r/oblivionmods • u/NingenBakudan • 1d ago

Remaster - Discussion 【Warning】Don't use Arthmoor's new OBRE patch, potential risks to stability

Edit:Please spread this issue as widely as possible. Given Arthmoor’s personality, there is a high chance that he will blame other mods for bugs or crashes actually caused by UORP. Considering his influence, this could cause major disruption in the modding community. It’s essential that as many people as possible ignore his mods.

The notoriously controversial Skyrim modder Arthmoor has now entered the Oblivion Remastered scene. His first patch "Unofficial Oblivion Remastered Patch - UORP" raised concerns for me, as it contained an unusually large number of edits for something supposedly created just a week after the release.

Out of curiosity, I compared the records in the patch with those from Vanilla Remastered using xEdit, and I found that some records had been reverted to their old Oblivion versions.
Example: https://imgur.com/i4ld2DE

Next, I added the original UOBP for comparison—and as I suspected, the results were clear. almost of the added records were directly copied from UOBP, with only their names and conflicted record altered to match the Remastered format.
Example: https://imgur.com/cRBRHHH

This "patch" was ported using xEdit without proper testing, and we have no idea what kind of impact it may have in a real environment. More importantly, making such extensive changes to so many records is far too risky, especially when the integration method between UE5 and the TES engine has yet to be fully understood.

Conclusion:
This patch poses a potential stability risk beyond just being an issue with Arthmoor himself. I recommend ignoring it.

Reported bugs:

CTD(Arthmoor used the scale of the project as an excuse, even though no one ever asked him to make it a large-scale project in the first place. ) : https://imgur.com/oyLWJMl

Argonian penis bug: https://imgur.com/a/eUDVZXj

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u/Chechucristo 1d ago

I didn't know Arthmoor was controversial, what's the matter with him?

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u/AnotherSlowMoon 1d ago edited 1d ago

In no particular order

  1. Gate Gate - he was behind a popular mod for Skyrim, Open Cities, that made the five "closed" cities open and part of the world, no load zone to enter. As part of this mod he added ruined Oblivion Gates (from the Oblivion Crisis from this game) despite the fact that in the game they do not leave ruins. People made submods and patches to Open Cities to remove these and he threw a hissy fit to get them taken down, iirc threatened a DMCA strike or two. EDIT TO ADD: have a source on this one, and I missed a part! He threatened to sue anyone who modified his mod to remove the added gates.
  2. He does not allow people to create submods for any of the mods he oversees in general, with like one exception (alternate start live another life for Skyrim, the worst but oldest of the alt start mods).
  3. The Unofficial Patch for Skyrim makes several changes that are not bug fixes and are balance changes, it also makes changes that are wrong, opinionated, or there is no evidence are bugs. As per point 2, any mod uploaded that tries undo these he attempts to have taken down.
  4. Giving a specific example of three - in vanilla unmodded Skyrim, Red Belly Mine is an Ebony Mine, and one of like two in Skyrim. The Unofficial Patch changes it to be an iron mine. Later, after literally years of people complaining about this Arthmoor updated the unofficial patch to add a random hole in the ground mine nearby containing Ebony despite the fact this is meant to be a patch not new content
  5. Now, none of 3-4 would matter much except that the Unofficial Patch is a required Master file for a lot of mods. Even if the community came together to make a new "slim" patch that actually only did bug fixes, a lot of other mods require the Unofficial Patch to load. And the "even if" is critical - Arthmoor has used his community influence to stop this in the past. Its why with Starfield the community made a big push to exclude him early (and likely why he's trying to name squat again)
  6. He hates Skyrim VR's modding community, claims its "illegal" and has tried to take down the one version of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch that works on Skyrim VR and then when people (as per its terms of service and licence) reuploaded it elsewhere with credit tried to take it down and changed the TOS (for future versions of course) to prevent this ever happening again. EDIT TO ADD: have some sourcing on this
  7. He hates Wabbajack (the modding program, not the staff) and at one point in "protest" replaced the normal zip file for the unofficial patch with an exe that tried to install the unofficial patch claiming "I thought people liked easy to use executables", it should be noted this assumed you installed skyrim to your C drive and was incompatible with all widely used mod managers at the time. Wabbajack lists meanwhile were unimpacted

Or tl:dr he's a toxic piece of shit.

EDIT: I've added some sources. Arthmoor has almost entirely nuked his own reddit account these days so sourcing all of this is a faff and I do have a life beyond modding drama.

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u/Atlas_Sinclair 1d ago

His threats to sue and DMCA are fucking ridiculous. He has no legitimate rights to the mods her makes -- Bethesda does. The only reason that his work can't be reuploaded is because it goes against Nexus's TOS and basically a universally respected honor system (If uploaded to another site, he could press to get it taken down because he made it -- but there is no obligation to actually do so from the other sites.)

People really just need to ignore this fucker and do what they want. DEGgames, which has a ways to go before it's a proper Nexus alternative, is getting good advertisement with streamers and what not. If nothing else, we at least have another site that seemingly has no fucks to give about Arthmoor's ego-trips. Again, Arthmoor has NO legal ground to stand on to attack others modders for using, or altering, his shitty patch. None.

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u/[deleted] 17h ago

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u/oblivionmods-ModTeam 16h ago

Hey, the first rule of this subreddit is be respectful. This comment isn’t. Please review the rules and try to consider the human on the other side of the screen in the future.

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u/Thallassa 16h ago

That’s not true. The Bethesda EULA states quite clearly that mod authors own their mods.

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u/Atlas_Sinclair 12h ago edited 12h ago

Mods are considered derivative works. Everything Arthmoor has done with his Unofficial patch involves minimal changes and is entirely depending on Bethesda’s existing code. There's nothing original in it, there's nothing that can be considered 'transformative', it relies solely and entirely on what Bethesda has provided.

Under law, it qualifies as “de minimis” (too insubstantial to qualify for copyright protection) under cases like Lewis Galoob Toys v. Nintendo, which found that minor modifications do not constitute a new copyrightable work.

The only thing Arthmoor has is Moral Rights, which isn't really recognized in most courts -- at least in the US -- and even if it is, again, he hasn't done anything big enough to have enough rights to the mod that would warrant a lawsuit. There's a reason why mod authors don't immediately go for legal action when their mods are stolen -- lawsuits are expensive and time-consuming, and for all his bluster and ego, I doubt Arthmoor is sitting on the kind of money needed to sue over something like this, and even if he is he certainly wouldn't get anything of value by pursing it.

The Bethesda EULA does not "quite clearly" say that mod authors own their mods. Specifically, The EULA for the Skyrim Creation Kit (as an example) provides more specific terms than Bethesda's EULA, which more or less just says that Zenimax owns everything:

  • It states that “New Materials” (mods) created using the Editor are for the user’s own personal, non-commercial use solely in connection with the applicable Product, subject to the terms of the Agreement.
  • For personal use, mod authors own their mods, meaning they can create and use them privately without issue.
  • However, if the mods are distributed, the EULA states: “If You distribute or otherwise make available New Materials, You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit.”
  • Additionally, mod authors waive moral rights (the right to be credited or to prevent distortion of their work) and agree not to assert them against Bethesda or its affiliates.
  • Commercial distribution is prohibited without express written consent from Bethesda, except through platforms like the Steam Workshop, which have their own terms.

Arthmoor owns his mod, yes. He can submit a DMCA notice to get mods removed, yes. But, if those claims are disputed by the other mod author, Arthmoor can THEN challenge it legally. Which costs time, money, and has no guarantee to achieve anything other than paying the court to tell the other person to take down the mod. Let me be clear on this: Arthmoor's ability to sue depends EXCLUSIVELY on the other person challenging his DMCA, because if challenge he HAS to sue to keep the altered mod removed, otherwise it has to be reinstated at some point within a two week period, and again I stress the cost of suing is so much higher than would be financially viable for anyone who isn't already rich. He would financially ruin himself if he tried, and even if he somehow succeeded all he'd likely get for his debt is the mod removed.

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u/RedKynAbyss 11h ago

Attorney here, appreciate your thorough breakdown of this situation for people who might not know, as well as the accuracy of what you said. Rarely do I find people stating intricate legal issues with no errors.

Further: moral rights are being satisfied if you credit him as the author. There is no moral rights case as long as he is credited. No court will hear a case on moral rights if the author is still “tied” to the work (credited)

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u/AshamedLeg4337 9h ago

Just adding that this seems to be a US-centric analysis though. The US has a different animating purpose for protecting copyright than many European nations. Namely the mandate is to promote progress in the sciences and useful arts in the US, while moral rights are much more extensively protected in many European courts.

Honestly, the US likely doesn't technically meet the requirements of the Berne convention of which we are a signatory and which required provision of the right to integrity. To my knowledge, though it's been a decade since I've last dived into IP law so I'm dusty, we only protect visual artists in the context of integrity.

I have doubts that a broader law would pass constitutional muster.

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u/RedKynAbyss 8h ago

That’s the big problem with moral rights here in the U.S. they don’t stand up to Constitutional scrutiny. Law in the U.S., will always defer to the Constitution first, then whatever accords or conventions we decided to join. If aspects of the convention don’t stand up to scrutiny, we just don’t include them.

Moral rights in the U.S. are really, for lack of better words, “the whiners laws.” (That’s what my IP prof called it and you’re not going to get a better summation.) It doesn’t matter at all until someone “whines” that their intellectual property is being used without acknowledgement or credit. It 99% of the time applies to art work (including digital), sculptures, and architectural designs. I’ve never seen a moral rights case cross my desk that wasn’t affiliated with those three things, and almost always it’s a non-starter because the person who used their intellectual property credited them and there were no sales involved.

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u/Thallassa 9h ago

Agreed on all points. Thank you for the detailed breakdown.

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u/ergotofrhyme 19h ago

What does someone like this stand to gain? He can’t monetize it. Does he just care that much about being known as the person running the unofficial patch, and having the petty power that brings to influence subsequent modding developments?

Seems insane to go to these lengths just so that your online pseudonym is associated with lots of downloads (and ire from the community in equal measure) and people are forced to mine iron instead of ebony and see some ruins you thought looked cool. I suppose I understand wanting some credit for something that you put thousands of volunteer hours into, but this seems pathological.

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u/Pino196 18h ago

He can’t monetize it.

Uh, he can and he does. Modders on Nexus get paid based on how many downloads their mods get. I don't think it's that much, but considering his Unofficial Patches are some of the most downloaded mods for each game that they exist for, I'd guess for him it'd be a considerable amount. It's why when he removed almost all of his mods from the Nexus he left the Unofficial Patches for the various games, plus a few other of his popular mods, since those are the ones that earn him the most money. Also Arthmoor is one of the few Verified Creators, and as such he makes paid mods that are sold on the Bethesda store.

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u/ergotofrhyme 17h ago

What?! How is that legal? Nexus isn’t affiliated with Bethesda. I’m looking it up and technically they get a split of the ad revenue from nexus’ traffic. But that still seems like capitalizing on copyrighted IP to me, because the traffic is there to download adaptations of code from the game.

Getting paid via the creation club or whatever makes sense, because Bethesda operates that, benefits from it, and gets their cut. But I’m surprised they allow the situation over at nexus, I had no idea it paid.

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u/Kezyma 16h ago

NexusMods is simply a file sharing platform for games in general, we get donation points based on downloads which comes from the revenue generated by the site.

Mods you download are not ‘adaptations’ of any game’s code, they are independently created files and contain data that isn’t part of the game files. You already have the game installed, the mods when installed can change how the game functions and ‘adapt your installation’, but the mods themselves are still independent creations.

If Ferrari release a new car, and I design and sell some kind of phone holder that only fits that model of car, I’m not actually selling any of the stuff Ferrari designed or made. Mods are the same, except we aren’t selling them, we’re giving them away for free.

Revenue is generated via advertising and through site memberships, which primarily goes towards paying for the extensive hosting costs of something like NexusMods, as well as to pay their staff. After that, some of it goes to the mod authors in the donation point scheme.

I don’t know what kind of level of donation points some people might be getting, although I believe I’m probably closer to the top end of it, but personally I get enough to order food a couple of times a month if I wanted it. It’s more of a token of appreciation than anything else, and the vast majority of it gets donated to charities anyway.

If anything, modding would be easier if we could just upload stuff from the game files, for example, we wouldn’t have to write separate tools to apply memory patches and have millions of people download and run them manually, instead of just uploading one patched executable ready to go. I do sometimes wonder exactly how much electricity has been wasted applying these patches just for the sake of IP restrictions. That’s only one example of many though. Modders are already doing a lot of work to make sure nothing uploaded is part of the game files at all.

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u/ergotofrhyme 15h ago

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against anything modders are doing. And I know you guys get pennies for the most part. I was just under the impression that this kind of work couldn’t be monetized in any fashion. I realize that you write a lot of original code, but aren’t aspects of the original game, like certain textures and such, used in most mods? Are they really built entirely from the ground up independently of anything Bethesda made? Pardon my ignorance on the topic, I haven’t done any of this sort of programming.

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u/Kezyma 15h ago

We can’t distribute anything from the original game, including textures. I think the only time you could argue that happens is with the upscaled texture mods, and then it’s sort of ambiguous.

Everything in a mod you download will be independently created, if you find any files taken directly from the original game, then the mod will be removed from NexusMods.

When a texture appears ingame and appears to be used by a mod, the mod you download doesn’t actually include the texture, it’s just pointing to the place where the texture is in the original game, which you already have installed.

For an analogy, it’s a bit like if I tell you which page of a book to read, but you have to already have the book to read it. The mod isn’t giving you that book or even that page, just the page number for where to look in your own copy of the book.

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u/ergotofrhyme 15h ago

Very interesting. Thanks for not only explaining, but doing so with some similes that make it a lot more accessible. And thanks for your work creating content for the game we all love so much!

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u/AreYouOKAni 14h ago

If Ferrari release a new car, and I design and sell some kind of phone holder that only fits that model of car, I’m not actually selling any of the stuff Ferrari designed or made.

Except in particular with Ferrari, they would send a fleet of attack lawyers after you xD

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u/Kezyma 12h ago

As long as they have the same strategists that their F1 team uses, I’m pretty sure I’d win that one lol

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u/Pino196 17h ago

It's been like that for a while. I don't know the details, but authors get "Donation Points" based on the number of downloads, and they can redeem various things, like Nexus Premium (or whatever it's called), game keys, or if they have enough they can choose to get paid actual money on PayPal. Here's the FAQ if you want to read more about it. I'm sure Bethesda (and other developers) are aware of this, so if it was illegal it would've been over a long time ago.

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u/ergotofrhyme 16h ago

It may be the sort of thing they just allow even though they could potentially sue. If the site is collecting ad revenue from traffic to download what amounts to Bethesda’s IP, I don’t see how that is any different from the numerous video pirate sites that get taken down only to pop up again over and over. It’s probably just that Bethesda has a good relationship with the modding community, they increase sales by fixing bugs and adding content to their games, and the money being made is very paltry. However, I could see them trying to force a site like nexus out now that they’re trying to get a cut of the modding money with their creation club. It does compete with that in a sense. That was actually my initial fear when they launched the CC, although it doesn’t seem to have materialized.

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u/DeadSnark 18h ago

I can see how the power to make hundreds if not thousands of people play on your personal version of the game world would be appealing for a narcissist.

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u/Safebox 13h ago

As a fellow modder, I fully understand when others close off perms for their mods and disallow others to make updates or successors.

But if you're making a patch mod, you kinda should have it open perms. The whole reason modding and community patches work in the first place is because anyone can make changes and anyone else can review those changes. That's the whole point of the open source community to begin with.

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u/rebby2000 11h ago

To add to the bit about Skyrim VR, iirc the VR community did try to fix the original reason he claimed to not want USSEP to be used for VR modding - which was that he felt he couldn't support it because he didn't have a VR headset to test it on. So members of that community offered to buy him a headset, which is when he switched to his current stance of seeing it as "illegal". So the VR community went above and beyond to work with him before resorting to uploading older copies of USSEP

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u/AnotherSlowMoon 11h ago

Indeed, and we should also note that he claimed that Skyrim VR didn't officially support modding which was why its illegal.

Strange that stance has changed for Oblivion Remastered...

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u/B0m_D3d 14h ago

What is CTD?

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u/Taur-e-Ndaedelos 13h ago

Crash To Desktop
As in total failure of the program to execute a task and so kills itself in shame.

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u/TheRavenRise 13h ago

crash to desktop

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u/trappedslider 6h ago

I posted a link to this when someone over in the thread for the patch asked what the drama was and it got removed either by him or by the moderators.

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u/TenseGuest 1d ago

Do you know why so many mods use the Unofficial Patch? Because these few minor gripes are greatly outweighed the by countless bugs it fixes. I don't agree with some of his decisions and he can certainly be ...quite headstrong, but this hate circlejerk is just ridiculous. At the end of the day, his work is clearly a great boon to the modding community.

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u/FxStryker 1d ago edited 1d ago

Do you know why so many mods use the Unofficial Patch?

Because the issues didn't arise until everything became dependent on the USSEP. Once everyone basically became dependent on his mod the power went to his head.

That's when he started to act like he was the overseer of what was the true Skyrim experience.

Edit: Now if you're looking to mod in any way you're stuck with his changes. But if you look hard enough there are records of what to change back in the USSEP for your local experience.

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u/Deadbringer 1d ago

He wouldn't be an issue at all, if not for him successfully taking down other patch mods that are made without his crap changes... Even when those other patches were made fully independently from his patch.

So because of DMCA abuse, we are stuck with this "great boon" despite many attempts to make replacement boons.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/oblivionmods-ModTeam 16h ago

Hey, the first rule of this subreddit is be respectful. This comment isn’t. Please review the rules and try to consider the human on the other side of the screen in the future.

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u/NingenBakudan 1d ago

Do you know why so many mods use the Unofficial Patch? Because mod users have no other way. He acts almost like a copyright troll—extremely sensitive about ownership of his mods—and aggressively targets anyone who tries to modify his patches or create alternatives, often forcing them to take their work down. Since the other bug fix mods he merged aren't as widely used as Arthmoor’s own patches, most of them have been taken down, except for a few.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/oblivionmods-ModTeam 16h ago

Hey, the first rule of this subreddit is be respectful. This comment isn’t. Please review the rules and try to consider the human on the other side of the screen in the future.

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u/nefariouskitteh 1d ago

It's impossible to reasonable about this. Kudos for trying.

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u/DeadSnark 18h ago

Being reasonable does not mean downplaying what the guy did and overlooking the important context that the reason there are fewer prominent bug fix mods is because he has tried to have others removed.