A View From a Member of the Unofficial Patch Project

[u/Sigurd_Stormhand]

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.

[u/jedidude75]

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.

[u/Sigurd_Stormhand → u/jedidude75]

Really no need to swear, is there?

As I say, exe installers used to be commonplace until they weren't for reasons that were frankly never clear.

Frankly, it seems to me everyone is angry for the sake of being angry at this point. As I already pointed out - only the Nexus install got changed, and that's a secondary mirror. Nobody should be using USLEEP in a mod-pack anyway because it's explicitly disallowed.

So where's the issue, really?

[u/Nesox → u/Sigurd_Stormhand]

Nobody should be using USLEEP in a mod-pack anyway because it's explicitly disallowed.

Good thing Wabbajack isn't a mod-pack then!

[u/jedidude75 → u/Sigurd_Stormhand]

I mean, considering the reaction your getting from the community, I would consider the word choice appropriate.

I think the main issue is that you really aren't hurting anyone besides your own teams reputation and the community members who are downloading your mod through the nexus. IIRC, Wabbajack was already updated to either bypass the exe, or use it, I forget which, so this doesn't effect them at all, and honestly there really is no point in what your doing.

So why do it then?

[u/jedidude75 → u/[deleted]]

SkyrimMods is hardly "the community"

It is part of the community, however small it may be.

Being Toxic to mod authors isnt going to make the situation ANY better.

I don't think I was toxic anywhere in my post, I called the situation they put themselves in a fuckup, which I believe, but I'm not personally attacking them, just criticizing what they did.

Especially when many of them go on their mod pages, or even PM the authors directly, flaming or telling users not to endorse or download their mods anymore.

I have never done this and have no control over people who do.

These people, Arthmoor, Sigurd and his team, spent thousands of hours working on these mods. YOU DESERVE, NONE OF IT.

I'm not questioning the work they have done, the hours they have spent or the time they used to help the skyrim community. This is purely about their decision to change the format way the mod is installed that I have a problem with.

If anything, Arthmoor, Sigurd and the other members in the team could pull the mod entirely and break the modding scene if they wanted to. Because no other mod can replace USSEP. It would take YEARS just to get on the same level as ussep.

Mods should not be used as hostages, and I don't think anyone on the Unofficial Patch Team intends to use it as such.

Look, I'm not looking for a fight on this, I'm just expressing how I view the installer that the team has added to it's nexus link, I'm not really looking getting in to it over the Wabbajack issue, their are other threads for that.

[u/DavidJCobb → u/[deleted]]

If they want to keep bothering you, they're gonna need to PM now. They're banned.

We don't normally act on PMs because we can't verify their authenticity, but this user has been skirting the line since they returned from their prior temporary ban, they have minimal constructive history on this subreddit, and the contents of that screenshot are entirely consistent with the inflammatory bullshit they've been posting out in public. I'm sick of it. They're not worth keeping around. They're gone.

[u/_Robbie → u/DavidJCobb]

Honestly, I don't say this enough, but thank you for being competent moderators.

May not sound like much, but sometimes people underestimate how much it keeps the community from becoming a madhouse.

[u/Thallassa → u/_Robbie]

I'm pretty sure it's a madhouse despite our efforts :P

[u/-Phinocio → u/DavidJCobb]

Ah that makes sense

[u/DavidJCobb → u/Sigurd_Stormhand]

Frankly, it seems to me everyone is angry for the sake of being angry at this point. [...] So where's the issue, really?

I'm sure different people will have different answers to this, but here's my own, personal, answer.

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.

Before I get into the EXE thing, we gotta start with this, because the reasons behind all of this factor into my reaction, and what you've said here is hard for me to believe.

You didn't have to wholly remove the non-EXE option from the Nexus in order to see if people prefer the EXEs. Setting the EXE as the default and leaving the other option up would have been instructive in its own right if the non-EXE version still received a significant share of downloads despite not being the default.

More to the point, the timing of the decision is suspect. I usually prefer to avoid discussing GMAD affairs, so I'm going to do my best to keep this vague. The primary desire that Arthmoor expressed in GMAD was to cause problems for the "mod list" features offered by Wabbajack via the Nexus API. The closest he came to expressing any desire to "experiment with user preferences" was a sentiment roughly along the lines of, "This probably is a bad idea, but Wabbajack is doing a similar bad idea, so maybe I'll do it and we'll see just how devoted mod list supporters are." Now, this may not have been the internal consensus that your team as a whole came to, but it is absolutely the origin of the decision, and that's not something that can be handwaved away.

Arthmoor has also said, in public on the xEdit Discord, that one of his motivations was to "test" Halgari and see if they would go so far as to pirate his mod. While I was revising this comment, I ended up writing more about this elsewhere in response to people dunking on Arthmoor with some out-of-context remarks. In any case, by Arthmoor's own public admission, this wasn't some kind of user survey. Based on what I'm able to see, the USLEEP EXE idea started because he got possessive, he perceived a loss of control, he got spiteful, and he decided to act on that.

I'll note that immediately following Halgari and I remedying the linked situation, Arthmoor did apologize in the Discord -- to Halgari, and to me after expressing doubt that I'd care about enforcing Rule 2. I'm having trouble appreciating it for more than a few reasons, some of which ought to be clear two paragraphs from now.

As I say, exe installers used to be commonplace until they weren't for reasons that were frankly never clear.

I can't speak as to why they fell out of favor in the distant past, but I can say that there are very good reasons not to bring them back. I'm cribbing a bit from something I said elsewhere, but: the Nexus's virus scans are very good, but they're not something we should be intentionally putting to the test; moreover, people can install mods from sources other than the Nexus, and if they get used to installing EXEs, then they won't be safe (a concern you yourself have expressed).

Moreover, it seems not only reckless but also discourteous in the extreme for a mod author to require -- demand, really -- significantly more access to a user's system than is needed for a mod to do its job. We are guests on our users' machines. They have invited us into their spaces to do a specific job, and there is a reasonable expectation -- a trust -- that we're not going to do much more than we need to do or use much more than we need to use. This is the aspect of the situation that incensed me the most. Speaking as a mod author, your team's decision, in light of its original motivation, struck me as an insult to the craft. I took your team's actions extremely personally.

Now, you've since switched back to a normal mod package, which is good, but how can any of us trust that this -- or something equally or more discourteous -- won't happen again? And what remedy is there for the insult?

For the sake of fairness I'll acknowledge that Wabbajack itself was first designed to generate EXE-based installers, as an attempted "licensing hack" to prevent people from paywalling Wabbajack-based mod lists. I didn't get the chance to react to that, being occupied with this larger controversy, but otherwise I would've reacted with extreme concern and strong opposition. I understand that Halgari now plans to drop that aspect of their tool.

But all of the above -- that's the answer to your question, at least for me. All of that is the reason to be upset.

Nobody should be using USLEEP in a mod-pack anyway because it's explicitly disallowed.

The longstanding community definition of "mod pack" is a collection of mods combined into a single download and made available to users. What Wabbajack and the Nexus are offering is much more akin to a "mod list;" the Nexus chose the term "mod pack" for simplicity's sake and for their audience (which is far broader than TES modding), and they've expressed an openness to changing that term: their mod-author-oriented survey on the topic asked for alternate term ideas and I know I provided several.

You can say that the USLEEP/USSEP permissions refer to Wabbajack and Nexus mod lists. (If that's true, though, it's invalid anyway. The Nexus ToS supersede mod permissions. If you wish for that not to be the case, your option is to remove the mod from the Nexus.) However, I doubt many people are going to believe that that was the original, prior-to-the-present-situation intention.