Square Enix should adopt a curated mod gallery/collection ala Skyrim / Fallout 4

[Enla]

1. Mods are outside of their control and given what some people have done with mods and the disaster that is the modding discord, can you honestly blame them for not wanting to deal with it?

2. Japan has strict copyright laws and many mods outright rip models from other game franchises - with Black Desert Online being the one that gets stolen from the most. "Well they should just make sure they aren't from other games!" I hear people say, but can you imagine how hard it would be to track down a specific model from a specific game if you've never played said game before? We're talking extensive research for basically no positive return, just to make sure they don't get sued. You also can't trust individual modders to be honest about this either as while many are good people who would turn to creating custom content, many of them are NOT. In-fighting over stolen work - like actual custom work, not taken from an existing IP - in the aforementioned discord isn't uncommon.

3. Quality control. SE would need to test each mod personally to make sure it:
-Meets their quality standards, so no pixelation, the item has proper physics, etc
-Doesn't have broken meshes
-Doesn't cause weird graphical glitches if you're turning just the right way in the right light.
-Actually works for both genders and all races - as mods that only affect one or the other on an item assigned to all races/genders cause fairly bad texture and mesh issues for the gender/races that get left out.

It's a ton of work and unlike Skyrim, FFXIV wasn't built with modding in mind. Skyrim and Fallout both use a modified version of Gamebryo - with the current iteration being known as the Creation Engine. This engine and it's predecessor were designed to make modding and editing easy to accomplish, with Skyrimg and Fallout 4 outright offering a creation kit to modders to go have fun in their own proverbial sandbox. The engine FFXIV uses doesn't have that level of accessibility. It's not as bad as trying to mod, say, Frostbite - which god help you with that since Frosty Tools only /just/ partially cracked it beyond texture/mesh modding - but it's not as easy as you seem to think it is even with the modding tools we now have available.

[grinkdaboy]

skyrim being bad without mods is entirely subjective. you can stomp your feet and cry about it but that won't make it true.

and enla as for those points you presented

1) that's the entire point of a "curated" system. this would provide them with a degree of control

2) fortunately in the curated system i drew the inspiration from this from, there exists a degree of community moderation as well. while there are copyrighted or otherwise stolen mods uploaded from time to time, the community is able to report them for this which results in them being taken down.

3) i feel as those are standards square enix should adopt

[Enla]

-snip-

It doesn't matter, because again in Japan the copyright system is EXTREMELY aggressive and advocates for strict control and defense of one's copyrights lest the owner lose them entirely. Just one mess up and it doesn't matter if it's taken down or not later. This isn't a reality where copyright holders aren't litigious and looking for any flaw and will accept an apology if a mistake happens. SE is opening themselves up to lawsuits regardless of whether the community self policies or not - and if someone decides to sue they can absolutely nail SE to the wall for relying on their customers. Then if SE takes the sole burden for maintaining copyright solvency the amount of work needing to be done is just not worth it for them. There is no happy medium here.

Edit:
About the only way I see this working is if SE sponsored freelancers to come in and make a single item for them to add to the game, as then they'd have full control of the concept and development stage - as well as full ownership of the copyright at the end of the day. But that wouldn't be a 'mod' anymore.

[grinkdaboy]

It doesn't matter, because again in Japan the copyright system is EXTREMELY aggressive and advocates for strict control and defense of one's copyrights lest the owner lose them entirely. Just one mess up and it doesn't matter if it's taken down or not later. This isn't a reality where copyright holders aren't litigious and looking for any flaw and will accept an apology if a mistake happens. SE is opening themselves up to lawsuits regardless of whether the community self policies or not - and if someone decides to sue they can absolutely nail SE to the wall for relying on their customers. Then if SE takes the sole burden for maintaining copyright solvency the amount of work needing to be done is just not worth it for them. There is no happy medium here.

Edit:
About the only way I see this working is if SE sponsored freelancers to come in and make a single item for them to add to the game, as then they'd have full control of the concept and development stage - as well as full ownership of the copyright at the end of the day. But that wouldn't be a 'mod' anymore.

would the burden not fall on the person who uploaded the mod in the first place? and if so, why couldn't square enix report this individual to the copyright holder? is there any precedence for this in the japanese courts because the scenario you present sounds absolutely absurd

[Enla]

would the burden not fall on the person who uploaded the mod in the first place? and if so, why couldn't square enix report this individual to the copyright holder? is there any precedence for this in the japanese courts because the scenario you present sounds absolutely absurd

No, because SE is the one who would be hosting and distributing the copyrighted content. It's the same reason why Youtube had to put in such aggressive copyright policies a few years back - including having bots manually flag suspicious content from both visual and audio samples - as it was the only way to placate angry companies and keep themselves from being sued into oblivion.

[rance-sama]

Oh, this thread AGAIN. Yikes.

[SturmChurro]

skyrim being bad without mods is entirely subjective. you can stomp your feet and cry about it but that won't make it true.

For sure! A large, no a huge playerbase for Bethesda in like Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim are console players who until recent years literally had no access to mods whatsoever, and thought those games were amazing before, but now everyone has this arbitrary "standard" since Fallout 76. As if Bethesda hasn't been dumbing down their games consistently for over a decade. It's ridiculous!

As to the idea of this thread, it won't ever happen.

[Edax]

skyrim being bad without mods is entirely subjective.

Let's look at the bug list that is entirely objective:

If you sign out of your profile during a load screen, then quickly sign back in after earning the Achievement "Wanted", it will display the achievement as being unlocked; however, no Gamerscore will be given and the amount of achievements shown will be 1 less than it should be if this happens. It will not count Skyrim towards the 100% completion grouping either. ?
Getting Stuck
You may become stuck after a cinematic event.
Pc22.png Use the console command enableplayercontrols to regain your controls.
If you try to mine ore while in Sneak mode, you may become stuck in the mining animation.
It is possible to get stuck between objects and be unable to move.
If this happens outdoors, you can fast-travel to a new location to escape.
Pc22.png Use the console command tcl to toggle collision detection off, then move through the object you are stuck behind, then enter the console command tcl to toggle collision detection back on.
Opening a loading door while being rag-dolled will get you stuck in a lying down position which won't allow you to use crafting stations, this can be fixed by attacking. ?
NPC Dialogue
If an NPC changes location (via doorway) while you are in conversation with them, you will be unable to finish the conversation. When spoken to again, they will repeat the first line of conversation but have no conversation options.
Pc22.png Sometimes, the NPC won't even talk to you. The options won't be there either and for some reason you won't be able to leave conversation using either Tab nor Esc ?
Pc22.png If you initiate a conversation with an NPC while holding the walk/run button, the button will invert upon leaving the conversation (i.e. if you use hold shift to walk, you will now have to hold shift to run). This can be fixed by opening a menu, holding the walk/run button, and then exiting the menu while holding that button. This does not include the "options" menu.
Pc22.png If you are in a conversation with an NPC and open the Steam in-game interface using Shift+Tab, you will no longer be able to use Tab to end the conversation upon returning to the game. This is related to the Shift toggle bug where if you press Shift during/initiating a conversation it "sticks". You can unstick Shift by pressing it once or manually clicking the exit key. Simply waiting may cause the NPC to eventually end the conversation. ?
Pausing during dialogue while an NPC is talking will cause the NPC to skip to the next line if enough time has passed for the voice clip to be finished.
Pc22.png This can be fixed by opening the Console to pause the game during dialogue.
Pc22.png When on a trade screen with a merchant or follower, sometimes clicking on a particular menu item (such as Weapons or Misc) will exit the trade screen. This is because it doesn't automatically register where you click as the active region and the active selection/clicked area can be out of sync. This also leads to a bug where clicking on a specific dialogue choice actually registers as a different one you had highlighted.
Changing locations while in mid-conversation with an NPC sometimes causes the NPC to follow you to that location.
While one NPC is talking to another, it is possible to make them skip their dialogue line(s) that appear on-screen. While the NPC is talking, sprint into them they'll stumble back and continue on without finishing their sentence(s).
While an NPC is sleeping, if you go to talk to them, they may sleep and talk at the same time.
Loading
When loading another saved game, being in a sunny area will not display any shadow while being where a shadow area would be darkens the whole world. ?
Sometimes some of the scenery disappears or is completely cut off. If you try to walk into the disappearing landscape, then you will be told that you "cannot go that way", causing you to freeze. This can cause the game to be unplayable as you cannot move in any direction without being stuck. ?
Sometimes when you load into a new area you may not interact with certain objects and entities. ?
Water does not render correctly in occasional chunks. The water still exists, but is invisible. In these instances, there may be a rectangular patch missing from the screen. Reloading a save file may fix this issue.
When the game forces a cell change (e.g. when you are arrested with a large bounty and brought to a castle) you will sometimes load before certain key elements of the cell do (such as the ground).
When reloading a save, your legs and lower body may become stuck in the floor. This can be rectified by jumping. ?
Pc22.png Sometimes when loading a quicksave using the quickload key (normally F9), you may become over-encumbered even though you're not, showing the message "You are carrying too much to be able to run". To fix this you have to sheathe or unsheathe your weapon or go to the items menu. This doesn't permanently fix the problem, as every time you quickload a quicksave the problem will return. The only way to really fix it is to start loading the quicksave through the load menu.
When fast-traveling with a following NPC, in rare instances, the NPC may act like the enemy shaking glitch, but will occur in the ground rather than being inside an object. It only occurs if standing near it and not moving. This can be corrected by having the NPC follow you to somewhere other than the area it was just in. ?
Physics
Objects you push that remain in contact cause you to "vibrate", which gains velocity as it continues and can very easily lead to death or could force the object to disappear. This is most observable with carts as it's very easy to push them and still be touching them, especially if you are in the cart itself.
Enemies may occasionally get stuck on the scenery and animate incorrectly (extremely fast and jerky). Sometimes this may result in them catapulting high into the air and then falling to their deaths. This can also happen as a result of the dead dragons being launched into the air as the unintended effect of a spell. The body of the dragon can get stuck in the front gate or bridge of a town that you fast travel to.
Objects which are affected by physics can appear to simply disappear if they are pushed outside the bounds of playable areas. They still exist but are unreachable. ?
NPCs that are killed while they are sitting in a chair or sleeping will often end up lying under their chair or bed and occasionally partway under the floor.
If you drop items from your inventory and re-enter the zone or reload a save, you will find the items you positioned are not where you put them after grabbing and moving them, but rather in the exact place where they were dropped from your inventory. This seems to occur only when you load a save from that same area, then immediately drop and rearrange the item before leaving. Loading the save, leaving the area, coming back, then dropping and rearranging gets it to stick.
Enemies killed by a decapitation may disappear; you can loot them afterwards, but they will be invisible.
When using the slow time perk with bows, the enemy's shield or weapon may hang in the air after killing them, in the same position it was in when they were shot. ?
Sometimes when you hold an object up to a wall and sprint into it, your character will glitch between the wall and object and be forced through the wall into unplayable areas. This can be used to reach merchant chests that are hidden behind or below walls.
Sometimes whenever the console is processing lots of data, (for land generation and spawnings) weapons will randomly appear out of nowhere and float in midair indefinitely until you activate or move them. This only seems to happen in outdoor habitats, though it may rarely happen indoors.
On rare occasions, when you kill an NPC that is or belongs to an enemy, that entity will fall through the ground and appear (still dead) approximately 200 yards from where it was killed. This is most noticeable with horses. ?
For some odd reason, on extremely rare instances, you may find a human NPC sleeping on a bed that has a table "squashed" above it, creating a somewhat enclosed area. Because of this, when the NPC first wakes up in the bed, he/she will raise up as normal, but they will appear to be stuck and will slide through the table to where the edge of the bed is and stand up as normal, as though the table didn't exist. This may be from the cause of an error in the design, or an improper setup. ?
Sound
Frequently, and seemingly at random, sound effects lag for as long as 5-6 seconds, then will occur all at once. This often happens when sneak-attacking with a bow.
The music that plays during combat may not cease after combat ends.
Completely exiting the game and restarting may fix this.
Pc22.pngOpening the console and typing removemusic muscombat may fix this. This will not prevent you from hearing the music again once another fight starts.
Alternatively, get into combat with another enemy and defeat them, this normally results in combat music completing correctly.
The dungeon clear tune may occur when you are not in a dungeon or even doing anything in particular.
This can sometimes happen due to special triggers in locations (eg finding a hidden treasure room or completing a puzzle that allows progress in the dungeon), or script lag whereby the game has realised a location has been cleared (eg the boss of a location has been marked as killed), some time after it had already been.
Weapons, Armor, and Apparel
Weapons and shields do not clean up from the world properly, and after a time they will begin to float in air near where they were lying.
Switching weapons in combat has a 3-10 seconds delay. This is especially obvious when switching from a bow to spells or from a bow to dual wield swords.
Certain types of weapons, when bound to a hotkey, will become unbound if more than one is in your inventory when the key is used. This only occurs for weapons that cannot be equipped to each hand through hotkeys (i.e. daggers, swords and greatswords). ?
Wearing a mask with any hooded robe can cause your character's head to become invisible.
With the Heavy/Light weightless armor perks, if a single piece of armor in a stack is equipped, the entire stack is weightless.
Killing an archer that has drawn its bow but not yet released an arrow can result in the dropped bow appearing to still be drawn.
Human characters in some cases fight unarmed with their fingers out like Khajiit. ?
If you stand in front of an archer shooting a target, then their arrow will "vibrate". ?
Sheathing your weapon while having a spell equipped to your left hand then unequipping the spell may result in your left hand displaying without a spell next time you unsheathe your weapon. ?
Other Bugs
Sometimes animated doors that serve to move between cells can get stuck in their "open" state. Attempting to enter the door will close it, and you will not be moved to the new cell. The door will work normally afterwards.
Barred doors are able to be opened by activating the bar through the door. At the right angle the bar will be selectable through the door.
Enemies turned into ash piles may not clean up properly, leading them to accumulate in several areas.
This bug is fixed by version 1.9.26.0.8 of the Official Skyrim Patch.
Harvestable items (plants, garlic, pheasants, etc.) reset/respawn upon entering the cell (exterior or interior) after 10 days; but after save and reload of that cell, they revert to the state of the cell the previous time it was exited.
When moving items to or from a container, the entire menu will often jump up one line while still having the item selected. This occurs seemingly at random. If this happens enough times, the selection will eventually go off the screen. This may sometimes be briefly corrected by moving out and back into that section. If that doesn't work, your best bet is to move the mouse off of the item horizontally then back. This bug occurs nearly 100% of the time so it's recommended that you proceed slowly and deliberately when placing items into a container to avoid accidentally removing the wrong items.
There is currently no fix or mod that corrects this while otherwise preserving the original inventory UI.
Wolves and dogs run up and down (in the vertical plane) on doors while attempting to pass through, as though ignoring gravity. ?
Characters hit by frost icicles and arrows may have it stuck on them permanently. This may be related to the function that leaves arrows on bodies hit with arrows; however, clearing arrows in inventory or unequipping apparel is not guaranteed to work as a solution.
Anything which forces your character model to completely rebuild will work to fix this, such as going into Beast Form as a werewolf.
Pc22.png The console command sexchange twice will force a re-render.
Essential NPCs sometimes get stuck in the wounded state (down on one knee) and they may not recover back to normal. This can be fixed by any of the following:
fast-traveling elsewhere and back
staggering them with a shield or weapon
using Unrelenting Force
If you use a skill that changes the entire character's skin, such as invisibility or werewolf form, then the eye texture can glitch. This can be fixed by going to the main menu and then reloading a save.
If you stand on the two halves of the split log in a mill, you may be sent flying a short distance when they disappear.
Pc22.png Rarely, LMB and RMB cannot be used to perform actions. You must instead attack using other keys.
Changing the control settings for LMB or RMB to another key and back may fix this.
Sometimes using crafting stations doesn't work and instead just switches to third-person for a second, makes a clicking sound, but never actually allows the interaction.
Wielding/sheathing your weapon, changing equipped weapons/apparel, shouting, interacting with a station while it's in use by another, or any combination of these may fix this.
Pc22.png Using Alt+Tab to switch out of the game then back may result in the Windows mouse pointer remaining on-screen along with the Skyrim mouse pointer.
To avoid the extra pointer, when you first Alt+Tab back into Skyrim, move the Windows pointer to the bottom edge of the display and back up again. The game will not display at this point, but the mouse will disappear. Now, Alt+Tab all the way around to Skyrim again (or Alt+Tab then Alt+Shift+Tab). You will now be back in your game with no extra pointer. This same technique can be used to remove an existing extra pointer by Alt+Tabbing out and then back in as noted.
Loading your in-game map before you Alt+Tab out will prevent the Windows pointer appearing when you Alt+Tab back in.
Opening the console before tabbing out will also prevent this.
Restarting the game will restore the mouse pointer to normal.
Pc22.pngUsing Alt+Tab to switch out of the game then back may cause visual glitches such as texture flickering and incorrect shadow rendering. These glitches will often increase in severity, possibly resulting in a crash to desktop.
Your character's facial expression may get stuck as if in combat (locked teeth, furrowed brow, squinted eye). Followers can also get stuck in this state, and can be fixed by walking into them until they protest, or talking to them, where their expression will return to normal.
Items called <MISSING NAME> may appear on dead NPCs. It is recommended that you do not pick up these items, because when they are dropped, the game may crash.
With Dawnguard, you may spontaneously become a vampire in addition to being a werewolf. This seems to occur during location changes and/or entering combat. It adds "necks bitten: 1" to stats and the vampire power and active effects. The werewolf ability remains unchanged. Serana's dialogue menu still shows that the vampire option is not taken. ?
Pc22.png While swimming, equipping from the hot keys favorite selection a melee weapon in one hand and a distance effect spell occasionally locks up the game. It seems one command, the melee weapon, is legal but the other isn't. ?
Pc22.png Changes to the mappings of the R and F keys will not be visibly displayed in the favorites menu, though the changes will still apply.
Sometimes, regular items with a "quest item" status added to them (e.g. in Thieves Guild generic quests) won't lose this status, and if you already had a stack of them, then the entire stack will be unusable, undroppable, and unsellable. This can be a problem with Alchemy ingredients, because the entire stack of ingredients will be unusable.
Pc22.png You can fix this through the console by entering player.removeitem <item> <number> to remove all affected items and re-adding them with player.additem <item> <number>. They will be normal items now.
You can fix weapons that suffer from this glitch by placing them on a weapon rack.
Another way to remove quest items is to go to jail and jailbreak. Open the prisoner belongings chest to receive your quest items but take nothing from the chest (the quest items are given to you automatically), then go to jail in a different hold. Jailbreak yet again but don't retrieve your belongings. Now go back to where you first went to jail and get your stuff.
Draugr that are killed by a sneak attack while lying down or standing in a crevice can disappear through the floor. This can become a problem for certain quests which require you to obtain an object from the body. This is due to a physics bug when calculating where the body will fall. Occasionally, if you follow their fall, the body will be lootable.
Live fish can show up in places they do not belong, such as on footpaths hundreds of feet above a river.
Tips may rarely remain on screen indefinitely. ?
Killing an enemy with a missile, whether an arrow, bolt, or spell, may trigger a context-sensitive cinematic kill animation, only to result in the missile striking the target but failing to kill it, striking an intervening object, missing the target entirely, or sometimes not even being fired.
Status messages that repeat will only be displayed every other time. This is most often seen when mining or when transmuting ores.
After installing Dragonborn, some chairs may be glitched in some instances. People sitting on these chairs will sit through the chair, as if the chair's real form is lower than the displayed form. Standing up after this occurs may result in the appearance of standing inside the chair.
PC Only This bug is fixed by version 2.0.4 of the Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.
After prolonged playing time you may notice that your character is no longer able to interact with world objects like chairs, beds, workbenches, etc. ?
Pc22.png This can be fixed by entering player.tai in the console. This will re-toggle your character's AI, allowing it to interact with objects again.
Items in the help menu may link to the wrong topics. The problem is caused by removing an add-on or mod that modified the help menu, like Dragonborn, and then saving your game. This corrupts the help menu for all games from that point forward, even if the mod is re-installed.
Starting a new game (or loading an older one if you've re-installed the relevant mod) will allow you to see the help topics correctly.
Pc22.png For Dragonborn, use the console commands below to fix your help menu. As always, the "xx" needs to be replaced. See the Form ID page for help. If you have any other mods that add to the help menu, they will be removed. You can add them back in by repeating the last command with the correct Message FormID.
RevertFormList 163
AddFormToFormList xx030ebe
If a sabre cat, snowy sabre cat, fox or a snow fox spawns at a respawn point in the wild it will effectively break that spawn point.
PC Only This bug is fixed by version 2.0.0 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.
Some plants will never respawn if harvested. ?
Rarely, a mountain may fail to render all but the outer edges of itself, causing it to look invisible, and allowing you to see the ground inside. Due to this, you can walk, jump, and sprint through the mountain, but renders correctly once you're outside the mountain, and you can't re-enter it. This is particularly useful if there is a location on the other side of the mountain, but cannot get to it without walking/sprinting miles around it, or struggling to jump to the top, as you can walk completely through it with ease. ?
Playing with a Khajiit character and then loading to another Khajiit character will cause the current character to have the same color tail as the previous Khajiit (i.e. white to orange). ?
Quicksaving can cause the game to crash to desktop. ?
This is seemingly caused by not having made a proper save for an extended period of time; making a proper save (via the save menu) will fix this.

[Penthea]

Let's look at the bug list that is entirely objective:

<insert gigantic wall of text>

I don't know how anyone can say Skyrim being bad without mods is subjective. I got the HD version for the ps4 and it has actually shown me other bugs I never saw before in the ps3 version. At least the game doesn't randomly crash in loading screens anymore, so that's something. My buddies who play the pc version also experienced a lot of issues, and there weren't mods to fix everything. And sometimes a mod would fix one thing but break something else.

I adore the game but it's a very imperfect beast. Thank God for quicksave.

[SturmChurro]

I don't know how anyone can say Skyrim being bad without mods is subjective. I got the HD version for the ps4 and it has actually shown me other bugs I never saw before in the ps3 version. At least the game doesn't randomly crash in loading screens anymore, so that's something. My buddies who play the pc version also experienced a lot of issues, and there weren't mods to fix everything. And sometimes a mod would fix one thing but break something else.

I adore the game but it's a very imperfect beast. Thank God for quicksave.

Again, keep in mind the gigantic amount of players who have enjoyed Bethesda games despite ALL THE BUGS, vanilla. Specifically on console. A friend of mine is a good example, he always tells me how he LOVED Skyrim, but hates Bethesda all their games are "buggy messes now", he doesn't know "what happened since Fallout 4 and Fallout 76!". So I asked him what he played Skyrim on, CONSOLE NO MODS. So I asked him why didn't the broken game bother you then? It's group think since Fallout 76, especially. The games stand on their own without mods despite being badly written, retcon filled, buggy messes.

Also, trust me despite what everyone says about Fallout 76, it's still a fairly active game. Despire the bugs, despite the hacks, despite everything, It still has a large fanbase of devoted players who buy their microtransactions and their Fallout 1st. In fact it's probably one of the few live service games that are still actively played, aside from Destiny 2. Does anybody remember that one game The Division 2? or Anthem? Yeah, me neither.


It is entirely subjective.