Proposal for the Standardization of Mod Packaging

[Quemaqua]

This isn't a bad idea. I feel a little bad since I just uploaded a mod with a generic README.txt in the RAR. I guess I just assumed people read those and didn't unzip them, which was fully my intention. Now you've gone and made me second-guess myself. Maybe I should upload a new version later... but that seems like a pain.

 

Now I'm a little frightened at the prospect of people screwing something up since my mod is music replacement/additions that actually overwrite and add files, but don't have an ESM or ESP. If nobody reads the readme... well...

[Omnimmotus]

This isn't a bad idea. I feel a little bad since I just uploaded a mod with a generic README.txt in the RAR. I guess I just assumed people read those and didn't unzip them, which was fully my intention. Now you've gone and made me second-guess myself. Maybe I should upload a new version later... but that seems like a pain.

 

Now I'm a little frightened at the prospect of people screwing something up since my mod is music replacement/additions that actually overwrite and add files, but don't have an ESM or ESP. If nobody reads the readme... well...

Don't feel bad. Just because we're working on a standard doesn't mean that people who haven't already adapted to it are scum or anything. I mean, readmes ARE there to be read. I read them. If they don't bother to read it, that's their fault.

 

We're just trying to make things more functional for prolonged use with its documentation, as well as ease installation. :happy:

[Circuitous]

Mike, I understand what you're saying, but not the OP's use of the term "outrageous".

 

It's called hyperbole.

 

I keep my Oblivion folders on a separate hard drive.

 

All the ones that have to do with the game itself, e.g. Oblivion/data etc

go into a directory called TES

 

Another completely unrelated directory houses all my compressed downloads in an organized substructure including a folder for mods I have downloaded but "do not install", "mods 4 later", and then a very detailed substructure of the installed mods based on what they are/do: Real Estate, Wardrobe, Weapons, Animations, Tools, Hair & Beauty, Characters, etc. A shared folder in this directory houses any current readmes I may want to refer to from a second PC while I'm in-game.

 

 

There are a few readmes allowed into my TES/Oblivion/data folder, and they go into a subdirectory I simply call "txt"

So extreme organization isn't unique to you, and it's a bit of a fantasy to expect that modders cater to the way you'd like it.

 

I'm happy for whatever I get, and it's people who sweat the little things that make me sigh with relief that I tend to mod only for my friends.

 

So you're telling me that your method of sorting - which I'm tempted to label anal-retentive - is a viable alternative to a really pretty dang simple file structure for archives?

 

I'm not saying "Holy crap this is awful I hate downloading mods 'cuz everyone does it all wrong! Everybody better do it like I say 'cuz you suck if you don't!" I'm just saying it'd be nice if there were some sort of standard. Adherence is voluntary - at least until I become Dictator - and if someone doesn't do it it's not like we'll be at their doors with pitchforks and torches ready to hang them from the water tower or anything. Inspired by a true story, by the way.

 

If no one follows it... well, big deal.

 

I am, however, very happy to see some big modding names in favor of this proposal. Hopefully, leading by example will get this thing off the ground.

 

What I don't get, though, and this pretty much sums up the post: why, exactly, are you so against this? If it takes off, it's only an improvement - if not, you're completely unaffected. It just seems like pointless negativity. Hell, you apparently don't even publicly release mods, so I'm not even asking anything of you. I just don't get it, man.

[psycros]

I could not agree more with adopting a standard such as this. The main reason is because it allows for the creation of simple management programs (think OBMM) that allow the end-user to install mods with ZERO technical knowledge. That gives the mods far more exposure than they would otherwise gain. It also helps protect your game from accidental (or God forbid, intentional) disaster. And possibly best of all, it makes the mod creators lives easier by supporting automated tools for mod building, editing and compatibility checking. So that five minutes spent sorting files (or creating the proper tree to start with) will pay us ALL back many times over. I know for a fact that average PC gamers will not mess around with incomprehensible stuff like Wyre Bash and so on. Making users jump through hoops to enjoy your work makes no sense at all: you either want people to use your stuff or you don't. I strongly urge the big guns of the community to get behind this.

[Circuitous]

I'm not usually one for bumping, but, uh... nudge.

[mikekearn]

Something like this should be stickied. I know I wasn't overly enthusiastic at first, but after some reflection, I agree that this standard would be a great idea.

[Omnimmotus]

My recently released small mod, Clover - Goddess Hair, conforms to the standard I outlined. (A slight modification of your original standard.) The file structure is thus:

Clover-GoddessHairv1_0.7z

|

|-/Mod Readmes/

|--/Clover - Goddess Hair/

|---readme.txt

|---GoddessHair1.jpg

|---GoddessHair2.jpg

|

|-Clover - Goddess Hair.esp

I believe this should do well for a standard. (Though suggestions are welcome, as I made my little change.) Perhaps we could get clearance from a moderator to form a thread to be stickied officially? I could make the thread, but I have a bad habit of disappearing. Circuitous could make the thread, being that he is the one that proposed it. Or, a Moderator could make the thread, giving it that extra official quality. All of these would be viable, but are there any other modifications that need to be made to the structure beforehand?

[myrmaad]

*chuckes* That's really funny. :)

 

 

I'm not against a helping hand to encourage best practices for packaging mods at all.

 

The original post did strike me as a Madgod mentality though.

 

 

I would not want to discourage modders, though, so those who partake of mods have some responsibilities: to read the docs, and familiarize themselves with the folder structures.

 

I personally absolutely do not want random meshes strewn around my meshes folder though. If it's a mesh that came with the "ReallyNeatMod", it would be better if it unpacks to Meshes/ReallyNeatMod/*.nif.

 

Finally, there are times when using the DATA folder structure to deliver the mod is the best practice. And there are other times when just willy-nilly throwing all the files that came with a mod into the data folder will screw things up completely. This is what comes from using a "standard" -- the idea that you don't have to read, you can just perform by rote. There are the cases with larger, more complicated mods that allow multiple choices like overhauls and base mods that other mods use as resources. So it's most important, in my view, to educate the consumer to read the documents, and that alleviates the problem altogether.

[LHammonds]

I agree that a "standard" should be adopted. If we have learned anything since the release of Oblivion and the thousands of mods already uploaded, it is important to know what to expect when you download (or create) a mod archive.

 

Having tools such as OBMM makes it easy to have a standard when that tool expects or delivers an archive in a certain way.

 

I also think that standards should be as simple and intuitive as possible. And if something is not simple, it needs to have a good reason behind the "why" it is suggested as a standard.

 

Take example of the readme:

- Everyone agrees is should not be named just "readme.txt" because if all files were names as this, they would all overrite each other and you would only ever have one readme file in your data folder and would have no clue as to which mod it belonged to unless you open it and "hope" it contained the name of the mod inside.

- Whatever the name, it should include the word "readme" in the name somewhere simply because tools such as OBMM will be able to automatically detect the file this way.

- It has been long-suggested that the name of the readme should be "ModName Readme.txt" such as "Mandalorian Armor Readme.txt"

- Regarding the location, most all mods keep the readme file with the plugin which is in the Data folder. I do not think there is sufficient reason to make another folder dedicated to hold readme files. A mod manager will make it so that you do not even have to "look" at the Data folder. Example:

Fallout3\Data\Mandalorian Armor.esp

Fallout3\Data\Mandalorian Armor Readme.txt

 

Take example of meshes: (same goes for Textures / Sound FX / Menu Icons / etc.)

- The game developer breaks their structures out in folders such as the following:

Meshes\Armor\armortype\

Meshes\Furniture\furnituretype\

Meshes\Weapons\weapontype\

- It would make sense if mod makers followed this same structure but substituting their projectname under the main folders such as the following:

Meshes\Armor\ModName\

Meshes\Furniture\ModName\

Meshes\Weapons\ModName\

- Some (although very few) have suggested that all mod files be stored under one project folder but I would not recommend this. Example:

Meshes\ModName\

 

Take example of Screenshots:

- Very few mods include screenshots in the archive. They are usually attached to the image gallery separately.

- In keeping things simple, I would also recommend a similar process to the readme and plugin naming convention..."ModName-1.jpg" "ModName-2.jpg" "ModName-3.jpg" where anything after the hyphen is up to the author so it could be just a series of numbers or a description but all the files are pre-fixed the same. Example:

Mandalorian Armor.esp

Mandalorian Armor Readme.txt

Mandalorian Armor-1.jpg

Mandalorian Armor-2.jpg

Mandalorian Armor-3.jpg

Mandalorian Armor-4.jpg

- You "could" recommend screenshots be placed in a separate sub-folder but again, I refer back to keeping things simple. Advanced mod managers "could" recognize these files due to their extension (JPG, PNG) and automatically re-direct them to a "standard" folder or simply not install them as part of the mod but maybe just show them during the preview before installation (same goes for the readme file).

 

During the initial days of FO3 modding, there is going to be somewhat of an expected amount of chaos. Tools are in their early development stages but there is MUCH this community is benefiting from based on prior experience with this game engine from the Oblivion and Morrowind modding community. Many of the lessons-learned have been translated to the FO3 community because of this...such as the Readme Generator previously mentioned as well as tutorials, tools and other resources. What I'm saying is that whatever "standard" you pick today will need to evolve over time as tools and processes are improved but please keep in mind that it needs to remain as simple as possible and only introduce in complication (or not intuitive) procedures only if there is a very strong and well-excepted reason behind it.

 

I also see the initial post as heavily relying on this standard from the viewpoint of manually installing and maintaining mods in the Data folder. As long as there is a mod manager, I will never recommend such a course of action. Even as a very experienced Computer Scientist with a masters degree under my belt and years of computer experience, I still managed to hose up my savegames with only 30 or 40 mods installed in the early days of Oblivion mod-using before I found and started using Oblivion Mod Manager. Since then, I have never hosed up a savegame or had my Data folder so cluttered that I had to re-install just to clean it out. The real problem of manually "managing" mods comes from upgrading and removing mods which can be extremely tricky especially if they affect savegames over time or if they become dependent on them (like being addicted to Mentats). The standard needs to keep mod tools in mind to help with the heavy lifting of organization at the end-user point of view. The standard also needs to keep things simple for the authors, especially if people do not know about the standard but just "happen" to follow it because it is intuitive and have seen so many other mods done the same way.

 

LHammonds

[kapro]

How about something like this:

AuthnameModnameVersion.ext
|-Modname.esp
|-\MenuVoices\
|--\Modname\
|---\...\
|---...
|--...
|-\Meshes\
|--\Modname\
|---\...\
|---...
|--...
|-\Misc\
|--\Modname\
|---\...\
|---...
|--...
[etcetera]
|-\Mod Info\
|--\Modname\
|---ModnameVersion Readme.txt
|---Screenshot 0.ext
|---Screenshot 1.ext
|--\...\
|--...

 

Where etcetera is all the other possible folders.