Skywind Standalone Poll

Even if they have to be kept in the same package with an option to start a Morrowind or a Skyrim game on startup of a new character, I think Skywind definitely needs to be standalone. The thought of them possibly crossing over and destroying the lore is enough to give me the OCD shivers :)

Ideally for me the game would be ENTIRELY standalone, with an installer like mentioned in the first post. This means mods can be managed independently also. But I have no idea if this is plausible due to the legal and technical restrictions on such a setup. Is it still possible to get in trouble with Bethesda for such a thing, even if you legitimately own Skyrim? They can get hella tight about their assets

@Happy there is a big difference between doing it yourself and releasing a program that does that. The same way most companies will ignore if you hack their application on your home PC for yourself, but will go after any person that distributes a crack or cracked application.

And how are you going to support mods for standalone Skywind? I know that Wrye Bash for example supports several game instances (but setting it up is not trivial), but what about Skyrim's launcher, MO, NMM, etc? What about other tools like SkyProc, OScape, or TES5Edit which doesn't support several instances without messing with command line params which most users would never ever deal with?

There are a lot of "cons" and absolutely no "pros". Going to repeat for the third time - forget about "standalone" and close this thread please.

Deja vu..

Question about having them together and picking what game you want to start

1. What would that mean for files in the Skyrim folder such as ENBs? would that mean that your ENB would apply to Skywind as well?

2. would having them together carry over texure mods like texures for the night sky, or rocks etc?

Happy you know I'd follow you to hell and back [External image].... But this time I'm just got a bit more trust in what Zilav is saying. 

zilav

Looks like Happy is ignoring me, but I repeat - "standalone" is not possible due to a legal reasons (and maybe even technical). You can't release a tool to mess with DRM protected content on a user PC.

Skyrim.exe is a DRM content protected by Steam, creating a program to copy it out of it's default installation folder could be considered "cracking" by Valve. Or not. Anyway do you want to risk and bring attention to this project of another company?

And with "copying" out of picture there are no "pros" left, that's why I said there is nothing to discuss. Again, the real question is do we want to overwrite vanilla files to improve Skywind experience at the expense of losing compatibility with other mods or even vanilla game? I already mentioned earlier that you can pack all conflicting files into a separate BSA and allow user to load it on/off by activating an empty additional plugin ESP file in any mod manager including Skyrim launcher. Playing Skywind? Turn it on. Playing anything else - off. Very simple.

zilav

@Happy there is a big difference between doing it yourself and releasing a program that does that. The same way most companies will ignore if you hack their application on your home PC for yourself, but will go after any person that distributes a crack or cracked application.

And how are you going to support mods for standalone Skywind? I know that Wrye Bash for example supports several game instances (but setting it up is not trivial), but what about Skyrim's launcher, MO, NMM, etc? What about other tools like SkyProc, OScape, or TES5Edit which doesn't support several instances without messing with command line params which most users would never ever deal with?

There are a lot of "cons" and absolutely no "pros". Going to repeat for the third time - forget about "standalone" and close this thread please.

Transfering all my karma (1168) to Zilav :D

The same way most companies will ignore if you hack their application on your home PC for yourself, but will go after any person that distributes a crack or cracked application.

So we are in agreement then. I'm talking about the equivalent of

xcopy "TESV.exe" "../newfolder/TESV.exe"

We are not cracking or distributing. Remember we are trying to find an elegant solution here. If you honest to God think that Valve would bring lawyers into stopping the Skywind game, because it makes a copy of the game, then OK, I'll respect that.

But I have to ask how come your are fine with copying other forms of data like Morrowind and Oblivion, literally cracking and distributing it, which actually maybe under law prohibited? Where as I can prove that backing up software is not. You can see why you have me confused here.

SkyProc, OScape, or TES5Edit

I use all 3 of these programs with multiple instances, without using command lines, admittedly I don't use Steam.

I would like it to be standalone, but how legal would that be?

@Happy

I already told you about an elegant solution, and this is using a separate BSA archive with overridden conflicting vanilla files. Believe me, it is the best you can get with Skyrim without retaining to building a custom loader that will intercept file access calls from TESV.EXE to redirect to several files in runtime or forcing a use of 3rd party programs on a user. The same way you believed me when I came out of nowhere more than a year ago and told everyone to stop developing Skywind while I'm reconverting it.

Happy it's less of argument of can we than should we. As elegant of a solution as we could make. You still have yet to make any arguments invalidating the points I've made, and make any to justify the time spent on such an endeavor. Further more it's still up to the team whether we do such a thing. We have to keep in mind that Skywind only really puts a toll on the Creation Kit and not Skyrim itself. Even if the user doesn't use any optimizations it will still run well enough to get through the game.

So let me ask you. Why should we spend out time pulling out all the dependencies making it completely independent?

Well from what i understand the graphic stress on the computer depends on the graphic effects and details and basically the side of all texture and nr of polys generated in the current cell (ugrid) you are in. If you guys make the whole Morrowind 4k we might have problems no matter if we play it as a mod or as stand alone.  As soon as you exit from one cell to another information is tossed out and new data is being load. The only thing that may created extra load is maybe some global scripts (which trigger from the moment you start your gameplay).

I my opinion i don't see a problem starting Skyrim at level 1 or at level 40 as long as you can not port your stuff from one land mass to another (maybe here should a proper focus?!!) cause i presume that Morrowind will still keep some sort of scalability and since a lot of assets are coded uniquely with some effort it may be possible not to matter what level you are.

I am totally for a standalone.... No offence but be able to travel between two regions that have a whole era of timing different will be a lot lore breaking....

I don't care to be able to travel between morrowind and skyrim since if i want to play skyrim i play skyrim if i play morrowind even if is a remake i will gladly restart a whole new character that fit perfectly in the timing and in the lore...

Morrowind is al about deep lores and discovery... Play it whit a already maxed character will ruin it a lot and honestly i can't even understand why some people want it

read the forum. Even not standalone you can start in morrowind and never have anything to do with skyrim. So don't worry about your lore exploding.

With all due respect, either lock this thread or set a deadline to vote by, or new members will be suggesting ideas next year, after a decision has been made.

Poll results:

Standalone has 18 votes.

Against Standalone has 8 votes.

Closing poll on 8 April. Now before you get your knickers in a twist, this isn't whether we are doing it or not, or the technical, this is just a popularity vote, as voted by you the fans.

EnvyDeveloper

One attractive point of Skywind is the ability to play two TES games in one. Making it standalone would remove that.

Agreed completely. I don't think standalone is the way to go and it's sort of odd that this is even being proposed.

Standalone I probably wouldn't even be interested in playing. This is why I'm enjoying Morroblivion so much. Because my Nerevarine is going to Cyrodiil. Plus, it's entirely possible to completely avoid Skyrim with the non standalone mod. Why would you completely remove the ability to do this for the people who want to? I've never understood the "time inconsistency" as the Nerevarine became immortal after contracting Corprus anyway. Regardless of that, an "inconsistency" like that shouldn't motivate the team to make it standalone. Allow the players to create whatever patch for the inconsistency that they want. The people who do not want to play both games don't have to. There's no reason to make the ones who want to suffer, just because some people don't want others to play the game the way they want to.

But I'm not really a big contributor to Skywind. I've mostly been bugtesting and playing around with Morroblivion. I don't know whose votes you're counting here, but I definitely vote for non standalone. I still don't understand why this is even a problem. The mod should be as flexible for the players as it can be. Purposefully removing this freedom seems very against what The Elder Scrolls modding community is about.

non-standalone, the beauty of choice is valueable.

But why does it matter to you personally? If it's not standalone, you can still play only Skywind without even touching Skyrim. Why ruin it for the people who want to play both? You'll never even know they're doing it.

lol, it begins, again

Ok, I'm actually going to close this thread on 8 April, as its going to go round in circles, and new posts are not going to help. I think we've managed to weigh up the pros and cons.

Basically there are actually very few pros to be had, especially from a technical and development point of view.

As much as I personally want a standalone version, this is really is for the sake of making sure that users, especially new ones, who might be unaware of the scope of this game, will use their Skyrim character. There will be a number of people who might think its like a DLC, like Dragonborn or Falkasar, so using their Skyrim character is the way to go.

As long as we advertise the scope of the game, then we help new comers make a better decision to start a new game, as Morrowind (or every game for that matter) was intended.

Why not just release two versions? Standalone and non-Standalone? I'd rather have that it be entirely Standalone.

What exactly are the pros for Standalone. I can't understand how it would help the mod much.

I prefer standalone version. Because we can edit UI without any trouble for Skyrim. Also we will have no problem with mods, but yes, all managers will not work with us. I dont know whats better. For me -> standalone, i dont care about another people, standalone is better for me.

inb4 locked