So...what exactly does this mean in regards to INI tweaks? they are now completely ignored so there are no files we can now edit or tweak? what about archive invalidation for textures mods or dont we need them anymore?

I guess people are gonna have to devise tool which include the LAA fix, the ini fixes, this fix that fix etc...its just so strange, if they are releasing creation kit soon...then...surely that bypasses steams anti piracy rules anyway ugh i dont get it, i assume this wont affect modding in the future?

It means nothing. The patch affects the .exe only, making it unable to launch without validation through Steam. This broke the ability to temper with the .exe itself by, say, flagging it for large address awareness, as Steam will refuse to recognize a modified .exe, but modding depends on .esm and .esp files and assets (meshes, textures, sounds) added to the Data folder, not the .exe itself (except for script extenders, but there is a workaround for these as well). Even the main game is an already existing .esm in your data folder. The .exe just exists to load these. The patch has no reason to prevent .ini tweaks either. Hope this helped you understand.

I expect this thread to go away like every other one that was posted yesterday. They were actively pruning threads about the stealth drm patch.

Like Reeven said, it does absolutely nothing for modding. It just ties the launcher to Steam so you can't run the game without Steam.

It would be nice if steam itself supported LAA (presumably with a "are you sure" popup that disclaims any responsibility if it sets your cat on fire).

Last time I checked, it is possible to use LAA with Steam. http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1013

All it broke is the ability to use the conventional LAA patch. And workarounds have already surfaced for that.

SKSE and D3D9 mods will continue to function perfectly.

Good, they have time to prune the forum but not to make a call to Bethesda and say "any chance we can give a quick update regarding the patch and the CK?" Priorites are right then.

In all seriousness though, I dont think this Steam patch has made a blind bit of difference really. Hopefully Bethesda will sort out a patch to allow more memory to be addressed. You never know.

In all seriousness. I have two esm's in my data folder. Skyrim.esm and Update.esm. Is that due to the update being discussed? I thought it changed the .exe. Maybe the wrong place to ask, but what is the Update.esm for?

Actively pruning? No.
Potentially locking the same thread that people felt they needed to post 200 times over? Maybe.

Update.esm is from the "day one" update to v 1.1.

As for the silent patch that fixes the bug where the copy protection could be bypassed by starting TESV.exe instead of the launcher: It was obvious that this fix will come, and it will only affect dirty mods that hack the exe.

LAA patches can be done by RAM injection just as well as script extenders.

When you say "dirty mod" I assume you mean something about pirating. That's fine.

I don't care much about the LAA patch because my copy is running fine, BUT I remember many of my favorite Oblivion mods required the OBSE. Are you saying that a script extender will not be possible with this game? Are you likening a script extender to a dirty mod that hacks the exe? I'm just curirous.

No he doesn't mean piracy. When he said dirty he means mods that are basically "hacks" to mod it in a way that was not really intended. Nothing implicitly bad about that. Just not a nice clean mod that works with the methods provided by Bethesda. I would almost say that what is now having to be done is dirtier to get the script extender and the laa to work.

OBSE/FOSE/NVSE/SKSE don't modify the exe. That's been one of their absolute core features since forever. Plus, y'know, there is a working version of SKSE out and a thread for it up? Which suggests it doesn't have a problem with the encrypted exe?

Not encrypted... that would be CEG which gamesas promised not to use. Just wrapped, which is why SKSE was updated for it a few hours later.

Bethesda promised a lot of things, like a different UI for PC.

This one they demonstrably kept.

Thanks for the explanations above.

overall it seems a bit silly and unnecessary, it's not like pirates are going to use Steam.