Big changes for the Nexus Mod Manager and the introduction of Tannin42, our new head of NMM development

[Ethreon]

In response to post #44239245. #44486430 is also a reply to the same post.

FunkyLeorox wrote: Mod Organizer isn't even complex, it's just that there are a lot more things you can do with it. The only thing that's complex is profiles and the ordering of mods, it's just overwriting visualized. Honestly I don't see why we can't just rebrand MO as NMM and fix all the bugs with the NMM interface.

evmiller wrote: I agree, Tannin could have saved some time and just used MO as the basis for the new NMM. It really was pretty easy to use. Don't let anyone say otherwise.

The expert explained you none of that is feasible or good, yet here you are.

[dwcool62]

I've gotten so addicted to MO and it's virtual data folder, to me NMM was difficult and made modding a "HEADACHE" . The greatest aspect of MO was the ability to simply undo a bad mod. My SSE awaits your release. "Good Luck.!!!!

[rayhaku]

In response to post #43224315. #43224420, #43225420 are all replies on the same post.

Gefri wrote: The pursuit of money leaves destroyed beauty in it's wake. Bean counters can only aspire to be as likeable as Undead Radrats. (Ok, I made those up.) The beauty of OMM, FOMM, NMM, and MO was that they were created and operated by enthusiasts who simply loved their work. Now one of those artists, one of the greatest, does the same work, but this time for the buck. And so commercialism has/will destroy NMM.

HadToRegister wrote: Obviously you didn't read the part where Tannin posted that he didn't have much time for MO because of his workload, as he was doing it in his spare time, and now that he's part of the team here on the Nexus he can devote his time to an NMM/MO hybrid, so don't go around like chicken little with the doom and gloom yet.

Ethreon wrote: Naysayers everywhere.

This post infuriates me.

[deadlyhurt]

In response to post #43224315. #43224420, #43225420, #44583635 are all replies on the same post.

Gefri wrote: The pursuit of money leaves destroyed beauty in it's wake. Bean counters can only aspire to be as likeable as Undead Radrats. (Ok, I made those up.) The beauty of OMM, FOMM, NMM, and MO was that they were created and operated by enthusiasts who simply loved their work. Now one of those artists, one of the greatest, does the same work, but this time for the buck. And so commercialism has/will destroy NMM.

HadToRegister wrote: Obviously you didn't read the part where Tannin posted that he didn't have much time for MO because of his workload, as he was doing it in his spare time, and now that he's part of the team here on the Nexus he can devote his time to an NMM/MO hybrid, so don't go around like chicken little with the doom and gloom yet.

Ethreon wrote: Naysayers everywhere.

rayhaku wrote: This post infuriates me.

Reading ur post caused me cancer...
A full time, determine programmer need for living as well... so be patient and look forward the new NMM. I have faith & trust on them.

By the way, if u think commercialism destroy everything.. u can stop visit this website... you think they don't need money to maintain this website averagely >100k people visit a day?

[hati39]

In response to post #44375665.

demonicvampiregirl wrote:

 

In response to post #43785770.

demonicvampiregirl wrote:

In response to post #43772610.

demonicvampiregirl wrote:

Can someone explain to me a bit the differences between NMM and SMO? I get one is more advanced but I only use NMM for Skyrim (and Skyrim SE once I get a video card strong enough for it) and pretty much only use USLEEP for it. I may wind up modding more in the future but for right now, want to just keep it simple and really hope that next gen NMM is as simple as the current one. I've never been good at manually modding, I tend to always screw it up somehow. >_< So it is kind of worrying that both are now being combined into one.

NMM was a simple install and go manager but it would install it all to the "data" folder on your HDD so install order was VERY important so you wouldn't overwrite mods incorrectly, this would/could change some of the core files and if you messed this up usually it ended up with a reinstall.
MO used a virtual data folder to keep your vanilla data folder...well vanilla. If something broke skyrim all you had to do was disable the problem mod and skyrim would work fine. MO would treat each mod separately when you installed them, only ever overwriting stuff when you started the game. If something was wrong with the order you installed them you just needed to drag and drop them in the correct order and restart your game. no reinstalling of mods needed. It has indicators in the UI to tell you whats overwriting what.
I know there is a lot more but after having to redownload/reinstall skyrim 3 times with NMM this is the biggest benifit i got from MO.

So this would kind of eliminate the need for LOOT?

No. However, LOOT is integrated in MO. And because your data folder is virtual when using MO you have to integrate every tool into MO, eg if MO is not running, your creation kit will not find any file to load (exept the main esm files skyrim.esm and the DLCs). LOOT just checks the dependencies of your plugins and has a look to a masterlist with some metadata of each plugin.

But first: LOOT is not perfect. The more mods you use the more sortings are possible, but LOOT has to choose only one, which is not always the correct one or the one that meets your suggestions. That's mainly because the masterlist cannot be complete, it needs community support to be filled. It is good for all the well known standard mods like smim, but the more plugins you have and the more exclusive they are the more LOOT needs your help.

The second thing is: LOOT only handles plugins. There are thousands of mods that don't use plugins, eg texture replacement mods. These mods add hundereds of loose files to your data directory (in fact all these loose files already exist in the main esm files but will be overwritten with these loose files). So if you install Skyrim HD you'll find a thousand or so new files in your data folder. If you install Perfect Whiterun after that, it will overwrite a lot of files you just installed with Skyrim HD. Now assume, you like your new perfect Whiterun overall, but what you don't like is, that a lot of items you find all over Skyrim now are no longer consistent, eg the barrels, fences, roofs, whatever have another look in Whiterun but in all other sites in Skyrim. You need to change the install order to change that. As long as you have only these two mods there are several solutions of your problem, like simply uninstall both and reinstall in the correct order. But if you have 100 mods that replace textures, it's close to impossible to do that.

In MO you simply click&drag the Perfect Whiterun mod ahead of Skyrim HD. Problem solved. But that's not all. Let's assume, you want to have consistent barrels all over Skyrim but why shouldn't the roofs be exclusive? In that case you could keep your install order, right click the Perfect Whiterun mod and have a look to Conflicts tab of the information dialoge windows of the mod. As the name implies you find two lists, one list of files provided by the mod and the names of the mods that will be overwritten, a second list of files that will be overwritten by other mods plus the name of these mods. You now can select single files and hide them to Skyrim, in our case the texture for the barrels. The result is a Perfect Whiterun with the barrels of Skyrim HD. Problem solved.

I used texture replacement mods as an easy to understand example. I'm even not sure whether the two mods replace any barrels (because most people use SMIM for this kind of stuff anyway). And of course the game is still playable with any barrel texture. But there are much more mods then only texture replacer. Some expand Skyrim, change the gameplay, quests or the UI, often they use, add or replace scripts to do that. You can easily imagine that something fatal can happen if eg two mods confict in such a more essential module than a texture.

 

 

Forgot to check back but yeah, so essentially LOOT would be within this new Nexus and I would technically not need to download/install LOOT by itself as it'd be within the manager itself? As I said before, I tend to just use bug fixes currently until I complete the game and then may mod some more. I know you have to have certain files first so it don't override everything and may cause other issues.

 

From how you are explaining it, I'd no longer need LOOT to do so and it'd be all done within one program. With one part you explained about having to have, and forgive me is this is utterly stupid, but you don't have to have MO actually open in the background? As I said, I have no idea what MO is as I've only used Nexus and I know for a fact on that one just having it installed and crap works.

Sorry for the lae response, I had an car accident. Everything is fine but there were other things to clear.
First of all: yes, MO must run in background. Not even that: you have to start everything from within MO, even Skyrim itself. You could run Skyrim vanilla, but then all your bug fixes and patches will have no effect, Skyrim will not find them. And all your ini changes are gone, too.
So instead of launching Skyrim you'll start MO. There you'll find a drop down menu and a Start button. The program you'd run at last will be selected, so in most every day cases Skyrim will be selected (or SKSE, if installed) and you simply click start. MO will fade to grey and lock to prevent changes while playing and start Skyrim, that's it.

Just a sidenote: I strongly recommend to use SKSE. It's needed for a lot of script based extensions that really became standard, like SkyUI, which gives you a much better user interface experience like sorted lists for your items and defined keys for armor/weapon sets, e.g. to change from light armor with bow and prefered arrows to heavy armor two handed, all done by simply press one single key instead of enter the menu during a fight and scroll through and endless list to change 10 parts of armor plus your weapons. Be sure to understand the concept of MO and SKSE and refer to the fantastic documentation from the S.T.E.P. guys. Google "install SKSE using MO" or something like that will lead your way.

Back to topic
Find your patches on Nexus and install them by clicking the NMM install button of the mod. MO will open and handle the install. Your patches will be listet in the left pane. If these patches contain any esp modules they will be listed in the right pane under Plugins. Now first sort your left pane by drag & drop. Beside the description of the mods a good idea in your case (only patches and bug fixes) might be the release date of the latest update of the mods: first the oldest patch, last the latest.

Then, on the right pane, click the Sort button (shown if Plugins is selected). And that's the point! Now MO will launch it's integrated LOOT, which is outdated. Simply install LOOTs latest version. In MO, click the gear button on the top. A dialog will appear. As a name type LOOT. Click the first ... button and browse to your LOOT installation, click loot.exe. Leave the working dirctory blank. As a starting parameter enter --single-process. Click the mark for Use Application's Icon for shortcuts. At last click add oder change (not sure about the english MO, I use the german translation, but it's the left of the two buttons). That's it. Now you can select LOOT in the drop down menu instead of clicking the sort botton.

After done that wait for a while. MO needs some time to check everything after running LOOT. Have an eye to the warning sign on the top right. If it remains greyed out for 20 seconds or so, use the drop down and thje start button to start the game. If it becomes colored with some yellow number on it, click on it and follow the instructions. If there is a beta warning, ignore it. The beta sorting will have a better solution then every first time user, so you will be fine to click Yes, sort for me.

Give it a try. If you encounter problems, use PM. This will email me a notice that you need help. I will not browse this thread every day ;)

[doombladez]

In response to post #44304875.

onkenoke wrote: I hope it will be able to import our current setups from NMM, no way am I starting from scratch

I second this, otherwise I think I'll have to stick with using NMM until I get a new computer or have a spare several hours.

[mpjbay]

I hope the new version will be ready soon. I am an MO veteran and am trying to use NMM, it sucks ballz in its current state. Nothing but problems and a very unfriendly UI and workflow.

 

I hope NMM is MO V3 once Tannin is done with it.

 

Keep up the good work! Looking forward to a solid, well designed NMM.

 

Is there an ETA?

[MuteButtonHero]

In response to post #43224315. #43224420, #43225420, #44583635, #44602370 are all replies on the same post.

Gefri wrote: The pursuit of money leaves destroyed beauty in it's wake. Bean counters can only aspire to be as likeable as Undead Radrats. (Ok, I made those up.) The beauty of OMM, FOMM, NMM, and MO was that they were created and operated by enthusiasts who simply loved their work. Now one of those artists, one of the greatest, does the same work, but this time for the buck. And so commercialism has/will destroy NMM.

HadToRegister wrote: Obviously you didn't read the part where Tannin posted that he didn't have much time for MO because of his workload, as he was doing it in his spare time, and now that he's part of the team here on the Nexus he can devote his time to an NMM/MO hybrid, so don't go around like chicken little with the doom and gloom yet.

Ethreon wrote: Naysayers everywhere.

rayhaku wrote: This post infuriates me.

deadlyhurt wrote: Reading ur post caused me cancer...
A full time, determine programmer need for living as well... so be patient and look forward the new NMM. I have faith & trust on them.

By the way, if u think commercialism destroy everything.. u can stop visit this website... you think they don't need money to maintain this website averagely >100k people visit a day?

You are half right and half very wrong. The key is loving what you are working on, having a passion for it. Being paid for doing it is irrelevant to that, so long as the project is your passion.

But when someone has to take time away from their great interest to pursue a paycheck -- and we all have to pay the rent and put food on the table -- it makes for a less happy life, greater frustration, and eventually having to give something up.

Being hired to do the job you love is a big win for the developer and the users.

[MuteButtonHero]

"We want something that is going to enable advanced modders to get into the really deep stuff easily, without presenting the casual modders with overbearing and complicated windows right from the get-go.

 

Most of all, we want one piece of software that lets casual modders transition into more advanced modders gradually and at their own pace, without having to switch mod managers and reinstall all their mods."

 

I'm so glad to see you get this. After just a few months of using NMM I've learned a huge amount about how mods interact with each other, load order, overwriting, tools like BodySlide, and frameworks like F4SE. But at my entry point I just wanted something that would keep my mods up to date for me. If I had to deal with all that at the beginning i would have skipped it and just had the handful of mods I could manage myself.

 

Don't forget to have brand new users do a usability test on the program from time to time. It is always surprising to see what the new users understand and what they do not, and after conducting usability studies for years I have found that what the developers expect the new user to understand and what they actually understand seldom have much in common.

[dragonshardz]

Looking forward to seeing Nexus Mod Organizer begin to exist. Just hope it's soon - I can't stand using NMM after being turned on to MO, and the incomplete MO2 beta is the only version of MO that supports F4.