The current difficulty in installing mods

[barcharcraz]

This post is mostly related to oblivion but is applicable to the other nexus games as well.

 

I recently reinstalled my operating system and thus had to reinstall oblivion, now for someone who uses FCOM, Deadly Reflex, and a host of other graphical and gameplay mods this can take on the order of my entire weekend. This got me thinking, why not make a package management platform for oblivion/FO3/NV/DAO mods? We already have systems like BAIN and OBMM/FOMM that do a great job installing individual mods but it would be great if I could just click a button and have a mod download and even warn me of missing dependencies and conflicts. I realize that this would be a very ambitious project but at the very least I would like to see what people think about this idea.

 

On another note there are some other games that already have community built package managers for mods. ARMA II comes to mind here as does CrosuS(although I don't really like either of them)

 

Maybe the repository system could be developed separately from the actual package manager or even adapted from something that exists.

 

So, what do people think?

[Dark0ne]

Yup, it would be brilliant. However I can't code in .NET, VB, C# or anything else and I don't have the time either.

[BlackBaron2]

Useful, maybe. Of course, modders are supposed to say if their mod requires other content, e.g. Shivering Isles/other DLC or specific body mods. :)

[barcharcraz]

this is true but having a program that automatically downloads the latest version of these dependencies is much easier, like I said, far fetched idea given the difficulty of implementing something like this.

[RustyBlade]

I'm not sure how it is with the other games but with DA, I just back up my My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age folder to another drive on a regular basis and if I have to reinstall the game or the OS it is simply a matter of drag-n-drop and I am back to where I was (or at least mighty close.) Downloading everything again would be daunting. As for conflicts, DA mods regularly conflict with one another and there is no "master conflict list" or any one program that can install any or every DA mod nor is there any way to scan a mod to check for dependencies. Don't get me wrong, that last bit would be nice but I don't see it happening unless some master programmer with way to much time comes along and takes a liking to over-modding DA.

[barcharcraz]

Indeed, like I said, this will probably never happen but I was interested to see what people thought of the idea. Hey ya never know when the next version of wrye bash will come out :D

 

Ah and I just remembered that WoW also has a package manager available for mods

[myrmaad]

I don't play Dragon Age, but I do play Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and New Vegas and I use the free utility "Total Commander" to make backups of my files as well and put them on external media (I have 1Tb Mybook, and 500 gig HP PMD), and I do the same thing as RustyBlade. After I upgraded to W7 I did have to install the executable files and the game files but after all the DLC and python, wrye, obmm/fomm and mash/bash/flash were installed I just copied my backups over and Voila, ready to play.

[Herculine]

I'm not sure how it is with the other games but with DA, I just back up my My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age folder to another drive on a regular basis and if I have to reinstall the game or the OS it is simply a matter of drag-n-drop and I am back to where I was (or at least mighty close.) Downloading everything again would be daunting. As for conflicts, DA mods regularly conflict with one another and there is no "master conflict list" or any one program that can install any or every DA mod nor is there any way to scan a mod to check for dependencies. Don't get me wrong, that last bit would be nice but I don't see it happening unless some master programmer with way to much time comes along and takes a liking to over-modding DA.

 

 

I agree that perhaps the easiest and most effective way to prevent lost weekends reinstalling 200+ mods is to copy the game folder to another drive and then after the reinstall simply copy it back. (But then, experience has taught me to be a frequent file-backer-upper.)

 

 

[Thandal]

Yup, backup to another location, (the 1TB external helps there) then just copy-paste after the upgrade/reinstall/rebuild.

 

Went through it half-a-dozen times trying to troubleshoot DA patch 1.03. Got it down to about a half-hour with most of that taken up with basic game install from disc. :laugh:

[kaburke]

Your idea would be great, however it would only work if mod authors were rigorous is specifying which versions of which mods were required prerequisites for their mods. For example, FCOM would need to specify which versions of MMM and OOO are required. I realise this information is listed on the instructions page, but it would need to be in a machine readable format. There would have to be a standard way for mod authors to list dependencies so that a programme could find those dependencies when the user clicked the "magic button." A "standard" could be created, but mod authors are notorious for not adhering to standards. Oblivion is the only community that really comes close to any standards adherence - OBOMs are almost universal. Unfortunately, for various reasons, FOMods don't have the same universality.

 

Having said this, I considered adding some of the functionality you described to FOMM. More precisely, I considered allowing FOMM to download and install mods from within the interface, and allowing community members to specify which mods were prerequisites. Basically, I wanted to make it so that you could grab a small PFP from my project (PFPs are very tiny compared to mods), and then when you added it to FOMM the mod manager would download all the required files, including prerequisites, and install everything automatically. The only thing stopping me was that I like the Nexus.

 

As I'm sure we all know, the main revenue stream for the Nexus are ads (Dark0ne can correct me on this if I'm wrong - but even if it isn't the main revenue stream, it is a major one I'm sure). If FOMM were to automatically do everything for you, you would no longer visit the Nexus. You would launch FOMM, install the mods you want and go on your way. FOMM would tell you when your mods were out of date and update for you. FOMM would fill in all the latest mods' descriptions. FOMM would be awesome for end users (thoug I like to think it already is :wink: ). But if users aren't visiting the Nexus, people aren't seeing the ads, and the Nexus's revenue drops off. Now, perhaps I'm being a little melodramatic about FOMM being the demise of the Nexus, but I didn't want to make something so automated that it could potentially affect the ad revenues of the Nexus, even by a moderate amount.

 

Having said this, if Dark0ne is willing to discuss how this (or something similar) could be implemented in a fashion that would still allow him to generate the ad revenues he needs, I'd be open to implementing it.