SunJeong Modding Mini Podcast #2

Main Topic: My opinion on the current state of modding

Sub-topics: Innovative mods that changed Skyrim again
                   Why it feels like there are fewer modders these days
                   My opinion on Fallout 4 modding
                   What I'm expecting from Starfield
                   The state of modding and continual paywalling of mods
                   Personal modding updates and minor life updates

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Full transcript of podcast below:

Hello patrons and welcome to the second mini modding podcast! Surprisingly, the first one did better than I expected in terms of engagement! I appreciate the encouragement from everyone and this type of audio content is actually a fun way for me to express any updates I have on modding or opinions of stuff. And speaking of opinions, for this podcast I wanted to focus on the current state of modding.

The things I’ll talk about will focus more specifically with Bethesda modding. Bethesda modding is unique in the sense that it was built on certain values and premises compared to other modding communities like Minecraft, Sims, Final Fantasy, etc. And yes, I’m specifically referring to the taboo subject of money and mods. More on that later.

The first “theme” I want to talk about in modding are the recent mod innovations. Okay, it’s probably not that recent but I’m talking about revolutionary mods from the past 1-2 years that changed the feeling of Skyrim. Lately, there has been a stronger focus on the diversity of animations that Skyrim is able to support. For example, the development of Nemesis shows that the community still finds ways to improve what exists. With the birth of Nemesis, we also saw a new category of animation mods that were created and that is the “Dynamic” animation mods. We saw a boom of dynamic idles and dynamic combat animations that offered a much more varied gameplay for not just the player, but also NPCs. We continue to still see a variety of different combat animation frameworks that were able to provide Skyrim a breath of fresh air. It doesn’t stop there though. We also saw unique mechanics added to the game. The one that sticks out to me is the paraglider mod for Skyrim. That mod was very awesome in my opinion and it remains in my load order to this day.

Now let’s focus less on Nemesis and animations and move to my specialty: outfit modding. Within the outfit modding scene, we saw new innovation in the form of a mod called SPID. SPID stands for “Spell Perk Item Distributor”. In short, this mod does many things with spells BUT, for outfits it’s able to let users create unique leveled lists for males and females. Pretty handy considering that mods like TAWOBA caused problems for males as it only supported females. ALSO I’ve noticed more and more users starting to learn and implement SMP physics onto their outfits. It looks like SMP enabled physics is now becoming the norm and is more widely adapted. I’m glad to see that the quality of outfits is only improving as mod authors continue to grow their skills.

Let’s see….what else? An honorable mention for innovative mods would be the wider adoption of the high poly head for face presets. Okay, yes, high poly heads has been a thing for several years now. BUT I really haven’t seen much use of it if I’m quite honest. It’s only now that I’m noticing that many new presets are pretty much only for the high poly head.. If you go to Nexus or ArcaLive, you’ll see that most new presets for RaceMenu now require the high poly head. Users are seeing the benefits in improving the profiles of the face. It makes the face look less spiky and stuff.

However, not everything is all sunshine and rainbows. I’ve been noticing recently that the amount of mod authors making content seems to be decreasing. It’s hard to definitively say what’s causing this but I’m noticing some patterns. Just as a disclaimer, my opinion will mostly focus on the amount of outfit mods but even then, I’ve been seeing decreases in the amount of followers and preset mods.

Regardless, I think one of the reasons for the decrease in modding activity is the growing real life responsibilities of mod authors. Many mod authors that modded Skyrim were teens or young adults with an abundance of time. I know for me in my early days of modding I had much more free time to pump out outfits. I would have expected to see an increase in the amount of newer modders to take on the helms of the older generation. I have seen some new modders here and there but not enough to sustain the previous frequency of new content. Why is this happening? Again, it’s hard to say but one of the issues could be that content that needed porting from Skyrim LE is now almost non-existent. Usually, porting existing mods is actually one of the easiest ways for new users to get into modding. It lets you dive immediately into the tools required to port things like weapons, outfits, lands, etc., without requiring knowledge of any external programs like Blender or 3DS Max. I’ve also seen two new modding Patreons showing up that publishes free mods. Actually going a little off topic, I want to make another video where I showcase some lesser known sources of mods, focusing mainly on new authors that are free. Back to the topic at hand: for every new outfit mod author that pops up, 5 current authors quit or retire. The burn out is becoming too real I guess. To be honest, the burn out is also creeping up on me the more responsibilities I have as I get older.

On the subject of Fallout 4, the modding scene there is not painting a promising future for Starfield or the future Elder Scrolls 6. Again, this is purely my opinion based on an outsider view of the situation but I’m not seeing ANY sort of innovative mods for Fallout 4 as of late. Some of the important frameworks from Skyrim either never made it to Fallout 4 or came way too late. For example, the high heels system wasn’t available until almost 5 years after the game came out. For Skyrim, it became available after less than 2 years. To this day, Fallout 4 doesn’t have a reliable clothing physics framework and instead users are still relying on the existing, but wonky, physics bones it supports natively. I still don’t see any impactful alternatives to their RaceMenu with new tris and a better UI. To make matters worse, all the outfit modders have resorted to some sort of paywalling or early access. I sometimes check the Fallout 4 armor and clothing section to see if there’s any new good outfits but nope! If there are Fallout 4 modding communities where all the new stuff is being posted then I for sure don’t know about them. Fun fact for those that don’t know: I started off as a Fallout 4 modder and then transitioned to Skyrim Special Edition when I noticed that the tools and creative freedom for Skyrim was infinitely better.

With such a negative precedent of Fallout 4, what can we expect with Starfield? While nothing is confirmed, the engine is still pretty much the same as Fallout 4/76 with some improvements (at least according to Todd Howard but remember this is the guy that promised us “16 times the details” when in fact the textures and visual quality of Fallout 76 was the exact same as Fallout 4). The GOOD thing about Starfield, or at least one can assume, are the potential races that the game may have. HOPEFULLY the races are implemented in the same way Skyrim is implemented and not Fallout 4. Skyrim has specific race entries and facial tri files for their races while Fallout 4 has 1 race with tris that were used universally. In addition, another aspect of how lackluster Fallout 4 modding is are the constant dead environments. One of the biggest appeals to Skyrim are the beautiful landscapes you can visit and take screenshots of. The impressive scenery really helps showcase some of the amazing texture works that many authors do to replace the vanilla game. In Fallout 4, everything is just dead. No matter how pretty the textures are, a dead environment is still a dead one. Starfield hopefully has beautiful and diverse environments. With the minor footage we saw, this looks to be the case.

Lastly for Starfield to be successful, the RPG elements must be compelling. The better replayability the more enticed users and modders will be to stick with the game. In Fallout 4, you were forced to use the same narrative for every single playthrough: being a single parent looking for their child in the wasteland. I know there were mods that did their best to remove these references but at the end of the day it’s just copium. The elements are still there and hiding them really does nothing. It’s part of the main story for you to complete. In Skyrim, the only constant that was true was that you’re the dragonborn. In Fallout 4, the constants that were always true were that you are ex military, you are a parent, and your sole mission is to find your child. Everything else didn’t matter. While all this may sound like I hate Fallout 4, the truth is I don’t. I’m only stating these criticisms to make a case that Fallout 4 lacked the replayability that many users and authors would need to maintain their interest in the game and further develop the modding community. I am just hoping that Starfield does not fall into the same fate and we see some meaningful activity for its modding. As for my own involvement in Starfield, I’m still unsure for the long term. I for sure will be a day one pre-order and play through the vanilla story at least once. I will then monitor the modding scene for it before I decide to integrate Starfield modding as part of my workflow. For now, it’s all speculation really.

So going back to the main topic, the current state of modding. Patreon and money is still an issue for most. From what I’ve heard, the biggest issue is: why should I continue to mod for free when others can profit off of it? As a result, they choose to quit. For them, it’s really not the lack of money; but it’s more about that the paywalling authors are grossly taking advantage of the premise of the community by starting to charge for mods.

Let me explain:

The reason Skyrim modding is so huge and successful is because it all started as “forever free” which attracted many users to the scene. Some users eventually become mod authors. More mod authors means more free mods. More free mods means even more users. The cycle repeats and now Skyrim modding is massive in terms of audience.

Now, the issue with paywallers is that they are taking advantage of this giant pool of users that was MADE AND CULTIVATED by the work of free authors only for them to line their pockets and kill the spirit of modding. More so, many of these authors engage in toxic practices of sending DMCAs and in some cases actual lawsuits for questionable copyright infringing. But some people may ask “What if they create work from scratch? Shouldn’t they be rewarded? Aren’t they entitled to their intellectual property?”

The answer is yes of course! But here’s the problem. 99% of these authors are using modding tools with specific ToS’s that forbid paywalling. For outfits, all of the bodies have a clause that says no paywalling. Bethesda says no paywalling. The creation of bodyslide files using Outfit Studio states no paywalling. See the problem here? In an attempt to gain “legal superiority” they are turning a blind eye to their own violations in the usage of these tools.

Plus it’s not a question about legality but also morality. Limiting your mods through money and legal threats kills the potential innovations that existing and new/learning authors can engage if the work had been free.

Let me give a broad and simplified example. If ALL outfits that ever existed were paywalled, do you think a new mod author will have the opportunity to learn the porting process and be able to receive the feedback from the community? The answer is likely no.

As previously stated, original and hard work should definitely be rewarded, BUT the Bethesda modding scene is NOT the place to do it. You’re better off applying for working with the Creation Club if you want to charge for mods. Or, you’re better off using your talent and assets on other platforms like DAZ, or ArtStation, or maybe even working at a small indie game developer.

Oh, one funny fact by the way: I’ve received requests to fix the mods from authors that paywall. So far I’ve been asked to fix the mods of 4 different paywallers. What a crazy world we live in that mediocre work is getting directly rewarded through artificial scarcity.

I will end this podcast with a lighter topic about my modding updates:

I recently released two mods simultaneously. The first one is the Falmer Equip Armor which was published on Nexus. I went all out with that mod and quadrupled the poly and added HDT-SMP physics to it.

The second mod is on my website and a continuation of the Ninirim collection. It was the Kokoro outfit and that outfit has some pretty good SMP on it. As of this podcast, I am at 74% completion of the outfits ....or 92 out of 125 outfits completed.The next outfit I may do for Ninirim is the Kitsune Miko, that seems to be popular and could benefit from a refresh.

In other news, I started playing Diablo 4 and it’s interesting so far. I use it whenever I want to take a break from modding. I didn’t play any of the other Diablo games but the story and gameplay on this one is pretty compelling.

Branding wise, I will be recording a showcase of the new Sun mousepads. I’ve actually received the samples a bit ago but haven’t had the time to showcase or talk about them. Once I do that, I’ll make the links public or anyone interested in getting one.

And lastly, my real life obligations are still pretty heavy. I’m hoping that by the end of the year, things will continue to die down.

With that I’ll end the podcast here and see you in the next one!