For anyone interested, the actual version of Daggerfall Unity is available here:

https://github.com/Interkarma/daggerfall-unity/releases/latest

Installation instructions ( in case you need them ) You could provide an archived source code as a game extra.

Thank goodness this mistake was resolved.

Next time, ask the modders. Even though the code is free, it is still subject to licences as much as commercial software is.

Never seem the big deal of this. Not like GOG was stealing and claiming they created the mods. If GOG was selling it that would be an issue.

Most mods don't have any licences or copyright protection. But do agree they should of asked to be courteous.

Maybe they're finally going to list proper Daggerfall: Unity instead?

Good.

GOG couldn't be bothered to keep the game nor the 9 gigabytes of mods they randomly chose up to date. So it released, and was immediately out of date. Even though the modpack was indeed free and provided gratis by GOG, there were two problems.
1) GOG did not credit any of the modders nor link back to them, until people helpfully pointed that out.
2) Even though the pack was non commercial, it still served a commercial purpose within the store, akin to advertisement.

And as mentioned above, GOG never bothered to keep the mods up to date and there were a few conflicts. Not to mention that things like D.R.E.A.M. are very much a choice the user should make, unlike simple QOL mods.

It is better to seek permission than seek forgiveness after. To be prudent, and aware of what one is doing to others.
Or another way: Imagine your code being used to kill. Feels bad.

If GOG were to try this again, I doubt so many of them would be welcoming of their inquiry. Worse, some of them might actually entrap the version they send to GOG. People have made mods that detect if you're using a Fandom wiki and yell at you; they could trivially figure out the GOG version from metadata.

Finally. It has been a constant annoyance for the fanbase to always have to check with new players if they are using GoG Cut or not. And a lot of players got a very faulty idea of what Daggerfall Unity was from this version being one of the top hits on google.

To quote my thoughts on this pack back when it launched:


* I made the mod "Darker Dungeons" which was included. I had no idea about the GOG Cut before it released and someone posted about it on the DFWorkshop forums. No one had contacted me. They did contact me the next day and blamed a limit on Nexusmods PM system which caused PMs to not be sent out to all mod creators.
I gave them permission to use my mod in their pack as I did not want to cause a fuss and honestly, being listed as a mod creator on GOG is pretty cool.

* I see a lot of claims about how the mods are free, with the implication that there is no cost to mod creators when their mods are re-hosted on other sites. I just want to point out that I earn points on Nexusmods based on download numbers. These can be used to buy stuff in their store, like the infinite premium subscription I used most of mine for, productkeys for a bunch of games or cashing out the points via PayPal into dollars. Also, more downloads mean higher ranking leading to more visibility and downloads.

* This modlist was made by GamerZach, which I and most other people in the DFU mod creator community have no idea who is. I am sure he is a nice guy and makes good videos, but from a quick glance at his YT channel he seems like a guy that makes videos about applying graphical mods to elder scrolls games. The small community of mod creators for DFU has a lot of experience in creating mod lists and between us have an encylopedic knowledge of what mods are incompatible or simply do not fit with each other for visual or game play reasons. If asked, this community could have produced a mod list in a matter of an hour or two if GOG had asked us and given us some indication of what kind of result they wanted from it. Heck, mod lists for all kinds of different playstyles and graphical upgrades are already made and readily available.

* The GOG Cut is pre-loaded with not only mods but also settings. For game/graphics but also keybindings and mod settings. This makes it so if you try to change the setup of this build and then GOG updates it, stuff will revert back. You will probably keep new mods you added, but what if you updated a mod to a newer version that GOG does not have? They'll likely downgrade it back to their version. If you rebind key and update, they pop back.
This is not the case with regular Daggerfall Unity. However, regular DFU has one folder for all this info that is shared across all builds, which can mean that the GOG Cut will also affect regular Daggerfall Unity as it shares some of the same files.


So to sum up: This could have been a great thing that would have benefitted GOG in exposure, mod creators in exposure and GOG users in getting to play Daggerfall Unity with mods. Instead GOG for some unfathomable reason were in an extreme rush to push out this mod pack which to the DFU community read like "a random gamer picked some mods he thought looked cool" and this was so prioritized they completely stumbled on the landing and created a bunch of bad feeling on all sides instead of us all just being happy fans of GOG, Daggerfall, DFU and the mods for it.

To many chefs in one kitchen. With that I mean, every user should figure out what is right for them, to use in the game and mods.

While many people will appreciate, not requiring a surgeons precision to invest in building the game. It truly makes a lot more sense to help folks build their own experience. Due to hardware variety, even careful as I was, I had to make work arounds with popular mods.

Just host Daggerfall Unity sans mods and let the people decide for themselves if they want to play the unaltered default version or not.

It would be cool if there was something like gog mix/steam guides where users (with reputation) could recommend mods or whatever.

It seems like a pretty poor idea to release a pre-packaged build of a free mod project in the first place, if GOG had no intention of maintaining it and keeping it up to date.

I could have told GOG management that ahead of time, and saved them some trouble (not to mention embarrassment) ...

We also need the Daggerfall Unity - GOG Cut's store webpage to stay online for all these people (and for every other delisted items).

All store webpages contain detailed info about your products (like the list of used mods in this one we are talking about) - they SHOULD BE still availiable for view after delisting.

Please change the way this delisting system currently works.