ATTENTION ALL MOD MAKERS!

[tekhead001]

All right, I know a lot of you put in a lot of effort to make your mods, whatever they may be. But I'm asking for a little bit more.

 

DESCRIPTIONS.

 

I don't care how great your mod is, if I'm having trouble running the game, and all I see is '267533.esp' in the load order? It's getting deleted. Don't care. 'InstallMeThird.esm'? Garbage. 'SnppMsv.esp'? Junk. Your mods may be amazing, but if the user can't tell what they do? They're worthless garbage.

 

NAME YOUR FILES APPROPRIATELY. Throw in a little description that we can see in NMM. It's not hard, and not a lot of work. No acronyms, no cute nicknames, no serial numbers, just the actual name and/or description of what it does. Most users have dozens of mods running at the same time, and if even Nexus Mod Manager just comes up with a blank spot for Author and Description for a given mod? That mod's on the chopping block.

 

Thank you.

Edited April 3, 2012 by myrmaad
No need to shout.

[jet4571]

Not every mod author uses NMM so we that dont have no idea on how to add a description NMM will show, and quite frankly demanding mod authors to accommodate you and use NMM is quite rude and almost insulting. I name my ESP files the same as the mods name, if thats not good enough for you to know which mod it is then I am not going to accommodate you.

[Roarian]

Right, the descriptions missing is sometimes annoying, but it's hardly a huge problem. -shrug-

 

I would much rather people just have clear descriptions and pics on their nexus page, missing that's just annoying.

[David Brasher]

You tell them tekhead001! I am behind you 100%.

 

Why should a modder pour dozens of hours into a mod and then foul it up by not doing something simple that takes like 30 seconds and makes the final product so much more user-friendly?

 

In Oblivion, modders could whine that the CS was broken and it was impossible to insert mod descriptions. (The people who knew what they were doing used TES4Gecko for this operation.) But in Skyrim, this CK function works just fine, so people ought to put in mod descriptions. As far as mod names go, there has never been any excuse. All that is required to name a mod with a descriptive and distinctive name is a brain and a tool like Windows Explorer which every computer comes equipped with.

[galy3]

CK function works just fine?! Ok... My mod got a nice esp name, but for the description, sorry, I could learn this from you.

[Matth85]

Not every mod author uses NMM so we that dont have no idea on how to add a description NMM will show, and quite frankly demanding mod authors to accommodate you and use NMM is quite rude and almost insulting. I name my ESP files the same as the mods name, if thats not good enough for you to know which mod it is then I am not going to accommodate you.

 

So, basically you're saying: "I make mods for people, but if people can't take I name my mods 111Roflcopter.esp" and if you don't like it, you can bend over!"?

Nice, just nice.

 

Here, let me give you a little rundown on what you do when you make a mod:

 

1) You spend your own time. This makes modding a hobby, which you enjoy.

2) You release it if you want to show the world what you spent your time on.

3) You release it so people will like it, and hope you can get tons of downloads, and perhaps even top 100.

 

Now, naming stuff: "Mm1ea2.esp" is fine for your own mods, but what if a guy got hundred mods? What the heck does it help to have a mod named "11111.esp" and no description?

So, basically you alianate the people you upload the mod for. That is.. well... bad. If you upload it, your sole goal is for people to download it.

Would you like if WIndows, or Mac, made the OS named as they pleased? Something like "WibtmIE.exe" instead of "Internet Explorer", or "ClickAfterWibtmPnt.exe" instead of "Paint"?

 

It is insulting for somebody to ask you to change stuff in your mode. However, it is not insulting to ask people to stop releasing selfish mod named, and made, only so they understand themself.

 

Cheers,

Matth

[Gary3]

ATTENTION ALL MOD MAKERS! Please, listen closely.

...

DESCRIPTIONS.

...

Don't care.

...

Garbage.

...

Junk.

...

NAME YOUR FILES APPROPRIATELY.

 

Hello,

 

And based on this, _you_ want me to do something to my mod?

I spent 250 hours creating my mod, I've got a usefull name of the esp.

There is no description, because I don't use NMM and never have used CK.

 

But with such wording... just... no.

 

Though I have some left over punctuation marks you may use in future posts:

!!!!?!!?!!?!?!???

 

Regards,

Gary

[EnaiSiaion]

I see this problem in every game with user created content. Not just bad filenames but also missing screenshots and empty or "abc" descriptions and unclear or overly complicated installation instructions.

 

It is their right to omit these elements, but it will cost them downloads: customers in a free market usually go with the mod/map/texture pack/script/car/etc that is well presented and easy to install.

 

Oh well, if people want to eliminate themselves from the spotlights this means more opportunity for you and me. :)

Edited April 3, 2012 by EnaiSiaion

[myrmaad]

The description field in the CS worked/works for me.. ?

 

And even if you don't make a description, you can't come up with a file name? I kind of doubt that. If you are creative enough to make a mod surely you can name it appropriately. But in any case I've been known to change inappropriately named file names myself. However, I do not use NMM, and I engineer my own load orders without relying on an auto sorter.

 

Those who do rely on auto sorters are the ones most hurt by this bad practice.

 

And seriously, I'm just calling it out as what it is: a bad practice.

 

I looked at your load order tekhead and

neaextbromjunaar.esp <-- wth is that mod?

 

I should be able to google your esp name and find your mod.

 

But tekhead, I edited the shouting out of your Original post. While this is a good subject to bring up in regards to Best Practices, there is no need to shout and we certainly can't demand.

[tunaisafish]

Setting the Description; It's done on the page you've probably seen dozens of times if you've used the CK.

 

File -> Data

 

It's not intuitive, we all got into the habit of the "Open" menu not actually altering the files, and just a dialog that you choose files to load from. The Data dialog is different though, there's actually a lot of 'editing' you can do from there. Common things include removing unneeded master files and 'ignoring' records that you accidentally edited in your mod.

 

Oh, and thanks for the reminder. I just looked at one esp file that I thought was ready to upload and I'd forgotten to do this simple step :)