Please understand that my intent when publishing lots of individual mod pages isn't to spam the Nexus. There is no way to publish a page but have it hidden from the front page of search results. I am trying to trickle out the pages slowly, but I have 40 to upload so if I upload 5-8 per day as I have been doing it is still going to take me most of a week to do it. Preparing all the materials for all the pages took me upwards of 80 hours over the last week, so believe me if there was a viable alternative I would have taken it. That isn't counting the time it took to prepare the optimized textures, testing etc.
Some people have accused me of click-baiting. I am using descriptive titles, it is not my fault some views truncate the titles, but it only takes a mouse over and you have a clear description too if you are using a tiled view.
Optional files isn't designed to handle 120+ current "optional" files and I will most likely have more than that soon enough.
Version numbers for optional files downloaded in NMM are set at the time of download based on the version number on the options page, bottom right of each file entry, or from what is in the FOMOD (I don't use Fomods for this project). When NMM does a version check it compares that number with the current version number of the mod as a whole. So for mods with lots of options such as Armorsmith, you get lots of triangle warnings even though you are up to date on all files. It causes me no end of frustration on multiple popular mods with lots of options.
Here is an example of what it is currently like using the main SWOP file and some older patches that are still "current" because I haven't retired them yet (the guns have their own pages).
Just imagine what a block of 20 or 30 seclected texture mods is going to look like... a wall of triangles with false warnings, and no idea when an actual warning is true.
It causes what I like to think of as "warning blindness" - half your mod version column ends up full of warning triangles for optional files which are actually up to date. As a mod author changing the version number on the page doesn't help the people who have already downloaded the files.
What NMM should do is compare filename downloaded to filename on server, and if you have the latest filename then the 2.1 optional file is still current, even if the main file is at 2.2. But it doesn't.
It kinda works for real optional files that change every time a primary file changes, such as some of the landscape/grass retexture projects that also offer upscales/downscales with every release, and it works for some option patches for guns that get updated frequently to reflect a current version.
Unfortunately it can't possibly work for my project.
Creating all these extra pages is a considerable investment in time, but eventually every single page will have it's own optional files, and maybe also optimized versions of retextures, thus multiplying out the amount of files considerably. It also has a negative marketing effect. If someone downloads an optional file, they can endorse the parent. In my case I only get endorsements on the main project if someone downloads the main project instead.
Ultimately I am thinking about the long-term usability for my users, whereas a few are thinking about the short term inconvenience for them of clicking a link to look at a second page. So much so they troll my comments on multiple mods.
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but is this another case really where the author of this mod removed the original from being downloaded?! Sorry, I'm just getting really tired of whiney immature mod authors simply removing their mods because they have a bad day. From here forward now I manually download every mod I use so that I am in control of the mods I have, not the mod authors. Personally I don't understand why the Nexus webmasters don't force the Authors to be unable to remove their mods after a certain number of downloads so that if 1 million people are using a mod, 1 person individually has no control over that. So basically when it comes to the WH-77 there is no way to get that weapon right? Because the mod author removed the mod from the Nexus? What a childish and immature thing to do.
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2 comments
Please understand that my intent when publishing lots of individual mod pages isn't to spam the Nexus. There is no way to publish a page but have it hidden from the front page of search results. I am trying to trickle out the pages slowly, but I have 40 to upload so if I upload 5-8 per day as I have been doing it is still going to take me most of a week to do it.
Preparing all the materials for all the pages took me upwards of 80 hours over the last week, so believe me if there was a viable alternative I would have taken it.
That isn't counting the time it took to prepare the optimized textures, testing etc.
Some people have accused me of click-baiting. I am using descriptive titles, it is not my fault some views truncate the titles, but it only takes a mouse over and you have a clear description too if you are using a tiled view.
Optional files isn't designed to handle 120+ current "optional" files and I will most likely have more than that soon enough.
Version numbers for optional files downloaded in NMM are set at the time of download based on the version number on the options page, bottom right of each file entry, or from what is in the FOMOD (I don't use Fomods for this project). When NMM does a version check it compares that number with the current version number of the mod as a whole.
So for mods with lots of options such as Armorsmith, you get lots of triangle warnings even though you are up to date on all files. It causes me no end of frustration on multiple popular mods with lots of options.
Here is an example of what it is currently like using the main SWOP file and some older patches that are still "current" because I haven't retired them yet (the guns have their own pages).
Just imagine what a block of 20 or 30 seclected texture mods is going to look like... a wall of triangles with false warnings, and no idea when an actual warning is true.
It causes what I like to think of as "warning blindness" - half your mod version column ends up full of warning triangles for optional files which are actually up to date. As a mod author changing the version number on the page doesn't help the people who have already downloaded the files.
What NMM should do is compare filename downloaded to filename on server, and if you have the latest filename then the 2.1 optional file is still current, even if the main file is at 2.2. But it doesn't.
It kinda works for real optional files that change every time a primary file changes, such as some of the landscape/grass retexture projects that also offer upscales/downscales with every release, and it works for some option patches for guns that get updated frequently to reflect a current version.
Unfortunately it can't possibly work for my project.
Creating all these extra pages is a considerable investment in time, but eventually every single page will have it's own optional files, and maybe also optimized versions of retextures, thus multiplying out the amount of files considerably.
It also has a negative marketing effect. If someone downloads an optional file, they can endorse the parent. In my case I only get endorsements on the main project if someone downloads the main project instead.
Ultimately I am thinking about the long-term usability for my users, whereas a few are thinking about the short term inconvenience for them of clicking a link to look at a second page.
So much so they troll my comments on multiple mods.
Any constructive comments regarding this I am happy to entertain in this dedicated forum post on the main SWOP mod page.
Any similar discussion here henceforth will be deleted and reported to moderators as per the terms of service.