BLOG PIECE: supporting modding in totality

[kichigaikikyokagome]

This was beautifully worded and made me more aware of the situation with gaming and modding in the present and future. I would love to see this "renaissance" of modding bloom. I, too, love the infinite possibilities of a game that can be tailored to each individual's preferences. I love this site, the rules, and the attitude in general. If anyone can pull it off, it would be you guys, but I am concerned about the quality control of the community here going downhill if a large influx of uninitiated people suddenly take interest in the site. It would be sad for nexus to take a hit in reputation while trying to do good for the gaming world. Its not enough to deter me from encouraging your changes, but perhaps you will keep it in mind when the time comes for implementing these changes. How will the influx of gamers to nexus affect the community here, and what policy changes or increase in moderators would be needed to handle it, at least until the 'nexus newbies' adjust to the tolerant/friendly climate (assuming they don't just overwhelm the culture of the current community)?

[Triaxx2]

I like the idea of one central mod site for those games that don't have a huge community, or that have one that doesn't have a central hub. I'd love to see one specifically for Indie games and the mods that go with them.

[sirchet]

This is good news.

 

So, you're going to be kind of like Moddb except with more traffic, right?

[gutlessVADER]

It'd be nice to have a tracking list for all the plugins my Minecraft server uses, instead of using a massive folder of bookmarks. Being able to check when the file was last updated is a huge plus too. Can't wait for GTA mods on the Nexus either!

[CowPocalypseNow]

In response to post #7826885.

I believe that modding is the future of gaming, largely due to the greed of A-rank game companies who will charge you $4.99 for ONE re-skinned outfit and ONE additional RE-SKINNED weapon while shoving political and corporate messages down your throat - and conversely the MASSIVE talent and enthusiasm I've seen on this site by private non-payrolled 'amateur' game developers who can put power-consuming night vision goggles, animated sexual relationships, hunger/thirst needs, and even vehicle physics that the original game didn't even support.

I sold both systems (XBOX and PS3 - hardcore console gamer I used to be, I bought both systems just to play exclusive titles) and sold all my games without even shedding a tear to upgrade my PC so I could mod Fallout. I got sick of paying 50-60 dollars for the lack of replayability (1 week to beat a game or get bored of it) and lack of content/originality/corporate or political messages. When games became mainstream they began to exhibit the mind-numbing symmetry of a species nearing extinction to quote biologists.

Modding is like the cyberpunk freezone of novels like Gibson's Neuromancer - it is a moving away from centralized development and control - the more gamers we convert to modding rather buying corporate content - we give them power and teach them something dangerous like unrestricted creativity and unlimited freedom, content release without release dates or corporate marketing seasons, gaming without predefined borders - not limited to an inbred and myopic corporate/political talent pool.

[k2_8191]

In response to post #7815885. #7818166, #7818528, #7818771, #7818850, #7819044 are all replies on the same post.

Seconded.
I'd like to see, in the perfect world, all positive and negative comments without apparent spam.
Maybe endorsements/download-count ratio helps, though.

[etholas]

Dark0ne (and the Nexus team) are a beacon of light in this world. Dark0ne is a philanthropist and a visionary in the truest sense of the words! Sincerely and very gratefully, thank you!

[vipermkii]

I am very happy to see that nexus plans to give authors some control over their comment sections. I have read through the comments to this blog piece and so far the number one objection to this plan goes something like this "well if the author deletes all of the 'negative' comments then I won't know if I like the mod or not".

 

This attitude is exactly why authors need the ability to delete comments. Comments are apparently affecting whether or not users download a mod when users should be taking the time to test it out and decide for themselves. Sometimes I cannot believe the absolute stupidity of some of these comments that I read, or the unbelievable arrogance of someone who's second post ever is a dissertation on how they think a mod is still in beta, etc.

 

I had my first experience with bad comments recently. I released a mod that I kinda hoped would make the hot file list but it was hit early with several bad comments that I couldn't do anything about. I call these bad comments because they trash talked my mod while making no suggestion on how to improve them, they were almost malicious. Also, because of how quickly these comments showed up, I'm pretty sure that the posters didn't even try the mod but only looked at my rather simple screenshots. I ended up shutting off the comment section but I think that it was too late.

 

And before anybody reads this and cries "I don't want a bad mod to breaked ma game" let me say that I have been downloading mods for years now and I have never had a mod that caused permanent damage to any of my games. It's real simple, save the game, install the mod, test the mod, if it works continue on with life and be sure to not endorse it (sarcasm here). If the mod doesn't work, uninstall it, revert to pre-mod save and continue on with life. It is that simple (personally, I learned long ago that 99% of mod problems are solved by adjusting the load order). Also, people need to acquire a certain level of knowledge before they jump into using mods. People need to know about load orders, learn how .esp and .bsa files work and except the fact that two mods that mod the same things are going to conflict.

 

Long story made short: Modders want to kill malicious comments, users want some kind of peer pressure system to tell them if they should try a mod or not; perhaps the middle ground cannot be found in the comment section but lay elsewhere.

Edited April 16, 2013 by vipermkii

[vipermkii]

Since they are kinda relevant to this topic, I have three questions:

1) Why the heck can't any of us delete our own comments? I know this feature existed for a hot minute. . .

 

2) what happened to the comment rating system? Seems like it would help this situation. It might not solve the entire problem but before I was publishing mods I certainly made good use of it, upping helpful comments, awesome comments and shunning stupid comments. I wasn't able to use Nexus for a couple of months so really, what happened to it?

 

3) How about a system that kinda forces people to say yay or nay to the mods that they downloaded? Maybe once a week when people log on, the are directed to a page where they take the literal 15 seconds that it takes to click some up or down thumbs? It's ridiculous that the most endorsed file of all time has nearly three million downloads but less than fifty thousand endorsements. A more detailed endorsement system could alleviate some of that "does it work?" anxiety.

Edited April 16, 2013 by vipermkii

[Deathtoheaven731]

In response to post #7833384.

Here here!