Greetings! I've done a bit of modding for my own gameplay of Skyrim and having just gotten into Fallout recently, I've already considered a few things for FO4. Still, I'm an infant when it comes to modding in the grand scheme of things and I've done what I've done in an effort to learn. I've learned much about CK but am nowhere near acceptable to the majority of advanced modders where scripting is concerned. Still... I think there is one factor that might be being overlooked in the whole "new NMM" discussion and it is thus: If someone wants some cool whizbang in their game that can only be gotten through a mod then, guess what? They either do without it or they LEARN how to use mods in their game. We all know what that means, don't we? As soon as you decide to tackle the foreign (to a newbie) idea of modding a game, you must inevitably begin to learn how mods interact with each other because, like it or not, there will be conflicts from load order to whatever else. Yes, I know MO handles things differently in an effort to minimize this but you get the point. You want it? It might cost you a little time to learn how to use your new toy... Here's the rub...in learning how to make your mods work and getting all of them to play nicely, you begin to learn a bit about the internals of the game that someone who doesn't and would never mod a game (such as my fiance) would never know or care to understand. I know people who don't know the difference between a texture and a mesh and think I am insane for "wasting my energy" picking apart some problem I've developed for myself rather than just play the game as the creator of said game intended, warts and all. So, in the end, yes, we need to consider a polishing of NMM that will be user-friendly all the way around. As you do so, however, please remember that "user-friendly" to a brand new modder and someone who is even a few weeks - and quite possibly one or two conflicts - into it are drastically different skill sets. I go back to what I said in the beginning...if you want the shiny doo-dad in your game, you learn what is required in order to use it properly. It is in this light that I suggest the development team strongly considers an upgrade in what knowledge base they expect from their consumers. We are savvy enough to have figured out how to wade through the eel-infested waters to get that shiny new mod to work on our base game and added more mods in the process than we ever realized existed only a few short hours/days/weeks ago. While it would be fabulous to have everything as idiot-proof as possible in a new manager, it is the inevitable idiot part of that phrase that is important because that's where we learn. In other words, no matter how simple or user-friendly you try to make the thing, there will still be a learning curve and there will still be that small group of people who can't even handle the simplified version. Perhaps those are the few who don't care enough to learn what is required to mod a game? Raise your expectations of our knowledge of whatever game it is that we love so much! Expect that our wish to embellish said game will drive us to try new things and, in doing so, learn. When it comes down to it, the community needs a new manager and y'all are expecting that new manager to do much more than the old one. This only means that we consumers need to step up our game a little and follow you through the passage into the new land. Shoot, if we've already been tempted by shiny new things for our game, we're certainly going to be tempted by a shiny new souped-up system to handle our mod collections! My suggestion to the end of how to make this easier on the consumer is multi-fold and, I think, utilizes much of what we already enjoy in the community: 1. Gather a group of volunteers from your beta testing who are willing to be a Q&A team when the rollout happens. Modders, even the most grumpy, are amazing when it comes to explaining things to people when asked in a polite manner. Use the willing talent in the community to help everyone learn the new system's ins and outs. The more I, for instance, learn by asking a question or two, the more I'll be able to help someone else, etc. 2. Someone mentioned Gopher in the comments and he is a perfect example for this point. Grab a few willing folks to put together a step-by-step video which explains how the new system works. Like it or not, those of us who want that shiny new mod know that we will end up watching a video, or 30, at some point in order to learn something that strikes our fancy. Trial and error when in the trenches as I was learning the CK and a few videographers who were good at breaking processes down to the core in order to teach them were invaluable. Gopher is a good example of this, as are a number of others. 3. This isn't something I have noticed except with relation to Bethesda's help files for the CK, but, put together a real manual for the new manager. I understood NMM quickly enough because I'd already used Steam for some of my first Skyrim mods but when I was first learning the CK, I used Bethesda's site quite often to do tutorials and track down answers...it was of immeasurable help. So dedicate a little space to a written (online, of course) version of what someone does in a VLOG and support both with a Q&A team that can point to this section or that to help us find our own answers. This saves the bulk of their time for the special needs cases such as the bug that pops up and takes days to track down. I hope y'all find this useful! I look forward to seeing the new manager :)
