An update on Vortex development

[ozoak]

 

In response to post #54935243. #54935523, #54947223, #54947753, #54954958, #54955858, #54958068, #54976953, #54985023, #54987183, #54988083 are all replies on the same post.

 

 

 

MysteriousGuy wrote: "Not long now!"

 

We are talking 2 months minimum here. It was months in development already. Makes me wonder how was Tannin able to build fully functional mod organizer in such a short time when he was working all alone, but its not the case now when he has whole team around him.

 

So after months of waiting for something, you cant even provide a screenshot to public? Really?

fluxxdog wrote: Yes really.

lunsmann wrote: Perhaps it was purely due to MO only needing to support ONE game. Vortex (like NMM) will be supporting many different games.

 

All I want is for FNIS to install and work out of the box (like it does in NMM). MO is a pain in the arse with FNIS, and abandoned almost straight away.

SharraShimada wrote:

In response to post #54935243. #54935523, #54947223 are all replies on the same post.

 

 

 

MysteriousGuy wrote: "Not long now!"

 

We are talking 2 months minimum here. It was months in development already. Makes me wonder how was Tannin able to build fully functional mod organizer in such a short time when he was working all alone, but its not the case now when he has whole team around him.

 

So after months of waiting for something, you cant even provide a screenshot to public? Really?

fluxxdog wrote: Yes really.

lunsmann wrote: Perhaps it was purely due to MO only needing to support ONE game. Vortex (like NMM) will be supporting many different games.

 

All I want is for FNIS to install and work out of the box (like it does in NMM). MO is a pain in the arse with FNIS, and abandoned almost straight away.

Tannin made MO alone back in the days, when he had the time. And it was only 32 bit. Developing such a tool with full 64 bit support is a completely different thing.

Thats why MO2 never was what Tannin was expecting from it.

 

And now, it takes time, because its a team. Tanning cant work all alone, doing things like he wants them to be all by himself. Everything has to be first an idea, moves to a meeting, and later there will be a consensus. Such things take time... a lot of time.

And sometimes you try something, test it, and as a result, you throw it into the dumpster, because it wont work.

 

Software-development is time consuming as hell. Its not just coding. In fact, thats, what take the leas amount of the time. Its everying around the lines of code.

MysteriousGuy wrote: Seeing what Tannin was able to do with MO makes me fully believe he is more then capable to easily create amazing mod manager. Its complexity or 64-bit doesn't matter so much - he is the man for the job.

 

What doesn't feel right is nexus itself. Being game modding site you would expect they would promote and share information about their main modding tool - Vortex.

Instead it was kept in secrecy for months. Check news how many times they shared any information about Vortex this year. Then check how many of those posts actually speak about Vortex. Most of them are just recruitment posts.

Seems focus was moved more to the side projects (Web site redesign) or development was facing issues leading to delay (no info about why everything is so delayed because nexus is all shiny and beautiful).

 

Ignoring what it feels like and back to what we do know is - it's over a year now that Tannin was recruited for this job. That's one year of people waiting for new mod manager or at least some information about its functionality and looks. A week ago new site design was announced and then they said we are finally getting an update about vortex this week.

This week they tell us we will get nothing (not even a screenshot because imagine if people say they don't like it, and everyone has to like it when its finished) but we have to wait for 2 months now to get something.

 

Do we get an update in 2 months that now we have to wait a year for an update?

Dark0ne wrote:

Makes me wonder how was Tannin able to build fully functional mod organizer in such a short time when he was working all alone, but its not the case now when he has whole team around him.

 

When Tannin first released MO it was simply the VFS system with a text file on how to enable it. The MO you see today took him over 5 years of work to get where it is now. It's stupid to even compare the two.

 

Would you rather wait 5 years? Hmm.

 

Seems focus was moved more to the side projects (Web site redesign)

 

The website isn't a side-project, it's the main project. Without the website, there is no Vortex, but without Vortex (or NMM) there's still a website. Ergo, Vortex would be the "side project".

 

However, development of the website and development of Vortex are parallel, rather than one delaying the other. Tannin works on Vortex, the web development team work on the website, and the only time they intersect is when Tannin needs more functionality in the web API which the web developers need to do.

MysteriousGuy wrote: I would wait 5 years knowing that it will take 5 years for it to be finished rather than check for updates regularly only to get a notice that i have to wait for a notice that will tell me to wait for another notice.

Balx2 wrote: Maybe NMM isn't a site you should be visiting then. It appears you did not even read the entire news post, highly doubt you have bothered to ever read any of them.

 

These things take time, we have received updates as the team felt they had something worth saying and everything has been explained in detail in the news posts.

MysteriousGuy wrote: @ Balx2

 

Oh really then when you have all the information please tell me how will new mod manager function or look like?

How will you activate and install mods and where?

Will it be just one button on the left like NMM, will there be check mark to easily deactivate it like in MO?

Will Vortex have that annoying web page window loading every time you click on any mod like in NMM or will it have nice and clean interface like MO that actually lets you do something with that mod?

Will it be huge UI with few buttons and useless mod categories like NMM or will it let you actualy see important things like mod order and load order like in MO?

How will mod creators work with Vortex? Will they run 3rd party tools from Vortex or outside?

 

Go ahead i have time.

cyrusmagnus wrote: Your complaint is odd. Honestly, it feels like you're just disappointed Tannin didn't finish MO2 and are trying to lash out and be deceptively destructive of this project.

 

Your questions are logical, but missing a critical point: software development is hard enough by yourself, but exponentially compounded in difficulty by every additional voice you add to the mix.

 

So they have Tannin, Dark0ne, the team, and 30 people looking at it. That means if person number 28 has an idea of how something could look/be better, and they voice it, they then have to query 30+ other people on if they agree or disagree. Let's say 25% of them agree, does that mean it should change? Is it majority rule? Does Tannin have the final say? Does Dark0ne?

 

Why on Earth do you think they'd want to open that process up to thousands of people before they've even decided in house, for sure, what they want to do? In this update Dark0ne specifically pointed out that they aren't even finalized. They're close, but close is meaningless in development. You never know what will happen next.

 

Again, your questions are logical, but you don't deserve to ask them. You're not paying for this product. You are not a client. You're just some lucky guy that gets to have all this free stuff plopped in their lap for nothing.

 

If it takes 2 months or 2 years, whatever gets made has nothing to do with your opinion or entitled demands for information. You want your own mod managing software? Learn to code and make it yourself, and stop pestering the people who are actually doing the work with your whining.

calscks wrote: >how was Tannin able to build fully functional mod organizer in such a short time when he was working all alone

*checks initial commits on github*

*2013*

hmm.jpg

 

i'd've agreed upon your point on showing a few sneak peeks regarding to Vortex, but it's completely optional for whether developers wanting to show it or not. software development works internally, even if it's "agile" enough only selected users shall provide the initial feedback to how a software should or shouldn't work during the development cycle. Tannin has enough credits -- you're completely disregarding the whole development team. @cyrusmagnus describes you well -- entitled individual who doesn't know how real software engineering works, but i can tell it looks as real as people who have spent so much time developing COMMUNITY software whilst getting lashed by take-for-granted users who insistently demand things even before release because we can already see it here.

Well said, cyrusmagnus. Seriously, well said! From what I can see, he's not even a supporter of the site.

 

 

Seriously people have to stop denigrating other users opinions because it's "free" software.

The door swings both ways. Maybe they don't get to be demanding, but others don't get a free pass to be a dick about someone as a result of their supporter status.

Is mutual respect so goddamn hard for people?

[jaydawg55]

Glad to hear that progress is being made. Looking forward to the alpha in early(?) 2018.

[EruAinur]

To me MO never felt more complicated than it needed to be (apart for categories, which I never used). The main thing I liked and that I won't use anything that doesn't have, is the ability to change installation order for the purpose of overidding fila in a particular way, and having clear visibility into what is overriding what at any given time, at any level. This is a crutial capability for mixing mods - especially when multiple mods use the same files. It doesn't matter what files these are, there needs to be control and visibility there - at the file-level.

I don't really care how that's accomplised, but it has to be easy and quick, and MO got it right.

Maybe a virtual file system is overkill, maybe it isn't - as long as that capability exist in Vortex, I won't mind migrating to it, but if it's not there, I won't be - simple as that - it's a non-starter, no discussion.

[jaydawg55]

In response to post #55005098.

ozoak wrote:

 

In response to post #54935243. #54935523, #54947223, #54947753, #54954958, #54955858, #54958068, #54976953, #54985023, #54987183, #54988083 are all replies on the same post.

MysteriousGuy wrote: "Not long now!"

We are talking 2 months minimum here. It was months in development already. Makes me wonder how was Tannin able to build fully functional mod organizer in such a short time when he was working all alone, but its not the case now when he has whole team around him.

So after months of waiting for something, you cant even provide a screenshot to public? Really?

fluxxdog wrote: Yes really.

lunsmann wrote: Perhaps it was purely due to MO only needing to support ONE game. Vortex (like NMM) will be supporting many different games.

All I want is for FNIS to install and work out of the box (like it does in NMM). MO is a pain in the arse with FNIS, and abandoned almost straight away.

SharraShimada wrote:

In response to post #54935243. #54935523, #54947223 are all replies on the same post.

MysteriousGuy wrote: "Not long now!"

We are talking 2 months minimum here. It was months in development already. Makes me wonder how was Tannin able to build fully functional mod organizer in such a short time when he was working all alone, but its not the case now when he has whole team around him.

So after months of waiting for something, you cant even provide a screenshot to public? Really?

fluxxdog wrote: Yes really.

lunsmann wrote: Perhaps it was purely due to MO only needing to support ONE game. Vortex (like NMM) will be supporting many different games.

All I want is for FNIS to install and work out of the box (like it does in NMM). MO is a pain in the arse with FNIS, and abandoned almost straight away.

Tannin made MO alone back in the days, when he had the time. And it was only 32 bit. Developing such a tool with full 64 bit support is a completely different thing.
Thats why MO2 never was what Tannin was expecting from it.

And now, it takes time, because its a team. Tanning cant work all alone, doing things like he wants them to be all by himself. Everything has to be first an idea, moves to a meeting, and later there will be a consensus. Such things take time... a lot of time.
And sometimes you try something, test it, and as a result, you throw it into the dumpster, because it wont work.

Software-development is time consuming as hell. Its not just coding. In fact, thats, what take the leas amount of the time. Its everying around the lines of code.

MysteriousGuy wrote: Seeing what Tannin was able to do with MO makes me fully believe he is more then capable to easily create amazing mod manager. Its complexity or 64-bit doesn't matter so much - he is the man for the job.

What doesn't feel right is nexus itself. Being game modding site you would expect they would promote and share information about their main modding tool - Vortex.
Instead it was kept in secrecy for months. Check news how many times they shared any information about Vortex this year. Then check how many of those posts actually speak about Vortex. Most of them are just recruitment posts.
Seems focus was moved more to the side projects (Web site redesign) or development was facing issues leading to delay (no info about why everything is so delayed because nexus is all shiny and beautiful).

Ignoring what it feels like and back to what we do know is - it's over a year now that Tannin was recruited for this job. That's one year of people waiting for new mod manager or at least some information about its functionality and looks. A week ago new site design was announced and then they said we are finally getting an update about vortex this week.
This week they tell us we will get nothing (not even a screenshot because imagine if people say they don't like it, and everyone has to like it when its finished) but we have to wait for 2 months now to get something.

Do we get an update in 2 months that now we have to wait a year for an update?

Dark0ne wrote:

Makes me wonder how was Tannin able to build fully functional mod organizer in such a short time when he was working all alone, but its not the case now when he has whole team around him.

When Tannin first released MO it was simply the VFS system with a text file on how to enable it. The MO you see today took him over 5 years of work to get where it is now. It's stupid to even compare the two.

Would you rather wait 5 years? Hmm.

Seems focus was moved more to the side projects (Web site redesign)

The website isn't a side-project, it's the main project. Without the website, there is no Vortex, but without Vortex (or NMM) there's still a website. Ergo, Vortex would be the "side project".

However, development of the website and development of Vortex are parallel, rather than one delaying the other. Tannin works on Vortex, the web development team work on the website, and the only time they intersect is when Tannin needs more functionality in the web API which the web developers need to do.

MysteriousGuy wrote: I would wait 5 years knowing that it will take 5 years for it to be finished rather than check for updates regularly only to get a notice that i have to wait for a notice that will tell me to wait for another notice.

Balx2 wrote: Maybe NMM isn't a site you should be visiting then. It appears you did not even read the entire news post, highly doubt you have bothered to ever read any of them.

These things take time, we have received updates as the team felt they had something worth saying and everything has been explained in detail in the news posts.

MysteriousGuy wrote: @ Balx2

Oh really then when you have all the information please tell me how will new mod manager function or look like?
How will you activate and install mods and where?
Will it be just one button on the left like NMM, will there be check mark to easily deactivate it like in MO?
Will Vortex have that annoying web page window loading every time you click on any mod like in NMM or will it have nice and clean interface like MO that actually lets you do something with that mod?
Will it be huge UI with few buttons and useless mod categories like NMM or will it let you actualy see important things like mod order and load order like in MO?
How will mod creators work with Vortex? Will they run 3rd party tools from Vortex or outside?

Go ahead i have time.

cyrusmagnus wrote: Your complaint is odd. Honestly, it feels like you're just disappointed Tannin didn't finish MO2 and are trying to lash out and be deceptively destructive of this project.

Your questions are logical, but missing a critical point: software development is hard enough by yourself, but exponentially compounded in difficulty by every additional voice you add to the mix.

So they have Tannin, Dark0ne, the team, and 30 people looking at it. That means if person number 28 has an idea of how something could look/be better, and they voice it, they then have to query 30+ other people on if they agree or disagree. Let's say 25% of them agree, does that mean it should change? Is it majority rule? Does Tannin have the final say? Does Dark0ne?

Why on Earth do you think they'd want to open that process up to thousands of people before they've even decided in house, for sure, what they want to do? In this update Dark0ne specifically pointed out that they aren't even finalized. They're close, but close is meaningless in development. You never know what will happen next.

Again, your questions are logical, but you don't deserve to ask them. You're not paying for this product. You are not a client. You're just some lucky guy that gets to have all this free stuff plopped in their lap for nothing.

If it takes 2 months or 2 years, whatever gets made has nothing to do with your opinion or entitled demands for information. You want your own mod managing software? Learn to code and make it yourself, and stop pestering the people who are actually doing the work with your whining.

calscks wrote: >how was Tannin able to build fully functional mod organizer in such a short time when he was working all alone
*checks initial commits on github*
*2013*
hmm.jpg

i'd've agreed upon your point on showing a few sneak peeks regarding to Vortex, but it's completely optional for whether developers wanting to show it or not. software development works internally, even if it's "agile" enough only selected users shall provide the initial feedback to how a software should or shouldn't work during the development cycle. Tannin has enough credits -- you're completely disregarding the whole development team. @cyrusmagnus describes you well -- entitled individual who doesn't know how real software engineering works, but i can tell it looks as real as people who have spent so much time developing COMMUNITY software whilst getting lashed by take-for-granted users who insistently demand things even before release because we can already see it here.

Well said, cyrusmagnus. Seriously, well said! From what I can see, he's not even a supporter of the site.

 

 

Seriously people have to stop denigrating other users opinions because it's "free" software.

The door swings both ways. Maybe they don't get to be demanding, but others don't get a free pass to be a dick about someone as a result of their supporter status.

Is mutual respect so goddamn hard for people?

Some of the lack of civility is because the comments are not made on an in-person, face-to-face manner. It is easy to talk like a badass when you are hiding behind a phony name, the internet, and a computer screen.

[jaydawg55]

In response to post #55005423.

jaydawg55 wrote: Glad to hear that progress is being made. Looking forward to the alpha in early(?) 2018.

Just to clarify, I am not being snarky. These things take time and it is often hard to accurately forecast a delivery date months in advance.

[jaydawg55]

In response to post #54994763.

ReaperTai wrote: Thanks for the update guys. Looking forward to the new program. I use NMM and never got around to trying MO but I hear it had some good features. Good call hiring Tannin to build it and sounds like Kit has a good grasp on things to be done with the mock ups already. Keep up the great work everybody. See ya in January. :thumbsup:

MO is really nice if you like to install / remove mods frequently like I do.

[jaydawg55]

In response to post #54994763. #55006533 is also a reply to the same post.

ReaperTai wrote: Thanks for the update guys. Looking forward to the new program. I use NMM and never got around to trying MO but I hear it had some good features. Good call hiring Tannin to build it and sounds like Kit has a good grasp on things to be done with the mock ups already. Keep up the great work everybody. See ya in January. :thumbsup:

jaydawg55 wrote: MO is really nice if you like to install / remove mods frequently like I do.

Azraal explains some of MO's advantages below.

[chancebb15]

Is there a place where someone could see the plans for it? Like what features it hopes to support? I haven't been able to really get an idea of what Vortex is going to aim for. I realize that its hard to guarantee specific features and what not but my curiosity is peaking. Anyways thanks for the work and lets hope we get a mod manager that surpasses both NMM and MO.

[is33d34dp30ple]

Thank you guys for the update! I cant wait to see Vortex when it becomes officially available!

[is33d34dp30ple]

In response to post #55008708.

is33d34dp30ple wrote: Thank you guys for the update! I cant wait to see Vortex when it becomes officially available!

Maybe we could try a closed alpha shortly before release for premium members? ;) ;)