bethesda Bethesda announces "Creation Club" (Paid Mods)

[Guest]

This is one of the reasons why I ditched a different community and came here. Got sick and tired of the elitists ignoring others when they are trying to acquire knowledge to make a mod but refuse to. And then get defended by the staff and you being called out as an entitled brat when they know well how it is. A mod community is about sharing and sharing ideas so that the community grows and expands over onto others with knowledge so more great mods can be created and released. But Skyrim was a set example of the opposite.

What I noticed by these elitist is that their help only extends so far. This help coats their true selves underneath as you'll see fanboys step up and defend them by saying they do help, which they do but you aren't seeing it. The only way they'll see it, is the moment they start to ask for help on the more depth technical problems. Or trying to learn how to do something only they know. My experience jumping into the Skyrim mod scene was seeing the level of circle jerk and arrogance that goes on in it. Next to the level of fanboyism. And that migrated over to Fallout 4 by the same people. Just like you, that's pretty much when I really started to become a dick in that community.

But hey, I'm just a bitchy entitled person for coming out and saying something about it. At least that is what certain staff members from a particular community think anyways.

They have that "I know what you don't which makes me superior over you and you'll never know because I want to be the very selected few who can do it" mentality.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Guest

[Kendo 2]

OFF TOPIC

Spoiler

 

On some forums their outlook on modding and moderating is as outdated as their forum software.  Evidently they 'now what they're doing' so fuck'em.  I've been around long enough to know that once the 'modding elite' and their fan bases infest a site it starts alienating people and they either leave or stop participating.  Cases in point, the old Elric, CanadianIce, and HoundDog forums.  Those sites went down the elitist path and where are they now?  Who has even heard of them?  Yeah, exactly.

NSFWMods will never be that kind of site.  Here, everyone is equally worthless and no one is special.  I guess that's why more modders don't upload here, even though we have a vastly superior upload system and user interface than some other sites.  And modders aren't going to get the vapid external validation here some of them crave.  AND we're not a 'social media' site that draws forum spammers and fanboys...and thank God for that.

 

Bethesda modding already has a taint on it after FO4.  Sites like Nexus and Lover's Lab where any half-baked bullshit that someone uploads is considered 'a mod' is part of the reason.  The low standards and conditioned expectations of 'the community' is another.  Bethesda inserting themselves into the scene isn't going to help things along or improve mod quality.  The Creation Club is a way for them to make money off of an existing free market, just like it was in 2015 and the Valve paid modding scheme.  The next step in this progression will be Bethesda pulling a T2/GTA5 modding prohibition.  That's coming, probably as soon as Starfield, if not sooner.

[Doublezero]

So Bethesda is re-releasing Skyrim twice (switch and Skyrim PSVR), is selling additional indie content but SSE hasn't been patched it 4 months and still has major issues. What the hell. (self.skyrimmods)

People are growing tired of Bethesda.

[Kendo 2]

2 hours ago, Doublezero said:

So Bethesda is re-releasing Skyrim twice (switch and Skyrim PSVR), is selling additional indie content but SSE hasn't been patched it 4 months and still has major issues. What the hell. (self.skyrimmods)

People are growing tired of Bethesda.

 

[Guest]

The reason why they are doing this is because TES6 is a super long ways off. And for all we know they more than likely will keep using their gamebryo engine and continue to lie telling others it's a new engine. I remember K2 mentioning that they couldn't use it no more because their license to use the game engine expired. But that's not stopping them from repurchasing the license. From what I have gathered, if they were to invest in a completely new engine, it would mean different software, which means a completely different toolkit that modders will have to learn and adapt to. And that means change of assets. That to me sounds like something Bethesda would never do.

 

edit: ugh... I can't stand Matty. He's such a Beth/FO fanboy.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Guest

[ritualclarity]

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Something else to consider about this 'Creation Club' thing; competition between modders and the death of sharing.

that is one concern I have had as well. Even if there is sharing it might not be as freely as it has been in the Oblivion days or even Fallout 3 days. Hell even early Fallout NV days the info was much more freely given. I have connections with some which would give me some access to some assistance that might not be "public" but month after month more and more "retire" and move on and basically don't give a fuck about the game or the "politics" of what is going on as they get disgusted at what is going on.

Many left with the last attempt at making money off the modder's work. I believe many more will again. I just hope that the thought of money being made might bring some of those great mod authors back and perhaps some new ones. Hopefully, it won't be as Kendo worries about (as well as I do) it will be more closed development.

I believe this would be more along the lines of EA's Sims development. Some of the stuff is dead simple to set up but what people did to get these programs and such setup isn't distributed. You are stuck with what they gave and can't do anything about updating the tool if EA updates the game. Currently we have a very open scripting tool sets and those things in the past that weren't so open... was able to be accessed once you hung around and shown that you were doing some serious work. People used to see you as a fellow modder and give a few pointers here and there much more than I see currently and the decline over the past 4 years on LL and Nexus in sharing and helping develop others has been on a massive decline. This is what was happening before all this BS occurred. I hope this isn't the last nail in the coffin of Bethesda Modding. But if it is, they were the fuctards that did it to themselves. The sad things is we all will suffer from it.

[Kendo 2]

CDProjektRed only needs to do two things to kick Bethesda off of the 'you can mod it therefor it is a good game' throne.

Cyberpunk 2077; play as a female character and they release a modding kit to where the players can actually mod the game like they can (or could) mod a Bethesda one.  If ProjektRed does those two things Bethesda modding will take a critical hit.

[ritualclarity]

46 minutes ago, Kendo 2 said:

CDProjektRed only needs to do two things to kick Bethesda off of the 'you can mod it therefor it is a good game' throne.

Cyberpunk 2077; play as a female character and they release a modding kit to where the players can actually mod the game like they can (or could) mod a Bethesda one.  If ProjektRed does those two things Bethesda modding will take a critical hit.

If....they maintain the quality of their writing etc.

I would love if they had a better, easier modding tools for Witcher 3. More complete tools etc. However... I will easily accept their games egarly if they continue to produce exactly the same quality content that they are currently (With improvements of course to keep ahead of he rest of the companies.) even if they are never able to be modded.

Lets keep in mind that making a game moddable does open a serious risk of causing the game to have issues. The more changes the customer can do to their games, the more issues could arise. Even a company with such attention to detail as Project CD Red has, could run into troubles and issues creating a game that is moddable. AS I understand how they created their games, they created most if not all the content themselves. The animations and how things work is hard coded into the game, scripted, etc. This forumla might  be hard to change and keep the quality of their finish product (technology wise not story, content wise) to the level that they are currently at. However, with the  stellar reception they have had with their products in the past and how everything they do has been received they might just have the money to be able to have a small team create a framework of tools which they then can use to develop a moddable game that can be modded to the level (or better) than any other company (namely Bethesda)

I believe they do the job right from the start. So, I have doubt that the new game will be any more moddable than the previous ones as there is no indication that they are interested in Bethesda level modding implementation into their games. At least not yet. If they were convinced that this is something that their customers wanted ... AND they were confident that they could pull it off or at least fairly sure that they could... I suspect it will be a future game that would need to be fitted for this ability.

 

[Guest]

Well if you haven't seen this video, or have kept up with Cyberpunk 2077 from the past when it started to present, you'll be surprised how they have really take this game. Pay attention to the amount of developers they started with, the amount they planned to just have, and the amount they ended up having for this game alone.

It's clear they take their games far more serious than Bethesda Game Studio does.

[ritualclarity]

The game will be released when it is done....

... wonder which company could learn from that?

 

Holly shit... they will be speaking mostly in their native language...

Cyberpunk is far bigger than anything else they ever done...

I really love how they advertised Cyberpunk in Witcher III Maybe a cameo would be interesting... 

Some might be worried about the growth and amount of employees would be an issue in the future. I don't think this is the case. They are successful, those that have started and worked during this time are still at the lead. I believe they can easily handle those employees. In a few more years perhaps they will go up to 1200 employees.

I wonder what upgrades they are doing to the Red Engine 4. A cool thing about CD Project Red is they develop their own engine. Bioware, EA etc use engines built by others. Having the developers of the engine on site or in company has to be a boon to their ability to fine tune the game as needed as they go along.

[Kendo 2]

Well, unlike a Bethesda product Witcher3 doesn't 'need' mods.  Aside from the Console Command mod and the CDRed officially sanctioned ENB I didn't have any mods for it.  The game looked great and played as intended on its own.  IF I could add quests and NPCs to Witcher3 like I can a Bethesda game I'd uninstall Skyrim and never look back.

Back on topic; I don't think Bethesda understands the ramifications of what happened at E3 2017.  Before the show they were 'okay'.  A few days after the show people are tired of their bullshit.  Bethesda is milking Skyrim and FO4 and their fans (former or otherwise) are hip to what's going on and they DO NOT like it.  I think a real hit will happen when people outside of NSFWMods have the same Epiphany we had; Bethesda is moving to micro-transactions and the nickle-and-dime scams of Activision, Ubisoft, EA and Konami.

If 100 Bethesda-buck 'credits' cost $1.00 US that means a fucking gun retexure any asshole can make and upload to Nexus costs 2 bucks.  So how long will Bethesda allow sites like Nexus to bite into their nickle-and-dime profits?

And when Starfield is released will there even be a free Creation Kit for it?  They have already stopped work on the Skyrim Special Edition CK and frameworks like SKSE do not work with the 64bit version of the game.  They haven't updated the FO4 CK either.

Conspiracy Theory Time!  What Bethesda is doing (or not doing) is by design.

• At inception, Bethesda.net was intended as a storefront for something like the Creation Club.
• Skyrim Special Edition has the same EULA as FO4; they state Bethesda owns anything made with or that contains their IP.  The Skyrim 32bit license doesn't have that stipulation.
• Updates for the Creation Kits for Skyrim SE and FO4 have stopped.

Attila the Hun has amassed his horde at the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire...but he's not going to invade.  That's how Bethesda fans are looking at this Creation Club situation.

 

[Doublezero]

If I was forced to choose between Cyberpunk 2077 and TES6 I would choose Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk is sounding like the RPG I've been dreaming of; something Bethesda wouldn't make. I just hope CD Project Red isn't being too ambitious with it.

Quote

To realize our ambitions regarding Cyberpunk 2077 we need to scale the size of the team working on it which means from 300+ to 500+.

Bethesda would never hire that many people and it shows in the quality of their games.

Quote

“We’re still a scrappy team. We’re just over 100 people – not nearly as big as some of the other studios.

https://gamerant.com/fallout-4-development-team/

[Guest]

Yeah, I fear that their ambition may have a turn on them. But at the same time, they seem to be taking their time with this project making sure it comes out as they expect it to. And I'm all for waiting extra years if it means they are willing to really put that devotion behind it to deliver their promises and make it completely worthwhile in the end.

BGS doesn't seem to have interest in growing their team, but rather hire third-party developers to create content for them on a old game that is becoming meaningless by the day at this rate. All for cashing out. They know that modding helps their revenue, but are willing to cripple it for money. They somehow think the modding community won't change and everything will be as smooth as it was before. But as K2 says, who's going to want to share their knowledge when it can be used by someone else to make profit? I certainly wouldn't. And that goes for modders resources as well.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Guest

[ritualclarity]

Quote

If I was forced to choose between Cyberpunk 2077 and TES6 I would choose Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk is sounding like the RPG I've been dreaming of; something Bethesda wouldn't make. I just hope CD Project Red isn't being too ambitious with it.

You know, I could forgive them if they do have some issues with that. They are new, have done amazing things, have delayed the release to make it better. even creating a new engine on what they learned about with Witcher III.  I personally believe their trip ups and perhaps falling short on such an attempt would be many fold better than the current releases of Fallout 4, Mass Effect Andromeda etc. I don't believe their short comings will make the game horrible to play like the facial animations found in MEA or dead/empty meaningless actions of Fallout 4 side quest. This is a company that realizes their shortcomings and faults in Witcher III (and have done so through the Witcher I, and Witcher II games as well) and strive to try to be better each time. Even with something that EA/Bioware/Bethesda Softworks) would be sitting back and having weeks of blow and hookers celebrating their success, Project CD Red is focused on their game's previous faults and looking to make those a thing of the past. This is what should be done and regardless of what future shortcomings that might occur with the release of CyberPunk 2077 might be.... I have confidence on the several years of past interactions, actual product, and press releases, that they will have done the best that they could do currently. That is all I can ask from a company, any company, from an Indie new comer to a multibillion company like EA. That is all anyone can really ask and CD Project Red... delivers on that so far, every time.

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Bethesda would never hire that many people and it shows in the quality of their games.

Lets keep this in perspective.... Bethesda and most major game companies aren't creating their engine from scratch. They do make some alterations as needed to use the tools that they want to an engine that they buy the rights to. CD Project Red is building the engine from scratch and improving it each game they release based on what they learned and then having to build on the tools that the game content creators will be using. Bethesda is trying to fuck our skulls there with making the reader think they are still small and "indie" compared to other companies, yet however there are constant reports with MEA that they contracted out work to many other firms... if you counted all that subcontracted work, you'd likely get very close to the amount of people being used in Project CD Red... and they still gave crap for a game... not because of the amount of people but due to the constant fucktard acts and changes being done which violated common sense in game development. Went against the normal industry game production standards.

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But as K2 says, who's going to want to share their knowledge when it can be used by someone else to make profit? I certainly wouldn't. And that goes for modders resources as well.

There might be another thing that happens that is slightly different with this situation. (just exploring thoughts of what might happen. I believe it will be more in line with Kendo's expectation) There might  be sharing of ideas and info on how to do things. If Bethesda is smart they will give more info on this to their Creation club members and help them develop. ... have a dedicated team of sufficient size to help develop those that show promise as ell) However, there will be even more nich groups. Us vs Them mentality. Small groups of people with the skills that have a close knit group to work with and help each other.

Three will be possibly a small amount of people that would give out info freely... If I was modding and stuff and questions came up on how to do something, I'd answer it quickly and to the point and let them continue on. I'd likely not take them under my wing or do more as I am busy making my very small $$$ ... got to get money to buy a coffee for my dozens of dozens of hours of work once a month or so. But I'd likely answer them to a point. See I don't have a problem with others doing mods or even similar mods. If I am good enough... people will use my mods, If I am shit... then they won't.. My biggest fear wouldn't be about someone using my info to create a mod that is more popular... it would be about someone stealing my content, in bulk, outright and Bethesda saying ... "fuck you" they are making us money so we don't give a fuck about your work or their theft. That is the greatest fear I'd have. They don't have a good track record in this regard.

As far as them owning everything created... so what. This in my mind isn't a concern if they decide my work is the best shit and use it in their next game... lol it is that they protect some asshole that stole my work in bulk and making money off it instead of being the decent company (Nexus even does this most of the time) and remove it from them when proved stolen. See I don't even care if someone used anything I created with their mods so long as some credit is given (credit = respect) I am of the old mindset of Oblivion days when it was OK to use other assets to create content for users to use with respect given. (credit) However, If I wanted money made off of something I made... I'd upload it myself to the site

Now, with the current setup and mods on Bethesda.net... mod authors are retiring on mass. Some of the best have gone already due to the paid mod shit that was done before. I contribute the slow develop of Script Extenders for Fallout 4 and Skyrim SE to this. There are new people joining but they have limited skills in modding. WE aren't getting the level of scriptors and mesh artist that we had before in Fallout NV/OldSkyrim days. This will likely continue before getting better. And when it does... it will likely be behind a pay wall. You will have to "pay to play" in the future.

[Kendo 2]

The recent scuttlebutt I heard is that Pete Hines overplayed Bethesda's involvement in the Creation Club process.  Modders aren't getting developer input or assistance.  Basically you create a mod and submit it and Bethesda either approves it or they don't.  That's the process in totality.  So realistically it is paid modding with official vetting and Bethesda claiming rights over anything submitted.

SO, if a Creation Club member makes a mod a Bethesda rejects it, can the modder still upload it as a free mod or does Bethesda bin it and it's gone forever?  And what happens to the modder if they upload their own version anyway?  I'd love to get a look at the e-contract Bethesda asks club members to agree to.  It probably has a many holes in it as a CNN Russian conspiracy theory.

[ritualclarity]

Well once it is open to being joined. .. perhaps someone could join. Toss something, something and see the process.  That person would have to see the contract then... however with a deal with the devil... you'd might not be able to get out

You know, at face value the things they are coming up with would be good if they didn't twist them to unholy proportions. Twisting good ideas in to the Unholy satin's spawn of the gaming industry. 

Imagine, if they did the Creator's Club correctly... a site which people which show they have some skills join. They work with a small group of devs at Bethesda to enhance the game with cool new tool extensions and features not to mention new world spaces and streamlined development. The devs could then use these ideas to improve the engine, tools and yes even features of future to come games. In the case of Skyrim SE, those working on the Script Extender would be able to sign a NDA and get access to some (limited) info on how the engine works and be able to develop these tools faster. In fact, in a short time Bethesda might even get a small stable of code warriors that would help boost their development cycle of the new game as well. (by giving tools and scripts and such from the old game thatcould be added) In the process those members might be ableto make a few $$$s for their time and gain a lot of rep in the community as being a major contributor to getting things done. (praise what most mod authors was paid in the past) Win,Win...

Now it is nothing more than a vampire sucking the life out of an already dying community.

Edited June 18, 2017 by ritualclarity
Updated Ideas

[Doublezero]

1 hour ago, ritualclarity said:

Quote

Bethesda would never hire that many people and it shows in the quality of their games.

Lets keep this in perspective.... Bethesda and most major game companies aren't creating their engine from scratch. They do make some alterations as needed to use the tools that they want to an engine that they buy the rights to. CD Project Red is building the engine from scratch and improving it each game they release based on what they learned and then having to build on the tools that the game content creators will be using. Bethesda is trying to fuck our skulls there with making the reader think they are still small and "indie" compared to other companies, yet however there are constant reports with MEA that they contracted out work to many other firms... if you counted all that subcontracted work, you'd likely get very close to the amount of people being used in Project CD Red... and they still gave crap for a game... not because of the amount of people but due to the constant fucktard acts and changes being done which violated common sense in game development. Went against the normal industry game production standards.

That quote was knock at Bethesda for only hiring 100+ people at Bethesda Game Studios while CD Projekt Red, a company who hasn't had as much success (until The Witcher 3), is willing to hire 500+ individuals to make their games the best they possibly can be.

And besides, EA has built their own engines. There's no excuse for Bethesda.

[ritualclarity]

2 minutes ago, Doublezero said:

That quote was knock at Bethesda for only hiring 100+ people at Bethesda Game Studios while CD Projekt Red, a company who hasn't had as much success (until The Witcher 3), is willing to hire 500+ individuals to make their games the best they possibly can be.

And besides, EA has built their own engines. There's no excuse for Bethesda.

Yes, I get that. They subcontracted.. which in many cases equals sub-quality product. Thre isn't a core croup of individuals in the company that is working with passion to the same goal. I don't see CD Project Red subcontracting anything that is core to the game to anyone. That removes alot of value. Also they are in a major growth. They have lots of ideas for IP so they have lots of games that they can create. Their games are well received so they have lots of demand for new editions.

On a separate note... I am impressed at how they are going to let Witcher III be the last int that series. They finished the story they wanted to give and now it is done. That is a lesson to those that created MEA... lol. If you can't create a really compelling new story line, then let it be. If they wanted to.. I imagine they could create a good story with Ceri and her experiences after the ending of Witcher III.

Bottom line... I can't see CD Project Red doing anything wrong in how they are managing their business, games, IPs. development, hiring, or anything else. If they are doing something wrong or make a mistake it is an innocent one and one that they will quickly correct as soon as they realize it. More importantly they seem to be actively seeking out issues, mistakes and even areas that they can improve on. In the End they will be very successful because of it. It is the recipe for success in almost any situation, personal or professional.

[ritualclarity]

https://creationclub.bethesda.net/en

Not sure if this has been linked yet... so here it is...

Quote

 

 

What do you know... they aren't allowing copy paste from their site Really? Fine...

https://creationclub.bethesda.net/apply

 

^ Link to apply... check it out... Oh... also their page changes back to the default in seconds after getting to that page... Trying to make it difficult for people to "spread your news" hun? Bethesda? Really? You have to go there?

[Kendo 2]

If I had FO4 or Skyrim SE installed I'd join under another name just to see what the fuck they're up to.

[ritualclarity]

3 hours ago, Kendo 2 said:

If I had FO4 or Skyrim SE installed I'd join under another name just to see what the fuck they're up to.

I'd make sure they aren't linking the actual game with the account that you are using. (in other words ban you from even using the game) Lord only knows what level of evil they would be willing to sink to. Of course in your case... you really don't care about the game or having it at all so if they removed it or somehow blocked you etc then you wouldn't care so much. Possibly even want them to do this... You know..

[Guest]

Well, good news is the SkyOblivion team has no desire to put their project behind a paywall. The SkyWind team said no they weren't interested in monetizing their mods back in 2015 the first time. Hope their stance remains the same and Bethesda doesn't some how convince them to change their stance on it. Not that I wouldn't throw money at them. I just don't want to give a penny to Bethesda.
 

 

[ritualclarity]

On 6/19/2017 at 5:42 PM, endgameaddiction said:

Well, good news is the SkyOblivion team has no desire to put their project behind a paywall. The SkyWind team said no they weren't interested in monetizing their mods back in 2015 the first time. Hope their stance remains the same and Bethesda doesn't some how convince them to change their stance on it. Not that I wouldn't throw money at them. I just don't want to give a penny to Bethesda.
 

 

Also if they aren't forced to do so as Bethesda might try to restrict such combinations and such unless they are behind their services.

As for giving money to them... I am sure that there are ways to give them something from support, advertisement and good old money. All of this is outside of any benefit to Bethesda so in my book... all good. In fact perhaps people concerned with this paywall and Bethesda apparent money grab, should take this into consideration and work with authors more and offer / give monies, credits, praises etc, whatever currency (money, praise etc) the author most desires and the user can most easily give. This to encourage many of the authors that you most enjoy to remain free and open for download.

[Guest]

True, but we also live in a world where people have a price tag, or eventually could if bribed enough. It would be in Bethesda's interest to take projects like these and Bruma into account. Especially Bruma since it's on the verge of being released if they want to have this start off good for them. Even if investments are a little more than they expect to hand out. They must be willing to spend a little more if in the long run it's going to bring them way more than what they paid the project team. And after all, these aftermarket developers are only receiving a one time payment. A couple thousand is only pennies to Bethesda. And the gross will be much much more than just a few thousand. If successful.

The question is, will this become successful once it launches? That's what we'll have to see. Because if not, it'l be a loss for them. But I doubt it. If they are smart, they won't remove it. Keep it up, and continue to figure out how to force it onto the consumers. One way would be no more toolkit for the community with newer titles. Only for our special tactical modding team. And they would have pulled a Take-Two on the community.

I dunno. I just flapping my gums here. But I don't think Bethesda is going to let Creation Club go. No matter how vocal the community gets.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Guest

[ritualclarity]

They won't let the Creation Club go. They haven't let their site and mods distribution go regardless of the issues.

They will likely continue to restrict the modding and try to get more control over it in the future. How they go about it is anyone's guess. They might take the long road approach and implement more and more control and such with each new release as their system gets stronger until they have near 100 % control over what they think they want control over.

I don't believe they will go the way of Take Two as that created a shitstorm... they will likely view that and not mess with the older games. They already are mentioning that they will require "new" content for their new project. Likely, will be even stronger enforced with the newer games that have yet to be released.

On a personal note... I don't mind that. If they are clear from the start what crap they are going to be doing with the new game, restrictions and such, I can then make an informed decision on what I want to do and not get caught with some near useless game that will require bull shit micro transactions to get what really should have come with the game. One of the biggest out-lashes from the previous paid modding attempt was the effect it had on an established modding community with the established mods that were free and needed being moved to paid... That was far louder in my view and experience than the fact they were creating an option for a paid mod system. Using brand new games to start this shit with is one thing and entirely their choice. As it is my choice to not buy the game... but fucking with the established community is quite another thing. Too bad Take Two didn't learn that from Bethesda's experience. .. perhaps they thought they were above that.