Meta How would modders feel about posting to Nexus Mods?

[Happybara]

I am a big fan of KSP and would like to see modding for the new game reach a wider community.

[Halban]

The user experience on Nexus mods is not great: download speeds are capped, it takes two clicks to download anything, you are made to wait 5 seconds before each download, they host ads, and they offer a premium service.

Space Dock has none of that, but there are some features of Nexus Mods that Space Dock could benefit from such as the ability to see what’s popular in a given time frame, download buttons that associate with your mod manager, and a gallery of screenshots on each mod page.

I suppose that’s more of a user’s opinion but as a modder the user experience is what ultimately matters to me. A wider audience would be nice but I think the popularity of the game is much more of a factor than where the mods are hosted; there are lots of games on nexus mods with very few mods available.

 

[munix]

It feels very far off from the "open-source" and "non-profit" mindset this modding community generally has. For me personally (both as a modder and as a user) it's a no.

[Jason_25]

Absolutely not.  Nexus mods is a no-go.  They are harvesting people's information and profiting from it.  They are a huge obstacle to modding.  I beg you to not use this service.

[severedsolo]

I'd rather rip my own eyeballs out with a rusty spoon.

[Poodmund]

9 hours ago, Halban said:

... such as the ability to see what’s popular in a given time frame, download buttons that associate with your mod manager, and a gallery of screenshots on each mod page.

You can browse for 'Popular Mods' but I think that just ranks mods by total download count not, as you mention, within a specified time frame. SpaceDock is integrated with CKAN from a mod developers standpoint, I wonder in the future whether it could trigger CKAN to open and tick the mod for installation(?). Finally, its up to the mod developer to add screenshots to the SpaceDock listing page, it is available, its just not many use it as you can just click a link through to the forum page where they are typically posted.

As far as Nexus Mods goes... there's no nauseated Kerbal emote I can use.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Poodmund

[AtomicTech]

SpaceDock is where it's at. 

Curse is meh, GitHub is hard to search without using the forums, and CKAN doesn't work for me as a mod dev lol

Spoiler

All praise Lord @VITAS

 

[VITAS]

Also: if anyone is missing a feature on SpaceDock they are welcome to make it happen. The code and help getting started is there.

It is however true that servers cost money. My solution is to ask politely instead of going the freemium or ad route.

 

Spoiler

Im no Lord but a the humble IT Guy of the KSP community.

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by VITAS

[The Aziz]

Didn't nexus require an account to download mods in the first place?

[SingABrightSong]

5 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Didn't nexus require an account to download mods in the first place?

Yep, and Nexus policy being what it is, if you run afoul of their rather draconian policies, even for off-site or strictly-private behaviour, you can easily lose access to all the mods hosted there. Moreover, if a mod author blocks your account for any reason(and there's no restriction on this; ANY reason), then you can no longer download any of their mods using that account. That business model (and for Nexus it is a business) is contrary to the modding philosophy surrounding KSP 

[Stoup]

1 hour ago, VITAS said:

Also: if anyone is missing a feature on SpaceDock they are welcome to make it happen. The code and help getting started is there.

It is however true that servers cost money. My solution is to ask politely instead of going the freemium or ad route.

 

  Hide contents

Im no Lord but a the humble IT Guy of the KSP community.

 

A little left of center question, but is there any way on Spacedock to just browse all available mods for a given game? I might just be dumb or not inclined to searchbar-fu, but it feels clunky having to pick a category like "newest" or "most popular" instead of just "all"

[SydKhaos]

146.85% SpaceDock for all things Kerbal and KSP related I say.

 

I do use Nexus to mod ALOT of games, but only because in alot of cases that is the only place to get them. It is a horrible site (from a mod user point of veiw mind you, I have never posted anything there) that obviously does not care for modders or the moding games scene in general. No passion at all. The downloads are capped, unless ya pay subscription, at 2.3mb/s. The ads are relentless, and horrible, they will take ad money from anywhere. The only nice thing I could say about Nexus is the site is easy to navigate, even if your not sure exactly what your loooking for, but meh.

 

 

@VITAS does SpaceDock use centralized cluster for server, or ya got bits hosted where ever ya can?

[VITAS]

@SydKhaosits a central server in Finland. For a while it was on sponsored DigitalOcean geo cluster.

@Stoup you can simply click "browse new mods" ( https://spacedock.info/kerbal-space-program-2/browse/new)  and then page trough history.

The best way to find mods is still to search for them. Many people got a more intense introduction to advanced search filters today than they wished for.

[Stoup]

Hell nah, I'm still too lazy to learn, but now you've given me the stupid way to do it so I can put off learning for another day! Thank you very much for your help and your service

Edited March 7, 2023 by Stoup

[KamikazeF0X]

My god, I hate nexus, I hate it so much...
I prefer to stick with SpaceDock and CKAN
_{Or, even ThunderStore and r2modman}

[jwenting]

On 3/7/2023 at 5:55 AM, Jason_25 said:

Absolutely not.  Nexus mods is a no-go.  They are harvesting people's information and profiting from it.  They are a huge obstacle to modding.  I beg you to not use this service.

and they have massive leaks of user data including usernames, passwords, and email addresses every few months. This has been going on for years, and they're doing nothing to prevent it it seems.

[xD-FireStriker]

yah nah, i actually hate when the only place to get a mod is on nexus. such an annoying place 

[Kaa253]

GitHub

[ShadowDev]

Nexus mods? This is not the place for jokes. 

[Mitokandria]

I like Nexus mods. I have several mods there myself for older games and it works well enough. The UI, Layout, Search Features, dedicated user feedback section for each mod, and the mod screenshots section are why I prefer it over many mod hosting sites.

 

KSP already has a dedicated mod hosting site though that works very well. I would really like for Spacedock to incorporate some of the features Nexus can provide such as mod screenshot gallery and the ability to show list of mods by popularity and downloads within x timeframe. The layout isn't as intuitive/engaging, but I'm not a website designer so I'm not about to complain about something if I couldn't do any better myself.

 

The rest that Nexus + Nexus' mod manager provides is handled by CKAN far better.

 

 

[VITAS]

@Mitokandriafeel free to commit the necessary code to add all the features you dream of

[Halban]

1 hour ago, VITAS said:

@Mitokandriafeel free to commit the necessary code to add all the features you dream of

It's implied in their post that they don't have the necessary skills to improve Space Dock, and you've mentioned in this thread once already that Space Dock is open source.

It's great that Space Dock is open source, but I think it's important to remember that users can still have valuable ideas despite not being able to contribute directly. And I'm sure that no one making suggestions here believes that you or anybody else currently working on Space Dock are under any obligation to implement or respond to their suggestions.

Thanks for your hard work on the site.

[VITAS]

@Halban I imply that we (thats one person developing and on running the code) dont have any resources to implement those suggestions even if we find them great ideas. I also believe that everyone can learn if he/she wants something to exist.

[airtrafficcontroller]

Nexus only exists because Skyrim players don't have a CKAN.

[Halban]

4 hours ago, VITAS said:

@Halban I imply that we (thats one person developing and on running the code) dont have any resources to implement those suggestions even if we find them great ideas. I also believe that everyone can learn if he/she wants something to exist.

Right, but let’s not discourage anyone from sharing their opinions about Space Dock in this thread.