How do you rate the success of your mods ?

[greekrage]

 

 

Another important factor of success is TRUST.

This is obtained after time and a few "successful" mods where you have gained the trust of your user base and come to the point where people download your stuff because they are sure that they will like it having enjoyed your previous work. ( you can categorize these users as followers,fans etc. ).

 

 

I think this is probably the best answer to this question that any of us here have come up with so far.

 

Very well said. Indeed, trust is at the root of why I'll spend an evening debugging rather than letting a mod problem sit until morning. Because someone out there just downloaded the buggy version and is currently screwing up their game experience. Netflix can wait.

 

I'd like to nominate Greekrage as the official winner of this thread. Any seconds?

 

 

Why don't users download my mods? They don't trust you. How do I get their trust? You get it when they download your mods.

 

Do you not see the circular logic?

 

Don't get me wrong. Trust is important. So is integrity and responsiveness and support. But none are a very good metric for how successful a mod is because you can't measure these qualities objectively.

 

This is why you have to be VERY careful at the beginning .

Maybe the FIRST mod is what did the damage if they arent downloading...maybe even the second or third...

Point is that users remember a bad mod easier than they remember a good one...and if your track record has too many problems...they will avoid you .

Also ..its not like NO ONE will download it... but those that do download it will help or kill the mod by their comments ,bug reports etc.

[MissingMeshTV]

 

Example is one of my latest mods that took me over 120 hours to do but did very bad on downloads due to the fact that it was in the glowing sea.

Funny thing is that i had several requests to do a mod in that area but i guess those people that requested were the only ones that actually wanted one there.

 

 

Living this right now! Exactly one week ago as of today, I uploaded a new player home with lots of custom scripts and features that I spent roughly two months on. It’s currently sitting at 211 unique downloads, 23 endorsements and five comments...54 of the downloads are for the BT Interiors compatibility patch I made because both mods make changes to the same cell.

 

Granted, it’s located literally in the ass end of Nuka World and really just I made it for my own game, but still…

 

On Wednesday, I got stuck in another pointless meeting at work and my mind started to wander to mods and the game. By the end of the two hour ordeal, I had an idea pop into my head for a “less cheaty” way than console commands to activate all the map markers for my...what, 7^th playthrough counting FROST. I’m all for exploring the first few games, but by now I just want the map markers and to go…

 

Within three hours of getting home, I had made a little mod that adds a road map (retextured magazine) to the world and enables all the map markers when added to your inventory. Made the texture, the mod, tested all in less than a few hours. Even made an alternate version that adds a map in a different location...again, for my own game because I'm going to use Start Me Up and not start from Vault 111. Decided to put both up on the Nexus thinking others might enjoy them.

 

I just about spit out my coffee a short while ago when I saw the map/cheat mod had made it to the Hot Files overnight. WTF.

 

So what does this really mean? I guess it means people don’t want player homes in Nuka World...or does it say something else about the use base and the kinds of mods they want? Am I frustrated that a house mod I spent two months on gets nary a glance, but the cheaty mod that took me all of three hours to make goes right to the Hot Files? You betcha.

 

Most of my other player home mods have performed much better than the Nuka World one. But in the end, I still consider the “flop” to be a success because I made it for myself, it does what I wanted it to do, I got some new ideas I can apply to my next projects, and I learned some new tricks. Learning more about the CK and new ways to do things is to me, the metric for success that I use in any project I undertake...CK or otehrwise. If I come away with some nugget of knowledge I didn't previously posses, it’s a resounding triumph in my book.

 

tl;dr: If a mod does what I intend it to do and if I learn something new in making that mod that I can make my future projects better, than the mod to me is success regardless of what the download or endorsement count may indicate.

 

On a side note: while making the aforementioned map mod I was examining how the PerkQuest was set up in relation to magazines so I could duplicate it for the mod. Imaging my surprise when I was an entry for Stage 900 of the PerkQuest labeled: Explorer. Yep...looks like Bethesda had intended to include the Explorer perk from FO3 and FNV in FO4 but it never made the final release. It even uses the same script fragment to enable map markers I had intended to use for the mod. So in the end, my thrown together mod doesn't seem so cheaty after all. :happy:

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention that for the Map mod, I also didn't spend 7+ hours making a promo video like I have done for all my other mods.

[taryl80]

Don´t look too much after hotfiles. They give you the wrong picture as a mod author. The reason for that is simple. Hotfiles, and I mean here ->only<- hotfiles get so much more attention and advertising by other people.

 

Soon a file had make it into the hotfiles, it doesn´t matter anymore what for a quallity this mod has (like is it bug free?), -the file will be pick upped by a ton of youtubers, screenshot makers and get a ton of advertising in f4 forums.

 

A normal mod can then never hope to reach that file, because you will never reach the same download rate. The only thing that is similar between a hotfile mod and a normal mod is most times the endorsments-download rate. Yeah, sure, they have more endorsments, but they have most times the same endorsments-download rate. That is one more reason why I prefer the endorsment-download rate as a estimated value for a mod, as just the endorsments. Because in this rate, advertising seems not to matter.

 

Besides that, one of my favorites mod categorys are new land/quest mods and I hope they will never die out. Even they got often not much endorsments and they surley cost the people behind those mods more time as the most of us maybe can imagine.

Edited April 29, 2017 by taryl80

[MissingMeshTV]

Totally agree with you, taryl80. The issues with the Hot Files and endorsement systems as they currently stands have been discussed in this thread and many others. Personally, I'm not in this game (EDIT: by game I mean modding in general, not specifically F04) to get into the Hot Files...endorsements are a nice pat on the back, but again, not why I started modding. It was just one of those ironies of life that a mod I put considerably less effort into than any previous project got so much attention. And....WITHOUT using BEWBS or GUNZ!

 

EDIT: Another point previously mentioned about the Hot Files: it unleashes the trolls, much in the same way feral ghouls always seem to find me in a dungeon I had thought was cleared.

[Lisselli]

No one wants to do half of years worth of work and it gets nil exposure.

But you mod for yourself for the most part, and just share your results. So it should be all about making things work for you above all else. If you only mod for the glory, you will be disappointed.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Lisselli

[MissingMeshTV]

No one wants to do half of years worth of work and it gets nil exposure.

 

But you mod for yourself for the most part, and just share your results. So it should be all about making things work for you above all else. If you only mod for the glory, you will be disappointed.

Yep. More or less what I was trying to get across in my earlier post but it might not have come out hat way. I gave up trying to please other people IRL years ago. Sure as hell not going to fight a losing battle doing it here.