Ghatto

Thank you muchly for your reply Tannin. Yeah I have come to understand this. I think my (and others) trepidation may be related to my experience of switching from NMM to MO; As we learned about it's benefits we came to the conclusion that indeed there was one true manager, that there was no point in using NMM or having a replacement for it, because MO was that replacement. That's not at all true, but I'm not surprised I started to think that way when MO's solutions to certain problems just made it such a go-to at the time. So hearing about Vortex I imagined that same experience: this will be the one! I realise that is foolish, although I can't think of much else in life disappointments that didn't have unrealistic expectations as the cause. Thanks for explaining your rhetoric. I quoted this line though, because honestly, that kinda sounds like what people are asking for. Simply two ways to do the same thing because they may preference one or the other for whatever reason. However I do accept that it's an unreasonable amount of extra development and support for you to be working on 2 solutions to the same problem. Ah my apologies. I'm completely ignorant of these complication as I simply haven't played SSE or Fallout 4 yet. I support that you should prioritise making modding the latest games a stable and easy experience. I greatly look forward to it. With the spirit of modding so strong in this place I find it no surprise that the next step is modding the mod managers. Correct. I do understand that process. Admittedly though, the only LOOT rules I've actually made are the ones specified in STEP. All the rest I've all done manually with drag and drop. Why I did that I think is at the heart of this discussion: mod testing, troubleshooting and WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). As I added non-STEP mods and tried to troubleshoot problems I found being able to easily quit the game, move a mod, and start it again to see if that fixed it was just so nice and easy. The WYSIWYG approach in MO by just seeing you load order and then, via click and drag, just putting the mod exactly where I think it should go, is just straight up comforting. I do see many people complaining that they can't or haven't discovered how to make sure that even after the LOOT rules are applied, that the mods always be shown in the order specified; that does sound like it may need improving - Alpha feedback after all. After that, I needed to understand Merging Mods and had to adopt Mator's approach of 'categorise, contiguous, and don't just blindly follow LOOT'. Eventually I settled for running LOOT, making some rules, and the doing everything else manually. Oh and I love it. It makes me very excited to try this manager knowing I'll never have to run LOOT separately to get the results I need. Hmm. It sounds like more or less an issue of what verbs and nouns are used. Silly I know, but I think those who really cling to click and drag don't consider the act of sorting your load order as like running it through a counting machine, but instead an actual picking up each puzzle piece with your own hands and then putting it in a very specific location. I suppose we don't feel as comfortable telling the program where to put a mod as we do putting it there ourselves. Yeah I get it. I don't want to give the impression that I'm entitled to what I want, and I understand it's needs>wants. That said, I think it's getting to be a sign of this hobby maturing in some ways. These programs aren't just little .net tools picked from cracker sites or Limewire any more. The way Vortex has been anticipated and presented now reminds me of how it compares to the bigwigs, like MS Office, or Steam... yeah I feel even I had built up Vortex to be the 'Steam of Mods'; the big guy that does it all and everybody uses it. We've reached a point with these types of programs that we now know what it can do, so then discussion shifts to it doing what we all want it to do. But that is unfair to Tannin, he's not a million monkeys on a million typewriters. I do hope we all respect though that we've kinda reached a bit of a critical mass, and that reactions like this could be a sign that Vortex may have shoes too big to fill. But hey uhh... i'll reserve judgement until I try it! EDIT: Holy s***. That makes this sound so much better than previously considered. Perhaps a good thing to eventually add would be a 'cascading rule dialog'. Like select the mods, click on the dependency and then open a dialog that within itself has drag-and-drop for just those selected mods. Then the user can order them and once confirmed it will create a set of rules keeping that particular set in a locked order. I'd imagine such an implementation should at lest alleviate the concerns of those who have that 'custom ordered set of 20 armour mods' et. al.

I'll just preface my post with a disclaimer that I haven't tried Vortex yet, but am still interested to. This discussion though, just put the fear in me. I think something that nobody has managed to air in their frustrations much here is that for a lot of us who have gone through the 'baptism of fire' of building a massively modded game and having it turned into a nightmare of troubleshooting, we've learned a lot about applying tricks and methods that work just for ourselves. We did so by learning new programs and methods that introduced radical new ways of approaching modding and (most importantly) taught us how to do advanced things. Things that we grow dependent on because they are the perfect mix of knowing exactly what we're doing while also getting the game to run properly. I'm not surprised to see something that works counter to how we've finally managed to 'work it all out' rub us the wrong way. Human nature I suppose. In my case, (and I'm sure others too). I played my first modded games with NMM and it was great, until it all came crashing down - mostly because I didn't know what I was doing. So when I tried again and NMM looked like it wouldn't cut it: the lord and saviour Mod Organizer appeared. So much more complicated but if you just paid attention then you'd gain so much more stability and control. Learning and following excellent instructions on STEP and in the forums here added to this and employed the use of even more granular control over our modlists. LOOT, Wrye Bash, DDSopt, xEdit, Merge Plugins and more built on it even further and added new ideologies and new rules to follow for having an optimum experience. Of course though having to do that does get fatiguing so naturally, when Vortex was announced I was HYPE. I mean seriously, hiring Tannin - the maker of MO. We would get the spiffyness and ease of use of NMM combined with the absolute power of MO while having it as the de-facto mod manager of the most prolific mod depository on the internet! If only those tools I mentioned above could also be integrated somehow - a man can dream! Now it's out and I want to try it but I'm in the middle of my New Vegas playthrough and I do not want to mess with it. So I gobble up everyone's impressions and, well... so many comments about how it doesn't do this thing I like or that thing I like; all things that Mod Organizer does; all things that Tannin demonstrated before. I do understand that it's Alpha - unfinished, and that developers work hard and can't just add every little feature people ask for (especially when embarking on a new project.) It just paints a rather disappointing picture I suppose; the new shiny program can't do what the old busted program did and dispels the illusion that this program will truly be the future for every modder. As I read this feedback I'm left wanting to understand the rhetoric of the developers. I have seen some explanations and also many people pushing back against them. It's a start either way but I do admit it does appear rather lacking. Arguing for the case of improving LOOT for the sake of everyone does sound good, but it also doesn't sound like a good reason to not have a simply drag and drop mod order. I would like to really come to understand the developers vision for having these process work together in Vortex to make it a great modern replacement (or at least alternative) for MO. Personally the kinds of pipe dreams I hoped for Vortex was basically everything MO did but easier to navigate, with some basic functions just built in, like patching and merging and file readers - but hey I suppose that's at the behest of the developers who made those tools. Right now, after reading and watching some YouTube demonstrations, Vortex just gives me the feeling of a shiner NMM and well that just a bit ehhh? But I will eventually try it. I want it to succeed. Having an easy to approach mod manager with hopefully way less splintering of tools is the kind of future I look forward to.

In response to post #57044991. #57197506 is also a reply to the same post. Oh yeah. Flood filter on posting? yeah makes sense. Flood filter on searching, eugh...

There's only one thing I really need in the site redesign right now: mod page thread search. It's a real pain trying to troubleshoot any mods issues that may have already been discussed by searching for specific keywords. You can go to the mod's nexus forum page and search there but I'm certainly not going to be the first to criticise the forums readability - especially for reply and quote threads. (It's makes finding that elusive, "Hey I had that problem too and this fixed it" comment pretty laborious. Meanwhile the new redesigned mod pages with their accompanying mod thread view is beautiful and has lovely easy to read and easy to use commenting, but no search!

I look forward to seeing what happens to the mod pages, not because I found them lacking though. I consider this site to be one of the best in terms of pure specified functionality. When it comes to mods, this is the one where everything has its right place and everything is in its right place. (Please eventually do something about the mismatch between the mod comments section and the associated threads on the forum. It's so jarring trying to read the same thread on one and then the other, while trying to follow the discussion.)

In response to post #41316780. #41318880 is also a reply to the same post. They should add a feature is like in all those EULAs that make you scroll to the bottom of the agreement before continuing. So like one for the description page the first time a before a user downloads (sounds feasible since the nexus tracks all downloads on your account). I know most people won't read those and just scroll, but they'd have even less excuse if they had to scroll past big text of 'FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS OR YOU GAME WILL CRASH' that is so popular in the descriptions these days.

In response to post #41286925. #41289200, #41299935, #41302745, #41320760 are all replies on the same post. Then the best use for such a feature would be for is: sort by 'endorsement per download' within 'timeframe'. When I look to do a mod overhaul I always check first for the best/most popular downloads that are newest first - then best of all time - then somewhat less popular but specific to my use case.

In response to post #28756709. #28784094 is also a reply to the same post. But we're all ok with that? We're ok with EULAs that say we don't own our games? I'm not. It's dumb and arguments like this arise simply because of how dumb it is. I know it's there to prevent stuff like piracy and plagiarism, but I don't see why it has to extend to what we do with our own damn copies of the game.

In response to post #28715649. Apples and Oranges. With books you either buy a whole book or get an ebook for your device. Yeah you have to buy a device first like I need a computer to play Skyrim. But unlike Skyrim I don't need to buy a book to then buy add-on chapters (mods). Paid fan-fiction is likely a better example, but like this situation, appears to be as highly contested (some types are allowed to be published for money and others not). I have different memories. While the advent of ebooks is definitely good, I remember a lot of the publishing and writing community having conflict over how it would be done.

In response to post #28707544. #28708344, #28711854 are all replies on the same post. I thought people would try that retort. The important difference is that there's several degrees removal from the transaction. If my taxes did pay for the park I didn't want, it's because someone else is spending money I already wanted to provide. Similarly if you modders are on unemployment or work a non-modding related job that I would somehow service then I've also already paid for it. Regardless I can always from that point forward enter and enjoy the park whether I wanted it or not and that's important because I can not be seen as someone 'taking advantage of' something freely available. If you want to be more specific then paid mods is a park with a paid entry. Just don't get mad if I don't want to enter based solely on the fact that I've enjoyed free entry before. I mean maybe a free cupcake stand is a better analogy: You bake cupcakes and set up a stand saying "Please help yourself." Am I entitled to one? DO I deserve one? No not really but they're offered so I may have one. So even though I know you put effort into making them, nobody owes anybody anything because the offer was just there, I mean yeah a 'Thank you' (endorsement) may be nice but money hasn't happened until... Next day you set up the same stand and charge $1 per cupcake. I remark that I miss the free ones and probably won't buy these ones. You get so mad and accuse me of "Just taking and taking and never giving back" even though that wasn't the original offer. FIghting ensues.

In response to post #28720339. Mmmm. Yeah that website shows some of the same (paid) skins as directly in-game. Or stuff that works on custom servers (thank god that's still allowed). To me that's only half-way there, but I've made it clear in these posts that I'm hard to please.

In response to post #28683919. #28688649, #28700574, #28701439 are all replies on the same post. Well CandyGirl 24, you're the one that made a absolute statement, a conclusion you found and then attributed to the entire set without thorough testing. Then you made a post claiming that the 'frank' version of the talk, or the one with 'opened eyes' was one where you were right. Yes I know you can provide examples, I know there was many modders who said they'd make more or better mods with paid income. I can also provide examples of modders who said the exact opposite so what is correct for the whole modding community? Are good mods only really made by full-time professionals, and rubbish mods made by poor people on toasters? The true answer is: it depends. I suppose I'll never find out though since your time is so precious you don't want to spend it defending your argument. Macintroll, Professionals made Skyrim. They did pretty good, made a huge cool game we all love that was malleable enough to end up being modded this much. They also left a tonne of bugs and created gameplay many people have criticised as boring, and a world that's criticised as empty. Now there's a whole lot of 'essential' mods made by 'hobbyists' that for a lot of us actually turn Skyrim into the game we all want it to be. In my mind, professionals are the devs and are no guarantee for quality. The hobbysist are modders and are also no guarantee for quality. The difference is that one was paid to make something and the other was not, so but once again the money didn't guarantee quality. The number one thing I like about the current way of doing things though is that somebody must bankroll a full game or DLC before selling it, that people will get paid for their work BEFORE they are thrown to customers. Now unless the user wants to wilfully participate in some Kickstarter/Early Access thing, the morals have been cleared, and only payment for perceived quality remains. Nobody gets to complain that their blood/sweat/tears were not appreciated and users (hopefully) can get what they pay for. Paid-modding threw that out the window. We were responsible now for quality, for not being ripped-off and for feeling sooooooo guilty when we didn't want to buy XYZ mods. Truly if we and Bethesda believes that awesome modders when paid, will create the most amazing DLC size super content then they should put their money where their mouth is and HIRE these modders to make new DLC. Or failing that - actually open the store featuring it! I was flabbergasted that this brave new venture actually opened with only collection of mostly iffy mods rather than super shiny "endorsed by Bethesda" mods that we just couldn't resist.

In response to post #28705769. We must have different google results (they do that to make more ad money). I still don't find anything truly free as the way mods here are. I'll take your word for it, I only didn't believe you originally because my understanding of the game made what I want, and what you said, impossible! I still play cause the game is fun, but I do lament the changes. Heck to me it's the same as gambling; I'm surprised Valve hasn't run afoul of some countries laws on that. Although it's similar to the 'ok' way of rare cards in trading card games like Magic.

In response to post #28707544. "The cold truth is most users will never give back and will always take." This is an interesting line actually. I do think that this is one of ideals that allowed the fighting to get so intense. By that I mean I never thought of myself or other mod-users are 'taking', and I think most don't. I know modders definitely would appreciate a 'giving back' and that would intensify when they encountered users who complained about their work or unreasonably demanded changes or support. But they were never required to 'give back,' because they never 'took'. Once a mod was published it was 'just there' unlimited in the way of downloads (ignoring server costs that this site does ask for money). It's a lot like my community council building a park down the road, I can appreciate it without payment as part of the collective public, or I can be a contributor in order to support its development.

In response to post #28683919. False Correlation. Just because some modders say they'll make more quality mods when paid does not mean it will be the same for everyone. Just look at Mobile App Stores and the glut of crap on them; a perfect example of what will still happen when money's left on the table.