Final Fantasy XIV

What's new in Vortex 1.1?

  • Comment
It doesn't feel like it's been long since we officially launched Vortex - our new mod manager - back in July but that was 4 months ago! Over that time, the Vortex team have been hard at work going through all the great feedback sent in by our community and building some exciting new features to make your modding experience even better. 

You can now update to the latest build (1.1.3) next time you open Vortex or manually install it from the Vortex download page.

So what's new? I've prepared a roundup of the most interesting new features added to Vortex since version 1.0.0.


New Games Page

In 1.0.0 Vortex had three different tabs on the games page to organise "managed", "discovered" and "supported" titles. We've revisited this design and added all games to a single scrollable page making it easier to see both your managed and other supported games in one place. 



Managed games appear at the top, discovered and supported games appear in the "unmanaged" section. Supported games will be greyscaled until they are detected. You can also hide games from this view or use the search box to find a game by name. 


More power to Game Extensions with Harmony

Perhaps the most exciting change in this update. Our Vortex team have been working hard on integrating the Harmony library into Vortex, which will allow much more powerful mod manager support for games powered by Unity (and other engines). 

Using Harmony, modders can inject C# code and assets into the assembly of a game. This is especially useful in Unity games where they do not support mod management natively. If you have a good working knowledge of C# and JavaScript, along with knowledge of how the engine in your favourite game works, you'll be right at home creating a Vortex extension to take advantage of Harmony. 

We've made a couple of mods for Untitled Goose Game to give you a taste of what is possible using these new features. In addition, we'll be creating more extensions and updating support for existing games to take advantage of Harmony in the coming months. You can learn more about using Harmony in Vortex here.



As part of this project, you'll also be able to make use of the Vortex In-Game Overlay (VIGO, for short) in Unity games. VIGO displays information and toggleable options for your mods while the game is running.


Get extensions inside Vortex

With more and more developers creating new extensions for Vortex, we've made it much easier to browse and install themes, translations and other extensions.



In the Extensions tab, you'll see a new "Find more" button which will open a list of the approved extensions ready to download. Anything you install this way will be kept up to date automatically, meaning you won't have to wait for the next Vortex release for any fixes or enhancements to be available. 

There is already a good range of localisations, themes, addons and community created game extensions. Here are some great examples of what is currently available.

Game Extensions: 

Themes:

Addons:


As an added bonus, new games and translations will automatically appear in the games tab and settings menu respectively so you won't need to open the extension browser to find them.

If you've created an extension and would like to include it in the extension browser, please upload it here and get in touch with Pickysaurus or BigBizkit. 


Mod and Plugin Grouping

A feature that many users in the community asked for is a way to group your mods by category, similar to the default view in Nexus Mod Manager. You can now group your mods (and plugins for Gamebryo games) by status, author, category and more. Each category can also be expanded and collapsed to help you keep things nice and tidy. 





That's not all

Vortex 1.1.3 also includes several other smaller fixes and enhancements, including new options to hide or close Vortex when starting the game, mod installers (FOMODs) are now compatible with most supported games and 11 new games have been added.

We're excited about the future of Vortex, so please keep telling us what you love and what you think could be better in the Vortex Discussion forums, our Discord or through Vortex itself.

200 comments

Comments locked

A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time being
  1. DrejDanzig
    DrejDanzig
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    I was just wondering if The Outer Worlds will ever be added to Vortex? If so Great if not no big. It would be nice to have mod management support for the game.
  2. skdrow2000
    skdrow2000
    • premium
    • 0 kudos
    I'm sorry, if you don't like Nexus, don't use it, if you don't like Vortex, don't use it, if you don't like mods don't use them, don't whine and cry all over the forums! I had NMM, liked it switched to Vortex when suggested to, had no trouble, everything works fine. Occasionally I have to tell it the order it should use, not difficult. BTW, I'm 76, and have no trouble with Nexus. I only wish modders for Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning would make mods that use Vortex. And, no, you don't pay for Vortex. I bought the premium Nexus, because I use it so much.
  3. OutlawShark
    OutlawShark
    • premium
    • 6 kudos
    Are we suppose to pay for Vortex? I haven't given them any money since I started using them. (6mths ago?) Now all of a sudden I get an email from them saying I don't have an account registered. I'm thinking ."Huh"?...So I sent an email back to Agent Kay at Vortex. Now she wants to know who and how I paid? It all LOOKS official but you know about all the scams going on... Plse hep me out here. R/("Confused old guy")
    1. adeemer13
      adeemer13
      • member
      • 1 kudos
      I know this was 11 months ago, but please tell me you didnt pay anyone?
    2. OutlawShark
      OutlawShark
      • premium
      • 6 kudos
      I did not. Haven't heard anything about it anymore either. My Nexus is due again soon. My understanding of everything is that is the only transaction required. Thanks adeemer13 for the inquiry no matter the time frame. Everything seems to be cool though. Godspeed people!
    3. Ithinari
      Ithinari
      • member
      • 0 kudos
      Neither Vortex nor Nexus "require" payments. Vortex doesn't at all. Nexus does offer premium services, such as faster download speeds and multiple downloads at a time, while getting the free services has limitations such as slower download speeds and usually one download at a time. Although sometimes two downloads can progress simultaneously on rare occasions. 

      So the only reason you should ever have a payment due for Nexus is if you are receiving those premium services. No services, no payment.
  4. eccokiller
    eccokiller
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    can someone plz make a need for speed heat extension. Then i can mod need for speed heat.
  5. Luciferverone
    Luciferverone
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    Im in a fix here, I was considering installing Vortex since I wanted to fire up my old games and play them again but after reading all these comments and the support page I can see that this mod manager has many issues. I watched the videos on how to install vortex along with the other beginner stuff and all of this just seems needlessly complicated and convoluted. The main point I want to know is how is this better than the pervious mod manager in which I simply installed my mods and played the game without having any issues. Is this mod manager worth all the complications or not?
    1. Didaskos
      Didaskos
      • member
      • 13 kudos
      Yes, Vortex is definitely better than NMM. It's far more reliable, and has much greater functionality. While you may have just "installed [your] mods and played the game", the problem with Nexus was that it was far more prone to bugs and mod conflicts as it didn't use any sort of virtualisation. If you installed a mod, and it conflicted with another, you would have to choose to overwrite the other mod, and if your load order wasn't quite right this could be catastrophic, and force you to uninstall everything and start again from scratch.

      By comparison, Vortex doesn't have that problem, although its virtualisation isn't perfect, and relies on HTML links in the game's data folder IIRC. Still, it's a huge step up over NMM. If you want to play Skyrim or Fallout 4 then there's an argument to be made that using Mod Organizer 2 would be better, but Vortex supports a much greater number and variety of games, and they're also made by the same guy regardless.

      Most of the complaints around Vortex are focused on the fact that people don't really understand or like the way in which it handles load orders, which is more complicated than for MO2 or NMM, although arguably better in the long run. Essentially, you set "rules" for certain mods to load before and after different mods, eliminating conflicts as a result. While this is an arduous task if you're doing it for your first time, in the long run it means that adding new mods is arguably more easy, as you just need to set them to load before/after mods they conflict with and it will handle it optimally for you.

      This ultimately means that the more mods you use, the less manual reordering you need to do, particularly since Vortex uses LOOT as a default tool anyway. If you chose to completely reinstall your mods, you wouldn't have to fiddle with the load order at all - it would do all of that for you.

      My personal preference is still MO2, as I mainly use mods for Skyrim and Fallout 4, but Vortex is still a great tool.
    2. Luciferverone
      Luciferverone
      • member
      • 0 kudos
      What you described just makes me think its complicated. I mean setting them in an order can be done by LOOT anyways so whats the point of this manager?
    3. BarrySnowman777
      BarrySnowman777
      • supporter
      • 0 kudos
      I tried modding oblivion with wyre bash and all of that and as it was my first time modding it was a miserable experience. Someone told me about vortex, in just 3 days i had not only learnt to use it but i had also downloaded over 100 Skyrim mods and got them all to work with ease. Adding or removing mods could not be easier and the load order has never been a problem.
  6. TyranasauruzFLEX
    TyranasauruzFLEX
    • supporter
    • 0 kudos
    It's all trash in my opinion. When i originally bought my PC i didnt know i would need a 4 year college degree or some s*** to properly install a simple mod without something constantly going wrong. Ive tried them all and they seem to work for everyone else... except me. Guess i'm just an idiot. But in conclusion, i sincerely wish this site, let alone vortex, didnt exist. Because Mods have literally ruined my life by taking the joy out of every single game i wish i could use them on. And before someone says something stupid and post a link to a tutorial video or tells me i dont know what i'm doing, i have literally tried to follow every tutorial i can find step by step exactly as im told to do it. but still nothing. Maybe God does exist and he's just a total c*%! who hates me.. idk
    1. Didaskos
      Didaskos
      • member
      • 13 kudos
      Dude, using Vortex is really not that complicated. You download it, and log in using your Nexus account. You then go on the nexus site and click to download mods via Vortex, and they download automatically. You then handle load orders for your games with LOOT, an included automated tool, and by setting rules so that some mods will load after others. The UI is simple and straightforward, and when you first install Vortex there's also a basic user guide and tutorial anyway IIRC.

      None of this is hard, or requires a great deal of skill. If you decide you want to play Skyrim with 500 mods, then sure, you might be fiddling with your load order rules for a while. But for a casual user, as you seem to be, none of this should really be an issue at all.

      Regardless, if you hate mods and modding so much then you simply don't need to use them. It's clear you have a lot of anger and stress at the moment, so maybe it would be better just to take a break from all of this, and go read a book or something instead.
    2. sinfulscars
      sinfulscars
      • member
      • 0 kudos
      mayyou please add thors hammer v2 back in there please iv neer usede it and it looks so cool please
  7. Pyrotaxy
    Pyrotaxy
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    I dont like that vortex dosent pick up any games when i do the Scan for games quick or full scan dosent matter. it cant detect any of the 221 games i have on my hard drive. only way to get the games in is to add it yourself after downloading some stuff i didnt uderstand anything of.
  8. welloliveira
    welloliveira
    • supporter
    • 7 kudos
    Vortex is really being a great mod manager, I hope that it becomes easier and easier to manipulate the big mods in the community. Congratulations on the excellent work
  9. MercusMassacre
    MercusMassacre
    • supporter
    • 2 kudos
    Vortex ruined my game. Use MO2 instead. A lot more stable.
    1. Pickysaurus
      Pickysaurus
      • Community Manager
      • 649 kudos
      Did you seek help with your issue in Vortex, I don't see any posts about it in your history? It's incredibly unlikely Vortex "ruined your game". It's more likely that you may have made a mistake while installing mods or didn't understand how to use Vortex's features.

      If you try Vortex again and still have issues, please make a thread in the support forum explaining what isn't working for you and we'll see if we can help you fix it :)
    2. piotrmil
      piotrmil
      • member
      • 69 kudos
      For Bethesda games, there is no point in using Vortex, fans have made far better tools anyway.
    3. BroadwayJoeFYVM
      BroadwayJoeFYVM
      • member
      • 0 kudos
      I'd rather they just put NMM back up.
    4. Zaldiir
      Zaldiir
      • Moderator
      • 477 kudos
      Are you saying the creators of Vortex aren't fans?
    5. piotrmil
      piotrmil
      • member
      • 69 kudos
      I'm saying that the dedicated mod managers are better than a multipurposed one that try to tailor to as many games as possible, and as a result, has only fraction of usefulness compared to the dedicated one.
    6. piotrmil
      piotrmil
      • member
      • 69 kudos
      NMM is still available: https://github.com/Nexus-Mods/Nexus-Mod-Manager/releases
    7. AugustaCalidia
      AugustaCalidia
      • premium
      • 10 kudos
      @piotrmil
      Is NMM a "dedicated" mod manager? It supports 27 different games, 16 of which are non-Bethesda games. If it is a "dedicated" manager under these circumstances, how many more games would it have to support before it was no longer a "dedicated" manager?
    8. AndreLeonNeo
      AndreLeonNeo
      • member
      • 0 kudos
      Вортекс самопроизвольно управляет сохранками, может удалять, скрывать, нарушать очередность загрузки, при чем не только по использованию в самом Вортекс, но и с файлами в моем компьютере. Более того, я не могу использовать мой тестовый .есп, он определяется в Вортекс, ставит в очередность использования, но в игру не добавляет.
    9. Justy231
      Justy231
      • member
      • 0 kudos
      Piotrmil, thank you for this link, I've been pulling my hair out trying to get Vortex to work properly with BodySlide. Installed this updated version of NMM and BodySlide worked without issue right out of the box. Vortex still needs some work before I'll consider using it again.
    10. AutomaticBrah
      AutomaticBrah
      • member
      • 11 kudos
      The guy who created MO2 created Vortex so you're kind of slapping him in the face with this one.
    11. Pickysaurus
      Pickysaurus
      • Community Manager
      • 649 kudos
      @Justy231: If you have a problem that can be reproduced, please post in the Vortex support forums. To my knowledge Vortex works fine with BodySlide.
    12. skibbidybiggidy
      skibbidybiggidy
      • supporter
      • 0 kudos
      pickysaurus if it wasn't so complicated to use then issues wouldn't arise. why do you think people liked nmm so much and want it back. look how many comments there are saying bring back nmm. just do it ffs. and yeh it really does ruin your game i had to completely uninstall vortex and completely reinstall fallout and skyrim just so i could play the game. luckily i still have nmm so i have a few mods still working. not everyone has the knowledge to use something as complicated as vortex, nmm is simple just download and activate the mod vortex just simply doesn't work without an unnecessary amount of trouble shooting
  10. Brennan
    Brennan
    • premium
    • 14 kudos
    I prefer using either NMM Community Edition, or MO2 over this....thing.