Update on site work and NMM 0.50 around the corner

[cerebii]

In response to post #9160045. #9162092, #9162352, #9164413, #9165803 are all replies on the same post.

I'd just like to add that Tannin42's Mod Organizer has had most of the above features (including profiling) for over a year and is, imho, a vastly superior manager.

In fact I think the reason theyre jumping to profiling is so they can start to compete with its feature set.

I'd also like to see a more robust way of updating, but the technology needed would have to be server end more than client end, so the NMM dev's hands are tied somewhat.

EDIT: I see Tannin is among us :p Imitation is the best form of flattery, eh mate xD

[Beerduck]

In response to post #9160045. #9162092, #9162352, #9164413, #9165803, #9166413 are all replies on the same post.

I agree with pretty much every point you make.

The one thing that bugs me most is that NMM can't automatically update mods.

[Dark0ne]

In response to post #9160045. #9162092, #9162352, #9164413, #9165803, #9166413, #9167007 are all replies on the same post.

I resent the need for people to come in to these threads and start comparisons with other tools.

I'd just like to add that Tannin42's Mod Organizer has had most of the above features (including profiling) for over a year and is, imho, a vastly superior manager.

It's also using a lot of our web services that took us, and indeed still take us, a hell of a long time to maintain. We leave them open for others to use at this time as the creator's have been good to not over exploit the open nature of the services, but heck, NMM would have taken half the time to build and quarter of the time to maintain if we didn't have to bother with the web services. We can close these services at any time we wish and make them exclusive to NMM. Something we're not planning to do, but posts like this help to push me.

In fact I think the reason theyre jumping to profiling is so they can start to compete with its feature set.

The reason we've been working on profiling for the past 6 months is because it was next on the list. It's been requested since we released NMM 2 years ago and this was the time we chose to get around to it.

I don't feel we need to compete with anyone or any thing.

-------

NMM is not a focused tool for a specific game. It does not have the luxury of being able to focus on one particular engine. NMM supports 12 games using 7 different engines. It's a modding platform, not a modding tool. It's been coded from the ground up to be a platform from which we, and others, can work from, and from which we can expand in to many different games more easily. Other tools commonly mentioned have not been coded in this way.

A piece of software simply focusing on Skyrim, or Elder Scrolls games is always going to have an easier time of things because they don't have to worry about many of the things we do have to worry about. That's just logical. So when people come along and say "this piece of software has had this for ages" I want to retort sarcastically with "What a freaking surprise!".

Our focus on NMM over the past few years has been to create an introductory tool for modders and not an advanced piece of kit that tailors to everyone. A focused kit that tailors to the needs of the majority of users who wish to casually mod their games. We've specifically focused on this area, and not shied away from this point, because there's already great tools out there for the die-hard, hardcore minority of users who want to mod their games like a pro. We've also made NMM open source so the creators (or indeed other users) of these tools can integrate better with NMM, which is the most popular and most used modding tool for the games we support by a long, long way. I'm not sure how many of the creators have actually made use of this, but when people come to me and say "NMM needs to integrate with software X, Y or Z else it'll be shite" I'm typically thinking "OK, so why don't you get it to integrate with software X, Y and Z? It's open source for that very reason!".

[mindinavoid]

If-slash-when you do profiling, are you going to implement save file profiling as well? For instance, I have six different characters I play as in Skyrim. At the moment, I simply tag the last save as that character with their name using the console (save "Marcus", for example), so I know who is who. But Marcus is a Khajiit, and I use KhajiitSpeak for him and him alone.

 

If the profiling system supports saves, I could tie all of the Marcus saves to his profile, and not have any of them show up at all when I'm playing Siariel, because she has a completely different save set. Elsewise, there's the chance I might accidentally try to load into one of Marcus's saves (say if I'm just not paying attention or trying to load too quickly or something, or die before the game gets a chance to autosave anywhere and Marcus was the last autosave) and everything could go pear-shaped.

 

Obviously, some games aren't going to be as easy or even capable of save profiling (I'm lookin' at you, Chivalry), but then those games might not even be worth setting up a profiling system for.

 

Either way, I (personally) think the safest method, rather than trying to figure what's active and what's not, is to simply "snapshot" the desired load order and mod installation structure, and compress it into its own collected zip file. I have several mods from the Skyrim Workshop, which wouldn't be recognized by anything that cross-references from the Nexus unless the mods are there too, and not all of them are. I also have a few custom personal-made "merge" mods that aren't uploaded anywhere at all. I combine things in ways that fit me, and I would rather just be able to tell it "this is my intended result, do EXACTLY THIS" and have it do EXACTLY THAT rather than "this is what I could figure out you wanted kinda".

 

And please, for the love of Mike, whatever you do, don't implement automatic *anything* without an option to turn it off somewhere. I use enough mods from the Skyrim Workshop that fully half of my ESPs (I'm running 192, for reference) gets alphabetized at the bottom of the list because BOSS doesn't know what to do with them, I don't use the bog standard settings on most SkyProc and Bashed patches-- if there were a way to turn off the "this mod is a newer version of X mod, do you want to upgrade?" box so it will just overwrite only (always "No"), I would.

[cerebii]

 

In response to post #9160045. #9162092, #9162352, #9164413, #9165803, #9166413, #9167007 are all replies on the same post.

I resent the need for people to come in to these threads and start comparisons with other tools.

 

I'd just like to add that Tannin42's Mod Organizer has had most of the above features (including profiling) for over a year and is, imho, a vastly superior manager.

 

It's also using a lot of our web services that took us, and indeed still take us, a hell of a long time to maintain. We leave them open for others to use at this time as the creator's have been good to not over exploit the open nature of the services, but heck, NMM would have taken half the time to build and quarter of the time to maintain if we didn't have to bother with the web services. We can close these services at any time we wish and make them exclusive to NMM. Something we're not planning to do, but posts like this help to push me.

 

In fact I think the reason theyre jumping to profiling is so they can start to compete with its feature set.

 

The reason we've been working on profiling for the past 6 months is because it was next on the list. It's been requested since we released NMM 2 years ago and this was the time we chose to get around to it.

 

I don't feel we need to compete with anyone or any thing.

 

-------

 

NMM is not a focused tool for a specific game. It does not have the luxury of being able to focus on one particular engine. NMM supports 12 games using 7 different engines. It's a modding platform, not a modding tool. It's been coded from the ground up to be a platform from which we, and others, can work from, and from which we can expand in to many different games more easily. Other tools commonly mentioned have not been coded in this way.

 

A piece of software simply focusing on Skyrim, or Elder Scrolls games is always going to have an easier time of things because they don't have to worry about many of the things we do have to worry about. That's just logical. So when people come along and say "this piece of software has had this for ages" I want to retort sarcastically with "What a freaking surprise!".

 

Our focus on NMM over the past few years has been to create an introductory tool for modders and not an advanced piece of kit that tailors to everyone. A focused kit that tailors to the needs of the majority of users who wish to casually mod their games. We've specifically focused on this area, and not shied away from this point, because there's already great tools out there for the die-hard, hardcore minority of users who want to mod their games like a pro. We've also made NMM open source so the creators (or indeed other users) of these tools can integrate better with NMM, which is the most popular and most used modding tool for the games we support by a long, long way. I'm not sure how many of the creators have actually made use of this, but when people come to me and say "NMM needs to integrate with software X, Y or Z else it'll be shite" I'm typically thinking "OK, so why don't you get it to integrate with software X, Y and Z? It's open source for that very reason!".

 

Well by now I know better than to argue with you Robin, so let me just say Im sorry for stepping out of line; it wasn't my intention at all.

 

And you're right, what the NMM developers have done is brilliant and a real testament to how dedicated members of a community can come together and create such a robust piece of software that's also open source - And ANY open source software is worth supporting over proprietary, that's why, for example, I run 7ZIP over WINRAR; It might not have all of the features WINRAR does, but at least its contributing positively to the PC community.

 

And of course NMM has features other software doesn't, such as support for Dragon Age, which has been really useful.

 

Anyway, my point is I don't want to put down what you and the NMM devs have done at all, all I was doing was being passionate about a piece of software that I enjoy; so please don't spite the hard work that Tannin and other creatives have done based on the ramblings that some idiot blurts out without thinking.

Edited September 16, 2013 by cerebii

[Tannin42]

These discussions about which Mod Manager had what feature first are pointless. After all we're not trying to sell something and thus don't need to defend our unique selling points, we're trying to provide the best modding experience.

That's why NMM, Wrye Bash and MO are all open source (though I admit I was late to that party). If a good idea evolves from one to be integrated into another then that's good for everyone.

 

However I can certainly not raise a claim on the profiling idea, there were tools before MO that did that. It's also a obviously useful feature, the implementation is the hard part and NMMs implementation will be quite different than mine.

 

Each modding tool right now has its pros and cons. There isn't a definite "best", they serve different needs.

[AirNinja]

Long story short, the sever issues are the cause of the 502s NMM is giving right? I've only heard of one other person with the same issue.

[cretin0us]

In response to post #9160045. #9162092, #9162352, #9164413, #9165803, #9166413, #9167007, #9167131 are all replies on the same post.

I understand your position Robin, and applaud the team working so hard to provide the functionality that NMM gives users.

[Edit] Blah. It's probably not the right forum to field my concerns. Let's just see what .50 brings. Thank you much for the hard work & support for your users. Edited September 16, 2013 by cretin0us

[XTR3M368]

Thanks for continuing to make this the best site to get mods period. NMM still has a few issues but it is to the point now where I use it instead of manually installing mods. Since all this continues to be free, I can certainly live with the growing pains and server issues. ;)

 

[Toft]

Multiple mod/plugin lists/options. Truly an excellent idea. (the recent "export/import load order" did help, but...)

 

I tend to use different characters (and on different machines), and have had to resort to screen captures to try and un/tick the variants. Hilarity ensued. ;-{