Forums » Elder Scrolls

Skyrim Together project drama!

    • 167 posts
    February 28, 2019 4:30 AM EST

    So, not sure how many people are informed of this but it seems some bad news about the Skyrim Together project are out.

    TAKE NOTE: I AM ONLY MENTIONING WHAT HAS HAPPENED AND WHAT WE KNOW AT THIS POINT AND DO NOT TAKE ANY POSITION IN THE SITUATION. IF I HAVE UNDERSTOOD OR SAID SOMETHING WRONG PLEASE DO CORRECT ME.

    This is the Reddit source: Click Here

    This is a video source explaining the whole situation in detail: Click Here

    What I understood is going on in short:

    1) Apparently it was reported that the Skyrim Together team was stealing code from the SKSE team. After this was made public SKSE developers looked into it and said that this was the case then a Skyrim Together developer came out and assured everyone that this is new code and has nothing to do with SKSE code but after that the SKSE developers confirmed once again that this code was from SKSE and therefore it was stolen since no permission was given from the SKSE team to the Skyrim Together team to use some of their source code.

    2) Then this refute from the Skyrim Together team became somewhat of an apology(?) (not sure on that didn't read personally this post)  from them with a post also mentioning their legal relation with the project, Bethesda and all that. There was also a back and forth between them and SKSE team which seemed to favor the SKSE team.

    A thing to note is that SKSE (and Skyrim Together falls into this) being a third party tool and not created by the Creation Kit for Skyrim is exlusive property of the SKSE team and thus there are laws protecting their intellectual property. If they want to take and use parts from SKSE the Skyrim Together team has to get permission from the SKSE team first, respect their license and then use them but they didn't do so.

    3) Another thing is that the SKSE team had problems with the lead developer for Skyrim Together since a long time ago because he has on several occasions used their source code in his own projects without permission thus he was already banned of using it from the SKSE team.

    4) After that Skyrim Together team imidiately cut their Patreon only closed BETA and many people felt cheated, mad etc.Then for hours their discord was flooded with spam and all that and at a certain point when it was suggested to make their code open source to resolve this issue at the mention of open source they imidiately came in and said that anything in regards to this situation should be said on reddit cuting the chat.

    5) Also It was mentioned by the Skyrim Together team that it wasn't hard to remove the SKSE code from their project but from what it was said on reddit also by developers of this project and their reaction it would seem that this is not the case.

    That about does it I believe with what 's going on.

     

    Personally due to lack of time I didn't look too much into this project but I hope this will be resolved and Skyrim Together or some other type of Skyrim multiplayer will come out.


    This post was edited by Duvain at February 28, 2019 5:03 AM EST
    • 1467 posts
    February 28, 2019 5:04 AM EST

    Yeah I was looking into it a day or two ago so I can provide some extra clarification on a few points but you've got the gist of it.

    4) After that Skyrim Together team imidiately cut their Patreon only closed BETA and many people felt cheated, mad etc.Then for hours their discord was flooded with spam and all that and at a certain point when it was suggested to make their code open source to resolve this issue at the mention of open source they imidiately came in and said that anything in regards to this situation should be said on reddit cuting the chat.

    To be fair here, this was sort of a no win situation. I think it's incredibly shitty if they've done this, but the context is that there are issues with them doing it in the first place. By having a closed BETA that was only accessible if you'd paid, they were sort of maybe selling the mod technically. It's a bit complicated, but because they could make the mod and ask for donations, but because the mod was behind a paywall (technically) it could be considered selling a product which they obviously cannot do. 

    5) Also It was mentioned by the Skyrim Together team that it wasn't hard to remove the SKSE code from their project but from what it was said on reddit also by developers of this project and their reaction it would seem that this is not the case.

    This is tough...I read at one point a developer saying that what was in there wasn't actually in use at the moment...I don't know if this is the case because it was rushed and never brought up again, so I have my doubts but it's worth pointing out that it was said. Doesn't matter regardless (at least in my opinion) because it's a bit strange that they weren't even giving out credit to anyone which just comes across as shady to me. 

     

    There was another issue brought up at some point about the servers for Skyrim Together but I'm not sure if they were purely for the Beta (things like a $20 donation getting you into a better server than a $1 donation...which is a huge issue if it continues past release but not a big issue if it was just for the Closed Beta IMO). 

    • 167 posts
    February 28, 2019 5:18 AM EST

    @Dragonborn - Yeah I 'm aware of that and it really is complicated and could be seen like that.

    Yeah that was mentioned and in the context of this post he also mentioned using code from something else that he still didn't have permission and fell also under SKSE license so he kinda shot his foot there I think but I 'm also not sure on that just from the context of the replies I understood that. Then again the ST team didn't give any credit again even in this case and that is shady regardless.

    Another thing to note is that from the context of ST lead dev's answers their server/site security doesn't seem to be the best and many people called them out on that as well. Quite a few comments mentioned that this could be reported to Data Protection Board.

    Funny thing was as I was scrolling through the comments Dark0ne's (from Nexus) comment, he just said - Ho-lee-crap. What an attitude. :D the ST team lead developer failed a lot at damage control in this reddit post. :P


    This post was edited by Duvain at March 1, 2019 6:59 PM EST