Once and for all, can we get the released mods in a top level forum?????

[Archonsod]

As for threads tending to get a lot of activity til release and then dying off, I don't believe that that is true at all. I do believe that when a mod doesn't have a release for the current version then yes its activity is probably going to die off. Same if the mod is abandoned by its maker.

Unless there's something to discuss then there usually won't be any posts. The simple fact is, people don't have that same level of investment in a mod - since it's free, if there are problems or similar then it tends to get deleted. Unless they're particularly interested in the mod itself, which are the same people who tend to be active on a mod board. You then get the problem common to M&B itself, except with a smaller scale (therefore greater effect) - once everything's been commented on, there's little more to say.

For mods that actually get released and have current development (and didn't completely suck and were not riddled with bugs), the posting actually always increased after release.

You get a spurt of people passing comment on the release, but after it's been discussed (usually within a couple of weeks) it dies off unless there's something else announced to discuss.  Mind you, in the main posts would be likely to be "when's the next version due out?", and we know how modders feel about those

It got announced, and it had some activity, but not much. Then it got released, and activity went through the roof! To be sure, it was one of the first .808 mods, and got more traffic due to this - but as I said, of course having no current release is going to hurt your traffic - which is a lot of the problem with many mod threads that have basically died. 

With no current release the only posts your likely to see is "When will the version for .808 be released?", which tends to piss people off more than anything else.

Like I said above, the main problem you have with mods is that your dedicated (i.e. regularly active) fanbase is usually a few people. Once comment and discussion has been made on the new version, then posting will cease since it's all been said. Without something to spark up new discussion, then there's not likely to be further posts (after all, from the point of view of the player nothing further is being done, especially true of mods being ported between versions, in cases where the mod team don't actually state more than the fact they are porting it).

Again though, marketing. I'd bet any modder who started a regular devblog on their board would see the number of posts double.

Of course, a lot of it is that people just play and don't like it. Not all the mods are that great - some I have played don't even make any sense to me or else did not work - more often, I see just one or two lame things and ditch it so as not to waste my time.

That's the point. You have no financial interest in the mod, so if you do hit a problem you simply ditch the mod rather than post about it. Unless a mod manages to engage you some other way then this will always be the case.

While I don't think we need to do anything like put mods at the top of all the forums, I do think the setup is backwards for these forums in many, many ways, and that especially we should do what we can to make the mods readily accessible and easy to find.

As I said, I tried it, but nobody seems interested. Unless the community is willing to meet me half way then I don't see much incentive for implementing the various ways we could highlight the mods. It simply puts more work on us admins, and we have other things to do with our time.

NOTHING kills a game like having a dead forum. A visitor sees that and they simply close their browser.

What do you think they'll do when they see a dead mod forum after a version release?

 

[morgoth2005]

I'm just suggesting that you put the Cartographers alongside the Pioneers, rather than under it. So anyone, first time on the forum, looking for a mod will be able to see it straight away. I'm suggesting to move the Cartographers up, and nothing else.

 

[bryce777]

Unless there's something to discuss then there usually won't be any posts. The simple fact is, people don't have that same level of investment in a mod - since it's free, if there are problems or similar then it tends to get deleted. Unless they're particularly interested in the mod itself, which are the same people who tend to be active on a mod board. You then get the problem common to M&B itself, except with a smaller scale (therefore greater effect) - once everything's been commented on, there's little more to say.

That depends on the scope of the mod and its popularity, and I have seen in the past of a mod is still supported then people will keep posting suggestions and comments, if not, not. Ultimately, though, the released mods' threads are all dying compared to before, which is the point.

With no current release the only posts your likely to see is "When will the version for .808 be released?", which tends to piss people off more than anything else.

Like I said above, the main problem you have with mods is that your dedicated (i.e. regularly active) fanbase is usually a few people. Once comment and discussion has been made on the new version, then posting will cease since it's all been said. Without something to spark up new discussion, then there's not likely to be further posts (after all, from the point of view of the player nothing further is being done, especially true of mods being ported between versions, in cases where the mod team don't actually state more than the fact they are porting it).

Again though, marketing. I'd bet any modder who started a regular devblog on their board would see the number of posts double.

If people stop working on it and stop posting new stuff about it, sure, the thread (and mod) will die. However, all the actively worked on stuff is currently dying out now, where it did not before....

As I said, I tried it, but nobody seems interested. Unless the community is willing to meet me half way then I don't see much incentive for implementing the various ways we could highlight the mods. It simply puts more work on us admins, and we have other things to do with our time.

Perhaps, but people do same interested in revamping the forums. I have seen any number of complaints about them, and I firmly believe the current setup is smothering the released mods.

What do you think they'll do when they see a dead mod forum after a version release?

That's easily solved - just lag it by three months with each release. Make anything that is more than one version behind go into a 'dead pool' area.

 

[bryce777]

Case in point: TLD

You would expect there to be increeasing traffic over time for any released mods, especially popular ones.

However, some old builds got 2000 downloads in the first few hours, whereas this one (which is a huge leap forward) got only 1000 the first night.

 

[Archonsod]

Not only will there be a lot of players running .751 who don't want to lose characters, but there's a fair few people out there not using the current M&B version for a variety of reasons (other mods + performance).

Plus the forum was down most of yesterday. We're still not back to normal traffic.

 

[bryce777]

Case in point: TLD

You would expect there to be increeasing traffic over time for any released mods, especially popular ones.

However, some old builds got 2000 downloads in the first few hours, whereas this one (which is a huge leap forward) got only 1000 the first night.

Pardon me, my good sir, what mod? TLD? For what version of M&B?

EDIT: Damn, it is! I didn't notice until I looked in here!

Another case in point....

 

[Highelfwarrior]

In response to some of the older posts:


It sort of does feel deserted over at the child boards. It seems like nobody even knows of it. And, Archonsod, I, for example, do try to publicise my mod. (Sig, for one) But it's no use, since I'm the only one. Again taking AoA/BE as an example, they have like 20 teammembers and probably 10-20 people on the forums have their sig. Might be relevant to when the mod was started and how interesting it might be, but I think it's more relevant to the fact that it's in a thread in the main mod board and is, indeed, much more visible.

I often post progress reports on pretty much everything I do/will do in the mod, so there's always something to look at (Except past three weeks due to exams) and usually some (1/2) old visitors like Eother, Merl or something give me a cheer, but that's it. Other than some of the people that actually know of the board, there's hardly any activity at all. This, and the fact that I'm all alone does have a giant effect on the motivation to mod, and with some people might result in them quitting. (Not me though - I'm going to keep on going as long as I can with or without support and attention.)

Nearly no one says/suggests/asks anything. And that makes it hard to keep on going. If there is a way to help get more activity on the major mod boards to avoid more deaths in the mod community - then, why not try?

Anyway, don't know if that actually added anything to the conversation; but I figured you could use a firsthand experience.

 

[morgoth2005]

I'll say something that will shock you:

There is more activity on MBX than on the child boards!!!!

 

[Highelfwarrior]

My childboard on MBX however, got no traffic at all. (Which is why  I moved. I was losing interest in modding and was about to quit. Then it was either moving or quitting, so I chose to move and try my chances here..)

I'd rather have a tiny ammount of traffic here, and a possibility of change, (ie. make the cartographers guild stand more out*) rather than no posts whatsoever.


*I'd go with the rest of the thoughts here: change it so it's not a child board. If anything, it should be the 'motherboard'. But best to just add it as a seperate board. In addition, possibly change the name to something people can understand. Maybe better to just add a discription like the pioneers guild. When you're new and you go on the first page, you'll have no idea whatsoever what the cartographers guild is - which is not favourable. Sure, once you click on the pioneers guild you can see on top what it is, but people are lazy and miss alot of things. and will generally start looking at the threads to find mods. Since the board they click on does say "The Pioneer's Guild - Mods

 

[Archonsod]

It sort of does feel deserted over at the child boards. It seems like nobody even knows of it. And, Archonsod, I, for example, do try to publicise my mod. (Sig, for one) But it's no use, since I'm the only one. Again taking AoA/BE as an example, they have like 20 teammembers and probably 10-20 people on the forums have their sig. Might be relevant to when the mod was started and how interesting it might be, but I think it's more relevant to the fact that it's in a thread in the main mod board and is, indeed, much more visible.

Case in point

They do have higher visibility thanks to the number of sigs. However, I also think you are working on the assumption that people interested in/downloading the mod are also likely to visit the board. From the posts elsewhere regarding mods, I think it's more the case that the majority of users go grab as much as they can from the repository without even checking the mod threads or boards.
Looking at the number of times your mod has been downloaded would be a more accurate picture of how many people are playing it. Like I said earlier, with little incentive or penalty there's no reason for people to post. The mod is free to download, so they lose nothing by doing so. If they have a problem, don't like it or similar then it likely just goes to the recycle bin. Apart from those who are really taken by or impressed by the mod you'll likely not hear from the majority of your players.
It's the same with pretty much every game out there, even the commercial ones. Generally you see a distinct apathy when it comes to thanking a mod team.

Other than some of the people that actually know of the board, there's hardly any activity at all. This, and the fact that I'm all alone does have a giant effect on the motivation to mod, and with some people might result in them quitting. (Not me though - I'm going to keep on going as long as I can with or without support and attention.)

It's not a case of knowing where the mod boards are. Even when they were on the front page you still had little activity in the boards. TLD saw more activity in the non-mod Tolkien discussion, 1066 got busy whenever someone decided to have a go at Colt & Tegan. Apart from that, there were mod boards I saw a new post in perhaps once every three days, if that (and others I could check at the start of the month and wouldn't see any new posts for weeks).
To be honest, even looking at the Pioneer's Guild you tend to see the same posts being bumped around by the same posters. Actual new posters into a thread are relatively rare, quite a lot of the activity is either talk between the mod team themselves, or the same people offering advice and comments on what has been proposed so far.

*I'd go with the rest of the thoughts here: change it so it's not a child board. If anything, it should be the 'motherboard'. But best to just add it as a seperate board.

Not only does it make the front page look messy, but I'd predict it to be a matter of days before we see people complaining that mod x shouldn't be on the front page because it's hosted at MBX, while mod y is hosted at Taleworlds and isn't visible from the front page.

Sure, once you click on the pioneers guild you can see on top what it is, but people are lazy and miss alot of things. and will generally start looking at the threads to find mods. Since the board they click on does say "The Pioneer's Guild - Mods

If that were the case I'd expect to see far more "where are the mods" posts, which we don't get. Removing the link to the repository might help, but obviously it would cause more problems than it would solve.
Like I said earlier, I'm looking at a number of ways to increase the traffic to the mod boards, but not only am I faced with apathy from the great unwashed, but even the modders themselves don't seem too willing to actually do something about it.

 

[Archonsod]

Now, I hardly hear of mods at all, unless I venture down into the Cartographers' Guild, which I rarely do.

So you're basically complaining you never hear about mods unless you venture into the mod board? Um, not sure what I could do about that one

Why don't you just try bryce's suggestion out for a while?

As I've said, moving the mod board to the top level is likely to cause far more problems than it would solve. Renaming the board is possible, but if people are too lazy to go there in the first place I'm too lazy to do anything about it. Capiche?

EDIT: And also, I for one never visit MBX. Ever. Unless I am forced to to download a mod. So don't say that MBX fills the job of a mod motherboard. It doesn't.

It would if people bothered using it. Again, complaining you don't hear about mods if you don't visit their site is rather like saying you never hear about M&B updates unless you come to the forum.

 

[Ingolifs]

I think Archonsod is missing the point here.

When the mod forum was laid out in its old style, I used to visit the mod boards, especially the Last days and 1066 boards, quite regularly. But once those boards were removed from sight of the main page, I'd have to go actively looking for them in order to find any info on them. Scanning the taleworlds index for new posts, I wouldn't see any for the mods, so I would cease to visit their pages.

Archonsod, consider this: People are lazy. You can't change this fact. You can't just say "well they shouldn't be lazy then." and leave it at that. If the mod boards are easily accessible, and easy to scan for updates, then they are going to be visited by many casual passers-by. If they are hidden further away out of easy sight, only the more dedicated people will come to them.

This effect of putting the childboards of the main mods into the cartographers guild is not small. It is quite substantial. Of all the people who download, play and buy M&B, i'd say at least 80% of these visit the forums at one point. They might be there just to complain about a bug, or ask for tactics for doing something particular. They're not going to scour the forums for all kinds of info. They won't even know how moddable M&B is. For all they know, the majority of mods in this game could be of the sort 'Tweaks damage of great axe to better reflect price', or 'New set of shields, surcoats and horses'. Unless they actively venture into the modding boards, they're not going to find out about these things.
On the flipside, if the individual names of the mods are visible on the main forum, then they're going to attract considerable attention from the passers-by. A quick glance on the taleworlds index will reveal names such as 'star wars mod', '300 mod', 'fantasy mod', 'brother against brother' or 'battle for sicily'. One of these names might attract the attention of the passer-by, and he'll go to the subforum. There, he might find that this mod actually looks half decent, and subsequently becomes a contributor. Without the advertisement, he wouldn't have bothered.

Now, these passers by. If they don't visit the mod forums, it's their loss, right?

It's also the loss of the modders themselves. Less people visiting = Less people playing = less bugs discovered. It means less puplic support for the mod, and less of an inflow of people seeing a mod, contributing to it and becoming dedicated to it. Overall, it hurts the mods themselves, and results in a lack of quality, and a lack of encouragement on the part of the modders.

Moving a mod entirely (as TLD, and many others has done) to another website such as MBX enhances the problem further. Only modders and diehard fans visit MBX frequently. While MBX provides a much better forum for module development amongst the modding community, it lacks a strong public presence. When news of a new release comes out, it barely trickles through into the other parts of the forum (as TLD for .808 has done just now), whereas in previous times, almost the whole community knew about it. It seems clear that moving the mod's forum away from easy access only hurts it in the long-run. For instance, when was the last time you ever heard anything about 1066?

It's all essentially about advertisement. Do you actively search the Cadbury website to find out if there are any new chocolate bars being released? Do you go out of your way to find out if there are any good-looking sitcoms or dramas being made that will soon be on telly? No. You come across such information because it is readily available in the public domain (through use of adverts on TV, billboards, etc.) Companies advertise things, because they want people to know about their products, and subsequently, purchase them. The public to a degree also benefit a bit from knowing about these products.

Ok, Archonsod, as an administrator, what is your main duty?

It is to present and maintain a public forum, essentialy as a form of advertisement, to ultimately further the success of Ikisoft's game Mount&blade.
You do this by creating a forum community where newcomers are welcomed, where people are helped out with their problems, whether they be technical or game-related, where veterans are encouraged to discuss things in relative freedom, and where troublemakers are banned.

It is well known that modability ultimately determines a game's longevity. Long after the game itself has been beaten at all difficulty levels, playing and creating mods often serves as the only thing that keeps people coming back. I know personally, that i've spent far more time playing mods such The last days and Lombard leagues, than the actual game itself.

Since the modding community, and the mods themselves, contribute so much to the success of the game, it would make sense that the administrators of these forums would strive to facilitate the development of these mods. 

There you have it. Although among the forums veterans; who know where to find things; the current mod forum arrangement has little effect, it is amongst the casual passers-by that the effect of hiding the mods away is greatest. I'm not exactly saying the forum placement is damaging to mod development in M&B, but I do think there is a distinct negative effect that the forum placement has on mods.
If there wasn't, people wouldn't be complaining about it right now.


In my eyes, the solution is simple. Take the cartographers guild, remove it from its subforum status, and place it next to the pioneers guild in the module development category. This will result in there being four topics in the module category. The only downside, is that it might further obscure the off topic forums to people with low resolution monitors. I think this downside is minimal at best. Presenting the mod section better at a cost of obscuring the off topic section, is well worth it in my opinion. 

 

[Archonsod]

Archonsod, consider this: People are lazy. You can't change this fact. You can't just say "well they shouldn't be lazy then." and leave it at that.

Why not?

If the mod boards are easily accessible, and easy to scan for updates, then they are going to be visited by many casual passers-by. If they are hidden further away out of easy sight, only the more dedicated people will come to them.

Point being only the dedicated people tend to post in them anyway. Like I said to Rathyr, it looks like the majority of people bypass the mod forums altogether even when they're looking to download mods.

On the flipside, if the individual names of the mods are visible on the main forum, then they're going to attract considerable attention from the passers-by.

This is my problem. The forum only has limited space to display those names. The first snag is figuring out which will display and which won't. The second is how people are going to react when their mod isn't displayed. Not to name anyone in particular, but there are some in the mod community who have a tendency to the Prima Donna reaction. It would only be a matter of time before arguments started over someone's mod being less popular because you can't see it on the main page. Quite frankly, I've had enough of that kind of crap already.

It's also the loss of the modders themselves. Less people visiting = Less people playing = less bugs discovered. It means less puplic support for the mod, and less of an inflow of people seeing a mod, contributing to it and becoming dedicated to it.

Like I said, it seems the majority of people bypass the mod forums alltogether and just raid the repository. I also get the feeling that most people who do encounter bugs will simply delete the mod rather than post about it.

Moving a mod entirely (as TLD, and many others has done) to another website such as MBX enhances the problem further. Only modders and diehard fans visit MBX frequently.

TLD et al have no choice. We can't host the mods here, especially not in a prominent place (plausible deniability and all that).

While MBX provides a much better forum for module development amongst the modding community, it lacks a strong public presence. When news of a new release comes out, it barely trickles through into the other parts of the forum (as TLD for .808 has done just now), whereas in previous times, almost the whole community knew about it.

Two things to consider here:
MBX has a link off the main board, in the Mod section, clearly labelled as the modding community. It doesn't recieve much traffic.
The community has grown a lot since the days of .751, let alone the previous versions. There's a bigger community, as a result there's more noise, and if you want to get heard, you need to shout louder.

Part of the reason I was asking for modders to submit advertisement type posts for the mods is so I could stick them in a prominent place. Nobody yet has took up that offer. Now it may be a dumb idea, but I figured a nice three paragraph advert singing the praises of a mod, interspersed with a couple of screenshots, a link to the mod board/thread and a link to the download would catch a lot more attention than sticking up a sub-board with the mod name. As this grew, we could collate them into a sticky in the Zendar Town Square. Me, I think that would be more effective at directing traffic and advertising a mod by an order of magnitude, yet none of the modders (or for that matter, the die hard fans) seem to care.

I also requested for player reviews of the mods themselves. Again, I reckon a description of a mod from a player's perspective is going to garner more attention than sticking the mod boards in a prominent place. If there were enough, we could even do little 'featured mod of the month' and similar 'marketing', ideally coinciding with mod version releases, to draw attention from the community as a whole to what was happening on the mod scene. If there were advert posts, we could interlink the two in a kind of "see what the community are saying" approach. I got one guy responding.

Me, I don't think the problem is the lack of access to the mod board. It's the board structure itself. Click on the Cartographers guild and you're presented with around two screens worth of sub-boards, listed by board names, plus a forum of threads, again listed by name. Some of these threads comprise of over a hundred pages. Quite frankly, the average player isn't going to go looking through something like that. He's also not likely to bother reading a 100 page thread (and you know how people get treated when they post "I haven't read the entire thread, but...". Unfortunately, that's the best we can do with a board based interface.

Basically, the fact is that the M&B community has grown, and the modding community has grown, to the point where attempting to hold any kind of organisation for the mod boards is going to be unwieldy. Simply going back to the top - level board isn't going to be effective anymore - the sheer size of the board is a put off, let alone getting into presentation. In addition, I want the mod community to grow as much as anyone else, but the larger it grows, the more pronnounced these problems become.

Me, I figured we could tackle it in a far more efficient and sensible way. Yes, it's asking for an extra five minutes time from the community. Personally, I don't think that's too much to ask for something which is only going to benefit the modders themselves in the long run. Hell, it's going to make more than five minutes work for me but it's time I'll happily give up if it means re-invigorating the entire community.

It seems clear that moving the mod's forum away from easy access only hurts it in the long-run. For instance, when was the last time you ever heard anything about 1066?

Dunno. Neither Colt or Tegan bother posting much these days (to be honest, the link for their board was down for some time and it seems no one noticed. Corrected it myself eventually, thanks to google).
Part of the point I'm trying to get across is that the modding community itself is simply too big to allow easy access by simply repositioning the board. Each sub-board we add pushes those at the bottom lower on the screen (and that's before we get to the threads themselves). Each thread pushes another one down the page. Moving the board won't solve this, it will simply result in an (to my mind unfair) situation where those mods lucky enough to be named earlier in the alphabet, or those who happen to have seen a recent post, get the preferential positions while other mods get pushed down and forgotten. I'm trying to make it work equally for everyone, but I can't do it alone.

It is well known that modability ultimately determines a game's longevity. Long after the game itself has been beaten at all difficulty levels, playing and creating mods often serves as the only thing that keeps people coming back. I know personally, that i've spent far more time playing mods such The last days and Lombard leagues, than the actual game itself.

I know. Here's an experiment for you - go to one of the large mod sites for a popular game (Neverwinter Nights or Morrowind would be ideal) and take a look. I've played several hundred NWN modules, and installed countless Morrowind mods. I never found any by randomly scanning the databases, or running a search. Instead, I found them through the site highlighting methods - top ten most downloaded mods, top ten rated mods, interviews with the modders themselves, feature spots on particularly good mods and announcements of updates to popular mods. If all I had was a list of mod names, I doubt I'd have bothered with 90% of the mods I did play, simply because I'm just as lazy as the next guy and really can't be arsed clicking through fifty or so threads or links just to find a mod I might be interested in.

If there wasn't, people wouldn't be complaining about it right now.

I count four of you

In my eyes, the solution is simple. Take the cartographers guild, remove it from its subforum status, and place it next to the pioneers guild in the module development category.

As I've said, this won't help the issue at all, except for those mods lucky enough to end up in a prominent position. I was considering linking in from the Apprentice Guild to highlight the mod community to newbies, but again I see the same problem I highlighted up above. Joe newbie clicks on the mod boards, and what he finds is essentially a list. For certain mods like Star Wars it's fine, since the name pretty much sums up the mod. Something like A Shield Lying On The Water or even The Last Days lose out however, unless the phrase happens to catch the newbie's attention.

 

[Highelfwarrior]

In response Archonsod's response to my post:

They do have higher visibility thanks to the number of sigs.

Well, yeah. But they got the people with sigs due to higher visibility in the first place.

I also think you are working on the assumption that people interested in/downloading the mod are also likely to visit the board. From the posts elsewhere regarding mods, I think it's more the case that the majority of users go grab as much as they can from the repository without even checking the mod threads or boards.
Looking at the number of times your mod has been downloaded would be a more accurate picture of how many people are playing it.

Perhaps you are right there, Fantays mod does have 40k downloads and is second most popular: but that doesn't seem to increase motivation for me at all if there's noone posting in the board..

It's not a case of knowing where the mod boards are. Even when they were on the front page you still had little activity in the boards.

I remember there was ALOT more activity in my board. And that was before the changes, and a while after a several releases of FM it was still as active so it wasn't a bump in traffic due to a new release.

Not only does it make the front page look messy, but I'd predict it to be a matter of days before we see people complaining that mod x shouldn't be on the front page because it's hosted at MBX, while mod y is hosted at Taleworlds and isn't visible from the front page.

True, but there must be something we can change to make it more attractive to the players. Mods are really important for the game as noted before. The fact that the CG and the board get alot less traffic than before is real . It's not something me, Bryce and alot more people just imagine, and it's not due to the mods / modders. (Atleast, not in my case)

Like I said earlier, I'm looking at a number of ways to increase the traffic to the mod boards

And I thank you for that. Something has to be done to make modding more stand out. It is the thing that mainly keeps M&B running after all.
The fact that traffic has decreased since the change (And that has nothing to do with mod/modders - or not in my case atleast. But might have other reasons than the board setup) is a real problem, so why not try to change something, anything.

but even the modders themselves don't seem too willing to actually do something about it.

I'm not sure what you mean here. 


Haven't read ingo's post or the response to it, but I can answer this one:

Why not?

Because that doesn't help modders and the mod community.

 

[Archonsod]

Perhaps you are right there, Fantays mod does have 40k downloads and is second most popular: but that doesn't seem to increase motivation for me at all if there's noone posting in the board..

Heh, you could always password lock the zip file so they need to come look at the board

True, but there must be something we can change to make it more attractive to the players. Mods are really important for the game as noted before. The fact that the CG and the board get alot less traffic than before is real . It's not something me, Bryce and alot more people just imagine, and it's not due to the mods / modders. (Atleast, not in my case)

One thing to bear in mind is the move to MBX. A lot of those who were active and posting in the old mod boards have moved there, some of them haven't. Either way, the traffic is split between the sites now.

Haven't read ingo's post or the response to it, but I can answer this one:

Not sure why I bother Answers several of your points regarding why I don't think changing the board layout is the answer though.

 

[Mirathei]

Archonsod, you have a very good point about the repository raiders. A few versions of Swadian Civil War ago, I released an update that introduced very few new features, but I started listing the features on the repository instead of on the forums. I went from getting a hundred or so downloads with each update to getting about 1500-2000. That said, let me throw in my two cents: the amount of traffic on the mod boards can be depressingly small indeed, but I think this is not so much because of the layout (Archonsod has me convinced here) of the mod forums as because people on the repository never notice the forums. I don't know who would be the one to do this, but the home page link on the repository should be put in a more prominent place, so that it cannot be missed. This would attract the people who search the repository to the forums, and thus bring in a benificial influx of new ideas and moral support.

 

[Archonsod]

I don't know who would be the one to do this, but the home page link on the repository should be put in a more prominent place, so that it cannot be missed. This would attract the people who search the repository to the forums, and thus bring in a benificial influx of new ideas and moral support.

That would be Janus. Possibly worth pointing out to him.

I'm complaining!

You're also revolting. Nothing new there

 

[Highelfwarrior]

This seemed so fitting I felt obliged to post it here:

This looks absolutly amazing.   Do you have an ETA for a playable version to be released?  This is the first mod I've seen that's made me really excited.

please please please don't give up on this thing.

There's proof of the problem. Of course this is just one guy, but he's not the only one. The first thing people see is the mods in the Pioneers guild. They directly jump on those (and stick with them, awaiting release) and half of them never even realise the released major mods are in the mod forum 'basement'.

The first thing new people should see is the released major mods. (Of course, the mods in the pioneers guild deserve credit too, but I think the released major mods should be drawing the first attention of the new people, since they are the most complete and playable mods.)

 

[bryce777]

I don't know, archonsod. None of what you say makes any sense.

I don't see why you are so adamant about defending this. It's pretty obvious marketing. On any webpage having the most visible link is the highest paying thing there is.

The idea that 6-7 guys having the Bitter Earth logo in their sigs making a big difference is especially ridiculous. Just look at my forum statistics and you will realize that the amount of time I spend outside of modding (beside werewolf) is pretty much nonexistent. For GD it's much the same, and have the people listed as devs don't seem to post here at all any more.

I am sure a lot of the popularity is from GD's superb artwork and general interest from fallout fans in a similar mod and just because GD and I are constantly posting stuff and letting people know the thread is alive...but I am quite sure there is more to it than that. I know from my own experience what my habits have become. If it's happened to me (someone who is constantly looking at the mod forums) then it has happened to everyone. Out of sight, out of mind.

I don't think you are serving people to put the released mods in some kind of ghetto.  I have some inkling the idea is to make it so that people go to mbx, but honestly that is a pipe dream. I said from the start it was, and it should have been obvious to anyone. Getting people to register for one forum is hard enough, let alone two. A community like NWN with 2 million players can drive traffic to another site, but the M&B community just isnt big enough and never will be.

Not to bash mbx, because having less traffic is good for many things, but they will never ever have huge traffic, and that's death for most mods as it is here at taleworlds.

As for complaining "Well, if people are too lazy...." I think that is a terribe attitude. You have to realize a huge number of people have no idea what a mod is. We (used to) get tons of people saying that. Now we no longer do, because they never go that deep into the byzantine labyrinth of subforums to go "Hey cool! I a stronghold 2 mod omg where canz I downlodes it!"

A lot of mods would do better if they did stuff like get less generic names etc. and I do think a lot of why BE has been so watched is because we started with a large team out of the gate and lots of nice artwork from GD and have lots of feedback to give to each other etc., but I don't think the forum sigs have a huge effect (though likely some) and with mods like fantasy mod I see a huge difference just in my own viewing.

If you look at my statistics I look in there more than just about anywhere, but seriously I had completely forgotten it was tucked away for some time! I have not played maw's murder mod, but I remember it had a giant thread back in the day. Now it's got like 8 topics where maw is just kind whistling around begging for help and trying to drum up interest again.

 

[morgoth2005]

To be honest, I didn't know that modding and mods existed until I came to taleworlds, and that also got me interested in programming as well... I'm sure there's people like me out there...