Why is this article here?

To provide a copy/paste link instead of retyping answers to certain questions.

Do I need to read this article to enjoy the mod?

No, not worth your time, unless…

I heard on Reddit that this mod….. and then I was watching this video on YouTube where…. so I wanted to ask...

Then yes, you might want to read this.

Why?

Mod name: Fusion City Rising
Unique Nexus Downloads: 190k
Official Trailer views: 88k
Reviewed on YouTube?: Yes
Title of most popular YouTube video reviewing the mod: “Let’s Do Some Kinky Stuff”
Number of views: 2 million
Thumbnail used for the 3rd party YouTube video: A woman in a bathing suit chained to a wall
Mod actually contains that content?: no
Ratio of views on that vid to official trailer views: 23 to 1

Mod name: Outcasts and Remnants
Unique Nexus Downloads: 91k
Official Trailer views: 34k
Reviewed on YouTube?: Yes
Title of most popular YouTube video reviewing the mod: “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy”
Number of views: 1.1 million
Thumbnail used for the 3rd party YouTube video: Not sure what that’s a picture of
Ratio of views on that vid to official trailer views: 32 to 1

Mod name: Project Valkyrie
Unique Nexus Downloads: 32k
Official Trailer views: 31k
Reviewed on YouTube?: Yes
Title of most popular YouTube review: “This mod will make you want to play Fallout 4 all over again”
Number of views: 518k
Thumbnail used for the video: Fully nude stripper in gas mask with “Project Valkyrie” logo next to it
Mod actually contains that content?: no
Wait, seriously? YouTube didn’t censor that thumbnail?: Eventually they did.
Ratio of views on that vid to official trailer views: 17 to 1

Wow, way more people have watched these mods on YouTube than have played them

Yep.

What’s in the mods?

Combined, about 50 hours of playable content, fifty quests, custom companions, alternate endings to the vanilla game, and dozens of new interior cells including a new vault, enemy bunkers, player bases, etc.

There’s also a nightclub (from Fusion City Rising), a Raider Bar (Outcasts and Remnants), and another nightclub (Project Valkyrie).

What’s in the YouTube videos showcasing the mods?

Mostly the nightclubs.

What percentage of the mod content consists of nightclubs?

3 to 5%, depending how you measure it.

Anything else YouTube worthy?

There’s an optional time travel side quest where you can enter a contest to kill Hitler in the most creative way.  There’s also a quest to retrieve a treasure map, but someone hid the map in a d*ldo bat used as a prank gift. The bat never shows up on screen unless you choose to use it as a weapon. YouTubers seem quite fond of killing Hitler with the bat. And pimps… there’s pimps too.

Why do YouTubers cover the comical parts instead of showcasing more representative content?

If you want views, you have to pick a provocative thumbnail and then find the most shocking footage that will fit into a several minute highlight reel, to get the most people talking about and sharing your video.

What kind of viewer impressions does that generate?

Here’s a few comments from the YouTube videos mentioned above:

- So is Outcasts and Remnants mainly filled with Bruce Campbell references?
- Are there woman beating mods yet. push away broke my followers before uninstall :(
- Sarah is hot. Reminds me of Lyons, rip.
- I'm sorry I only jerk off to Cait
- Fusion city should've had vault 69
- who ever made this mod should die
- why do you use mods through nexusmods, its much easier through Bethesda.net
- Has a sex lab mod came out yet?
- in outcasts and remnants the toilet paper is not in the immersive direction!
- There’s just a full on boob in the thumbnail
- so outcasts and remnants is basically..... wolfenstein: the new sloot?
- I’ve noticed in oyour thumbnails every woman has a sexy position how do you do it?
- I don't even play Fallout 4. I'm just here to see mods.. and tiddies.. lots and lots of animated tiddies.
- project Valkyrie almost makes me want to actually buy fallout 4
- I finally got a computer so I can play these mods instead of just watching you showcase them for the past few yesrs

Those users don’t come to the Nexus mod page though, do they?

Yes…. yes they do (sighs)

To download the mod?

No, most of them don’t own a PC.

Seriously, none of them download the mod?

Some of them do. But statistically, it’s hard to see a difference in overall downloads when adjusting for day of the week.

Why do they visit the mod page then?

I don’t know.

Where else do they go to comment? I want to read some more of these gems.

Reddit, Discord, Bethesda.net, you name it.

Surely, those sites contain more intelligent mod comments?

It’s hit or miss… and don’t call me Shirley.

Reddit User 1 (about Fusion City Rising): Is it on Xbox or coming to Xbox ?
Reddit User 2 (answering Reddit user 1): Yep. It's one of the higher rated mods on Xbox.

(The mod is not available on xBox)

Discord User 1: Pretty sure copyright protection does not cover mods, since the base material isn’t owned by the modder anyway.
Discord User 2: How the hell do you have any right to copyright anything already copywritten? Explain that bulls***.

(Well Jimmy, it’s explained right here in United States Copyright Office Circular 14)

Reddit User 3: Outcasts and Remnants is far too on-the-nose with just outright calling the BOS "a bunch of Nazi assholes."
Reddit User 4: The first guy meet from there sound like a stoner and call the Brotherhood "literal Nazis"

(Neither of the lines being quoted are in the mod)

So I was watching this YouTube video, and then I read on Reddit that…..

Now you understand?

But if what I read on social media wasn’t accurate, surely someone would correct it?

Ever watch a close presidential election on election night, and switch the channel back and forth between the blatantly liberal news channel and the blatantly conservative one? It’s like you’re watching two different realities.

Same thing on social media sites. They become echo chambers for whatever the prevailing opinion is there. Hint that the emperor has no clothes and you will be swiftly downvoted to oblivion.

Examples?

Meet Sunil Tripathi. R.I.P. If you’ve heard the term “Reddit Detectives”, that’s where it came from. (TL;DR Reddit falsely and publicly accused this innocent young man of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. He was found dead from suicide several days later).

That’s awfully dark. Got something… less morbid?

Reddit NBA is the second most-active sub-reddit at certain times of the year, and has individual basketball team sub-reddits that feed into it.

Luol Deng, a 2x NBA all-star and all-around good guy, is now considered one of the 10 worst NBA free agency signings of all time when the Los Angeles Lakers signed him to a 4-year, $72 million deal in 2016. The Lakers went on to become the 3rd worst team in the league for the 2016-2017 season, Deng ended up permanently benched, and the executives who signed him were fired mid-season.

Surely the Reddit community realized this signing was foolish?

Here was the reaction on the Reddit Lakers sub at the time of singing in June, 2016:

- Lakers got a GREAT player in Deng.
- Such a professional. Will play any role you put him in, will do a good job and won't complain.
- He will be a great mentor to Ingram, great defensive guide and great locker room presence.
- Nice , having a vet like him will help the young guys tremendously.
- No question. He's an absolute pro and a joy to have on your team.
- The money isn't bad. A little longer than you'd like maybe.
- I honestly can’t see a problem with this signing, especially with what Bazemore got.

And the same sub-Reddit 21 months later, after the Lakers were forced to start gutting their young core of players in order to move bad contracts:

- It still blows my mind how atrocious these deals were at the time. How was there no team option??
- The gang thought everything was going to be alright. Narrator: “Everything was not going to be alright.”
- Lol I love how everybody was positive about his veteran leadership and experience. Now that don’t mean jack shit because we are now trying to sign Lebron and PG. O how times change
- It's funny how all the ones who were downvoted were right.

How can social media get stuff like this so wrong?

A hundred years ago in 1918, there was no television, Internet, mass radio, or cell phones. If you wanted news, you read a newspaper, and the average person was lucky to read a few dozen books in their lifetime. That allowed time for someone to process information and think about what they read before reacting to the next thing.

100 years later in 2018, the average person is subjected to at least dozens of newspapers’ worth of new information daily.

Ever try to have a conversation with a smart person who is temporarily distracted by texting on their cellphone? “Wait, what, sorry, can you say that again?” For that short period of time, they are transformed into an imbecile, unable to focus attention adequately on any one thing.

The amount of new information our brains are expected to process is unprecedented in human history. Depending on which study you believe, the average American adult spends between 8 and 13 hours a day in front of a screen, so busy processing new information from all directions that it hampers the ability to think clearly about any given topic.

On places like Facebook, most are unable to differentiate between real news, fake news, or opinion news, and many people on Reddit upvote/downvote topics and move on without ever reading past the headline. They’re not dumb people, they just don’t have the time or motivation to analyze what they’re reading.

Fact-checking doesn’t accomplish much either. Being the first to post, regardless of accuracy, is usually what counts. If someone posts complete B.S., and someone else fact-checks it with a link to an actual source, the response to the fact-check is often stuff like “the points still stands”, or “I'm here to have fun not to be the target of your misdirected emotionally abusive bullsh*t.”

The same principles apply whether you’re talking about politics, murder investigations, professional basketball, or modding.

Are comments on Nexus more useful with respect to mod advice?

People are people. To the extent discussions seem more civil and useful on Nexus, it’s likely because there are effective systems in place to promote that. And if you venture into certain Nexus forums like “Fallout 4 Creation Kit and Modders”, the people answering questions there almost exclusively fall into one of two categories: 1) they could teach a course on Creation Kit, or 2) they at least genuinely want to help you.

I don’t know, I’ve come across some extremely childish comments on Nexus

Possibly because they’re coming from children. A poll on Nexus user age distribution receiving 1,610 responses between Sep ’16 and Sep ’18 showed the following ages:

0-14: 8.6%
15-17: 19.6%
18-21: 26.8%
22-40: 31.0%
41-60: 10.6%
61+: 3.4%

It’s self-reported, so take it with a grain of salt, but over 1,600 responses is a healthy sample. Reddit seems to have a similar age distribution, although the polls on that don’t seem to acknowledge that anyone using that site could possibly be under the age of 18, so who knows.

So if I have a question about a mod, where should I look to find an answer?

The mod page is usually the best place to start. Mod authors have an incentive to put answers to commonly asked questions on the mod page to avoid flooding the comments section with the same questions over and over.

In the case of FCR, OAR, and PV, there are dozens of pages of documentation in addition to the main mod page, to serve as quest guides, troubleshooting help, etc. These articles are linked from the main mod page.

For FCR, OAR, and PV, surely, you don't expect me to read all the mod documentation before playing?

No, just the “Required Files” and “How to Start” sections on the main mod page.

And stop calling me Shirley.

What if I have a problem with something?

Then yes, have a look at the help links on the main mod page to see if your question is answered there. You can also search the comments using the green “Forum Thread” button.

If your question isn’t answered, feel free to leave a comment, but please read the top sticky post first, and for the love of Mara please don’t start your post by referencing what you read somewhere on social media.

Why is there a sticky post followed by five more posts telling me to read the sticky post?

At first there was only one sticky post. But people kept ignoring it and asking questions already covered in the sticky post, so reminders were added incrementally. It wasn’t until the 5th reminder that people finally started reading the sticky post.

Really, you made me read through this whole sh*tty article just to tell me to read the sticky post again?

Hey, I warned you at the top you didn’t have to read it. Just be thankful there weren’t any Rickrolls this time.