Smitty

I respect your opinion but do not agree with it. Oh yeah no, it would take a Skype chat full of people who know what they're talking about to make that happen. They would probably slowly integrate it if they did decided to do it, start with the larger redundant files, slowly start to eat the older smaller files while uploading the newer files to the cloud. You also need to iron out the small details, like how much extra bandwidth does someone get for donating their own? Or if rewarding upload/download ratio is even worth it, yada yada yada. It was just an idea, I don't really expect it to go anywhere unless someone wants to actually take it where it needs to go to blossom into the next best thing.

Good point, so do a lot of people for good reasons. However if you loath a part of the internet, shouldn't you only loath the part of torrent that pirates exploit? That would be nice. Although if I just used that version of STEP, I wouldn't have learned MO or WB. I love MO now, I wish I started using it earlier, the idea of profiles makes will prevent me from going back to NMM. I probably would've started using it eventually, but sometimes you need someone to push you into the water for the first time, you know?

If that was true we'd be drowning in individual mods with almost a million identical versions... actually that is kind of true in a sense, but I've seen a lot of people learn fomod code and just shove all those variations into a single installer, which (depending on the skill of the developer) will automatically detect which version you need, or give you a set of options. With something as large as STEP, it's really just a matter of which files to include or not for the most part. I wish NVEC had more options to disable certain mods. The counter argument to that is that the file could be larger than it would need to be. Could be, it really depends on what you want and your system. Ew, steam workshop. That's honestly pretty closed minded to think that way. Yeah piracy can hurt smaller developers, but by that logic you should hate the internet, computers, and even the files themselves for letting themselves be pirated. Torrent is just a tool that accidentally makes it near impossible to remove a file once it's uploaded because everyone who's downloaded is a mirror, instead of a server like traditional means. Do you hate the files too for not having sufficient antipirate protection? Knives because they're popularly used to kill people? Or maybe computers because everyone uses them for porn? Hate the pirates, hate the ones that crack files and upload them, but don't hate the tools they use because those tools weren't designed to be used for pirating, they just are, and there are already trackers knocking out the main seeders seeding illegal files to make it harder for anyone trying to download them. I don't fully understand those reasons, but I imagine they fall under something like dropping website views, allowing modders to more easily not read the individual mod pages and directions, allowing modders to more easily forget to endorse a mod, etc etc. Those are valid issues, which is why I may or may not be against a tool like that, however installing all of the mods properly is what lazy me wanted. Yes I did learn how to use a few new tools and tricks for modding, but being a modder I'll actually use what I learned installing STEP. What if you have some casual player who isn't technically experienced at all, and never plans to be? They'll never experience an enhanced Skyrim because they'll never take the time to learn and install everything. They didn't make Skyrim itself a hard to install game, it's just click, download, and play. For someone who just wants to do that, and nothing else, perfect. The only real upside to learning everything is fixing your own problems, customizing Skyrim to perfect what you want, and maybe even making your own mods. Which is great for someone who wants to learn everything, not for someone who just wants to click and play something amazing.

Really that bad? What's so bad about torrent that makes you quit modding? The only bad thing about torrent is the fact it's very popular for pirates because of seeding, which used properly is a very good thing. Some developers put their own games or files on torrent because it's a lot more efficient than a server. It's like a knife; you need it to prepare some very good meals, but you can also use it to kill people. I saw, looks amazing. I've also been following Skywind for the past month or so, and I remember playing Morroblivion before Nexus had to remove it because modding assets from one game into another is against Bethesda's permissions for their product they made for profit. You think FO is that close? It makes me giddy just thinking about it, I was a Fallout fan before I was a TES fan. I've never played or even looked too much into DOTA, but it sounds interesting how they do that. I can't imagine they make much though. Didn't they do something similar for TF2? And for grey areas, meh. What some people find one way others find different. You can never have agreements on shades of grey, but I guess that's what keeps humanity interesting. Also, I could imagine a chunk of people fighting petty battles over nothing if you just shove them all into a colab project with their own mods, although miracles happen. However that gets me wondering, how did NVEC come together? It's a huge cluster of popular mods, not so popular mods, and controversial mods that break the lore like it was as fragile as the engine. I tried it, but there are a few mods I wish weren't in the pack. Unlike STEP, it just threw whatever the pack creator liked, regardless of lore or compatibility with any mods not included. Edit: Cut down quotes

Isn't that sort of what Obsidian did for FNV? Vaguely, to my understanding they took some of the mods from FO3 and made them apart of the game, like food/water/sleep and weapon attachments. However they just took the idea and remade them, not the mods themselves. Valve just hired anyone that made a good mod and turned it into a standalone video game. I'm not sure if I see Bethesda doing that tbh. Also when you say TES title, I'm going to throw Fallout into that mix (I think FO4 is the next one to come out anyways, if rumors are correct). TES3+ and FO3+ pretty much use the same engine as far as I know. I've seen people bring Morrowind into Oblivion, Oblivion into FO3, and FO3 into FNV. I think it kind of stops at FNV because Obsidian took the engine into a different direction than Skyrim, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Skyrim be brought into the next TES/FO game. As for the debate about permissions (because there's nothing more to say about torrent, what's said is said), usually I just see people pawn off their mods to other people if they stop supporting it. That happens everywhere, with Nexus I always see the line "I got permission from the original author to continue it", with other modding communities like FTL, I usually just see "the OP disappeared so I took the project under a different name." You do raise a good point about mods suddenly not working in a pack, although authors never really have responsibility in the first place for anything they make. If they change or remove so much of a mod that it's not even close to the original, then the original can just be it's own standalone for people wanting a different experience than the pack in question. Then that authors name just gets put in the pack for being a contributor, however that's about as much recognition as a memorial wall.

I would use the "but I already know how it works" line, but I did learn how to use MO and WB thanks to STEP. Torrents take a huge load off of the Nexus servers, and for someone who's already downloaded and endorsed those mods, it's does no harm. It'd be cool if Nexus made it's own Torrent tracker and client, having downloaders upload files to other downloaders (seeding) is genius, and still runs even if the servers go down. I say Nexus should have it's own client so they can track downloads, support clientside endorsing like NMM, and only allow Nexus files to be torrented. And just to be clear, yes I paid for all of my game regardless of my support for torrent. I can PM you my steam ID if you don't believe me. I know it does sound a bit rude, but for freeware, permissions are a bit pointless IMO. I think the same about art, although people stealing art is a thing, and art can be sold for money, so I know why it exists. Even if it was a front page mod that's deemed as necessary by the community, I still personally wouldn't care if a mod I made was used in a package without my permission. Hell, I'd take it as a compliment. My name is already on it and everyone knows I made it, good enough for me. Now if they didn't use my name, or even tried slapping their own name on it, then I might have an issue if it was a hard mod to make. That's how it was in other modding communities, and I loved it. However with that said, I do apologize if I have insulted you. That is my opinion, and as much as I believe in it, I won't force or coerce you to see it my way. Your own free will is your own, and I respect your opinion to want to be that way with mods and permissions, even if I don't agree with it.

I try to beat any game I play before I install mods. DLC is a different story, because by the time they come out I'm already sitting on a new game with the same name. However, I did run pure vanilla (THANK YOU MO FOR NOT INSTALLING ANYTHING INTO THE ACTUAL GAME DIRECTORY!!!!), and suddenly I felt like I was playing Oblivion with the graphical drop. Ok, so there is a larger difference than I initially thought (I mean, I haven't played vanilla Skyrim since I beat it a couple years ago), I'll admit that, and I was probably too harsh on not seeing as big as a difference than I was expecting with how long it took my to install, but the only actual critique I have is something I'm sure the community is already trying to do; find a way to install it faster with fewer clicks, while also making the mod authors (and Nexus.com) happy.

I looked at a few of them, but none really suit my tastes, and I don't have as much trust in the compatibility in them as STEP. Also, Skyrim Revisited is WIP as far as I know? I've been modding since Fallout 3. Back before I had a life, I did nothing but sit there, and add hundreds of plugins, spending all day on it, even making my own patches for them. That was years ago, I did something similar with FNV, but around when I finally got a job and bought Skyrim was around when I started to get impatient and busy with life. BOSS, when I discovered it, (around FNV times for me) was amazing for me, it made installing tons of mods easier and less time consuming. I love how LOOT is a thing now, and NMM made packages easier. However not all mod authors used proper structure, and before I used NMM, I always downloaded the mods and remade my own packages for FOMM. Never used WyreBash until STEP, it was always download, make package, install, BOSS, FO3edit (Or now it's more NMM download, install, LOOT, TES5Edit). Now, however, I have reached the point where I start to download a ton of mods, and maybe install 10-20 of them before I just get bored and stop. I see a lot of work trying to get them all working, I moan, and I spend a while looking for shortcuts, then clean install, give up and go to bed. Spending hours making everything work together is not how I imagined spending my free time, as rare as it is. Sometimes I'll have more than usual freetime, and I might actually get a large sum of mods working. I'll play a bit not bothering with any quests, and then I'll see a pretty new mod on the Nexus that requires a fresh start, or notice something got updated and end up ripping out all the mods and starting over. At least with MO, I think I can save my old setups and just make a new profile, and download/install a different combination of mods. I'm not sure, I'm not used to this program yet. Installing STEP did, however, teach me how to use it. Like some cheaply made highschool class who's teach tells you to do the tutorial, make a project, and gives you a bad grade because you jacked around even though you did all the work.... No, but I will keep STEP installed for as long as possible, I wont let all that work go for nothing, and it did actually show me some ropes about MO and Wyre, so there's that.

Thanks for the reply, I think my issues came from installing STEP Extended, I noticed a few mods had options for compatibility for mods I was planning to install after STEP, however was not sure if it would be compatible or not. I'm going to go back and remove Extended and pinpoint which of those mods I had those options, so I'm just using STEP Core. That might solve any issues I have now that I think of it. As for time to install, yeah that is the real downside. People like their permissions so you can't upload a modpack, and torrent takes away page views and endorsements from Nexus (however does help with server load). The real time comes from going to each page, and downloading the right file. Add up to the hundreds of mods downloaded, that does add a lot of time on top of the actual downloading. Installing it is the real time consumer, I spent a couple hours on it a day and it took me 3-6 days. I wish SASTEP was still being worked on, it'd be a lot easier with a single installer that rips the downloads from each individual page, and/or a tool that takes all the downloaded files and installs them with a few options for system ability and personal preference. Nice to know about headtracking, odd it would cause crashing. I never had issues with it, although I've heard a lot of people do. Thanks for the reply, I guess I didn't realize STEP Core is the real version I wanted.

This started out as me complaining about how hard it was to install STEP, but the conversation is now mostly about an automatic STEP, involving talk about mod packs, torrent download, and etc tools. [spoiler=Original Post] Just spent the last week installing S.T.E.P. for Skyrim. Between my free time and using Teamviewer at work when it's dead (yay nightshifts), it took a long time. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed when I finally finished installing hundreds of mods it linked me to. With the few dead links, removed mods, and slightly confusing download directions, I actually just used torrent to download them all for me. Which honestly, probably cut the work in half, and allowed me to download mods no longer on the Nexus. Don't worry, I've already downloaded and endorsed most of those mods (the ones that deserved it anyways) before I even tried out STEP. I'm not new to modding and most of those links were already purple, which also cut down on the reading (at least for the ones that haven't been updated since I've used them). I wish STEP was made into an installer, but due to authors loving their pointless permissions, that probably wont ever happen legally. Back to STEP, the main reason I was probably disappointed is because with how much work it takes to get it running, I would expect more of a difference. I hopped in, beat the intro quest, and was honestly expecting more than a slightly enhanced Skyrim. Yes I know that's literally what the title says, and I know the whole project is centered around better vanilla gameplay, but it didn't even have player head tracking. Really the only things I noticed were better textures and a couple mechanics. I guess that's the point of STEP, but with 229 mods, 113 plugins, and a chunk of them that required compatibility patch options in their installers for mods I might want, I can't help but think STEP was a huge waste of time compared to work load, that probably made some mods I really want incompatible. Just thought I'd vent that out so the creators could see it, people's opinions are important because they help build things into greatness. How else will they know the install time is something that turns a lot of people off unless a lot of people complain about it? I don't mean any disrespect by it, it's just how I feel after installing it, even after cheating the downloads. Now excuse me, I'm going to try and get Frostfall, 360 Walk and Run, Lots of HDT mods for tails weapons and maybe hair, RS Children, 3D NPCs, Epic Gameplay Overhaul, and either T3nn0s' new mod, or Requim (Haven't decided yet). Tips would be nice, I'd rather keep STEP installed because I already went through all the work, but I'll be searching the forums about these mods in the meantime.