Suggestino - Attracting Players to the Site

[BlackCompany]

Greetings all. Been away while, and there are a multitude of reasons for that. One of those reasons brings me here, today, to make a suggestion. For the sake of this suggestion, however, I would like us to keep one thing in mind: Players are the customers of the Nexus. The Nexus provides a service - forum for hosting, downloading and talking about mods - which players seek. Mods drive the traffic, which makes ads viable, which keeps the money coming in and the site up and running. For the Nexus, the players are the customers.

 

With that firmly in mind, I want to posit a suggestion that pertains to attracting customers to the site, by giving them reasons to continue playing the game.

 

That's right, I am suggesting that quest and adventure mods - mods which introduce new stories, quests, lands and worlds - should receive special treatment on the Nexus main page. One of the primary reasons for modding your game is to keep playing, beyond the life of vanilla content. Fetch quests get old; the MQ is finished. While I may still have plenty of things to look at, I have nothing left, to DO.

 

Quest mods change that. New worlds - Like Moonpaths to Elsweyr - help with that as well. Ultimately, I think its new things to do - as opposed to new things to look at - that will keep players coming back, and the modding scene alive.

 

Unfortunately, that is not what I see when I visit the Nexus. I see what's "popular" on the main page. Usually, this means skimpy armor and ENB stuff. Neither one of which offers me anything more to DO in the game world.

 

I believe the Nexus should focus on getting their Quest modders more attention. Put them on the main page. Let people select the sorts of things they want to show on their main page when they log in. Push the quest, adventures, new worlds and Total Replacement mods hard. This is the stuff that brings people like me back after nearly a year away - things to DO. I can worry over shaders, armor textures, light and sound later. If I have nothing more to DO in the game world, there is no point or purpose to returning to Skyrim, Or New Vegas, to begin with. People want to know about mods offering things to DO, then they will worry about things to see.

 

 

Ultimately my suggestin boils down to:

 

 

Yes, quest mods SHOULD receive special treatment. They should ALWAYS appear on the main page, rotating daily. These will bring people back, keep them playing. While wading through 50 different skimpy armors and 100 variations of ENB will drive them to the Steam Workshop and TES Alliance, which is where I now prefer to look for mods.

Edited September 29, 2012 by BlackCompany

[Hickory]

Robin has been at this a long time (11 years, I believe), and while other sites come and go, the Nexus family continues to grow. He's doing something right, I think. That's not to say that I don't empathise with you, because I do. But the facts speak for themselves.

[Thandal]

Stats from today's front page:

 

28,343 authors. 81,317 files. 4,560,586 members. 401,539,380 downloads.

(That's four-and-a-half-MILLION members, and four-HUNDRED-million downloads.)

Think the Nexus is doing something right...

[JimboUK]

Good quest mods take a very long time to make, hence there aren't that many of them. You'd end up with the same mods on the front page for weeks on end.

[Ironman5000]

Plus many 'quest' mods don't live up to the promise. These kind of mods are probably the most time consuming and without a reasonable level of creativity they will tend to fall on deaf ears and look really bland.

 

Another problem with these mods is that when when they get posted as new mods users see them and they aren't 100% what they are going to get out of it whereas armour, weapon, enb, booby mods you know straight away!

 

When you think of mods like muppetpuppets Moonpaths or RJhelms Boulder Dome that's really a diamond in the rough to be honest and that kind of quality will rarely be accomplished unless you have a dedicated team or a superhuman amount of determination - i've been part of enough quest/new world modding 'teams' to know that some ideas sounded like a great concept but people are just too unreliable in most cases to follow through with an end result.

 

You should really thank your lucky stars we have what we do!

Edited September 30, 2012 by Ironman5000

[Dark0ne]

The mods that are on the front page are there because that's what the majority of people visiting the site have endorsed. So to say you think more people would come to the site if a specific genre was advertised seems counter-intuitive, since the advertised mods on the front of the site are there due to their popularity. Now, if you're telling me that's what YOU, personally, would like to see, then I can emphasise with that because I care very little for the skimpy clothing/nude mods out there. However, it would be imprudent of me to put more emphasis on files that I personally like rather than what the majority like.

 

So rather than trying to change the hot files system it seems like you really need to change the hearts and minds of those who are attracted to the genres that you aren't attracted to. Needless to say I think that's a lost cause.

[Ironman5000]

I can emphasise with that because I care very little for the skimpy clothing/nude mods out there. However, it would be imprudent of me to put more emphasis on files that I personally like rather than what the majority like.

So rather than trying to change the hot files system it seems like you really need to change the hearts and minds of those who are attracted to the genres that you aren't attracted to. Needless to say I think that's a lost cause.

 

Do I remember rightly about some sort of hot files filters coming along, or is that a premium perk already? I saw an adult file released lately that never got on the hot file even though it had over 100 endorsements yet UNP clothing files were there.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Ironman5000