13 ms·

Skyrim together: mod to play online

128 points by agluszak 4y ago

metadat 4y ago
What a cool project, would be interested to hear how it works for folks IRL.
- c0l0 4y ago
  I've played it for some 30 hours together with my much younger brother-in-law at the beginning of the pandemic, and despite (and sometimes even because of) the glitches involved, we had a great time. I think it would be a mistake to go in and expect (or demand) a perfectly polished experience. That they even managed to retrofit a multiplayer mode onto a strictly single player game is a completely mind-blowing achievement in my book - esp. given how well it works, all things considered.
  - viraptor 4y ago
    Considering how buggy skyrim is in general, I suspect people won't have high expectations for the mod either.
    - prox 4y ago
      The original was buggy, if you stay with some well tested modpacks you won’t see a crash to desktop or anything like it.
  - Fabricio20 4y ago
    Just as a note to other readers, this mod in particular "Reborn" is a completely different beast from the one you may have played back in 2020. The team from Tilted Phoques disbanded and reformed a few times, specially after some big controversies with SKSE that have been cited by other commenters. This version "Reborn" is a complete rewrite of "Skyrim Together" which was available then shortly abandoned back in 2019/2020. The team here has done a mind-blowing job, and this release in particular is extremely stable for what turning a singleplayer game into a multiplayer game is!
gavinray 4y ago
Really awesome to see a large project like this using xmake as the build system, it is incredibly underrated in my opinion. Thanks for sharing this, going to install and play with the wife tomorrow. Have been having tons of fun with the Elden Ring Seamless Coop mod released just a few weeks ago, serendipitous timing on this mod.
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  Ohh Elden Ring has seamless co-op now? Does that mean we can use our horses and play in zones without a boss fight?
simion314 4y ago
I love Skyrim and Bethesda games because the developers give the community tools to mod the games, but IMO the majority of the modding community evolved in a very bad place, a egocentric place. Most of the modders only give you the right to download the mod from the Nexus site using an account and a browser so they the modders get a bump to their downloads counter and hopefully an endorsements. The effect is that a lot of people wasted their time modding their game , and this process is very time consuming(reading each mod instructions carefully, reading the bug reports and posts, executing the steps, starting the game and testing it) and modding is very error prone , some weird bug can trigger late in the game and ruing everything, disabling a mod can cause problems too , finding the cause of a crash is also very time consuming and maybe impossible. In other games you have the concept of a mod pack (is a bit like a distro) but this is not possible with majority of this Skyrim mods, the Nexus website invented a concept of Collection that is a complex process that might work but has best results if you pay a subscriptions. Anyway the recent events in open source community made me thingk abut Skyrim community, if Open Source projects with a big downloads or star counter get some money or some badges the developers might fall in the trap of Skyrim moders and wanting to bump their counters will restrict their distribution, I am afraid we will see licenses with restrictions like MIT + GitHub restriction where you can use the code only if you downloaded it from GitHub and from this specific repo(no forks or re hosting allowed). This seems impossible now but as we see in my example with this Skyrim community it will happen slowly. There are open source and/or non restricted Skryum mod and I think most of this ones are inspired by Free Software philosophy.
- throwawaycuriou 4y ago
  While the modding restrictions are bemusing to me as well coming from open source software, the introduction of Wabbajack a couple years ago greatly streamlined things so that you had one curated install that could encompass hundreds of mods. Collections as I understand is Nexus' take on the same idea.
- Athas 4y ago
  It's always surprised me that game mods tend to be developed behind closed doors. Why don't they follow common open source development processes? Is there a cultural or perhaps technical reason why open development doesn't work for mods? (The one in TFA is an exception of course.)
foxtacles 4y ago
Nice! That reminds me of my efforts to add multiplayer functionality to Fallout 3 (which basically used a previous generation of the Skyrim engine) about a decade ago: https://github.com/foxtacles/vaultmp https://github.com/foxtacles/vaultmp
- pmarreck 4y ago
  Nice! Did this work well? I'd love to play through FO3 again but the lack of any shadows has become quite jarring.
FloatArtifact 4y ago
I'm sorry but the modding community has worked from a passion for many, many years supported by platforms like Patreon. It's going to devolve into paid DLC if publishers start monetizing mods. A microtransaction modding community is not what I would want nor would its historically been. Tilted Online came along just fine with financial support from the community. That financial support was not mandatory.
- jnovek 4y ago
  For those of us who don’t get so deep into modding that we follow a Patreon, having a straightforward way to pay modders for their time seems nice. Unfortunately when these things become marketplaces it seems like incentives shift and they quickly fill up with shovelware skins and texture mods. The weird and creative things get buried.
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  I am not in the mod community at all and I don’t understand at all what this is referring to. The link leads to github and gplv3 license? I don’t see anything related to money? Pardon my ignorance…
  - FloatArtifact 4y ago
    They no longer except donations because they believe they've received enough. You can review the blog posts on their discords.
skitter 4y ago
When I heard about this project, they were using Skyrim Script Extender code without permission[0] (and denying it) and made a lot of money from it (which the SKSE people feared could get them in legal trouble with Bethesda). I hope this has been rectified since? [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/av4f5f/skyrim_together_is_stealing_skse_source_code/ https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/av4f5f/skyrim_t...
- FloatArtifact 4y ago
  I vaguely remember something about this years ago but I do believe it's been resolved. Check their discord server about the drama.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    No offense but telling someone to go check a discord server is like saying "go google it" but you can't even use a search engine. It's worse than useless it's actively harmful to informing people. Provide details or don't bother getting involved.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- devwastaken 4y ago
  SKSE is reverse engineering of Skyrim, with a heavy amount of code that can easily be argued to be infringement if Bethesda wanted to. This means that if anyone has a bone in ownership, it's Bethesda, not SKSE. Don't release mods or tools without open licenses for content you don't own. It's a conflict of interest. By SKSE "fearing it could be used for profit" they are harming themselves. Open license, ignore it. You don't have any responsibilities of how it's used. That is in part why open licenses were created. Negation of liability. That said, yes, the Skyrim together project is a money pit that last I checked is unmaintained yet makes thousands a month. With a moderation team that is none too friendly and doesn't take kindly to legitimate criticisms.
  - 4y ago

128 points by agluszak 4y ago

metadat 4y ago

What a cool project, would be interested to hear how it works for folks IRL.

c0l0 4y ago
I've played it for some 30 hours together with my much younger brother-in-law at the beginning of the pandemic, and despite (and sometimes even because of) the glitches involved, we had a great time. I think it would be a mistake to go in and expect (or demand) a perfectly polished experience. That they even managed to retrofit a multiplayer mode onto a strictly single player game is a completely mind-blowing achievement in my book - esp. given how well it works, all things considered.
- viraptor 4y ago
  Considering how buggy skyrim is in general, I suspect people won't have high expectations for the mod either.
  - prox 4y ago
    The original was buggy, if you stay with some well tested modpacks you won’t see a crash to desktop or anything like it.
- Fabricio20 4y ago
  Just as a note to other readers, this mod in particular "Reborn" is a completely different beast from the one you may have played back in 2020. The team from Tilted Phoques disbanded and reformed a few times, specially after some big controversies with SKSE that have been cited by other commenters. This version "Reborn" is a complete rewrite of "Skyrim Together" which was available then shortly abandoned back in 2019/2020. The team here has done a mind-blowing job, and this release in particular is extremely stable for what turning a singleplayer game into a multiplayer game is!

gavinray 4y ago

Really awesome to see a large project like this using xmake as the build system, it is incredibly underrated in my opinion. Thanks for sharing this, going to install and play with the wife tomorrow. Have been having tons of fun with the Elden Ring Seamless Coop mod released just a few weeks ago, serendipitous timing on this mod.

ShamelessC 4y ago
Ohh Elden Ring has seamless co-op now? Does that mean we can use our horses and play in zones without a boss fight?

simion314 4y ago

I love Skyrim and Bethesda games because the developers give the community tools to mod the games, but IMO the majority of the modding community evolved in a very bad place, a egocentric place. Most of the modders only give you the right to download the mod from the Nexus site using an account and a browser so they the modders get a bump to their downloads counter and hopefully an endorsements. The effect is that a lot of people wasted their time modding their game , and this process is very time consuming(reading each mod instructions carefully, reading the bug reports and posts, executing the steps, starting the game and testing it) and modding is very error prone , some weird bug can trigger late in the game and ruing everything, disabling a mod can cause problems too , finding the cause of a crash is also very time consuming and maybe impossible. In other games you have the concept of a mod pack (is a bit like a distro) but this is not possible with majority of this Skyrim mods, the Nexus website invented a concept of Collection that is a complex process that might work but has best results if you pay a subscriptions. Anyway the recent events in open source community made me thingk abut Skyrim community, if Open Source projects with a big downloads or star counter get some money or some badges the developers might fall in the trap of Skyrim moders and wanting to bump their counters will restrict their distribution, I am afraid we will see licenses with restrictions like MIT + GitHub restriction where you can use the code only if you downloaded it from GitHub and from this specific repo(no forks or re hosting allowed). This seems impossible now but as we see in my example with this Skyrim community it will happen slowly. There are open source and/or non restricted Skryum mod and I think most of this ones are inspired by Free Software philosophy.

throwawaycuriou 4y ago
While the modding restrictions are bemusing to me as well coming from open source software, the introduction of Wabbajack a couple years ago greatly streamlined things so that you had one curated install that could encompass hundreds of mods. Collections as I understand is Nexus' take on the same idea.
Athas 4y ago
It's always surprised me that game mods tend to be developed behind closed doors. Why don't they follow common open source development processes? Is there a cultural or perhaps technical reason why open development doesn't work for mods? (The one in TFA is an exception of course.)

foxtacles 4y ago

Nice! That reminds me of my efforts to add multiplayer functionality to Fallout 3 (which basically used a previous generation of the Skyrim engine) about a decade ago: https://github.com/foxtacles/vaultmp https://github.com/foxtacles/vaultmp

pmarreck 4y ago
Nice! Did this work well? I'd love to play through FO3 again but the lack of any shadows has become quite jarring.

FloatArtifact 4y ago

I'm sorry but the modding community has worked from a passion for many, many years supported by platforms like Patreon. It's going to devolve into paid DLC if publishers start monetizing mods. A microtransaction modding community is not what I would want nor would its historically been. Tilted Online came along just fine with financial support from the community. That financial support was not mandatory.

jnovek 4y ago
For those of us who don’t get so deep into modding that we follow a Patreon, having a straightforward way to pay modders for their time seems nice. Unfortunately when these things become marketplaces it seems like incentives shift and they quickly fill up with shovelware skins and texture mods. The weird and creative things get buried.
shp0ngle 4y ago
I am not in the mod community at all and I don’t understand at all what this is referring to. The link leads to github and gplv3 license? I don’t see anything related to money? Pardon my ignorance…
- FloatArtifact 4y ago
  They no longer except donations because they believe they've received enough. You can review the blog posts on their discords.

skitter 4y ago

When I heard about this project, they were using Skyrim Script Extender code without permission[0] (and denying it) and made a lot of money from it (which the SKSE people feared could get them in legal trouble with Bethesda). I hope this has been rectified since? [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/av4f5f/skyrim_together_is_stealing_skse_source_code/ https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/av4f5f/skyrim_t...

FloatArtifact 4y ago
I vaguely remember something about this years ago but I do believe it's been resolved. Check their discord server about the drama.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  No offense but telling someone to go check a discord server is like saying "go google it" but you can't even use a search engine. It's worse than useless it's actively harmful to informing people. Provide details or don't bother getting involved.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
devwastaken 4y ago
SKSE is reverse engineering of Skyrim, with a heavy amount of code that can easily be argued to be infringement if Bethesda wanted to. This means that if anyone has a bone in ownership, it's Bethesda, not SKSE. Don't release mods or tools without open licenses for content you don't own. It's a conflict of interest. By SKSE "fearing it could be used for profit" they are harming themselves. Open license, ignore it. You don't have any responsibilities of how it's used. That is in part why open licenses were created. Negation of liability. That said, yes, the Skyrim together project is a money pit that last I checked is unmaintained yet makes thousands a month. With a moderation team that is none too friendly and doesn't take kindly to legitimate criticisms.
- 4y ago