caitivoltaire

Im a little confused by this change. Aren't ESPs created by the TES construction set technically the property of Bethdesa anyways? I recall reading that in the legal documentation. I can't say that I know the specifics of anything regarding Fallout though.

The faces are well done and I will give them that much, but as noted, they don't really fit into the visual aesthetic of orcs in the Elder Scrolls games. If these faces were going to be the only ones in a modified game, that could be overlooked, but since they at least are going to be used alongside the normal Morrowind orc female faces, some consistency with the stock if nothing else would have been nice.

To be honest, I think a defined set of any sort of rules for what makes a rating "ok" is a bad idea for two reasons: A: It encourages a whole new level of "rules lawyering" and all the hurt feelings and drama and other Bad Stuff that comes with that. B: It seems entirely counterintuitive to the way the site's been run in the past. We're not here to coddle people, and it's not one person's place to decided what a mod does or does not deserve for a rating - save perhaps the site administration. Advertising is not a bad thing, but with the level of competition that mods have, it puts new mods already at a significant disadvantage at breaking into the "scene", even more of a disadvantage, and I think that's precisely why Dark0ne is making the change he has, unless I misread his post on a very fundamental level.

Ismelda, please do not take the changes personally. I am sure that were it the case that the site administration thought you were out of line in any way, they would have told you do. Basically what they're saying is "before there wasn't any rules for this kind of thing, and now after a lot of talking about it, we've decided we want to make rules and this is what they are...". At least, that's how I see it. Maybe I'm wrong.

Something that's been touched on a couple of times is "abusing" the system, that is, gaming the system to get like into the high mods and whatnot. Asking for votes to get to the high end - or worse - saying "vote 10 or don't vote" - is gaming the system. That's not to say it isn't done with the best of intentions sometimes - I'd even venture to say most of the time - someone who has a great mod they want to get more exposure. What it comes down to though, is the ends don't justify the means, at least they don't for me. The way I look at it, if it is a good mod, you will attract people to it so long as you have it on a site where the majority of people will see it, and TES Nexus is one of the best if not the best sites to do so. Yet some people aren't just happy with that kind of exposure, they want more. They get greedy, and it's rephrehensible to me. I'm glad that some steps are being taken to balance the need to curtail that kind of thinking, with the privelage of the community to vote how they wish on a mod - and I emphasize that. I'm _not_ going to get shouted down because I gave an honest 7 or 8 rating because it is "not good enough". If I'm going to vote for something, I'm going to vote precisely how well it functions and how much I personally like it. Yes, it's personal opinion. Every vote or review, by nature, is. The more responsible reviewers or raters will just try to be as objective as possible despite personal biases. I have to reiterate again that I think a more review-based system - or at least a system whereby people are more encouraged to leave comments on why they voted as they did - would be healthy for the community. It both gives the mod author hopefully constructive critcism along with telling them where they went right, and it also gives a better idea to someone looking at a mod what the strengths and weaknesses of the mod are. To address another concern: If a mod doesn't do what I want it to, and it's lead me to believe it does, yes I would vote it down. Perhaps I think they did something in a way they shouldn't have, perhaps they did something entirely out of left field and it impressed me - either way - I as someone rating the mod and as someone who is by their vote effectively endorsing it if I give it a good rating - have the privelage of making that rating based upon whatsoever I choose to base it upon. One particularly contentious issue with that is the "lore unfriendly" mods - which I always meet with a sort of eagerness and dread in equal measure, to be honest. There are some mods that implement some things not quite "lore" that do so quite well. The demon race mod for Oblivion does that quite well, in my opinion - and since they changed/updated it, it even flirts with lore in an interesting way. But a mod that is entirely out of left field is going to _feel_ that way in the game. It is going to feel that the things in it don't belong, and this will break immersion for a lot of people, particularly those who enjoy roleplaying in Morrowind or Oblivion (or even Daggerfall if that's your cup of tea). As such, I couldn't feel justified giving it the top rating, because even if I enjoyed it, I know that many people out there would not. Again, just my two cents though - though I did try to explain why I feel like I did, instead of just saying "this is great" or "omglolol!!10121 this suxxors!1elventyone"

Hi there, I've been lurking around TESNexus for a while now, only recently signed up though, since that was required to download the HGEC bodies. I felt compelled to throw in my couple of cents... Any comment or rating system that the authors of a mod do not have direct control over is going to be contentious - both to the authors, and to people that are dedicated to a mod. And I've seen some poor mods out there that even have a following. There is no real way to solve the "popularity contest" phenomenon in ratings systems online. A mod that gets more exposure is going to get more votes, and TESNexus has always seemed to lend itself to a "vote high or don't vote" mentality. People take pride in their work, regardless of its merits. Someone who took 100 hours to make a steaming pile of something unmentionable is going to much more see "I took so much time making this" than "This isn't any good." I think the onus is on the rating system to be more than an on off switch. Would you recommend something to a friend? Would you use it yourself, because you're aware of how to workaround the bugs? Perhaps it has some feature that you don't like, but you have enough knowhow to disable it? Well, good for you, but it's still not going to be something everyone else can do. I think "reviews" in favour of "ratings" would show much more helpful information - and also show where these ratings are just farming. If you truly enjoy something, it should be pretty easy to say how you enjoyed it. For example, I have the vampirism/embrace mod thingy for Morrowind (someone will have to remind me it's name o-o) and I love the added possibilities for vampires, because it makes the game seem much more expansive, and mitigates the fact I can only play 90% of the normal game during half of the game "day". By the by, I have always been under the impression that it isn't a good rating you're giving someone if you're giving them a high rating because they asked for it, you're coddling their ego, and while telling a friend they're doing well is helpful for the friend, it's unhelpful to the community at large when they're looking to evaluate a mod. Let us not forget - that is the point of a ratings system - not to game ratings or let someone get some high status in a list or some social merit - it is to let people know whether the mod is something of good quality that they may enjoy.