100 réponses à ce sujet

[Burl2]

I just want to ask the modding community if there are alternative DA modding websites that are better organized. No need to lock the thread and prevent replies please. I don't want to discuss the myriad problems with this site, I'm just asking a question to the community.

Civfanatics.com would be an example of what I mean, (but that's for Civ).

[ladydesire]

Burl2 wrote...

I just want to ask the modding community if there are alternative DA modding websites that are better organized. No need to lock the thread and prevent replies please. I don't want to discuss the myriad problems with this site, I'm just asking a question to the community.

Civfanatics.com would be an example of what I mean, (but that's for Civ).

dragonagenexus.com (part of the same network as TESNexus) and damods.com; to be honest though, you're probably not going to find many mods that aren't already here, since I know that many of the ones on damods.com are also here. As far as site problems, feel free to make suggestions that will improve the site; Bioware already has listened to us on some things.

[giskard44]

I'll be putting my own mods in this site too but I am also running a modders support site at

http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/

The process of writing and posting tutorials to support new modders has started. But if your after mods rather than help creating them. Unless its my own mods, you might want to stick with biowares site.

[Burl2]

giskard44 wrote...

I'll be putting my own mods in this site too but I am also running a modders support site at

http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/

The process of writing and posting tutorials to support new modders has started. But if your after mods rather than help creating them. Unless its my own mods, you might want to stick with biowares site.

Actually that sounds great. I'll check it out. I suppose it really is a bit early for a bunch of stuff to be out there. The main problem here is there so much clutter unrelated to modding.

[Astorax]

Let me ask you this then Burl...what exactly are you looking for?



What clutter can you not find your way through to find out the information you need/want?



Asking for another site is all well and good, but when we're trying to build a community here, tossing your hands up and walking away isn't terribly useful. We DO want to know what's wrong with the site so we can fix it. Particularly those that are unhappy with it. That feedback is the best because it drives change in what's not good.



For example, folks have been chiming in on the forums needing to be split up, so we did (not that everyone is happy with HOW they've been split up, but we can't make everyone happy).



Folks have been complaining about the Projects section and how it can be improved, so things have started moving there (more headings/subsections to filter on than are there now, as well as possibly keyword filtering capabilites, also a ratings system to be more developed).



The problem with other sites for this sort of thing is that now someone that say, wants to play a module, has 3/4 sites they need to go to in order to find something they want, rather than one. If the official site isn't that one-stop shop, that could be fine, but then we're reliant upon a 3rd party not affiliated with the game officially to support it...which is all well and good as long as whoever owns the site stays interested in the game, but the minute that interest wanes for whatever reason, the site stops being supported as it should. At least here, there's a monetary incentive for them to maintain/support/improve the site.



Hopefully that makes sense. I'm not looking to say "All other sites not the official one are bad and shouldn't be used" because that's just silly. They're going to crop up no matter what. Having said that, if we can do more to improve this site to make this the #1 place for mods and modding, of course we will do what we can.

[Burl2]

That is an admirable goal Astorax, I'll try to be more helpful if I can. I was just frustrated before because I couldn't download the toolset, and in trying to figure out why, I've been stymied by the difficulty in navigating the site.



For example, I wanted to look at my profile to see if maybe my game wasn't registered properly or something, but on my computer, the popup menu that comes up when I mouse over 'profile' is actually disconnected from the 'profile' button, so when you try to mouse over to the menu, the menu disappears when you hit the gap. Maybe one out of ten times if you're super fast with the mouse, you can bridge the gap but man, I just wanna look at my profile.



Anyway, I mentioned Civfanatics, that's an excellent example of a modding community. It's simple and everything is catagorized in a detailed manner. Whether you want to learn to mod civ, or you just want to find or request a certain mod, its easy to find.



So, the DA toolset wiki looks great, and I expect it will expand out very nicely. As for interaction with other members of the community, I'm wishing it were simpler and more to the point. Do we need avatars on the thread titles? That limits the topics to like 10 per page on my screen. I don't care who chose what avatar, I just wanna see what people are talking about today, and to scan the topics quickly. With all the activity around here, you don't want posts falling off the first page in 10 minutes cause the thread titles take up so much screen space.



Thanks for your patience, and sorry for the grumpiness.

[Astorax]

No worries, it's my job...as it were. Believe me, you guys are all angels compared to some of the drek in other communities I've had to deal with.

As for the avatars, there has been many such complaints (I happen to agree with you). Avatars are supposed to be helpful in identifying at a glance a person's identity...part of the disconnect here for me is that you can change the avatar (and many do) so easily to whatever your current DA campaign's main character, it sort of defeats the purpose by making it quickly and easily identifiable.

Also they take up a ton of space. I'm hoping now that the core functionality is "getting there" the web dudes will get more of a chance to give us options for stuff like that to customize the look/feel of the forums to how we want it individually. Turning off the avatars would be pretty huge IMO.

Edit: and OOH shiny tag for me now!! woot...

Modifié par Astorax, 24 novembre 2009 - 11:21 .

[Adaram]

Nice new tag Astorax.



For those interested, just last week I had a great back and forth with Jesse on these forums that resulted in a process to change and improve Project Categories. Like Astorax said, Bioware is very motivated to do what people think will work well on this site. Now that they have a powerful and flexible program with which to do that, all that remains is to work through the priorities. Now is a perfect time to add your priorities to this list.

[Dark0ne-]

The problem with other sites for this sort of thing is that now someone that say, wants to play a module, has 3/4 sites they need to go to in order to find something they want, rather than one. If the official site isn't that one-stop shop, that could be fine, but then we're reliant upon a 3rd party not affiliated with the game officially to support it...which is all well and good as long as whoever owns the site stays interested in the game, but the minute that interest wanes for whatever reason, the site stops being supported as it should. At least here, there's a monetary incentive for them to maintain/support/improve the site.

Indeed an official one-stop shop can be handy, but having the one-stop shop at the wim of the original developers can have its downsides too, it's already apparent. Changes are slow to come by, if they come at all, no doubt due to the bureaucracies involved in such matters for companies that need to stop and thoroughly discuss planned changes among 2 or more individuals. Similarly what sort of stance are the developers going to take on concepts such as censorship? How are the developers going to sort out ownership squabbles between authors? Are they going to do it in a timely fashion? Is the moderation going to be fair? Is the moderation going to be prompt? The answers to all these questions, whatever the answer, is going to fragment the community naturally. Because as you said yourself re: the forum categories you simply cannot please everyone.

Similarly fragmentation of the community naturally occurs due to the characters of (generally) a minority of individuals who like to be a part of a more quiet, calm and collected community. One where their new threads aren't off the first page within 2 minutes. Perhaps the community they go to will be more niche, or perhaps just smaller, but you can't stop that sort of fragmentation.

As a member of the Elder Scrolls community for coming on 9 years now I've witnessed the issues raised by relying on 3rd parties to host content. Many major modding sites over the years have come, prospered and then one day crumbled for often unexplained reasons, taking with them unique works and content not available anywhere else. Members within the community continue to try and raise the awareness of mod authors to upload their work to more than just one site. The same can be said for the Social site. Do you honestly believe that just because the site has the backing of the developer that it will remain indefinately? You only need to look at the news over the past few years, especially in regards to DRM music and the likes to know that even here your work isn't guaranteed to stand the test of time. If Walmart and Yahoo can bring down their paid-for music servers, what's to stop Bioware from bringing down their free-to-download mod download servers?

More sites provide more coverage, provide more backup, provide more features, provide more community stability. That's what I'd argue. Once again, from my experience in the Elder Scrolls community, 3rd party sites compliment the official site, they don't overrun it and they don't degrade it. You can never take away from what the official site is.

As far as my concerns, and my feedback, I still cannot for the life of me understand why the downloadable projects are grouped in with the WIP and request entries. How does that make any sense what so ever? Unless I'm mistaken there's no way of filtering between files that have downloads and files that don't. This is a serious short coming of the system and, from what I understand, the number one reason why people are finding the social site "cluttered".

Add to that a substandard forum system (search system that only works on thread titles, posts being delayed 10 seconds - 2 minutes before appearing, lack of "view new posts since last visit", the list goes on...) and the terrible static 1000px width of the site and it's apparent there's a lot of work that needs doing.

As I have said else where the Social site, to me, seems like a developer having good intentions but making a half assed attempt. A bit like tidying your room by shoving your clothes in a cupboard and hiding all the rubbish under the rug. The thought is there but the execution is bad.

Modifié par Dark0ne-, 25 novembre 2009 - 02:32 .

[Happysin]

I personally maintain my project(s) on Dragon Age Nexus as well. I like its interface a bit better, and it increases exposure.



Ultimately, I would love to keep all my stuff in one place, but at the moment, the current site seem s cumbersome, and I have to admit I was really put-off by my initial issues in getting everything connected. Fortunately, that last issue is a past issue, and I haven't had to address it since, but you know, once bitten twice shy.



Also, there is the "large fish in a small pond" perspective of being on other sites. Here, it can be difficult to gain exposure for your mod among the hundreds, and that hundreds will become thousands and possibly tens of thousands if DA:O is as popular as it should be. At another modding site, I can be a much bigger fish, so even though that site gets less attention overall, my mod gets more attention on that site than it does here.



I will always maintain project here if for no other reason than completeness of the database, but right now it's not the best tool for the job, IMO.

[bmatt17]

The comments on Projects is horrible. If they can be made so you can have more than 10 per page and be able to jump to any page in the comments they'd be much better.

[Laxon]

Take a look at http://modcraft.net as well.

[georage]

It would help if Bioware had a section where people could upload LEVELS (interiors and exteriors) and show a nice screenshot of it, and other modders could download them.



The biggest hurdle to mod creation is creating levels. The other stuff is rather simple.



So, if Bioware wants lots of user-created mods (I assume they do) they should upload the OC levels for player modification, and give modders an area to easily see what levels others have created so they can download the ones that make sense for their custom mod.

[XaocSlack]

Insert proper beginning social niceties, please.



TESNexus (and it's cadre) has a nice way to browse projects if you aren't looking for anything too specific (http://tesnexus.com/.../categories.php); it also has a nice way to search for specific projects as well(http://tesnexus.com/...ancedsearch.php). That would be a huge step in the right direction for this site. (Contrast those two pages with the current project page.)



Personally, I think that from a strictly mods perspective that would be the best thing that could be done.



From a PR standpoint, I think that actively encouraging other sites is a good idea. For all the reasons that DarkOne was talking about:

Dark0ne- wrote...



... but having the one-stop shop at the wim of the original developers can have its downsides too, it's already apparent. Changes are slow to come by, if they come ... what sort of stance are the developers going to take on concepts such as censorship? How are the developers going to sort out ownership squabbles between authors? Are they going to do it in a timely fashion? Is the moderation going to be fair? Is the moderation going to be prompt? ... fragmentation ... occurs due to the characters of (generally) a minority of individuals who like to be a part of a more quiet, calm and collected community.

and more. EA's fiasco with Spore (http://news.cnet.com...041188-235.html) Mass Effect (http://news.cnet.com...9939161-52.html) and others has, at the very least, caused me to be apprehensive of EA's sincerity that the tools provided on the community site are truly for the communities benefit.



I mean, lets be honest with ourselves, if DA:O is as successful as I'm hoping it to be, there will be a 'need' from a community perspective that EA (and any other financially responsible company) will be unwilling or unable to provide 8 years down the road. (TES 3: Morrowind was released 5/1/02 TESNexus still hosts mod files for it.) Or we can even go back to another EA favourite: TheSims 2 released in 2004, there are still dozens of places hosting user created content for it. Imagine if EA were to try and host all of that content themselves? Do you think they would for a game they are no longer developing? I for one still play it, and would be heartbroken if I couldn't get at my favorite mods from Pescado.



Anyway...



Insert proper finishing social niceties.



Just a couple of cents from a fiasco that uses Slackware.

[Nodrak]

The biggest issue with the site atm I think it the Projects page. Right now a simple 'Use this to add items to your OC' project is in the same list as a hypothetical 'This epic campaign is brought to you by a team of 30 people, and spans 20 hours of gameplay'.  The new categories did go along way to fix that though.  I guess a big part is people getting familiar with the structure.

Modifié par Nodrak, 25 novembre 2009 - 04:18 .

[Burl2]

Civfanatics is great because they have a highly categorized download database, and each category also has it's own forum. For major projects they will also create a forum specifically for one project, like the Fall from Heaven mod or the Dune Wars mod. Everyone gets divided up into their interest groups and you can have a nice normal conversation, even with a huge community.

[Adinos]

The new categories are a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, there are three things still missing:

1) The ability to modify the category of a project - if a project get5s mis-classified originally, or if a better category appears later, it cannot be re-classified properly at the moment.

2) The ability to separate projects based on their development status (design phase, work in progress, released, released/ongoing or abandoned)

3) Proper rating system.

Modifié par Adinos, 25 novembre 2009 - 07:56 .

[FalloutBoy]

XaocSlack wrote...

From a PR standpoint, I think that actively encouraging other sites is a good idea. For all the reasons that DarkOne was talking about:

Don't kid yourself. Fragmenting the community is terrible. It leads to cliques and less overall exposure for authors when people start picking sides.

[Nissa_Red]

Honestly, the social site isn't up to par with its ambitions.

I loathe coming here, to get news, or search anything of value in the toolset learning process that I initiated (coming from Aurora/NWN1).

I won't rehash the reasons that in my opinion make this site inferior to the old DAO Bioware site. If someone had cared to listen to the community's suggestions over there (mine included), before it was taken down, we probably wouldn't have such threads on this site today.

I do understand that the EA (Bioware) marketing wishes to keep most of the community activity here on this site once for good, but in the current state of the social site, I just don't see it happening.

Personally, I have already taken my habits getting my DAO fixes elsewhere.


PS : I won't mention any such sites on purpose, because my point is not to advertise.

Astorax wrote...

Let me ask you this then Burl...what exactly are you looking for?

What clutter can you not find your way through to find out the information you need/want?

Asking for another site is all well and good, but when we're trying to build a community here, tossing your hands up and walking away isn't terribly useful. We DO want to know what's wrong with the site so we can fix it. Particularly those that are unhappy with it. That feedback is the best because it drives change in what's not good.

For example, folks have been chiming in on the forums needing to be split up, so we did (not that everyone is happy with HOW they've been split up, but we can't make everyone happy).

Modifié par Nissa_Red, 25 novembre 2009 - 09:53 .

[Proleric]

It would be better to keep the community together, IMO.

I've no doubt that Bioware is listening to the feedback and will improve the categories and search facilities here.

Some entirely implausible fears seem to have been raised in this thread. Bioware's record of fair moderation and supporting sites speaks for itself, and I hardly think that censorship is likely to be a major issue when disreputable authors like myself have been invited to contribute.

This site's Terms of Service offer unrivalled protection to module authors who build using other people's components. Personally, I would be very reluctant to use material from any site that didn't offer that assurance.

We have also had some unpleasant experience in the past with here-today-gone-tomorrow independent sites that have disappeared after trying to pressurise communities into contributing. Hopefully, that doesn't apply to any of the Dragon Age sites, but once bitten, twice shy, I'm afraid.

Modifié par Proleric1, 25 novembre 2009 - 10:02 .

[Valtonis]

Astorax wrote...

Let me ask you this then Burl...what exactly are you looking for?

What clutter can you not find your way through to find out the information you need/want?
.

How about for a start you let us see what we subscribed?

Proper categories for the mods.
and actually have separate areas for completed and WIP mods.
90% of all these "i'm gonna do this, this and these mods" are never gonna be released or even make any headway into making them
and that is what alot of the projects are, a waste of time to go through.

go take a look at what Nexus.com have and see what you are lacking.
there is a reason why they are such a popular mod site

and i would rather go to
http://www.dragonagenexus.com/
or
http://www.damods.com/index.php

[Dark0ne-]

Some entirely implausible fears seem to have been raised in this thread. Bioware's record of fair moderation and supporting sites speaks for itself, and I hardly think that censorship is likely to be a major issue when disreputable authors like myself have been invited to contribute.

Perhaps you could explain the implausable fears you mention? Implausable is a strong word, as in it will never happen. Do you actually, really believe that? Can you see EA/Bioware hosting mods and adding to the functionality of the site based on the needs of the community 8 years down the line? In this topsy-turvy world of mergers and acquisitions, especially in the gaming industry (hello, EA) I think your optimism is heartening, if not interesting to say the least.

This site's Terms of Service offer unrivalled protection to module authors who build using other people's components. Personally, I would be very reluctant to use material from any site that didn't offer that assurance.

Indeed you have made this clear in the past. But suppose other mod authors uploading here aren't quite so sincere as you. Imagine a scenario where someone uploaded work to the site that used content from an author who hadn't uploaded here, who requested their work not be used. Can you see the moderation team here opening up meshes and code of modules, going in to the core of mods to try and determine who has ownership of files and taking action accordingly in a timely fashion? If you can, then that's great, I really hope the moderation team are that committed. But something leaves me skeptical.

Don't kid yourself. Fragmenting the community is terrible. It leads to cliques and less overall exposure for authors when people start picking sides.

Cliques are an inevitability. It's practically human nature to look for social circles based on your own preferences. This thread is evidence alone of the varying preferences of a handful of the community members here. As the official site this place will always have the greatest selection of mods and the largest community. It's up to the mod authors themselves if they would like to share their work across multiple different sites, or just stick to one.

Personally I would upload to all of them.

Modifié par Dark0ne-, 25 novembre 2009 - 12:48 .

[Proleric]

Dark0ne- wrote...

Some entirely implausible fears seem to have been raised in this thread. Bioware's record of fair moderation and supporting sites speaks for itself, and I hardly think that censorship is likely to be a major issue when disreputable authors like myself have been invited to contribute.

Perhaps you could explain the implausable fears you mention? Implausable is a strong word, as in it will never happen. Do you actually, really believe that? Can you see EA/Bioware hosting mods and adding to the functionality of the site based on the needs of the community 8 years down the line? In this topsy-turvy world of mergers and acquisitions, especially in the gaming industry (hello, EA) I think your optimism is heartening, if not interesting to say the least.

Well, your own words are a good example:

Similarly what sort of stance are the developers going to take on concepts such as censorship? How are the developers going to sort out ownership squabbles between authors? Are they going to do it in a timely fashion? Is the moderation going to be fair? Is the moderation going to be prompt?

I'd say that those fears are implausible, in the dictionary sense of "provoking disbelief" or "unlikely to happen" ("never happen" is not a definition I've come across). I base that on years of experience of using Bioware forums, including the NWN site which is well over 7 years old now. I've no reason to believe that their behaviour will suddenly change.

This site's Terms of Service offer unrivalled protection to module authors who build using other people's components. Personally, I would be very reluctant to use material from any site that didn't offer that assurance.

Indeed you have made this clear in the past. But suppose other mod authors uploading here aren't quite so sincere as you. Imagine a scenario where someone uploaded work to the site that used content from an author who hadn't uploaded here, who requested their work not be used. Can you see the moderation team here opening up meshes and code of modules, going in to the core of mods to try and determine who has ownership of files and taking action accordingly in a timely fashion? If you can, then that's great, I really hope the moderation team are that committed. But something leaves me skeptical.

The issue doesn't arise here, because the terms are crystal clear upfront. So, we won't be subject to uncertain moderation. I imagine you are a fair person, but I've seen quite enough arbitrary decisions and cronyism on other hosting sites to prefer to do business on a clear basis, which is what Bioware offers.

Modifié par Proleric1, 25 novembre 2009 - 01:31 .

[Dark0ne-]

The issue doesn't arise here, because the terms are crystal clear upfront. So, we won't be subject to uncertain moderation. I imagine you are a fair person, but I've seen quite enough arbitrary decisions and cronyism on other hosting sites to prefer to do business on a clear basis, which is what Bioware offers.

The terms are crystal clear about files uploaded to this site. Are they as clear about using content from users who haven't uploaded to the site? That's what I'm getting at. It becomes a different kettle of fish then.

I'd say that those fears are implausible, in the dictionary sense of "provoking disbelief" or "unlikely to happen" ("never happen" is not a definition I've come across). I base that on years of experience of using Bioware forums, including the NWN site which is well over 7 years old now. I've no reason to believe that their behaviour will suddenly change.

Hosting a forum for your game, which pretty much every major and minor game developer does, and hosting user-created downloadable content are two very different things. The former has been done in the mainstream since the 90s, the latter hasn't. It's a whole different ball park now!

Modifié par Dark0ne-, 25 novembre 2009 - 01:48 .

[Jassper]

I have mixed emotions,...

I would love for everyone to keep it all together on one site - However I'm not sure this is the site to do it on anymore. It's not what I had expected, and I think if Bioware don't make a move soon - all will be lost.

There are several DA sites pooping up all over, so we are again forced to go "hunting".

I can understand and would expect authors of an entire module/world to produce their own web page, just a lot more freedom there to describe their world & lore. But for moders and tutorials, there just isn't anything here to entice them.

I think Bioware had good intentions, they just wern't prepared.