Some tips about mod popularity

[Galadreal]

I just want to add my 2 cents here, so please listen before you think I am flaming you. It looks like an interesting idea for a mod...but not something I would ever download becuase I make my own house stuff, and honestly even having just the normal houses can be too much sometimes. But here goes:

 

The good:

You included alot of immages

the description uses different fonts, images, and video

no loading screen

creative use of vanilla assets such as doors to windows, etc.

 

The bad:

I know that english is not your first language, but some of your mod description looks like it was written by an attention wh*%#:

The mod has been completely created with vanilla stuff (except for a modified version of scimitar and shield mesh). Impressively, even if I had to work with vanilla materials, I was able to build an house with unique design and architecture style. This screams "desperate for praise" Patting yourself on the back is one thing, this makes you look like a small child wanting praise for coloring inside the lines

The rest of the description is overly wordy. This is a small mod, it adds one house. Yes, it might be a cool house, but the front page just looks cluttered. I do this myself, because I go into information overload, but it not good regardless.

repetitious images. Yes, you posted alot of pictures, but I don't know how big this house is or anything. They all seem to be of one room, and most of them look just like the rest. I know there are small differences, but you should highlight specifics.

 

The ugly truth:

Don't make mods just for popularity. Make something you want. I started remodeling houses because I could not find ones that I liked. There are about a billion Breezehome Remodels out there, but s#*! for any of the other houses. So I did those because that is what I wanted. It has taken me almost 6 months, I have 95 endorsements, and a nice little group of people who follow the mod and test it for me since I barely have time to play any more with the modding. Will I ever do one of those 1000+ endorsed mods...no, probably not. I am learning Blender and scripting and have other ideas for things I want to do because I think they would be nice to have, and I post them mostly because I have used so many other mods, it is nice to give back. Plus, free testing for when I can't. But you should do it because it makes you happy, and you like it and you want to make something special. You cannot expect other people to like what you do. You may luck out and people flock to you and sing your praises and tell you how awesome you are. Or you may just have a few people who come along, help you out, and are generally cool.

You will run into trolls, this is the internet, it is inevitable. If you do this long enough, you will become so frustrated you want to pull out all of your hair. If you use other people's resources, there will be days when you get so confused by their scripts that you are ready to just pack it in and say "you know what, screw it, we don't need to make any f*#@ing cheese!!" (thank you Berticus...no, seriously, he is awesome and has some great resources, I just cannot follow directions for s#*! sometimes:

If you make a mod, make it for yourself. If other people like it and it becomes popular and heavily endorsed, great, but if not, you still have something awesome that you created and that you like.

 

Sorry, it is getting late, and I get introspective when I don't sleep. Goodnight!

[DavideMitra]

One thing I did notice when I looked at your mod is the time of release, 10:54pm on a Sunday night. If that time is correct then I think your timing was bad and it cost you a lot of views and maybe a couple of hundred downloads.

 

I don’t have the statistics to back it up or anything, just going by my own personal experiences here. I always thought the optimal time to release would be early on a Saturday morning. We know that Nexus gets the most traffic on the weekends, and if your mod were on the front page during high traffic times then you should get more views, and views leads to downloads, and downloads leads to endorsements, and endorsements leads to more views and so on and so on.

 

You released it as the weekend was coming to an end. If that was the earliest it was ready for release then it might have been better to hold it back until the next weekend.

I know...it was a really stupid maneuver. I knew I had to upload it on Saturday morning, but I was anxious to show my work to people. So, when it was finished, I immediately uploaded it.

 

 

I know that english is not your first language, but some of your mod description looks like it was written by an attention prostitute:

The mod has been completely created with vanilla stuff (except for a modified version of scimitar and shield mesh). Impressively, even if I had to work with vanilla materials, I was able to build an house with unique design and architecture style. This screams "desperate for praise" Patting yourself on the back is one thing, this makes you look like a small child wanting praise for coloring inside the lines

I'm sorry...I don't understand what you were meaning.

 

 

I Yes, you posted a lot of pictures, but I don't know how big this house is or anything. They all seem to be of one room, and most of them look just like the rest. I know there are small differences, but you should highlight specifics.

Yes, it is a single-room house. I know what kind of picture you were talking about. I posted a lot of those pictures because I wanted to let the people see that there are some staged objects. So, I did a photo for every stage (3 photos for the "weapon-shield plaque", 2 for the cooking pot, 2 for the Hookah, etc etc.)

The goal of that army of photos was to demonstrate that the house is anything but not static.

 

 

 

The ugly truth:

Don't make mods just for popularity. Make something you want.

Fortunatelly, I always created mods for myself.

First = the mod is for myself

Second = the people might try my modification. If they do and if they like it, of course, I'm really happy

Edited May 23, 2014 by DavideMitra

[oscarvonreuenthal]

Well I suck at popularity too. Just see my last mod endorsement count... My whole nexus mod collections are becoming more of a personal cloud backup storage than distribution for the community.

 

Well as some wicked people always say, "people who can't do, teach" (although I fire them back by saying those who say that can't neither do nor teach and only complain)

so here is my teaching summary :

 

1) I say Dhegonus' answer (make female dolls' people want to have XXX with [and NOT what you think it's beautiful for you]) is the easiest way out although you're probably selling your souls by doing that.

 

2) Galadreal's answer is on spot too "fame" = advertisement problem : make concise and flashy catch more people = post more links all around the community

 

3) Watch the movie "Wolf of Wall Street," and don't get hooked up on just remembering boobs BUT pay attention when someone says "Sell me this pen."

 

4) Get more friends in the community, popularity = politics (Japanese modder community appear to be a good example of this - No discrimination / negativity intended). I know many popular modders get free endorsements regardless of what they create (although many of them get popular by creating a popular mod too - follow #1 maybe?). But don't forget that politics = commitment in bribes and discriminations, so be prepared to sell your souls out.

[Galadreal]

Well I suck at popularity too. Just see my last mod endorsement count... My whole nexus mod collections are becoming more of a personal cloud backup storage than distribution for the community.

 

4) Get more friends in the community, popularity = politics (Japanese modder community appear to be a good example of this - No discrimination / negativity intended). I know many popular modders get free endorsements regardless of what they create (although many of them get popular by creating a popular mod too - follow #1 maybe?). But don't forget that politics = commitment in bribes and discriminations, so be prepared to sell your souls out.

 

I don't know about selling your soul, but be receptive to other people's ideas. Some people have asked me to do a Hearthfire's only remodel, that would take hours upon hours to do and would make me want to scream. But someone this morning suggested I do a separate cell load, such as I did with Severin Manor, so that instead of remodeling the entire house at once you just chance cell's over to the new model. This would, in essence, make it possible to not have to use the mod at all in houses you did not want the changes in. You do not have to sell out, but some people will have genuinely good ideas that you may not have thought of yourself. I am working on 3 different mods right now and so my mind sometimes gets a little fuzzy on the details, it is nice to have other people's ideas or suggestions. They are not always practical. But you do not have to sell out to be popular.

[Galadreal]

 

I know that english is not your first language, but some of your mod description looks like it was written by an attention prostitute:

The mod has been completely created with vanilla stuff (except for a modified version of scimitar and shield mesh). Impressively, even if I had to work with vanilla materials, I was able to build an house with unique design and architecture style. This screams "desperate for praise" Patting yourself on the back is one thing, this makes you look like a small child wanting praise for coloring inside the lines

I'm sorry...I don't understand what you were meaning.

 

 

Ok, that was my diplomatic voice, I guess I need to be blunt. Your description sounds like it was written by a small child demanding attention. I understand, since you said so on this forum, that english is not your first language, and I may be very far off in international etiquette, but as far as I know, talking about how awesome you are in any culture is considered tacky.

Sometimes Less is More. If you replace the line I mentioned above with something like: "This mod uses only vanilla resources, but it still has the unique design and architectural style for the Redguard"

See, it is getting the point across (I am guess that was your point) without alot of self praise, or at least, less blatant self praise. Including the word Impressively as you did in your description made it sound like a demand for attention to how great this mod is.

[madcow12]

for example like this

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/54277/?

[djjohnjarvis]

Usually the truly popular mods are because they have a huge amount of time and effort poured into it which is highly deserving of that level of popularity. The average house mod usually has little more than a month of work put into it because they are usually the equivalent of one cell and anyone can learn to do it whence the overwhelming number of them. Good quest mods and follower mods on the other hand have a story, voice acting and scripting that take ten times as long to make and requires greater skill. This is why the house mods which are the most technically advanced with many scripted features or have their own quest are the most popular.

 

No amount of advertising will make a smaller mod popular so that isn't true at all. My mod topic gets a lot of attention because I have put in 9-10 months worth of work into my mod along with my modding partner and it shows. Most mod topics just get buried though. It's harder to make a small mod popular. The bigger the mod feature wise the more popular it will be. It works differently for graphics enhancement mods of course but they do require a lot of skill in a focused area.

 

Those pretty face mods may be popular for a week or two due to the hot files which only requires a short term boost in interest but they soon fade away afterwards. It's like real life, looks will attract people but a good personality will make them stay. Followers like Inigo and Vilja that don't just rely on a pretty face will never lose popularity due to the ridiculous amount of time and effort put into them. Vilja is so advanced feature wise and Inigo has such high quality dialogue that they will always offer much more and so will never lose popularity.

[oscarvonreuenthal]

Galadreal - Sorry about my personal ranting (that's what happens when you get too much dose of the true trolls of REAL polticial forums). Most accurate way to say about "selling the soul" is "whether or not you are willing to do something that you may not want to do." Being receptive to the need of the community is good thing but Nexus forum mod request all seems to be individualized request that may not synchronize with the demand of the whole community.

 

djjohnjarvis - You're right in every way that truly best mods are that people willing to commit lot of time, but don't forget the fact that the majority of the community (%tile of an immediate census wise that is) are quick come and goers that behaves exactly like sheep (follow the most popular mod with most endorsements) so securing that hot file spot gives greater advertisement ~ more viewers ~ more downloads ~ more endorsements, and with enough momentum to break that activation energy barrier it rolls down itself like a snowball in an avalanche.

 

At the end, it's each individual's decision to make whether or not they'll chase the fame, follow their interest, or compromise somewhere between, and that's the end of my ranting by a person who tried doing something on the latter side and give up. IMO, I perceived chasing the fame as "an interesting problem to solve" that will show me something about "the human psychology in [semi] self-sustained voluntary game part creating community." But at the end, it's not like getting few endorsements in my mods will going to cause a problem for me to pay my rent and feed myself.

 

 

BTW, anybody has any hint/lead on fixing the gray face bugs in game when you change a head part (HDPT) in game using the SKSE script?

Thanks in advance...

Edited May 23, 2014 by oscarvonreuenthal

[Galadreal]

No worries, and I don't think you are completely wrong either. It can get very convoluted. I hate politics, it makes me want to scream. So I just try to avoid them in general. I mean, we can't even talk about the weather at work without my supervisor going postal because we might be discussing global warming. I say "wow, this storm is really bad, I don't remember having a winter that the weather was this odd before" I hear over the wall "We Do Not Talk About That At Work!!" troll-la la la la!

[DavideMitra]

W

4) Get more friends in the community, popularity = politics (Japanese modder community appear to be a good example of this - No discrimination / negativity intended). I know many popular modders get free endorsements regardless of what they create (although many of them get popular by creating a popular mod too - follow #1 maybe?). But don't forget that politics = commitment in bribes and discriminations, so be prepared to sell your souls out.

I think I won't do that. Because I also want a genuine judgement about my work (ok, maybe I'm pretending too much things, but this is a must).

Let's say it's true: popular modders get free endorsements regardless of what they create. This kind of situation doesn't make me feel happy, because I'm getting endorsements only because I'm popular and because I have a lot of friends.

I can't get more friends because of my mod's popularity: this would make me feel so evil. I'm a sensitive person, and I wouldn't do something like that, because it would make me feel so sad.

 

 

 

 

I know that english is not your first language, but some of your mod description looks like it was written by an attention prostitute:

The mod has been completely created with vanilla stuff (except for a modified version of scimitar and shield mesh). Impressively, even if I had to work with vanilla materials, I was able to build an house with unique design and architecture style. This screams "desperate for praise" Patting yourself on the back is one thing, this makes you look like a small child wanting praise for coloring inside the lines

I'm sorry...I don't understand what you were meaning.

 

 

Ok, that was my diplomatic voice, I guess I need to be blunt. Your description sounds like it was written by a small child demanding attention. I understand, since you said so on this forum, that english is not your first language, and I may be very far off in international etiquette, but as far as I know, talking about how awesome you are in any culture is considered tacky.

Sometimes Less is More. If you replace the line I mentioned above with something like: "This mod uses only vanilla resources, but it still has the unique design and architectural style for the Redguard"

See, it is getting the point across (I am guess that was your point) without a lot of self praise, or at least, less blatant self praise. Including the word Impressively as you did in your description made it sound like a demand for attention to how great this mod is.

 

Ok, thanks for your explaination, now I got it! :)

Let's say that phrase might be something ambiguous. It's a matter of personal interpretation.

When I was writing that phrase, my mind was only thinking "Did I really do that? I can't believe it" "Yeah! I won my personal challenge and I was able to only use vanilla contents". I see that phrase something that demonstrates my wonder and my happiness.

 

At the same time, I can understand your interpretation, because, as I already said, that phrase is ambiguous and it might damage me or it might help me.