Chesko

Not sure if this helps or not, but I wrote a unit / integration test framework for the Papyrus side. If it might help, please feel free to use it! And thank you for all your work!

Part of my development workflow is defining something called a "manifest file". I use this in conjunction with a Python script to gather up all of my mod assets (including scripts). I also have another Python script that checks to make sure all of the files in my asset directories are also in my manifest file, and to throw warnings at me if they're not. This system has been extremely effective for me. I did this because, like you, I couldn't trust the CK to gather up everything for me because it routinely missed things. I wrote a blog post about it here: Modder's Corner - Release Toolchain, hope it helps.

In response to post #28567949. #28568274, #28568494, #28571489, #28572304, #28575029, #28575269, #28593339 are all replies on the same post. seweryn - I don't want to make an argument for or against, but I think it's important to speak to your initial analogy, re: participation in a sport or group activity. The important difference is that in that case, you are spending money and energy to bring enjoyment to yourself (and indirectly, your teammates or other association members) through participation. And especially in the case of a sport, all team members are (more or less) equal contributors. You're all putting in equal sweat, time, and money for "the love of the game/clan/group/etc". Shared commitment, shared resources, shared goals. Very "you and me, we're in this together". Modders spend large amounts of time, and sometimes money, to bring enjoyment to a large number of people who do not spend any money and a trivial amount of time. There is less "we're in this together"-ness and more of a producer-consumer dynamic. Can you imagine the Nexus, if the right to download mods was only granted if you had made one yourself? Even something incredibly "simple". Interesting to think how that might change not only how users think about modders and modding, but also how modders think about their users (who are now other modders, too). If every user were a modder, it would feel more like we're all in a big team, and that would certainly be something. This won't happen, but it's interesting to think about.

Is the design constraint not using SKSE, or not using scripts at all?

Robin, I would like to apologize. I keep saying "I want to leave for a while", but I think it's important that I say this now instead of waiting several months. Over the past few days, I have been involved in something with greater magnitude than anything I have ever been involved in before. When I speak, I'm not used to my words carrying as much weight, or for the signal to travel as far. In short, I am not used to having to choose my words with precision. Regarding precision, in particular, I mentioned being involved in an NDA. I used this term off-handedly and only meant to say that "a multi-billion dollar company's representative told me not to say something, and I agreed not to". I should not have used the term "NDA". But (as you summarized) the outcome would of course had been the same. Destruction of trust at best; legal action due to harming another company's business interests at worst. In the 24 hours following the launch of the curated Workshop for Skyrim, I was assaulted on all sides with a constant stream of abuse, attacks, and threats. I have never had to cope with this before in any setting, online or off. I was prepared to simply weather it on Steam Workshop, where I could put that "in a box", not check those messages, and forget about it for a time until things "cooled off". When PC Gamer, Destructoid, Kotaku, and even Forbes (though mercifully not by name) began writing articles about me and the current situation with varying levels of truthfulness, it was at this point that I began to believe that things were spinning completely out of control, and that it was time to leave. Before I did so, I wrote a strongly-worded message on Reddit that provided some details into the situation, as well as having some harsh things about the Nexus. In that moment, I was backed into a corner; I felt very defeated. I lashed out at Valve and Bethesda for throwing me in front of a bus, and for not providing the human-factor support I needed when the bus backed up and ran me over again, and again, and again. They did not do what you would have done, which is protect the member of the community in question. And then I lashed out at you and the Nexus. I did this because, at the time, I needed things to blame for what had happened to me. The Nexus accepting money from a program that was clearly not in the community's best interest (in the community's eyes) seemed like a clear conflict of interest at the time. But like always, it's more complex than that, as you laid out in your response to me, and as you laid out in this article. I apologize for saying what I said, and for any damage or grief it may have caused you. I was angry, confused, and very, very tired. Working 20 hours a day for weeks to finish several projects on a deadline for a company that might change your life will do that to you. I would now like to simply be forgotten for now. I no longer to be a part of this conversation.

In response to post #8000753. #8000817, #8000840 are all replies on the same post. Works great now.

I am also seeing what McGuffin is seeing. This will be a great tool however when it gets up and running. Thanks!

Thank you!!!!

I'm aware of the problem and I am working on a solution.

Hey, all. Frostfall 2.0 is starting to get wrapped up, so I've been looking ahead at what comes next. Frostfall 2.1's major focus will be Followers and NPCs, and the way that they are affected by cold. However, some things I've already learned from experience from working on Wearable Lanterns: Supporting followers, even in vanilla Skyrim, is a big bag of hurt. Bethesda can't make up their minds about how they would like to handle followers. There are at least 2 different conventions used in the base game ("normal" followers, like Jenassa, and Dark Brotherhood followers). Three if you count Dawnguard, which uses its own system of aliases. There are several major multi-follower mods: Amazing Follower Tweaks, Ultimate Follower Overhaul, and Extensible Follower Framework. There might be more, but those are the ones that come to mind. They all have their own system of managing followers and their own ReferenceAliases. Because of the above difficulties, it's hard to do things like: * Assign generic dialogue topics to followers. * Run scripts against some or all followers currently in service. * Know exactly how many followers you have. * Provide support for all types of multi-follower mods. * etc Because of these problems and the fact that I'm tired of dealing with them, I would like to, after Christmas break, start putting together something called the Universal Follower Framework API that would try to bridge the gap between all of these. In my opinion, I should be able to support all multi-follower mods regardless of implementation, and support all followers from the base Bethesda game, while ensuring the integrity of my script information. This system would essentially be a set of Papyrus global functions call-able by any mod that wants to use them and support followers better. Some ideas for functions would be: ...and so on. Just very generic functions that enable you to do powerful things regardless of the user environment. WIth the above examples, I could do something like... Or, imagine that you and all your followers are gearing up for a massive battle with the enemy, and you want to make sure that all of your companions are dressed appropriately. Silly, but you get the point. Imagine trying to do that when you don't know if your user is using EFF, or UFO, or AFT, or none of the above. So, the purpose of this thread: what kinds of features would you want in a Follower API such as this? What would make your life easier when trying to support the multitude of followers and follower mods in existence? Thanks!

This is exciting for the whole team. Thanks for your support!

@rekuli - Yes, you completely misunderstood what I was saying, and no, it didn't need explanation. I don't want my users to get banned. I like the constructive feedback. My point was in response to EnaiSiaion's comment.

I get tons of negative feedback all the time, and none of my users are getting banned. I think the difference lies in whether or not the mod author reports the post.

That makes me feel about 300% better. Thanks, Dark0ne.

Good stuff all around, but I have a concern with the following: As the author of some rather complex mods, information management is probably my biggest day-to-day challenge. Every now and again, someone will post something regarding compatibility, steps to resolve a problem, and so on. Which is great, and they mean well when they do it, but the information is flat-out incorrect and could be destructive advice that may end up costing me even more time correcting the issues that come up from people who might follow that person's advice. In these kinds of cases, I would prefer to be able to hide their post (and explain why I hid it), but I don't necessarily want to get them in trouble. I could just post, "no, no, that's not right", but that crap information is still hanging out there and will still be hit upon by search queries. Many times, people post, "Your mod is INCOMPATIBLE with XYZ, when are you going to FIX THAT?" And the truth is that it's already compatible, or never was incompatible in the first place, and that information is already clearly stated on my front page for all to see. I don't want to get the user into trouble; it's very, very likely that they just didn't know any better. But at the same time, I don't want a bunch of fear, uncertainty, and doubt being propagated on my comment threads with no way for me to actively prevent it. Another (very frequent) occurrence is people just not following procedure. My front pages have a very clear set of bug resolution steps, which includes filling out a bug report form. A lot of people don't do this and post in the comments still wanting help. I routinely hide these kinds of posts as a slap on the wrist, "read the front page next time and follow instructions". Again, I don't really desire for these kinds of posts to be brought to moderator attention, unless you're saying that not following my own personal protocols is grounds for a warning on the site as a whole. If this goes into effect, the best I will do is be able to sternly warn them not to do that again, which effectively neuters my own personal moderating power for all but site-wide offenses. That increases my own overhead and page clutter in general, with a never-ending cycle of me repeating "don't do that" ad nausem. This increases comment "noise" in general. I have always strived to be a very, very responsive mod author, and under this system it seems like my options are either to ignore them (something I've always tried to avoid) or just add to the noise myself. I would like the option to hide a post, but not in such a way that I want to get someone in trouble. I'm sorry if that option isn't possible within the current framework, but the way you've worded this really concerns me. Please let me know if I'm reading into this wrong, or if there are any plans to have separate "hide, no report" and "hide, report" options. Perhaps "hide, no report" comments could still be clicked upon by anyone to show them, but they wouldn't be shown by default and they wouldn't show up in search queries. Thanks for any insight and clarification.