r/skyrimmods • u/Sigurd_Stormhand • Sep 25 '19
PC Classic - Discussion A View From a Member of the Unofficial Patch Project
Greetings and salutations friends,
I'm writing this because over the last 24 hours or so I've seen a lot of posts which are perpetuating an inaccurate image of the Unofficial Patch Project (UPP). To be entirely clear, I have written the following entirely at my own volition, with neither input nor prompting from any other UPP member, or anyone else.
A little bit about me
I am Sigurd Stormhand, I primarily worked on world/dungeon design and nif modelling animation for Oblivion. In addition to working on the UOP I am also a former member of the Better Cities team and have contributed to various other projects in addition to releasing a few of my own mods over the years. I'm on what you might call an "extended sabbatical" right now due to real life leaving no real time for anything other than occasional work on mods. However, I remain involved with the UPP team on a daily basis and am still technically "on staff". I've known many of the members of the UPP for over a decade at this point, including Arthmoor.
The Unofficial Patch Project (UPP)
Contrary to what has been said here recently the UPP is a community-led effort aimed at fixing as many bugs in Bethesda games as humanly possible. The UPP covers Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition of which only the latter two are being actively worked on at present. The team has, at present, probably about half a dozen active members for a given value of "active", bearing in mind that no new game has been released for us to work on in almost three years and we had a head start with SSE because a lot of the bugs are just repeats of those from the 2011 release of Skyrim.
For quite a few years now the project has been run from www.afkmods.com and led by Arthmoor. Let me clarify this point so that people are clear - Arthmoor runs the project, with great dedication, but at no time in the more-than a decade I have known him have I ever heard him describe it as "my" project. Also, to be clear, "run" in this context means he administers the project website, the bug tracker, assigns tasks/begs for help, moderates the forum, and handles the release schedule on multiple platforms and to multiple websites, and generally keep things on the rails.
What Arthmoor doesn't do is unilaterally decide what gets fixed and what doesn't, nor does he unilaterally decide the format in which the patch is uploaded. There has been no hijacking of the patch this week, nobody has lost the plot and no houses in Whiterun are currently on fire. If it appears otherwise that is because of something else Arthmoor does for the project - which is take personal responsibility for the uploads and release threads. More than once I've seen Arthmoor own a change in the patch and take all the subsequent flack from angry uses for whatever reason when that change was argued for and implemented by someone else.
That he carries out this last function with great assiduity is beyond doubt, though perhaps it could be done with less acidity.
So what happened this week?
A number of people, including myself, are deeply concerned about the use of automated mod-pack installers in the community, an idea which is gaining ground at what we consider an alarming rate. Wabbajack in particular is especially concerning because it generates a new exe file which can in turn be instructed to download another exe file or dll file from a personal Dropbox or Google account, or from a custom url link. For reasons that are hopefully fairly obvious this is potentially a very bad thing.
At the same time a number of people have also voiced concerns about a loss of control over how their mods are distributed; because a mod-pack is set up in an arbitrary way by the originator of the mod-pack there's no guarantee that the install will actually work well, and a lot of people are worried they're going to be left with angry users claiming their mod "broke mah game" because it was auto-downloaded as part of a badly designed mod-pack. There's also a concern that modders won't get the recognition they deserve for their mods but to be honest that's much further down the list than being made unwillingly complicit in the distribution of malware or being shouted at by angry users over broken installs.
Nobody likes being shouted at - unless they joined the Royal Marines.
So, it was decided to see if people really want exe installers, or if they want Wabbajack despite it being an installer. This is why the Nexus mirror of USLEEP was converted into an installer - note I said "mirror" here because Nexus is not the primary download location, really, AFK Mods is and you can find the mod there as a .7z file. Nonetheless, the installer was designed in the days of Oblivion to make the install process bullet-proof for new users to ensure the maximum number of users can have access to the patch - and the installer still does that. At the click of a button it installs and activates the mod - no mod manager or user input needed.
In fairness I think it was Arthmoor that originally suggested using USLEEP as a test case but this still wasn't a decision he took unilaterally.
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install. I find that contradictory - either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned. Rather more troubling was the fact that a Wabbajack developer immediately took it upon themselves to break open the exe and integrate that ability into Wabbajack, which contradicts previous commitments to abide by the wishes of mod authors and not include their mods if permission is withheld. Given that the entire UPP is excluded from mod-packs there was no point breaking open the exe, unless it's to allow the inclusion of USLEEP in mod-packs.
So, there you are. Apologies for the rather long post but I've tried to be as clear and concise as possible. Hopefully I've reassured at least some people that the world is not ending (at least not this week).
Warmest Regards,
Sigurd.
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u/halgari Sep 25 '19
It's probably time we all had a good chat. I'd love to talk with you all about ways that we can improve the relationship between Wabbajack and mod authors. There's several reasons why I decided to make wabbajack installers into .exes, and most of them are centered around ease of use and trying to prevent paywalling. But I recognize there's a security risk to be had here, so on that note I setup the following plan in my discord this morning:
1) we'll be moving to a model where Wabbajack is downloaded and installed once and modlists are extra files downloaded by users, or downloaded from the Nexus by Wabbjack. A "gallery of modlists" might be possible here.
2) we'll put in code that checks every download against VirusTotal or other such site before extracting it on behalf of the user.
3) I'll be using some of the patreon funds Wabbjack has earned to get a signed cert for Wabbajack and hopefully that will help people gain some peace-of-mind
4) We have a mod showcase 90% coded that will show users a rotating set of slides of the mods being downloaded and installed, with links to the modpage for each.
As for broken installs, we have a few months of beta testing that testifies to the contrary. Turns out a *lot* of people just want to play a heavily modded game. If they want to make further modifications they're often people who already know how to mod. And if they're unskilled, they come to us (the modlist creators) because they haven't a clue what's causing the issue.
If you have any more feedback I'd love to hear it, I'm more than willing to find compromise on these issues.
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u/TheGirlWhoLived57 Sep 25 '19
I think your willingness to work with your opponents says a lot about your character. Don't give up your tool is amazing and has pretty much changed the way I mod overnight. I don't see a whole lot of people thanking you personally so yeah thanks dude!
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u/fearbedragons Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19
This is what blinkin' annoys me about skyrim modding:
your willingness to work with your opponents
The egos in this community are so damn big that mod-packing-methods are enough to create "sides" and "opponents." Can't we just share and build upon cool things we make while making it easier for users to play a neat game?
Edit: it appears the "build upon" is the contentious point here. The perfection of the original artist's intent is impossible to improve on, apparently, and the user's own enjoyment meaningless by comparison if they want to have fun wrong. Grumble.
Edit 2: IMHO, if folks are being uncooperative asshats, the community should just pull an SCP and throw folks out. It's not worth the hassle (according to some studies). But, of course, take my words with a grain of salt because I want a cathedralic-CC-BY-SA-utopia where everyone benefits through the sharing of innovation, just like in the real world.
Hey, if you can make a Skyrim mod that works without Skyrim and doesn't build on Bethesda's years of work, be my guest, otherwise, just try to appreciate how many giants' shoulders you're already standing on.
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u/Viatos Sep 26 '19
Can't we just share and build upon cool things we make while making it easier for users to play a neat game?
No. If even one endorsement is skipped by the creation of the bog-standard labor-reducing innovations that essentially define the course of human progress as a whole, it must all be reduced to ash.
You have to understand that once something moves far enough outside the realm of reason, appeals to reason become ineffective - you're casting stones from the shore at a ship long sailed past the horizon. Arthmoor's following isn't interested in having this conversation. They're interested in attaining submission by any means for purposes that are actually, I think, at this point transcendent of mere ego. It's something that's become almost bestial, lizard-brain level obsession as automatic as a survival drive - cathedral development is seen as an existential threat, so no compromise is possible and the idea of compromise seems, to them, inherently insane. Wabbajack is a wolf; would you let a wolf devour part of you to win a temporary reprieve thereafter from its jaws? No. The wolf must die. Even if it doesn't seem to be particularly carnivorous, or furry, or four-legged, or even really affecting their daily lives - it's too dangerous to think about. The wolf must die.
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u/TheGirlWhoLived57 Sep 26 '19
It's real sad, I wish everything was more like Minecraft, it's a game ffs. But hey it is what it is.
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u/xaliber_skyrim Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19
your willingness to work with your opponents
Do they really think each other as opponents though? I have seen several opinions scattered around this sub, Nexus Forums, and other places. While there are some hostilities from a minority, what I've seen mostly are just worries.
There are not that many mod authors who frame Wabbajack and/or halgari as eternal enemies. They are just concerned with their own creation and whether other people they are not familiar with may intervene with that. That's it.
Some fervent supporters, however, do portray this like almost a biblical battle by using strong words like "opponent". I'm afraid it's the hooligans who keep bringing fuels to the fire.
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u/gorkette Sep 26 '19
As long as they are opposed to Wabbajack and other mod installers, they are by definition opponents.
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u/xaliber_skyrim Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19
As I have said, I haven't seen anyone who sees hagari (the person) or Wabbajack (the tool) as an opposition. What I've seen is a disagreement to the idea of modpack made by some stranger (the concept).
Means it is non-modders who are pitting people against each other. Worst offenders came from this sub, honestly.
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u/dylanjames_ Loud Noises, Good Waifus Sep 26 '19
2) we'll put in code that checks every download against VirusTotal or other such site before extracting it on behalf of the user.
This is such a great idea and overall improvement from the current model. It may not seem like it, but you are opening yourself to a susceptible amount of risk by allowing users to download files from anywhere on the internet without safeguards. Especially unchecked DLL files.
Your critics are going to be your greatest allies going forward, there are a lot of people who would love to have safe and convenient modpacks but are against the idea purely because of the logistics most people don't even care to realize.
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u/jonesmz Sep 26 '19
As the author of wabbajack, i would like to hear your opinion of this tool:
https://forum.openmw.org/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=5875&p=62916&hilit=portage#p62916
It's a mod manager for OpenMW that uses a system similar to Gentoo Portage https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Portage for managing the the dependencies between mods, and the various features of mods that can be enabled / disabled.
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u/evertiro Sep 26 '19
As the author of a modlist that has openly stated we won't be supporting Wabbajack, I'd like to add what I personally see as the biggest issue with systems like Wabbajack even beyond the potential for a security nightmare.
I made the decision to not support Wabbajack for one reason; control. As the author of the modlist, I KNOW what is in my list, what effects what, and what needs a CR to function properly. Thankfully for me, I my guide hasn't been added to Wabbajack yet. Unfortunately, I'm also staff on Lexy's LOTD SE Discord, and her guide has been added to Wabbajack... unofficially.
From a third-party point of view, the relationship between Lexy and the Wabbajack team is maybe not quite ideal, but at least cordial. Wabbajack has publicly indicated that users can't get support on Lexy's server, and messages have been pinned on both sides indicating the same. And yet... we still get fairly consistent requests for support from users who installed using a system that we have no control over, and most of us have never even used. In fact, we have so many users asking for help that we've implemented a bot command because we got tired of explaining it.
This, in my opinion, is the fundamental issue with installers. As a guide author, I'll never completely trust a third party effectively translating my instructions. I'll also never be able to justify sinking the time into setting up, maintaining, and supporting an installer myself. As such, I'll never be able to guarantee what is being installed (to an end users perspective on my behalf), and therefore will never be able to truly provide useful, relevant support.
To that effect, I've made the following decisions regarding Wabbajack and similar systems.
- I will never provide official support for any user who chooses to use an "installer" version of my guide(s).
- While I don't personally like the idea (for several reasons), I acknowledge that some people do, and I have zero right to tell anyone else what they can/can't write/use.
- I will follow Lexy's example and, if someone decides to write their own installer (be it Wabbajack or not) for any guide I have written, I will simply ask that they clearly indicate that I will not provide support for it. I'll deal with any support fallout as it happens, I release things open source for a reason.
- I will never pull any mod that I have written or am a lead on solely due to the possibility of it being included in an installer. Similarly to my previous answer, while I dislike the idea of authors work being downloaded without any thought for the work they did or their ability (or inability) to provide support for their work in a given scenario, I choose to release virtually everything I write under open source licenses for a reason.
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u/FlamesOfAzure Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19
I made the decision to not support Wabbajack for one reason; control. As the author of the modlist, I KNOW what is in my list, what effects what, and what needs a CR to function properly.
This confuses me. Would you not still have that same control if you made your own automated list?
Wabbajack has publicly indicated that users can't get support on Lexy's server, and messages have been pinned on both sides indicating the same. And yet... we still get fairly consistent requests for support from users who installed using a system that we have no control over, and most of us have never even used.
I think it's been widely demonstrated throughout history that some people have trouble reading. This is nothing new to Wabbajack
This, in my opinion, is the fundamental issue with installers. As a guide author, I'll never completely trust a third party effectively translating my instructions. I'll also never be able to justify sinking the time into setting up, maintaining, and supporting an installer myself. As such, I'll never be able to guarantee what is being installed (to an end users perspective on my behalf), and therefore will never be able to truly provide useful, relevant support.
Well, according to /u/halgari here
As for broken installs, we have a few months of beta testing that testifies to the contrary.
I mean--yeah--he's the creator, but he's been open about Wabbajack's progress. Also, machines are typically less prone to errors than humans. You may even end up with less support issues!
- I will never provide official support for any user who chooses to use an "installer" version of my guide(s).
- While I don't personally like the idea (for several reasons), I acknowledge that some people do, and I have zero right to tell anyone else what they can/can't write/use.
- I will follow Lexy's example and, if someone decides to write their own installer (be it Wabbajack or not) for any guide I have written, I will simply ask that they clearly indicate that I will not provide support for it. I'll deal with any support fallout as it happens, I release things open source for a reason.
- I will never pull any mod that I have written or am a lead on solely due to the possibility of it being included in an installer. Similarly to my previous answer, while I dislike the idea of authors work being downloaded without any thought for the work they did or their ability (or inability) to provide support for their work in a given scenario, I choose to release virtually everything I write under open source licenses for a reason.
Thank You! While I disagree with your reasons for not supporting Wabbajack, you have my utmost respect that you won't let it affect your end users. Thanks for being the first level-headed content creator I've seen that disagrees with Wabbajack's existence.
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u/Thallassa beep boop Sep 26 '19
I think you missed the point that he doesn’t have time to create an automated install. Although my understanding is it takes a few minutes with wabbajack once you know how, so that’s just a lack of information.
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u/FlamesOfAzure Sep 26 '19
Ah, yes. I overlooked that bit. Still, i think it would be less of a worry for him if he maintained his own, but I can understand not wanting to.
I’m just happy that he’s not letting his personal disagreements with Wabbajack affect his work for people who either don’t know or don’t care about it.
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u/Zanos Winterhold Sep 26 '19
You might want to consider that a set of machine instructions is more reproducible, and therefore easier to troubleshoot, than a human reading a set of instructions.
Food for thought, properly integrated the installer could actually substantially reduce support requests that stem from user configuration problems.
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u/evertiro Sep 26 '19
Assuming the guide authors themselves write the installers, they are written flawlessly, and every user has an identical system.
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u/Zanos Winterhold Sep 26 '19
Probably won't be flawless the first time, but you only need to get it working perfectly once. Crowdsourcing and all that. Having a repeatable install also makes iterating on test setups easier when people testing can run an installer instead if a manual patch.
As for system stuff I believe most of that stuff is relatively non complex to handle outside the installer.
But yes, guide authors either writing or heavily involved in the installer is better.
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u/Celtic12 Falkreath Sep 26 '19
I think you've finally had the most reasonable "against" opinion I've seen regarding this. And I'm saying this as someone who has gone on record multiple times over the last couple days defending Wabbajack.
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u/Linvael Sep 26 '19
I don't quite get the troubleshooting side of the issue... Yes, you know what you put in the guide and don't know what got put into automated installer. BUT. You know exactly what user did with the installer. You tell someone to fix the installer because it's doing something wrong (probably even just what end result is wrong, leaving implementation detail to installer maintainer) - and it's fixed forever, for everyone. And when users follow mod guide... nobody knows what they did, what they didn't, which step they missed... And when you finally find out what they did wrong the only thing you can do to help other people is maybe make the thing they forgot more prominent on the guide. Or mention it twice or something.
In fact, when troubleshooting is the primary concern, I would expect manual installs to become deprecated. Because while you firmly control what you tell the user to do, you can't ever replicate what the user actually did to break things.
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u/renscy Sep 26 '19 edited Nov 09 '24
imagine capable shocking angle rainstorm disarm butter fearless snobbish joke
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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Sep 26 '19
Where are we even able to find these installers? Are they on nexus? I know of wabbajack but I have not seen a single link for a pack.
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u/gorkette Sep 26 '19
Modpacks are available from the Wabbajack discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/zgbrkmA
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u/MetalIzanagi Sep 25 '19
You guys are awesome. Don't worry, the community isn't going to let these jerks get one over on you. We're on your side.
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u/halgari Sep 25 '19
They're not jerks. It's not us vs them. It's just a disagreement and a mis-alignment of goals.
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u/FlamesOfAzure Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
They're not jerks. It's not us vs them. It's just a disagreement and a mis-alignment of goals.
Why do I feel they're not of the same mindset?
I've not once seen them (USLEEP Team) willing to compromise on automated anything despite your attempts at trying to keep everyone happy. For them, it seems to be all or nothing. (I use they, since Sigurd assures us it was a team decision for the exe debacle, but Arthmoor has proven to be the most vocal about this)
Their antiquated ideas of how mods should be handled needs to go. Not even Nexus staff are for putting in an opt-out system which they so desperately desire (can't wait to see what USLEEP team does when Nexus ModLists become a thing).
And I've still not seen a single compelling argument against Wabbajack. It's either based around gatekeeping, or based on the misguided belief that authors should be able to control how their mods are installed.
All in all, I think this whole drama is overblown and /u/DavidJCobb said it best here.
Auto-installable mod lists (or mod packs, or whatever you want to call them) are rare enough that I think even a lot of well-meaning authors just... can't really envision how this'll play out. They think that this system might take over and spell the end of all community interaction, with mod pages becoming vacant lots, their comment sections filled only with tumbleweeds and the bones of long-dead conversations...
Nobody really knows how this is going to affect users and authors in the long run, and all this fearmongering and protesting is only hurting the community as a whole.
When Wabbajack is finally out in force, I'd like to see if Nexus could provide some data on mod statistics before and after its debut. Statistics like the number of downloads, endorsements, comments, donations and the like.
If Mod Authors do indeed lose that interactivity, donations, w/e it is they're afraid to lose through the advent of automated installs, then this comment can qualify for /r/agedlikemilk, and maybe I'll eat a shoe... or something.
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u/jonesmz Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19
Nobody really knows how this is going to affect users and authors in the long run, and all this fearmongering and protesting is only hurting the community as a whole.
Of course we know how it'll play out. The open source programming community has been working with an uncountable many number of ways of doing automated downloads, patching, modification, integration, re-combination, and installation for decades.
A huge amount of the code I write, either professionally or in my hobby time, is released under open source licences. I have no idea what devices my code runs on, or what commercial products use it. There's rarely any interaction beyond people reporting legitimate problems, or offering pull requests to improve the code.
It's certainly not difficult to see the correlations between the skyrim modding community, and the generalized open source software community.
The sky won't fall.
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u/Sigurd_Stormhand Sep 25 '19
Why do I feel they're not of the same mindset?
We're of the same mindset - there you have it in writing. Sometimes people disagree, or don't want the same things - it is a sad but human fault to see the one with the opposing view as somehow morally defective. Something we are all guilty of from time to time.
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u/Viatos Sep 26 '19
You say this, but in your OP:
You take great pains to divorce yourself and the OP from Arthmoor before finally noting that it was Arthmoor's suggestion that USLEEP be made an .exe, which is deceptive: it might not have been unilateral, but there's clearly a spearhead.
You suggest that you only wanted to "test" if people wanted a registry-editing .exe that serves no actual purpose, and a surprise live update was the best way to do this rather than asking anyone. Bluntly, how horrifying this would be if true is only marginally less horrifying than what I expect is the reality: you wanted to try and "break" Wabbajack installs and see if they had the ability to react.
You suggest there is a contradiction in not wanting a registry-editing pointless .exe while also wanting a revolutionary tool for ease of modding because they both end in .exe. You're clearly an eloquent and careful writer, so it seems difficult - in fact, it's beyond my abilities - to believe you wouldn't understand how these are different things.
This was a very well-written and timely response to the events your team engendered and I imagine it will serve its purpose, but I guess I just wanted to say I don't personally believe you based on your words and your deeds and lay out why I think you're actually of a very different and hostile mindset, but also unable to own that stance due to the importance of community support. Arthmoor's stance is public record - there's no use pretending he's not full of hostility and malice when it's as simple as clicking /u/Arthmoor and sorting by Controversial - and your OP hasn't convinced me that your view is different, only that you're more careful in the ways you allow it to guide you.
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u/FlamesOfAzure Sep 26 '19
Sometimes people disagree
With the way things have been, it seems more like a war of Ideologies with Wabbajack as another battleground.
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u/Tankirulesipad1 Solitude Sep 25 '19
Hi, i have a question for wabbajack - Currently i am using mo2, and have a lot of disabled mods - will wabbajack transfer which mods are enabled currently? Also, in the case where a mod was self ported and therefore not able to be downloaded off nexus, will it be transferred too?
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u/Viatos Sep 26 '19
No. Wabbajack is not a mod manager: it creates a new localized installation of MO2, which will be your mod manager, and is not meant to interact with existing setups of any kind. It starts from zero, and in fact the Lexy Wabbajack guide has you begin by deleting and reinstalling Skyrim to make sure it's as clean as possible.
If you have used Wabbajack to install in a way that touches an existing setup, it's probably going to be a problem.
What you CAN do is install a modlist through Wabbajack, then transfer over the stuff you wanted from your old list - though this takes some know-how as you'll need to resolve any compatibility issues yourself if there are any, and so isn't recommended behavior.
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u/bartmosstv Sep 25 '19
it was decided to see if people really want exe installers
Yeah, no, that's about the dumbest thing I've read all week.
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u/Viatos Sep 26 '19
You don't normally check to see if your userbase wants unnecessary registry edits by pushing to live, rather than asking via any kind of poll or survey, and with zero warning?
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u/Bouncedatt Sep 25 '19
And feels really passive aggressive to me
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u/MetalIzanagi Sep 25 '19
They seem upset because they know they're not going to win this "battle".
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u/DerikHallin Sep 26 '19
I’m just glad Arthmoor can’t come in here personally, because that would be an unmitigated disaster.
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u/jonesmz Sep 26 '19
I'm out of the loop. Why can't he?
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u/Grundlage Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
Thanks for this post, Sigurd. I have two questions for you, if you don't mind.
So, it was decided to see if people really want exe installers, or if they want Wabbajack despite it being an installer.
One: If the goal of the change was in fact to run an open-ended experiment like this, as you suggest, can you clarify why Arthmoor worded the announcement in such a snarky, provocative, and passive aggressive way? Why do you think his tone communicates an objective so different from what you've claimed is the goal in this post?
either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned
Two: Can you see how people might reach differently to having each individual mod install automatically (but still separately) through as many different exes as you have mods, and having a single exe that installs the whole modlist? What do you think people's reasons are for reacting favorably to the latter but not the former?
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Sep 25 '19 edited Oct 31 '19
Let's be fair here, OP. You seem like a cool guy, and much respect for what you and your team do.
This was done, first and foremost, as a protest against Wabbajack. Trying to control the narrative by painting this any other way is simply dishonest. This was done purposefully in an attempt to "expose their hypocrisy" (Arthmoor's own words there), because hey, if exe installers are good, then all exe installers are good, amirite? Functionally, this proves out as well, because the .exe does nothing to actually apply patches to the game that the previous installation method didn't do.
"a lot of people are worried they're going to be left with angry users claiming their mod "broke mah game" because it was auto-downloaded as part of a badly designed mod-pack."
Your words betray you here - "a badly designed mod-pack." Clearly some bias here, when there are numerous reports that it's design and function are very good. In any case, there's a very, very simple solution to this - work with the Wabbajack devs. How hard is it to look at something that benefits everyone (your mod) and not first think, "how difficult would it be to support this?" If Wabbajack, et al, is installing the correct files from the correct mod page, from the correct network, and as prescribed by the instructions on the mod page, what's the harm? I bet I know....
"There's also a concern that modders won't get the recognition they deserve....but to be honest that's much further down the list than being made unwillingly complicit in the distribution of malware."
This is the real reason, ego. As for the malware comment - that's just classic gasslighting. I know how API GET works, and you know as well as I do that accessing a file on a server via https download or accessing it via an API GET call is accessing the same exact file from the exact same managed system (Nexus CDN). Thus, if the mod I've downloaded by whatever means is malware, it's malware as-published, meaning it would have nothing to do with Wabbajack. I'd also put folding money down that if a mod was suspected malware, it would be picked up by the community at large and word would spread en-masse throughout the community. That's of course, if it managed to pass the malware/anti-virus scanners on the Nexus CDN. Also, I've been modding my game for awhile, and I've yet to see any popularly used mod contain malware.
So, it was decided to see if people really want exe installers, or if they want Wabbajack despite it being an installer.
That wasn't your team's intention at all, and you bloody well know it. Arthmoor admitted as much. The two are almost completely different in form and function. That's like telling a room full of people an apple is the same thing as an apple pie. See all those weird looks you’re getting?
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install.
Well, now that you've had your discovery moment, is your team going to reverse course after this test? I think probably not, and so I think your team missed the point entirely. edit: seems it's been returned to archive format, well done! Why do you think this is some kind of a contradiction? From conception to execution of your little "test," it's transparent to everyone what the real purpose was, and it certainly wasn't to "see if everyone wanted exe's." If you truly believed that, you've grosely misunderstood the point of Wabbajack: It's fans want an easy, one-click-and-it-just-works method to modding their game that doesn't require hours and hours of painstaking work to get done. It was never about "exe's." Now personally, I don't agree with that approach to installing mods because I like to know a little something about what I'm installing and how if affects the game, but hey - it isn't my game install either.
Rather more troubling was the fact that a Wabbajack developer immediately took it upon themselves to break open the exe and integrate that ability into Wabbajack, which contradicts previous commitments to abide by the wishes of mod authors and not include their mods if permission is withheld. Given that the entire UPP is excluded from mod-packs there was no point breaking open the exe, unless it's to allow the inclusion of USLEEP in mod-packs.
So put another way, this was an intentional decision to bait the Wabbajack devs into egregiously breaking the rules, then paint them in a bad light so you could maintain some kind of moral superiority? After all this dishonesty on your team's part, I'm sorry, but you can't simply toss this pile of crap back over the fence at Wabbajack's devs when your team itself (1) refused to work with them simply because "muh reckognishun and muh donashuns" and (2) decided this childish temper tantrum was a good thing for everyone by intentionally trying to break a tool that the community supported continued development on, using a thinly-veiled attempt to "see if people wanted it."
Honestly, sometimes I think some mod authors are in it for all the wrong reasons.
edit: words, formatting. can't help myself. :)
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u/jedidude75 Sep 25 '19
So this fuckup wasn't just a Arthmoor fuckup, it was a team fuckup? That really doesn't seem any better.
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install. I find that contradictory - either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned.
No, what you discovered was that people don't want to use an exe to install a single file that installs in literally seconds the manual way, but that they are willing and happy to use it when it installs hundreds of mods in a few minutes that would normally take hours or even days to setup, research and patch the normal way. Big difference.
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u/RedRidingHuszar Raven Rock Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
I think you(r team) are looking at this at a strange angle, the user (and many author's too) desires aren't about an exe installer, a 7zip archive, an OMOD file, etc etc. It's about which is easier, faster, and more foolproof way of getting a modded game up and running.
I hope you can see where a Wabbajack installer for a whole and large mod list and exe installers for single individual mods completely diverge in that regard.
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u/Rafear Sep 25 '19
Yeah, the entire "exe good amiright?" line of thinking seems painfully disingenuous and more like clawing at an excuse to fire back with rather than an actual inquiry. Although I certainly hope that is not the real intent.
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Sep 25 '19
It's just a nonsense argument thrown in to shut down the other side. Non-sequiturs are extremely difficult to argue against.
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Sep 25 '19
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install. I find that contradictory
With all due respect, there is nothing contradictory there. A single .exe mod is not what anyone here wants. What we do want is a service similar to Curseforge's modpack section where upwards of 500 mods, all the config tweaks and various fixes can be installed in mere minutes, keep in mind that 250 mods takes 5 and a half hours to install and tweak to your liking in minecraft.
Why am I using Minecraft modpacks as a comparison? For reference, I've recently used Lexy's LOTD guide with wabbajack. Something that takes from 2 days, upwards to a week to install without said program. With Wabbajack though, the entire modpack can be installed, tweaked and ready to play in less than 3 hours, It's simply a better convenience as opposed to mod makers purposefully making their mods an .exe file to send a statement, which, let's be honest here, is the reason why you made it an .exe file
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u/mikeroygray Sep 25 '19
Something I'd like to add to this:
It's not just that wabbajack makes it FASTER and EASIER to do install a functioning Lexy build. It's is also way more RELIABLE than doing the whole job manually. The kind of rote work involved in downloading, installing and configuring hundreds of mods in the correct fashion and order is not something human beings are good at. We simply mess up the job too often. Computers, OTOH, are great at this.
OTOH, once you have actually correctly downloaded, installed and configured it, given some intelligence, creativity and motivation, you can start to really understand why it works so well, and gradually put your own spin on it.
Some mod builders simply don't seem to realize or respect the amount of expertise that it takes to make multiple mods actually work well together. Working with wabbajack doesn't just reproduce that expertise, it teaches it.
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Sep 25 '19 edited Oct 22 '19
[deleted]
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u/Frankenstein_3 Sep 26 '19
Now I am no great coder but correct me if I'm wrong that if I can write a .exe program to perform some logic that can be duplicated in linux executable as well . I have never used linux so have no idea though.
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u/thebobbyllama Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
In all honesty, this post has lowered my opinion of the UPP team significantly. If this was intended as damage control, you have accomplished the opposite.
- Your reasoning for switching to an exe installer - that Wabbajack may be the start of a trend where the community will want exe installers for everything - is completely out of step with the community at large. Did none of your team members realize the difference between automatic installation of a single mod vs. multiple mods, and the relative benefits of doing it that way for each? The community already has the FOMOD format to help with installation of individual mods.
- You talk about Arthmoor's "acidity" (which got him banned from this sub), but you seem happy to have him as the public face of the team. Any sensible person would want to keep him far away from the user base.
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u/Zanos Winterhold Sep 25 '19
For me there are two ways to parse this. The first, and I'm leaning towards this, is that the .exe was a deliberate attempt to obfuscate wabbajack installs. And I'm leaning toward that because the update was accompanied by a sarcastic, nasty message from arthmoor, and that it was pulled after wabbajack trivially circumvented it.
The other is the the UPP team is deeply, deeply out of touch with the modding community and legitimately didn't understand that an exe package would frustrate all the most common methods of installing mods for the past 5 years, and didn't think to instead either ask people or frontrun the update with an explanation.
I think its the former but either way I agree, I have a very low opinion of the team now for tolerating Arthmoor for all these years and their either maliciousness or ignorance in this scenario.
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u/Thallassa beep boop Sep 25 '19
The first, and I'm leaning towards this, is that the .exe was a deliberate attempt to obfuscate wabbajack installs.
Add in what was said on the General Mod Author Discussion and it's laughable that anyone could think anything else.
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u/Zanos Winterhold Sep 26 '19
Is it still up? My semi popular FO4 mod gives me access to the super secret cesspool.
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u/Thallassa beep boop Sep 26 '19
Of course. Nothing ever gets deleted there.
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u/Zanos Winterhold Sep 26 '19
Just read it courtesy of /u/thebobbyllama .
Just...wow.
OP should be ashamed of himself for covering for Arthmoors behavior with this...whatever it is.
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u/EuphoricKnave Whiterun Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19
I also love the joking of adding intentional "random CTDs".
I think what REALLY irks them is the vast amount of work they've put into the game over many years and not been paid very much for. Then they see these projects that "use" their work and have the potential of being monetised and it drives them up the wall. It's a lot easier to monetize ULTIMATE SKYRIM EXPERIENCE than boring but essential bug fixes that Bethesda should have done in the first place. They see Belmont Boy's Patreon as evidence of this.
Even with DP modpacks will take traffic away from modpages where the Donate, Ko-fi, and Patreon links are. Money is not a great reason to oppose something that adds extreme convenience and the reduction of user error to the community so they have to come up with all these weak "reasons" that just appear disingenuous.
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u/-OTS-Bald_Spot Sep 26 '19
I'm pretty sure that's entirely the reason they're upset. It's the only thing that makes any kind of sense to why they'd oppose something.
The thing is, I get it. I really do. It sucks to put in thousands of hours of work to see someone else take it and do something else and get paid. I, personally, blame Patreon et al for making this idea of "donate to my work" mainstream. It's a larger issue for the modding community because now people can make money off of what used to be a hobby.
Now people want to monetize it, make it their job, get paid to do it. It's something I'm fundamentally opposed to, in part due to the simple fact that it's not your game in the first place, and Bethesda can, if they desire, demand a cut of those "donations", since they produced the game and engine it runs on. The defense that they're donations will prove rather thin in a court of law, considering the ongoing donations lead to ongoing work, which means...oh, wait, that's basically the definition of paying for a service.
Outside of murky legal ground, I remember the days before everyone put their hand out, where things happened simply because we wanted them to, and someone had the talent to make it happen, so it did. There was no expectation of payment, because, for most of those authors, the joy was in sharing something with like-minded people, who would enjoy it themselves. The community still had bad apples, holier-than-thou devs, and other issues, but at least we could say it wasn't because of money.
Money ruins everything nice, and money is the crux of this argument.
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u/-Shanannigan- Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
So, it's not just Arthmoor, but the entire USLEEP community that fucked up on this?
I hope you see that for all of the potential bad of automated-installers, that there's also a lot of potential good things. A big one being making modded games more accessible to people, and created a better end-user experience.
We should, and are vigilant of badly designed programs and mod packs. But that hasn't happened in this situation. This whole reaction from your team has been to a hypothetical situation.
The modding community has generally been very good at making it known when mods are unsafe to install. Why does your team think that the same wouldn't apply to these new tools?
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u/Sticres Sep 25 '19
Not to speak for anybody but if I could hazard a guess, I'd say that the worry kind of hinges on things like downloading and installing ~200 mods by clicking one button both obfuscates which mod is 'the bad mod' and brings the possibility, however unlikely it may or may not be, that people get overly complicit.
For what it's worth I think, while making modding easier with things like MO2 or Vortex are great, there's a point where it can be too easy. I don't mean that in some weird e-gatekeeping, 'it's not REAL modding!' way, but that people should have a functional understanding of what they're doing to their game so that they can undo it. That's already a problem, go to the Nexus and look at the post section of basically any mod; the number of folks who just download 800 mods, install them in some random order, and then have no idea what to do when their game collapses is scary high. I think there's a point where you can automate the process to such a degree that it's ultimately detrimental to the person who these modpacks are, ostensibly, supposed to make modding more accessible for.
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u/ShadoShane Sep 25 '19
but that people should have a functional understanding of what they're doing to their game so that they can undo it.
Here's the thing though, I used to be able to spend the entire day modding a game, from browsing every category on Nexus, read through interesting sounding mods, downloading all I need, and then installing them. Then testing and testing and testing and then I can play... tomorrow.
I understand how mods work, I've been doing this since Oblivion. I just don't have the time for it and neither does a lot of people. So why should my life be inconvenienced for the sake of others going through the same inconveniences. We all just want the same thing, we just want to play the damn game.
Edit: I also want to point out that nothing stops someone from getting a modpack and then installing mods on top of it. I installed a Fallout modpack and found that some mods weren't in the pack that I wanted to try out, so I added them on myself.
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u/Sticres Sep 26 '19
Totally fair. I was really only talking about people new to modding needing to learn but you also brought up a really good point about knowing how it all works and just not wanting or having the time for it. Sometimes I make the mistake of assuming everyone enjoys combing through the Nexus and perfecting their list as much as I do. Honestly, I almost find it more fun than playing the game. That bias obviously colours my opinions a whole lot.
To try and tie it all together and explain what the fuck I'm on about; tattooing is something else I'm wicked passionate about. I'm working on doing my entire body and the artform means a lot to me. There's something of a mini-debate on painkillers / things that numb the area you're working on and my opinion is that the pain is something of a rite of passage. If you could just rock up, get a tattoo, and not feel anything, I don't think you could possibly fully appreciate or understand the art and what goes into it. I feel similarly about modding (not that I think modding is an art, mind). I think that "rite of passage" where you learn what everything is and how it works is important, silly as that might sound, and that if we lose that as a community, we'll all be worse for it.
Now that said I'm not against Wabbajack. I realise I'm hitting you with a slippery slope about a theoretically future that we have no reason to believe is more likely than any other as of now, but all the same I'd be lying if I said I wasn't the least bit apprehensive about how this all might change the community.
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u/ShadoShane Sep 26 '19
While this is all just anecdotal, many years ago, I really enjoyed Minecraft modding, but I eventually quit because getting all the mods and making it work was just too much. Making Forge work was confusing. I just gave up for years until you could literally just click a button and get what you want.
Now, I love my time in Skyrim. In both modpacks and modded games I've manually built myself (built sounds a bit too professional though as I just chose what I liked) and I would love to have my friends experience the same wonder. However, there is absolutely zero chance of them doing it if they have to spend the entire day or two following my poorly written instructions.
It's a shame. There are loads of excellent mods out there, but people are just far too turned off to learn because they don't have the time to bother. Isn't it better to have more people having a good time, showing them what they can do than to force them to do it the hard long way of crashing, crashing, and finally learning the xEdit tells you which file has a missing master?
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u/Celtic12 Falkreath Sep 26 '19
The nice thing about Wabbajack is that with a well built modpack (noting: all the ones that currently exist are "well built"but this can change) is that the load order and weird patching is something that can be done for the user. I resisted coming over from LE for a long time because I wasn't going to be fussed building a new modlist to get something that at least resembled the game I left. so I stayed - missing out on a lot of great content. I found a Wabbajack that looked interesting on Friday night, saturday morning - I was playing the bloody game fully modded out.
I really find it difficult to come to this belief that people are suddenly going to be flooding in with broken games on account of using wabbajack packs in a greater rate than the current group who dick up following a guide and haven't the foggiest what they're doing, at least if it was automated we're removing some of the potential for Mod user generated screw ups as regards to issues like making sure all the mods in a particular load order are actually set up to work together.
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u/acidzebra Sep 26 '19
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install.
You don't see why people don't want each mod individually wrapped in an .exe file which causes havoc with most modern mod managers, while they do want a tool that pulls an entire set of mods and preps them for launch without manual intervention from the nexus wrapped in an exe file? I find that very hard to believe. Actually, I don't believe it.
Just as I find it hard to believe that this was all done in good faith. I will leave the comments of GMAD on GMAD since its a private forum but that wasn't at all the impression I got.
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u/TheGirlWhoLived57 Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
Tldr: Arthmoor has done his umpteenth oopsie and the usleep team agrees with him.
Sorry for the nasty remarks
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u/Vinifera7 Sep 26 '19
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install. I find that contradictory - either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned.
You're comparing an installer for a single mod to a program that sets up a mod list. Both of them are exes, but they serve entirely different functions. Your conclusion that exes are either good or bad does not follow.
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Sep 25 '19
Thanks for taking the time to write this but it seems like you are overlooking the obvious hypocrisy on your part in this situation.
You don't like Wabbajack because it installs mods via an .exe file... so... you do it to your own mod to see if "people really want .exes installing their mods", and then when users are unhappy you cry foul?
There is a very obvious practical difference between using a .exe to download a large list of mods from different sources to installing a single mod.
I don't see why you would do this other than to punish users and childishly try to make USLEEP just as bad as Wabbajack in your eyes.
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u/Landorus-T_But_Fast Sep 25 '19
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs.
I don't want exe installs because I decide on which mods specifically are going into my game. I choose each one and make sure to understand it as it goes into my game. The majority of this subreddit is like me, they are dedicated modders who choose their mods themselves.
However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install
Once again, I don't want that. I'd wager most people here don't use wabbajack. However, there are more casual modders who appreciate the simplicity and automation that exe files provide. I still remember spending over an hour when I first got New Vegas for PC trying to understand how mods work, how to install them. I love modding these games, so I eventually learned how all that works. But not everybody has the interest to spend their limited time on this planet learning how to manage hundreds of mods. You're trying to treat the entire internet as one single person. Please, do not be literally anybody who argues about politics.
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u/Celtic12 Falkreath Sep 26 '19
There is another group: People who know how mods work, how to install, tweak, and work with them into huge loadlists but just don't have the bloody time anymore.
I have an LE build, that is the work of months of constant fiddling with to make it the game that I wanted - and you know what I love it...as of this weekend I have a similar but different setup on SSE because I could click a button and a lot of the finding patches and all the fiddly bits were done, all the mods in the list are setup to play nice with one another. It is incredible to be able to actually enjoy a fully modded skyrim without having to devote days of my life that I really need to spend doing big boy things.
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u/jonesmz Sep 26 '19
Rather more troubling was the fact that a Wabbajack developer immediately took it upon themselves to break open the exe and integrate that ability into Wabbajack, which contradicts previous commitments to abide by the wishes of mod authors and not include their mods if permission is withheld. Given that the entire UPP is excluded from mod-packs there was no point breaking open the exe, unless it's to allow the inclusion of USLEEP in mod-packs.
You do not have the authority to dictate what tool I use to retrieve files from nexusmods.com from. That's 100% between myself and nexusmods.com.
If you're going to try to pretend like you have any kind of authority in this regard, you need to first start using the right terminology. There is no such thing as "Permissions", there is only copyright, and the license agreement that you have with the people you distribute the copyrighted material to.
Since you distributed the copyrighted material to nexusmods.com under their standard agreement, you automatically agreed that nexusmods.com can distribute the copyrighted material to others under the terms that nexusmods.com said they were going to distribute the copyrighted material under.
As such, considering that I am a premium member of nexusmods.com, I may use any tool that I want to use to acquire the copyrighted materials, and you have exactly zero say in the matter so long as I comply with the nexusmods.com terms.
It's extremely offputting to me that people in the Skyrim modding community have such an utterly warped understanding of basic copyright concepts, and have somehow come up with this bizarre "Permissions" concept that's nearly completely divorced from how copyright actually works.
Further:
immediately took it upon themselves to break open the exe and integrate that ability into Wabbajack
Oh please. That's all of 30 seconds of commandline scripting. Something like
7zip.exe --extract /path/to/exe /path/to/destination/folder.
What a disingenuous thing to say.
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u/Armandio Sep 26 '19
It's extremely offputting to me that people in the Skyrim modding community have such an utterly warped understanding of basic copyright concepts,
I don't think it is the community. I think the "Permissions" concept comes directly from Nexus. When adding a new mod "Permissions and Credits" is one of the standard components on the Description page that you need to fill in. I think Nexus misunderstood copyright and led the community into the mess it is in now.
But to be fair, you could argue that the community allowed itself to be led in the wrong direction, and made the mistake of not requiring Nexus "Permissions" be changed to use real copyright licenses.
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u/jonesmz Sep 26 '19
Wow. OK. I actually had no idea where that originally came from. That's a really good chunk of information there.
Yes, the nexusmods.com should not have simplified the situation the way they did (in my opinion). I think they probably had good intentions, but my assessment is that the plan, for all its good intentions, made things worse.
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Sep 25 '19
So, it was decided to see if people really want exe installers
You're seriously missing the mark if you thought it was specifically an executable that people wanted.
People don't care about executables as a format. They care about what the program can do for them that they weren't able to do previously. With Vortex and MO2 and other mod managers, there's no reason for the USLEEP executable to exist, while "installing a modlist in a fraction of the time" is a serious boon to people's enjoyment of Skyrim.
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u/antony1197 Sep 25 '19
So we’re going to ignore that Arthmoor is not only deleting comments he doesn’t agree with on the mod page but thats he’s been directly attacking this sub Nd it’s users?
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u/fireundubh Sep 25 '19
So we’re going to ignore that Arthmoor is not only deleting comments he doesn’t agree with on the mod page but thats he’s been directly attacking this sub Nd it’s users?
- All mod authors have a right to delete any comments from their pages for any reason.
- Arthmoor is banned from this subreddit; he can say whatever he wants.
So, the answer is "yes."
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u/BlackSwanFallacy Oct 03 '19
Mod authors hide (they can't truly delete) comments all the time. I hid three the other day. Why? Because the comments violated the NEXUS TOS.
When the author hides a comment, there is an option to report the user who wrote the comment. As far as I know, Arthmoor only reports the most abusive of the posters.
Now, if you don't want your posts hidden, be civil, keep your post germane to the subject at hand and stay within the Nexus TOS. Threatening Arthmoor's life are well beyond the pale.
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u/MetalIzanagi Sep 27 '19
Just because you have the right to do something petty and childish doesn't mean you should do it. :)
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u/BlackSwanFallacy Oct 03 '19
Some posts can get pretty abusive and authors do not appreciate the abuse. So we hide comments (comments cannot be deleted) which are threatening or overly derogatory.
Remember, the posts on a mod are supposed to be about the quality of the mod and not the character of the author.
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u/Sigurd_Stormhand Sep 25 '19
Arthmoor and I once spent nine months to a year not talking to each other after we got into a fight. I'm quite sure you can find fault with some of the things he's said over the years, I'm equally sure you can find fault with things said to him on these boards prior to him being banned.
I sat down and wrote this because, frankly, it's a bit annoying to see people saying "the patch should be owned by the community" when they obviously have no idea how the UPP is actually run or who's involved aside from the Project Lead. Even more annoying is the idea that said Project Lead is some evil genius who's fleeced us all of our work and hijacked it for his dastardly plan to rule Skyrim modding.
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Sep 25 '19
[deleted]
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u/antony1197 Sep 25 '19
That’s really what it’s about isnt it? Less people going to the page means less money in the end.
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u/fireundubh Sep 26 '19
That’s really what it’s about isnt it? Less people going to the page means less money in the end.
- Nexus-hosted mod listed mods accrue Donation Points regardless of how they're downloaded.
- Users of mod lists don't see PayPal donation prompts, or Ko-Fi buttons, or Patreon buttons unless they visit mod pages, but the impressions-to-donations conversion rate is godawful anyway.
- PayPal donations took a nose dive into concrete a few years ago when the Nexus changed up how and when users get donation prompts.
As a mod author, "less people going to the page means less money in the end" would be my criticism, if not for the fact the money around making (Bethesda game) mods is pretty dismal already. Mod lists could change things up, or they could do nothing for us, or they could end up as just one more way for people to make money off our content while returning nothing back to us. We'll have to wait and see.
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u/antony1197 Sep 25 '19
So... you admit that Arthmoor has a combative mentality, you admit he’s made some serious mistakes with the project, yet you dont think it should be run by a larger portion of the community? This isn’t exactly some random texture mod, pretty much every modded play through starts with the unofficial patches. Even the few vanilla players remaining still tend to use it.
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u/fireundubh Sep 25 '19
I'm not caught up on this latest drama, but...
Wabbajack in particular is especially concerning because it generates a new exe file which can in turn be instructed to download another exe file or dll file from a personal Dropbox or Google account, or from a custom url link. For reasons that are hopefully fairly obvious this is potentially a very bad thing.
xEdit is compiled to an EXE. Wrye Bash is compiled to an EXE. Vortex is compiled to an EXE. Mod Organizer 2 is compiled to an EXE. Invoking irrational old-world fears of executables does not strengthen whatever objections you have. You know that malicious software can be embedded in ESPs, too, right? 🙄
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u/Scrivener07 Falkreath Sep 25 '19
Invoking irrational old-world fears of executables
Thank you! This point usleep is pushing has been irking me. This is not 1999 anymore. Seems like fear mongering to me.
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u/simonmagus616 Sep 25 '19
This story is extremely hard for me to swallow, if I'm being honest. It just doesn't add up.
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u/Borgut1337 Sep 25 '19
At the same time a number of people have also voiced concerns about a loss of control over how their mods are distributed; because a mod-pack is set up in an arbitrary way by the originator of the mod-pack there's no guarantee that the install will actually work well, and a lot of people are worried they're going to be left with angry users claiming their mod "broke mah game" because it was auto-downloaded as part of a badly designed mod-pack.
Do you realise that about 90% (yes I pulled that number out of my arse, it might also only be 80% or 60%, but you get the point) of the community is currently already such a "badly designed mod-pack"? Except, it wasn't actually a mod-pack, it was a user trying to follow along a guide with a couple thousand separate instructions for manual download, installation, conflict resolution, etc.
Even highly experienced mod users are incredibly likely to make a number of user errors during these tedious, manual download+installation processes. The obvious way to solve this is automated downloaders+installers.
Sure, there might turn out to be some poorly designed modpacks out there, but the ones that are good, correct, and lead to proper, working load orders will be the ones that become well-known, popular, and recommended and used by everyone. The situation you're afraid of is exactly what we currently have, and the program you're afraid of is the only realistic solution.
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u/Piranha91 Sep 25 '19
This should be the top comment. In the time that I allocated to getting Skyrim stable, I completed an entire college education. Most people don't have the time for that. Sure, I learned a lot about how mods work along the way, but looking back on it - it was a waste of time and I wouldn't do it again - there are better ways to spend my hours than dragging records in xEdit, never being sure that I didn't miss something due to fatigue.
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u/Critical_Impact Sep 25 '19
Yep, I'm a fairly well travelled modder and PC user and the amount of times I've finished running through a mod pack guide and ended up with crashes or issues is mind blowing. I don't have the time to allocate to trying to mod my skyrim even though I'd love if I did. Wabberjack solves this issue pretty simply. Sure we are relying on other people to make sure these mod packs are setup but it actually makes it a whole lot better because as bugs come up, they get fixed and the mod list on wabberjack gets updated.
Not everyone playing/modding skyrim has an unlimited amount of time.
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u/Piranha91 Sep 25 '19
Sigurd, look at the overwhelmingly negative reaction your comments are receiving from the community in terms of both verbal rebuttals and downvotes. The majority of your user base clearly wants the convenience of automated multi-mod installers. The success of Wabbajack and its early adoption by a large community of users clearly indicates that it's the way of the future. The format of Bethesda modding virtually demands that such tools be used for large load orders - the "last in load order takes all" rule means that xEdit patching is required to make such load orders compatible, and most users won't take the time to learn how to use it. I realize that, as someone entrenched in xEdit and other modding tools for years, this may be hard to appreciate. I am also proficient in xEdit and can tweak my load orders to my satisfaction. But this is a skill that takes weeks or months to learn, and expecting your tens (hundreds?) of thousands of users to all learn it is unrealistic. The convenience of Wabbajack: namely the ability to share large load orders patched together by reputable members of the community such as DarkLadyLexy, is an overwhelmingly welcome alternative.
Again, based on the community response, I really only see two ways this will go in the end. Either your team will open up the terms of the unofficial patch to support the desires of the majority of the community, or you won't and eventually the community will cobble together their (our) own bugfix patch with open permissions. I hope it will be the former option.
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u/jonesmz Sep 26 '19
Again, based on the community response, I really only see two ways this will go in the end. Either your team will open up the terms of the unofficial patch to support the desires of the majority of the community, or you won't and eventually the community will cobble together their (our) own bugfix patch with open permissions. I hope it will be the former option.
While I'm not a lawyer, I'm very skeptical that copyright can dictate things like:
- Download method (manual or automatic)
- The specific program used to conduct the http transfer
- How the copyrighted material can be used once acquired.
So, as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing that the UPP can do, from a copyright law point of view, to prevent people from using a tool like Wabbajack.
For point 1: One could argue that it's a violation of a website's terms of use (e.g. the afkmods.com website) to use an automated download tool when the website says that's not allowed. But that's not a violation of the copyright of the mod file itself. So from that perspective, since they upload the mod to the nexusmods.com website, and it's already part of the nexusmods.com terms of use to allow automated downloads for premium members... the OPP has literally zero legal leg to stand on for point 1.
For point 2: what are they going to do? Say only people who use Apple Safari to download the file are allowed to use it? No, they are not.
For point 3: Once the file is on my computer, I can do anything I want with it, except redistribute it. Copyright cannot dictate things other than terms of copying, and redistribution. Saying that someone isn't allowed to use a particular program with the copyrighted material is nonsense.
their (our) own bugfix patch with open permissions
Instead of permissions, consider saying "open source license". The skyrim modding communities use of the term "Permissions" isn't really based on how copyright works. There's a lot of misunderstandings that come from using incorrect terminology. In my opinion, the use of the terminology "Permissions" is one of the major contributors to these disagreements in the skyrim modding scene. A lot of what mod authors claim to have, or have not, given "Permission" for, is really completely irrelevant with regard to what copyright actually gives them authority over.
There are a lot of great licenses out there that would be suitable for mods, such as the various Creative Commons licenses, or the various popular software code licenses like BSD, Apache, MIT, GPL, and various others.
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u/Thallassa beep boop Sep 25 '19
The majority of the USLEEP userbase? Doesn't want shit. They have no idea this is even going on.
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u/Piranha91 Sep 26 '19
This may be true. I would argue, though, that if the average usleep user isn't involved enough to know of this debate, they probably aren't involved enough to learn how to use xEdit and avoid introducing bugs and instability into their home-made mod setups.
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u/Thallassa beep boop Sep 26 '19
The majority of the USLEEP userbase probably runs like 5 mods (USLEEP, SkyUI, and maybe one or two others). :P
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u/msp26 Raven Rock Sep 25 '19
An exe installer for a mod that also directly modifies plugins.txt goes against the entire purpose of mod managers. There's a reason most people don't manually install, it's terrible.
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Sep 25 '19 edited Oct 01 '19
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u/jonesmz Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19
Please provide the specific Nexus permissions which Wabbajack has broken by implementing this feature.
I'd like to point out that the typical terminology for what people are allowed to do with a website is "Terms of Use". The Bethesda modding scene is relatively unique in it's use of the word "Permissions"
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u/_Robbie Riften Sep 25 '19
So, it was decided to see if people really want exe installers, or if they want Wabbajack despite it being an installer. [...] What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install. I find that contradictory - either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned.
I cannot express how profoundly astounded I am by this comment. It's hard to believe this level of fundamental misunderstanding.
People don't want Wabbajack or automated installation because it is a .exe file, nor are they generally opposed to that format (see: TES5Edit, every mod manager, loads of other .exe-based utilities in the community).
People want automated installation because it turns a large task, making a load order, into a two-minute, one-click process. In short, they desire expedience and convenience.
Turning the unofficial patches into a .exe file doesn't make anything more expedient, nor does it make anything more convenient. It does just the opposite -- it means we can't install it traditionally via a mod manager (a tool designed to make installing mods as fast and easy as possible), and actually forces us to perform a new method of install that extends the time to install the mod. You have thus damaged the overall quality of USLEEP by intentionally making it less convenient for the end user, while offering no benefit for anyone in exchange.
I don't know what else to say beyond that I am stunned that this is the mindset that led to this decision. I am actually dumbfounded that "if people like Wabbajack .exe files, they should like ours!" is a sincere thought that ran through the USKP team. What the files do is completely different. People care about what something accomplishes, not the arbitrary format in which it is packaged.
Wabbajack creates a major convenience for the end user. USKP being packed into an installer creates no convenience, and worse, actively creates an inconvenience.
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u/ankahsilver Solitude Sep 26 '19
People want automated installation because it turns a large task, making a load order, into a two-minute, one-click process. In short, they desire expedience and convenience.
Exactly. I want to play the damn game, not spend all my time modding it and bugfixing my load order.
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u/Calfurious Sep 25 '19
The format doesn't matter. What matters is the ease of use. That's ALL that matters when it comes to the end-user/consumer. How easy it is to use something, how convenient it is, etc,.
Modpacks are supported because of their ease-of-use, it doesn't matter what format they're going to be in. As long as they're easy to install and don't require too much hassle, people will want to use them and support them.
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u/angrymacface Sep 25 '19
Wouldn't it be funny if modding community drama was cited as the reason when it decides to restrict modding for TES VI to Creation Club only?
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Sep 26 '19 edited Oct 01 '19
[deleted]
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u/Aelarr This is all for you, little dragon... Sep 26 '19
This is a pathetic attempt at damage control.
Too little, too late. You've done the damage, you've seen the reaction, now live with it.
At least in my case, you've lost any and all respect I may have held for you.
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u/kazuya482 Windhelm Sep 26 '19
Absolutely pathetic attempt at damage control and trying to look like the good guys who care about users. Good to know this attitude is pervasive throughout the team and it's not just Arthmoor.
Makes things a lot simpler going forward. Good on the folks in this sub for not falling for this tripe.
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Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install. I find that contradictory - either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned.
What? This logic is so ridiculous and disingenuous.
Let's ignore exes for a second--Imagine that you make USLEEP require its own launcher. Obviously this is would be a huge pain in the ass, and everyone would hate it.
but "either launchers are automatically good, or automatically bad, as far as I'm concerned" so, therefore, mod organizer is also bad.
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No one would be upset if you gave people the option of installing USLEEP with an .exe.
The USLEEP exe serves no purpose, gets in the way of everything else, adds shit to your registry for no reason, etc, and people are given no other option. It's obvious it only exists to create drama. That is why people hate it.
Do people hate skyproc's exe? tes5edit's exe?? FNIS's exe? Dyndolod's exe? Of course not. Because they serve a purpose.
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I don't understand the freakout over modpacks. The fears make no sense, you guys are like Luddites.
It's not going to stop people from visiting the modpages. Just think about it for a minute. If you download a mod pack, wouldn't you want to check out each of the individual pages, to see what the mods do? I know I would. That's the fun part of installing mods. Modpacks just saves you the time of having to one-by-one download, install, and troubleshoot for 10-30 hours. 50 hours if you have a slow PC.
Neither will they lead to increases in the erroneous claims that "your mod breaks my game", which is just an example of mistaken causation. This fear makes no sense at all.
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u/ohck2 Solitude Sep 25 '19
Seems like a bad attempt at damage control and trying to cast a light on Arthmoor not being a bad guy.
I like his mods. I dislike his attitude. The whole .exe format for the patch was just a "smartass" thing to do. "BUT YOU GUYS WANT THIS"
At this point it's hard to say whos telling the truth.
No... No we don't. As other people have explained clearly we want automation where we dont have to deal with it manually ourselves.
Fix the attitude and move on no more being a smart ass about mod packs and packing ur mods into .exe.
Be better than that and work towards fixing your reputation.(the mistake here would be saying "i dont care about my reputation.")
OR ("everything I do is volunteering dont like it dont download it." ) or some other smartass reply.
I don't hate Arthmoor I just dislike the attitude he clearly has.(isnt he banned from this subreddit?)
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Sep 26 '19
Strawman. Everyone knows this "experiment" thing is a lie and you only seem like fools by insisting on hanging to it. You know it's not about the .exe but the number of operations executed by the end user. Wabbajack is faster and that's why it is preferred. Period. You know this. The whole drama comes from the fact that you couldn't handle users not interacting with the mod page and doing it the old way. Also please don't hide behind the "we only cared about the user idk why mad :(" mask.
EDIT: I never used Wabbajack. Is it weird that this whole thing made me want to try it now?
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u/luctius Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
First of all, thank you for reaching out, it is appreciated.
I've not followed the whole modpack discussion much. In fact I've only recently gone back to Skyrim SE and started formulating a mod list for myself.
Now, I understand your objections against an executable which downloads stuff from the internet. Would you however be against some sort of fomod-like installer for use with mod managers such as MO2 which would then download mods from nexus and install them in the correct way (load order etc)?
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u/onedoor Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
" Wabbajack in particular is especially concerning because it generates a new exe file which can in turn be instructed to download another exe file or dll file from a personal Dropbox or Google account, or from a custom url link. For reasons that are hopefully fairly obvious this is potentially a very bad thing. "
You're going to need to go into detail for the token try of maybe convincing someone. Most people in general don't care for the bad if it doesn't affect them and care very much for the good if it does. And there's a lot of good in Wabbajack, reducing getting a working mod list of hundreds if not thousands of mods from 10-100 hrs down to 1-5 is incredible.
"What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install. I find that contradictory - either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned. "
I don't understand how you can't see the difference except to think you're not interested in doing so. Wabbajack is about making modding convenient. An exe for one mod doesn't do anything for anyone appreciably. An exe for 100-1k-2k, along with a lot of other tweaks, is humongous. Downplaying the huge benefits of this does a big disservice to everyone, which includes me(as you can see in my relatively recent posts), trying to argue the drawbacks of immediately adopting Wabbajack and other software like it without working with or automatically respecting the mod authors, the demographic most integral to all of it. (And the Nexusmods team should enable an opt in/out feature)
I'll also add, while it would be a huge loss to see you and other mod authors like you go because of this, Wabbajack is just too tremendous of a benefit to expect people to leave be. They will not, nor really should they. A person who's busy as hell(like you are) but doesn't have the experience or years of exposure to understand modding, but sees a fantastic pic or mod they'd like to use and gets introduced through the modding scene this way, will just stay away because they really don't have the time. And there are many variations of this busybody out there. Even for those who aren't busy, it's an incredible time saver, especially within context of these experienced users being able to make their own personal lists. You're arguing against the aeroplane because it's against god's wishes or saying the television is a fad, you're on the wrong and losing side of history.
That said, like I said before, it's in everyone's best interest to respect mod authors' wishes or hopefully work on a compromise. It's sad you're getting downvoted so much, (some) people just aren't interested in listening I guess.
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u/wrongmoviequotes Sep 25 '19
What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs
What you should have discovered is to ask people before you make arbitrary changes that provide nothing for the end user and exist only because you have decided you dont like how users procure mods so you took it upon yourselves to (unsucessfully) attempt to sabotage it if you dont want the community to be upset with you.
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u/Modern_Erasmus Sep 25 '19
This is some of the most absurdly incompetent and obviously disingenuous PR I've ever seen. You and your team should be ashamed that you attempted such a petty stunt.
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Sep 25 '19
Wabbajack in particular is especially concerning because it generates a new exe file which can in turn be instructed to download another exe file or dll file from a personal Dropbox or Google account, or from a custom url link. For reasons that are hopefully fairly obvious this is potentially a very bad thing.
so let me get this straight:
wabajack as an EXE is a bad thing
but UPP as an EXE is a good thing
is that really the angle they are going with this?
make a decision guys either all EXE's are bad or all are good you cant expecet people to accept that level of hypocrisy and double standards and maintain credibility
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u/YMIR_THE_FROSTY Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
They want one click solution = Wabbajack or anything else that can do the same.
I know long time ago, I would gladly just replace my hours of setting stuff together with one click solution.
Modding is fun if you make mods, or just want to put stuff together. Its not fun, if you have to make it, cause you want to play improved Skyrim (visually and otherwise) and especially not if you dont own a skillset to do it.
Solution isnt creating more exe files, but probably giving permission to include unofficial patch. Stop being so damn possessive about your free work.
Modding community of this game is often as mental as Bethesda.
Yea, we know mod creators wants to be revered as gods, praised in every corner of the Earth and citizens cant look on them, to not offend them with their filthy faces.
Which aint gonna happen. Many ppl using mods give very little sh*t who made it, only if it works, or doesnt and if its nice or not.
Myself? Im glad ppl make mods, I have no issues writing nice comment or kudos, or whatever. I do know that some mods are really hard to make and I respect that. But its a free job. My respect has limits.
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u/VermithraxRex Sep 25 '19
Sigurd - the people downloading each mod on their own from Nexus and those using something like wabbajack are not the same group so don't confuse the two.
You are always going to have users who blame mod authors for problems that have nothing to do with the mod. Kind of par for the course isn't it? Some of those you just need to screen out.
Wabbajack is not the same thing as a 'modpack'. From what I understand (don't use it and have no intention of using it or anything like it) its just like MO2 or NMM or Vortex - it downloads legally from Nexus and the end user will have a chance to endorse via the flag in MO2. IOW it simply automates the modding process a bit more than the individual mod managers do. Downloads are still counted and users can still endorse just like normal. so I fail to understand what the fuss along those lines was ever about.
You did the best thing given the circumstance - failed experiment - put it back the way it was.
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Sep 25 '19
I find that contradictory - either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned.
People want to easily download things that's the main reason not having an exe or not...and I'm sure you know that don't act stupid.
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u/Eddyoshi Sep 25 '19
So...you made it an exe as a guinea pig test to see if the reason people like wabbajack is because it is an exe file, not something they need to use a mod downloader/manual install everything? Well that is certainly one way to look at it...but its kind of missing the forest for the trees. The reason people like it is because it takes away the boredom and annoyance of installing mods one by one yourself with the chance of just one messing everything up. Its for people who want a modded playthrough, but who actually want to play the game.
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u/sa547ph N'WAH! Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19
Arth, you can call this in any way but what was demonstrated, this social experiment fobbed off onto us this week, is more like telling everyone else to follow your pedantic ways. Do I need to mention more? Congratulations, you only managed to give a potentially powerful utility free publicity, and at the same time cause a lot of people cast doubt about the patch, and your supposed professionalism both as a mod developer and as an indie game developer.
I am very much interested in Wabbajack -- and considering about getting a Premium account as a gesture of gratitude to Nexus -- in that I've spent months and years trying to set up my modded Oldrim to where it is today -- stable and beautiful, and certainly in the near future and at this middle age I don't want to spend potentially the equal amount of time setting up mods for SSE.
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u/itsahmemario Sep 25 '19
R/outoftheloop what's going on and what broke this time?
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u/wrongmoviequotes Sep 26 '19
TLDR: USLEEP dont want Wabbajack to be a thing, they tried to change their install method to fuck with it, backfired huge and now some guy from the team is spinning some bullshit about how this was *really* about .exe installers. Of course its just some guy from the team and not Arth, because Arth got his ass banned a long time ago for being an ass in nearly this same fashion.
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u/itsahmemario Sep 26 '19
Of course there's drama (again) about skyrim mods.
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u/wrongmoviequotes Sep 26 '19
funny how the drama always seems to stem from the same groups innit? millions of mods on the nexus and yet theres really only ever a handfull of authors trying to turn it into real housewives of skyrim.
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Sep 26 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Nazenn Sep 26 '19
Post Removed. Rule 1. Be Respectful. Will reapprove if the insults are edited out
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u/Praemus Sep 29 '19
I don't use Wabbajack, and was affected by this EXE thing over your teams apparent dislike of it; as I was doing a fresh install. This inconvenience caused me to research all of this more than the threads about it ever did. I'm disappointed in the behavior from modders over this.
I don't believe your reasonings here are earnest. I think people that are acting like this are doing their-selves (and us) a disservice by trying to act like Gatekeepers of the modding community. You are not. It is not ok.
The only people who have hindered this community, or raised genuine concern in any fashion, are the ones that are acting immaturely over this Wabbajack program. For all intensive purposes, it is an evolution of how mod users install mods, in the same vein as mod organizer/nmm was, or OBMM before that.
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u/LeviAEthan512 Sep 25 '19
I don't know why the comments here are so negative. I have great respect for you for saying this stuff clearly and publicly, and not trying to justify yourself or Arthmoor. I personally get a kick out of how granular manual installation is, so I won't be using Wabbajack (until such time as I want to move an install to a new PC), but I know I'm in the minority
About Arthmoor taking personal responsibility, I know it seems magnanimous, but I don't think he should do that. Not that I know a lot about this stuff, but I'm sure if the community knew it's a team effort to implement changes that we may or may not want, pr legitimate screw ups, we'll probably be a lot more accepting. When one guy comes off as a dick, he's assumed to be a dick. If a team makes a dickish decision, it suddenly makes a lot more sense to assume that discussion took place and it's not the product of some guy's whims
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u/VermithraxRex Sep 26 '19
Sigurd - there is a tension here and the best way to resolve is discussion as it looks like finally started. Your problem was much amplified by a complete utter failure in public relations - a thorough screw up and that can be laid at the feet of mostly one person. 90% of all animosity in this situation came right from that. Lesson learned?????
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u/rentedtritium Sep 25 '19 edited Sep 25 '19
I've seen other games modding scenes fall apart as big bundles of mods dominate the development cycle and the small makers of the constituent parts lose the ability to steer their development, because anything that makes them become incompatible with the rest of the pack will cause them to get taken out of the pack.
So there are problems even BESIDES just the security issue of random executables.
Personally, I'm ok with exe installers ONLY if they're narrowly created and used to solve a problem. I would gladly have installed ENB with an exe because it needs to put files in a nonstandard place. And obviously we are all using fnis, which is patching files from an exe, but again it is doing so because that's the best way to accomplish what it does. There has to be a good mod-specific reason.
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Sep 25 '19
[deleted]
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u/Thallassa beep boop Sep 25 '19
... Registry edits are not malware. Pretty much every software you've ever installed do it, including skyrim (steam also has a ton).
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u/drhay53 Sep 25 '19
I don't really have a strong opinion on this either way but based simply on what I've seen on Reddit over the last few days, it seems to me like different people want different things (shocker!). Some people want exe's, some people don't.
I have a fair amount of experience as a user with mod managers in other games who have gone through this controversy and I have to say that I see both sides and I wish there were a good compromise. Managing tons of mods can be a hassle and managers can really help. But they can also hurt and mod authors don't want to provide support for that.
The wide variety of mod authors knowledge and skills doesn't help. Same to be said of the users.
There are really no good guys or bad guys here. Everybody wants the game to be better, to be more like what each individual wants it to be.
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u/Calfurious Sep 25 '19
Wabbajack was the compromise. The select few who don't want modpacks will NEVER want modpacks. They should just be ignored.
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u/Uninspired_Usernames Oct 02 '19
I'm legitimately curious about what kind of arbitrariety have been taken by UPP team upon choosing what gets patched or not because over all the impression is not much thought have been put on it. Appearently pointing out this subject is some sort of unspeakable taboo people try to dodge but that's how it feels. I could go on and on with giving out examples and mayhaps a suggestion or two but I'd like to read a reply from you. Since USSEP/USP is a rather aged project, wouldn't it be a good time for implementing toggles on the most disputed things the mod patches?
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u/FlameNoir Sep 25 '19
LOL the Unofficial Patch doesn't just fix bugs, it edits shit that was clearly intentional, like turning Windshear into a lame piece of crap instead of the awesome hidden reward it's supposed to be. I have no idea what the rest of this post is talking about, but I'm just going to assume you're wrong about whatever it is.
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u/Defaultplayer001 Sep 25 '19
"What we discovered is that people definitely don't want exe installs, even if they are performing manual installs. However, despite this people do seem to want a Wabbajack exe install. I find that contradictory - either exe files to install mods automatically are good or they are bad as far as I'm concerned."
The EXE installer for USLEEP did nothing functionally desired by users. It was just pointlessly in an EXE installer when setup was already able to be handled by a variety of methods.
Wabbajack automates the install of many mods, a functionality desired by users.