The ONLY thing Steamworks is good for... Well nothing I can think of. It's a crap shoot with the possibility of ruining a stable game. And if the game doesn't delete content after you unsubscribe, that's just sloppy. Who wants a cluttered harddrive with unnecessary used space?

Well, I'm not going as far as to blame the Workshop itself for this, but its current implementation just is... let's say sub-optimal, and needs fixing.

If there is such a clever failsafe, automatically putting you into a Vanilla cell when the mod-added cell you saved in gets removed, as it was the case in Oblivion with any Vanilla creatures and NPCs from in mod-added cells suddenly popping up in this one particular hotel in the IC when the cells they were in got removed, then that's actually less an issue with Skyrim, but I remember very well in Oblivion your savegame was useless, if you stored in a mod-added cell and then removed the mod.

But here's another one, more related to things I'm doing myself actually, yet still there could be other clever failsafe mechanisms in Skyrim I don't know of.

Let's say I'm creating my anthro-dragon race in Skyrim. I create one new race record, calling it DrakeDragon. This is version 1 and I'm uploading it "exclusively" to the workshop. Countless people download it from the workshop and use it in their games as their player race, make dozens of gamesaves, hundreds of hours played, with just this race, DrakeDragon.

Now I get to v2, and being me it's a "huge" upgrade. I reconsidered there only being 1variation of my race (a.k.a. listened to dozens of users crying for different versions with different textures, colors, abilities, you-name-it) and "removed" race entry DrakeDragon to replace it with a couple of DrakeDragonBlack, DrakeDragonGreen, DrakeDragonGold... etc etc... new entries with unique features.

Knowing what the Workshop will do I consider informing everybody what's going to happen, issue warnings that a major update is coming along and they should by all means unsubscribe my mod and only resubscribe once they created a clean save after switching to a Vanilla race via console... However, as you all will likely agree, I'll still not reach "everybody" in time with this warning.

The result is, those not creating said clean save before I upload my upgrade will "never" (repeat "NEVER") be able to load their savegames (ALL their savegames) again, as the race they were playing simply doesn't exist anymore and me exclusively uploading to the Workshop there's also no v1 of my plugin around anywhere for them to downgrade... now that would definitely svck, and wouldn't be surprised if the "feedback" I'll receive for pulling this trick would make me drop sharing my mods publically once and for all... and the best thing is, there was nothing I could've done to prevent this, other than "not uploading my v2 update".

Of course that's still a flawed example, considering I would never dare pulling such a trick but release v2 seperately as an entirely new subscription... yet still this would also get me some less-polite complaints for why I didn't just "update" v1, and I couldn't care less for this... but still it's only the pinnacle of things which can and will and already do go wrong with the current implementation of immediate automatic updates the Steam Workshop provides.

Now tell me there's yet another failsafe for the case your entire race vanishes from the race records, making you an Imperial with default appearance or some such,... then I'll really start believeing the game's yet more safe than all its predecessors combined ever were.

Orrrr you could just update your mod and leave the original DrakeDragon race as, say, the red one. Honestly I think people are just coming up with excuses to hate the Workshop. Everyone is used to the Old Ways and is too stubborn to accept anything new.

I wouldn't call it hate... well, perhaps some do hate Steam in its entirety, can't deny that... but for me it's rather pointing out very dangerous and troubling design flaws "in its current implementation". Of course they can fix it, and they definitely will, at one point or another... I just hope it won't take them too long to realize it's an issue, or potential users will be gone by then already.

Just because there are ways for me to prevent running into the issues mentioned, the issues are still far from gone. Of course any and all of the issues mentioned so far can be prevented by us modders one way or another. Heck, if I "never" release an update but always only completely new subscriptions of my mods to begin with, no harm can ever be done by the automatic updating. But what's the point of it existing then?

Oh, and I need to correct me, as harm will always be done, if you're not only a user but also a modder, who likes to mess aorund with plugins from others only to see what happens if you change a specific value or setting or whatnot. Having your subscription still active all changes you do to the plugin are lost before you start the game... now, isn't that just the way to encourage new modders to play around with experienced modders' work, to maybe "learn" from them? Denying them this ability in its entirety? Way to go for sure. But as this only concerns modders and modders apparently aren't the target group for the Workshop anyways, nor is getting new people interested in modding, I think that one doesn't qualify as a valid issue with the Workshop either.

But what honestly troubles me most with all the design flaws brought up so far, is that Bethesda was perfectly aware of all of them "for years" (I will flat out call everybody a liar who tries to convince me they didn't know), and didn't even heed a warning into Valve's direction while watching them navigate the ship right into the cliffs instead. Seems they don't really care about the Steam Workshop other than for statistical feedback about customer numbers and things... which as of right now is pretty much a flawed feedback as well, as the number of Steam Workshop users is less representative than it could be, due to all the design flaws driving people away from it. And there's no denying this either.

Every problem mentioned here can be resolved by unsubscribing from a mod after it's downloaded. Most would probably be satisfied with a checkbox that said "disable auto-updating," and yet that's exactly the effect you can already get by unsubscribing from everything. If you're going to tinker with a mod, unsubscribe first. If you're worried that an update to the mod will ruin your save, unsubscribe. You're in control of the behavior here, not Valve. So the only listed "disadvantage" isn't a disadvantage at all, it's a failure on the part of the user to control the additional power they've been given over how their mods are downloaded.

As a modder, I love the fact that I can push updates of my work out to people. If a bug makes it into a release, I can correct it very quickly with no action required on the part of people who downloaded it. That is a powerful feature. On the other side of things, it's great that I can browse mods at work, and if I see one I like, click one button and it'll automatically install when I get home to play. No need to email myself a link or reminder to grab it on my home computer. Unless you have a gripe with the way mods are searched, sorted, or rated, there's no legitimate reason not to embrace the Workshop.

Well, by now I don't consider myself in the target group of the Workshop either.

As a mod user I see no benefit in using it, if the only way for me to use it would be subscribe, let things download, immediately unsubscribe, so I can do conflict-fixing, load order management, installation tweaks and version control on my end as I'm used to, all of which are flat out denied to users when they keep mods subscribed. Now, if I have to unsubscribe every mod I subscribed so I can keep my installation conflict-free and maintain a working load order, what's the point of subscribing again to begin with?

And as a mod author you'll need to force me with a shotgun in my face before I give in to the hassle I will have when distributing my mods over the Workshop. My mods are too complex to ever work without ability to fix conflicts or manage load order on the user's end. There's already enough people complaining in my comments about what-is-considered-common-knowledge-of-mod-using, yet they're unaware of it and I need to explain to them. And this will only get worse once I publish on the Workshop, as most users there will never understand why I'm telling them to unsubscribe my mod after downloading, or flat out ignore my warnings, and then blame me for messing up their games afterwards. It just isn't worth the hassle to me.

For myself I can't find any legitimate reason to "embrace" the Workshop the way it currently is. But as we're not going to agree in this and I'm not even a Steam user, yet, I'm out of this discussion now.

The vast majority of mods should not require unsubscribing to work properly. Most that do, probably wouldn't if they were designed well. I made the Servant of the Dawn mod for Oblivion, which I would consider pretty complicated since it modified a bunch of world cells, added new items with new models and textures, and had a full suite of voice-overs. I released probably over a dozen updates over its lifetime. That mod would have worked flawlessly with the Workshop, with auto updates enabled. It would even be a cleaner installation, since my original mod didn't have all its resources packaged neatly into a .bsa, which the CK will now do for you.

There is such thing called, "Better Way". kthnx. People really, REALLY need to get over the fact there are some good, if not valid, reasons why Steam Workshop is a bad idea. I'm not one of Steam-hating people, but I think the implementation of Steam Workshop is really poor from the beginning and to the end (I hope I'm wrong about the end itself though). For one example, given that CK will insert or add (or whatever you call it) the "dirty edits" in the mods. Will Steam Workshops re-download if we clean it up with eventually-released TESVEdit afterward? Even if we unsubscribe to resolve it, it's still a problem because it is still a temporary solution. That's what I like about Nexus, Alliance, etc is that I download and clean them up if there are any error in them, and then forget about it. Totally peace of mind. Workshop has corruped a few of my friends' saves of hundreds of hours after simple unsubscribing and subscribing. What about my saves? It's ridiculously, perfectly clean.

I wholeheartedly doubt I'd miss anything if I don't download, er I mean "subscribe", anything from Steam Workshops anyway. Having that said, I love Steam and their digital distribution system, but Workshop itself? There is another "Better Way^tm" for that.


P.S. Apologizes for my English... it's not my first language.

Nvm.