Hi all,

I am here to announce the end result of nearly four months of intensive labor--a new overhaul for Oblivion: ROM Revised Oblivion Mod. It makes use of the newest code from the newest version of OBSE, and I submit nearly all my scripts in PDF format so that you may inspect the quality of my work for yourselves.

It is hard to give a description of exactly what this mod does, since it does a lot of minor things rather than a few major things. Above all else, I did not see much need to add loads of new "stuff" to the game, not only because ROM is built on a foundation of OOO (which already includes a lot of new things), but because the emphasis in ROM is on *realistic gameplay*. There are hundreds of mods that add new things to the game, but relatively few that tweak what already exists to make it more immersive and real.

To document all the changes here would be impossible. However, I have packaged a Manual (in printable and non-printable formats) for your convenience as a separate download. As a teaser, here is the section of the Table of Contents that outlines the main features of ROM:

*********************************************

ROM General Changes

Alchemical Potions Revised
Restricted Alchemical Ingredients
Uniform Potion Weight
Restricted Guild Membership
Restricted Spellmaking and Enchanting
Loading Screen Replacer
Revised Daedra and Dremora
Daedric Equipment
Aedric Equipment
Imperial Legion Redux
Realistic Fatigue
Mercantile Leveling
Revised Reputation
Charity
Knights of the Nine Patch
Revised Sneaking and Chameleon
Diseases
Animal AI Mod
Quest Award Level
Swimming and Drowning
Ferry Boats

New Hotkey Functions

Alchemical Quick-Sorter
Spell Delete
Spell Toggle
Menu Escape
Denock Arrow
Torch Hotkey

ROM Combat and Equipment

Weapons and Armor Revaluated
No More Quest Items
Undead Combat Modifiers
Revised Blocking System
Combat Equipment Restrictions
NPC Potions
Combat Escape!

ROM Races and Birthsigns

Races and Leveling, Part I
Birthsigns and Birthstones
Leveling, Part II
Skill Level Capper
Leveling, Part III
Training

ROM Magic

General Description
Elemental Damage Spells
Elemental Shield Spells
Master Spells
Illusion Overhaul
Conjuration Overhaul
Item Enchantments and Sigil Stones
Enchantment Restore and Ayleid Wells
No Spell Stacking
Burden and Other Spells
Unique Enchantments
A Technical Commentary on ROM Conjuration

****************************************

I did not make this mod for myself alone, but for the whole modding community. So browse the Manual and see what ROM is all about!

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=33114

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=6367&comment_page=3


- Underground

And who did you get permission from for using the OOO Resources ..

Where are the credits are for all the resources you used from OOO once again. You just listed OOO in the manual under Bundle and Included Mods you did not include all the authors who contributed all the resources to that has well..

Not good at all :thumbsdown:

Just a modified version of OOO.esm and OOO.esp with the same land records, cells, OOO quests, etc...

And I ask that you rename your OOO.esm and OOO.esp to

ROM.esm and ROM.esp

instead to avoid any confusion has some people may confuse things once again. Whey they see OOO once again.

What a mean-spirited response, and unfortunately, one that is not based on having read the ROM manual or examined my work in any detail. What could possibly be your motivation for attacking me, anyway? Well, you force me to respond point by point.

- Unfortunately, I have yet to hear back from either Oscuro or Dev_akm, both of whom I emailed several weeks ago. My estimation is that, as Oblivion has been out for many years now, many of the "old guard" might no longer be actively engaged in the modding community. I do not know if this is true or not, but I can guarantee that if Oscuro was offended and denied my permission, ***I would take the mod down at once*** even though there are a growing number of people on the PES forum who like what I have done.

- Thankfully, this should not be the case, as I am extremely careful not to infringe on Oscuro's intellectual property—which you will see once you read the manual. In fact, I disagree with you on the file names. The choice not to rename the OOO files was deliberate: As I explicitly state in the manual, and which you would know if you had read it prior to forming a judgment, I did not want to seem like I was usurping the effort of the OOO team, and I wanted there to a clear recognition by you, the player, that I was simply building a new mod on the basis of OOO, not stealing or sabotaging other people's work. I repeat on numerous occasions that Oscuro et. Al. deserves all the credit for some features, and I do not pretend to take any for myself. I love OOO, and the only reason my mod includes it is because it uses OOO.esm as a master file. There is no deception or deviousness on my part. In fact, I would love to hear back from Oscuro, Dev_akm, or any of the other top brass, just to hear what they thought of my work (as their opinion would certainly matter to me), and so that they might feel flattered that their work has inspired other works in turn, just as Bethesda probably views this very modding community.

- Your final sentence is literally as followed: “instead to avoid any confusion has some people may confuse things once again. Whey they see OOO once again.” I do not understand what you are trying to say here, and I'm not sure you do either. There is no confusion, and no one yet who has read my work gets the feeling like I am stealing OOO or simply, as you put it, making “Just a modified version of OOO.esm and OOO.esp with the same land records, cells, OOO quests, etc...”.

In short, your allegations are baseless, lazy, and unfair . I do hope that the four months of work I put into this work are not met with this kind of response more often!
- Underground

As your possibly aware neither dev_akm or Sotobrastos (Oscuro) have been active on these forums for a considerable time, therefore it could have been concluded that they have moved on to new pastures.
The mod though is far from dead.
The best and most logical place to have asked permissions would have been the http://http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1099204-relz-oscuros-oblivion-overhaul-133/ where the current management team could and would have given a response.
I'll read through your PDF file and confer with other OOO Team members before adding anything further.

To avoid conflict like this, perhaps you should consider making OOO a requirement for your mod, rather than packaging it with your mod. You would be unlikely to receive any hostility if you did that, and it would reduce the size of the download for those who already have OOO. Modders are generally opposed to rehosting of their work as it makes it more difficult for them to update their mod, especially one like OOO which receives regular updates.

The list of features certainly sounds impressive, and I hope that you manage to get the permissions issue sorted so that people can experience your hard work without strife.

Though I do believe your intentions are good and ROM looks well thought out, this won't win the grand price for flawless execution.

CorePc's responce is legit on several accounts.

It doesn't really matter what your motivations are for doing (and not doing) some of the things you did. You just don't redistribute a mod in it's entirety like this. Period. And no, you are not only using Sotobrastos work here: you are using the works of each and every modder than contributed to OOO in one way or the other over the years. You are redistributing all the resources that Sotobrastos had permission for to be used in OOO. And these people contributed or gave permission for usage in OOO and not to ROM.

Not changing the file name is all fine and dandy, but I don't suppose you will be there when ROM users start coming to the FCOM and MMM threads with their issues. And believe me: they will come. You will not be here when people that have problems start posting their load order with an included OOO.esm and OOO.esp. And the person you just called lazy will have to anwser a lot of those questions.

You don't have to read through that massive PDF file to know these things.

Why not (like TheFilthySpaniard also suggested) make your mod dependant on OOO? That would have made things a lot easier.

"Your" work? Not hardly.
People who download this see OOO.esp and OOO.esm--and that's exactly what they will think it is. A large percentage will never read your manual to find out what tinkering you've done, and they won't stop to consider whether it will make a mess of their game to layer FCOM right over top. They'll just do it ... and then complain in the FCOM thread when it doesn't work right. That creates an impossible situation for a team which has worked very hard for years to bring OOO, MMM, and FCOM itself together. They're currently putting the finishing touches on a new updated release--and you just 'borrowed' their work 'without asking', and now call it your own. I doubt you'd feel very pleased or motivated if someone did that to you.

And btw, in case you didn't know (although I really don't see how you couldn't)... CorePC is the one you should have been asking for permission four months ago--as current team leader for OOO, FCOM, and MMM he has every right to question your motivation, instead of the other way around. You might have the best ideas for tweaks in the world, but the whole rest of 'your' mod came from him, Soto, Dev_akm, and the other members of the team, past and present ... and most of them aren't too happy right now.

It doesn't work that way. You need to get permission first. "I'll take it down if they ever complain" is not acceptable. Only express permission from the original modders (or, in this case, from those who have permission to grant that permission) would be acceptable. As you have neither, Core's response is completely valid.

Wait OOO is still under development? What?

The last update I recall was when Dev put it out.

It seems very obvious that Dev abandoned all projects - what without even so much as making the effort of 10 minutes to make a post and say "this is the new guy" or "I hand this over to so and so." Even left up all the outdated readmes that were outdated prior to when he left as far as I recall.

Can we get the definitive word on who is in charge of OOO?

First post of the OOO thread has a section about project status. I think CorePC has mentioned an upcoming release a few times.

Hey, y'all, thought I'd point out that the proper people are now indeed on the case. No need for the rest of us to continue beating the horse.

gothemasticator

Well yes, for OOO, but it is clear from the readme (which I downloaded) that several other mods have been included in ROM, here's an extract from the readme-

'Bundled and Included Mods
Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul:
Quarn’s Realistic Flora:
Donovan Baarda’s Realistic Fatigue:
TheNiceOne’s Lightweight Potions:
Phitt’s Alternative Dwarven Helmet:
Doofdilla’s Potions Recolored:
Cristina’s Enhanced Magic Effects
MattEr’s Legionnaire Armor
Trollf’s Loading Screen Replacer
Jerros/LHammonds Lost Paladins
Kyuzo’s Narrowed Elven Longsword
Grim Reaper D’s Ungoggled Helms
Scruggs’ Denock Arrow
CreepyFellow’s Living Economy
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15256
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8478
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10925
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25714
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6588
畐????
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3834
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9424
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21381
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13012
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10505
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31254
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3342
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9333
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4'

Given that Underground09 has included much of OOO into his mod apparently without obtaining permission to do so, I think it is reasonable to ask whether permission has been obtained from Abo, TheNiceOne, Phitt etc. Some of the stuff might be freely available as a modder's resource (I haven't checked), but modders other than just the OOO team may need to take a close look at this.

You don't follow the OOO threads too closely, do you?
I'd suggest that you revise the last 2/3 threads before making statements like "Wait OOO is still under development? What?"

Unfortunately the readme's are outwith our control.
Nothing else is.

As usual, you seem all too keen to jump on anything to the detriment of both the OOO and FCOM teams.
Just exactly what do you think we do should about the readme's that we have absolutely no access to?
Yes, we have discussed our own site with updated current information, but is that going to stop the folks who use Google and obtain the devnull site?
Not all users frequent this forum to obtain up to the minute info.
Suggestions, please!!

Cute. So it's another mod compilation pack being distributed without permission.

Taking a different view of this for just a moment...

I am not a modder. I just play the game, and the mods I like. I frequent these boards, and I do the Twitter thing, but I'd have to say I'm not that much more involved in this than your average player that regularly uses Wrye Bash, has installed FCOM, knows what OOO and MMM are and pretty much what they do, etc, etc.

Given that, even I know that if I wanted to do something like redistribute OOO, then Corepc would be the first of many people I would need to talk to.

Now let's say that, somehow, I was a modder that knew enough to know that I did want to redistribute OOO, but didn't know that Core and team were the people to talk to. (I'm not sure how that's possible, but here we are.) Any half-hearted attempt to find recent activity involving OOO will land me here. And then it would just be a matter of a question or two to get what I needed. I am quite sure that if I asked in almost any thread about redistributing OOO, someone would have straightened me out pretty quickly!

Underground, your defense is invalid. Your best bet is to work very hard to make amends as quickly as possible, starting with pulling your "mod" down and never putting it up again. Not as is.

Hmmm... Yeah, I did not realize that more than OOO was involved. I've just read the manual. And, ROM not only includes these mods, it alters at least several of them. Well, I hope Underground commences with the diplomacy.

gothemasticator

Wait huh?

How is asking who is at the helm of OOO jumping on a detriment of both OOO and FCOM ... and what does that even mean?
After Mcc84 posted about development I went back and read the first post and saw nothing that names who the project lead was and so far updates to FCOM have been called UFCOM which means (as I understand it) Unofficial FCOM. So are the developments now official?

I've seen you post repeatedly that "no no Dev is just busy" and that you are spokesman or some other such thing, but really I don't recall Dev ever saying that. His last bunch of posts didn't seem to indicate that. So strange that he never so much as posted once about letting it go, passing it on, who is in charge now - nothing - it just looks like he dropped it with a quickness and if one wanted to get the lowdown on who was in charge and really did read the threads after he left it seemed that you just assumed the role of posting new threads and then came on with pronouncements later.

Is the current team OOO even named - is the readme that came with the last version naming them? I'm not seeing that? Where is the team names/handles listed? Again you name private forums and correspondence as your authority, but to average forum readers what we see is just your claims.

And I'm sorry if you read all critique, feedback, and questions as undue criticism that must be 'dealt with', not much I can do there it seems. My main beef with OOO/FCOM is just the lack of consistent readme support and inconsistent packaging. That is about it really.

I'm not trying to justify this persons mod or methods or anything, but the center of the mod universe is not this forum - so if people didn't read these threads how would they know these basic things I'm asking? One goes to Oscuro' or Dev's site and sees that they are the authors of the current versions that THEY know about - then find this forum - they may go "huh shiki-who?"

I'm not trying to pick a fight here and I agree his first approach should have been potential WIP - if I get permissions, but as a 3rd party viewing it - authority to approve/disapprove seems shaky.

I don't know... I still think this idea of "modding in a bubble", so to speak, is one heck of a stretch. Especially with something as well-known as OOO, let alone all of the other fine mods this person, um... borrowed. :shakehead:

No, I still think the "efforts" of the person in question to reach the necessary people were far less than adequate, let alone defensible. The point isn't so much that one should know offhand who is currently "in charge" of this mod or that; rather, it is that before redistributing someone else's work, one should make every possible effort to find out who they need to be talking to. Underground did not do that. It's really that simple.

I'm not defending underground - just giving feedback that to me team OOO seems vaporous and therefore I don't understand the lines of authority.

Just asking for clarification on identity and permission.

Pysmon,

This has not only to do with OOO; but other mods as well. It doesn't appear Underground used any ethics concerning any of them. Period.

From the first post in the current http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1099204-relz-oscuros-oblivion-overhaul-133/:
Thanks!
OOO Team

And from the first post in the current http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1105942-relz-fcom-convergence-and-ufcom/
Team FCOM:
Corepc -- Current Manager for MMM, Armamentarium and Artifacts, EVEHGEC, MOBS, Travellers, help with everything Frans/OOO/MMM/FCOM related

This information is not difficult to find. It would also stand to reason that if the mods are still being worked on; one would naturally pick the next manager in the long list of people involved to contact. Oscuro and dev are not the only names listed in the credits.

Do you have a dog in this fight? And why are you only concerned about the OOO aspects and not the other mods which have been sniped?

I kind of see your point. Sort of like Henry Kissinger's “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?”. But in this case you should call Corepc.

Shikishima has been maintaining the OOO thread for years, with dev_akm's blessing--and he has continued to do so to this day. How could you miss that? The rest of the Core team may not be so well known, because they don't post here all that much--not everyone enjoys being on the frontlines--but the public support he and Arkngt have given this great mod 'as is' has been anything but vaporous. IMO they deserve medals for keeping the faith, under current conditions. And yes, we do very much expect dev_akm to come back, once he has rested up from his years of unflagging devotion (sometimes to the exclusion of all else that matters in life). OOO will always retain his (and Oscuro's) vision, because the Team that worked with him respects him/them that much. We even argued about changing a single grammatical error in Oscuro's original readme, for Pete's sake--and that error still stands, because Oscuro wrote it.

But in the meantime... should it surprise you that there are areas of OOO which can be improved, especially with the new advances in Wryebash? In fact, they must be improved, if FCOM is to continue functioning correctly. And if a script (such as Light of Dawn's) can be made to work 100% every time without fail with the new OBSE, should that functionality not be provided to OOO users? Of course, if you'd rather, we can always keep it to ourselves. That is the trend in modding, after all--the Oblivion community has lost many good modders to just such forum bickering.

Ahh, I do enjoy seeing the community get all vitriol on someone, instead of calmly explaining their woes.

/sarcasm

Yeah.

So I read the documentation. There's some brilliant and interesting stuff in ROM and the whole package is exceptionally well thought-out, implemented, documented, and presented - far more so than just about any other mod I can think of.

It would be a shame to lose a modder of this caliber because the "community" attacked like a pack of starving hyenas instead of one relevant person, like CorePC, quietly and calmly expressing any concerns/issues and working it out in a non-public sort of way.

But I guess that's too much to expect. No wonder I rarely bother with the ESF modding forum any more.

Come on guys, settle down with this niggling. Don't make me join in the "fight" because I will be the winner. OK?