My little rant about Mod development support posts

[icecreamassassin]

So let me lead off by first saying I love this community, and I only offer my mods through it because of it, and largely just about every post I've made has yielding good information if not a total solution.

 

That said I have been quite frustrated when I hit the occasional wall, make a post and then get NO response really to speak of. This community is amazing for help with scripts (Ishra Meradin in particular has saved my sanity on multiple occasions) and I have gotten responses on almost every support post about them, but when I ask any question about ANYTHING else it seems that nobody knows anything. I could be asking questions about specifics of world space building, LOD, model attributes in NIFskope, or my latest issues with AI Packages and phase transitions inside of quest scenes and ... silence.

 

Anyone know why this seems to be the case? I mean I know that the mod talk forum is not specifically a mod developer's trouble shooting thread, but at least half of it is just that it seems, and I know folks are capable of the things that are tripping me up and they post and read here because I see amazing stuff in their mods and see them posting actively, yet I seem to get no answers on some questions. If a post doesn't get a solution based reply within 24 hours I might as well forget I ever posted because it will likely never be resolved via the post. Makes me sad and brings my 4700 hour, year long project to a screeching halt... sigh

 

anyways, rant over I guess, thanks for listening

[DemongelRex]

I think most serious mod developers are on other forums, like reddit, Bethsoft, afkmods , step, etc.

 

Try on there. You will likely have better luck.

[BigBizkit]

I see your point as I have experienced this before myself.

 

Thing is, this forum is not exclusively frequented by knowledgable folks. Quite the contrary, as indicated by the many "Need good list of mods plz help thx" threads.

 

I try my best to help if a) I CAN help and b) I am under the impression that the OP really wants help rather than having everything either done for them or spoonfed to them.

 

I am also pretty certain that modeling/texturing related things are less well understood by most, including myself. Naturally, the more specific the questions, the less knowledgeable people you will find. For example, while I consider myself intermediate and do have some knowledge about all the things you mention, I am not in a position to give advice on any specifics regarding them. So, I could not answer to your more involved questions, if you asked them.

[ChampionOfContinuity]

Then you get people like me who are totally new to modding (and need a little bit of spoon feeding to get started :P) and find even threads like this helpful as I now know several other places to look to for experienced modders.

Never even would of thought of looking to Reddit given I generally avoid Reddit. Again, this has been helpful. Thank you all.

[RGMage2]

Almost all the information you need on models, textures, worldspace, it's already out there. Google will find most of what you need if you word it right.

[moose109]

I can relate.

 

And before I get my head bitten off for some obscure reason: I can google.

 

But the problem is that often google leads you on a wild goose-chase, giving you results that actually don't even contain relevant info. And lately I've found that any links to nexus posts often are broken.

 

As to the Nexus, well, besides the "I want to do this, do it for me" threads, even if you just ask a question about the use of conditions with all the info as to how you want to use it etc., you get 20-or-so views and nothing. I don't know am I being stupid by asking novice questions?

 

Sadly it seems the nexus is becoming a bit of an Elitist community. (And I just opened myself up to a world of accusatory replies, oh well. Well done.)

 

Just let me explain the above: I posted a question here left it for a few days to stew and came back to a thread that had over a hundred views - and btw the title explained that it was a technical question - and no replies. The same thread posted on a site the nexus has banned even the use of its name and within 4 hours I had 3 replies all with detailed info on not just my questioned condition but a neat papyrus script that would be of no use to anyone but me.

 

I guess the nexus are just tired of answering questions?

[icecreamassassin]

  On 2/27/2015 at 7:46 PM, RGMage2 said:

Almost all the information you need on models, textures, worldspace, it's already out there. Google will find most of what you need if you word it right.

Sadly no that isn't always the case at least for my scene issues... I expect that it IS out there, but that I just haven't found it or searched it in the correct fashion because given the current issue I have with action phase transitions, EVERY google link I find in my search is only pertaining to incidental scenes in the event nodes where NPC's say stuff to one another in passing. I can't even seem to find a list of package types that are known to work or not work in full quest scenes. I suppose I do need to have more of a presence on the other boards though because I do know from experience that there is little to no modeling support here. There are quite a few intermediate modders here though which I would have expected to have some of them stumble upon my posts and have something to say, but unless it's about coding, it just doesn't seem to happen :P

 

As for google, 90% of my searches yield garbage about making yet ANOTHER damned eye candy follower even if what I am searching for has literally nothing to do with NPC's dialog, or other related follower functions. It's absurd. You do need to know exactly what to search for to get relevant results though I have found. When I first started out I had no knowledge at all of Papyrus and had a major hard time wrapping my head around it having come from Oblivion modding. And eventually when I figured out the terms it made learning stuff easier because I could search more specifically, but even with my intermediate to moderately advanced in some areas skill, I still have a nightmarish time hunting down some info.

 

Ho hum. I managed to figure out some solution on my own though, so I'm working through the current issues

 

as far as the elitism and lack of desire to answer here at the Nexus, I think that the case is that most of the more advanced modders have moved on and have left us intermediate folks and a bunch of beginners to fend for ourselves. You have intermediate folks like me and a bunch of others talking out our issues and ideas and working together to figure out some more advanced stuff we can't quite grasp on our own and then there are the new folks asking a lot of the basic stuff. I think when you start getting into the intermediate stuff you get less responses and the views you get I think are typically from folks who are also looking for the answer or people who have some skill and want to see if they can help but when the realize they can't they move on. I think that if any of those 100 people who read it knew the answer, they certainly would post about it.

[ChampionOfContinuity]

My problem seems to be the reverse. I find too much info. Either that or the sites I come across are ancient and only partially populated and the links they have that are meant to go to other things seem to be dead.

As I have my new computer I kind of wish I could find modders who were willing to do a little spoon feeding. For example the whole NMM vs Bash vs MO. Obviously it comes down to personal opinion but I can't seem to find much on why one is better then the other or when one is better then the other. And of course don't even get me started on trying to find lore. I feel like the internet gods are mocking me given what I think I should be able to find via google and what I am finding.

Still, topics like this are helpful as this has provided some insight to a brand new modder.

[BlackRoseOfThorns]

  On 2/28/2015 at 3:36 AM, ChampionOfContinuity said:

My problem seems to be the reverse. I find too much info. Either that or the sites I come across are ancient and only partially populated and the links they have that are meant to go to other things seem to be dead.

 

As I have my new computer I kind of wish I could find modders who were willing to do a little spoon feeding. For example the whole NMM vs Bash vs MO. Obviously it comes down to personal opinion but I can't seem to find much on why one is better then the other or when one is better then the other.

 

 

Nexus Mod Manager:

For when you use creation kit and make attempt at creating scripted mods

  On 7/1/2014 at 12:13 PM, IsharaMeradin said:

Found this on the bug tracker for MO:

http://issue.tannin.eu/tbg/modorganizer/issues/268

 

The reply is direct from MO's author. Looks like doing scripted mods with MO installed assets is impossible.

 

MO then is a good tool for the average user that wants to keep a "vanilla" install and have different profiles and such.

MO is not a good tool for mod creators that wish to work with scripting.

 

That said, you can set up a directory under the Data > Scripts folder where you can copy paste all of the game's source scripts as well as any mod scripts you need to work with. The SkyrimEditor.INI can then be modified to point to this folder. You can even go so far as setting Notepad++ to compile from that directory and output into MO's overwrite directory. Then the CK just becomes a means of linking the scripts you create and compile in Notepad++ with the records.

 

It wouldn't be a complete "vanilla" setup any more but everything you work with would be isolated from where actual stock files are located.

 

Mod Organizer:

For anyone that wants his folder structure tidy (separate folders for each installed mod) and just wants to play the game. You can create profiles with different mod setups with just few clicks and you don't get any loose files removed from overlapping mods (same as they would be placed in .esp's, priority number decides conflict). You can plug SKSE/LOOT/FNIS/TES5Edit into MO.

 

Wyre Bash:

Mainly used for creating bash patches for leveled list

 

  On 2/28/2015 at 3:36 AM, ChampionOfContinuity said:

And of course don't even get me started on trying to find lore. I feel like the internet gods are mocking me given what I think I should be able to find via google and what I am finding.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Skyrim

 

 

 

 

  On 2/27/2015 at 8:26 PM, moose109 said:

Sadly it seems the nexus is becoming a bit of an Elitist community. (And I just opened myself up to a world of accusatory replies, oh well. Well done.)

 

Just let me explain the above: I posted a question here left it for a few days to stew and came back to a thread that had over a hundred views - and btw the title explained that it was a technical question - and no replies. The same thread posted on a site the nexus has banned even the use of its name and within 4 hours I had 3 replies all with detailed info on not just my questioned condition but a neat papyrus script that would be of no use to anyone but me.

 

I guess the nexus are just tired of answering questions?

 

I read such topics myself and I'm not some kind of an expert. I simply would want to know the anwser myslef for future reference. The elitism is not the cause of lack of response. Authors who are able to produce scripted mods usually have their hands full with updates and their own mod support threads (I don't see them lurking on the forums). Others like Chesko for example moved on and devoted themselves to work that pays their bills.

Besides that you are lucky if the right person spots your post before it gets burried on nexus forum.

Edited February 28, 2015 by BlackRoseOfThorns

[Novem99]

  On 2/27/2015 at 8:26 PM, moose109 said:

Sadly it seems the nexus is becoming a bit of an Elitist community.

 

 

Regarding all these Manga/Anime & other perverted requests you can find here day by day it's quite the opposite.