Jump to content

Mod Auto-Installer


Arthmoor

Recommended Posts

http://www.tesnexus.com/news/article.php?id=876So yeah. Nexus is having a custom mod downloader + installer written up. Apparently it's in closed beta now for FO3/NV.I suppose that's all well and good since the only thing for those two right now that's halfway functional is FOMM. It's probably going to be very well received.I'm more interested in what impact it's going to have on Oblivion where BAIN has made huge inroads into becoming the installer of choice and already has 99% of the feature set this Nexus thing has. Including crude website linkage for mod updates.Personally I'm slightly worried that if this makes its way to Oblivion and ends up taking off, years worth of good work on Bash might be undercut in an instant because there are still a huge number of people who see Bash as the devil and OBMM as the messiah. The Nexus client, when compared to OBMM, would be the second coming.I suppose it remains to be seen, but I'm certainly not about to go through and repackage all my stuff so it works with yet another installer system.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I gotta say, if I was going to design a mod manager, OBMM/FOMM wouldn't be my starting point. Nor would I go down the route of .omod files, nor would I go down several other roads it seems to be going down. Thus far it pretty much just sounds like a gigantic headache, but I guess we'll see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It think Arthmoor's concerns are well founded. FOMM works fine and all that but it still is no match to BAIN.Its all good and that for the Fallout games where you aren't using any mods, but there's no way to have a standard Oblivion 100+ esp load order running without using BASH and BAIN, and creating a tool that drives people, particularly newcomers, back in the direction of OBMM isn't going to do any good.I'm looking at that guy that you're arguing with on Tesnexus as well who's going on about how he 'needs something more practical now that he's using hundreds of mods' rather than BAIN. He's problem being that BAIN is the only tool that is powerful to allow him to successfully manage those hundreds of mods at once, and this new Nexus Mod Manager is only vindicating his misguided belief that he needs to find a better tool. Sadly, he's going to find that there is not practical, newbie friendly way to manage all those mods and is going to be rather disheartened when he finds that there's no tool that will step in to automatically do all the work for him. As we all know to well, the only solution is to use BASH/BAIN and put in the hours fixing everything up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was surprised to read it was modeled after OBMM. Maybe FOMM works, and that's where they're concentrating their efforts on the FO side, but yeah, not for Oblivion.Having said that, I also thought it was just an "auto-downloaded" and not a functional mod manager in the sense of BASH/BAIN.After reading his other post regarding the future of modding and "paying for mods and apps", my first thought was .... oh, funny they're working on a new app.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I see such comments as this:

But Bash does not make changing the load order of a single file simple as OBMM does.
All I can do is this: :headbang:Why? Because people who say this betray the fact that they either don't use Bash, or are ignorant of it's ability to drag a mod up the load order. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Where people claim Bash is too clunky. Too hard to figure out. That might have been true 4 years ago. It's gotten WAY better since then.Now, it's OBMM that's clunky and borderline broken. The only thing I still use it for is BSA management because, and this takes serious effort, the only other offering in that area is even MORE broken. When Bash gets the ability to handle unpacking and creating BSA files, OBMM will be exiled to the great bit bucket in the sky.I also find it naive beyond belief that anyone who has the knowledge that DarkOne has could seriously think there's any such thing as a one-click solution to modding. Though it would be nice to be proven wrong on that front.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can see the appeal of something like this. I still offer omod conversion scripts for my BAIN packaged mods, so hopefully they will work with this new system.The real problem I have is people who refuse to use an installer at all. I still get complaints from people trying to install Oblivion XP and it's usually because they are trying to install it manually. So hopefully a system like this will take care of them. It's not a conscious decision by these people - they just expect to extract the archive to their data folder and have the mod work. They don't read anything, let alone the readme!And if this system provides a better scripting system than OBMM, then I won't mind converting to it so much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Samson - Was there something excessively wrong with BSA Commander that I'm not aware of? It's worked fine for me for years.Bash could be a whole lot more user friendly than it currently is, but still far and away the best in category.@AndalayBay - I'm curious as to how he thinks XML scripts are going to work. C# as a scripting language strikes me as massive overkill.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Dwip; I've let FOMM take over my BSA work. Which does the job much quicker than OBMM and doesn't even have those decompression times when opening the file. :shrug:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Samson - Was there something excessively wrong with BSA Commander that I'm not aware of? It's worked fine for me for years.

Bash could be a whole lot more user friendly than it currently is' date=' but still far and away the best in category.

@AndalayBay - I'm curious as to how he thinks XML scripts are going to work. C# as a scripting language strikes me as massive overkill.[/quote']XML? I admit that I didn't read the entire thing, but if he thinks he can replace OBMM scripts or even BAIN wizard scripting with XML, he's crazy. XML is markup, not scripting. C# is a really good language from what I've heard, but I haven't used it myself. But yeah, I wouldn't think that it would be accessible enough for non-programmers. It's like java. But you don't just plop down an object-oriented programming language to someone who isn't into programming. Like you said, massive overkill. Kind of like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly...I've never been able to run BSA commander under Win 7. It doesn't work at all. Now I'm running Win 7 64, so maybe that's why. The only thing I've got to use right now is OBMM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, pretty much my thoughts on the subject. For that matter, I watched a couple of games use Lua and Python for scripting, and wouldn't you know it, not much adoption rate.Say what you will about Oblivion's scripting language, at least it's relatively easy to pick up.Odd, re: BSA Commander. I have Win 7 64 too, and it works just fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BSA commander unpacks nicely, but despite following directions I've never once had it pack a new BSA the game will touch without crashing left and right. OBMM handles that perfectly. It's one of a scant few things the program does that doesn't suck. If Bash gets BSA handling at least as good as OBMM, I'd be in mod management heaven.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me, BSA commander would omit files. I can't remember if it was during unpack or pack or both, but I couldn't rely on it at all.And yeah, unix shell scripting (like bash* - irony intended :biggrin:) would be preferable to the options they're looking at right now.*bash stands for Bourne Again Shell - a unix shell. Yes, I'm unix weenie, sometimes...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perhaps doubly ironic since Wrye Bash is written in Python, which tends to be much more heavily used by linux users :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I see such comments as this:
But Bash does not make changing the load order of a single file simple as OBMM does.

All I can do is this: :headbang:

Why? Because people who say this betray the fact that they either don't use Bash' date=' or are ignorant of it's ability to drag a mod up the load order. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Where people claim Bash is too clunky. Too hard to figure out. That might have been true 4 years ago. It's gotten WAY better since then.

Now, it's OBMM that's clunky and borderline broken. The only thing I still use it for is BSA management because, and this takes serious effort, the only other offering in that area is even MORE broken. When Bash gets the ability to handle unpacking and creating BSA files, OBMM will be exiled to the great bit bucket in the sky.

I also find it naive beyond belief that anyone who has the knowledge that DarkOne has could seriously think there's any such thing as a one-click solution to modding. Though it would be nice to be proven wrong on that front.[/quote']OBMM is much more user friendly at an entry level, BASH is ugly and its ergonomics suck, massively. He's right about dragging esp's up and down, OBMM can do that off the bat, you have to have BASH set up the right way to be able to do that.I only just worked out how to do it again after fiddling for five minutes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, he's not right. Bash doesn't need any special configuration whatsoever to do drag positioning for load order. It'll even auto-scroll if you pull an ESP toward the edge of the list.Being ugly doesn't make the program automatically worthless. If that were true, OBMM would have been a colossal failure a long time ago. That thing is butt ugly and BADLY organized to boot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And besides Myk is working on the ugly part too, at least for the new installer (BAIT). Some of his changes might carry over the to base app, I'm not sure.I think Sigurd is referring to the fact that you need to disable Lock Times. I think that's the default, but it does prompt you when you first install and some people might turn it on and then realize later that it needs to be turned off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Except I have lock times enabled and it hasn't interfered with dragging a mod into a new position yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The purpose of lock times is so BOSS doesn't change your order.
Or mod editing.No, to drag and drop you need to have the list ordered by "load Order" rather than "modified", or some other option.Arthmoor, OBMM has a nice logo and looks Windows native, that imidiately makes people feel better, and it uses nice bright colours in its coding. BASH looks non-Windows native and uses washed out colour coding.Believe me when I tell you, 90% of people when confronted with a program that doesn't toe the visual line will turn off.It's simple computer psychology, nothing more.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are we even discussing the same Wrye Bash? I'm at a total loss to see how anything other than the sort by load order thing is even a valid issue.OBMM has a logo. Wrye Bash has a logo.OBMM looks windows native. Wrye Bash looks windows native. (if neither are, then they're both skilled in deception)Trust me. This has nothing to to with the UI. Both apps suffer from a less than perfect setup. This is nothing more than massive disinformation having been spread around for so long about how evil Bash is and how godlike OBMM is. Neither is perfect, but Bash is a lot closer to perfection than OBMM ever will be.The browser I'm using to type all this rot in? That doesn't look Windows native. It has 25% of the market share. The one that *IS* windows native? Barely 50% anymore. So no. I'm not buying the argument that 90% of the people are going to stick to something because it "looks right".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are we even discussing the same Wrye Bash? I'm at a total loss to see how anything other than the sort by load order thing is even a valid issue.

OBMM has a logo. Wrye Bash has a logo.

OBMM looks windows native. Wrye Bash looks windows native. (if neither are' date=' then they're both skilled in deception)

Trust me. This has nothing to to with the UI. Both apps suffer from a less than perfect setup. This is nothing more than massive disinformation having been spread around for so long about how evil Bash is and how godlike OBMM is. Neither is perfect, but Bash is a lot closer to perfection than OBMM ever will be.

The browser I'm using to type all this rot in? That doesn't look Windows native. It has 25% of the market share. The one that *IS* windows native? Barely 50% anymore. So no. I'm not buying the argument that 90% of the people are going to stick to something because it "looks right".[/quote']I beg to differ, based on my experience as an IT trainer in an academic environment. Non-tech savy people are easily spooked, BASH is spooky, it has a snaky logo, not like OBMM's cuddly Oblivionesqu logo.I didn't say it made sense, but this is about more than misinformation, it's about presentation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I beg to differ' date=' based on my experience as an IT trainer in an academic environment. Non-tech savy people are easily spooked, BASH is spooky, it has a snaky logo, not like OBMM's cuddly Oblivionesqu logo.I didn't say it made sense, but this is about more than misinformation, it's about presentation. [/quote']Maybe it is an opinion thing, but I've always found Bash much more visually attractive to look at and for more convenient and interface to use. Bash also gives a much stronger sense of security, IMO, in the way that it colors the ESP's to let you know if there are any problems. And this has been my feelings on the matter ever since I started using Bash after a year of just using OBMM.EDIT; and to clarify, lock times DOES NOT stop you from dragging mods around your load order.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Logos aside, Sigurd's got a point here. Much as I love Bash, OBMM really is more intuitive at the entry level. Nice big buttons, a simple system of color coding things, and as long as you can figure out omod files (there's instructions right there), you're pretty much good to go. It also, and I think this one is really key, has a nice one file installer that you don't have to think really hard about.Bash has almost none of this. I see there's an automated installer, but IIRC that's pretty recent, and I personally had to go fucking around with Python, which is well more than a normal user should need to expect. Worse, the interface is like nothing else ever - You either know which right click menu to use on which tab, or you don't. Even worse, in addition to the lock times thing, you either know about ctrl+arrow to move mods around, or you don't. You can either figure out the colors and dots and plusses, or you can't. Worse still? The docs for Bash SUCK. Frequently incomplete, missing info, outdated, obtuse. Unless you really know what you're doing, or have somebody willing to teach you, Bash is really really hard to figure out. Easy once you get there, but getting there is really tough for the uninitiated.It also happens to work about 10x better.Also, browsers are a poor comparison. One browser is essentially the same as the next as far as the tech illiterate are concerned. Instead, think of Bash as being something akin to Blender. You know how we keep having conversations where I do something in Blender and everybody says "OMG how did you do that!?" and I say "Well, actually it's really easy, just do this this this and the other thing with the keyboard shortcuts and you're there" and everyone says "What is this I don't even?" Yeah. That's you versus new users with Bash.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...