kimy
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Skyrim Special Edition Development
🕑 Added 2020-06-12 21:38:32 +0000 UTCLately, a few people were wondering about how DD and DCL development for the two different Skyrim variants works. So I am going to clarify!
Like many other Skyrim modders, I am still developing all my Skyrim mods on Legendary Edition. I have no plans to change this anytime soon, if ever. While I realize SE getting more and more popular and I acknowledge that for a new or average users, SE is probably more convenient to set up in a stable fashion (as far as the word "stable" ever applies to Skyrim...), for an experienced user who knows what and how to tweak, there is no difference, really. For me, LE works just as well if not better than SE. And you don't fix what's not broken. This also guarantees the continued availability of my mods for LE, which still enjoys a lot of popularity.
This is to explain why there always will be a slight delay of SE releases. The SE releases are a port of the LE ones. These delays are no ill will on my part, it's just a consequence of the fact that I don't develop (or even test) on SE and it takes time to port them for SE. The port itself is done by community volunteers, namely Pfiffy and Zarantha. I largely don't get involved in this process, other than I will of course fix any bugs they report back to me. Even if I wanted to, at this point I do not possess the necessary expertise to do LE-to-SE ports. That's quite normal in software development. People develop games for Windows, other people port them to Mac or Linux. Me largely staying out of this process will make sure I can put my available time into developing new features for the mods and hunt down these pesky bugs that most often apply to both versions anyway! And I like to believe that's in everybody's best interest!
Since the SE versions have found a larger audience lately, I have started to be a bit more present in the SE support threads, mostly to gather general feedback about the mods and their features, so it does not go unnoticed. Troubleshooting SE-specific problems is still something I will have largely have to leave to volunteer supporters.
Now, I know the SE version has a few issues, largely centered around some items using NiOveride or HDT-PE, neither of which is available for SE, unfortunately. Short of outright removing these items from the LE version as well, there is nothing I can do to remedy that at this point. This doesn't mean (as some people on LL have indicated) that the SE version is "unloved". It just means that there still -are- tangible differences between LE and SE that cannot all be resolved easily. I am still committed to deliver a great DD/DCL experience for SE. I am just happy with how the process work as it does right now, and hope you are as well.
Comments
First, there is zero need to feel bad about leaving a critical posting here. That's absolutely fine. Only a fool accepts only praise and ignores the critical voices. Criticism is what drives us to be better! To address your points, yes, I do understand how it might appear to be lackluster to leave the SE port to volunteers. I really need to emphasize that this is not about me being indifferent about the SE version. It's really about leaving the porting to people who understand the process way better than I do. I have NO clue about how to port a LE mod to SE. None at all. If these people wouldn't have stepped up when they did, chances are that there would be no SE port of DD or DCL today. As I pointed out in my post, I develop on LE. I do not have a SE installation at all. It's really comparable to a person developing games on Windows and someone else porting these games to Mac. That's just common practice in software development. Asking a developer to do the port themselves when they have zero experience with the target platform is just akin to never getting the game running on that target platform, ever. I developed games on Windows and Linux. But I have no clue about Mac. I wouldn't be able to port a game to that platform without spending significant time into researching how to do that. It's really nothing different than LE and SE. I know LE. I do not know SE. I like to believe that the current process is preferable than having no SE version at all, wouldn't you agree? And again, the ports are MOSTLY current. DCL is one minor patch behind at this point. Which soon will not matter anymore, because I am working on a major, major new DCL version that will quite certainly get ported to SE!
BreadDain
I don't want to post something too critical, but I have to say it: this post is not bearer of good new at all. I can understand port delays, technical differences and a mind to create something new instead of fixing old stuff and I do respect this. But dropping whole porting procedure to people, who are expertised with this, but probably don't know all technical aspects of mod as not being its creators (who can do better?) and not able to recode it completely because of good coding practices would only mean that the SE port wouldn't move from current state "anytime soon, if ever". Also this creates a vicious cycle where people tempted to join SE audience would be repulsed by mod state if they are going only for it, switching to LE and thus refill the majority forever. Sorry if I was too harsh, but that's just my own mind crying out from the heart.
Thing is that HDT support is embedded in the model itself. The only way to implement such a feature would be to provide a replace for each and every device making use of HDT-PE and/or NiOverride. There are literally dozens of these in DD/DCL.
Apollo
Thanks Kimy. Just a thought: would it be reasonable to have a MCM toggle to "Disallow NiOverride & HDT-PE"? I wouldn't mind using variations of outfits in quests for a bit of extra stability & peace-of-mind.
Thank you for your update and explanation, Kimy. DD (in all its variations) and DCL are two of my "must have" mods. Personally I moved to SE over a year ago and haven't looked back; I finally have what I can fairly assert is a stable game with 428 plugins and 634 active mods (the difference is SKSE and texture mods. Impossible in LE. I've got more than 17,000 hours in Skyrim over the years and every session is a learning experience. Not a modder, but I sure do enjoy the work you modder's put out. Kudos to Pfiffy and Zarantha for their assitance in the ports. (At LL I'm Rynne's Master, but actually she would disagree with that, LOL.
