[WIP] Mod Picker

[Terrorfox1234]

link removed due to potential spam/phishing

Description
Mod Picker is an ongoing project to design a web application for modding similar to PCPartPicker. The goal is to help users in the building of a mod list using crowd sourced compatibility information and mods scraped from the major sites that distribute mods (Nexus Mods, Steam Workshop, Lover’s Lab).


Benefits of Using Mod Picker

• It will be easier to find mods on mod picker than it currently is on other sites due to our extensive and easy-to-use filtering system.
• Mod Picker will have mod reviews, so you’ll be able to determine the quality of mods upon the basis of community feedback.
• Compatibility, install order, and load order notes will help you build a compatible and stable mod list.
• You can participate in the community by submitting reviews, compatibility notes, install order notes, and load order notes.
• All crowd-sourced information will be weighted based on our unique and flexible reputation system. The word of people who know what they’re talking about will be worth more than the word of random users who have no standing in the community. You gain reputation from mods you’ve authored, by contributing to the site, and from other users recognizing your contributions to the community.
• You can make your mod list public on the site, share it with your friends, or link to it for troubleshooting advice.
• Automated download and setup of utilities and configuration files as well as assisted mod installation (you will still need to start the mod downloads yourself).

Meet the Team

Mator - Team Leader
Hi guys. You may know me from my projects Merge Plugins and Mator Smash. I enjoy developing tools for mod authors and mod users. I’m really excited to be leading the Mod Picker team in building a powerful new platform to redefine the modding experience.
Terrorfox1234 - Public Relations
Hello everyone! I am a moderator on the Skyrim modding and Fallout modding subreddits and author of the Beginner’s Guide featured on GEMS. I am always looking for new ways to contribute towards helping the community and make modding accessible to everyone. I believe Mod Picker will accomplish this in a way that nothing has before and I am thrilled to be a part of it.
ThreeTen - Developer, Designer
Hey all, my name is Grant and I am one of the UX/UI Designers on the team! I have been modding skyrim for a few years now, with mods such as Real Shelter and NPC Visual Transfer Tool. I am incredibly excited about what Mod Picker will be able to provide for modders and mod users alike; and strive to make the mod picking process as easy as possible.
Sirius - Developer, Designer
Heyyo! My name is Adam, and I’m excited to be helping out with this awesome project that the community has wanted and needed for a long long time. I’m known online as TheSiriusAdam, but other than a slightly impressive League of Legends profile there’s not much fame to my name.
Nariya - Developer
Hi I’m Nariya, I’m currently working on the backend for the Mod Picker project. I’ve been playing Skyrim on and off since release and I’m excited to contribute to a tool that will finally streamline the modding process since I usually completely uninstall my game and mods when I’m done.
Thallassa - Designer
Hi you guys, I’m a novice designer and mod user who does my best to share everything I’ve learned over the last year and a half of modding. In my limited free time I like to drink tea, knit, and listen to metal. Once in a while I even have time to launch Skyrim!
Breems - Developer
Hi, everyone! My name is Tyler, and I'm primarily working on the desktop application(s) that accompany the Mod Picker Site. After creating ENB Organizer, I was excited to find a community-driven project I could contribute to. When I'm not doing dev work I enjoy mild gaming, playing music, and trying very hard to be lazy.


FAQ

• I’m a mod author, will this drive users away from my Nexus Mods pages?
  No, we will be driving users to your mod pages. Our goal is not to supplant you or your mod pages, our goal is help users to discover your mod and learn about how to use it in a mod list (e.g. help them with finding compatibility patches). We will not be hosting your mod files, have a comments section, or a description on our site. We will be linking directly to your Nexus Mods page from our page, driving traffic to your pages and Nexus Mods.
• Will you be hosting my mod files without permission?
  No! We will not be hosting any mod files at all! All downloads will continue to be served from the locations where you have uploaded your mod.
• Will this replace Nexus Mods/Steam Workshop/Lover’s Lab?
  No, absolutely not. We’re being very careful to not replace functionalities from these sites. We will not be hosting or redistributing any mod files.
• Will this offer similar functionality to LOOT?
  Most likely yes. One of the core services that Mod Picker provides is helping users build a stable mod list. Load order is a big part of that, and as such Mod Picker will have sorting functionality. Mator has talked with WrinklyNinja about LOOT, and the limitations are clear and well understood. It’s mostly a difference in philosophy in regards to the user experience for sorting a load order. We are aware of and deeply thankful for what LOOT has done for the modding community, and are hoping to build a new solution that can continue to serve users in their load order sorting needs.
• Will this offer similar functionality to modwat.ch?
  Yes.
• Will this offer similar functionality to STEP?
  No, this will enable the members of STEP to do what they do more efficiently, and will enable other people to do what STEP has done with minimal effort required. STEP is a guide that focuses around a specific set of recommended mods. Mod Picker is, at it’s core, a utility to make building your own mod list easier.
• Will this replace <insert other tool or website here>?
  Probably not. Our goal is not to replace existing solutions, but to augment them. Mod Picker will work with mod managers and distribution platforms to offer users the best mod list building experience possible.
• Will Mod Picker be open source?
  The core site won’t be, but many modules will be. E.g. Mod dump, and the automated installation script/application.
• What games will you support?
  From day one we will support Skyrim, because it has the largest and most established modding community. Soon after we will add support for Fallout 4, and from there we will add support for Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 3, Oblivion, and (maybe) Morrowind.
• Can anyone change the info on the site, like wikipedia?
  Users with sufficient reputation can edit contributions made by other users on the site under certain circumstances.
• Won’t people abuse that?
  Abuse will not be tolerated. If the abuse is intentional the user may have privileges taken away or receive a temporary ban. Continued abuse will earn them a permanent ban. A public history on every post will also allow members of the community to revert undesirable changes, and members of the community can withdraw reputation from users they no longer trust.
• What if someone submits information that is incorrect?
  We will have a system by which you will be able to submit suggestions/corrections on user contributions. These suggestions are then vetted by reputable members of the community and if a majority agreement is reached the contribution becomes open to editing by users with sufficient reputation.
• Do mod authors have control over their mods?
  Verified mod authors are given reputation for their mods and access to control aspects of the pages associated with their mods on the site.
• How will you verify mod authors?
  We have a plan for a system that works similar to how scraping mods works where we’ll provide you with a verification key on our site, have you post it on your profile page, and then scrape your public profile page. If we find the key in a post on your profile page your account will be verified.
• What are you developing the site with?
  We’re using Ruby on Rails, AngularJS, and MySQL.
• Will you offer an API?
  Yes! We will offer a full RESTful API serving up JSON that you will be able to leverage in your applications.

Development Status
Complete

• Account pages
• Mod upload
• Index Pages
  Articles, Mods, Plugins, Mod Lists, Users, Comments, Reviews, Compatibility Notes, Load Order Notes, Install Order Notes, and Corrections
• User Settings page
• Mod page
• Edit mod page
• User page
• Mod List page
• Home page
• Help Center
• Notifications
• Reputation System

Active

• QA
• Help pages
• Moderation tools
• DevOps & Automation

Planned

• Video tutorials
• Public API Access
• Mod list setup utility
• Notification settings
• Email notifications

Various Links

• link removed due to potential spam/phishing
• Twitter
• Facebook
• YouTube Channel
• Steam Group
• Progress Report 9
• Progress Report 8
• Progress Report 7
• Progress Report 6
• Progress Report 5
• Progress Report 4
• Progress Report 3
• Progress Report 2
• Progress Report 1

[Octopuss]

@mator You're right, I don't get it at all (and I did read the description on your site) :D It's apparently even more complicated than I originally thought.

[Van555]

I sometimes worry you'll burn out mator! If you to leave us it would be disastorous. Merge Plugins has only existed for 4months and I can't imagine modding without it now.

 

Hell I probably would have given up.

 

On the whole I welcome more options.

[Mator]

I recall the Nexus not liking the idea of automated downloads. Have you discussed with them at all Mator?

I have talked with Dark0ne about Mod Picker a few times, but not specifically about the download part of the equation.  I'm not sure why the wouldn't like it, as both MO and NMM have a cap of downloading 5 mods at a time.  Also, with the fact that our setup utility will detect already downloaded mods and not download them a second time I don't think it really matters...

 

I suppose I simply need to see it in action. :: From what you just said, it sounds very similar to the automated STEP project that was being developed a while ago.

Huh, never heard of that.  The key different between it and that is it will be generic, so it can apply to any mod list constructed by anyone.  MSGO does something similar too, but it also applies to a fixed subset of mods.  We're trying to apply generic automation to the process of downloading and installing mods, which is far more useful.

 

@mator You're right, I don't get it at all (and I did read the description on your site) :D It's apparently even more complicated than I originally thought.

Yeah, this is a big project and fairly complex.  We do plan on having a large number of showcase/tutorial videos on YouTube when we launch, and on having thorough help pages as well.

 

I sometimes worry you'll burn out mator! If you to leave us it would be disastorous. Merge Plugins has only existed for 4months and I can't imagine modding without it now.

 

Hell I probably would have given up.

 

On the whole I welcome more options.

Yeah, I'm constantly being careful to not burn out.  I wish I could clone myself, there are just so many things to do!

 

 

-Mator

[Kelmych]

 

 

 

The discussion about LOOT is a long one.  I can assure you I have talked with WrinklyNinja about it and he acknowledges my perspective.  It's not that LOOT is wrong so much as the user experience is inefficient.  My philosophy is:

 

Instead of having users tune a complex automatic sorting process to get the load order they desire, have the users create the load order they desire and then advise them about mods they sorted incorrectly.

 

Here's a quote from my conversation with WrinklyNinja:

 

What I want to offer on Mod Picker is a tool that can aid users in sorting a load order with crowd sourced data (similar to LOOT metadata), but that also enables users to make a clean intuitive load order with mods organized into logical groups.  LOOT can't do that - it mixes everything up.  I could go on about this at length, but I might just quote my whole message to WrinklyNinja if you still take issue with my stance on LOOT.

 

 

 

This seems a bit like an automated version of BOSS (which grouped mods) but required a great deal of maintenance. The automation part, if I understand the FAQ, uses crowdsourcing to automate the building of the lists (unlike the manual approach used in BOSS). It also provides some automated recommendations based on analyses of the plugins (as LOOT does now).

[darkside]

Mod sites may not like automatic mod download due to lose ads revenue.

[Neovalen]

Mod sites may not like automatic mod download due to lose ads revenue.

This. MO and NMM both require the user to visit and actively click. Nexus is an Ad revenue site. I could see possibly them allowing it for supporter/premium members though (since they don't see ads).

[GrantSP]

 

 

• You can download any public mod list in an installable format which can be run by a script/application to download and install all tools, configuration files, and mods associated with the mod list.  Mods will not be downloaded from the Mod Picker site - download will only be possible for mods which can be downloaded via NXM links.

This description needs to be examined more closely. Taken as it is, this will go against the Nexus stance on mod downloading as it infers the mod is provided in another format and downloaded outside of the Nexus framework. I'm sure it's just a case of wording as I am of the belief ALL downloads are still actively initiated from whichever site they are hosted. This is in fact the exact same method as the PcPartPicker analogy.

 

Since this tool is about providing lists of installed mods that "just work together", a situation we often see is, new MO users often are confused by the split nature of installed mods, ie. plugins and assets. LOOT only cares for the plugins and is said to be replaced by this tool.

What about the ordering of the installed mods' assets? How are these to be handled by this tool?

 

It is quite possible to have a correctly ordered plugin list but if, for example, the scripts supplied in a mod (either via a BSA or loose) are not the correct versions, or completely removed due to incorrect mod order (ie. MO's left-hand pane), the end result is a broken game.

[Mator]

Mod sites may not like automatic mod download due to lose ads revenue.

I didn't consider that. If absolutely necessary we can only allow this for premium Nexus members, and for other members we point them to the Nexus Mods page directly.

 

This description needs to be examined more closely. Taken as it is, this will go against the Nexus stance on mod downloading as it infers the mod is provided in another format and downloaded outside of the Nexus framework.

No, you misunderstand. An NXM link is essentially just a hyperlink, or a url, using a protocol which can be handled by Nexus Mod Manager or Mod Organizer. The file which would be downloaded from Mod Picker would essentially have a list of mod metadata, and in that metadata would be (for mods for which it is available) NXM links. These NXM links get executed and then NMM or MO queues and then downloads the mods from the Nexus Servers.

 

I'm sure it's just a case of wording as I am of the belief ALL downloads are still actively initiated from whichever site they are hosted. This is in fact the exact same method as the PcPartPicker analogy.

It is slightly different than PCPartPicker because with mods there is a lot more "bulk". To be specific, a computer build has between 6 and 24 parts. A mod list has between 1 and 1024 mods (with merging). Our goal is to reduce the cost (in time and effort) to build a mod list, and part of that is reducing setup time.  If the Nexus is concerned about this biting into their ad revenue we can talk about ways to encourage users to use their site, or restrict this feature to users with premium Nexus accounts.  This is a large discussion that needs to be happen between me and Dark0ne/Nexus Staff. I'm in the process of reaching out to them right now.

 

I think there is a way we could devise this feature to not bite into the Nexus's advertising revenue. We'll see.

 

Since this tool is about providing lists of installed mods that "just work together", a situation we often see is, new MO users often are confused by the split nature of installed mods, ie. plugins and assets. LOOT only cares for the plugins and is said to be replaced by this tool.

What about the ordering of the installed mods' assets? How are these to be handled by this tool?

Mod Picker will also crowd source Install Order notes - which are notes about the order in which mods are installed. It will also be able to advise on install order based on the assets in each mod, as we will have complete asset file trees for each mod submitted to the site (including the files inside BSA archives).

 

It is quite possible to have a correctly ordered plugin list but if, for example, the scripts supplied in a mod (either via a BSA or loose) are not the correct versions, or completely removed due to incorrect mod order (ie. MO's left-hand pane), the end result is a broken game.

Absolutely. We understand how important install order can be. :)

 

 

-Mator

Edited March 23, 2016 by Mator

[GrantSP]

...

No, you misunderstand. An NXM link is essentially just a hyperlink, or a url, using a protocol which can be handled by Nexus Mod Manager or Mod Organizer. The file which would be downloaded from Mod Picker would essentially have a list of mod metadata, and in that metadata would be (for mods for which it is available) NXM links. These NXM links get executed and then NMM or MO queues and then downloads the mods from the Nexus Servers...

-Mator

No, I'm not misunderstanding what you're intending to do, what I'm saying is the way it is currently worded, some people may infer the downloads are being handled by Mod Picker outside of the NXM protocol.

This first sentence:

 

 

You can download any public mod list in an installable format which can be run by a script/application to download and install all tools, configuration files, and mods associated with the mod list.

might be misunderstood to mean actually visiting the site is no longer required.

However as you are in active discussions with @DarkOne about not restricting their revenue stream, I'll let you handle that aspect. The concept is sound, I'm just concerned about not getting anyone 'offside'.

[Terrorfox1234]

This is all outlined pretty clearly in the OP and progress reports that have been linked. 

Edited March 23, 2016 by Terrorfox1234

[Mator]

Just wanted to let you guys know we updated the OP yesterday with some more in-depth FAQ responses and some elaboration about how the automated download/install feature will only happen with the blessing of the Nexus and Mod Authors.

[Breems]

This is an excellent idea! I dreamed up a similar project a while back but it hit my backlog quickly. I'd love to join in on the project. Do you have room for one more on your staff? I have a lot of back-end experience with C#/.NET and some basic knowledge of HTML/CSS. Sounds like .NET isn't part of your stack, but I could assist where possible and perhaps learn some other languages.

 

Also, I'm curious where Delphi fits in. I haven't used it since Delphi 6 and thought it was pretty much on life support. Are you using it for web development?

[Mator]

This is an excellent idea! I dreamed up a similar project a while back but it hit my backlog quickly. I'd love to join in on the project. Do you have room for one more on your staff? I have a lot of back-end experience with C#/.NET and some basic knowledge of HTML/CSS. Sounds like .NET isn't part of your stack, but I could assist where possible and perhaps learn some other languages.

 

Also, I'm curious where Delphi fits in. I haven't used it since Delphi 6 and thought it was pretty much on life support. Are you using it for web development?

Hi Breems,

 

We might be able to fit you in.  I can interview you on Skype, Steam, or Discord to see what you could offer the project.

 

Delphi was used to build an independent module - a command line application - to analyze and produce compatibility dumps on Bethesda Plugin Files.  Delphi was used because the xEdit framework is written in Delphi and was easy to tap into to produce this application.  You can see the module (called mod-dump) here: https://github.com/matortheeternal/mod-dump

 

 

Regards,

-Mator

Edited March 30, 2016 by Mator

[Mator]

Thread updated. Check out the r/skyrimmods Progress Report 4 for more information on our recent progress.

[baronaatista]

I for one am very interested in this, though it does sound like a pretty complicated process.  That being said, Merge Plugins is definitely a complicated tool, but it's user-end experience is absolutely fantastic.  

 

I just got done a really complex setup (well, still doing testing, but mostly done) - STEP Extended (most of) + parts of SRLE / Explorers Edition + Dreadflopps' Dovakiin Reborn, Deleveled Loot and Gameplay Rebalance packs + Survival pack by smile44 and Hishutup, and a couple extra's of my own choosing, all sewn together with Dreadflopps' patches.  There are a number of questions that arise when I think of attempting to automate a process such as what I just went through (not sure if something that complex is really the goal of this project);

 

 - would this site handle merging as well?  and if so does that mean it's possible to automate the process of merging? (actually making merges in MP is easy once its setup correctly, but for the uninformed user (ie. me) what's difficult is determining what can/should be merged and can/should not)

 

 - what about stability?  I have this crazy setup, but it's one that is not far off from what just about anyone making a large pack is doing, and the testing I'm doing right now is to check mostly for script lag.  What I'm asking is; Frostfall, Wet&Cold, Enhanced Blood Textures, Deadly Spell Impacts, Real Shelter, Convenient Horses, EFF/AFT, Burn Freeze and Shock effects CAN all be used together relatively easily.  In my experience however, doing so can put a serious hamper on game performance.  Will this site be able to determine script overload?  If so, will it allow users to install overloaded setups anyway?

 

 - there were other questions I had, but it's late and I'm tired.  I'll check back if one comes to mind.  Also, please forgive and feel free to ignore me if I'm asking stupid questions, serious layman here.

 

*EDIT - on the subject of merging... now this probably won't be a typical experience but because Dreadflopp is amazing, he's broken up his patches into little bits so that people can basically pick and choose what they want, at least in a basic framework.  This means though that when merging the patches, you could have from like 10 - 80 patches that need to be merged.  I had to go through my list and deactivate any mod that wasn't necessary to be active in order to actually make the merge and then re-activate, re-sort, etc.  Again I'm just wondering about the ability to handle such a situation.

 

*EDIT - ah, stability; will there be any kind of interface for reporting system specs & performance information to go along with user-created mod lists?  (ie. these are my system specs, this is my Mod Picker list & info, and here is some performance info... then, the ability to grab said users list)

Edited April 26, 2016 by baronaatista