Blogs - Axonis

It lies where it always has since mid-2010: in the instant gratification of addicted players, and the people that profit from them.

Respect for the courage you've shown to stand against them.

And if you're planning on ditching that sad community, welcome to the real, happy world.

Casually browsing the Viva New Vegas guide, I found a link to a document that criticizes Sinitar's guides' problems. It's a pretty long document and it goes to Fallout New Vegas whose modding scene I know pretty well.

I also know Sinitar, I have discussed with him and I've been linking his guide to my mod's main description at ModDB for a couple years. So I'd like to offer my counterpoint to that of Phoenix, particularly on New Vegas.

Phoenix mentions the 140 plugin limit of New Vegas in relation to the extremely high number of mods in Sinitar's guide. The comparison however is simply wrong because most mods in Sinitar's guide are plugin-less. In fact my own mod was originally plugin-less, and the plugin is still opt-in.

So yes, you can have 800 mods and still be under the plugin limit.

Phoenix claims that "FNV mod authors were flooded with bug reports" because of Sinitar's New Vegas guide. Considering that (a) my mod is included in Sinitar's guide and (b) my mod is one of the hardest to support due to its dependency on multiple files that can get overwritten without giving you any clue, I can say that Sinitar's guide has not resulted in any bug report.

I did find an error in his guide. I told him about it and he fixed it in a few minutes. The error wasn't really his fault though, it's pretty common because it's propagated by other guides and wikis, such as Gopher's and Nexus. I have communicated to these authors and tried to make them understand how things work with UIO for the last 5 years, but they either don't understand or don't care. Sinitar did.

Claiming that Sinitar was "combative" for refusing to edit his guide because a mod author asked him to do so is pretty ironical these days. We have mod authors who have publicly stated they don't want to see their mods included in modpacks/lists/collections and not only are they ignored but we have an example of an executable installer being decompiled with the mod's licensing information being hidden against the author's wishes.

Besides, there's nothing combative in refusing to change one's text. Sinitar could ask Phoenix to remove his name from her critical review and Phoenix would be equally right to refuse to do so.

I would also like to make a comment about the "Nexus' Response".

Being booted from the Nexus means nothing. I had also been blocked from the Nexus because I had posted a "5+ year old quote" of Robin Scott the owner of Nexus. Despite my requests to explain the specific term that's against quoting Robin Scott, I found nothing relevant. As such, I'm still blocked by the Nexus because I cannot click on the checkbox that states that I have read and "understood the ToS" because I really don't understand their ToS.

To summarize:

• You can combine 800 mods and be allright, as long as most of these mods are plugin-less.
• It's not combative to ignore others when writing a guide, if you feel they are wrong.
• Sinitar did fix a mistake when I told him about it.
• Being blocked by Nexusmods doesn't mean anything.

PS. I'm no fan of Sinitar's guide because it's too big. I always prefer a short load order.

PS2. I've just found out this reddit Skyrimmods thread. pH levels near 0 as always there. The fact that Phoenix posted a hitpiece for these toxic people to rip Sinitar, speaks pretty badly for Phoenix herself.

I've been asked this question for the 10th time, so I better post a public answer. Yes, I moved Vanilla UI Plus to ModDB during the Fall of 2017 for the following reasons:

1. It was difficult for me to use Nexus Mods after they changed fonts at the comments section. Their new fonts were thin, gray, and on top of some graphite background. Considering the popularity of VUI+, I had to constantly visit the comments pages to support users. This started to literally give me headaches, probably due to my partial color blindness.
   
   There were other readability and usability issues, many users including myself tried to point them out, but we were ignored. What a contrast to ModDB, where I filed an issue related to my partial color blindness, and Scott Reismanis, the ModDB owner fixed in within a few hours!
   
   
2. During that time Nexus Mods blocked unregistered users from downloading files, even small ones. ModDB on the other hand allows public access to files of any size, and I want my mod to be freely downloadable. (This is something that I enforce in my license, which means that VUI+ forks cannot be hosted at Nexus Mods.)
   
   ModDB also allows guest comments, so people are entirely free to both download my mod and request my support without being forced to agree to some weird terms. Which brings us to...
   
   
3. ...again during that time, Nexus Mods had silently changed their terms of service to demand an INFINITE license to a very broad set of rights. When I first read it I thought it was a mistake, but Robin Scott, the Nexus Mods owner, confirmed its validity by stating that “You give us every right short of outright ownership of your work”.
   
   This is most serious. I can understand why a modding site would request rights pertaining to its function, but I would never surrender such rights for an infinite duration. ModDB has no such “infinite” clause.
   
   [Added in June 2021] Unfortunately my suspicions for this change have been confirmed. Mod authors can no longer delete their own creations from Nexusmods.

My first consideration for relocation was Arthmoor’s site, AFKmods. It would provide a more sensible TOS than ModDB, but it didn’t have a New Vegas category. I didn’t realize that I could contact Arthmoor and ask him to create one. It’s actually a great option, despite being relatively unknown, and definitely great for pluralism and competition.

In the end, this is what is about: competition is the only way to prevent behaviors that benefit the site owners but harm the modding scene in general.

A few days ago I posted an idea at a private mod author forum. The idea was to write a fomod XML declaration that would display this message upon installation:

The declaration is written in a way that an automated system will install no files, unless instructed by a 3^rd party to look for a specific folder. In my opinion, such an instruction is a conscious effort in creating a derivative work, where my mod files are being extracted without the end user ever seeing the license agreement. While such a theory has not been tested in courts, Epic Games has exercised the option on their case against a Fortnite hacker. I believe that as an author of a work, I’m entitled to the same rights and protections of copyright law.

You might be wondering why am I against mod packs, aside from the reasons outlined at the screenshot above. After all, all my mods are released under this simplified GPL-based license: “You are free to distribute this work, modified or not, as long as it is publicly available for download under this license.” That means you have the right to fork VUI+ under a different name as long as you propagate my license and make sure that your mod is published it in a site where I can download it without any restrictions (such as registrations).

What I do not support is that people claim that their mod pack includes Vanilla UI Plus and yet they hide its fomod installer. My understanding is that some users consider such installers a thing of the past, but my installer is an inseparable part of my mod. It outlines the quick readme and includes options for features that I have worked hard to provide to users:

If you still think that the installer should be hidden, then by all means fork my mod as allowed by my license. Just don’t assume you have the right to offer Vanilla UI Plus by crippling its installer. This is piracy plain and simple. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I decided a few years ago to stop people from appropriating my hard work no matter how inconvenient for me.