What are your thoughts on the wabbajack installer?

[Arneercool]

It has some quirks, but besides that, i feel like it should be earned, somehow, preferable after you have spend 3-5000 hours in xedit, vortex and mod organizer.

 

I'm not an elitarian, but it seems to be that you are setting yourself up to becoming an annoyance in the help section if you skip the 'inner workings' of the modding process.

[HeyYou]

It has some quirks, but besides that, i feel like it should be earned, somehow, preferable after you have spend 3-5000 hours in xedit, vortex and mod organizer.

 

I'm not an elitarian, but it seems to be that you are setting yourself up to becoming an annoyance in the help section if you skip the 'inner workings' of the modding process.

Wabbajack, automaton, and others of that nature, were designed and built for the folks that, for whatever reason, don't want to spend the time picking and choosing mods, installing them, then convincing them to play nice together. They are aimed at 'casual gamers', and folks with time constraints, that prevent them from spending the time getting their load order perfect, and their game stable. That's all on the mod-pack author. Remains to be seen just how well its all going to shake out..... I suspect, as they become more popular, and more mod packs become available, there will be some that are really good, some that are merely ok, some that aren't so good, and others that just suck..... Will the author support his mod pack? Will he/she keep it updated? Or is that all going to end up on the authors of the individual mods themselves? (which is one of the major points of contention mod authors have with the system......)

 

Personally, I think the automated installers ARE going to become a 'thing'. Players will like them, because it will give them an opportunity to play a modded game, without the steep learning curve that goes with it. Just click some buttons, let the tool do its thing, and off they go, with their nicely modded game. (hopefully.....) So, folks that normally wouldn't, for whatever reason, mod their game, will now be able to do so. That will bring more traffic to the various download sites. For Nexus, it will definitely mean more traffic, and given the way automated downloads are set up here, it will prompt some of those folks to spring for a premium account. Which puts money in their pocket..... I don't see them saying "No" to that.

 

So, the system does have some advantages. A fair few mod authors though, disagree. Some, vehemently disagree...... and have gone so far as to remove their mods from here, and uploaded them to other places, that DON'T support the automated downloads. (beth, for instance.) Should be interesting to see how things develop.