Suggestion for mod versioning on the Nexus

[Fahrvergnugn]

Hey All,

 

Apologies in advance if this has already been discussed. I've been using NMM and Mod Organizer for TES and Fallout games, and recently came back to revisit Skyrim and FO:4 after a long break. One thing that I really noticed when going through and updating my mods, is that there really is no standard for versioning. That's not really a problem, but I believe mod managers could really benefit from a standard version format such as the one below.

 

[major].[minor].[release].[build]

 

My suggestion is to restrict the section in the file upload page to 4 integers with periods between them, rather than a string. Maybe on optional section to indicate Alpha/Beta builds, say with a radial button. You could go further and restrict the [major] digit to zero if the file is marked as Alpha or Beta, but that's up to you. As an add-on to that suggestion: if the mod author has multiple files, for instance, optional texture files or add-ons to the main mod, the versions for these files should be tracked separately from the main mod file.

 

To illustrate the benefit of these suggestions, all I need to do is look at my mod list, and look at all the mods I have that say they are out of date, when they really are not. The mod author may have an alternate texture file that lists a newer mod version than the main file. Even if I have that texture file, it shows up on NMM as a separate mod, so the main file still says it is out of date when it is not.

 

With several hundred mods, you see a lot of false flags, and so that column is often ignored and is not nearly as beneficial as it could be.