Forum activity

[rmm200]

I tried to help folks stumbling around when you just had a few posts per day.

Since you made Vortex the default - I am overwhelmed.

If it is over 20 posts a day, I can't even try to read them.

This is just to let you know I sympathize with Tannin and crew.

Don't let forum activity keep you from - you know - developing the very good product.

[AugustaCalidia]

Since the Vortex Beta release, there's a lot more activity and a lot more to read on the Vortex Forums. It's unfortunate that a large number of people bringing Vortex problems to these Forums have themselves done little or no reading before jumping into Vortex. If they had looked before they leapt, they would probably not be here on these Forums. Nonetheless, I'm happy to help them resolve their issues as best I can.

 

On the other hand, there's a minority who have done their Vortex homework and yet still have serious problems. Their issues require genuine expertise. I'm glad there are knowledgeable people about who can assist these folk and at the same time help improve Vortex.

[HadToRegister]

The majority of problems posted here are the same few questions asked over and over and over again.

[Grestorn]

Honestly, I think Vortex does have some problems in the "intuitive usage" department. Little things can help a lot. I don't want to criticize Tannin too much, because he's doing a great job, but creating intuitive user interfaces might not be his strongest skill.

 

You have to put yourself in the mindset of an uninformed person who doesn't read anything and just starts to click around. Try to accommodate your UI to that person.

 

Simple example: Why does it require a double click to open a mod's property window? And why does the property window obstruct a part of the list itself? Even for me it's really bothersome to open it up and close it a couple of seconds later, because I want to Remove a mod (the Remove button is obstructed by the properties window).

 

The property window should always be visible and be in a separate area, which doesn't obstruct anything. At least in the default config. You could use this are to display information about whatever the user has just clicked. That would be a much better UI design.

[sopmac45]

I kind of agree with you Grestorn ... for example, from the very first time Vortex was out, I asked for written instructions and I was told it was not necessary.

 

The time gave me the reason when a lot of users have been asking exactly for instructions integrated into Vortex or in a PDF file. Some people learn faster than others, some can look at a video and learn quickly, others need to read and do things for themselves to learn, and since we are not equal, Vortex should have had from the very beginning, written instructions.

 

I learned it the hard way ( and still I am, please do not get me wrong .. ), mistake by mistake and by persevering and insisting till I was able to kind of find the north.

 

Tannin is a genious and he said something to me one time, that he was not that good explaining things and I understood him. Pedagogy is not for everyone. You can be Albert Einstein but perhpas you lack pedagogy and without it, you won't be able to explain things for everybody to properly understand them.

 

A guy with 100% knowledge is not always the best person to explain things, or explain procedures, steps to follow so people can learn, etc. Perhaps somebody with 80% of knowledge and 100% of pedagogy is more able to explain and make everybody to understand very easy what he knows.

 

We still need some documentation, videos and written procedures with screenshots that can explain to everybody, how to handle Vortex. I do not know that much about Vortex ( I am always learning from you guys … thank you ) but the little I know, I will be happy to share it with whoever want to learn a bit from me.

 

Now, the problem is when newcomers lack the discipline of reading. Well, there is nothing we can do about it I guess but to let them come back whenever they are ready to put out a little of effort to study it, learn it and be able to use it.

 

To a certain point, I understand newcomers. It is very difficult to go over the whole forum looking for information that they need. I kind of know Vortex because I grew up with it and had your help, Tannin and because I like to read, investigate, observe, trying things, etc. otherwise, if I would have ignored Vortex 8 months ago, I would be in a difficult s#*! right now trying to deal with it.

 

I would be happy to help with 5% of knowledge about this great mod manager that I would like every single user out there to be able to use it. I know that once they know it, they would love it.

 

Tannin, you are a genius and I am not kissing your ass, but have your dev team to put some instructions, well written instructions by people who knows pedagogy, people who can explain in details how to do this, how to handle that, step by step, detail by detail, etc. You are the architect … now you need engineers to tell others, how to do this and that. :cool:

[rmm200]

If you can figure out any way us more than beginner users can help, let us know.

Maybe post a list of subject matter experts new users can refer to.

I have a definite feeling though they are just going to want to post their problems to the world, in the forum.

[HadToRegister]

Still, some of the questions being repeated over and over are simple things like Associating Vortex with NXM downloads.
People had to set that up in NMM, and all it took was going into SETTINGS and setting NMM to Download when clicking the "Download with NMM" button.
Now, it seems people aren't even exploring the UI and even LOOKING at the SETTINGS tab (First thing I do when I install ANY new software)
They would see there's a button to associate Vortex with the Download with Vortex button on the Nexus, this is "setup 101", anybody who uses windows knows that software needs to be associated with certain file extensions.
If they could do it in NMM, they can do it in Vortex.

Some of the questions being asked over and over again, and answered over and over again, and are even on the first 2 pages of his forum, show that people aren't even bothering to see if their questions have already been asked and answered.
I mean c'mon, there needs to be SOME effort on the users part.

It's like going to a mod page, and seeing a sticky that explains EVERYTHING so people stop asking certain questions, and seeing a post right below the sticky, asking a question that is answered in the sticky directly above it.

[Tannin42]

First of all I'd like to thank all of you for sticking around and helping people, you are a tremendous help.

 

There is no question that Vortex could be, and needs to be more intuitive, unfortunately it's practically impossible for the developer to discover that kind of faults on

their own - because obviously the thing is intuitive to me but that doesn't help those that are confused.

We had a UI designer on board and I'm fairly certain things would have been a lot worse if that hadn't been the case, but of course it's still not perfect.

 

We try to read most/all of the reports coming in (not just me but also Pickysaurus, BigBizkit and Dark0ne), gather recurring problems and work out how best to address them

but it does take time, something that's unintuitive to one user may be intuitive to another and changing it may just reverse the situation, so please don't conclude that

because things aren't addressed right away that we don't care or don't intend to do something about it.

 

Pickysaurus and BigBizkit are also continuously working on the documentation wiki (https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Category:Vortex)

[chanchan05]

If you can figure out any way us more than beginner users can help, let us know.

Maybe post a list of subject matter experts new users can refer to.

I have a definite feeling though they are just going to want to post their problems to the world, in the forum.

 

Just watch Gopher's videos.

 

Honestly, I watched the videos, and within a couple of hours I was doing a test run with like 200 mods installed. Currently I'm running tests on a Legacy of the Dragonborn completion playthrough build and it's stable with 502 mods installed. All this in less than 3 weeks since I installed Vortex. No hiccups.