Releasing via NexusMods

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FieldsingAround
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Releasing via NexusMods

Post by FieldsingAround »

Now that Alpha 1.0 has arrived, and many of the core DFU mods are in a releasable format, now seems like the time to move over to NexusMods (i.e. https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfall ) as DFU moves into its next stage of life.

If not simply for the visibility and connectivity with the rest of the TES modding community and userbase, it also has a number of tools designed to help mod authors organise their releases, and friendlier systems for users to access - changelogs, file managers, permissions & credits, image & video galleries, categorisation & tagging, etc. It also has the Bug Reporting feature which is useful given while the releases are solid at this point, there's still occasional bugs and things to polish!

(Nexus has also been great for promoting things such as the Morrowind Modathon, which has helped significantly with the growth and sustainability of the Morrowind modding community - DFU could benefit from similar community events, which Nexus would be helpful with in this regard).

The system is already there for people to use, so it's just moving content over.

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King of Worms
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by King of Worms »

Doesnt nexus require some payments?
Why nit ModDB where we already have things set up for DFU and some nods are already there?

FieldsingAround
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by FieldsingAround »

No Nexus is free, Nexus because it's what the rest of the TES modding community uses (and was originally developed specifically for the TES community). With the new modding tools that have been created in the past few years, having greater visibility and integration with the wider TES community which primarily centres around NexusMods, will be beneficial to the longterm growth of the DFU community — encouraging some of those talented mod makers to come over from the Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim modding communities (not to mention other modding communities also on the site from other games).

Not that modDB can't also be used for hosting, but ModDB doesn't have the same integration with the TES community specifically, and doesn't get nearly as much traffic that Nexus does (nor the tools that Nexus offers).

You can also compare rankings of the two sites here https://www.similarweb.com/website/nexu ... m#overview (Global Rank: 347) https://www.similarweb.com/website/moddb.com#overview (Global Rank: 2,557) — Nexus is the most used platform for hosting & downloading mods worldwide, and one of the most actively used gaming websites in the world.

For a further figure, the most downloaded Morrowind mod on ModDB is MorrowindRebirth, at 5848 total downloads — while hosted on NexusMods, this same mod has had 198,345 downloads. with close to a million views. That's a 3391.6% increase in downloads NexusMods has over ModDB for that mod, while the most downloaded mod on the Morrowind Nexus, Morrowind Code Patch having 867,585 total downloads, and 2,277,119 total views, which is 14835.5% more than the amount downloads MorrowindRebirth has on ModDB.

While the above figures are clearly indicative of NexusMod's popularity, they are also an indicator of the sites search rankings — meaning that mods hosted on NexusMods are more likely to be found from search engines — even with barely nothing uploaded so far on Nexus for Daggerfall it still has better search ranking for "Daggerfall Mods" than dfworkshop.net and moddb (this is also due to NexusMods being a modern site, that has been optimised for the web, namely modern SEO practice, and sees routine updates to performance and features — while moddb has not seen any significant change for the past decade).

NexusMods also enabled the success of the Morrowind Modding Modathon (supported by and hosted on Nexus), the stats of which can be found here link.. Which are incredibly impressive, given Morrowind's age, and is something the DFU community should be looking to emulate.

In short, if you want to increase the adoption rates of DFU and utilization of DFU mods, you need to be selecting platforms that perform well, and reach the audiences you want to reach — but not that you can't do both, either, same way as companies use multiple social media sites to reach the widest audience. But not using NexusMods as the primary way of releasing mods would be a mistake, taking into account all of the above.
Last edited by FieldsingAround on Thu Aug 08, 2019 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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King of Worms
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by King of Worms »

Fair enough, some valid points...
So.. lets set up a DFU part there.
I will release a Dream next version there.

ACNAero
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by ACNAero »

In taking the good with the bad, you also have to remember the general attitude of people on the Nexus is... different than here. People get much more protective of their mods there, and, depending on the author, lose their mind if you try to make something like a compatibility patch and say that no one is allowed to touch their baby, which goes against a push for pure open source mods that's happened on here. This also extends to some users who go around flagging mods they only assume shouldn't be uploaded for various reasons. Then you've got the notoriously more ban-happy moderators, although that seems to have died down a bit in recent years.

I'm not saying Nexus shouldn't be used, and I support it being used overall, but you do need to remember there are downsides to it.

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Deepfighter
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by Deepfighter »

Well, I am a bit hesitant regarding this sale talk. Important is that the modders should find a common way of distributing their modifications. It doesn't matter which platform as long as mods are not shared decentralized. In the end the user/modder for DFUnity will go to the platform the modders have chosen. Just because Nexus is famous for mods TES III upwards doesn't mean it fits for DFUnity in the same way. Views are not everything. So you may have to ask yourself which should the platform to be, depending on whats important for you.

Personally, I find nexus quite chaotic and confusing (overlay structure and theme-wise). I remember, that I wanted to download a modification for Skyrim once and had to register just for doing that. Meeh. So there has to be put some thought into that before finally deciding where DFUnity modders want to release.
Head of the German Daggerfall translation - www.daggerfalldeutsch.de
and German translator for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Lore-Expert for The Elder Scrolls: Online

FieldsingAround
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by FieldsingAround »

@King of Worms great to hear it! It'll be great to see the community taking advantage of what the platform offers, especially at the moment with the recent buzz over on Kotaku, PCGamer, etc with the Alpha release. Would be great to move over there ASAP, to capitalise on the media attention — right now it's not that widely known what mods are available or where to download (for those not familiar with the dfworkshop forums).

ALso would be especially good to get the modders tools on the platform as well, to encourage new modders entering the community.

@ACNAero yes there's been a few bad eggs over the years, but that comes from the size of the communities on the platforms. You're much more likely to get a few problem people, if you have 1000+ modders on the platform, versus only a handful as the community here currently stands. The Morrowind community however does exceedingly well on the platform, and it has the most in common with the DFU community, both in the type of people it attracts, and the content being produced. Most of the problems come from younger members associated with newer games, and there's unlikely to be much crossover from that to DFU.

I've dealt with the platform over the past 10+ years, and it's proved to be reliable overall, and it's a great vehicle for communicating with fans — not to mention the tools the platform affords.

@deepfighter downloads and views mean a proliferation of the material, and greater uptake of DFU — the reason why NexusMods has been so successful is that it has actively catered to the community in a way no other site has - providing tools, site updates, copyright protection, and actively supporting community events (such as Morrowind Modding Marathon mentioned above), all of which DFU would benefit from in the same way, just as non-TES games also have benefited from. Yes Nexus requires an account to download, but this is designed to protect the platform from abuse (i.e. DDoS attacks and the like, artificial boosting of downloads, etc) given the scale of the site and how much traffic the site receives, however that accounts also is packed with additional tools designed to help users — like allowing you to track which mods you have downloaded, connecting your account to auto-downloader tools to keep yours mods up-to-date (a blessing for both authors and users), and being able to easily send it bug reports (making the current process of fine tuning easier, and simply for new users to submit issues if they find them). Most importantly, uploading on the site still doesn't exclude people from uploading on ModDB, or on dfworkshop, etc — it just means a wider reach for the content. A lot of larger mods still have a presence on other platforms, the key is that NexusMods shouldn't be ignored, especially now most things are in a releasable, playable state.

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Azteca
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by Azteca »

FieldsingAround wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:55 amMost importantly, uploading on the site still doesn't exclude people from uploading on ModDB, or on dfworkshop, etc — it just means a wider reach for the content.
This is true, but it means you need to keep multiple sites in sync. Fragmentation. Releases here are often kind of informal. It's not that it is an incredible burden, but if modders let it slip then there is very little point in having it in multiple places. Also, comments, bug reports, etc. will be split between the forum and Nexus. Again, more places to keep up with on top of the forum, reddit, discord, twitter :oops:

I did use Nexus extensively for Skyrim and Fallout, and it can be awesome. I just think that until we hit 1.0 things are likely to change and break pretty frequently and it would be easier to have players on the forum and seeing the explanations from the modder directly.
But, if it makes it easier for people to download and lets modders stop worrying about where to host files - and we stop having links go dead if a modder disappears - that would be good. Additionally, some countries block Mega and other file hosts and we've had players ask for mirrors.

Perhaps the best compromise is to use Nexus for the hosting and its quick downloads but always have a giant red disclaimer at the top saying COME TO THE THREAD FOR QUESTIONS AND LATEST UPDATES.
On the forum, Modders won't have to post a new link, just a simple post saying "version x.x released."

FieldsingAround
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by FieldsingAround »

@azteca well the even better solution would be to use Nexus in conjunction with Vortex (the successor to Nexus's earlier Mod Manager), so that (public) updates can be automatically downloaded for players when released. The thing with forums is that, while good for devs discussing development and internal releases, they aren't as reliable for casual users, and they aren't made for purpose. Nexus has functionality built in to manage release notes, to archive older versions, and have these clearly labeled and organised, making it more accessible. It also allows mod authors to communicate directly with commenters and bug reporters (which, notably, are separately out, keeping bug reports away from general comments, unlike the forums).

In regards to current releases being informal, I think that's part of what is in the discussion right now of how the DFU community goes from being primarily developers and a smaller niche community, to opening up to a larger player base now that releases are in a much more playable state — Nexus has a proven track record of being fit for that purpose, and has the tools to provide the functionality needed as the development cycle comes into a new stage. It's a change in focus to meet newer demands of the community, and scaling up to meet those demands with a system designed to handle that.

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Deepfighter
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Re: Releasing via NexusMods

Post by Deepfighter »

FieldsingAround wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 3:50 pm [...] The thing with forums is that, while good for devs discussing development and internal releases, they aren't as reliable for casual users, and they aren't made for purpose. [...] It also allows mod authors to communicate directly with commenters and bug reporters (which, notably, are separately out, keeping bug reports away from general comments, unlike the forums).

In regards to current releases being informal, I think that's part of what is in the discussion right now of how the DFU community goes from being primarily developers and a smaller niche community, to opening up to a larger player base now that releases are in a much more playable state — Nexus has a proven track record of being fit for that purpose, and has the tools to provide the functionality needed as the development cycle comes into a new stage. It's a change in focus to meet newer demands of the community, and scaling up to meet those demands with a system designed to handle that.
Well, get to your point. You say in flowery words more or less - scrap the forum and come to us (Nexus), we offer you the holy grail and you don't need anything else.

I am very sorry if I read to much into your statements, but the way feels not right (yet). You disrespect in a way what this forum is. A meeting point for the current international Daggerfall Community. It's great that their is some fandom coming up for that game, after it got a bad reputation since release 13 years ago. Why not growing slowly and step by step. I don't like the idea of fragmentation in proprietary systems. Maybe DFU stays a niche (for a while more), it started as a work of passion and love for Daggerfall and it still gets developed with the same energy and motivation. It doesn't matter how much people know about DFUnity. Nothing will change in regard to development. Besides, sometimes popularity makes things even more difficult, especially if it's still in a development state as expectations and reality may crash.

Either way, interested user will create an forum account without hassle. The development switches to GitHub anyway, information will be gathered in the wiki and the forum can be used as a bastion also for discussions on modifications. It has to be restructured a bit but still. Maybe the community comes with an own solution in a way like jayhova's mod index. It could be that this will be enough for us right now. In any way it's something which should be discussed carefully.
Head of the German Daggerfall translation - www.daggerfalldeutsch.de
and German translator for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Lore-Expert for The Elder Scrolls: Online

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