Site redesign - sneak peek - part 1

[soulgamers]

In response to post #41271475. #41271555, #41271810, #41272480, #41275420, #41276945, #41280655 are all replies on the same post.

mysticentity wrote: Looking really good.
I'm a bit hesitant about the download link right in the mod browsing section only because that could lead to more angry/confused/silly comments directed at the mod authors because the downloader didn't read the description to fully understand what he/she/they were downloading.

CreeperLava wrote: Agreed, I said the same thing a few posts below :).

Gribbleshnibit8 wrote: You say that as though anyone reads the descriptions even after clicking through to the mod page...

CreeperLava wrote: Having the description below is at least an incentive to read it, removing that incentive won't ameliorate the situation in any way... What would you propose ?

Sam Fisher wrote: +1 to this, even with red text disclaimers on the first line and clearly stated info people sometimes just ignore it, having direct downloads will only make this much much worse. If anything I'd add something to make it harder for people to download without at least going past the description. Annoying, but stupid comments are also annoying. On the other hand, I guess there will always be stupid people being stupid, but encouraging their stupidity won't make it any better.

BluePianoTwo wrote: I agree with this 100%.

mysticentity wrote: I think that would be the best idea right now, making the user click on the mod and go to the mods landing page before downloading. Simple fix, nothing changes from how it is now. Currently that's what we're doing and at least now the full description is on that landing page. I'm sure there could be better designs, but this new design seems a step backwards. Having a quick button for favoriting, sure I think that's very nice, but a quick button for downloads...especially how some mods even have optional patch files that, without them would otherwise break the game to a user who has other mods or DLCs, just invites false bug reports, negative comments, and wasted time on both ends.

Hi
:armscrossed:
Yep! I agree
Many Mods need other elements for them to work right.
forgoing the description page would be a Disaster.
and add to the confusion for new mod users.:unsure:

[idk7822]

ummm i like the mods on this site but i know nothing about files and all that stuff the only thing i know is how to play video games so ya and some of the mods i download say they need a update yet the have the files but it says it need it idk anything about files so i kinda like the instantiate download

So i think it would be easier for people like me that don't understand cause i don't know how to use files without breaking something on my computer but thx maybe i should just wait until i know what thing do and what to move edit and stuff but i like the mods here so thx and good job :D

[forli]

In response to post #41277490. #41277685, #41278220, #41278890, #41280530 are all replies on the same post.

Raum777 wrote: OK; I want to say something here. If I have many Typos it's because I can't see very well. I can still play the games.
1. No Author should post their mod on Nexus until all the bugs, issues, or Problems are worked out.

2 Authors are to tell you how to install their mod and NOT take for granted you know what you are to do with their mods.

3. If a mod is to be installed it should tell you that it is to be installed by Nexus Mod Manager, Manual, or something has to be changed and what to change it to, in the Game's ini. Authors are dropping the ball quite a bit lately on what to do with their mods or how to set up their mods to use.

You did a wonderful job of setting up NMM and is easy to use and not lose all your mods trying to open it up to download. I use to lose up to 40 mods at a time for the last 5 years. But not it's not taking my mods away any more. Thank you so much for fixing it. As for the work you have been doing on Nexus; thank you for all you've been doing to make it better for everyone.

Sincerely,
Raum777

vlainstrike wrote: While quality assurance is an important goal, asking authors to withhold mod release until ALL bugs & issues are worked out is an impossible demand - especially for large, complicated mods.

TheeDugster wrote: Exactly. my little tiny mods I take hours to make still have issues.

Thallassa wrote: All software inherently has bugs. If you expect mods to be bugfree, well... congratulations! No mods for you!

And it's not the authors job to tell you how to install mods. There are literally hundreds of guides teaching you how to do that. Have a little bit of wherewithal and learn to google.

Or just RTFM. Most mod authors *do* explain how to install mods.

Timmster wrote: Apply your rules universally if you truly believe them, not just to modders. No Bethesda game would ever be released, because there is no limit to human's stupidity and creativity. We can try forever to make a perfect game or mod, but all it takes is one mistake on the creator's part or one inconceivable set of coincidences by a player to create a bug. That's why Nexus Mods has bug reports. I have one mod I work on and have over a dozen hours invested in it, and it still needs some kinks sorted out.

Personally, my one mod is a lone esp, so I assume anyone coming to Nexus Mods is completely capable of installing it without my help. Plenty of that can be found with a google search.

Most mods I've seen do have detailed enough descriptions if they're more complicated than that, but maybe I'm just more picky about what mods I even look at in the first place. If you've seen it with recent mods, ask the author to fix it. Don't try and get Nexus Mods to force them to. Nexus Mods is so popular because it is just as friendly to mod authors as it is to mod users.

1. No mods is bugfree, and many bugs can only be discovered when thousands users play the mod (which require the author to upload the mod in the first place).
If we follow your rule, then the Nexus would be an empty place.

2. There are "Beginner guides" everywhere on the forums. If every author must tech to every user how to (generically) install a mod, then they would need to create a 300 lines long description/readme every time.
Except for complex mods, the procedure is always the same: download the package, extract it, read the readme, and if you understand what will happens to your game with the mod then drop everything in the Data folder, enable some esp/esm and play. The middle steps procedures are not our responsibilities. It's your problem if in 2016 you don't know how to extract a zip/rar/7z file. We must not teach you how to use a mod manager, as it's not our creation. The author of the mod manager is responsible for giving you the manual. If you don't know how to use a mod manager, you have to blame the mod manager's author, if he didn't give you enough/clear instructions, or yourself, if you don't like to read the readme.

3. I agree with this, but very often I see mods which clearly state there's a configuration file, with users which don't know just because they don't read what must be read, and very rarely I see mods which don't state there's a configuration file.
Many ini I saw were very exhaustive with explanations (sometimes the explanations are contained in the readme/manual, but they still exists). This means most (not all) of the times the cause of the problem are the users who don't read.


Finally: NMM is still far from begin a complete mod manager. I'll give you 3 trials:
a) Try to change the "Installation order" (not the "Load order") of the mods with NMM.
b) Tell me which files (one by one) are overwritten when you install/uninstall a mod.
c) Install a complex package without the support of scripts.
Complete mod mangers like Wrye Bash and Mod Organizer can execute these trials in no time, and the user is always informed of the situation before/after the changes.
Instead, NMM can't do any of them.

[Hoamaii]

It's all really great and good looking for me too EXCEPT for the direct download link placed into the mod browsing section. From a user point of view I can understand how this may seem appealing, but from a mod creator point of view it can only lead to more errors and complaints from users - as it truly looks like a direct invitation to completely ignore mod authors' descriptions, instructions or warnings.

 

As long as there'll be users able to download modders resources or utility programs and later complain that "it don't work!...", I'm not sure it's in our best interest to encourage blind download at all.

 

Perhaps a good middle ground would be to make that feature optional and let mod authors decide if they want to offer that direct download option or not, depending on the type of mods they upload. It may be a perfectly acceptable option for retex or armor replacements, but for more complex mods (think of Frostfall or OSA and thousands of others), it'd be an open door to a lot of resentment from both authors and mod users, I'm afraid.

[HadToRegister]

In response to post #41272325. #41274465, #41275065, #41275135, #41275585, #41276745, #41277095, #41278320, #41278875 are all replies on the same post.

J Allin wrote: If it aint broke, don't fix it... ;)

pedantic wrote: Sage advice :)

sonogu wrote: Which must have been told more than a year ago, before the hundreds of hours hard work :)

HadToRegister wrote:

sonogu
Which must have been told more than a year ago, before the hundreds of hours hard work

This is the first I've heard about it?

sonogu wrote: http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12539/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12620/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12630/?

These are the news I found about the redesing of the site... It's been a while and have been announced in every step.

piotrmil wrote: That is very, very true. I do hope that the authors will give us options instead of shoving the new design down our throats.

michaelspicer16 wrote: Agreed

graymaybe wrote: Compared to what it could be, it's pretty broke tho.

Thallassa wrote: Luckily nexus was pretty broke. I'm looking forward to the fix.

sonogu
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12539/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12620/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12630/?

These are the news I found about the redesing of the site... It's been a while and have been announced in every step.

I missed all of those, I was busy doing clinicals at a hospital all that time

[Gamwich]

In response to post #41281885.

Hoamaii wrote: It's all really great and good looking for me too EXCEPT for the direct download link placed into the mod browsing section. From a user point of view I can understand how this may seem appealing, but from a mod creator point of view it can only lead to more errors and complaints from users - as it truly looks like a direct invitation to completely ignore mod authors' descriptions, instructions or warnings.

As long as there'll be users able to download modders resources or utility programs and later complain that "it don't work!...", I'm not sure it's in our best interest to encourage blind download at all.

Perhaps a good middle ground would be to make that feature optional and let mod authors decide if they want to offer that direct download option or not, depending on the type of mods they upload. It may be a perfectly acceptable option for retex or armor replacements, but for more complex mods (think of Frostfall or OSA and thousands of others), it'd be an open door to a lot of resentment from both authors and mod users, I'm afraid.

We should not, in any shape or form, support a feature that will lead to less informed mod users. I too, am befuddled by this new "feature" to bypass the description pages that hold vital information for would be downloaders.

It's already bad enough with the amount of people who simply neglect reading the descriptions and go straight to posting questions..... this is not behavior we want to encourage.

The other changes I can live with, but this is something that needs to be nipped in the bud.

[MrJohn]

The "Random" mod feature is quite brilliant. I hope there will be more focus on tracking centre, and making it easier to keep collections of mods, remove and manage these.

 

However, I do agree with many others on issues like the direct-download double-edged sword. I am not sure how many that care too much about the news on the Nexus, more than a read and occasional comment. The comment section should be the bigger focus, as you do not run a journalist site (unless that is what you are trying to implement......)

 

Furthermore, having more features in the comment sections would be a huge improvement, things like being able to easily find your own older comments, get more response or notification when someone replies or otherwise handle your comments/replies and so forth. That old comments on mods get bumped to the top when there is a reply is also something that is strange, as the replies should have the bigger focus, rather than the original content. As well as how some comment+replies could drone down a whole comment section of some pages.

 

Some things are more intuitive in the new design, but the focus on cross-game mods and favoriting games may have impact on the special "dedicated" mod pages, unless those will remain with new design. I wonder how that will look. Having everything more "centralized" sounds good on paper, but I do think I would prefer the current solution instead.

 

My two long cents.

[Loveblanket]

In response to post #41272325. #41274465, #41275065, #41275135, #41275585, #41276745, #41277095, #41278320, #41278875, #41281935 are all replies on the same post.

J Allin wrote: If it aint broke, don't fix it... ;)

pedantic wrote: Sage advice :)

sonogu wrote: Which must have been told more than a year ago, before the hundreds of hours hard work :)

HadToRegister wrote:

sonogu
Which must have been told more than a year ago, before the hundreds of hours hard work

This is the first I've heard about it?

sonogu wrote: http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12539/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12620/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12630/?

These are the news I found about the redesing of the site... It's been a while and have been announced in every step.

piotrmil wrote: That is very, very true. I do hope that the authors will give us options instead of shoving the new design down our throats.

michaelspicer16 wrote: Agreed

graymaybe wrote: Compared to what it could be, it's pretty broke tho.

Thallassa wrote: Luckily nexus was pretty broke. I'm looking forward to the fix.

HadToRegister wrote:

sonogu
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12539/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12620/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12630/?

These are the news I found about the redesing of the site... It's been a while and have been announced in every step.

I missed all of those, I was busy doing clinicals at a hospital all that time

Advice for the weak. Everything is broken because nothing is perfect, therefore everything can always be improved. This look far superior to the old site design.

[GordonGekko1992]

In response to post #41281885. #41282050 is also a reply to the same post.

Hoamaii wrote: It's all really great and good looking for me too EXCEPT for the direct download link placed into the mod browsing section. From a user point of view I can understand how this may seem appealing, but from a mod creator point of view it can only lead to more errors and complaints from users - as it truly looks like a direct invitation to completely ignore mod authors' descriptions, instructions or warnings.

As long as there'll be users able to download modders resources or utility programs and later complain that "it don't work!...", I'm not sure it's in our best interest to encourage blind download at all.

Perhaps a good middle ground would be to make that feature optional and let mod authors decide if they want to offer that direct download option or not, depending on the type of mods they upload. It may be a perfectly acceptable option for retex or armor replacements, but for more complex mods (think of Frostfall or OSA and thousands of others), it'd be an open door to a lot of resentment from both authors and mod users, I'm afraid.

Gamwich wrote: We should not, in any shape or form, support a feature that will lead to less informed mod users. I too, am befuddled by this new "feature" to bypass the description pages that hold vital information for would be downloaders.

It's already bad enough with the amount of people who simply neglect reading the descriptions and go straight to posting questions..... this is not behavior we want to encourage.

The other changes I can live with, but this is something that needs to be nipped in the bud.

I don't even get how people have the courage to just push the direct download button and trust that "all will be well". I never used it. I never will. It's the fine line between courage and ignorance I will never walk on

You never know what's on the other side of a button that doesn't tell you EXACTLY what will happen once clicked.

So yeah I really hope they remove the "Muttonbutton".

[Loveblanket]

In response to post #41272325. #41274465, #41275065, #41275135, #41275585, #41276745, #41277095, #41278320, #41278875, #41281935, #41282870 are all replies on the same post.

J Allin wrote: If it aint broke, don't fix it... ;)

pedantic wrote: Sage advice :)

sonogu wrote: Which must have been told more than a year ago, before the hundreds of hours hard work :)

HadToRegister wrote:

sonogu
Which must have been told more than a year ago, before the hundreds of hours hard work

This is the first I've heard about it?

sonogu wrote: http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12539/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12620/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12630/?

These are the news I found about the redesing of the site... It's been a while and have been announced in every step.

piotrmil wrote: That is very, very true. I do hope that the authors will give us options instead of shoving the new design down our throats.

michaelspicer16 wrote: Agreed

graymaybe wrote: Compared to what it could be, it's pretty broke tho.

Thallassa wrote: Luckily nexus was pretty broke. I'm looking forward to the fix.

HadToRegister wrote:

sonogu
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12539/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12620/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12630/?

These are the news I found about the redesing of the site... It's been a while and have been announced in every step.

I missed all of those, I was busy doing clinicals at a hospital all that time

janishewski wrote: Advice for the weak. Everything is broken because nothing is perfect, therefore everything can always be improved. This look far superior to the old site design.

Terrible advice that applies only to the timid and those that achieve nothing.