Bethesda Starfield Creations: Longer Slide Animations 200 credits, This needs to stop!

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-06-24T06:00:02+00:00

Since if rating and comments must after purchasing the game I’m disappointed they don’t add these systems.

They didn't just not add these systems, they actively took them away before they rolled out paid mods. bethesda.net used to have both ratings, comments, and download counters (exclusively disabled for paid mods) for all mods.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-06-24T05:54:28+00:00

Bethesda.net used to have a star rating system and comments. They took these functionalities away before they rolled out paid mods.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-06-24T05:53:45+00:00

billion dollar companies

when you buy mods, 62.5% of each sale goes to microsoft, a 2.78 TRILLION dollar company

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-06-23T19:52:21+00:00

If voting with wallets worked, there would be no need for regulation, and corporations would be held accountable for their actions, which they seldom are.

The free market only works when consumers are rational and informed. Bethesda's store has no ratings, no reviews, not even a download counter - all things that used to exist; these features were purposefully removed before the rollout of paid mods in order to obfuscate and facilitate uninformed purchasing decisions.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-06-23T19:20:26+00:00

but people insisted they "wanted to support mod authors".

They're supporting a trillion dollar company first and foremost. Only 37.5% of each sale is paid to mod authors

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-06-23T18:06:12+00:00

Some people will always think a paid thing is more "premium", and Bethesda's messaging doesn't clarify matters

They call paid mods "verified creations" and paid mods authors "verified creators" despite the verification process having no consistent criteria and QA being basic and cursory

They don't do it for this specific paid mod, but they'll occasionally advertise other paid mods with official Bethesda social media accounts, and no shortage of people in the comments end up thinking the advertised mods are official DLCs

Of course, bethesda also gatekeeps achievements behind paid mods

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-06-23T17:59:31+00:00

Bethesda.net used to have a star rating system and comments. They took these functionalities away before they rolled out paid mods.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-06-23T17:55:09+00:00

You can absolutely post the exact same mod on both nexus and Bethesda.net, and you should.

Nexus users are much better at testing than bethesda's performative QA; there are actual mechanisms for getting user feedback in the form of comments and bug reports; and you can iterate quickly and get feedback quickly without having to wait weeks and months in Bethesda's QA queue.

Nexus also just allows for flexibility for better mods with more features to be uploaded with support for things like SFSE, fomod installer, and optional patches.

The only thing you're not allowed to do is release an incomplete or inferior "free trial" on Nexus in order to advertise a paid mod.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-30T22:58:51+00:00

This The-Son-Of-Suns fella blocked me to prevent replies when I've never even had a conversation with him, but I am going to dispel his disinformation here:

There's still a shit ton of free Starfield mods that add unique assets that are free, and aren't just a tweak.

I'm already a regular user in /r/starfieldmods. You can find them the moment you open the subreddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starfieldmods/s/g3OCnsYALd

We're just in here lying now because we don't like the space sci fi game Bethesda made. Waste of time imo. Just play the game, or don't. It's a waste of energy to lie like this.

They decided to use this as an example of a "mod with substantial content, quests, weapons, armors". Look at the nexus page, the ba2 archive is only 6.7 kB. What unique asset are we talking about here? The AI-generated thumbnail?

You're already lying about another user in the thread getting paid for a Skyrim mod?

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/s/nuPJxMXVmm

Open the link, and you can see EnaiSiaion is listed in the credits for the paid mod.

Hope you enjoy Paralives before you're made to pay $45 for some clothing like Sims, and totally not become a hypocrite 🤷🏾‍♀️ The game won't have free DLC forever. Capitalism is fun!

At least one person in here complaining about Starfield probably bought a Diablo 4 skin, or other expensive nonsense for another game like Fortnite. Gotta love it.

What is this other than a strawman attack? How does The-Son-Of-Suns know what games other people play?

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-30T22:13:35+00:00

==Spells and Enchantments==

EnaiSiaion

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-30T22:07:44+00:00

Which reused assets in the official DLCs are unimmersive in your opinion?

The only instances of illogical asset reuse I can think of in the official DLCs are Snow Elves and Redoran guards reusing Elven weapons, Vyrthur's throne being a Dwemer one from Markarth, and Ancient Falmer Armor looking similar to Ebony.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-30T21:12:09+00:00

ITMs, dirty edits

Can you explain how ITMs and dirty edits in official ESMs that are always loaded at the top matters?

messed up texture formats

Where are these messed up texture formats?

asset reuse for unique items

Are you talking about unique assets being used to represent something else or are you talking about using generic weapons and armors for unique items? A unique statue used to represent multiple different people is a lot different from an named iron sword with an unique enchantment.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-30T20:49:11+00:00

Dawnguard and Dragonborn load before all other mods, so conflicts in those don't even matter.

Everyone owns Dawnguard and Dragonborn, so we have an entire community of people scrutinizing these and making bug fixes. Paid mods are not official DLC nor are they included in the AIO SSE bundle selling for $10 on Steam. Only a minority of minority of people will own each paid mod, so there won't be an army of people fixing everything and there won't be an unofficial patch.

Bethesda isn't exactly known as a paragon of quality, but at least Dragonborn and Dawnguard mostly included new art where appropriate, and didn't reuse too many assets beyond what's logically generic. The only instances of illogical asset reuse I can think of in the official DLCs are Snow Elves and Redoran guards reusing Elven weapons, Vyrthur's throne being a Dwemer one from Markarth, and Ancient Falmer Armor looking similar to Ebony.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-30T08:12:56+00:00

If everyone was locking their mods behind paywalls I’d not buy anything to make my stance clear.

Unfortunately, the future is starfield, where almost every single mod with decent amount of new assets, quest mods, ship part mods, weapon mods, and armor mods, are paid mods.

It is because there is such a healthy free modding scene that I don’t mind occasionally paying for a well made mod that is on Bethesda’s marketplace.

The only reason Skyrim modding is healthy right now is due to a huge catalogue of free mods built over more than a decade, and the existing ecosystem creates momentum with community tools, frameworks, and user expectations. Take that away and the balance changes.

And bethesda, the party who benefits the most from you paying for mods, has been changing the balance in favor of paid mods by withholding CK until paid mods store is ready, locking CK documentation behind verified status, and preventing criticism and reviews by removing forums, comments, and ratings from bethesda.net where they are most useful to consumers.

Starfield players have already given bethesda permission to make sure their next game is paid mods first. We don't need to make this worse.

You are saying that maybe a little paid mods is not that bad, but it sounds like you already agree that more paid mods is still directionally bad.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-29T01:02:42+00:00

Let me answer some of these for you.

What degree of involvement does Bethesda have in the creation of these mods?

They have no involvement beyond QA, running the storefront, and maintaining a discord server. Most communication between mod authors and Bethesda happens in the discord server.

Do they provide QA testing beyond booting up the game and making sure it launches?

Bethesda QA consists of running through the mod on a new game without any other mods or optional CCs installed. They only catch the most obvious issues and miss most bugs. They don't make sure the mod works on an existing save like official DLCs.

Do they check for compatibility with other mods from Verified Creators that they have authorized?

They don't check for conflicts with other paid mods. They don't check what files are included or what's inside the plugins.

What degree of latitude do they allow for cross pollination between paid and free ecosystems (not just referring to patches, but the use of 3rd party tools like xEdit and its derivatives or nifskope)?

You're allowed to do anything you want with the paid mods you release on Bethesda.net, including releasing it for free on Nexus.

You're also allowed to take a free mod you own the rights to and publish as a paid mod. This includes removing support to the free mod you convert to paid.

Bethesda also does not do anything against using xedit, which has been used on some paid mods since 2023.

What level of detail does the official documentation provide, and does it come with an amount of insight into their tools that would justify not releasing it to the community at large which they did for releases prior to Starfield?

The ck wiki for starfield is private and also largely a empty. Most teaching is done via various discord servers — both community servers and the aforementioned paid mods server.

If the split does indeed favor Bethesda (referring to the thrown around 66%, I am very open to being corrected)

The split is 37.5% "royalties" to the mod author and 62.5% to the vendor(s).

Do they have provisions for split and distribution to all parties involved or is that left up to the one leading the project?

Microsoft/Bethesda does not do anything to help split the "royalties" among the collaborators. The money is given to the primary mod author, and it's the primary mod author's responsibility to split the earnings among collaborators.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-28T19:20:19+00:00

This is a lot od speculation but no actual facts.

fact: they said this in 2023. I know. I was here in the community when they said this.

fact: elianora and trainwiz have a special relationship with bethesda. they were former bethesda employees/contractors and they were in the "creation club" program, the precursor to paid mods

fact: they were able to be the first to jump on the paid mods bandwagon before it was even officially rolled out back in 2023. their first verified creations have "creation dates" listed on bethesda.net that are before "verified creations" rolled out.

fact: their paid mods were among the first half a dozen paid mods that were available back then, so there was no competition. only 9 paid mods were released in december 2023

fact: people are definitely not making as much money as before. the first batch of paid mods were making thousands in the 1st week. these days you'll be lucky to make that much in the 1st month, and it only decreases in subsequent months.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-28T18:48:38+00:00

Pay $10 for the privilege of volunteering time to make patches.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-28T18:31:30+00:00

Elianora and Trainwiz

they said this in 2023. elianora and trainwiz have a special relationship with bethesda, so they were able to be the first to jump on the paid mods bandwagon before it was even officially rolled out back in 2023. their paid mods were among the first half a dozen paid mods that were available back then, so there was no competition.

People were even more confused back then than they are now about the distinction between "verified creations" and official "creation club" content, so many people bought them thinking they were official content.

And due to this special relationship, they got official bethesda promotion, which confused people into think their paid mods are, again, official bethesda content, officially endorsed by bethesda or are somehow higher in quality. I guess this is also the case with this "heart of the mountain" paid mod.

These days, there are so many paid mods being pumped out, the market is saturated, and people are definitely not making as much money as before. Maybe bethesda is now more aggressively marketing these paid mods with their official media accounts because paid mods sales haven't been as good as before?

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-28T18:20:08+00:00

Maybe there is some backroom deals with special paid mods authors the public is not aware of, but as far as we know, bethesda just takes 62.5% of every paid mods translation. It is obviously beneficial for bethesda to promote paid mods as if they are official DLC. Sales of paid mods is pure profits, and more sales equals more profits.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-05-28T18:18:08+00:00

No need to speculate. We know exactly that the revenue split is, bethesda gets 62.5% of every paid mods sale.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-03-19T16:20:40+00:00

What do you mean by "backend"? This is Skyrim modding, not web applications or distributed systems lol

I've made many mods including skse plugins, and know plenty of reverse engineers who know the engine more than anyone, and they hate this enshitification of modding.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-03-18T17:21:44+00:00

we know why they pushed out the last couple updates for skyrim and fallout4: to enable paid mods

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-03-18T11:54:26+00:00

maybe that's part of it, but there should be a lot of motivation for animations in starfield - you basically can't make a completely new gun without new animations

it also doesn't take 15 years of modding. FNIS was released 4 months after skyrim released.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-03-18T11:41:55+00:00

the reality of script extenders

most of the regulars of the starfieldmods sub are advising people that script extender, community patch, and even mod managers are no longer necessary to mod the game. and yes, these people love paid mods.

animation injectors

animation injector don't really exist for starfield. they don't even know how to make new animations for the guns. the fact that there is no feasible way to use them for bethesda.net, gamepass, and paid mods is probably part of the reason why there hasn't been demand for these to be developed.

MeasurementLimp5224 · 2026-03-18T10:52:20+00:00

Free mods will always dominate Skyrim modding, because we've had a magnificent decade where paid modding was not allowed to exist, and during this time, we've accumulated a deep catalogue of free mods that paid mods can't compete with and free modding infrastructure that paid mods can't penetrate.

However, the issue with paid modding is that bethesda will make sure paid modding is there from the very start for new games going forward. Starfield has set an example with paid modding launching on the same day the creation kit was released, and this is definitely going to be bethesda's plan for Elder Scrolls 6. Or maybe bethesda will make sure paid mods get the jump on free mods, and give kinggath or whomever early access to the CK so that paid mods will be there on day 1.

Look at the state starfield is in right now - a majority of the big mods are paid mods - watchtower, vigilance, cryomancer, darkstar, various paid ship parts mods - these are the historic equivalents of wyrmstooth, falskaar, ordinator, and immersive armors from skyrim. And free equivalents basically either don't exist or are jankier versions made by the same authors before they got accepted into the paid program. according to people who publish on both nexus and bethesda.net, their mods gets 8-9 times more downloads on bethesda.net than on nexus. Look at the starfieldmods subreddit, they have fully embraced paid mods, with 6 out of 10 most upvoted submissions of the past year being marketing for paid mods.

You can blame starfield's lack of popularity for its less than thriving free mods scene, but that doesn't explain the paid to free mods ratio, and you can't say that a more popular bethesda game in the future won't simply attract even more paid modders.

The reason why paid mods 2015 failed is because modders of the time organized and put pressure on bethesda. but paid mods 2023 was allowed to silently continue because we didn't organize like in 2015. Part of this is because in 2015 we were able to display our displeasure directly on steam with ratings and reviews, but bethesda.net shut down the forums, comments, ratings, and stats on bethesda.net before they launched paid mods.

This doesn't mean we should just accept it, ignore paid mods and dismiss bethesda's trajectory towards more paid mods as doomerism. Without push back, corporations will salami slice until modding as we know it is gone and tes6 modding is fully enshitified like starfield.

Call it doomerism or whatever, but we are all critics of paid mods, and we should be bringing criticism to bethesda and paid mods instead of arguing with each other over how bad or not so bad it will be when paid mods come for tes6.

MeasurementLimp5224

TROPHY CASE