Whoever owns NetImmerse's assets, now. I don't remember who bought it, but it wasn't Bethesda.

Nope. It's just a heavily modified version of the Gamebryo engine they've been using. Maybe the license terms are such that the version they have now is so different that it's no longer considered Gamebryo, but I really can't say. Either way, the tools they use to create nifs are still licensed, regardless of Skyrim's game engine.

Yeah, the game came out in November. I started a house mod - just an expansion to an existing house - several weeks ago and I'm still not done. The last decent sized town I made took me about six months, maybe seven. The last city mod I made took me about 18 months. Quest mods take about two years. I think Tamriel Rebuilt for Morrowind is still in development?


Bethesda own the rights to what is in the Creation Kit, but they don't own the rights to certain things like Speedtree (are they still using that?) and other 3rd party programs.

Honestly, they released the game, which is what you bought. They put together the Creation Kit and released that for free. They put together the wiki and tutorial videos - far more comprehensive and instructive than anything they've ever done before - and put those up for free. They have spent time with us in the forums - they didn't have to do that. They have been working on fixes for gameplay bugs reported by the community - they did have to do that.

Put yourself in your shoes:

a. x-hundred-thousand players can't complete x questline because of x bug
b. a handful of mod users have noticed that things go screwy in a specific situation for a specific type of mod that means they have to reload their save or put up with NPCs in that one cell acting funny - the type of bug that even most mod users will never even notice.

Which are you going to rush to fix?

If you don't want to spend your spare time making a mod then, no, it's not worth bothering. Plenty of us veterans have spent months on a mod that nobody uses and, yes, it's disappointing but if you go into it with the expectation that loads of people are going to use it then you set yourself up for that disappointment.

Make it because you want it in your game, or don't bother.

If you want it badly enough, you'll find a way around almost any hurdle. If you don't, then all the tools in the world can't magic up your dream mod.

And there's always someone you can sell a wreck of a car to, if you put sawdust in the engine and sellotape over the rust and spray it. New modders are welcome, and they will hit the same brick wall sooner or later, then some more can come and try, and eventually leave, but dont despair, some more will come along and......

I'm learning modding at the moment and my aim is to create quest mods with interesting characters and locations, but it was very disheartening to learn of the navMesh issue, and I'm sure there will be lots more obstacles soon too, because I haven't seen many at all on the Nexus, so something must be wrong.

All is certainly not over by a long chalk. Bethesda are working on updates, they are fixing bugs, someone is looking at nifskope, someone is doing a max exporter and a blender exporter. Actually none of these are being done. Please post links to recent evidence to show that I am absolutely wrong. (reverse psychology here). I want to know they are all being worked on and fingers crossed they are.

That, or the rest of us don't have time machines to jump forward two years until they get made, because that's how long they typically take to make.

Well, I do remember one large landmass mod for Morrowind which came out a year or two after it was released, but it was a bit rubbish, truth be told. I think the game had been out a good three or four years before I saw the first town that was actually any good.

Sorry... no. Not at all, in fact. Those are things that you and certain specific others might think are the heart and soul of modding, but many, perhaps most, do not. The things you list as "modding" are of little to no interest to me and many other players, yet we run with tens or even hundreds of mods, and we do so in order to enjoy the game.

Like many players, my primary interest in mods is texture replacers, character aesthetics, and similar elements that enable me to actually identify and empathize with my characters. Bethesda's games are not about quests, so who cares? Sure, people who are goal-oriented and ignore simply exporing the world, but that is not the intent of Bethesda's products (i.e., going after goals to complete is not what their games are about; the quests/goals are only excuses for exploring, but are not needed since you can simply explore freely, anyway).

Bethesda offers far more support for modding than almost any other company. Actually, more than any other company except perhaps Firaxis. Do not attempt to equate Bethesda with a company that makes FPSes. The latter are far, far simpler and there really isn't much support to offer. However, even so, name how many companies who make FPSes actually SUPPORT modding (and I do not mean simple map making ... like many people, I play FPSes for story, not for multiplayer, and avoid multiplayerlike the plague). Same thing for strategy games, both turn-based and real-time. Aside from Firaxis with Civilization, who truly offers support and encouragement to the modding customers, let alone actually communicating with them? Even Firaxis doesn't communicate much with their customers on CivFanatics. They watch, yes, but you don't generally see Firaxis developers and such out on the forums posting or even uploading blogs or other news for communications.

The vast majority of companies in the gaming industry do not support modding. This is particularly true for major companies. With the type of attitudes expressed by some people in threads such as this one, it's no surprise why most companies don't bother.

I've almost completed the main quest in my current new lands mod. I'm experiencing some issues, but nothing even remotely bad enough to make me want to stop modding. That could also be my rediculously insane drive to impress them and get a job there.... Who knows!

Don't worry! I'm working 8 hours a day to get everyone out of this lack of epic-mods rut! My project is a new landmass, it's pretty darn big, and I'll be damned if it isn't good. I'm also (And this is the best part) aiming to have it done around August/Sept. So no 3 year project. Just 4 more months! Hang in there guys and gals!

Well may be then tell the rest of us how did you overcome the navmesh and lods bugs?

Have nothing to do with Bethesda.

You dont really paint a picture that Bethesda should aspire to. Perhaps if more companies took a leaf out of Bethesdas book they too would release such popular and long lived titles as Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind. If I was Bethesda I would wait a long time and try harder than look to inferior companies with inferior products and an inferior customer base for a model of how to do things. I can name several titles I have taken a look at that I would buy 'if' they had half decent modding abilities. I didnt buy Wargame, European Escalation because the game is rubbish. I like the game, but it has no moddability so I'm not interested. I bet there are plenty of companies out there who wish they had the courage to do what Bethesda do. I doubt Bethesda look to others for lessons in how to get things done or keep their customer base. The more accesible a game is to modding, it seems the more popular and long lived it becomes. Releasing a one hit wonder might pay the mortgage but its unlikely to keep petrol in the car, food in fridge etc.

The essence of my argument is that they could do better and should try to. Does anyone disagree and think they should try to do worse?

I don't think AiTenshi1 was trying to paint a picture that Bethesda was trying to aspire to, than simply pointing out that Bethesda are pretty much the most modder-friendly company out there. I mean, have you tried to use the Dragon Age modding kit? I gave up after just a few minutes - there just was not that network of support (tutorials, videos, etc) that we have here. I don't know what you mean by "wait a long time" but I do think the "try harder" thing is a little unfair when it's pretty clear that they're already trying really hard and going way above and beyond what can reasonably be expected of them.

Sure, we all have a personal wishlist of things that we'd like them to do next, and that's fine, but posts in here complaining that there aren't huge landmass mods already confirm that a lot of players are simply impatient - as much with modders as they are with Bethesda.

*shrug*

My complaint? That they made things so much more difficult than they could have been. Seriously: 3 papyrus functions and a simple script and they could have enchanted weapons covered through the game. However, with no dynamic algorithm, it requires specific variants for each - Crafting 300 required 26 thousand different weapons.

The few bugs, I hope get fixed. The main thing I'm annoyed by is that they did the bare minimum of what was needed - they didn't implement a single papyrus function that they didn't need, thus the SKSE team gets to implement them all with assembly over the course of months when they could do it in a few days with the source.

The fact that they 1) made things more difficult for themselves (AV shouldn't be needed, for example: code to automate it in-game would be simple, but instead we have to use a full workaround - they could have saved themselves hundreds of hours in creating all the NPC variants with code like it), 2) they only did the bare minimum, and 3) the bugs in various functions like the NPC facial data, the navmesh bug, and others.

They also could have left their version control system in.. would make group projects easier.

On the flip side though, I have wondered if other companies DON'T allow modding because it exposes how fragile their game is. I don't want to criticize the devs - I don't know who it was that caused it. All I know is that something went wrong in the throughput, be it marketing, the upper CEO's without any programming knowledge, inexperience, lack of time, something.

But, I'll still work on it, it's fun to do anyways.

Plutoman - BGS only providing scripting functions that they need is nothing new - it has been the same with each release. Since we started working on OBSE we've seen a steady increase in the number of functions provided by BGS, many which originally came from one of the ScriptExtenders. Papyrus provides a whole lot of functionality in the vanilla mode that was not available in earlier games. I'm actually impressed that they moved to the new language, especially because it provides a lot for modders.

That being said there are a lot of functions SKSE will provide that are really quite basic (GetType, inventory walking, ref walking). But if they provided it all we would be out of business. They've also been quite supportive of our efforts over the last 6 years. So we've got no real complaints.

On another subject: what is the current state of the niftools? And how badly is the state of the tools hurting the modding community? In the past we noticed that they have a very similar sort of job as the xSE team. If things are in bad shape we may be able to help them some with some of the insights we've uncovered with the game.

I've no complaints, albeit I don't really mess with some of the CK's facets that others are having troubles with. The scripting was my biggest concern and, although it was kinda foreboding at first, it's grown on me. Papyrus is fantastic!

Is it worth keep modding big scale for Bethesda? I don't think any of us do it for Beth, but rather for ourselves and that tickling sensation we get when creating something. Anyhow, If one cannot manage to have fun with the medium, perhaps they should move on or, like with any other puzzle, put it down for a minute...?

Somewhat broken. Nifskope can open and display skyrim nifs fine, but you have to delete all Skyrim's newly added nif nodes and set the version number and a bunch of stuff to their Oblivion values to export the mesh to blender or 3dsmax. And nifscripts only work properly with blender 2.46, not 2.62 which I find much easier to use. And when you import the mesh back into skyrim, you have to undo what you did to that mesh by adding back Bethesda's new nif properties again... it just is a lot of work for something that could've been much simpler as it was in Oblivion. Interestingly, I noticed that all of skyrim's meshes can be pyffied (just like oblivion) for performance increase, all you have to do is to make them oblivion-like (and reverse that process to import them back to skyrim). Oh, and some tools like nifopt downright fail to recognize Skyrim's nif files.

I stand corrected then. That's good to hear. I never had the experience of creating mods for Oblivion/Fallout, so I'll concede that. Some would have been simple though.. But hey, if you enjoy the work then I guess that's not a bad thing.

That leaves me with 2 complaints then - one of which, the bugs, are fairly normal with releases and I'm impressed with the new levels of interaction they've given to fix them. So my main complaint is that they've just made things more difficult for themselves. I feel like a lot of code could have been simplified and streamlined which could have taken months off the development time in the first place for many of the designers. Some streamlined code could make life easier for everyone involved - they get less work to do, we have less to work around.

But as I said, I do enjoy it, so I'm not gonna complain 'too' much. I'll just mod away and have fun with it anyways. As that's the point, amirite?

Modding is always going to be difficult but what a faff they have made of it. Well give it a year or so and we will look back and laugh.

*shrug* Try modding any EA game for comparison. Not to say it couldn't be done better, but, it's a far shorter process than writing my own game. I'll give them plenty of credit where it's due. Especially considering the increased levels of interaction. I'd give them plenty of suggestions for the next game, though...

To summarize this -

NifSkope:
- can't display collision data properly at all

Blender:
- support for Skyrim has low priority as all current works are about to converting old importers/exporters from Blender 2.49 to newer Blender 2.6+ - only after this will be done, the support for Skyrim is planned to be added,
- if anyone uses Blender he/she needs to transfer geometry via obj/3ds files and if I'm not mistaken through the nifs in Fallout's format...

3ds Max:
- latest versions of NifTools have support to import/export Skyrim meshes - while import works somehow (at least for weapons and armour), there's a lot of work in NifSkope required for exported meshes, and some work needs to be done in Nifskope for imported meshes as there are some blocks Max can't recognize and import fails...

Blender and 3ds Max:
- there's no any way to import/export newest compressed collision data because it hasn't been decoded yet in full, so this makes static objects pretty much impossible to implement properly in game - in other words: all weapons, armours, and some clutter objects can be made, but not new architecture, rocks, caves, mountains, etc. Anyway even for those items that can be made, a lot of NifSkope's magic is required.

The navmesh bug was overcome by making my mod an ESM, which I have to do anyway. I haven't had any issues with navmesh since.

I'm only having minor LOD bugs. I haven't gotten a solution yet, but it's also not super bad and doesn't ruin the mod at all. It's just not ideal.

@Karellan and @Artisanix: thanks for the update. I guess I may try and ping whoever is active on the NifTools side and see what they are having the most trouble with. We might be able to get them over the hump. Only so much time, however ...

There is only so far that texture replacers and tweaks will take anyone. Which is pretty much what you are left with. I guarantee that the majority of mod users would like more then shiny texture replacers. Even so, the fact is that I am not just talking about mod users, believe it or not, mod makers actually mod what they enjoy making, not just to please mod users. For mod users and mod makers, there is only so much you can actually do in the game and given time every single last player will have completed every quest in the game and what is left then....huh?.....me thinks what is left is new QUESTS, new locations, new towns, new landscape to admire, brand new models that add something completely new to a game that you have played to it's absolute limit.


This would be why I am asked on a daily basis to add new locations, new quests, new companions....on my role play mod?! Players are desperate for something new, having played this game to it's fullest. I am not sure where you are getting your information but I suggest you ask the average player what they want and they will respond that they want new quests, new location, new content...etc...etc.... Are you honestly saying that everyone should be happy roaming around a landscape with absolutely nothing to do? That quests are a waste of time? Bethesda's games may not be about the quests to you, but I assure you that you are pretty much alone in this thinking. For me, I love exploring and looking at the beautiful landscape AND actually doing something with purpose, AKA quests.


Not sure exactly who you are refering to here. If you reread my post you will read the part where I stated that I am grateful for and happy to wait for the fix for the nav mesh bug. No where in my post is anything that says that Bethesda is lacking in support, other then in letting us know what fixes have already been implemented. Hardly an unreasonable request.. I have no idea what you are talking about FPS's for and in no way did my post attempt to compare them to a Bethesda game....shortly put...what are you talking about!?. I assure you that in the seven years I have been modding Bethesda games, I have always been grateful for the opportunity to do so, regardless of the nearest FPS..

You speak of an attitude in this thread, but yours is the only derisive attitude. Let the people mod what they will and let the players enjoy the vast quantity of mods that are made and want mods beyond simple texture replacers. Not everyone must think the same way and not be allowed thought beyond texture replacers and minor tweaks. Don't tell people that they should shut up and be grateful for what they have because somewhere else people are worse off, because things will never progress with that sort of thinking.

yeah, i guess its still early to be getting TOO angry about this stuff, but im still of the opinion bethesda needs to do more to reach out to the modders. they have done more for skyrim than any game prior. but i still think they owe it to the community to keep us updated on their progress in the creation kit. contact and communication are key for a happy relationship.

I Quote the answer that was given me when I posted your solution in the navmesh bug ...

[img]http://www.gamesas.com/images/smilie/snapback.png[/img]Arthmoor, on 10 April 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:
That's a workaround, and as I've said before, not a good one. Converting a mod into an esm throws off everything about load ordering that's been established. Plus, you have to have ONAM lists, which can't be generated by anything other than FO3Edit, which is NOT built to handle Skyrim files.

if someone explains me better would be nice ...