Modding Discussion Potential new modding site, with awesome features

So, I was talking around with some people, and the developers of a popular Kerbal Space Program site, said we can try to put SDV mods on their site too.

Currently features of the KSP mod site:

• E-mail players when mods they use are updated
• great search system
• see all versions of the mods, including for what version of the game they worked with
• various features to make finding cool mods easier
• modders can see stats about their mods (visits, downloads, whatnot)
• easy upload of new mod versions, with automatic notification to players that use it
• site is open source

Also I plan in making a package manager for Stardew Valley, if it works (I dunno if I can actually pull it off), it will download mods from the previously mentioned site, also it will download all mods necessary in a chain (example: if you attempt to download a SMAPI mod without SMAPI, it will download and install SMAPI for you too), also can recommend mods (example: when you download one of CJBs cheat mods, it can also suggest the others), and explain what mods have conflicts (so you already have a horse mod installed, and attempt to install another, it will warn you).

Also the site looks pretty And is fast

What you people think?



For those more technical inclined, or that want to see how fast their downloads will go, these are the server locations:



And this is the site, for those already curious that want to check: https://spacedock.info

 

But... There's already Nexusmods. It's THE place to go for mods... For lots of games. Pretty much any game, actually.

http://www.nexusmods.com/games/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/?

 

Their upload interface is terrible... I talked to them about it, and there is not much will to improve it.

Also it doesn't have some of the features I mentioned.

Finally, if I make my "Package Manager", it can't work with Nexus Mods, and Nexus Mods when I tried to convince them to update their mod manager to accept SDV, they weren't much into it either.

 

Hi,
Speeder came to our irc channel asking if its possible to transfer the infrastructure we have over to other games.
When i heared it was about stardew vally i jumped on the idea.

We wouldnt mix mods for different games. Instead stardew vally would get its own site.

About Spacedock:
its a community driven site build by players like me who are working as it guys.
The idea was to have a site that doesnt lust after profit or market share.
Thats why there arent (and wont be) any ads, bandwidth limits, premium foo and propaganda.
Its sutained by donations (money, time and resources).
So far we have about 8 servers from the us over europe to asia running.
Each has at least 1Gbit/s of Bandwidth.
Our sister Project CKAN provides a mod repository with desktop client to install all hosted mods with one click.

All i asked of Speeder is to make sure that somone from the community is willing to moderate such a site for sardew valley and that at least some mod authors would be willing to upload stuff to it so we dont wast our resources on something noone wants.

Greetings

VITAS

 

idk Nexus has most of those features, it's super well-known, and it's really not that hard to use. Also there's already like 3 mod upload sites. This one, Nexus, that Stardewvalleymods one, I think there was another floating around but I can't remember the name of it. Idk it feels like we're getting overloaded with new mod upload sites.

 

Exactly, and having all of these websites just further divides the mod community and splits attention, as I'm sure modders really do not want to have to waste their time uploading to every single new mod website that crops up, opting for two or three of the popular ones. I'd understand if it was to cater to a niche category of mods, like that one website solely for NSFW/Mature Skyrim mods. I guess you're trying to compete with current modding sites to provide a superior service, and props on you for that, but I'm not sure if the Stardew community will latch onto it, seeing as it's been a month, and they've more or less settled on specific websites previously mentioned.

 

no problem its my hobby. ive no urge to make money out of it like e.g. nexus wants to.

 

I think nexus is shit and how trying to find stuff on here is a total nightmare/the flow of finding and downloading through this site's mod recepertory and hunting through individual threads is also really just bad, mess of a shitshow . If you can do better, I am so down for that. Whats one more modding website if there is already three?

If you guys can make it work, and much easier, welll you definitely have a user here thats willing to use your site.


EDIT: PLUS NOTIFYING USERS OF UPDATES AND WHY IT IS UPDATED IS PRIME. THATS THE BEST PART.

its like all the haters overlooked how that would make things much easier.

 

The whole problem right now is that the mod developers aren't really a unified collective. Something The Suit already points out. Currently, we have the following options:

• Nexus Mods: Huge user base, Desktop client without autoupdate and doesn't support SDV (yet?). You get directed to the website to download update manually after notice
  
• Official Mod Repository: Small user base, lack of desktop client. Still have to download update manually after you receive a notice
• Official Forums: Some developers just post links or add attachments to their posts on the forums.
• GitHub Releases: Some developers post their mods on GitHub as releases. Does have version control in a way, but no desktop client for releases.
• Stardewmods.com: Already exists, no client. Feels like the forums pretty much. Last time I heard they posted some mods without consent from the developers.

Sure this allows developers to do what they want, but it isn't making it any easier for the user.
Now a unified front would really help the current issues we're facing in a way. Keep in mind xkcd: Standards comes to mind now so if you want to "beat" the competition you'll need to be able to pretty much do the following:

• Consent/Support of developers to have their mods on your site
• Version Control
  
• (Optional) Desktop Client with real auto update of mods. Not needed, but the major selling point.

I think the biggest challenge is the consent/support of the developers. Some simply won't agree to it which means you'll still have a divided user base and we'll have 6 "competing standards". If you can get most of them to work with your project, and a name fitting so, it could be a success. Since the other two are easier to tackle if you can manage to overcome the weaknesses the other options have. Some of the above already pointed out the challenges the others have. I think the major ones you have to convince would be cantorsdust, Zoryn, CJB, TheNorthernMonkey and ClxS really. They have created some of the most used mods and if they give consent/support the rest might follow. I got no clue when it comes to graphical mods who hold the powerbase so. ClxS, also pointed out that the next major update of SMAPI will be able to handle XNB mods which is a good step forward and with a proper client or site you can have it all in one go. XNB and DLL mods all in one package would make life a lot easier for almost everyone.

Personally, I already wrote a simple script that downloads releases from GitHub and extracts them to the proper folder. It doesn't do version check but that's something that can easily be added in if I had the knowledge to do so. Right now I just check the forums to see if someone updated the mods I use and then download it. Haven't figured out how to make my script work for NexusMods yet but if I can it would make my life easy. One press all "updated", it does use extra bandwidth though. Any more elegant solution and I would be totally up for it.

 

To be totaly honest:
Chucklefish Forums + Nexusmods = All you need.
Chucklefish is perfect for the talk about the mods, development and such but crappy for release.
(Its a forum, what have you expected eh?)
And Nexus is awesome to release your Mods and keep a eye on Mods you use but crappy for talk.
(Yeah, it has a forum and the little talk sections in each mod, but come one... its crappy to talk there.)
There is no need for more at all. They work perfect together i think.


And to pick up a line i readed here: "They dont do it for the money"... yeah... no comment about that.

 

I go through all of them lurking because it isnt that difficult --although I think my biggest issue is notification stuff. I dont get them as readily as I should/for threads I've posted in and some don't even show up if another person replies ;_;

 

Well, I have issues as as mod creator having so many different places to upload as it is. There are these forums, then the mods section of these forums which creates a new forum post, then Nexus where I actually upload my mod files and then one other site I post things because its linked to on reddit. So, everytime something changes or I notice a typo, I have to go through FIVE different places to update. Its frustrating.

 

Note: I am a mod creator... the reason why I proposed this, is that chucklefish behaviour is bad to me (first, it repeteadly broke while I was attemptign to upload, and it creates forum posts, and has no way to tie old posts to new mods), and NexusMods upload interface is terrible, and don't support properly the licenses I used in my mods, ALSO, I talked to NexusMods people, and they weren't much willing to add support for their desktop client.

When I went to ask CKAN team (the mod manager for KSP), about it, that spacedock team offered to help.

Also, if the CKAN thing works, it will work as a NexusMods client too, so people will be able to downlod both from NexusMods and Spacedock anyway.

But I do agree that uploading mods everywhere is a pain :/ I just thought that spacedock + ckan is enough to make uploading mods everywhere unecessary in first place.

 

It would be nice if there was a main place that people used and we could phase out the old ones. I just wanted to share my issues with having so many different repositories.

 

You can ask a mod to merge your old threads with the thread the Mod Repository automatically generates.

 

Over on ksp we had the same problem with mods in the forums. Squad (who makes ksp) decided to go with curse as official mod repo.
All that chaos with different places for mods, lots of dropox and adfly stuff brought spacedock (former kerbalstuff) into existanance.

Mod Authors can select their license from a list when they publish their mods. We are realy strict about following the mod authors wishes.
All mods that arent uploaded by the mod author himself and dont allow redistribution are taken down when the author mails us.

All mods have version numbers and are linked to a game version (range)

Our sister project ckan aggregates its data trough an api directly from spacedock (if you allow your mod beeing listed on ckan).
All data is manualy checked to ensure that its sane and all the installation rules are defined (where to place files etc.)

Im unsure how much work it would be to adapt ckan to stardew valley but if theres enough ppl willing to help dev such a fork its surly possible.

Over on the ksp forums each mod author still has its thread where he gives support and posts links to his mod site on spacedock.
It also serves as prrof for us that any abuse claim made realy comes from the author and not some troll.

Even tough spacedock will offer (deactivateable) reviews and rating theres no aim to open up a second channel for support requests but a place to post (semi) professional detailed reviews and letspplays of a specific mod. the implementation isnt finished yet but there could be a way to have a bot post links and/or the contents posted on the mod authors forum threads as well.

And finaly: if you want a feature you can always implement it yourself. the code is on github

 

There is also Stardew Mods which supports all types of files (so you can upload pure .xnb files or whatever really), it's also fairly easy to use and isn't annoying like Nexus mods (for uploading anyways and has a simplistic layout for viewing mods): http://stardewmods.com/

 

stardewmods.com looks exactly like someone ripped the official mod repository and added a top menu bar and background. Knowing nothing about the site, and that someone said earlier in this thread that mods had been posted there without permission, makes it feel really sketchy to me. Why not simply use the officially provided repository linked to this forums? What's the advantage to stardewmods.com??

 

Yeah, that's the reason I don't use that site. When they first opened up, they just threw any mod they saw up onto it, and when they got called out on it they made a throw-away account on the Nexus to mass-send every mod creator that'd put up a popular mod on there a message asking them to use their site too. Just super sketchy.