[Project Spotlight: Beyond Skyrim - Cyrodiil]

In response to post #64519381. #64520881, #64557586 are all replies on the same post.

ghaladh wrote: Tamriel rebuilt, Skywind, Morroblivion and massive projects like this one will never get done. What baffles me is the fact that people never learn that no such undertaking has ever been completed so far in TES history, yet people keep being so dumbly optimistic and try it again every single time. I don't know if they keep lying to themselves or they truly believe that "this time is gonna be different". It's ludricous.

Rather than wasting time, efforts and resources in such a grand hopeless project I suggest you to learn from the previous failures: there is no use for a huge landmass when there is really nothing to do in beside walking and exploring. Start smaller, do just a part of land with a town and fill it with side quests. When you are done, proceed with another chop of land and do the same thing again. If the Gods smile on you, you might get enough towns to start connecting those places with more intricated and significant quests.

Many claim that Tamrield rebuilt has accomplished a lot. Yeah, in more than a decade has added a significant landmass to a (wonderful) game that very few people still play. Yet it's still a WIP. What's the point of it?

By releasing a finished town with quests every time you are done with it, it allows the player to remain interested in the project, to play what has been done so far (not just have a stroll in the new places, I really mean "PLAY" the mod).

You need different teams:
1) Environment team: those modders will merely create the environment and will keep it updated when necessary. That's going to be the biggest team because it encompasses graphic designers to develop new textures and meshes, exterior and interior designers and possibly programmers to implement new eventual features (interactive items, dynamic weather and lighting and so on...).
2) The NPCs and quest development team: those will fill the land prepared by the previous team with quests and NPCs. Two/four modders at best is what's necessary here.
3) Beta refining team: just a couple of modders that will scout the forum and apply the changes and the bug fixes reported by the players.

Think step-by-step and if one day the project would fall into oblivion, at least you will have given to the players a mod that can be played and enjoyed. Anything else would be a waste of time, talent and resources. Having teams dedicated to so many provinces at the same time will set the whole project in the neverending limbo of the never finished and unplayable WIPs.

theblackpixel wrote: First of all full disclosure: Until recently I was the department director at Beyond Skyrim: Iliac Bay (I left due to time constraints). Second, the things I say here are my views, not some official statement by Beyond Skyrim.
Now, let me adress some of your complaints. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that modders do not work work for the players. I worked on the project because I liked doing level design and enjoyed the change of scenery that Beyond Skyrim offered. I met a really cool group of people and together we worked on a grand project. I rarely play Skyrim anymore, but I still very much enjoy modding it. I did not work on Iliac Bay because I wanted to release it but simply because I enjoyed working on Iliac Bay.

You make the mistake of viewing the effort Beyond Skyrim and Tamriel Rebuilt put into their project as wasted time. We're just having fun making things and every piece that gets released is just a gift to the community. The act of making those things in and of itself made it worth my time. You're upset at the presents you could've gotten instead of appreciating the ones you're getting. I understand why that bothers you but keep in mind; these projects are free, you invested nothing to get them. It's not like you paid 60 dollars for an early acces title which did not deliver, these projects do not have a responsability to you. A lot of these projects even avoid giving release dates as to not disappoint people if they miss them.

Now onto the second part of your complaint. A rolling release would indeed be something which lends itself well to larger projects like the ones in Beyond Skyrim, I certainly do agree with that notion. Your other issue however misses the point of what Beyond Skyrim is. It is not a single project but a conglomerate of multiple separate projects, sharing assets and a community, among other things. Think of it as this analogy, you cannot expect every European country to go help say Germany imrpove as a nation, they have their own nation to run but can help eachother out in other ways. People who work on Morrowind might have no interest in working on Cyrodiil and vice versa. In order to join Beyond Skyrim you already need to have an established project with some progress, in other words you need to have a team before you can become part of the larger endeavour.
Now onto the third part of your comment. You suggest having different teams to take care of different things. These do exist within every project, in Beyond Skyrim they're called departments. At Iliac Bay we had:
Level Design
Audio and Composing
Implementation and Scripting
Voice Acting
Writing and Lore
2D Artists
3D Artists
Marketing
Software development

I hope that answered some of your questions and offered some clarification as to how the things are the way they are.

Pherim wrote: If they like what they do it's not a waste of time, at least not for the modders who participate in making it, but I agree that there is no reason to believe this will end up being any different than previous projects which aimed to do the exact same thing in the earlier games. To my knowledge, not even a single province has ever really been completed, not even the Morrowind main land in Tamriel Rebuilt, where they didn't even have to create the entire province (although the main land is bigger than the original game). And I totally agree that even if the landscape and towns and everything were finished at one point, there would still be the problem of content. Making all these areas is difficult enough, but filling them with fun and interesting gameplay is a completely different matter. Now, I haven't played Beyond Skyrim: Bruma yet, and from what I've heard it's pretty good, but for a whole continent many times the size of the original game? Not going to happen any time soon (and with regard to Tamriel Rebuild, "soon" could be at least up to 16 years). Skywind is also not available yet, 7 years after Skyrim's release. The only real exception seem to be the guys who made Enderal, who also managed to complete similar total conversions for Oblivion and Morrowind. On the other hand, Black Mesa (a fan remake of Half-Life 1 in the Half-Life 2 engine, if anyone is not aware) seems to be close to completion now, more than 14 years after the release of Half-Life 2 and three and a half years after it became an Early Access Steam Title (so they actually get money for making it now), and that's a pretty linear First Person shooter, no Open World RPG like Elder Scrolls, and certainly no huge open continent with multiple different provinces to explore. What I'm trying to say is these things take time, A LOT of time, and most of them never get finished.

Anyway, I don't want to be rude or anything, I have a lot of respect and admiration for people working on projects like this, being a modder myself. But some of the people commenting may be a bit too enthusiastic or optimistic about it. Still, it's great that a part of it can already be played, and even if the entire thing never gets finished, that's more than many other big projects managed to achieve.

Thank you for taking your time to explain. I admit I never considered the modder's point of view and I realize that I'm ignoring the rewarding feeling given by the creation of a mod; for a modder, I guess, working on a mod is as fun as actually playing the game, sometimes even more.

I created a few small mods for Morrowind, in the past, although I never released them to the public, because I simply wanted to modify a few things in the game that I didn't like the way they were, so I see modding as merely adding to the game something to make me like more the game itself. I didn't consider that modding itself might be something fun to do and that a modder doesn't have to necessarily "work for the players" or aim for a release.

Another thing I misunderstood is that those teams working on different provinces started as independent projects. Thanks to your explaination, I understand now that you guys are simply sharing the efforts to create a more compact and seamless work.

However, please, do not take my observations just as a mere complaint: I wanted to give some constructive criticism and hopefully some helpful insight, although I admit my point of view is biased and personal and it didn't take into consideration what you kindly explained to me.

[Project Spotlight: Beyond Skyrim - Cyrodiil]

Tamriel rebuilt, Skywind, Morroblivion and massive projects like this one will never get done. What baffles me is the fact that people never learn that no such undertaking has ever been completed so far in TES history, yet people keep being so dumbly optimistic and try it again every single time. I don't know if they keep lying to themselves or they truly believe that "this time is gonna be different". It's ludricous.

 

Rather than wasting time, efforts and resources in such a grand hopeless project I suggest you to learn from the previous failures: there is no use for a huge landmass when there is really nothing to do in beside walking and exploring. Start smaller, do just a part of land with a town and fill it with side quests. When you are done, proceed with another chop of land and do the same thing again. If the Gods smile on you, you might get enough towns to start connecting those places with more intricated and significant quests.

 

Many claim that Tamrield rebuilt has accomplished a lot. Yeah, in more than a decade has added a significant landmass to a (wonderful) game that very few people still play. Yet it's still a WIP. What's the point of it?

 

By releasing a finished town with quests every time you are done with it, it allows the player to remain interested in the project, to play what has been done so far (not just have a stroll in the new places, I really mean "PLAY" the mod).

 

You need different teams:

1) Environment team: those modders will merely create the environment and will keep it updated when necessary. That's going to be the biggest team because it encompasses graphic designers to develop new textures and meshes, exterior and interior designers and possibly programmers to implement new eventual features (interactive items, dynamic weather and lighting and so on...).

2) The NPCs and quest development team: those will fill the land prepared by the previous team with quests and NPCs. Two/four modders at best is what's necessary here.

3) Beta refining team: just a couple of modders that will scout the forum and apply the changes and the bug fixes reported by the players.

 

Think step-by-step and if one day the project would fall into oblivion, at least you will have given to the players a mod that can be played and enjoyed. Anything else would be a waste of time, talent and resources. Having teams dedicated to so many provinces at the same time will set the whole project in the neverending limbo of the never finished and unplayable WIPs.

[Official Vortex Beta Release]

 

In response to post #64285051.

 

 

 

ghaladh wrote: I truly like the UI and the functionalities of Vortex, it's masterfully done.

The only problem I have is with the download folder: I am not sure I get how it works. I play Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim and I understand that the download folder is the same for both games; am I misunderstanding, or that means that any mod I download will be put together in the same folder, indifferently by the game to which it belongs? If that's the case, I'd rather have two different download folder for my games, in order to keep FNV and Skyrim mods separated from each other.

Vortex should create a different folder for every game in the download folder.

 

Thank you for your answer.

[Official Vortex Beta Release]

I truly like the UI and the functionalities of Vortex, it's masterfully done.

The only problem I have is with the download folder: I am not sure I get how it works. I play Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim and I understand that the download folder is the same for both games; am I misunderstanding, or that means that any mod I download will be put together in the same folder, indifferently by the game to which it belongs? If that's the case, I'd rather have two different download folder for my games, in order to keep FNV and Skyrim mods separated from each other.

[Download speed cap increase for Supporters and non-Adblockers]

In response to post #64099801. #64099871, #64100266, #64100311, #64100366 are all replies on the same post.

reptileye wrote: What a joke. Let me get this. I'm a modder. I don't get a single penny for my work here, but in order to download content from other modders properly i have to pay? are you serious? at this point i think they are trying to get proofit, i mean i remember some months ago they were hiring some coders for this site? if that isn't an investment then what was it? it's pathetic honestly. People that come her and leech content, sure i get it, but modders? lol

I think i had enough. I'm leaving. If there is some people interested in my mods, you can get them from my blog http://reptilecavemods.blogspot.com/2018/09/ will start posting them there.

Bye bye.

Dark0ne wrote: The underlying download system hasn't changed since 2007. You joined in 2010 and since that time you have uploaded 17 of your files here either knowing how our download system worked, but not caring, or somehow not knowing how it worked, even though you've downloaded over 1,100 mods from Nexus Mods.

Now, when presented with information that we also support mod authors monetarily, you've gotten upset and now claim you want to leave over something that hasn't been an issue for you for 8 years.

Seems odd, no?

reptileye wrote: All i know is that i'm going to be like the 95% of the people here. Come, get the mods i like, and get out. This way you won't get any more complains, from me at least. Good enough?

Dark0ne wrote: Sure? All of this is very odd to me, so anything that returns me back to sanity will be welcome.

mamelukturbo wrote: I'm sorry mate, but what "work" exactly? If you mod for money you're in wrong place and wrong mindset. I suggest considering getting over yourself. If you're flipping out over one off 4$ payment for upgrade or no changes for you at all I believe you might have deeper issues we can't solve here.

As a supporter and staunch believer in Adblocking everywhere all the time I welcome the changes.

Dude, are you serious? O_o
While uploading your mods might help this site to host more content, you have to consider that they are giving you the opportunity to reach *many* more players with your creations. It's a win-win situation. Your "work" is a free time hobby; their work is an actual job and it encompasses expenses.

For a more balanced reaction, I would ask for a little benefit for uploaders, if I were in you, rather than acting like a primadonna, for something that has always been like that since you joined.

Nexus actually extended the benefits of an enlarged bandwidth to one-time contributors and to non ad-block users. The right reaction to such a news? "Thank you, Nexus guys, much kind of you".

[Download speed cap increase for Supporters and non-Adblockers]

In response to post #64111956.

jameknec wrote: I can't download any mods. When I try to launch the NMM or download a mod with NMM it just... doesn't launch. Is there a fix for this?

That's not the place to ask that. However, try to launch NMM as an administrator or reinstall it. It happened to me as well and I solved the problem by reinstalling the software. If you are using Windows XP or Vista, I suggest you to launch the program in compatibility mode or, even better, to upgrade your OS.

[Download speed cap increase for Supporters and non-Adblockers]

In response to post #64110961. #64111471, #64111571, #64111716, #64111811, #64111971, #64112271, #64117736, #64118191, #64119421 are all replies on the same post.

piotrmil wrote: I'm still not satisfied with how you talk about people who use adblockers - these programs are, by definition, blocking something we don't want to see. Something no one wants to see, either because of annoyance or in rare cases danger of letting some alien script run in one's browser. So, we shouldn't be punished at all for using a tool that makes browsing internet better.

That being said, you could have done much worse, so at least there's that.

lyoko1 wrote: But you are viewing this wrongly, this is not punishing the use of adblock, but rewarding the not using of it, as 1MB was the non premium download speed all, now they provide an extra 1MB to make 2MB to people that supports this page either by watching ads, having a premium subscription in the past or purchasing the supporter rank.
people that use adblock still gets the speed that they where always capable off.

Even if you dont want to see a ad, servers are not cheap, and servers the size of nexus are very expensive, they need to pay for it, and it is payed whit the ads, the supporters and the premium, so this is not punishing adblock, this is rewarding the people that helps maintain nexus, is a very very different point of view, if you always have used adblock nothing is going to change for you.

piotrmil wrote: >this is not punishing the use of adblock, but rewarding the not using of it,

One's floor is another person's roof. We could get uncapped transfer as well, but just because we use some piece of software we suddenly can't.

lyoko1 wrote: Is not about you using a piece of software, that is egocentrically point of view, is about rewarding ppl that go a step further to help maintain nexus, if this was reducing bandwith for adblockers to 500KB and keep supporters and ad viewers to 1MB then you would have a point, but it is not, this is leaving the ppl that use adblock the same speed always was avaliable and rewarding the people that HELP maintain the nexus whit a extra 1MB of transfer speed making 2MB.

piotrmil wrote: That's why I said in another post that at least they're not pulling that stuff on us, so they could have gone way worse route. And given how many of us are there, it's not really egocentric at all.

But I do understand your point of view, try understanding ours.

lyoko1 wrote: Yeah but what i mean, is that this is not punishiment whatsoever, i get why use adblock, but this is for people that are okay whitout using it, there are people that really don't care that much about ads, and that are inteligent enought to not fall on ad scams, for those people and for supporters, this is a reward, a thank you, sience those people help to pay the page, and as such they obtain more resources out of it, because those resources cost money.
And for the people who can't or dont want to help, they still obtain what was always avaliable.
So this is not a bad thing, this is a good thing, this is not a punishiment for adblockers but a reward for ad watchers and supporters

piotrmil wrote: >that are inteligent enought to not fall on ad scams,

It's not being about being intelligent or falling for any ad scams. I still vividly remember when I first encountered my properly horrible ad on-line. I just had my PC fixed, I turned on one of the news sites, and then the screen went black. Completely, without any means to recover, no cursor, just black. I had heart in my throat, and then, when I was about to scream, an image of some new brand of car appeared in the middle of my not-so-dead screen via a full-screen flash ad. That day I switched from IE6 to Firefox, and never went back.

So it's about preventing the browser doing something you definitely don't want to, and if you do search a bit, you'll learn they can do much worse than that. If nexus has some ways of preventing such malicious (or just annoying) activities, then it's all and good, but their promise (or their ad providers' promise) is not enough for me, I have to make sure it's on my end as well.

JoseSnake wrote: This is 2018, and ads are constantly hijacked and used as malware. So using an ad-blocker is a no brainer, as much as I would like to support website X or Y, my personal security is not worth the risk.

I won't even mention the privacy concerns involved, as ads tend to tag you with an ID cookie and track you around the web.

BeneathThePlass wrote: You might just consider grabbing the supporter rank, then. I totally get where you're coming from, given how dangerous ads can be these days. I also get where Nexus is coming from. We are, no matter what we do, costing them money as long as we're using the site. If the 1mb speedcap is really a bother, throw a couple bucks at them, and you'll never have ads again, so long as you're logged in.

Otherwise. Eh. Personally, I never even noticed the speed cap. And as nice as having it at 2mb for myself is now, I probably still won't notice it unless I'm downloading something super huge. So. It is what it is?

Edit: Also, I know it's not always as easy at throwing a couple bucks at a site. I'm disabled and have no income, so trust me, I get it. But if you get the chance, it might not be a bad idea.

silencer711 wrote: @piotrmill: Haha I remember ads being pretty bad in the early 2000’s and as far back as the 90’s when they were the most used of all time (IMO). There existed such sloppy code to make those things and you never had an easy [ X ] or fancy maneuver to close out of them at the time.

Back to your main concern — privacy/security risk with using an Adblocker. I would always go with what ensures the security of self and others, so don’t compromise on that.

The target audience for this announcement is Supporters & Premium subscribers. Everyone else —Nothing has changed, business as usual. This was an update for supporters but viewable by the masses. There is no loss or gain for non-subscribers. There is no change for that tier. Treat this as nothing happened to you because just that—nothing happened to you. Business as usual. Your stance on this is on the defensive, but since there was no “deficit of bandwidth” issue before this announcement, there was no “offense” side to unbalance the scales out of your favor. Your argument is contextually-irrelevant.

@lyoko1: I get what you’re saying, however, I’m laughing inside at how you said it: “...this is not punishing the use of Adblock, but rewarding the not using of it...” lmao at how I’m going to take this concept and use it for personal gains (comedically of course) when debating with friends & family :D

I am an adblock user, but after realizing that by using such software I am preventing Nexus to get a little income from my navigation, I decided to whitelist this site. I wouldn't disable adblock on anyone's site, but since I am using Nexus regularly I though it would be nice of me to do so.
Alas, I don't have a credit card so I can't buy Premium membership, otherwise i would.

To be fair, I think that too many people on internet are too self-entitled, demanding the best free services at their conditions, without even taking into consideration the possibility to give some financial support for the expenses that a internet site has to afford. The common mentality is often "why should I pay?" or, even worse, "why should I get less of those who pay?". I am not saying that's your case, OP, yet you are rising a sterile polemic.