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Is S.T.E.P lying about mod management?


Leonardo

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Tbh that argument in general isn't very good because in programming several mediocre proggers cannot replace one really good programmer.

I was talking about availability of developers who can support and update application, not their skill. If Tannin will stop working on MO as the only developer (and there could be dozens of reasons for that), it will become outdated pretty quickly. Especially with new games coming out in future. Maybe there is someone else helping him with development, I don't know.

Right now I firmly believe only in WB and NMM (OBMM, FOMM), they will get updates no matter what as we've seen in the past. Bash is even dated back to Morrowind and still looking strong now, a decade later.

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Tbh that argument in general isn't very good because in programming several mediocre proggers cannot replace one really good programmer.

I agree with zilav, because it has already happen and the development for Wrye Mash simply stop until Sharlikran announced his Python 2.7.8 fork for Wrye Mash.  Any posts about the progress hasn't been posted yet.

 

I was talking about availability of developers who can support and update application, not their skill. If Tannin will stop working on MO as the only developer (and there could be dozens of reasons for that), it will become outdated pretty quickly. Especially with new games coming out in future. Maybe there is someone else helping him with development, I don't know.

Right now I firmly believe only in WB and NMM (OBMM, FOMM), they will get updates no matter what as we've seen in the past. Bash is even dated back to Morrowind and still looking strong now, a decade later.

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I remember my main concern about MO when it just came out - it is being developed by a single person. Now several years later this is still true. All other popular 3rd party apps are developed by teams: WB, script extenders, xEdit. If Tannin will stop developing it at some point, then MO is dead and will repeat the poor fate of CBash. Why is it so - I don't have any idea, just guess that making mod manager is not so interesting as messing with the game directly like script extendes or plugins manipulation.

I'm not sure he's seeking any help with the program itself; however, Tannin has stated time and time again that he wish some people would come along and develop some plugins for MO. That's another advantage of MO; its plugin system. Anyone can develop a plugin for MO to do any specific thing they want MO to perform. Actually, many of the features and functions in MO are plugins that Tannin developed which can be turned on and off. The automatic extraction of BSAs during installation is an example of this (it's off by default).

 

The feature the NMM did promote its upcoming vfs with was the ability to have different mod lists for different characters and switch between them with the press of a button. Currently the NMM offers no way to change the install order of two overwriting mods, without at least uninstalling and reinstalling one of them (if for example you want to switch to a different blend of two texture mods). The vfs is there, to improve the speed of such actions, and reduce the load on the hard drive.

I can see why a feature such as these are in high demand in a place that evolves around lots of replacer mods.

What interesting is seeing some of the features that are already in MO, being developed for the new NMM. The "different mod lists for different characters" is what MO calls "profiles". The profiles in MO have become an essential feature for STEP when testing new mods and setups. You can test new configurations without messing up any of your current setups. If something goes wrong, simply delete the profile and you're done. Your other profiles are still intact and ready to use. For anyone that does a lot of testing, this will make your life so much easier! No more backing up and restoring backups constantly. And as Spock (or someone mentioned) this saves some life on your hard drive since it's all done virtually.

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TA is something happening with the STEP forum ?, I havent been able to get on there for over a day now, I have bookmarks to various areas but all I get is web page is unavailable.

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Just FYI, Wrye Bash has had "profiles" since at least 2008. It's not the most elegant way to go about it, but they do exist, so it's not exactly a new thing.

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TA is something happening with the STEP forum ?, I havent been able to get on there for over a day now, I have bookmarks to various areas but all I get is web page is unavailable.

Yes, the servers are down right now for unknown reasons. We have messages out to both Z and s4n, but haven't received any replies yet. So it's just a waiting game right now.

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Here's a bash at both in terms of version control.

 

Yeah, version control of mods Suppose a mod author changes the name of a mod. Then a user, installs a differently named package, but as the default alphabetical mod list order doesn't show a previous version nearby it's okay.

But suppose both versions of this mod overrides and is overridden by others, then it becomes hard to see when running hundreds of packages with their own particular matches and mismatches.

Case in point: Ferretmyster changes to GIP from AnythingImproved.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/43496/?

 

The only way any mod manager can properly deal with renames or rejigs is to run diffs of a masterlist which can be used both for load order and version control.

Such a masterlist as a DB would require for each mod it's URL(s) as subrecords. With Nexus, it's easy. The URLS are the keys. Other sites might be a problem with URL changes or 404 and the like.

The masterlist can also carry a flag that determines whether or not a mod should be uninstalled before update.

All this comes through via a simple form submitted by mod author. Perhaps populate/update the form via some kind of Web Crawler? A date of a mod, or date of a mod version, can be the date it is simply added to the masterlist.

 

There might have been something like this on the wishlist of Wrye before the implementation of Mash/Bash, but I firmly believe the success of the next ES game for moddders will depend very much on evolving such a thing.

But would it lighten the load for Untumno and Tannin?

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I dunno how it is in WB about version control with BOSS (best for OB) or LOOT (best for SK), but I do know mlox for Morrowind handles version control a little different because mlox_rule_base itself is different when compares to the masterlist for BOSS and LOOT.

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If the mod author changes the filename of the ESP used in the mod, there's nothing any of the mod managers can do about that. The game will treat that as an entirely new file. This is a perfect example of not following proper practices - renaming your ESM/ESP is something you should NEVER do.

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Yep, got my start on Morrowind. Was amazed much of anything worked right at all back in 2003. Things are MUCH improved these days though thanks to Wrye Mash. You knew I'd bring it up, yes? :P

Mash has largely tamed the mess, and from what I see, is pretty much the goto program in MW mod installations. Precisely because it allows you to exert as much or as little control over the Data folder as you want - without virtual file systems getting in the way of things.

 

NEVER mod Morrowind without Wrye Mash (!) WM was my first mod manager, as I did not start modding until 2006 sometime before which point Wrye ported WB to Morrowind. It totally fixed many of the problems I had maintaining mods and savegames in Morrowind and was a good intro app for WB.

 

I remember my main concern about MO when it just came out - it is being developed by a single person. Now several years later this is still true. All other popular 3rd party apps are developed by teams: WB, script extenders, xEdit. If Tannin will stop developing it at some point, then MO is dead and will repeat the poor fate of CBash. Why is it so - I don't have any idea, just guess that making mod manager is not so interesting as messing with the game directly like script extendes or plugins manipulation.

 

I think a singly-developed app is usually cleaner with respect to code (depending on the dev, and Tannin's work is high quality). MO uses Python 3 code base with some C+ I think, so it geared to open development and the future and much more accommodating to 'blind' devs new to the project than is something like Wrye Bash, which has footprints of a large handful of independent devs, and the code is anything but clean and simple to follow.

 

When Tannin moves on, I am sure he will open up the project more than it already is and entice new devs to take it over. Also, an application does not really require active development ... 'final' can really be final, especially when dependencies are also final.

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MO uses Python 3 code base with some C+ I think, so it geared to open development and the future and much more accommodating to 'blind' devs new to the project than is something like Wrye Bash, which has footprints of a large handful of independent devs, and the code is anything but clean and simple to follow.

I think Wrye Bash/Mash/Flash doesn't work properly in Python 3.0, so that's probably why it still require Python 2.7.x (not sure about Python 2.6.x) and this might be a problem in the future if Tannin retire.

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Py 3 is the future though, and WB could be made to work with it, but it would require so much work updating that it would probably be easier to rewrite WB code entirely using Py 3 and the old code as a reference (this will eventually need to be done and arguably is a requirement for continued WB evolution, which has pretty much reached its capacity as it is currently coded). Py 3 still lacks library support, but there are workarounds, and this will change as time goes.

 

Py 2.7 is end-of-life but is still around and actively maintained for years to come though because so much has been developed that depends upon it (Linux, scientific apps, etc).

 

Nevertheless, Py 3 is a good code base for ensuring communal support and relevance for years to come, as is 2.7 (source).

 


DISCLAMER: I am not a programmer, but I use Python and do some very minor coding maintenance in my day-to-day.

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I believe a major goal of Bash 306 is to refactor to actually make it easier to upgrade to Python 3, but I'm unsure what their roadmap is.

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(Please forgive any spelling errors. I'm terrible with spelling and Firefox's spell check isn't working on these forums right now.)

 

My post is completely off topic here... But to fix this, when you right-click the post box, even if "Check Spelling" is check marked, hover over "Languages" and click on whatever laungage you have because that will definitely be unchecked. I don't know why, but for whatever reason it's like that on IP.Board forum software. (Or any forums I've been to using that anyway.)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was talking about availability of developers who can support and update application, not their skill. If Tannin will stop working on MO as the only developer (and there could be dozens of reasons for that), it will become outdated pretty quickly. Especially with new games coming out in future. Maybe there is someone else helping him with development, I don't know.

Right now I firmly believe only in WB and NMM (OBMM, FOMM), they will get updates no matter what as we've seen in the past. Bash is even dated back to Morrowind and still looking strong now, a decade later.

 

The Mod Organizer is an open source project and have all its source code licenced under GPLv3.

 

That means even the initial author leaves for whatever reason, the work he has already done will not be lost. Anyone with skill and interest can continue to improve it, keep it from getting outdated.

 

So I do not think it is a major concern to worry.

After all, the leave of core developer is always a huge (sometimes critical) blow to any of those non-commerical projects - even there is a "team" behind.

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  • 3 years later...
On 4/22/2015 at 8:27 PM, z929669 said:

NEVER mod Morrowind without Wrye Mash (!) WM was my first mod manager

Then why does the STEP guide for Morrowind don't even mention Wrye Mash? :blink:

I can tell you why, because that STEP guide clearly shows that the STEP site is a promotional site for MO and nothing else.  Period!

Also, I find this to be a contradiction about what one should and not do, so in this case it's the opposite. 

Quote

Installation instructions won't be provided for alternatives. Read the instructions carefully to avoid problems!

Don't follow the instructions in that S.T.E.P. guide as it's will create problems instead of solving problems.  Sure, use the links to download mods, but the rest can be ignored IMO.

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I think it was necessary since it's a lot better to post here than start a new thread about the same topic elsewhere, don't you think.

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You do realize that what they recommended 3 years ago and what they recommend now are 2 different things, right? Accusing them of being contradictory is kind of silly given the time period involved and raising it as a counter to something he said 3 years ago just makes it seem like you aren't aware of the passage of time at the very least.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/26/2018 at 1:23 PM, Arthmoor said:

Leo, was it really necessary to necro this thread after 3 years?

 I just came across this thread again by accident and was revisiting the old arguments just for kicks.

... then I saw Leo's post (huh?) and your response. Well said :D

I have nothing informative/intelligent to add, and hope all the AFK-ers are well ;)

EDIT: @Leo ... the Morrowind guide is not managed by STEP. We allow community members to construct and host their own guides, some may be a bit wonky, IDK.

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