Recently, Nexus Mods made a recent policy change that would prevent modders from truly deleting their mods in order to make an upcoming mod collection feature work properly. This has resulted in a variety of modders leaving the site, including Arthmoor, who has made a wide variety of mods for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4.
Arthmoor is a pretty big name in the Skyrim/Fallout 4 modding field. His portfolio includes mods like Open Cities, Cutting Room Floor, and Live Another Life, which gives Skyrim players the ability to have alternative starts that skip past the game's lengthy intro sequence. In an update to his 'About Me' page, Authmoor announced that "Due to the recent policy changes Nexus has instituted, I have put in the request for deletion of most of my files here." Fortunately, most of Arthmoor's modding work for Bethesda games over the last 15 years has also been uploaded to AFK Mods.
What is Happening with the Unofficial Skyrim Patch and Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch?
The two mods that Arthmoor is perhaps best known for are the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, and Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch. These, unlike his other mods, were developed as part of a team and as agreed with the team they will stay up on Nexus Mods. This also means they will be possible to integrate into Nexus Mod Collections whenever that launches, unlike Arthmoor's other mods.
What does this mean for players who have been using his mods? In a Reddit thread discussing Arthmoor's decision to leave Nexus Mods, the comments mention alternative mods that provide similar changes. Some of the folks there also mention how Arthmoor has a reputation for filing DMCAs against people trying to post older versions of Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch (which had VR support) despite Arthmoor not having legal precedent to do so.
It's worth noting that mod creators had a one-month grace period to delete their mods since the announcement of the policy change. This means Arthmoor waited until the very end to announce his egress from Nexus Mods, something some of the Reddit comments considered hypocritical, because during that time he earned donation points and money from people who would assume his mods would stay on Nexus Mods given he had made no statement on the matter.
What are some of the alternative mods being suggested?
- Skyrim Unbound for Live Another Life
- Realm of Lorkhan for another Live Another Life replacement
- The Great Towns and Cities series of mods for his town mods
- The Paarthurnax Resolution for The Paarthurnax Dilema
- AI Overhaul SSE for Run For Your Lives
Arthmoor's mods can be found on his Nexus Mods page (for now) or at AFK Mods.