richlind33: The game description states that "the GOG version is compatible out of the box with most mods", which is impossible because mods aren't updated in perpetuity, and all mods are not compatible with all managers.
Ancient-Red-Dragon: And also not all mods are compatible with all game versions, and not all mods are compatible with all SKSE versions either.
GOG and Bethesda both did a lot wrong with this release, including:
1) They promise "no forced updates," which is direct acknowledgement on their part that forcing players to use a specific game version or later, whilst denying them access to earlier versions, causes all kinds of big problems.
However, in contradiction to their admission of that problem and their alleged attempt to avoid that problem (via promising "no forced updates"), GOG and Bethesda
have already baked that very same problem right into the initial GOG release, by not allowing GOG users to use earlier versions of the game that would be compatible with the mods that many GOG customers will want to use, which the current version is not.
2) Using different version numbers and files for the Steam vs. GOG release also causes all kinds of big problems, which results in many mods that
are updated still not working with the GOG version.
The biggest and most popular mod collection on Nexus, for example (at least according to how the collection manager describes it), with over 400 mods in it, does not work with the GOG version according to that same collection manager, and he also has stated that he has no intention of trying to make it work with the GOG version until far into the future when (possibly) all the issues with the GOG version are worked out, which he is adamant is something that definitely would not happen any time soon.
Another example: another GOG customer recently posted what should have been a very useful youtube video guide of another mod collection with over 350+ mods that improve Skyrim's graphics to make it look like a modern game from 2022. Except GOG customers cannot use those mods, because they are incompatible with the most recent version of Skyrim (the one which GOG customers are forced to use).
Whereas Steam customers can still use those 350+ mods simply by either a) not updating to the most recent version of Skyrim or b) rolling back to an earlier version of their Steam version of Skyrim if they already had updated...neither of which option is available to GOG customers, so therefore GOG customers have no ability to use those mods which Steam users can.
So....GOG's claim that most mods will work out of the box seems to be very untrue.
GOG and Bethesda could, and definitely should, fix this problem by giving the GOG version and the Steam version 100% exact identical parity with each other, on a file-by-file level, so that anything that can be done to the Steam version can also be done to the GOG version in the exact same way and using the exact same methods.
Then all of those kinds of major problems that I just described would no longer be problems, and then GOG customers could be very happy with their GOG purchases of Skyrim.
If achieving identical versions would require Bethesda to remove the in-game Creation Club menu from the Steam version, then Bethesda needs to do that.
Otherwise, if no efforts are made to make both versions identical to each other, then it appears as though GOG customers are going to continue to suffer from big problems with trying to mod the GOG version of the game successfully.
You are forgetting something really important. They cannot give you the ability to rollback to a previous version without restore the in game creation club menu with log in and drm.
I think that's not ok (drm on gog is never ok) so steam and gog version will never be identical (and that's final, I don't really think Bethesda will remove the creation club on the steam release in the future, and that would not solve the current compatibility problem with mods at all).
Also I can understand that mods are important for Bethesda games but never forget that we are still talking about things that are not supported by Bethesda or gog as they are not official. So the update part cannot be guaranteed.
The only part that I would like to see released in the future here is the creation kit, since that's official and it's necessary to create new mods... I don't use it but I think that should be part of the package.
But I don't think it's fair to expect 100% compatibility with mods on day one for the gog drm free release. And they actually made an effort to remove drm this time (creation club in game menu and log in is gone and steam drm is gone too), they also made an effort to contact the most important mod creators before release (SKSE was already updated on day one for example), they created the anniversary update dlc as an offline installer... Most of the times they don't really do any of that, they just remove the steam drm and release the game with in game menu that will not work or with in game menu that still work as "optional drm if you want that feature".
Think about Dragon age origins for example, the gog release is already ok since it contains everything, but there is still an in game menu to connect to ea...
I think there will be mods that will only be compatible with steam, mods compatible with both version of the game and some small mod will probably in the future be only compatible with the gog release. But the most important thing is that the main game will be preserved drm free so that if steam and/or gog go out of business Skyrim will still be playable.
Right now there are only some mods that are compatible so of course most collections of mods will not work (especially if the collection is large there are lot's of chance to find an incompatible mod) but in the near future there will also be collection of mods for the gog version.
The main thing to remember is that gog is not about mods or parity with steam, it's about drm free. Many times they tried to be steam friendly by doing something wrong with drm, not this time and I'm glad for it, even without complete mods compatibility I think this is a good drm free release.
