Illegal Mods - Your Opinion

[OblivionDuruza]

There have been some huge, ambitious mod projects, particularly for Morrowind, which have ultimately turned out to be in breach of copyright laws.

Prime examples are:

Morroblivion

and

Morrowind 2011

I'm not here to promote them, only to ask what your opinion on the laws pertaining to Intellectual Property and gaming.

Should Bethesda allow modders to use their meshes/textures etc. seeing as they allow us to mod in the first place? How far can modders go and how far should they? Should we be allowed to use and play such mods? Does the IP issue really matter when contrasted to the great work they've apparently done for the games (reviving them and increasing interest in a game that is 10 years old)?

What do you think?

[The Tom]

In the case of Morroblivion, the reason I didn't use it past a couple of days was because it sucked. It was terrible, and I don't know why they bothered. But I don't see it as particularly illegal, because it doesn't contain any game files in the download. You have to own a copy of both games to be able to even think about using it. But that doesn't stop it being a completely unoriginal work. It's all very well to remake an entire game in your own altered vision, but to steal someone else's and call it your own - well, even if you did write the code to do such a thing, it doesn't make it yours. I don't have any respect for the people who don't want to put in the effort.

[OblivionDuruza]

That's a good point, it's not like Morroblivion was preventing Bethesda from raking in profits from sales.

Your point about Morroblivion seems pretty close though, the reason I didn't get it was because it looks like all they did was copy the Morrowind worldspace into Oblivion, without even completing the scripting for all the quests. Still, it was an ambitious project and I can definitely see the benefits of bringing the game up to Oblivion's engine.

The bigger question is when does the game become the communities property? Have they sold us the house, but not let us possess it (as far as giving us modding ability, but not letting us fiddle with everything the game has to offer).

Does it really matter? Should Bethesda make deals with modders that create things like Morrowind 2011?

[Spiney]

Modders are basically paying rent. Though, pretty darn cheap rent when it's a single one of payment. But you've got the restrictions you'd have if you're renting.

Which I find fine. I certainly wasn't going to make SI stuff available for non-SI users in the WEPON mod. If you didn't have SI, tough luck.

[OblivionDuruza]

So would you allow people to use Beth meshes and so on, if they don't include them in their release, but rather put the onus on players to buy the games and provide the data?

[Spiney]

Well they can modify existing models and stuff, within reason. I mean, there's nothing wrong with just re-skinning weapons and armour to make a mod. A successful one was Ionis' Mithril and Orcish weapons. But it still belongs to Bethesda, and can't be distributed for lets say, a mod for another game.

Though if a modder makes a new model themselves, they're free to use it as they will.

[OblivionDuruza]

That seems fare enough, and it's a view I share, although I'm sure there are differences in our views when you getter into the finer points.

I think the issue with Morrowind 2011 was not so much with Beth. but with other modders, but still. It seems like a great project, so I'd love to be able to try it, in a way in which I can know it's morale and legal.

Obviously Beth. isn't going to bring Morrowind up to modern standards, and while it's still a great game even today, it'd be much nicer to play with some tweaks.