Unrealistic expecations on modders.

[charwo]

The thing about the word count and the pictures, I figure as a 'dress code' of sorts fast tracks the idea to get looked at. I mean this for very basic stuff: tile sets, pre-made buildings on the model of the vanilla assets (such as a complete small church, or a complete pre-war exterior of the Spirngvale Elementary or an intact variant of the Ark and Dove Cathedral) or a weapon or armor. Nothing of massive scale like a full town or quest. I'll give you some examples:

 

Finally, some awesomesause on the businesswear (I HATE the unkempt tie):

http://static2.nexusmods.com/130/mods/130/images/45466-1-1329675102.jpg

The problem for me on this wonderful mesh is there's not a female re-mesh that will work on the same textures. This makes Charwo unhappy.

 

Or the textures of the businesswear. One of the Professional Suit mods works wonders for the men's and women's 'clean grimy' look, but the dirty version? Not so much. And this I feel is important in New Vegas as the Suits the families wear should be clean and fresh, much like so:

http://ruffledblog.com/Images/posts/Shopping/mens-fashion-1950.jpg

The one on the left. Although in this case, its' simply retexturing the dirty businesswear to be clean and not rumpled, both male and female. Getting rid of the pinstripes or anything else isn't needed, just shine up the shoes, and retexture a light tan texture for the pre-wat hat, like so.

 

Or take these pics from the muscle girl mod:

http://imageshack.us/a/img594/9539/avp0.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img834/9105/b9ww.jpg

Would anyone be willing to make these rather plausible (maybe save the heels and one midriff) outfits for a body that isn't halfway to supermutant?

 

http://imageshack.us/a/img59/3277/kmrw.png

Or would anyone be able to make a pre-war exterior of this tile asset set?


The whole notion of needing a pic is quick advertizement: for those of us still incompetent at modding ourselves, we are trying to sell an idea. These pics are quick, effective ways of communicating an idea. In the case of a 300 word requirement in the subforum, it would filter out a lot of superfluous, 'crap' ideas as you put it. And you're right. By forcing the requesters to step up in explaining what they what or why its a good idea, you narrow the playing field and the would be modder-at-large has less of a sea of crap ideas to wade through.

 

As for the assets being used in an inappropriate mod? I've never seen a good reason to be upset by that. If these were the original and hard to replace, oh yeah. But in the digital realm, copies can be made in nanoseconds. And if someone were to say write a fanfic where Louis and Le Stat have odd sex as in George Carlin's bit, the one with yeho and a REALLY happy cat, that doesn't reflect one bit on Anne Rice. Its the pervert's version of the characters, their take on an idea. If they tried to publish it is of course another matter.

[dangman4ever]

Again, you're still not making that large of an incentive for more FNV modders to actually want to come out and help create another person's mod even with the picture requirement. In addition, some mods requests are so simple that they don't need a picture or a 300 word requirement. Examples of those are:
- "I want a black recolor of the Vault suit."
- "I want the Desert Ranger armor but without any of the writing on the helmet."
- "I want a gun that shoots nukes"

I fully understand that pictures and/or a longer description do help. But they should not be a requirement for every thread since pictures nor longer descriptions are automatically "good" for getting mod help.

As for the assets being used in a mod you don't want to be used in, you still refuse to understand that just because something is digital does not make completely removed from the concept of control and the real world implementation of copyright. In addition, one reason you're forgetting is that a mod creator would not like the idea that their mod assets allowed for the creation of a mod they find objectionable. In other words, that mod creator would feel that they helped another mod creator to create that objectionable mod. It's a very human thought process.

 

So just because you can't see a good reason to be upset by that does not mean that others can't as well.

 

Just to restate this: I like the idea of open permissions. I plan on having open permissions on my upcoming mod. However, I'm against the idea of FORCING people to have open permissions. That's taking control away from people who do have very legitimate concerns about the use of their work in other mods.

Edited November 23, 2013 by dangman4ever

[charwo]

OK, dangman, on the usage we'll have to agree to disagree. Mostly because there's an issue at hand I'd like to focus on.

 

I understand where you're going. I think though, you're missing the big picture. As you said, there's a handful of modders who'd drive through the crap. While the one sentence descriptions will do it for those people, I'd be hoping to attract more. See, most of those one sentence ideas are lazy: if you can't show the modder what you're thinking of, or describe it in some detail, you're not putting in the research, you're not putting in the thought, and you are leaving the modder to do all the work intellectually. If you're asking for a mod to be made, it means you can't do the gritty work, but that doesn't mean for one second you can't do the concept building. The partnership becomes more equal, and its ideas that can set hands on fire better than pleas and whines.

 

Besides, as this would be a subforum, those one sentence requests can still be put in the Request Forum, with the fleshed out concept as a subforum of that.

[dangman4ever]

Fine, I shall agree to disagree as that particular discussions seems to be going in circles.

 

Just because a mod request has plenty of pictures or a thorough description doesn't necessarily mean that it will have a higher chance of the request being granted. Still a crapshoot: I've passed on plenty of mod requests in requests forum that were well written, thought out, and actually had pictures on occasion due to variety of reasons. Even when said mod requests were well within my rather limited modding capabilities, I still passed. So I can imagine what other modders might do as well.

The idea of a subforum specifically dedicated to fleshed out mod requests will more than likely have the unintended side-effect of telling people that "good ideas" should be in the fleshed out subforum and the "bad" ideas in the regular requests forum. This will result with people not bothering to do mod requests at all if they feel that it isn't good enough for the fleshed out subforum OR a ton of mod requests made by people who think their idea is "good" but is so damn shitty, it shouldn't have been brought up in the first place.

 

You're still not seeing the big picture that I'm seeing: What is the incentive for other modders to actually come to a forum and subforum and be willing to actually grant mod requests? You're trying to attract other modders, correct? Focus on that aspect first.

Edited November 24, 2013 by dangman4ever

[charwo]

I think the reason, the only reason to bring more modders in is seeing a good idea they hadn't thought of, but upon reflection IS a good one. That's the limit what a for free modding can do. Now, a bad idea is a bad idea regardless of how fleshed out it is, but....it may not be an entirely bad one. If a concept is seen and not liked entirely, a discussion can be made, and the meeting of the minds is already halfway there. For instance, take the nuke gun idea. In the first place, anyone who has to type out 300 words to describe the request has to articulate WHY they want it. If its simply for the lulz, they won't put the time in. If its something more akin to criticizing the concept of the fatman as too dangerous to the user to be practical, or relying on an arching hit (a REAL problem if you use VATS like I do) or there is a reason to justify a mini nuke launcher that should be able to hold more than one. This would be rejected by the modder in its initial form, but it might cause them to think, "Wait....the MIRV holds eight....what about making a crafting thing to make a mininuke missile to be put on a modified fatman/RedGlare/Missile Launcher platform, and it holds four of these charges. This might be doable!" And so it would proceed from there.

 

As for the whole making the normal forum be the crap forum, I'd say that it already is. That's why there's a precious few willing to look at the ideas in the first place. It doesn't mean every mod idea will find a patron, just that the modder has a much better chance of seeing something that actually cataches his eye and might be worthy of his time.

[dangman4ever]

Again, it's still all reliant on actually getting more modders to come out and spend their free time doing these mods. While I don't disagree with the fact that the requests forum is filled quite a few bad mod requests, the bad mod requests aren't the sole reason for the relative lack of attention that forum gets. Reasons that pretty much boils down to lack of time and interest in FNV itself. Having a separate forum will do nothing to alleviate those two primary factors.

 

Also, while I've seen similar scenarios that you've described in the regular requests forum, it also shows that you do not need a specific forum in order to get such discussions going.

 

In addition, look at the sticky for the mod requests subforum: Even though the sticky clearly lays out out all the reasons for why other modders may ignore mod requests, people still continue to posts mod requests that fit those particular reasons to the tee. In other words, having a 300 word requirement or picture requirement won't help if no one is actually reading the sticky for those requirements. I've been on enough forums to know that even if you title a sticky "READ THIS FIRST BEFORE POSTING", posters will still ignore that sticky and post in a manner that's against rules and guidelines listed in that sticky.

 

Finally there's the issue of enforcement. As it stands now, it looks like the moderators are rather stretched thin here as well. So adding more subforums means more work for those moderators in order to catch any "violaters" so to speak.

Edited November 24, 2013 by dangman4ever

[Gazzzz]

As for the lack of feedback or endorsements... I believe that a good part of the reason is the Nexus.

 

It's structured like a shop. You grab the things you like and move on.

 

 

If you "released" your mod in a forum topic, you'd have more personal contact with the users... instead of them being anonymous consumers.

 

I realise the advantages of the Nexus for hosting but for a modders it's somewhat of a black hole. *shrug*

[Comradesoldat]

Alrighty;

 

As this topic caught my attention, and seeing as I am a modder-wannabe at the moment I figured i'd poke my Newbie Head in here;

 

When I first joined this site, I actually had NO idea what "Endorse" and "Kudos" really were, but eventually curiosity got the best of me and after reading comments on one of the mods I had downloaded I decided I probably should start doing even more endorsing and kudos.

 

Though, as a member of a "Pixel art" site and forum that aims to make free Printable Paper Soldiers, I can say that in some aspects what your saying here is what I've heard recently there.

 

So, my advice is Design your stuff how You think would be best. Fly through the Flak of Rude comments and acknowledge those who do post constructive critism or positive feedback; Signs that the Uploader is not "dead" or moved on to other games (like skyrim....curse you skyrim! :P ) and that any known issues will be fixed by the uploader are always nice.

 

Some people just don't know what those terms mean, and in some cases users just don't have anything to say that hasn't been said, or said at all.

[stoaty6666]

House mods are some of the less interested mods in the Fallout games, so its not surprising your getting so little interest. This game is no longer largely popular as it once was (not to say amazing modders are not still modding for it <3 ) so dont expect Skyrim numbers for your downloads to begin with.

 

Some suggestions for House mods:

Location is key.

Innovation can get you noticed.

Lore friendly is nice, but will not be as popular as fancier places.

Naked chicks will get you noticed... for some reason.

 

Nothing I hate more in a house mod then tons of food and free stuff, I like a house that gives me access to what my character needs bathroom, bed, kitchen, work benches. Looking at your homes I would not use them simply because I see a ton of stuff I would have to remove in Geck myself, there is so much free stuff.

 

Also dont mod and upload for votes or comments, its a number game and very few people "win" it. I know you want feedback and thats important but you have to understand FNV is winding down, less committed members are around to look at the mods and comment.

Good points here when I look for a house I go for somewhere fancy not so much lore friendly, if there's showers or a pool auto-strip them after all who sits in a pool with full armor. Also somewhere to show off your trophies, and beds for followers (very important). as far as endorsements go I always endorse, and check out the best house mods in Skyrim the numbers of endorsements to the number of downloads is very small. People should really in some way be forced to endorse after all the hours modders put into their work

[JimboUK]

Forcing people to endorse mods would make the whole thing pointless, not only would the number of endorsements always be equal to the number of unique downloads but the endorsements themselves would be meaningless if not given voluntarily.