I don’t know if you guys are aware (most likely you are, but it never hurts to doublecheck), but about 3 days ago Nexus sent a mail to modders warning them that, starting from 5 August 2021 modders will no longer be able to delete their mods and instead they will be archived.
Personally, this is the kind of behavior I don’t like from anyone (no matter if it’s legal or not, although I have some doubt about the legality as well) so I decided to send a request for file deletion of all the mods I uploaded to the Nexus.
Now you might ask, why am I telling you this? It’s not really about discussing the event per se (everyone will have their ideas about it and I’m not interested in trying to convince anybody), but more about the fact that the Nexus represented an alternative, a way to “not keep all eggs in one basket” if you catch my drift.
Should something ever happen to the Neverwinter Vault (hopefully not, but one can never exclude anything in life), there was a backup somewhere. Well, now for me that backup is about to be gone.
I also wanted to make everyone else here aware of this fact.
I’m currently looking for a secondary platoform where to distribute the mods and discuss them for feedback and bug reports (and it pains me to say this, but I got almost as much if not even more feedback from the Nexus than from the Vault).
So far now I uploaded my mods to the Ufile.io and I tried to make an account on LoversLab, but err… well, the first impression of that site is not great, it seems more a porn website than an actual modding website (I mean 99,99999999% of mods are about sex), not sure how long I’ll last there, but I wanted to give it a try.
What do you guys think? Are there alternative modding platforms to Nexus and ModDB (which also has this non deletion problem, apparently)?
Yes someone posted this on ja2 discord few days ago and I read it.
I am not sure how I feel about it, but when you post something into internet you lose control over it anyway. Sure, vault is for example a site that will not repost your deleted files and might even enforce other users not reposting them either (is this a case actually?). But there is nothing that prevents anyone who already downloaded the files to be posting them elsewhere or simply sharing them. You cannot enforce the permissions you set for your project either. If someone does that outside of nwnvault, then there is not much you can do about that.
So, if you know this, everytime you post something publically, you need to accept this or don’t post it in first place.
What I personally dislike more about it - and that is not verified - is that this allows to download older versions possibly ones with some issue in them. If this is really what happens (which I assume it is because otherwise it allows for an easy way to workaround this decision of theirs) then that sucks.
Eitherway, nexusmods sucks as a whole anyway. ModDB is not suitable for any game with as big modding capatibility as NWN either. The only other place is Steam Workshop then.
Whatever its shortcomings, ModDB is an option I have used.
I use Steam Workshop, too, but it’s limited because players who didn’t buy NWN from Steam or Beamdog have no access.
Vault rules do allow authors to request takedown if their stuff appears here without implicit licence or explicit consent.
As it happens, the Vault rules also discourage mod deletion, and support the continued use of such mods. This is especially important for NWN, given the focus on building modules from other authors’ components. Builders need to be confident that material on which their project depends, downloaded in good faith, will not suddenly disappear.
I’ve not yet decided if I’ll send a request for deletion of all the stuff I uploaded to Nexus or not. On the principle, what bothers me is that if I decide to remove my mods, it should be a decision that should be respected. On the other hand, as Shadooow said, even if they’re deleted I’m quite sure someone will find a way to get them.
Problem is, the Skyrim crew made it essential to download older versions after A Certain Modder Who’s Name Begins With A that I have a long and historic grudge against, decided to include an update in the Unofficial Skyrim Patches that basically screwed over anyone using mods in the VR version because, in his words, “VR Skyrim doesn’t support mods”. Despite the fact it works just fine with them.
Its a fixable bug, mind. Its just he doesn’t like people using it in VR mode so he decided to screw over an entire community. And complain about everytime folks try to undo his damage. And complain even more at any time modding Skyrim for the end user becomes easier (with verifiable increased traffic and donations to those mod authors who support the easy mod installations of Wabbajack). So because of this author, can’t just have mod-packs like say, Minecraft, and have to go through this longer way to get stuff. Which means that mods need to be made avaialble so these systems like Wabbajack can work. Hence this position
So yeah, my views’s biased. But, eh, I got nothing wrong with stuff going out there. The moment I release stuff to the 'net I want it to be used and grabbed. The moment you release it onto the 'net, its outside of your control and those mods you requested deleted will just continue to float around in some back-alley Discord server. I know this for a fact because I went diving through them a while ago to scrounge up some deleted Skyrim mods, and archive a ton of those myself in the event their authors delete their work. If you ever consider deleting something from the 'net? Just don’t release it to begin with