Trying to understand

[KamariBVB]

My Reaction to the Announcement POst that NexusMods made:

TLDR: While I can find fault with both sides of the argument, I'm currently leaning towards supporting the mod authors who are against this change because it looks like the way the collections system will work will benefit the mod users and NexusMods the most. This isn't fair, given that modding is often no easy task but the whole point of this tool is to make creating load orders that work as easy as possible. In addition, although I could see Nexusmods making an effort to meet people halfway, they do not get kudos for allowing mod authors this opportunity for deletion because "My way or the highway" is not true consent, particularly when the enforcer has power over the enforcee and the demand they are making is essentially a choice between forfeiting control of their hard work, or potentially forfeiting access to a large audience of potential users.

 

That doesn't mean I think mod authors are being 10000% reasonable here. In particular, it makes no sense and is really mean to make the argument that people should have to struggle to learn how to do something that we all love just because we did .After all, we live in a world where technology is advancing at a remarkable rate, so it makes sense for someone to streamline the creation of load orders to make it as user friendly as possible.

 

On the other hand, I have a real issue with the fact that Nexus mods knew that mod authors put a lot of effort, time, and love into their work, and woould be against this whole archiving situation, but they implemented it anyway. Regardless of how noble their intentions, that still constitutes a violation of boundaries. Something I do not generally take lightly, especially since I do not think they are correct in thinking that it is not possible to make modding easier via the collections system AND give mod authors the option to opt out of collections.

Which brings me to the potential solution I came up with: NexusMods, you should return the control of mods back to their creators.*BUT!* In order to stlll make it easier for people to make load orders that work, NexusMOds could add tag functionality to mods on here that would tell the end user which category of a mod load order the mod would belong in. You see, somewhere on Bethesda there is a really old guide about modding SSE, and in this guide is a list of categories of mods, with loads of examples of each. It is this guide that I think this tagging system should be based on. Are there any mod authors in this thread? What do you think?

[Guest deleted34304850]

That doesn't mean I think mod authors are being 10000% reasonable here. In particular, it makes no sense and is really mean to make the argument that people should have to struggle to learn how to do something that we all love just because we did .After all, we live in a world where technology is advancing at a remarkable rate, so it makes sense for someone to streamline the creation of load orders to make it as user friendly as possible.

i don't know of one mod author who has said anything like that in the public forums. its a strawman argument from nexusmods to justify their stance as some sort of moral crusade when its simply removal of rights.

[showler]

*BUT!* In order to stlll make it easier for people to make load orders that work, NexusMOds could add tag functionality to mods on here that would tell the end user which category of a mod load order the mod would belong in. You see, somewhere on Bethesda there is a really old guide about modding SSE, and in this guide is a list of categories of mods, with loads of examples of each. It is this guide that I think this tagging system should be based on. Are there any mod authors in this thread? What do you think?

Utterly useless to mod users. It does nothing to prevent conflicts, nothing to help with conflict resolution when it is needed, and in some cases is already handled by available tools.

[KamariBVB]

 

*BUT!* In order to stlll make it easier for people to make load orders that work, NexusMOds could add tag functionality to mods on here that would tell the end user which category of a mod load order the mod would belong in. You see, somewhere on Bethesda there is a really old guide about modding SSE, and in this guide is a list of categories of mods, with loads of examples of each. It is this guide that I think this tagging system should be based on. Are there any mod authors in this thread? What do you think?

Utterly useless to mod users. It does nothing to prevent conflicts, nothing to help with conflict resolution when it is needed, and in some cases is already handled by available tools.

 

Fair enough. Hm....I wonder if there are mod authors that would be willing to trade control of their mods with time spent assisting people with adding the mods that aren't available via collections to their load orders.

[xrayy]

 

There's something I don't really understand about the functionality. It's no the opt-out (thought don't really understand why mods aren't being given an opt out either but that really isn't the main problem that I see).

 

 

Well that's pretty obvious. If modders with "important" mods (let's say more downloaded, mods/tools that other mods depend on) opt out, modlist curators won't want to make collections. Or less "atractive" collections. Less interest, less downlooads, less premium accounts.

 

It would be logic -and right- to give authors opt out option, but they are not gonna risk their project because of them.

 

yeah, they don't want to risk their project...

instead they think its better to make all mod authors mad, cancel any trustful relationship and watch how mod authors leave nexusmods.

an absolute brillant and thoughtful concept until a new capable modding site opens the doors for frustrated modders...

[Hatemiser]

That doesn't mean I think mod authors are being 10000% reasonable here. In particular, it makes no sense and is really mean to make the argument that people should have to struggle to learn how to do something that we all love just because we did .

 

The only place I've seen this mentioned in recent years, was in the hog-wash "news" article. I don't want people to learn "the hard way" because it's difficult, but because they become much more capable.

 

Some people just need a little encouragement and guidance to get over a degree of intimidation.

[KamariBVB]

 

 

There's something I don't really understand about the functionality. It's no the opt-out (thought don't really understand why mods aren't being given an opt out either but that really isn't the main problem that I see).

 

 

Well that's pretty obvious. If modders with "important" mods (let's say more downloaded, mods/tools that other mods depend on) opt out, modlist curators won't want to make collections. Or less "atractive" collections. Less interest, less downlooads, less premium accounts.

 

It would be logic -and right- to give authors opt out option, but they are not gonna risk their project because of them.

 

yeah, they don't want to risk their project...

instead they think its better to make all mod authors mad, cancel any trustful relationship and watch how mod authors leave nexusmods.

an absolute brillant and thoughtful concept until a new capable modding site opens the doors for frustrated modders...

 

Well, sucks to be them b/c it just so happens that such a website already exists. Basically any cloud-based service could be used as a place to offer people access to mods. GitHub would be an option too, which is a website that just so happens to be used quite often in the VR/ Augmented reality programming class I'm in atm. Hmmm, whatever shall I do with my knowledge....?

Edited July 21, 2021 by KamariBVB

[KamariBVB]

i

 

 

That doesn't mean I think mod authors are being 10000% reasonable here. In particular, it makes no sense and is really mean to make the argument that people should have to struggle to learn how to do something that we all love just because we did .

 

The only place I've seen this mentioned in recent years, was in the hog-wash "news" article. I don't want people to learn "the hard way" because it's difficult, but because they become much more capable.

 

Some people just need a little encouragement and guidance to get over a degree of intimidation.

 

Edit: I get where you are coming from. By learning how to create mod load orders via trial and error, in theory people will gain a skill.

I still think its worth creating a tool to make that easier. After all, one could still learn how load orders work, and not everyone out there necessarily has the time to put into learning these things. That's my two cents, anyways. I'm probably a little biased because I sitll remember struggling to figure out my own load orders, and not finding anything helpful for that.

Edited July 21, 2021 by KamariBVB

[KamariBVB]

On the other hand, it is probably also worth mentioning that it likely behooves all of us for Nexus Mods to be profitable. After all, no one can use a website that doesn't exist, and if they were telling the truth in the announcement, then this website is the biggest source of mods out there. So it is not as thoough tehir motivation to earn money to maintain the website wouldn't benefit mod authors at all.

On the other hand, even if they do manage to reach their goal of putting a million dollars back int othe donation point system every year....what will that mean for mod authors, given that its possible for there to be more mod authors on here than there are dollar bills in a million dollars.. So mod authors might not actually stand to gain all that much from this arrangement after all.

[showler]

 

Edit: I get where you are coming from. By learning how to create mod load orders via trial and error, in theory people will gain a skill.

 

I still think its worth creating a tool to make that easier. After all, one could still learn how load orders work, and not everyone out there necessarily has the time to put into learning these things. That's my two cents, anyways. I'm probably a little biased because I sitll remember struggling to figure out my own load orders, and not finding anything helpful for that.

Nobody has to learn to build a car to drive a car. It's perfectly possible to make things as easy as possible in order to widen your audience.

 

"Gatekeeping" people by constantly telling them that they need to learn to use xEdit to use more than ten mods (for Bethesda games) is neither needed nor desirable.