Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster trilogy

[Tacgnol]

Ah, yes, a modder who opposes mods. Perfect catch right there.

That's the typical modder for you, a perfect storm of ego and unwarranted self importance.

 

[Nephilim]

So the creator wants to retain exclusive bragging rights basically saying "I made it first and how dare you replicate my mod and make it better. Fuck Nexus for not giving me power over others."

I you read her post, you'd know she wants the right to be the one to convert her mods or grant permission to others to do so. She's angry because Skyrim modders have that right, but not ME modders, for technical reasons.

It's not about bragging rights, it's about owning your work and the effort you put in, and being able to continue that work if you desire to do so without anyone taking it away from you.

Seems reasonable to me.

Modding in general is such a grey area and there is so much hypocrisy in the community.

I get that part of wanting the same rights but you can't compare porting Skyrim mods to SE and completely remaking Mass Effect mods to LE. The latter requires doing everything from scratch.
Mass Effect modding community is small enough that they know each other. I've never seen blatant plagiarism or drama related to it. She has not been cooperative before with other creators and now she is acting petty because of paranoia.

I guess now she has successfully protected her work by nuking it but I don't wanna hear a bitchfest from her in the future if she sees an alternative mod to hers.

 

[Tyranicon]

This is quality lol right here.

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Modders should do forced labor alongside vegans and cyclists, bunch of whiny little bitches.

 

[Nano]

Giftfish is the one who refuses to make her mods compatible with the Same-Gender Romances mod series, so I don't care about this.

 

[donkeymong]

No, it's the other way around. AFAIK the remaster has all the DLC included, it's just that for the original versions you have to download them manually.

The remaster has all the DLC, except for Pinnacle Station because they lost the source code. Pinnacle Station is just a shitty arena where you fight hordes of enemies, so I'm personally glad that it's not included as if it were I'd be compelled to replay it.

Well, a reliable way to get Krogan Battlemaster armor for Wrex.

 

[J1M]

Did the same and can only agree that ME has extremely poor gameplay. Jesus Christ, was it ever a chore to get through!

Very nice art, music and to a lesser extent writing though.

I'm realizing this right now. All those Mako levels have not aged well at all, and the combat is utter shit. It was never good, but it's really not good 14 years later. And there are quite a few bugs. I'm constantly getting stuck on terrain and in doors, quests randomly don't work (I had to relpay sections of Feros 4 fucking times, including the boss fight, because shit wasn't triggering properly. I never, ever, want to play Feros again as long as I live).

The game works despite this, and is still compelling despite its flaws, but I really want to be done with it and move on to ME2 and ME3. I'm odd in that I've always thought ME1 was the weakest in the series, in most respects, and replaying it hasn't changed my mind.

This take that somehow gameplay in commercial releases is better now than 14 years ago is confusing. First, gameplay is good or not regardless of when it was released. Second, it is easily arguable that 1999-2001 was the peak of the games industry, or at least several genres. There has absolutely NOT been a linear advance in gameplay quality as the years have marched on.

 

[J1M]

So the creator wants to retain exclusive bragging rights basically saying "I made it first and how dare you replicate my mod and make it better. Fuck Nexus for not giving me power over others."

I you read her post, you'd know she wants the right to be the one to convert her mods or grant permission to others to do so. She's angry because Skyrim modders have that right, but not ME modders, for technical reasons.

It's not about bragging rights, it's about owning your work and the effort you put in, and being able to continue that work if you desire to do so without anyone taking it away from you.

Seems reasonable to me.

Modding in general is such a grey area and there is so much hypocrisy in the community.

I get that part of wanting the same rights but you can't compare porting Skyrim mods to SE and completely remaking Mass Effect mods to LE. The latter requires doing everything from scratch.
Mass Effect modding community is small enough that they know each other. I've never seen blatant plagiarism or drama related to it. She has not been cooperative before with other creators and now she is acting petty because of paranoia.

I guess now she has successfully protected her work by nuking it but I don't wanna hear a bitchfest from her in the future if she sees an alternative mod to hers.

It is the same game engine. Where did you get the silly idea you need to completely remake an unreal engine mod for a rerelease that mostly changed textures and lighting?

 

[Ismaul]

So the creator wants to retain exclusive bragging rights basically saying "I made it first and how dare you replicate my mod and make it better. Fuck Nexus for not giving me power over others."

I you read her post, you'd know she wants the right to be the one to convert her mods or grant permission to others to do so. She's angry because Skyrim modders have that right, but not ME modders, for technical reasons.

It's not about bragging rights, it's about owning your work and the effort you put in, and being able to continue that work if you desire to do so without anyone taking it away from you.

Seems reasonable to me.

Modding in general is such a grey area and there is so much hypocrisy in the community.

I get that part of wanting the same rights but you can't compare porting Skyrim mods to SE and completely remaking Mass Effect mods to LE. The latter requires doing everything from scratch.
Mass Effect modding community is small enough that they know each other. I've never seen blatant plagiarism or drama related to it. She has not been cooperative before with other creators and now she is acting petty because of paranoia.

I guess now she has successfully protected her work by nuking it but I don't wanna hear a bitchfest from her in the future if she sees an alternative mod to hers.

It is the same game engine. Where did you get the silly idea you need to completely remake an unreal engine mod for a rerelease that mostly changed textures and lighting?

Well, that's the reason Nexus mods is using to deny the original authors the exclusive right to port their own mod to LE or to grant permission to someone else to do so, so there must be something to it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the modding community is so chock full of insufferable retards

d4rkL0rd_69 used my shoe retexture mod in his compilation and didnt give me credit

Nexusmods has a private subforum only viewable by mod developers with sufficient downloads on their mods, that about summarizes most of the content there.

 

[Morgoth]

So the creator wants to retain exclusive bragging rights basically saying "I made it first and how dare you replicate my mod and make it better. Fuck Nexus for not giving me power over others."

I you read her post, you'd know she wants the right to be the one to convert her mods or grant permission to others to do so. She's angry because Skyrim modders have that right, but not ME modders, for technical reasons.

It's not about bragging rights, it's about owning your work and the effort you put in, and being able to continue that work if you desire to do so without anyone taking it away from you.

Seems reasonable to me.

Modding in general is such a grey area and there is so much hypocrisy in the community.

I get that part of wanting the same rights but you can't compare porting Skyrim mods to SE and completely remaking Mass Effect mods to LE. The latter requires doing everything from scratch.
Mass Effect modding community is small enough that they know each other. I've never seen blatant plagiarism or drama related to it. She has not been cooperative before with other creators and now she is acting petty because of paranoia.

I guess now she has successfully protected her work by nuking it but I don't wanna hear a bitchfest from her in the future if she sees an alternative mod to hers.

It is the same game engine. Where did you get the silly idea you need to completely remake an unreal engine mod for a rerelease that mostly changed textures and lighting?

UE3 underwent many important changes from its first shoddy 2006 release to the more modern UE3.5 with DX11/x64 support. You can now also play ME above 60 fps without screwing up physics or scripts.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I recently approached Nexusmods admins with concerns related to mod “ports” from Original Trilogy to Legendary Edition. Unfortunately, that conversation revealed Nexus’ stance on ports for Mass Effect will differ dramatically than those for Skyrim to Skyrim SE.

A mod for original Skyrim cannot be ported to Skyrim SE without permission. This is because a ported ESP is created by re-saving the original ESP with the SE Creation Kit. In contrast, and as discussed two recent blog posts, Mass Effect modders cannot use a similar method to port mods for LE. Our mods are built upon BioWare’s own files. Therefore, any mod author who wants to “port” their mod, must remake their mod using LE files. There is no alternative.


Nexus, however, considers the concept of “remaking” a mod “idea-based” and not something that can be restricted to the original mod creator. As a result, whether a “port” (remake) of a mod constitutes infringement (in Nexus’ eyes) would always need to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

This perspective creates a catch-22:

Mass Effect modders can’t port our mods; we can only re-make our mods. Yet, Nexus will not recognize our exclusive right to re-make our mods, deeming the concept “idea-based.”

what did I just read

 

[Average Manatee]

Ah, yes, a modder who opposes mods. Perfect catch right there.

When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So the creator wants to retain exclusive bragging rights basically saying "I made it first and how dare you replicate my mod and make it better. Fuck Nexus for not giving me power over others."

I you read her post, you'd know she wants the right to be the one to convert her mods or grant permission to others to do so. She's angry because Skyrim modders have that right, but not ME modders, for technical reasons.

It's not about bragging rights, it's about owning your work and the effort you put in, and being able to continue that work if you desire to do so without anyone taking it away from you.

Seems reasonable to me.

It's not reasonable at all, you are essentially arguing that compatibility software shouldn't be allowed.
If you read the blog posts, you'd know that there is no easy way to port mods to LE. The mod has to be completely recreated piece by piece:

“Porting” from Mass Effect 3 to Mass Effect 3 LE
The concept of “porting” a mod for the upcoming remaster is a misnomer. Before LE can be modded ME3Explorer will first need to be updated for compatibility. Assuming this is successful, and assuming LE will still allow for loading of DLC mods, modders will then need to approach the situation in a manner similar to compatibility patches. They will need to locate and replicate every single file edit. But in this case, it will be for compatibility with another version of the game, rather than another mod. And it will involve every single file in their mod.

In other words, the Mass Effect mod author will need to do the following:

• Load File X from OE into any ME3Explorer tool instance
• Load the corresponding file from LE into a separate ME3Explorer tool instance (the file name may be the same or different, but we’ll call this X-LE for simplicity)
• Locate the edited objects in File X-OE
• Locate the corresponding objects in File X-LE (these objects will not be in the same spot and may contain some structural differences, depending on the content of the remaster)
• Edit objects in File X-LE so that they match File X-OE in structure and/or functionality
• Repeat the above for every single tool the file needs to be modded with: Package Editor, Dialogue Editor, Sequence Editor, etc.
• Repeat the above for every single file in the mod

It’s important to realize that we will not be able to clone (copy) objects across game files, since file/object structure itself will differ between OE and LE.

If someone other than the mod author were to do this, it would essentially just be reverse engineering and reimplementation for compatibility purposes.

The idea that mod authors own their content is foolish to begin with. You guys should try reading those EULAs sometime
https://media.contentapi.ea.com/content/dam/eacom/en-us/eula/eula-mass-effect-3-en-10-5-11-final.pdf

F. Your Contributions. In exchange for use of the Software, and to the extent that your contributions through use of the Software give rise to any copyright interest, you hereby grant EA an exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully transferable and sub-licensable worldwide right and license to use your contributions in any way and for any purpose in connection with the Software and related goods and services including the rights to reproduce, copy, adapt, modify, perform, display, publish, broadcast, transmit, or otherwise communicate to the public by any means whether now known or unknown and distribute your contributions without any further notice or compensation to you of any kind for the whole duration of protection granted to intellectual property rights by applicable laws and international conventions. You hereby waive any moral rights of paternity, publication, reputation, or attribution with respect to EA’s and other players’ use and enjoyment of such assets in connection with the Software and related goods and services under applicable law. The license grant to EA, and the above waiver of any applicable moral rights, survives any termination of this License.

She doesn't even own her mod, EA does.

 

[Average Manatee]

EULAs are not necessarily legally binding, and in the case of mods such a clause would certainly not hold up in court.

You are right about the reverse engineering for compatibility part though. I think technically you aren't supposed to really distribute the final product, instead distribute just a patch and let someone apply that to the original mod, but a court would probably rule in your favor since there was no harm to the modder. It's not like you are depriving a modder of sales by redistributing an altered version.

 

[Tacgnol]

EULA's are not necessarily legally binding, and in the case of mods such a clause would certainly not hold up in court.

The EULA part is true, there are rules about reasonable agreements, but I don't think a modder has ever taken a dev to court for completely ripping off their mod. It would be interesting to see how that would go.

Blizzard sort of tried that with Valve, but that was a bit different as the DOTA dev was working for Valve.

If a modder tried to sue another modder for porting their mod over to another version of the game though, it would be laughed out of court.

 

[Average Manatee]

EULA's are not necessarily legally binding, and in the case of mods such a clause would certainly not hold up in court.

The EULA part is true, there are rules about reasonable agreements, but I don't think a modder has ever taken a dev to court for completely ripping off their mod. It would be interesting to see how that would go.

Blizzard sort of tried that with Valve, but that was a bit different as the DOTA dev was working for Valve.

If a modder tried to sue another modder for porting their mod over to another version of the game though, it would be laughed out of court.

Well, ripping off a mod concept isn't illegal at all. It would only be illegal if devs outright copied the actual code/assets/etc of a mod for their own use. If they simply recreate something in the spirit of a mod there's no problem.

 

[Tacgnol]

EULA's are not necessarily legally binding, and in the case of mods such a clause would certainly not hold up in court.

The EULA part is true, there are rules about reasonable agreements, but I don't think a modder has ever taken a dev to court for completely ripping off their mod. It would be interesting to see how that would go.

Blizzard sort of tried that with Valve, but that was a bit different as the DOTA dev was working for Valve.

If a modder tried to sue another modder for porting their mod over to another version of the game though, it would be laughed out of court.

Well, ripping off a mod concept isn't illegal at all. It would only be illegal if devs outright copied the actual code/assets/etc of a mod for their own use. If they simply recreate something in the spirit of a mod there's no problem.

It puts some perspective on modders bitching about sites not bowing to their every whim.

They're lucky that the sites deem to enforce any rules at all.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If it actually went to court it wouldn't matter if the EULA said you had to be their personal sex slave, there's no way a single person is winning a court battle against EA.

 

[Tacgnol]

If it actually went to court it wouldn't matter if the EULA said you had to be their personal sex slave, there's no way a single person is winning a court battle against EA.

True, they'd just bleed you to financial ruin within a week.

 

[Average Manatee]

If it actually went to court it wouldn't matter if the EULA said you had to be their personal sex slave, there's no way a single person is winning a court battle against EA.

True, they'd just bleed you to financial ruin within a week.

That's not actually true. The court system isn't that fucked up. You'd easily be able to get a pro bono lawyer and a shit ton of support everywhere (and I mean real monetary and legal support by companies that would be destroyed by such a ruling), and when the law is this clearly in your favor no reasonable judge is going to take their bullshit seriously. If precedent was set that an EULA could do this then companies like Adobe would be saying that everything you make with Photoshop is owned by them. Hell, an IRL paint can would say that by opening the paint can you agree that everything you paint is owned by the painting company. This just wouldn't fly at all. Copyright is well defined as applying to any work of art and has mountains of precedent to back that up.

 

[RRRrrr]

Lol what is with the US "they will bankrupt you with a court battle?" How does that even work? In my country, not only do you get all your fees paid by the losing side, you also don't spend that much on lawyers since the market is saturated by them.

 

[J1M]

So the creator wants to retain exclusive bragging rights basically saying "I made it first and how dare you replicate my mod and make it better. Fuck Nexus for not giving me power over others."

I you read her post, you'd know she wants the right to be the one to convert her mods or grant permission to others to do so. She's angry because Skyrim modders have that right, but not ME modders, for technical reasons.

It's not about bragging rights, it's about owning your work and the effort you put in, and being able to continue that work if you desire to do so without anyone taking it away from you.

Seems reasonable to me.

It's not reasonable at all, you are essentially arguing that compatibility software shouldn't be allowed.
If you read the blog posts, you'd know that there is no easy way to port mods to LE. The mod has to be completely recreated piece by piece:

“Porting” from Mass Effect 3 to Mass Effect 3 LE
The concept of “porting” a mod for the upcoming remaster is a misnomer. Before LE can be modded ME3Explorer will first need to be updated for compatibility. Assuming this is successful, and assuming LE will still allow for loading of DLC mods, modders will then need to approach the situation in a manner similar to compatibility patches. They will need to locate and replicate every single file edit. But in this case, it will be for compatibility with another version of the game, rather than another mod. And it will involve every single file in their mod.

In other words, the Mass Effect mod author will need to do the following:

• Load File X from OE into any ME3Explorer tool instance
• Load the corresponding file from LE into a separate ME3Explorer tool instance (the file name may be the same or different, but we’ll call this X-LE for simplicity)
• Locate the edited objects in File X-OE
• Locate the corresponding objects in File X-LE (these objects will not be in the same spot and may contain some structural differences, depending on the content of the remaster)
• Edit objects in File X-LE so that they match File X-OE in structure and/or functionality
• Repeat the above for every single tool the file needs to be modded with: Package Editor, Dialogue Editor, Sequence Editor, etc.
• Repeat the above for every single file in the mod

It’s important to realize that we will not be able to clone (copy) objects across game files, since file/object structure itself will differ between OE and LE.

If someone other than the mod author were to do this, it would essentially just be reverse engineering and reimplementation for compatibility purposes.

The idea that mod authors own their content is foolish to begin with. You guys should try reading those EULAs sometime
https://media.contentapi.ea.com/content/dam/eacom/en-us/eula/eula-mass-effect-3-en-10-5-11-final.pdf

F. Your Contributions. In exchange for use of the Software, and to the extent that your contributions through use of the Software give rise to any copyright interest, you hereby grant EA an exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully transferable and sub-licensable worldwide right and license to use your contributions in any way and for any purpose in connection with the Software and related goods and services including the rights to reproduce, copy, adapt, modify, perform, display, publish, broadcast, transmit, or otherwise communicate to the public by any means whether now known or unknown and distribute your contributions without any further notice or compensation to you of any kind for the whole duration of protection granted to intellectual property rights by applicable laws and international conventions. You hereby waive any moral rights of paternity, publication, reputation, or attribution with respect to EA’s and other players’ use and enjoyment of such assets in connection with the Software and related goods and services under applicable law. The license grant to EA, and the above waiver of any applicable moral rights, survives any termination of this License.

She doesn't even own her mod, EA does.

TLDR: it's 90+% just making the same edits again.

Also known as porting.

It is disengenuous to pretend that ME3Explorer was an easy tool to make, but creating a tool to assist in porting is impossible.

 

[Butter]

Lol what is with the US "they will bankrupt you with a court battle?" How does that even work? In my country, not only do you get all your fees paid by the losing side, you also don't spend that much on lawyers since the market is saturated by them.

Sounds like you don't live in a corrupt third world country.

 

[hell bovine]

Copyright is well defined as applying to any work of art and has mountains of precedent to back that up.

Mods are content created by modifying copyrighted content, though. It's difficult to predict whether a modder wouldn't lose in court; not because they've breached the eula, but because their content is similar enough to the original. Happens with art too.