Public use tools are some of the hardest things to make, there's a reason a lot of games don't come with the in-house tools used to develop them, it is because they are hideous, unfriendly and filled with quirks that would frustrate and annoy your average user. It takes a lot of developer effort (read money spent on salaries of programmers) to get them fit for the public, they certainly didn't go to all that effort because they hate modders, the idea is laughable. The Witchers tools are only being released sometime soonish right? It's probably taken CDProject a while to make it fit for the public consumption.

No, I expect them to clarify "we can't let you do this because of 3rd party licenses." No coming down and posting details, I never said that.

What is "clarifying" if not posting further details?

You seem to have missed how they don't provide any reason at all for doing it.

They obviously told someone :

Before locking a topic on the official forums about Morroblivion, moderator Dogsbody has provided further clarification on the matter:

"There are many reasons why this is so; among others, it is important to protect the original licensor's rights when Bethsoft has licensed a resource to use in a game. That license may allow use of the resource in that game alone, and Bethsoft is duty-bound to prevent the resource from being used in any other game, including their own."

Did he divine that from the stars? No? Then someone from Beth must have told him and he passed it on. That is also perfectly reasonable.

Also note how, according to Grandstaff's statement, it applies to *all* content going from one game to the other. How likely is it that all content has 3rd party licenses involved? Everything. Music, voice-overs, graphics, textures, anything and everything.

Completely and totally unlikely. And how easy is it, do you think, to draft legal documents covering portions and fractions of assets in a program? It would be a major headache for the developers to make some sort of "only applies to some content" license for their games. If you have a portion of your content in need of protection, you generally blanket protect.

This as opposed to the example of Interplay and Fallout, where it's been clarified that the source code can't be spread because it uses the MILES sound system. Easy enough to do.

So why didn't they release the rest of the code except the sound calls? Sound calls would be a small fraction of the code base. The Great Blanket, thats why!

 

[mjorkerina]

You realize they released the modding tool the mod was created on right?

Colt should pay for every crime committed with a Colt M1911. They released the tool that enables people to kill each other, after all.

 

[Mayday]

WAIT QARL WAS BANNED?!

hilarious. We should invite him over for a cup of the Hive Juice.

 

[JarlFrank]

WAIT QARL WAS BANNED?!

hilarious. We should invite him over for a cup of the Hive Juice.

Heck, that guy made some good mods actually. Why did they ban him?

Let's invite him here, maybe he'll make a Multiheaded Dick mod for us if we asked him politely.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Colt should pay for every crime committed with a Colt M1911. They released the tool that enables people to kill each other, after all.

I see you are well versed in the difference between manufacturing machine components and licensing pieces of artwork or software libraries. Bravo good sir.

 

[Section8]

WAIT QARL WAS BANNED?!

hilarious. We should invite him over for a cup of the Hive Juice.

Heck, that guy made some good mods actually. Why did they ban him?

Let's invite him here, maybe he'll make a Multiheaded Dick mod for us if we asked him politely.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=4778

 

[DraQ]

maybe we should send some agents to gather all 20 non-retarded TESF-ers and bring them here?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

I think they've already made their way here.

 

[Jasede]

I haven't noticed any yet here.

 

[Mayday]

Ah, so Qarl was banned a long time ago for a short period of time. I thought he was, like, permabanned or something.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Er, he was permabanned, yes. Unless they revoked it, but he was gone for a year or two at least.

 

[Brother None]

I wish they would revoke my ban 'coz I miss the place sooo much

Ahahaha had you going there didn't I? Epic lulz.

 

[Mayday]

Aw man. I'd love to hear the reasons for this.

 

[WalterKinde]

I only became aware of the Morroblivion like a week ago saw a youtube video of it in action from a link in a thread here.
It didn't blow me away or anything or revitalize my interest to go hiking in Morrowind using the Oblivion Engine, but still a shame they jumped down the throat of these people for the software that from what i understand imports meshes and textures to Oblivionize them so you can have a "pretty" morrowind ,pretty by today's eye candy standards.
Despite all the eye candy goodness i am not sure if you could import the good parts of Morrowind into Oblivion like levitation or non loading entry to cities.

 

[Mayday]

Yeah, I was the one who posted that link. I was actually planning to launch it (I have the main file downloaded) but I think it requires some additional stuff.
And you CAN levitate in Oblivion using console so it's probably possible to do a levitation spell.
Not to mention non-loading cities- that's just a design element in Ob. to save some RAM, Morroblivion had normal exterior city cells as in the original.