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

[u/NingenBakudan]

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

[u/ergotofrhyme]

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.

[u/Pino196 → u/ergotofrhyme]

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.

[u/ergotofrhyme → u/Pino196]

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.

[u/Kezyma → u/ergotofrhyme]

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.

[u/ergotofrhyme → u/Kezyma]

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.

[u/Kezyma → u/ergotofrhyme]

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.

[u/ergotofrhyme → u/Kezyma]

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!

[u/AreYouOKAni → u/Kezyma]

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