BioWare Continuity Network (BCN) - Preserving the BSN

[moho25]

@Inventoriers -- The first of likely many posts, lol...

 

 

1. Sunshinenbrick.

You've been added to the website as an inventorier. Thanks and welcome! :)

 

 

2. Instruction Sheet.

This will see more modifications, but the link to the Nexus thread has been updated.

 

 

3. Shae and QuarianAnalyst.

Have we re-contacted all their authors? Tarsh, I think you mentioned something about this. Both came and went very quickly, so I doubt that they will return with any mod author responses.

 

 

4. "Serenai"

This inventorier has placed some info on the Inventory Status sheet, but I see no evidence of them in this thread. Anyone know who this is? If not, I'll remove the edits from the sheet.

 

 

5. Inventory Status Sheet.

This sheet seems very outdated, with the last entry for page 179. Are folks no longer using this sheet? Why or why not?

 

 

6. Author Responses.

How are we doing with these? Do we have a lot of authors who haven't responded? Anyone have a rough percentage of how many are responding?

 

Also, it looks like the "Response" column on the Contact Author sheet is actually playing a dual role right now. We've got notes related to how authors have been contacted and we have notes related to their response. This makes it difficult to easily tell if an author has responded. Seems like the following changes would be helpful:

• New "Contact Notes" column -- All comments related to this will be relocated here from the "Response" column.
• New "Replied" column -- This will be a color-coded column green/red that serves as a quick visual indicator on whether an author has responded. I can probably also make it autofill green once the Reply Details (see below) is filled in. Otherwise it will default red.
• Reply Details -- The current "Response" column will be renamed to this for clarity.

I'll work on implementing these and updating the sheet.

 

More incoming.

[moho25]

@Inventoriers -- Next batch :)

 

 

1. Author Contact Sheet.

• Tarsh tells me this is still being used, and it is up to date. Yay.
• Serenai has been removed for now. @Serenai, please introduce yourself in this thread and if/when you start inventorying, go ahead and choose a small set of pages at once -- just 1 or 2.
• The changes to the sheet format have been made and look great. It's now quite clear that many mod authors are not responding to our attempts to contact them -- which is good info for Nexus to know :)
• Please don't forget to update the status of author's contacted. This will now be easier.
• This sheet has been fully QA'd and has some new comments/questions for inventoriers, please take a look.

 

2. BSN Pages, Sorting, and Entry Protocols.

Please make sure that you are sorting BSN pages as per the spreadsheet instructions. This prevents multiple inventoriers from overwriting each other's work.

 

 

3. Baldur's Gate.

Sheet tidied and QA'd.

 

 

4. NWN 1&2.

These are old titles with relatively few projects overall. This is why separate sheets were not created in the first place.

• The recently created second sheet has been removed.
• The single entry on this sheet has been relocated to the existing sheet.
• This sheet has been renamed to "NWN 1/2" for clarity.
• A new column has been added to this sheet to define whether the mod is for NWN 1 or NWN 2. Tarsh will be updating all previous entries.

This sheet has also been QA'd and tidied.

 

 

5. More Website Updates.

Tarsh FORGOT (lol) to share some important info about the DAO Toolset wiki courtesy of Sunjammer, so the website has been updated with this info.

 

Also updated is info from Fextralife's archive, where the BW Fan Creations forum will not be ported t their forum due to the gray nature of mod permissions, as some authors used those threads as surrogate mod hosting. (bad!)

 

----

 

I may not get to any other updates today, and there's still a lot to be done, so more tomorrow :)

[senaini]

Hello,

I did not realize I needed to check in here as well.

I grabbed "all below here" because I have all but about 100 of the projects. I extracted them from the pages, but the problem was I was unable to do it while logged in and you only get something like 3978 pages rather than the 4171 total. So I am browsing the pages going through them side by side, logged in and not, to catch the ones I don't have and putting them into the list of pages where they are supposed to be. I hope that makes sense.

Also on the inventory sheet I found a couple that were incorrectly marked invalid, and after I put in the rest of the ones I have, I'm going to spot check the rest.

serenai

Edited October 13, 2016 by senaini

[senaini]

I guess a better way to explain is that I am extracting the pages in bulk. I've been trying to do it for a while but kept hitting snags, then had to get some work done, and now I have a week and a half to pack and find another place to live. But I was trying to get all these extracted so that Miss T didn't have to do them all.

 

I marked off the rest of the list so that nobody else would work on them while I was. You've taken my name off, and my edits are gone from the Project ID list so I don't know where I was with the ones I found as incorrect. So I guess I'll just finish this on my own and send my info to Tarshana, and she can copy and paste what she needs.

 

Good luck with the project.

[CreeperLava]

I guess a better way to explain is that I am extracting the pages in bulk. I've been trying to do it for a while but kept hitting snags, then had to get some work done, and now I have a week and a half to pack and find another place to live. But I was trying to get all these extracted so that Miss T didn't have to do them all.

 

I marked off the rest of the list so that nobody else would work on them while I was. You've taken my name off, and my edits are gone from the Project ID list so I don't know where I was with the ones I found as incorrect. So I guess I'll just finish this on my own and send my info to Tarshana, and she can copy and paste what she needs.

 

Good luck with the project.

Why not use the "online" methodology, as long as the website is up ? I think giftfish should be able to rollback your edits :). Welcome aboard !

 

1. Spreadsheet edits : I didn't think useful to let you know of every single edit I made besides of inventorying. I didn't remove anything, so your instructions are still valid. I just added upon the existing structure (I'm thinking of my table). You can even ignore it while inventorying (unless you come across empty projects), since it updates itself automatically.

If you want me to help integrate this table with the process, just ask.

 

I wasn't aware of your decision for NWN, sorry about that. It's not that bad though, both sheets can be easily merged.

 

2. QuarianAnalyst and Shae : I recontacted one of QuarianAnalyst's contacted authors as I went through projects. I noted it in the contacted authors sheet. Haven't tried all of them, though.

As for a percentage of authors that respond, it's relatively low. See for yourself, about 50% of mod authors have nothing in their "contact notes" cell, which means they haven't answered.

[moho25]

 

Hello,

I did not realize I needed to check in here as well.

I grabbed "all below here" because I have all but about 100 of the projects. I extracted them from the pages, but the problem was I was unable to do it while logged in and you only get something like 3978 pages rather than the 4171 total. So I am browsing the pages going through them side by side, logged in and not, to catch the ones I don't have and putting them into the list of pages where they are supposed to be. I hope that makes sense.

Also on the inventory sheet I found a couple that were incorrectly marked invalid, and after I put in the rest of the ones I have, I'm going to spot check the rest.

serenai

 

I guess a better way to explain is that I am extracting the pages in bulk. I've been trying to do it for a while but kept hitting snags, then had to get some work done, and now I have a week and a half to pack and find another place to live. But I was trying to get all these extracted so that Miss T didn't have to do them all.

 

I marked off the rest of the list so that nobody else would work on them while I was. You've taken my name off, and my edits are gone from the Project ID list so I don't know where I was with the ones I found as incorrect. So I guess I'll just finish this on my own and send my info to Tarshana, and she can copy and paste what she needs.

 

Good luck with the project.

 

I think there's been some miscommunication and confusion.

 

We don't need BSN Project pages archived -- we already have the entire thing archived. That is different than the project inventory on the spreadsheet. The archive is a "safeguard" for if and when BW takes down BSN before the project inventory is complete.

 

The spreadsheet is meant to serve as a resource for mod users (and even modders). It is the new BSN. A place where they can look up information about the mods and find new download links, if those links exist. It's also used to track the permission status associated with each mod, whether the author was contacted, etc.

 

This is manual work. It needs to be done by hand and cannot be automated. I removed your name from the Project ID sheet b/c inventorier names should *only* be adjacent to pages they are actively working on. You cannot work on "all below here", indicating the remaining 300 pages. This was the *only* place I removed your name from on the sheet. And, I only removed it after looking through all game tabs and seeing that you had no entries. I didn't remove it from anywhere else, so if it is gone, that's not something I did.

 

If you want to help with the inventory that's great -- we welcome it. But, it means looking up projects by hand, contacting mod authors, and entering the necessary data in the various game tabs and CMA sheets.

[moho25]

 

1. Spreadsheet edits : I didn't think useful to let you know of every single edit I made besides of inventorying. I didn't remove anything, so your instructions are still valid. I just added upon the existing structure (I'm thinking of my table). You can even ignore it while inventorying (unless you come across empty projects), since it updates itself automatically.

If you want me to help integrate this table with the process, just ask.

 

I wasn't aware of your decision for NWN, sorry about that. It's not that bad though, both sheets can be easily merged.

 

2. QuarianAnalyst and Shae : I recontacted one of QuarianAnalyst's contacted authors as I went through projects. I noted it in the contacted authors sheet. Haven't tried all of them, though.

As for a percentage of authors that respond, it's relatively low. See for yourself, about 50% of mod authors have nothing in their "contact notes" cell, which means they haven't answered.

 

 

1. Adding an entire new sheet is not a small edit -- nor is the quantity of information you added to that sheet -- and is not something anyone but myself should be doing. If you want to create a personal sheet for yourself on your PC that you utilize when working on the project, you can do that. I know Tarsh does, b/c I've had a different version of this discussion with her, already. When it comes to sheets in the BCN Google doc, that's something that needs to be run past me and everyone here. I have some other sheets I want to hit first, and then I'll take a closer look.

 

2. With the new fields on the CMA sheet it's now very clear that few mod authors are getting back to us. Unfortunate. But, helpful for me coaxing Nexus into perhaps giving us a bit more leeway a la Filefront, lol.

 

--------------

 

@Inventoriers --

 

1. QuarianAnalyst.

Sorry folks, but I think we're going to need to re-contact the authors this inventorier contacted. I'll amend the OP and be clearer that when people join the project -- even for a little while -- that they will be expected to follow up on mod author contacts even after they leave. By that I mean that if the mod author gets back to them after they leave BCN, they are still expected to update the spreadsheet with that information.

 

 

2. QA progress.

• ME1 complete & tidied
• DA 2 complete & tidied
• Utilities complete & tidied

 

3. Duplicate Entries.

I've only found one set of these so far, so overall, you are doing a great job. Keep being careful.

 

 

4. N/A, No, Null.

I know these all seem the same (Tarshana), but they are not. They also mean different things in different columns. Please take another look at the column comments to be certain you are filling in the fields correctly (Tarshana). Rofl. Just teasing, Tarsh.

 

 

5. Utlities/Builders.

I've renamed this sheet to be a bit clearer. Cleaning up the Utilities sheet took me about 3 hours today. It was a bit of a mess, but I understand that these are often gray areas. I moved some mods to their game pages, removed some "invalid" projects, etc. Just so it's clear:

 

A utility is anything used outside of the game. A coalesced mod is a mod, b/c Coalesced.bin is a game file installed into the game directory (more on those later); these are not utilities. Builder's Resources also go on this sheet, since they, by default, are meant to be used by the DAO Toolset (99% of the time). I'll also clarify this on the Instructions page when I get to that; I'm going through the game sheets first so I can see where the issues are.

 

 

6. Coalesced Files.

Tarsh tells me that there are a metric shitton of these, so I am pondering what to do about them. Generally, I don't want us to make value judgements about what should and shouldn't be catalogued onto the game pages. However, inventorying 101 unlimited coalesced mods doesn't make sense. It takes time and there is no value to cataloguing them all. So, for now, feel free to keep skipping over most of them unless it seems like a particularly good one. By "skip" I mean annotate as "redundant" in the same location as the "invalid" mods. Tarsh gave me an idea of how we might handle it today, but I want to ponder at least overnight.

 

 

6. Forum Archives.

Twelve days until the forums are taken down. Felexea now has everything on their site but the Fan Creations forum, due to permissions issues. Tarshana is currently backing this up, but it may or may not finish before the 25th. Does anyone else have a backup of this content?

 

-----------------

 

That's it for today. More tomorrow :)

[CreeperLava]

 

Generally, I don't want us to make value judgements about what should and shouldn't be catalogued onto the game pages. However, inventorying 101 unlimited coalesced mods doesn't make sense. It takes time and there is no value to cataloguing them all.

As we go down to less downloaded projects, I often feel like some projects aren't worth our time. It is hard indeed to not make a judgement, even more difficult to create a limit between "good" and "not worth it" projects. I'm curious to see what you will come up with.

 

 

 

6. Forum Archives.

Twelve days until the forums are taken down. Felexea now has everything on their site but the Fan Creations forum, due to permissions issues. Tarshana is currently backing this up, but it may or may not finish before the 25th. Does anyone else have a backup of this content?

 

I only have a partial backup (still a few 100s of GB). Once the forums are down, we should try to merge our backups. Unless someone has a complete backup, that is, but it would surprise me, given the size of the forum.

[moho25]

@Creeper -- Thanks for the update on your archive. Good to know.

-----------

1. QA PROGRESS.

• ME3 sheet has been QA's and tidied
• ME2 sheet has been QA'd and tidied
• Instruction sheet has been updated; be sure to look at this

 

2. SHEET NOTES FIELD.

Those of you inserting "Cannot find way to contact mod author" can omit this. We already have a field for "Mod Author Contacted? Y/N". If the author hasn't been contacted and the mod isn't uploaded elsewhere, then the default explanation is that we don't know how to reach them.

 

 

3. RELOCATING SHEETS.

If you need to do this for workflow due to smaller screen size, that's fine, just remember to move the sheets back into alphabetical order when you're finished :)

 

 

4. LEAD INVENTORIER.

Considering the huge amount of time Tarshana has sunk into this project, I thought it was appropriate to make her "Lead Inventorier". Every project manager needs a back up, so Tarsh is it :) If I'm not around and a decision needs to be made, her word is law :)

 

Other inventoriers, please don't take this as a slight. Tarsh has put in more man hours than anyone else and she's readily available, so she was the logical choice. Everyone here has been doing fantastic work and the community owes you a HUGE thank-you.

 

 

5. COALESCED MODS.

I think what we're going to do for these is follow Tarsh's idea. Over the next week or so she's going to review the popular coalesced mods for ME1/2/3. From there we'll build 1-2 BCN INI/coalesceds that combine the most popular features.

 

These will likely include:

• Keybinds for clean screenshots and flycam
• Keybinds to deconstruct the spacebar
• Casual outfits
• Unlimited ammo, etc

I already have much of this set up for all 3 games in my own coalesceds, so we'll use them as a starting point. We'll likely release 2 for each game, one that doesn't include the gameplay/cheat modifications and one that does.

 

In the spreadsheet, *most* coalesced mods will be removed from the game pages and moved to the Complete ID list, where they are noted only as "coalesced". We'll have a better idea of what will stay on the game sheets once Tarsh finishes her review.

 

------

 

Left to QA: DAO and Complete File ID List. Coming soon.

[rosvitacousland]

 

Hello,

 

I have got two questions:

 

1. Will Bioware delete the Toolset Wiki, too?

 

2. Will the BCN "save" the Toolset Wiki in case?

 

rosvita

 

P.S.: I hope, that these questions were not the topic of some other older postings. Please, excuse me, in case!

 

1. We doubt it, but when we find out, we'll update the website.

 

2. We already have a backup of the DAO wiki, as does Fextralife.

 

Thank you for your kind respond! It would be horrible without the Toolset Wiki. It's far away from being perfect, but it would be even worse without it... So I am feeling reassured. Thanks!