Facilitating mod author cooperation

[pippinstrano]

In my time on The Nexus, I have met a number of very talented mod authors that created excellent work. I'm interested in seeing what can be done to assist mod authors to coordinate their efforts. I know that mod authors want their mods used, and they want to see their efforts recognized. What is the best way to facilitate mod authors building on each others work while still recognizing the various contributors and complying with various author's desires as far as mod re-use? I think most individuals' hearts are in the right place and having some guidelines would help everyone from stepping on each other's toes.

 

Thoughts?

[asd39063944]

Don't you sleep?

[pippinstrano]

I'll sleep when I'm dead ;-)

[Cyberlazy]

Yes I see a HUGE reluctance for authors to use work that requires a seperate download. Also a huge reluctance for users to download more then 1 thing for a mod.

 

On the other side, Authors often don't update there mods in a timely manner when the mod they are based on updates, causing conflicts and inability for people to use the latest version of that other mod.

 

Really sucks for anyone who wants to make things that are for other authors to use: they never get used.

[Dark0ne]

A new Nexus site project I am considering is creating a separate, stand-alone site for "stock" modding assets. It will be a site where asset creators can upload their free and open to use models, textures, music, sound files, animations, etc. as resources for others to use in their mods. Make it completely open so that there's no crazy "ask for my permission before you use this asset" stuff. The idea is if you're good at one particular area but not at others, and need some stock assets to use, then you can go to the Stock Nexus site and look for, say, a new chair model, or a throne, or a desk, or a bench, or a pew, depending on your needs. Make it completely open to everyone and anyone, even if they don't want to use the asset for a mod for games the Nexus sites support.

 

Completely non-profit and non-commercial (and ensure the licenses dictate as much).

[Deleted2547005User]

I like that idea. Would it be possible to have stock plugin files for modders, like Bug Fixes or generic records to use for certain mods like weapons or armor?

[pippinstrano]

Can NMM have something added to facilitate the installation of dependancies? Such that if a user installs a mod that requires another (NVSE, MCM, etc), the dependent mods are downloaded and installed as well?

[pippinstrano]

NMM developers or Nexus staff: any thoughts on the ability to indicate dependencies in mods to allow for automatic installation of said dependencies as needed? I've been doing a lot of Linux work recently, and this seems like a pretty clear need. For each game there ends up being a number of excellent supporting mods. For New Vegas, NVSE, DarnUI, MCM, Weapon Mod Menu, Sortomatic, Modfusion and so on.

[r40k2011]

NMM developers or Nexus staff: any thoughts on the ability to indicate dependencies in mods to allow for automatic installation of said dependencies as needed? I've been doing a lot of Linux work recently, and this seems like a pretty clear need. For each game there ends up being a number of excellent supporting mods. For New Vegas, NVSE, DarnUI, MCM, Weapon Mod Menu, Sortomatic, Modfusion and so on.

 

I agree. As installation process varies from mod to mod, ebuild-like installation scripts would come handy. This way has following advantages:

 

- Installation and data separation: it allows you to combine files from different mods like Texture Pack Combiner does.

- Dependencies and prerequisites management.

- Optionals management: instead of listing related mods like translations or compatibility patches on description page, mod author could specify them as optionals in ebuild file.

- Small size, text format.

- Rich infrastructure of text editing related tools: editors, version control, indexing.

- Each ebuild could be supplied with various metainfo that allows to detect mod conflicts or improve search

 

We also need a mod authoring framework to handle mod publishing process. But to make use of this framework, mod community should develop standards of mod publishing - requirements like mod directory structure, presence of certain files, and so on.

[TheVampireDante]

I wouldn't recommend an automatic installation of a dependent mod, some people might not like the idea of a mod they don't really know being "just added" to their mod list..

 

Perhaps a message warning that one of the "required" mods for the one being downloaded isn't present and then offering the choice of downloading the required file, or aborting the installation of the mod you had chosen?