"Final Release"

[David Brasher]

I wish to speak of naming conventions.

 

Most main-stream modders give their mods numbers, which is a very good practice:

Scary Dungeon of Fear 2_1

Scary Dungeon of Fear 2.1

Scary Dungeon of Fear 135

 

Downloaders have a right to know what version of the mod they are downloading. It can be very confusing if mods don't have distinct numbers. Suppose that a gamer downloads a mod, gets busy with his job and doesn't get to play it. Then two weeks later he or she has free time to play Oblivion, and looks on TES Nexus to see if he or she still has the newest version of the mod. If there is no number on the mod version he or she already has, nor on the version available for download, it really cannot really be known for sure if the latest version is the one that was already downloaded.

 

It really helps from a trouble-shooting perspective when mods have numbers:

Gamer: "This mod is totally unusable because all the meshes are missing and there is this high-pitched screeching noise in the background. And I had really looked forward to playing the mod."

Modder: "What version do you have?"

Gamer: "Version 1.1."

Modder: " You are in luck, that issue was fixed clear back when Version 1.2 was released and 1.3 is now the current stable version. You can download the new version to fix the problem."

 

It is not a good practice to name mods really imprecise things like "Public Release", "Fixed Version", Debugged Version", "New Version", or "Final Release." Suppose the example mod has those five versions. Which was released in which order?

Scary Dungeon of Fear Fixed

Scary Dungeon of Fear Public Release

Scary Dungeon of Fear Debugged

Scary Dungeon of Fear Final

Scary Dungeon of Fear New

 

"Final Release" seems to be a rather popular tag to put on a mod.

 

If you see a mod labeled final release, you probably would be safest if you avoided playing it. Here is why: All mods contain bugs. The really good ones have been so thoroughly debugged over time that you probably won't see a single bug when you play, even though there are a few still hiding in there somewhere. You will notice that the popular and successful mods with lots of downloads tend to have rather high version numbers from all the many bugfix updates. If some modder decides that he is so perfect and so highly-skilled that he cannot possibly make a mod with bugs, he will designate his mod "final release" when it still only version 1.1 or 1.2. Don't trust such mods. You can conclude that the modder doesn't know what he is doing, is so arrogant/ignorant that he won't listen to a word you say, is abandoning his mod, and will not give good tech support or ever release anymore bugfix updates even if bugs are found. (It is "final." What can possibly come after "final?")

 

"Final release" pretty much means that the author doesn't like his mod, doesn't care about it, and won't lift a finger to help you if you have problems with it. If the author cared, he would still be open to the idea that another serious bug might still be found and a fixed version would need to be made.

 

So I would encourage you to name your uploaded mods properly by giving them version numbers.

 

I would caution you to avoid downloading and playing mods that do not have version numbers because they probably suffer from poor workmanship. If they are labeled "final release" they are likely to have poor or non-existent tech support, and there are never likely to be any more bugfix updates.