News from The Elder Scrolls Nexus

Do you like screenshots? Do you like the idea of [b]winning a £25 Steam Gift Card[/b]? If you do, then keep your eyes peeled for a [b]special event launching on Friday, 22nd March[/b].

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For a while now we have been thinking about new ways to increase interaction with you guys - our Nexus Mods modding community - through engaging and fun events that we can run (semi-)regularly on our site, and, moreover, support members of our community who are devoting some of their free time to engage other users.

In that regard, we have closely been following what two particular users, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/3060962]Excellentium[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31439930]napoleonofthestump[/url], have been doing for our Skyrim and Fallout 4 screenarcher communities. For those of you who are not aware, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/3060962]Excellentium[/url] is the originator of a community event he began running in February 2018 inviting screenshot artist from the Skyrim community to create and submit images centred around a specific artistic theme.

[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/3060962]Excellentium[/url] has run over 15 of these events now featuring themes ranging from [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/images/712133/?force_view=1]Wildlife[/url] (theme #10), to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/images/713689/?force_view=1]The Riddle Of Steel[/url] (theme #11), and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/images/722579/?force_view=1]Silhouette[/url] (theme #15). His continued commitment has not only drawn many screenshot artist to partake in the events and submit amazing screenshots themselves, but it has also inspired another member of our community, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31439930]napoleonofthestump[/url], to pick up the idea and organise a similar event for Fallout 4 launching [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/images/127218/?force_view=1]his first community theme called Venture Forth[/url] in September.

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Inspired by their joint efforts to engage our community, we are thrilled to announce that we are going to support their work and collaborate with both [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/3060962]Excellentium[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31439930]napoleonofthestump[/url] on launching a "Screenshot Community Event" based around a theme that is to be announced soon.

The idea is to bring the screenshot artist communities of [b]Skyrim, Skyrim Special Edition, Enderal, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76[/b] together for a joint event under one theme. This time around, we are making the event exclusive to the aforementioned games - mostly because these games are somewhat comparable in terms of base graphics and engine. However, depending on participation and engagement, we are more than happy to run similar events for other games, or even site-wide!

For this announcement of the event, it is only appropriate to let the two users who inspired it address the community:

[quote]A wise man called Albert Einstein once said; "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution". I couldn't agree more, because I have always felt my imagination is my greatest power. I've also evolved tremendously since I started my screenshot hobby and I remember how inspired I was by others when I began. That's why I came up with the idea of doing themes here at Nexus - to give others, newcomers as well as veterans, different doors to open, strange paths to tread and new worlds to see... all while using their own imagination.

- [b]Excellentium[/b][/quote]

[quote]A hot minute ago the good folk who spend the limited minutes, calories, and attention spans of their lives supporting the Nexus that in turn supports all of our creative gaming efforts approached me and my esteemed colleague Excellentium about some sort of screen-shot contest thing. Putting our heads together and working in a fine spirit of collaboration, we polished the notion up as shiny as we could and present it to you here. Competition! Tension! Fabulous prizes! Random selection! If you prefer the original low-key, no-stakes version of the Community Themes, fear not, we'll still be doing that regular as you please as a by-the-community, for-the-community thing. We're just trying something new here. Come for the chance to win a sack of loot, stay for the community creativity.

- [b]napoleonofthestump[/b][/quote]
Last but not least, anyone entering the event by submitting at least one screenshot illustrating the theme is eligible to[b] win one of three £25 Steam Gift Cards[/b] as a prize!  

However, since we want this to be as inclusive as possible and encourage everyone regardless of skill to partake in the event, there won't be any "winners" per se. Rather, we will be giving out one of the prizes to [b]a random participant[/b] in the event.

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The other two gift cards will be given away to [b]two randomly chosen participants from the jury selection[/b] consisting of 15 screenshots (one per participant) that we will pick together with [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/3060962]Excellentium[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31439930]napoleonofthestump[/url].

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That way everyone has a chance of winning a prize just by participating, but those who put in the extra effort to create exciting screenshots are rewarded with having better odds.

In the spirit of this very much being a community event rather than a competition, we will also be featuring one screenshot from every participant in a news post concluding the event as part of a "Community Selection". 

Stay tuned for the launch post coming up on [b]Friday, 22nd March[/b] revealing the theme for the event and covering the rules and requirements for participation in more detail.

With all that said, we are looking forward to hearing your thoughts and seeing what screenshots you can come up with once the event launches!

Today we are talking to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/2237521?tab=user+files]Scrabbulor[/url] who is most famous for his patrolling mods of the extra immersive variety: [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12977]Immersive Patrols[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/718]Immersive Patrols SE[/url].


[b]BigBizkit: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. To start this off, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?[/b]

Scrabbulor: Thanks for the opportunity! Name's Ameer Mohamed. I'm a 28-year-old poultry farmer, born and raised on the sister islands of Trinidad and Tobago.

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[b]You are most well known for your Skyrim mod Immersive Patrols which has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of users. How would you describe what the mod is and does in your own words?[/b]

It's a simple mod that uses the basic AI packages in the Creation Kit to create open world activity, specifically military activity.


[b]What was your inspiration for Immersive Patrols and what made you want to create and share it on Nexus Mods?[/b]

Every town, city and village mentioned the ongoing Civil War but unless you did Civil War related quests it was hard to tell. Like most mods I create, I made it for personal use but unlike most mods I upload, I uploaded Immersive Patrols very early in its life. I could tell the mod's scope and simplicity would make updating it as it grew manageable.


[b]Do you have a certain philosophy when it comes to creating mods? What are the things you pay attention to the most? [/b]

Simplicity and longevity, but mostly simplicity. Reaching a goal in the most self-contained manner is always my goal.


[b]How did you first get introduced to modding and how did you go about developing the skills to pull off a mod like Immersive Patrols?[/b]

I can't quite remember where exactly I started. If a game had a map editor or any kind of tool to change it I'd spend more time there than playing. I've always been unreasonably fascinated by the technology and techniques that are involved in creating video games so the motivation was always there. Once my country had tolerable internet, I'd say around 2004, I quickly learned the basics of Animation, Rigging, 3D modelling and C++ from free online resources and started creating small mods and eventually games in UDK for fun (shoutouts to geodav).

That being said, Immersive Patrols is a very simple mod. It only took a day of tinkering with the AI Package system to make the "skeleton" for the mod.

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[b]Are there things you wish you would have been able to pull off, but which were not possible either due to engine limitations or because you simply did not know how to do it?[/b]

Not particularly. For a while I didn't know how I'd go about disabling/enabling patrols based on questline progression without scripting but while using enable/disable parents to get rid of vanilla lights and add shadowed lights to Hearthfire homes without dirty edits, it clicked that I could do the same with the objects enabled and disabled during the reconstruction of Fort Dawnguard and destruction/existence of Civil War Camps during their respective questlines.


[b]What are some of the games you grew up with?[/b]

I played a lot, A LOT of video games as a kid but the ones that stand out are from the N64 era onward. Majora's Mask, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Shadow of The Colossus, Danganronpa 1 and Demons Souls captivated me the most without a doubt. Shadow of the Colossus, in particular, had a massive impact on me as a person. It taught a young me how to appreciate beauty in things I would otherwise take for granted.

It's hard to describe but when I try to remember Shadow of The Colossus, I don't remember a game but everything between. I see the landscapes, colossi, architecture, Wander, Agro. I can hear their footsteps and the wind. I feel a calm presence. Something dear to my heart.


[b]Have you ever tried your hand modding other games?
[/b]
I have! I've made mods for everything from Pokemon games to risque Japanese Imports, haha. As long as I start playing something or a character creator catches my eye, I'll start tinkering if I've got the time.


[b]Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of modding and/or gaming?
[/b]
I do! I practice line art, digital art, game design and natural bodybuilding.


[b]What advice would you give people interested in becoming a mod author?
[/b]
Think about something YOU want. What do YOU want in YOUR game? It doesn't matter how outlandish it is, just start reading and working towards it and you'll eventually make SOMETHING. Sure it most likely won't be what you set out to make but I guarantee you, if you're even mildly satisfied with the end result, someone out there will love it.

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[b]Is there anything else you would like to say?
[/b]
This was genuinely fun. Thanks for interviewing me and thank you Nexus community for being consistently mature and inviting all these years!

[line]
A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/2237521?tab=user+files]Scrabbulor[/url] for answering our questions. As always, if there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

We have been on the lookout for a dedicated Front End Developer for a while now and despite interviewing several individuals, we're yet to find the right person.

I know that lots of our users do not always see all the site news that gets posted so I am reposting the job information, just in case it catches the eye of the exact right person at the exact right time! Here is the job specification:

[b]Description[/b]
We are looking for an experienced front end developer to join our website development team at our offices in Exeter, UK for our main website, Nexus Mods.

Your role will be to work alongside our back end developers and dedicated designer to deliver high quality, responsive front ends using the latest frameworks and standards. You will become an important part of a team where every opinion is welcomed.

If you like implementing cool new features and making sleek user interfaces and want to showcase your work to a large and engaging audience then this is the job for you!

We are looking for someone who is keen to learn and flexible in their approach to problem-solving. You will need production experience working with HTML/CSS/JS (with at least one front end framework e.g. Vue, React, Angular) and working knowledge of version control.

Our ideal candidate is someone who has experience working with both a UI/UX designer and a back-end team to deliver exceptional sites and features, however, having the right attitude regarding learning and developing your skills is more important to us than your experience in this area.

This is not a junior role and so we are expecting to see a history of delivered and deployed projects.

[b]In short:[/b]

[list]
[*]Working with our back end developers to implement new features.
[*]Working with the entire web team to design new features and functionality.
[*]Participating in team meetings.
[*]Keeping track of your workflow using project management tools.
[*]Working with everyone at Nexus Mods to shape the future of our platform.
[/list]

[b]Other information:[/b]

[list]
[*]This is a full-time office-based position from our offices in Exeter, UK, to be worked Monday to Friday, 40 hours a week.
[*]We will offer a competitive market-rate salary dependent on your level.
[*]We will provide high spec hardware for you to work from in the office.
[*]For the right candidates, we may be able to assist with relocation expenses and logistics.
[/list]

[b]Requirements:[/b]

[list]
[*]Expert at CSS, HTML and JS.
[*]Production experience with at least one full JS front end framework.
[*]At least 2 years working in front end development.
[*]Strong communication skills both verbally and written (English).
[*]Right to work in the UK
[*]Experience or knowledge of video games not required, but you will enjoy the job even more if you like video games!
[/list]

[b]Benefits[/b]
Nexus Mods is an Alexa Top 750 website with a userbase of over 16 million users and serving over 1.5 billion pageviews a year. Working on such a popular site can be challenging, but rewarding, with a userbase that is very loyal and very vocal!

Due to the popularity of the site we try and work on the cutting edge of technology. If you are interested or excited by the latest advances in software and technology then you'll love working for us. We have a strong focus on researching new and upcoming tech and are always keen to explore new ways of improving the sites and services we provide through innovative means.

We are based in the heart of Exeter, a 15 minute walk away from Exeter Central station and 5 minutes from the main high street with all its shops, restaurants and the beautiful cathedral grounds.

We offer flexible working hours, provided you are in the office during the core hours of 10am and 3.30pm. The office environment is very casual, with plenty of lighthearted chat to break up the day, regular eating out, breaks that involve games and so on and so forth.

[b]Applying[/b]
If interested, please send a cover letter and CV to jobs@nexusmods.com

I'm late. I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's already the middle of February and I haven't done my usual yearly keyboard bashing session where I smash out a semi-coherent review of the previous year and talk about what we hope to get done in this year. Truth be told, I wasn't sure if anyone really wanted to read through my banal twitterings or not and whether I would do this, so let me know at the end if my time (and yours) was worth it.


[b][size=3]2018 in numbers[/size][/b]

In short, Nexus Mods continues to grow at an increasing rate. The exciting thing for us is that it's not just the Bethesda games we host mods for that continue to grow in popularity on Nexus Mods. The mods for other games not made by Bethesda have also exploded in popularity in the past year.

Nexus Mods averaged 4,996,242 unique users each month in 2018, up from 4,582,755 in 2017, representing a 9% increase in users. In contrast, the average pageviews are down from 132,500,000 in 2018 compared to 138,500,000 representing a 4% decrease. While this might seem odd, our site redesign came out in December of 2017 which makes more use of web technologies like Ajax that will reduce the number of registered pageviews (as full page reloads won't be counted). The average time a user spends on the site has increased by 5 seconds to 11 minutes and 46 seconds compared to 2017, so we do not think the site redesign has had a negative impact on user interaction.

2,313,857 new members joined us in 2018, up 43% from the 1,612,142 who joined us in 2017, meaning Nexus Mods now has over 16.5 million users. No doubt this number was bolstered by our change to the download system requiring all users to have an account to download (previously files less than 2MB in size didn't require you to login). This change was made in May 2018 to accommodate the mod author's Donation Point system.

136 new games were added to Nexus Mods in 2018, up 86% on 2017's 73 new games.

33,304 new mods were uploaded to Nexus Mods in 2018, representing a 19% increase on 2017's number of 27,891. Of which, 22,480 were mods for Bethesda games and 10,824 were for non-Bethesda games. This represents a 4% increase of new Bethesda mods on 2017's number of 21,647 and a 73% increase in new non-Bethesda game mods compared to 2017's 6,244. Frankly, this is awesome news to us. Bethesda mods continue to grow in popularity despite the respective age of the games while our catalogue of non-Bethesda game mods is increasing at a truly amazing rate.

As a result, 68% of new mods on Nexus Mods are now for Bethesda games, while 32% are for non-Bethesda games. 2017's figure was 78% and 22% respectively. This is pleasing to us, considering Bethesda modding continues to flourish rather than diminish and we continue to make inroads to supporting as many games as possible. The best of both worlds, as far as I'm concerned.

Finally, Nexus Mods served 226,582,588 unique downloads in 2018, up from the 207,582,827 unique downloads we served in 2017, representing a 9% increase. Similarly, we're now serving an average of 3.5 Petabytes (3,500 Terabytes) of bandwidth each month, up from 2.6 Petabytes in 2017.

That's a lot of "ups". Needless to say, I'm very pleased with the figures that have come out of 2018. Each year I take a look at the Bethesda modding scene and think "it's got to start declining now, surely people are going to get bored of these games eventually and move on to newer ones?". That hasn't been the case, yet, and it's truly impressive. It serves as a testament to all the modders, and to Bethesda themselves. On the flip side, Nexus Mods is now also one of the largest independent mod hosting platforms for non-Bethesda games. 2018 saw us surpass some of the bigger mod hosting sites even for non-Bethesda games based on raw figures. It's great to continue to shrug off the "just for Bethesda mods" moniker.


[b][size=3]2018 in review[/size][/b]

2018 was light on major updates to the site compared to previous years so you might have been fooled into thinking we hadn't been busy. Truth is, we've never been busier.

[b]Tweaks and fixes to the site[/b]

At the start of 2018 we had only just launched our new site design. There was certainly plenty of constructive (and not so constructive) criticism for us to sift through. Our team spent considerable time refining borders, paddings, margins, widths, fonts, sizes and all sorts to increase readability and respond to the relevant criticisms provided by users.

[b]Vortex released into Alpha[/b]

We [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13411]released Vortex to the public[/url] in February 2018 as an alpha release, looking for more users to help us test the software, report bugs and provide feedback to help us improve. The alpha was downloaded by thousands of users and we got exactly what we wanted. Plenty of feedback!

[b]We moved offices[/b]

In 2017 we set up our first office. A small box of a room in a managed office space that 4 of us worked from. Up until then, all the staff at Nexus Mods were working remotely in various countries in Europe and the US. The office was an experiment to see whether we could improve our workflows, efficiency and the general quality of our work by being in an office and working together.

The answer to that question was a resounding "yes".

Truth is, there are plenty of remote working and remote management tools out there that fill the gap, but I guarantee you nothing is better than working in the same environment as your colleagues, together, face-to-face.

With the experiment a success, we moved into a more appropriately sized office for our workforce and set about the long task of relocating current staff and saying goodbye to staff who could not make the move. That process is still continuing into 2019.

[b]Donation Points![/b]

In May [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13611]we announced[/url] and released the project we'd been working on for over 6 months. [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/modrewards#/faq]Donation Points[/url] is our way of giving back to, and supporting, the mod authors on Nexus Mods. In a nutshell, mod authors would now receive a monthly reward based on how many unique downloads their opted-in files received.

To date, we've given away over $81,000 worth of DP to mod authors. The overwhelming sentiment towards this new system has been extremely positive and we love hearing the stories mod authors tell of how even seeing a few cents worth of DP come into their account puts a smile on their face. Of course, there are many mod authors who are receiving a substantial amount each month as well. We're happy when the mod authors are happy, and 2018 probably saw the least amount of drama I've seen in my 18 years working in the modding community. So we're pretty happy right now!

[b]New community managers[/b]

In June we [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13657]welcomed BigBizkit and Pickysaurus[/url] to our Community Management team, working from our offices in Exeter. Our previous community team of Terrorfox and SirSalami sadly could not relocate to our offices for Visa related reasons and we said a very friendly goodbye to both of them by the end of 2018. As a parting gift, they did a great job training up the new guys and making them an integral part of the team. Our thanks and best wishes go out to both of them.

[b]Preliminary 2FA[/b]

With the addition of the Donation Points system, the prevalence of database leaks on the wider web (including our own, from 2013) and the knowledge that bad people are always looking for ways of getting into users accounts, no matter what site they're on, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13712]we released a rudimentary 2FA system[/url] for users to make use of in July. If you haven't enabled it already, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/myaccount]you probably should[/url].

[b]Download speed increases[/b]

With the increasing trend towards adblockers on the internet, we decided to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13806]show our gratitude[/url] to those users who do not use adblockers or who have previously supported the site with Supporter or Premium Membership by doubling their speed cap on the site from 1MB/second to 2MB/second.

[b]Vortex moved into Beta phase[/b]

Following the February release of the Vortex Alpha, Vortex [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13816]officially moved into another important milestone[/url] in October, the Beta phase. 26 updates were made to Vortex during the Alpha phase, fixing bugs, refining functionality and responding to user feedback and criticisms. The Beta phase is more of the same process but in a much more polished state. Improvements and bug fixes continue to be added to the Beta on a regular basis.

[b]Lots and lots (and lots) of background stuff[/b]

Then there are all the unseen things.

For you tech nerds, we continue to work on upgrading and updating both our infrastructure and underlying codebase to bring it into the modern age. We're heavily moving away from the standard "LAMP" stack and heavily making use of more modern alternatives including all the latest buzz words; Kubernetes, Docker, Elasticsearch et al. We're slowly replacing the old systems with modern, containerised, alternatives in a variety of different languages and using a variety of different data solutions based on the requirements. MySQL has been shunned. PHP mocked. I've not got a clue! I was always a LAMP guy, and a poor one at that. So really, this is just me parroting things from our developer meetings.


[b][size=3]2019 and what's in store[/size][/b]

Still with us? Read it all? Understood some of it? Well done! Let's continue and look at what's happened already in 2019 and what we're aiming to achieve.

[b]Nexus Mods API[/b]

Just last week we released our [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13921]public API[/url]. This essentially officially opens up a lot of the data on our site to app and website developers for them to make use of in their software. For example, any mod manager that wants to integrate with the Nexus Mods site or make use of the site's data to populate the data in their own software will likely find the API useful. This API will continue to be updated and more endpoints will be added as and when they're needed. It's highly driven by the needs of Vortex, but we've got a friendly group of various software developers from the community in a Discord channel who are making requests of us as well.

[b]Front end team[/b]

We're currently in the final stages of hiring a new front end team, this time with both a designer and a dedicated front end developer. Our previous attempt at this in 2018 didn't go so well, simply because our predominantly backend focused developers do not have the time (or realistically, the willpower) for front end work. Hopefully our new team will prevent this issue from happening again and create very tangible changes to the site in 2019 that you all like.

[b]Vortex 1.0 release[/b]

The Vortex Beta was released in October. Since then, we've released several updates to the software that include bug fixes, speed and load time improvements and UI and UX tweaks to make the software less confusing. The aim of the Beta phase is not to add any major new functionality, but instead, to refine what functionality already exists and remove all the major bugs we know about (and hopefully all the minor ones too!).

Having said that, new game support continues to get added to Vortex on the backs of third-party developers making good use of the open source nature of Vortex. We're thankful to anyone who is helping us to improve or add to Vortex. More on that in a minute.

This month, Vortex surpassed the 1 million unique downloads mark. A great milestone to hit.

As we work towards a 1.0 release of Vortex our Community team are working on improving the documentation, including a full "How to mod your game and install 10 of the most popular mods" style guide for the very beginners, among other guides that should improve the built-in knowledge base and wiki further for users.

We do not have a set date for the 1.0 release, but we stand by what was said in the news release, that we do not want it to last any longer than the Alpha phase lasted.

[b]Mod Packs[/b]

Holy-moly, look at this little nugget, hidden away in the middle of my long-ass yearly review.

Mod packs are, quite simply, a system whereby a user's mod profile is turned into a "mod pack" in such a way that they, or another user, can download that mod pack and all the mods contained (or referenced) in the pack will be installed in the exact same way, in the exact same order, as the original profile. Use cases include if you get a new PC and want to transfer your working mod setup to another PC (i.e. a decent backup and restore system for your mod profiles), YouTubers being able to share their mod setups with their viewers or you simply wanting to share your cool mod setup with your friends.

It has caused some controversy in the past due to various reasons, including it taking downloads away from mod authors, the worry it would increase false support issues for mod authors caused by bad mod packs and because others who have attempted to do this have basically created a "mod piracy" platform that completely ignores (and breaks) copyright laws because they did not have permission to distribute the mods contained in the mod packs. Whatever we come up with will ensure none of these are a realistic issue.

Being honest, a large part of the work we've done over the past few years; modernising our processes, increasing our team, redesigning the site, introducing the Donation Points system and moving away from NMM and working on Vortex points to this much sought after feature in the community. All the above needed to happen before we could properly tackle this polarising idea.

We've already done our first proper sit down meeting with all aspects of the Nexus Mods team, whiteboard and marker pens and all, to drill out the high-level requirements for the system. There will be many more before we're done.

When we're ready to talk about it more then the mod authors and the software developers will be the first people we talk to. What I can tell you is that the system/framework will be open source and linked to our API, so this is not going to be a Vortex exclusive system. If Mod Organizer or any other mod manager wants to make use of the system in part or in full, they'll be able to.

I'm sure you've got questions, but we won't be giving answers at this stage. Just take this as us putting our flag in the ground and saying "Nexus Mods is going to tackle mod packs in 2019".

[b]Queuing downloads[/b]

As mobile phone and tablet usage of the site continues to increase and we acknowledge that a lot of our users browse the site when they're away from their main gaming PC (i.e. when on a break at work or at school), we plan to implement a system that will allow you to queue a download for later. The idea being you'll mark the file for download and when you get home, your mod manager will download any files you have queued on the site since you last used it.

[b]Donation Points[/b]

The Donation Points system has been a resounding success thus far. As mentioned earlier, $81,000 worth of DP has already been handed out and we're very happy with how it has worked out.

As we continue to increase our mod offerings for lots of games, we'd like to continue to incentivise and reward mod authors who make use of Nexus Mods, even when the games being modded aren't as popular as the Skyrims and Fallouts of the gaming world.

With this in mind, we plan to create a secondary funding pool set aside specifically for non-Bethesda games on Nexus Mods. This won't take out of the main pool that already exists, but instead will be used to supplement the Donation Points that get given out to mod authors for games outside of Bethesda's ownership.

As our new front end team get into their groove, we'll also improve our reporting on the Donation Points system for all to see, providing monthly breakdowns of how much was sent out, the split between all the games and any other pertinent information that doesn't reveal private data on individual users.

[b]Reworking the user database, registration and eCommerce system[/b]

To say our user system is archaic would be putting it lightly. One of the biggest tasks we'll be working on this year will be ripping out our current user database and completely reworking it from the ground up. The aim is to greatly improve server performance, reduce our server requirements and significantly improve security. In doing so, this will also allow us to completely overhaul our awful registration process that is tied into the forums along with our Premium Membership purchasing system.

This will pave the way for some more "fun" features down the road and into 2020, like gamifying the user experience so users who like and respond to that sort of thing can feel like their activity on the site is being more readily recognised.

[b]Bounty reward system for developers[/b]

Since releasing NMM in 2011 we've ensured the work we've done on any of our software has been open source for all the community to see, edit, tweak, copy and or use in their own software. We continued this "tradition" with Vortex, improving on the idea by deliberately making Vortex easily extensible. Essentially, modding Vortex is a thing much more than it was for NMM. Our open API compounds on this philosophy further.

We think that an open source philosophy is an extremely important aspect that all mod managers in the modding community should adhere to, so much so that we have, on occasion, requested other mod managers be open source if they want to be hosted on Nexus Mods.

One of the bonuses of releasing Vortex as open source is that other developers have been able to offer their own code to the project. Some of the games Vortex supports have only been added because members of the community have coded this functionality and provided it to Vortex. In the past week, I've been working on contacting these developers to provide them with a small, but not insignificant, financial reward for their troubles and as a thank you.

It is our intention to work more closely with third-party developers who would like to develop functionality, provide bug fixes or expand on or improve Vortex. To this end, we hope to create a "Bounty" system, listing functionality that we would like to add to Vortex but do not have the time to add any time soon. We'll happily work with and pay developers to create this functionality for us.

The cost of hiring developers increases every year and when you factor in office space, insurance, taxes and myriad other costs associated with hiring someone, setting aside £10,000 - £20,000 a year to reward people making Vortex better is a great way of both encouraging others getting involved with developing Vortex while saving us money compared to hiring a full time developer.

If you're interested in this system, or simply interested in helping us to develop Vortex, please get in touch.

[b]More game support[/b]

Vortex now has modding support for 46 games on Nexus Mods. For reference, Nexus Mod Manager only supports 24. Following on from the Bounty System post above, we're always keen to get more games supported both on the site and within Vortex. We're working on adding more game support ourselves, but we're also keen to work with talented developers to introduce more modding support to Vortex.


[b][size=3]In conclusion[/size][/b]

Well done if you made it all the way through!

The TL;DR to take away from all this is quite simple; Nexus Mods is continuing to not only grow but actually grow faster than ever before, we did quite a lot of stuff in 2018 and we've got lots planned for 2019 and beyond. Some of it is even quite exciting!

Thank you to all of you who are a part of this success, and I hope your 2019 is going as well as ours so far.

Since [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13611]launching our Donation Points system[/url] last year we've given away over $81,000 worth of Donation Points (DP) to mod authors. Thankfully, the reaction to this system has been overwhelmingly positive and we're extremely happy with how it has turned out.

While mod authors can exchange their DP for straight up Pay Pal donations, we've also been very happy with how many mod authors have been exchanging their DP for video game keys that we've been providing in [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/modrewards#/store/all/1]the DP store[/url]. It's great to be able to provide games back to people who clearly love games as much as we do!

With that in mind, I've expanded the portfolio of games we now offer in the DP store. I specifically try and choose games that we have at least some mods for. The new list of games, on top of the games we were already offering are:


[list]
[*]7 Days to Die
[*]Battletech
[*]Borderlands 2 - GOTY
[*]Doom
[*]Dying Light
[*]Grand Theft Auto IV 4: Complete Edition PC
[*]Mad Max
[*]Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor - Game of the Year Edition PC
[*]Middle-earth: Shadow of War
[*]Prey (2017)
[*]South Park: The Stick of Truth PC
[*]Stellaris
[*]Tyranny - Deluxe Edition
[/list]
I hope you all enjoy the new selection.

On a semi-related note, we've been struggling to keep up with demand for some games in the DP store and I want to avoid having games out of stock if I can help it. I do not want to buy the games in considerable bulk simply because game prices can fluctuate wildly, with sales happening at any moment, and I don't want to be stuck holding on to a load of games that I bought for 50% more than they're on sale for now - that's not good for you or us!

I'm also aware that some mod authors are buying multiple keys of the same game to give to helpful users of their mods, for friends or as prizes for competitions they're running. I think that's a really cool idea but, unfortunately, this is causing me a bit too much admin work as I struggle to keep games in stock. Similarly, it's becoming difficult to source large quantities of game keys each month from suppliers. As such, we have changed the store system to only allow mod authors to receive one of each game key in the store. I apologise for this change but I feel it's necessary, not only for my own sanity but also to ensure every mod author gets a chance to get games from our DP store.

I want to say a big thank you and congratulations to all the mod authors who are enjoying our Donation Points system.

Today we are talking to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/1305814?tab=user+files]jkrojmal[/url], a long-time member of the site and avid modder. If you have ever wanted your towns and cities in Skyrim and Skyrim SE to be more than they are in the base game, then you might have run into one or several of jkrojmal's mods. His series known as [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6289]JK's Skyrim[/url] is one of the most popular city overhaul compilations to date and will definitely add a lot of uniqueness and flavour to the various holds. 


[b]BigBizkit: You are most famous for your various city overhaul mods, but could you tell us a bit about yourself first to start this off?[/b]
 
jkrojmal: Sure, my real name is Javier, I’m a 42-year-old male from Uruguay, a small country in South America that you may not have heard about, unless you’re a soccer fan. I’ve been playing video games since my early teens and started modding soon after the Oblivion construction set came out. I’ve made a few small overhauls for Oblivion and one for Fallout 3’s Megaton but only for personal use.

[center][img width=950,height=534] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/61035-4-1422064256.jpg[/img][/center]
[b]How would you, personally, describe the kind of mods you make?[/b]
 
I would describe my city and town overhaul mods as improvements over the vanilla designs, keeping them lore friendly; I’m just trying to make them more immersive and interesting to explore.

Darkend, on the other hand, is a completely new world space inspired by the Demon’s/Dark Souls games. 
 

[b]Do you have a favourite among the many different city overhauls for Skyrim that you have created?[/b]
 
Whiterun is definitely my favorite from the bunch, maybe because it reminds me of Edoras, the capital city of Rohan from Lord of the Rings. I’m a big fan of the movies!
 

[b]Could you talk a bit about your approach to overhauling cities? What is it that you pay attention to when refurbishing cities? Is there anything in particular that you try to aim for?[/b]
 
I was really disappointed with the cities in Skyrim. They didn’t really feel lived-in, there were a lot of empty and unused spaces, houses didn’t have any personality, shops didn’t look like shops from the outside except for the sign etc. You get the idea.

[center][img width=500,height=281] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/61035-5-1419431079.jpg[/img] [img width=500,height=281] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/61035-2-1419431129.jpg[/img][/center]
So I was pretty much looking to “fix” those things while keeping it lore friendly. I also experimented with expanding them in size at one point, but the performance was so awful that I discarded the idea right away. 
 

[b]Which one of the major places in Skyrim did you have the hardest time with and, conversely, which city was fairly easy to redesign?[/b]
 
Markarth, I think. I wasn’t a big fan of the Dwemer architecture back then, so that one was the most troublesome to figure out at the time. The easiest one by far was Whiterun, followed by Riverwood.
 

[b]Where does your inspiration for your city overhauls come from?[/b]
 
It comes from a little common sense, I guess? Let me explain. When I was exploring the cities and towns of Skyrim, I found myself constantly wondering about small nuisances, like Whiterun for example, being the trading capital of Skyrim, didn’t have any East Empire Company presence, like a warehouse, or why Arcadia didn’t have a garden for her alchemy shop, or The Bannered Mare some small livestock in the back etc.
 

[b]Your other major mod is [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/67559]Darkend[/url] - a Dark Souls inspired mod taking place on a new island off the North Coast of Skyrim. Can you tell us a bit about that and how you drew inspiration from Dark Souls/Demon Souls?[/b]
 
Being a big fan of the Souls series, it was just a no-brainer to make something akin to that in the Skyrim world. The feeling of freedom that I have creating something from scratch, and learning in the process is great, and also being able to work with other great modders who help me with various aspects of the mod, like [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/10357565?tab=user+files]Teabag86[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/2531318?tab=user+files]FrankFamily[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/4958252?tab=user+files]Joseph Russell[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/11835658?tab=user+files]Nazenn[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/6701352?tab=user+files]Simdrew1993[/url], from extensive testing to the creation (from scratch) of custom weapons and accessories, scripting, quest-making, writing and voice acting. So, big kudos to all!
 [center][img width=500,height=281] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/67559-3-1438132603.jpg[/img] [img width=500,height=281] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/67559-0-1468796430.jpg[/img][/center]
And in case some of you were wondering, yes you read that right, quests and voice acting; I’m hard at work with the help of Joseph Russell (you may know him from his excellent follower mod: [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/20035]Lucien[/url]) on a huge update that will include a bigger Island, a main quest, and a custom, Dark Souls-inspired, voiced NPC and potential follower among a few other surprises. So stay tuned.
 

[b]What is it about the Dark Souls games that fascinates you? Have you ever played any of them with mods?[/b]
 
Definitely the world design and the atmosphere, they are top notch in my opinion. No mods, no. The Dark Souls series is one of those rare cases where I don’t feel the need to change anything about the games. They are just great as they are, except for a few things about Dark Souls 2, but those are just a matter of taste.   
 

[b]What other hobbies outside of gaming and modding do you have?[/b]
 
I like to work out whenever I can if I’m not glued to my chair gaming or modding. I used to draw comic books back in the day, too - I still have a [url=https://www.deviantart.com/jkrojmalart]DeviantArt page[/url] if anyone is interested in checking it out. I haven’t updated that in ages, though.
 

[b]What is your advice for people who want to get into modding and world design in particular?[/b]
 
I’m really not the best person to give advice; I basically throw stuff in the render window until it looks cool LOL. Seriously, I'm the worst with technical stuff, I just picture something in my head and try to reproduce it as well as I can in the CK, but, from my experience with modding, my advice would be to start small, especially with world design. Keep in mind that you'll never be able to please everyone, don’t let that discourage you. Aesthetics are subjective - like art: for some people, it will be amazing and for others not so much, but always have fun doing it.
 

[b]Anything else you would like to say to the Nexus Mods community?[/b]
 
Thanks for all the support over the years, all the comments and constructive criticism. Nexus has some of the nicest communities in my opinion and I’ve met some incredible people along the way.
 
[center][img width=950,height=534] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/61035-2-1419431076.jpg[/img][/center]
[b]Thank you very much, Javier, for taking the time to talk to us![/b]
 
Thank you for having me! It’s been my pleasure.
[line]
A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/1305814?tab=user+files]jkrojmal[/url] for answering our questions. As always, if there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

Good news for our [b]X4: Foundations[/b], [b]Pathfinder: Kingmaker[/b], [b]Starsector[/b], and [b]7 Days to Die[/b] communities!

[img width=220,height=124] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/Images/games/cover_2659.jpg[/img] [img width=220,height=124]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/Images/games/cover_2607.jpg[/img] [img width=220,height=124] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/Images/games/cover_2672.jpg[/img] [img width=220,height=124] https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/Images/games/cover_1059.jpg[/img]

Thanks to [url=https://github.com/alexparlett]alexparlett[/url], [url=https://github.com/6d306e73746572]6d306e73746572[/url], [url=https://github.com/LazyWizard]LazyWizard[/url], as well as [url=https://github.com/nelson3219]nelson3219[/url], who developed the respective extensions, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/about/vortex/]our mod manager Vortex[/url] (which is currently in beta) now supports all four of those games (version 0.17.0 and newer).

If you are unsure about what a mod manager does, let me put it this way: Vortex gives you the ability to install and uninstall mods easily, keep track of managed mods, and stay organised by keeping your game directory clean. The idea is to help you spend less time worrying about mod files, so you have more time to enjoy your modded game.

You might have noticed the new Vortex download button on several mod pages which allows you to download mods through Vortex (if you have Vortex installed and [url=https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Downloading_from_Nexus_Mods_with_Vortex]configured[/url]):

[img]https://i.imgur.com/aeJDbOV.png[/img]

If you would like to try out Vortex, or if you have any questions, feel free to view our [url=https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Category:Vortex]Vortex documentation[/url], or ask your questions in our [url=https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/forum/4306-vortex-support/]Vortex Support Forums[/url] directly.

Happy modding!

Since we teased it [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13816]back in October[/url], our developers have been working hard on finalising the Nexus Mods API and today I'm pleased to report we’re ready to open the virtual doors to the public.


[b]What is the Nexus Mods API?
[/b]
It’s a set of instructions developers can use to access features and information from our service. We’ve been developing the API in parallel with Vortex to ensure it has a host of useful features. This is a more modern replacement to the ageing system applications like Nexus Mod Manager have been using for the last few years.


[b]What can I do with the API? 
[/b]
If you’re looking to make use of our data for a mod manager, Discord bot or integration into your game, you can view the [url=https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis-docs/NexusMods/nexus-mods_public_api_params_in_form_data/1.0#/]full API documentation here[/url]. As a brief rundown of the features of the API you can:

Mods:

[list]
[*]Get the latest, recently updated or trending mods.
[*]Get mod metadata.
[*]Get a list of files and file info on a mod.
[/list]Games:

[list]
[*]Retrieve a complete list of games.
[*]Get information on a specific game.
[/list]Users:

[list]
[*]Users can log in to your application with their Nexus Mods account via their API key or our Single sign-on (SSO) page.
[*]Manage tracked and endorsed mods on a user’s account. 
[/list]
[center][img width=1000,height=235]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1548431885-673880373.png[/img][/center]


[b]Keys! Clinky shiny keys![/b]

When using an app that talks to our API, you’ll need an API key. We’ve added a new page to your [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/myaccount?tab=api]user account settings[/url] where you can see your keys to different apps or request a unique one for your user account.


[b]Will this break my current mod manager?
[/b]
If you’re currently using Nexus Mod Manager, Mod Organizer or another app that uses the old method of getting data from us, you won’t see any change immediately. We have already reached out to the developers of some of the key modding tools that use the old service and will be consulting with them in their efforts to migrate to the new API. 

We are giving notice that the old system will be switched off 3 months from today ([b]Monday, 13th May 2019[/b]). This should give developers plenty of time to update their apps to the new API method. After this point, you can still continue to use any software that has not been updated, but you will have to install your mods manually.


[b]Registering my app
[/b]
If you're creating an app which takes advantage of our API, you can contact the Community Managers ([url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597]BigBizkit [/url]or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975]Pickysaurus[/url]) to get your application approved. Only approved applications will be able to use the Single sign-on (SSO). 

You can also ask the user to enter their Personal API Key from the API Access page in their settings in order to log into your app - this method does not require approval. 


[b]Feedback, support and suggestions
[/b]
We’ve opened up a new channel on the [url=https://discord.gg/s5G2hby]Nexus Mods Discord server[/url] dedicated to all things API. If you are having problems using the API or have suggestions on how it can be improved, you can get in touch with us through the Discord or [url=mailto:support@nexusmods.com]email us[/url]. 

In this week’s feature, we’re talking to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/1511152]Qwinn[/url], long time Nexus Mods user and creator of mods for Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim Special Edition and Dragon Age: Origins.
 
[b]Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. We’ll start as we always do, could you tell us about yourself to those who don’t know you?[/b]
 
Thanks for having me! My real name is Paul Escalona, almost 50 years old and just married last month to my lovely, wonderful and always-supportive wife Jerri, so I'm a very happy guy. I started programming when I was 11 years old back in 1980, doing my best to squeeze 16k game programs into my [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80]TRS-80[/url] Model I's whopping 4k of RAM and even usually succeeding. My day job now is being a Data Analyst working mostly in SQL, so I am actually a professional at this kind of thing. I'm one of those sick and twisted individuals who spends all day at work programming, then coming home and doing it a whole lot more without pay on nights and weekends. My doctor says I should get some exercise, but what does he know?


[b]What games are you playing at the moment?
[/b] 
...you mean I could [i]play[/i] a game instead of modding? Yes... yes, that sounds familiar. I think I used to do that, a loooong time ago... seriously, it's been a couple of years since I played anything beyond what's required to test my own mods and patches. I would actually like to get a full run of Fallout New Vegas in soon though, as I never actually quite got to the end of it back in the day. The game I'm keenest on playing next after that is Divinity 2 Original Sin. That looks pretty awesome.


[b]Can you remember how you first ended up on Nexus Mods 9 years ago?
[/b] 
Fallout 3 mods. I think that was probably the only game I ever used mods beyond just fixpacks for (and the fixpacks I made myself, of course) until I started playing Skyrim Special Edition about 18 months ago.


[b]It’s only recently you started uploading mods, what inspired you to transition from modder to mod author?
[/b]
Ah, but you have it backwards, sir. I was uploading mods right around the time Nexus came into existence (and before I was aware of it), and I was a mod author long before I ever used anyone else's mods. The first set of mods I ever created was for [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape:_Torment]Planescape Torment[/url] back in 2008, hosted on a mod site for Infinity Engine games called Spellhold Studios (which is still there, [url=http://readme.spellholdstudios.net/PSTFixpack_Readme.html]as are my PS:T mods[/url]). The main one, the fixpack, was originally called "Qwinn's Planescape: Torment Ultimate WeiDU Fixpack", and there was also an "Unfinished Business" Restoration pack and a Tweak pack. I had noticed that 8 years after the game's release, there were tons of mods for the Baldur's Gate games, but hardly any for PS:T.  I presume it was because the PS:T engine lacked an in-game console which meant you couldn't see what variables were set to in-game, you had to pretty much deduce their value. Challenge accepted!  My PS:T Fixpack eventually wound up fixing many many hundreds of bugs in that game, and I even eventually got input from Chris Avellone and Colin McComb (designers of the original game) on what the original intent was. 

Around 2015, a game company called Beamdog, founded by modders, which had already re-released Enhanced Editions of all the other Infinity Engine games, bought the rights to my PS:T Fixpack from me and incorporated it into their re-release, Planescape Torment Enhanced Edition. So if you ever played that re-release of the game, you played with my work. I am in the credits for it as "Design Consultant" (image below), which is all kinds of cool, I can at least claim an actual professional credit in the gaming industry. And I got paid just enough to put together this monster machine I'm typing on right now that I've been doing all my modding on ever since. I call it Mjolnir.

[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1549019618-1371093473.jpeg[/img][/center]
[b]One of your most popular mods “[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4689]Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack[/url]” was recently featured by our friends at [url=https://www.pcgamer.com/dragon-age-origins-has-a-huge-fan-patch-that-fixes-790-bugs/]PC Gamer[/url]. Could you tell us how you went about making such a massive patch for Dragon Age: Origins? [/b]

First, thanks for letting me know about the PC Gamer article, I wasn't aware of it until you told me! And actually, I released versions 1.0 and 2.0 of QUDAOF back around 2010-2011, before Bioware had even finished releasing official patches for the game. It only had about 3% of the number of fixes that v3.0 had (which I released in July 2017), but was still apparently considered one of the larger and more comprehensive fixpacks out there for the game even a couple of years ago. Back then it was hosted on the now-defunct Bioware Social website. 

Around 2011, though, life got busy again and I wound up dropping off the mod scene for a number of years. Then the PS:T thing with Beamdog happened in 2015. Then, January 4, 2017, I was just googling around and found posts on Nexus from October 2016 with people asking where they could find my old version 2.0.  I was so touched that I decided (after a 6-7 year modding hiatus) to pick it up again (and hey, who knows, maybe Bioware would notice someday and lightning would strike twice - Mjolnir needs a Threadripper upgrade!). I played through expecting to find another few dozen bugs. I wound up finding and fixing about 720 more (not all that dissimilar to my PS: T experience, actually). Actually, I found about 2/3 of those, and some really helpful Nexus posters pointed out the rest to me on that very same thread where people were asking about version 2.0 that got 3.0 rolling, and which grew to be a monstrous [url=https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4981245-qwinn%C2%B4s-ultimate-dao-fixpack-v3-no-longer-beta/]122-page thread[/url] before it got locked once 3.0 released. I credit them in my Readme, they were exceedingly helpful and kind and kept me going through the 7-month initial development of 3.0.

 
[b][url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/18369]QUASIPC (Qwinn's Unified Automated Self Installing Patch Compendium)[/url] is your most well-received creation. It features a massive collection of patches for Skyrim Special Edition mods. How do you keep such a large collection organised and up to date?[/b]
 
It isn't easy! There are currently 50 mods that could be updated at any time that I have to check out and make sure the patches don't need updating. Thankfully, most of the time, it's not needed, but even a small percentage of them requiring updates still means quite a bit of work on my part. Incidentally, the reason QUASIPC came to be (I think a mod compendium of this size and involving so many mod combinations is pretty unprecedented, do correct me if I'm wrong on that) was because after having created huge fixpacks for PS:T, and then DA:O, when I came to Skyrim Special Edition I found that it had already been done ([url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/266]USSEP by Arthmoor[/url]). 

So the only thing left for me to do in a "fixpack" vein was to fix bugs caused by the interaction of other mods.  In a way I consider QUASIPC to be my "Ultimate Fixpack" for SSE, the main difference being that I fix the modded game rather than the vanilla game.  I will create small mods here and there that actually change things (like my [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/18177]QUARK mod[/url], restoring visible amulets for use with armour mods), but squashing bugs wherever they can be found is always my first love as a programmer, and compatibility patches are close enough to bugfixes (even if not the fault of either mod author) to keep me happy.  What makes this harder to maintain than a standard fixpack, of course, is that unlike a fixpack for a game that's had all the official patches it's ever going to, 50 base mods being updated provides one hell of a moving target.  Still, that's true for everyone who mods, I just share my work so it doesn't have to be done individually by the tens of thousands of folks using the same updated mods.


[b]What tools do you use when modding? 
[/b] 
Mod Organizer 2 beats all other mod managers hands down, IMO.  For creating SSE and FNV mods, 90% xEdit, 5% Creation Kit/GECK, 5% everything else including [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4089]NIF Optimizer[/url], DDS converter, etc. xEdit is a fantastic tool and there isn't much you can't accomplish using just that. For Dragon Age, the Dragon Age Toolset, Audacity and GoldWave for sound work plus a few others.  

[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1549559111-1125858490.jpeg[/img][/center]
[b]Are there any tips and tricks you’d like to share for users looking to create mods like yours?
[/b]
Just one, and it comes with a bit of interesting background... one of the things I'm most proud of is that I was the first to release and popularize the use of [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/articles/625]ESPFE plugins[/url] for Skyrim Special Edition (they had been used by Fallout 4 modders previously, but not a lot, and not at all for SSE). An ESPFE is my term for "ESL flagged ESPs", and they go a long way toward defeating the very restrictive 255 plugin limit that SSE previously suffered from.

I first released them in my mod "[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/17398]Qwinn's Magic Featherweight Patches[/url]", one of the two precursor mods to QUASIPC, 9 months ago in May 2018. Hardly anyone was aware of them then. I considered releasing them risky because even though they worked great in my own extensive testing, only one mod manager supported them then (MO2), and you never know what will happen when thousands of other people start using something like that on every operating system, mod setup, etc. Also, some other big name modders were resistant to the idea, but I saw the huge potential and felt it was worth the risk to my reputation to make people aware of them and to encourage testing them on a widespread basis (with all due warnings of the risks to my users, of course). The risk paid off - they worked great for everyone, and pretty much everyone's using them now. So, yeah, very proud of that. There, that's the background. 

Now here's my tip for modders:  Not all ESP's containing new records can be converted to ESPFE's easily. If any of the new records in your plugin has a formID numbered greater than xx000FFF, you need to run a process called "Compacting FormIDs" on the plugin first. You [b]can't[/b] compact a plugin's formIDs and then update that plugin in an ongoing save game without breaking it horribly. So, if you are going to release a new mod that contains at least 1 but less than 2048 new records (overrides don't count), and you want your mod to have the WONDERFUL virtue of not using up a full plugin slot, make sure you compact those formIDs *BEFORE* you do your initial release. After that initial release, you won't be able to do it without breaking your mod in the save games of everyone who downloaded your mod previously. Initial mod release to the public = point of no return. There is really no other circumstance where compacting formIDs is worth doing, and that applies to both mod users and mod creators. That is all.

 
[b]Which modders do you admire in the community?
[/b]
Quite a few. [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/167469]ElminsterAU[/url] (creator of xEdit) does amazing work, as do the entire MO2 team. I trust their development versions more than I do most authors' full releases. Modders who can actually decompile game engines and work them in Assembler impress the hell out of me (such as a gent named Scient that contributed some engine fixes to my PS:T Fixpack long ago, and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/4995023]Nuukem[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/2025634]aers[/url] who do the same with the SSE Engine Fixes and SSE Creation Kit Fixes mods.). [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/7481963]RoyBatterian[/url] has done it for the GECK too and is pretty much the ModGod of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, period. [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/1155425]Dracomies[/url] deserves the title Slayer of the Uncanny Valley for making thousands of NPCs look less creepy and weird in practically every game I want to play. And [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/684492]Arthmoor[/url], of course, as one of the few (if not only) modders I am aware of who have ever created a larger Fixpack than the two I made, and I appreciate his devotion to keeping it as tweak-free as I do my own fixpacks. There are quite a few others I respect, but those are the big ones.
 

[b]Is there anything else you’d like to say to the Nexus Mods community?
[/b] 
Thank you! The reception to my mods has been pretty uniformly positive, and lots of people have gone out of their way to give very kind thanks, and those and the stray donation here and there make it all worthwhile (not so much the money, I get maybe one small donation per 2000 unique downloads, it doesn't amount to much, but the voluntary expression of gratitude and appreciation they demonstrate is priceless). Oh, and let me thank Nexus Mods for the new Donation Point system. It doesn't (and can't) amount to much as far as compensation compared to time put in either, but it does show respect by a content host towards the content creators, and that is rare in this crazy online world and more appreciated than you know.

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A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/1511152]Qwinn [/url]for answering our questions. As always, if there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

Today we are talking to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/4559665?tab=user+files&BH=0]Kalilies[/url] who - alongside [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/1251063?tab=user+files]Stealthic[/url] - is most famous for the Skyrim and Skyrim SE versions of [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/68311]KS Hairdos[/url] - a massively popular mod that adds a whopping 725 new hairstyles to the game.


[b]BigBizkit: Thank you, Kalilies, for agreeing to give us an interview. To those of you who may be unfamiliar with you or your work, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?[/b]
 
Kalilies: Hi! I'm Kalilies and I live in the middle of Germany. I love making all things hair as well as jewellery related mods. Most of the time I work together with Stealthic whom I’ve met here on Nexus and who I am happy to call one of my best friends now.

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[b]KS Hairdos is an amazing Skyrim and Skyrim Special Edition mod that adds a staggering 725 new hairstyles to the game. What prompted your and Stealthic’s decision to work on adding more variety to the available hairstyles in Skyrim?[/b]
 
It all started very small actually. Together with [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/5134496?tab=user+files]Shockero[/url] we did a tiny hair pack of, like, 20 hairs. When Stealthic took notice and joined, we started talking and hanging out for hours and hours and did hair on the side, so it just added up. At first, we only shared it with a handful of people. But seeing more and more people use our hair, we got motivated to expand our mod and share it on Nexus.
 

[b]How has KS Hairdos evolved over the years? Has your approach to modding changed in any way?[/b]
 
As we got more familiar with the tools and the workflow, the only thing that really changed was the speed and the quality of each hair. By quality, I mean the smoothness of the weighting, the textures and other details here and there.

We also applied physics to a small selection of our hairs. It was quite an experience.
 

[b]Can you tell us a bit about how you got started with modding? What made you want to create and share your mods in the first place?[/b]
 
Next to Skyrim, I also love playing The Sims. So, naturally, character creation is an important part of the game for me. The more variety, the better. That's why I started porting little things here and there for personal use. Everything was completely new to me and didn't know how to do anything, so it wasn’t anything good enough to share before Shocky and Stealthic came along and really taught me everything.
 

[b]How does it make you feel knowing that your mod has become a staple in the load orders of millions of users?[/b]
 
It’s bananas. We literally did all this for fun and seeing so many people use our mod feels great.
 
 
[b]Which of the hundreds of hairstyles in KS Hairdos most closely resembles your current haircut?[/b]
 
I would say Foam Summer, but mine is a little shorter at the moment.

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[b]What are your favourite mods you like to use or that you find particularly inspirational?[/b]
 
I’m currently playing with very few mods because I felt like doing a new playthrough. My character steals and cooks all kinds of foods, so [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/4291352?tab=user+files]kryptopyr[/url]’s [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/19924]Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul[/url] is my jam right now.
 

[b]Is there a modding related skill that you wish you had?[/b]
 
Knowing how to code would be neat. I would also love to dig deeper into creating 3D models and textures.
 

[b]Are you playing any games currently? Anything you can recommend to our community?[/b]
 
[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/4291759?tab=user+files]Ousnius[/url] and I were looking for games to play together. We ended up with Overwatch, Trine 2 and Overcooked 2 – they’re really cute and fun!

My favourite single player games would be Slime Rancher and The Sims at the moment.
 

[b]What other hobbies do you have outside of gaming and/or modding?
[/b] 
Lifting weights, tennis and cooking are my biggest passions.
 
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[b]What would you recommend to people who would like to get involved with modding?
[/b]

[list]
[*]Find something that you really want to do and let that be your motivation.
[*]Don't be afraid to make mistakes. They will happen. Keep going despite them.
[*]There are lots of helpful tutorials out there. ([url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFNF7nYc_DI]I have one up on youtube as well[/url])
[/list]

[b]Is there anything else you would like to say to our community?[/b]
 
Thanks to the modding community, I got to meet lots of people that have become very important to me, most importantly Stealthic and of course: ousnius. Love you the most :)
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A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/4559665?tab=user+files&BH=0]Kalilies[/url] for answering our questions. As always, if there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

Back in April 2016 the owners of [url=http://gamefront.com]GameFront.com[/url], Defy Media, announced that they would be shutting the site down within two weeks and that all the mods hosted on their site would no longer be available.

In order to save over 60,000 mods that would otherwise have been lost entirely, we spent hundreds of hours archiving every mod that we could from GameFront and eventually provided them for download here at Nexus Mods over the course of many months.

Thankfully, with outside help, the staff of GameFront were able to reclaim the domain name and created a new site to host all the mods that had been lost when GameFront went down.  This new site launched in March 2018.

Members of their team were quick to get in contact with us and chat about our GameFront file archive. We offered straight away to remove all the files that had been archived, as GameFront was now back up, but they were happy for us to keep the files up as a secondary backup source for their files. In return, we agreed to link back to the original file on the new GameFront site as a sign of respect.

Unfortunately, we've now been informed by the GameFront staff that other sites have now tried to exploit this situation by claiming that if Nexus Mods can host the files, so can they. We think trying to compare uploading the files to other sites now that GameFront is actually back, to us archiving the files back when GameFront went down and looked likely to never come back is, frankly, disingenuous. However, I'm not surprised by what I've been told considering who is involved.

At the request of the GameFront staff and to help them with this situation, we have agreed to take down the files we archived back in 2016. These files will continue to be available on GameFront for the foreseeable future and a link to this message will be shown on any files we were originally hosting from the archiving process.

We hope this puts an end to the unfortunate situation that the GameFront staff have had to deal with recently and I want to personally thank them for their work over the years, and the respectful way in which they've communicated with us on these issues. I wish them all the best.

This week we're talking to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/users/1663911]Metamoth (aka metalmouth7)[/url], the Project Manager for what is, perhaps, the most dedicated group of Fallout New Vegas fans out there. Fallout 4: New Vegas is a total conversion mod for Fallout 4, painstakingly recreating the game's assets and mechanics from the ground up. 

[center][youtube]997PAfxFiGE[/youtube][/center]

[b]Thanks for taking the time to talk to us about your project, first off can you tell us a little about yourself and the key members of your mod team.
[/b]
I'm Meta, the Project Lead on F4NV. I've been with the team since its formation in August of 2017. I've been modding in one way or another for about a decade, on titles ranging from Battlefield 2 and Command and Conquer: Red Alert to Homeworld 2. I first started working with Skyrim about 3-4 years ago, and Fallout 4 not long after it released, however F4NV is the first project I've been involved with of this sort.


[b]For anyone who isn’t aware of your project yet, what is Fallout 4 New Vegas?
[/b]
Fallout 4: New Vegas is a community-run project aiming to remake Fallout: New Vegas in the newer Fallout 4 Creation Engine, taking advantage of some of the features of the newer engine to make for a better and more refined gameplay experience.


[b]Fallout New Vegas is considered by many to be the best Fallout game. How faithful are you planning to stay to the original?
[/b]
We're remaking all of the quests as they were in New Vegas, alongside all of the original features, with tweaks made where possible to take advantage of the features of the newer engine, as well as to bring back some of the cut content and expand on the game world where possible. Narrative-wise, nothing will be changing in Fallout 4: New Vegas.

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[b]What are you adding that is new and improved?
[/b]
We're adding a number of new things to F4NV. We're aiming to expand upon the weapon mod system first seen in New Vegas with the added functionality of the Fallout 4 weapon modding systems. We're also tweaking and rebalancing the combat of New Vegas to better fit into the more dynamic combat of Fallout 4 while retaining the more RPG-based systems utilized in New Vegas to create a more dynamic and interesting combat system. We're also looking at some of the cut content found in Fallout: New Vegas and reimplementing some of it, alongside some new content in the form of new weapons and some smaller environmental encounters to address some of the issues the original game had in regards to many finding the worldspace in Fallout: New Vegas being somewhat barren and some exploration feeling unrewarding, while maintaining the tone and feel of the world. Our core philosophy when it comes to adding any of this content is to ensure that it feels like it was always present in Fallout: New Vegas.


[b]How did the project get started?
[/b]
The current F4NV project started off after an earlier attempt at the same goal that kicked off in late 2016. After that project came to a close in July of 2017 due to a number of issues going on internally, we picked up where that team left off and began working towards the same goals.

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[b]Could you tell us about your workflow?
[/b]
Because of the size of our team and the scope of our goals, our project has a number of different sub-teams working at different speeds towards goals that support the needs of each team. To keep this in check, almost every sub-team operates within fairly strict milestone goals based upon gradual outwards expansion. This allows us to focus on more specific goals as a whole, with each subteam being able to work as quickly or as slowly as they need to so that they can meet their objectives, and means that teams that end up completing their goals faster than others are able to continue to focus on further milestones as the project moves forward.


[b]Building a mod collaboratively like this can be challenging. What advice would you give to modders looking to start projects like this together?
[/b]
There are two main considerations that are key to building a project like this. Firstly, you should always understand that failure is an option. Instead of fearing that, however, you should instead simply accept it, and work to mitigate the damage it'll do to your project. This tends to have a positive knock-on impact on planning and helps to keep a project viable, while also typically meaning that you're likely to end up completing work that can be released to the larger community if something does go wrong. This can often mean that the hard work of your team members will not go to waste, and often leaves your team members feeling a lot more happy with the work they're doing on your project. Secondly, while it can seem a bit obvious, planning for a reasonable scope is also very important. A project like this will be slow-going no matter what - that's simply the nature of modding. However, if you plan for the team you have, instead of the team you want, you'll often be a lot more able to meet your goals, and this will give your project a far better chance of success as time goes by and work is done on your project.

[center][url=https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1547132896-2061979573.png][img width=500,height=281]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1547132896-2061979573.png[/img][/url] [url=https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1547132897-1093844225.png][img width=500,height=281]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1547132897-1093844225.png[/img][/url][/center]

[b]Are there any technical accomplishments you’re particularly proud of from creating the project?
[/b]
One of the biggest things for Fallout 4: New Vegas is having all of the legacy systems for Fallout: New Vegas functional in the Creation Engine. Many of these things, such as skills, damage threshold, or the weapon condition system are a huge part of the gameplay loop in Fallout: New Vegas, and without them, F4NV would feel more like a pale imitation of the original. We've managed to recreate nearly all of the original systems, and this is a huge contribution to F4NV feeling like New Vegas.


[b]For anyone who wants to join the team or support your project, what’s the best way to do that?
[/b]
The best way to apply to Team F4NV is to use the [url=http://f4nv.com/apply.html]application form on our official website[/url].

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A big thank you to Metamoth from the Fallout 4: New Vegas team for answering our questions. If there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

For our Mod Author feature this week, we’re talking to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/167469]ElminsterAU[/url] best known for one of the essential tools for modding Creation Engine games. The xEdit application has become a staple in the toolkits of modders and mod authors from Oblivion to Fallout 76.

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[i][b]Author's Note:[/b] This article was updated at the request of ElminsterAU to add additional users to the team section. (11/01/2019 23:15 GMT)[/i]
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[b]For those in our community who want to know a little about the man behind the ElminsterAU handle, could you tell us a little about yourself?
[/b]
I grew up in mid-west Germany, along the Rhine valley, in the '80s and early '90s, moved to Australia a bit over 16 years ago, and am now living in south-east Queensland, north of Brisbane, with my wife and our 6-year-old twins. I got my first computer (an Atari 520ST) when I was about 8 and was instantly fascinated with it. Not just playing games, but also figuring out how to make the computer do things I wanted it to do. I taught myself programming using Omikron-Basic by looking at the examples. Still have fond memories of that time.

A year later we got a "family PC" (a 286 at first, a bit later a 386) which I was using on and off, but the Atari was my mainstay for quite a few more years. I dabbled with GW-BASIC on the PC but found it lacking, and so, shortly after Turbo Pascal 4.0 came out, I started learning Pascal by looking at examples and a pocket-sized "Turbo Pascal 4.0 - The Reference" book. I've learned plenty of other programming languages over the years after that (Everything from Assembler to Smalltalk, and more recently Java, C# and many more), but Pascal (now in the form of Delphi) has been my language of choice ever since.

When I was 15, while still finishing school, I started my own registered trade (which required getting special permission from a family court as a minor), building custom PCs and doing custom development work for a number of customers.

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After 10 years of school ("Realschule" in Germany), I started an industry apprenticeship as "[url=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommunikationselektroniker]Kommunikationselektroniker Fachrichtung Informationstechnik[/url]" (“Communication engineer specialized in information technology”) and finished it 1 year early with a top grade.

I was still doing custom development work during all that time and directly started full-time work for one of my major customers, [url=https://www.microtech.de/]Microtech [/url]where I quickly went from "new guy" to "in charge of designing and developing the application framework for our next generation software". After 4 eventful years at Microtech, during which time I also provided a completely new design for FlashFiler (the database engine I was using at Microtech) to TurboPower (the make for FlashFiler) for them to implement, I moved to Australia and was supported to start working on [url=http://www.realbusinesssoftware.com.au/rbscosmos.html ]COSMOS  [/url]which was using the new release of FlashFiler that was based on my design.

Shortly after I arrived in Australia, TurboPower unexpectedly got bought and exited the Delphi component market (the buyer just wanted the developers for their in-house projects), leaving a lot of FlashFiler users without any real way forward. So instead of working on COSMOS as planned, over the next 8 months, I developed a new database engine from scratch, [url=https://www.nexusdb.com/]NexusDB[/url], which I've been working on, maintaining and improving, for the last 16 years.

Outside of computers, I've been an avid table-top RPG player and DM since my childhood, starting with 2nd edition DSA (Das Schwarze Auge, The Dark Eye, a German RPG) and later AD&D2 and following editions.AD&D got me started on reading fantasy novels. I have very fond memories of trying to read the original Dragonlance trilogy in English for the first time. This started me down the road as a ravenous reader of fantasy and science fictions books that continues until today.


[b]Can you remember how you first got into gaming?
[/b]
My earliest memories of "gaming" are of visiting a schoolmate and playing a whole bunch of games on his C64. The only title that has stuck in my mind from then is Giana Sisters, but there were many more.

When I got the Atari, I initially only had the high-resolution monochrome display for it, which means I couldn't play any of the commercial games on it. I have fond memories of my Dad driving me to the next larger city on weekends to visit a shop that had various freeware and shareware games and you could buy floppy disks with them for a small copy fee. One of my favourite games of these early days (I was 8 at the time) was [url=https://www.eckhardkruse.net/atari_st/baller.html]Ballerburg[/url].

When I finally got a colour monitor connected to the Atari my first game was [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_(video_game)]Dungeon Master[/url] which cemented my love of RPGs. I also fondly remember spending countless hours with [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airball_(video_game)]Airball[/url]. There are way too many games to remember them all by now.I've long lost count of the number of games I've played over the years. I've dabbled in pretty much any genre, but overall found the most enjoyment in role-playing, tactical, and strategy games. Ultima 7 is still very much on my mind as the first computer RPG where I really felt that the world is “alive”.


[b]Do you still find the time to play any games?
[/b]
I try to take the time to play, but it has gotten much rarer than I like. I try out a pretty decent number of games every year, but hardly find the time to actually finish them. It's one of the reasons why I enjoy working on xEdit so much, as it keeps me closer to my gaming roots.


[b]For someone who is just dipping their toe into the modding scene and has never heard of xEdit, what does it do and why would they need it, how would you explain it?
[/b]
I'll be explaining some of the history of xEdit as well, so please excuse me for maybe being a bit long-winded.

When I started playing Oblivion, it was the first time I came in contact with a game that had such an extensive modding scene. I downloaded a whole bunch of mods (mainly from tessource.net which has become NexusMods nowadays), threw them all together semi-randomly and tried to play... to find that many things were suddenly broken and didn't work right. Looking around, I found that there weren't really any tools available to help me understand why that is.

Not having yet encountered a computer-related problem that I couldn't solve by throwing a custom program at it, I started working on TES4View, which today has grown into xEdit.But its roots are in "conflict detection". Loading your complete setup of mods in the same way that the game does, and providing direct visual information about how the different modules conflict and interact with each other. Everyone who uses any mods in a game that xEdit supports should be using xEdit to look for conflicts in their setup, to make informed decisions about load order and necessary patches. There is really no alternative to this. Things like LOOT or information from the author on the mod pages can give you some general information, but at the end of the day, every modded setup is pretty much unique, and it is up to the user to understand how their installed mods interact with each other and to make sure any conflicts are correctly resolved. There are no shortcuts for this. Mods are not “DLC from a third party”. Making them work together will require a certain level of willingness and dedication to learning how they work and interact with each other.

After I initially developed TES4View, I found out that a large number of conflicts between mods were caused by what I then termed "Identical to Master" or ITM records. Basically, every mod available at that time contained anywhere between some and countless records that had nothing to do with the function of the mod and which were identical to the same record in the official game master. By removing these unnecessary records, many mods that were incompatible before could then be used together. As it proved difficult to actually remove these records using the Construction Set (the official editor for Oblivion, which was later called GECK for FO3/FNV, and is called CK (= Creation Kit) for TES5/SSE and FO4), I then started expanding TES4View, which could only be used to view module files, into TES4Edit, to allow directly modifying module files to fix problems.

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This brings us to the 2nd major use of xEdit, the process that is now termed "cleaning". The goal of which is to find and remove unnecessary records from a mod to decrease the chance that it conflicts with other mods. This is a process that normally should be done by the mod author before the release of the mod.

Unfortunately, not all mod authors do this, and newer versions of xEdit might get better at detecting ITMs, which, if the mod author doesn't update their mod anymore, means that mod users might want to perform this operation [b]if[/b] conflict detection shows that ITMs are causing unnecessary conflicts.

This is not a process that should be done ritually or habitually for every mod. It is no longer the early days of Oblivion modding when there were no tools for it and mod authors weren't aware of it, so every uploaded mod required cleaning. Nowadays, mod users should generally only perform it for mods that conflict detection has shown are causing unnecessary conflicts because of ITMs.TES4Edit quickly grow from just being able to remove ITMs to being able to fully edit all data in existing modules and even creating new modules from scratch.

The initial purpose of this was "conflict resolution" by creating patches, new modules that contained only conflicting records from two other mods, with their contents merged such that both original mods can work together. This is still one of the cornerstones of xEdit functionality for mod users today. While there may be pre-built patches for certain mod combinations available, almost every modded setup is unique, and there is a high chance that it contains combinations of conflicting mods for which no pre-build patches are available. Being able to create your own patches, based on the results of conflict detection, is an important skill that any mod user should have in their toolbox. Finally, once TES4Edit could reliably edit all information in module files, it became possible to "create new mods" from scratch, or make extensive changes to existing mods, using only TES4Edit. This really just builds on the skills developed for creating patches. Many mods on NexusMods today have been completely created in xEdit.Later I used TES4Edit as the basis for creating TES4LODGen, which was the first tool for Oblivion that could generate Tree/Object LOD information for your complete load order.


[b]The software has been maintained by a team of people over its lifetime, could you tell us who the key developers are and how they contribute to the project?
[/b]
The software that is xEdit today was initially closed source and I was the only developer working on it during the Oblivion, Fallout 3, and early Fallout New Vegas timeframe. If I remember correctly that should be everything up to Version 3.0.19.

After that, when it became clear to me that, because of work commitments and the birth of our twins, I would not have time to adequately maintain xEdit, I decided to open source the program.

Thankfully a group of dedicated people took the job while I went on hiatus, foremost Hlp, Zilav, Sharlikran.


[list]
[*][url=http://www.nexusmods.com/users/4147439/?]Sharlikran[/url] took over a lot of the organizational work and has been working on decoding record definitions.
[*][url=http://www.nexusmods.com/users/156622/?]Zilav[/url] added the scripting engine and localization support that was necessary to support Skyrim.
[*][url=http://www.nexusmods.com/users/1102380/?]Hlp[/url] did a large amount of work to enable save game viewing (which still a work in progress).
[*][url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/513981]fireundubh[/url] contributed greatly to the Fallout 4 record definitions, hardcoded records, and various other additions and fixes.
[*][url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/14649434]Jonathan Ostrus[/url] made significant contributions to the Fallout 76 record definitions.
[*]There are various other minor contributors that can be found [url=https://github.com/TES5Edit/TES5Edit/graphs/contributors]on GitHub[/url]
[/list]
All of them have been instrumental in creating the record definitions for Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Skyrim Special Edition.

[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/3155782]Sheson[/url] joined the project to improve LOD generation in xLODGen and work on DynDOLOD (the program part of which is a fork of xEdit with additional functionality). He has also been instrumental in updating xEdit to enable compilation for 64bit.

During these years I would (very) occasionally find a week or two of time to work on issues and features that required a deeper understanding of the xEdit core than the other project members possessed.

Around mid-2018 I found some spare time (thanks to the twins having started school by then) to come back to xEdit and was planning to do what I did before, spend a week or two on some difficult issues or features and then move on.

But what was planned as some quick fixes and new features has turned into a months-long project, for which I took time off from my usual work, with a huge number of improvements and fixes to xEdit that culminated in the release of xEdit 4 in mid-December.

All development work on xEdit since mid-2018 has been done by me, but Sharlikran has continued to provide valuable organizational work and [url=https://tes5edit.github.io/docs/]updating the online documentation[/url] that is now reachable through the Help button in the top right corner of the xEdit main form. Zilav and Sheson have provided valuable feedback.


[center][img width=500,height=149]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1546949537-1292865187.png[/img][/center]

[b]You’ve recently released a significant milestone release with xEdit (v4.0), what would you say are the headline improvements in the update?
[/b]
The most visible improvement is probably support for UI Themes, both light and dark ones, as well as theme colour awareness of the conflict colours (a dark theme with lighter text on darker background will make xEdit automatically use a darker background and a lighter font colour to show the different conflict statuses).

A very important addition is full ESL support. This means that xEdit now supports loading modules in exactly the same way as the game engine, with ESL flagged ones being mapped into the FExxx space. Without this improvement, valid SSE and FO4 setups that had over 255 modules in total couldn't be loaded into xEdit. Now, if it's valid for the game, it's valid for xEdit.To go hand in hand with the addition of ESL support, the complete load order handling in xEdit has been overhauled and will now behave identically to the game engine for all supported games.

The module selection dialog, used both during program start and at various times while using xEdit has been completely reworked, it's much more informative, has support for saving and loading presets, and filtering.

Language and codepage support in xEdit has been completely reworked. Before, xEdit simply used the system ANSI code page for most strings. Now, xEdit is very explicit about what code page is used for which strings and there are various ways to configure this.

Previous xEdit versions were slow to start as they used to build the information required for the "Referenced By" tabs on every launch. They also didn't build reference information for the game master file automatically, which had to be done explicitly after the program was running if desired. Now, the second and subsequent starts after updating to a new version of xEdit will be much faster, as the required information is read in from a persistent cache on disk instead of having to be built on each launch. On the first launch after an update, this reference information is built once and then saved to disk in a cache. While this first launch is slower, it is still faster than launching the previous version and then building the reference information for the game master, as this building process will now run using a multi-threaded approach.

The ModGroups functionality has been completely reworked. This is a centrally important feature of xEdit, which has been present for over a decade, about which, hardly anyone was aware. It completely changes how you go about looking for conflicts with xEdit. This feature makes conflict detection and resolution even with gigantic load orders a breeze. ModGroups are, at their most basic, a way to tell xEdit, "if this set of modules is loaded in this order, then any conflict between them has been resolved and you need to consider only the winning override for each record". In previous versions, it was necessary to use a text editor to create .modgroups files outside of xEdit, which almost nobody did. In this version, ModGroup support is fully implemented inside xEdit, with ways to create, edit, and delete ModGroups right in xEdit, as well as the ability to reload a different selection of ModGroups at any time.

Aligning alignable array elements is one of these features that hardly anyone notices when it's added because it just feels so natural and right, but if you remove it after someone had just a few minutes to get used to it, it's instantly and painfully noticeable. There are a number of arrays where the order is important, one of the primary ones is lists of conditions.

This is best explained in a short example:
Without this feature, a record with 2 overrides looked like this:
[quote]A  B  B 
B  C  A
C[/quote]

With alignment active, it will now look like this:
[quote]A
B  B  B
         A
C  C[/quote]

The ability to filter in the View tab and to collapse nodes in the view tab hugely improves working with large records.

Two other new features go hand in hand with each other. One is the ability to create a delta patch. Given two versions of a module, xEdit can create a patch module that contains only exactly the records that are different between these two modules. The other is the ability to take a module (like such a delta patch, but also a plugin created in CK by editing records that already exist in a master) and merge this module into its master. Given the original version of a module and a delta patch, you can now re-create the 2nd version of that file by merging in the patch. This function can also replace the “merge into master” functionality of CK which normally requires the use of VC (version control).In addition to these big-ticket items above, there are hundreds of other smaller improvements and bug fixes all over the place.

On top of all this, which affects every existing game-specific version of xEdit, there is now full support for Fallout 76 in the form of FO76Edit.

[center][img width=1000,height=561]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/25859/25859-1544500571-1175465476.png[/img][/center]

[b]When Bethesda releases a new game, what is the process you go through in order to make xEdit compatible with the new plugins?
[/b]
This is a rather involved multi-step process which is helped along by a number of normally hidden functions in the xEdit core to analyse the structure of module files. It is usually possible to use the record definitions of an existing game as the basis.

The first step is to analyse the gross structure of the new game master, what record signatures and groups are contained in the file in what order?

Once that has been established and the basic record definitions updated or created, each record type (there are hundreds in the most current games) is analysed on its own to understand what subrecords it can contain, and how these subrecords are structured. This can get rather complicated, with arrays and structs of subrecords, sometimes nested multiple levels deep.

The next step is to analyse the contents of each sub record. Is there only a single value? Or a complex structure? Most locations where FormID, strings, or floats are stored can be found with the right analysis tools. This doesn't tell you what these values are used for or named. It only helps to identify what type of value is stored where. It is especially important to find any and all places that can contain FormIDs in this step. Without knowing the location of every single FormID, it is impossible for xEdit to add, remove, or sort masters for a file.

Up to this point, the availability of an official tool like CK is irrelevant. The process described above was followed to generate the record definitions for FO76Edit (starting from the record definitions for FO4 and modifying/extending them where analysis found discrepancies) and took about 150 man hours in total.

What follows after this depends on the availability of an official editor for the module files.

If no such tool is available, like currently in the case of FO76, it is still possible to try and make informed guesses about what the likely labels for some of these unknown new or changed values are, but there is a lot of guesswork involved.

If an official editor is available, it's possible to use that to create test plugins by putting unique values into each field visible in the editor for some record type, then load that test plugin into xEdit (or a number of other internal tools) and try to match up the information in the official editor with what has been written into the file. This is a very involved and repetitive process that can take hundreds of hours to further refine the record definitions.

[img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1547221240-338210184.png[/img]

[b]Perhaps the only noticeable gap in xEdit’s library of supported games is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - is there a technical reason why it hasn’t been supported?[/b]

There is indeed a technical reason for that. xEdit was originally developed for TES4: Oblivion. Oblivion was the first game for which Bethesda used FormIDs to identify individual records, and the fundamental design of xEdit is based on the assumption that records have FormIDs that identify them. This has been the case for any game that followed Oblivion so far.

Morrowind does not use FormIDs and has a much less "generalized" overall structure to its module files compared to later games. This makes it much harder to support Morrowind within the existing framework xEdit has established to support all later games.

I have recently been working on finding ways to support Morrowind in xEdit. It's very much a case of trying to get a square peg through a round hole. But I've been making progress by following an approach where I synthesize virtual FormIDs for records on load.

This will require a lot more work and time, but I believe TES3Edit is an achievable goal.


[b]Have you ever wanted to make a tool like this for a different game engine?
[/b]
There are a number of other modable games for which I would love to have a tool like xEdit, and I've looked into the data format for these games. Unfortunately, none of them had a data format that would make adapting xEdit for them something that could be achieved with reasonable effort, if at all.
I do have to congratulate Bethesda, the basic structure of their module files is much more suited for supporting setups with multiple mods than anything I've found in other games.


[b]Given unlimited resources, what features would you like to bring to xEdit?
[/b]
Beyond Morrowind support, which I'm currently working on, there are a number of other big items I would like to address in the future.

The first one is to modularize the main form. That's what you see when you start xEdit, with the navigation tree view on the left and the tabs on the right. All of this is currently one giant strongly interconnected whole which has grown over the last decade. The goal here is to separate it all into distinct, isolated modules (the navigation tree view, the view tab, the spreadsheet tabs, the different functions that can be executed). This involves a large amount of work, and will not, initially, result in a significant change from the user's point of view. But it's really the required foundation for a lot of future work.

Once the main form is modularized, it's easier to build on that and support multiple navigation tree views (each one can be differently filtered) and views (showing different records concurrently).

This will also enable quality of life improvements like a scratch pad (an area where you can drag in anything from any record, be it a single value or a whole struct or array, then later use this as a drag source to copy into any assignment compatible place in other records).

The next big feature would be to support assets at the same level as modules are currently supported. The navigation tree view would list the .bsa/.ba2 files, as well as loose files folders in the correct order. You can open them up to explore the contained folders and files. When a file is selected, the view tab will show the different file versions, with information extracted appropriately based on file type, side by side, the same way that records are shown side by side. This should also include the ability to preview textures, possible models and other file types.

After that would be graphical visualization of path grids, navmeshes, and general CELL contents.

Outside of these really big items, there are countless more minor improvements that are possible, among them various quality of life improvements and improved error checking for navmeshes and other complex records.

Obviously, whenever Bethesda releases any new game based on a variation of the current module format, implementing support for that would have the priority.

[center][img width=500,height=149]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1546949530-245170919.png[/img][/center]

[b]I’m sure a large number of modders who’ve used xEdit would like to know, what is the best way to support the development of xEdit?
[/b]
The primary means of support would be to pledge on my [url=https://www.patreon.com/ElminsterAU]Patreon[/url] as this gives a somewhat predictable monthly income which would allow me to make long term plans in regards to how much time I can spend on xEdit development in the future.

Another possibility is direct donations via PayPal, either using the donation function here on NexusMods (which will forward you to my PayPal, Nexus Mods is not involved in the processing of it) or [url=https://www.paypal.me/ElminsterAU]directly[/url]. Both of these are currently easily reachable via buttons in the top right corner of the xEdit main form.

The last possibility is [url=https://ko-fi.com/ElminsterAU]Ko-fi[/url], which right now is simply another way to be forwarded to PayPal for a one-off donation so it doesn’t currently provide any benefit over making a direct PayPal donation. Please keep in mind that no matter what way you use to support xEdit development, the lower the amount, the higher the relative cut the payment processor takes. This is especially noticeable for very small amounts. If you donate $1, only about half of it will make it to me.

The huge amount of progress that has been made in xEdit 4 has only been possible by investing many hundreds of hours of development work, which, for me, came at a significant cost of lost income from my usual work. If I had purely worked on it in my spare time, xEdit 4 would still be 2-3 years in the future.

I obviously can't sustain ongoing xEdit development at a significant financial loss permanently, so the speed of progress for future xEdit development depends directly on the level of support I can achieve from the modding community.

At the time I'm writing this, current pledges on Patreon and average direct donations on PayPal together can finance roughly 1/8th of a month of full-time work on xEdit.


[b]Is there anything else you’d like to say to the Nexus Mods community? [/b]

I've greatly enjoyed my work on xEdit and interactions with many members of the modding community. I'll try to answer any questions that come up in the comments of this interview. I am usually available on the xEdit [url=https://discord.gg/5t8RnNQ]Discord server[/url] (also reachable via the Discord button in the top right corner in the xEdit main form).

[line]
A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/167469]ElminsterAU[/url] for answering our questions. If there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

To celebrate the new year we are giving away another 5 GOG keys for a game of your choice redeemable at [url=https://www.gog.com/?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]GOG.com[/url]. If you were not among the lucky winners during the last giveaways, now is your last chance!

Please note that a [url=https://login.gog.com/login?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]GOG.com user account is required[/url] both for participation, as well as for redeeming the prize.

In order to ensure the winner comes from the Nexus Mods community, there are some mandatory steps to ensure your eligibility.

[list]
[*]Leave a comment on this article. You can say anything you want (site rules still apply)
[*]Log into the Gleam widget with your preferred method. (Facebook/Email)
[*]Click the second entry action that says "Leave a comment on Nexus Mods"
[*]Enter your full Nexus Mods username into the field (check your spelling!)
[/list]
If you forget to leave a comment or don't include a valid username, you'll lose out on your chance to win. If you are not sure what to write as a comment, why don't you tell us about your favourite holiday tradition?

Good luck and thank you for participating!


[url=https://gleam.io/PgrWa/gog-winter-sale-giveaway-winners-choice-3][size=5]Click here to enter for your chance to win 1 of 5 Game Codes for a game of your choice from GOG.com[/size][/url]
[i][size=1](Entries close at 16:59 GMT on 6th January 2019 - all prizes must be redeemed by the end of January 2019 or they will expire.)[/size][/i]

Today we are talking to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/users/1008186?tab=user+files]CDante[/url], a long time member of our site and prolific modder, who has brought us some amazing Fallout 4 mods such as [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/22442]Transfer Settlements[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/10660]Visible Companion Affinity[/url], or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/34002]Ninja Smoke Bombs[/url]! 

[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1545404045-822165758.jpeg[/img][/center]

[b]BigBizkit: You are well known in the community for all your Fallout 4 mods, but, as always, we like to start the interview off by you telling us a bit about yourself.[/b]

CDante: Hey, sure! I’m an ‘80s kid from Europe, playing video games since the age of 4, so things I feel nostalgic for often date three decades back. When some of my friends tell me World of Warcraft was their childhood I feel very old, but I like to think I’m not THAT old yet. I was born and have lived most of my life in the beautiful city of Budapest. I work as an IT programmer and started modding shortly after the release of Fallout 4, almost three years ago now. It has become my number one hobby ever since and been consuming my free time almost exclusively.
 

[b]As if it was planned: on December 31st of this year, it will be your 10-year anniversary on Nexus Mods! Do you recall how it all got started for you, what made you want to join, and what made you want to make and release your own mods?[/b]

I remember why I registered because I clearly remember Fallout 3’s impact on my life 10 years ago. (It was almost as intense as Fallout 4 was in 2015.) I heard about Morrowind and Oblivion - sure - but when it came to RPGs I always preferred isometric games like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and of course, I absolutely loved the classic Fallout games from the late ‘90s. I always loved post-apocalyptic themes in books and movies so the franchise just hit the perfect notes for me. Needless to say, when Fallout 3 came out in 2008 I HAD TO try it. And that’s how it became my first 3D RPG and the first Bethesda game I’ve ever played. And man, I got hooked… I remember I couldn’t stop playing it for months, literally day and night. I tried to max out everything, and absolutely loved the companion system – I wanted to have them all at the same time! That’s how I got introduced to the in-game console, and that’s why I started to download mods for a game for the first time. But I wasn’t really active on the site for many years, later I returned for Skyrim mods, then, of course, I had to download some cool mods when XCOM got a reboot – one of my other beloved franchises from the last century – but overall I’ve been really just lurking here up until my first mod release in early 2016.
 
[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1151/images/10660-0-1466410559.jpg[/img][/center]
[b]Some of your most popular mod creations are [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/10660]Visible Companion Affinity[/url] and, of course, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/22442]Transfer Settlements[/url]. What was the inspiration for those two in particular?[/b]
 
Like in Fallout 3, the permanent companions in all Bethesda titles are a big part in my game experience and why I love playing these games. In Fallout 4 they definitely delivered on that part, especially with the new affinity system they introduced. I wanted to see how I progress with them, how my actions affect the numbers behind the scenes so I could max out my relationship with each of them. So I started to look into Papyrus scripting, and Visible Companion Affinity was born.

Later on, I released more and more script-based mods, and by the end of 2016 Transfer Settlements was just something I knew I could do and would be a tool that would greatly benefit the community. So I uploaded [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpb4j0d36cY]a first proof of concept video in early 2017[/url]. The reception was amazing, it really felt great reading comments from Gopher, Oxhorn, JuiceHead and many others, so in the next three months, I was working really hard to make it a reality. I received a lot of help from [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/users/2950481]Expired6978[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/17152929]registrator2000[/url] as I was completely new to F4SE plugins at the time.
 

[b]From all the mods you have created (including contributions to other mods) do you have a favourite or one that you are most proud of?[/b]

I always felt Transfer Settlements is my magnum opus and probably the most important of all my mods. But apart from that, I’m really proud of The Wasteland Codex as well. It’s amazing to work with such a quality content that the folks at the [url=https://www.youtube.com/user/ShoddyCast]ShoddyCast[/url] and [url=https://fallout.gamepedia.com/The_Vault_Fallout_Wiki]The Vault wiki[/url] provide, and so satisfying to put the perfect voice for the perfect Fallout chronicler into the game, courtesy of Mr. Jason Damron.

Oh, and of course GTKYMA Radio featuring interview #7 BigBizkit! Jokes aside, at the time it was a huge deal for me to work together with Darren on a mod, and putting the same interview series into the game that actually inspired me to become a modder just a few months earlier.
 

[b]You also have a little bit of a reputation for creating tongue-in-cheek mods and having fun with your creations in general. [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/32054]Uncle Pete’s Special[/url], or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/30880]Helium Balloon[/url] are good examples of that. Where do you get the ideas for your more silly mods? Do you have a favourite humorous mod from another author?

[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1545404221-457236812.png[/img] [img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1545404229-251316825.png[/img][/center][/b]
When it comes to memes I prefer humour rather than hate, and when it comes to seasonal mods I prefer April Fools over Halloween, Christmas or anything else. I don’t know. Humour was always a big part of my personality I guess, and these ideas usually just come up while following the latest buzz, and then I quickly implement them as mods within a few hours before they would get anything more serious or overly complicated. Uncle Pete’s Special was created while I was bored watching the 24 hour livestream of Fallout 76’s announcement. The idea of the Helium Balloon occurred to me when somehow I ended up browsing through my GOG library, and started playing a few hours with my old favorite point & click game, Monkey Island 3. I created [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23198]Press X to Shaun[/url] when I came across [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAhG9D9UO7c]a YouTube video[/url] of that old Heavy Rain “Shaun glitch” and realized that it’s perfect for Fallout 4 since that’s the name of the Sole Survivor’s kid as well. And I guess [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/24914]The Creation Club[/url] was me overreacting to a pun just a bit.
 

[b]Being a mod author who is mostly focused on the Fallout series, you have been the first author to release [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout76/mods/1]a mod for Fallout 76[/url]. Where do you think modding for the Fallout franchise is headed in general? What would you want to see for future titles in terms of modding?[/b]

I created that very simple main menu loop for 76 as a proof of concept and with the sole purpose of giving the modding community a small nudge. It was good to see the number of 76 mods growing over the next weeks, and today I couldn’t even play the game without reg2k’s [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout76/mods/32]Better Inventory[/url].

When it comes to 76 in general, I’m probably more optimistic than most. I hope, after the many controversies, Bethesda will find their way back to their fans eventually by ironing out the numerous issues the game still has and starting to provide a service and new content that worth the full price of the game for any Fallout fan. And in the meantime – while our hands are obviously tied for a long time – probably for more than a year still – I’m pretty sure us modders will do our part and will find more and more creative ways to make this game better with the tools we currently have. I recently spent three days dissecting the vendor/container menu, trying out numerous ways to show up an additional bit of info on the UI whether plans or recipes are already learned by the player. While I certainly failed to come up with a working solution, I’m pretty sure there’s someone out there in the community who will think outside the box and release an instant "Mod of the Month" with a different approach.

However, my excitement for the upcoming 76 private servers is moderate at this point. Sure I plan to have my own server and I’m definitely going to try out new things on the server-side of modding that we cannot touch today. But who knows if that’s going to be in late 2019 or the second quarter of 2020, and how many players will opt to switch to a private server then? Will they do that even if they have to start a new character for it? How many users would download mods if those mods could only be installed by server owners through Bethesda.net? These are the questions I’ve been thinking of recently, so I’m a bit sceptical and trying to keep my excitement at bay for the time being.

Eventually, I can imagine 76 as a hub where players meet occasionally to play together, a sandbox where all of us have our maxed-out lvl 200+ characters with the perfect C.A.M.P. builds, everything unlocked, every quest completed, and we will return to this playground over and over when Bethesda releases some new content. And in the meantime, we play the more meaningful first-person adventures of earlier titles like we always did, and that’s fine with me, to be honest.

One thing is for sure, I still have twenty times more WIP projects and mod ideas for Fallout 4 than for 76 that I definitely want to finish at some point.
 

[b]Do you have any plans for the near future when it comes to mod releases?[/b]

I’m slowly working on a quest that’s both going to be a standalone mod and part of [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/27629]The Wasteland Codex[/url]. I don’t think it’s a huge spoiler if I say it’s going to feature ED-NA and The Storyteller, and since I started to play Fallout 4 again, I also want to finish some smaller quality-of-life mods that I started working on earlier this year – one that lets you whistle Dogmeat to issue him commands, for example, to find the corpses of your recently killed enemies; another one that lets you command your companions to automatically fix their own Power Armor; and I’ve been also working on a winter mod that makes your breath visible.

[center][youtube]DyFX5jbhxZc[/youtube][/center]
Of course these are smaller projects, the big one is always Transfer Settlements, and currently, my biggest mountain to climb is to be able to export settlements directly as ESP or ESL plugins.
 

[b]Outside of modding or programming, what are some things you like to do for fun?[/b]
 
Before modding, miniature tabletop games have been a huge part of my life for decades, especially Warhammer 40k. I have even organised a yearly convention for the hobby here in Budapest for nine consecutive years. I play airsoft occasionally, that’s another hobby that has been part of my life for a decade now. I also play the bass.
 

[b]What are some of the games you grew up with and are you playing any games currently? Do you use any mods?[/b]

Apart from those I already mentioned. I’m a huge fan of point & click adventure games. LucasArts is MY childhood, and I love to see the genre living its renaissance lately. I can always find new point & click games on GOG or Steam that look retro, but came out in recent years. They give me nostalgia even though I’ve never played them before. I also have a huge backlog of open-world titles – I’ve yet to play the DLCs of The Witcher 3 and definitely want to try out Kingdom Come: Deliverance, both of which I plan to mod for sure.
 

[b]Onto a completely different topic: how did you spend Christmas?
[/b]
Traditionally I visit grandparents in Budapest on the 23rd, then I spend Christmas out of town at my father’s. He is an amazing chef so it’s always a great time to be hungry when I’m there.
 

[b]Do you have any New Year’s resolutions - modding related or otherwise?[/b]

First of all, have to return to the gym after all this food as soon as possible. I have also decided to release smaller updates for my older mods to fix some minor issues that have been present for ages. It would be awesome to start the New Year with cleaner bug report sections. I would also like to upload videos to my YouTube channel more often. I have a ton of tutorials planned and it would be nice to finish all my WIP modding projects in 2019. There’s one in particular that I started back in 2016 and it hurts me to even think about it that it was more than two years ago and never got finished – talking about the [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkJEez89i-0]real-time hair and beard growing for Fallout 4[/url].
 

[b]Is there anything else you would like to say to the Nexus Mods community?[/b]

[url=https://www.patreon.com/ElminsterAU]Support ElminsterAU and the xEdit Team on Patreon[/url]! For many mod makers, the editor they created is just as important to modding as the Creation Kit, if not more.

[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1151/images/10660-0-1466402910.gif[/img][/center]
[line]
A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/1008186]CDante[/url] for answering our questions. As always, if there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

Just when you thought one giveaway was enough, we've got another one for you this week. [b]5 more free games of your choice[/b] from [url=https://www.gog.com/?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]GOG.com[/url] are up for grabs. Now there's a Christmas present you'll definitely like!

Please note that a [b][url=https://login.gog.com/login?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]GOG.com user account is required[/url][/b] both for participation, as well as for redeeming the prize.

In order to ensure the winner comes from the Nexus Mods community, there are some mandatory steps to ensure your eligibility.

[list]
[*]Leave a comment on this article. You can say anything you want (site rules still apply)
[*]Log into the Gleam widget with your preferred method. (Facebook/Email)
[*]Click the second entry action that says "Leave a comment on Nexus Mods"
[*]Enter your full Nexus Mods username into the field (check your spelling!)
[/list]
If you forget to leave a comment or don't include a valid username, you'll lose out on your chance to win. If you're not sure what to write as a comment, why don't you tell us about your favourite modding moment of 2018?

We've also updated our [url=https://gog.com/partner/WS18_nxm/?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]Winter Collection over at GOG.com[/url] with the classic Bethesda titles which have been added to the sale!

Good luck and thank you for participating!


[url=http://2nex.us/MBeh30n2EEx][size=5]Click here to enter for your chance to win 1 of 5 Game Codes for a game of your choice from GOG.com[/size][/url]
[i][size=1](Entries close at 16:59 GMT on 30th December 2018 - all prizes must be redeemed by the end of January 2019 or they will expire.)[/size][/i]

This week we're catching up with [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/6191338]LadyAlekto[/url], the brains behind the #1 Battletech mod, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/79]RogueTech[/url]. Currently sitting at over 100,000+ downloads and 1,000+ endorsements. 

[b]To begin, could you first tell us a bit about yourself?[/b]

I'm a 33-year-old obsessive nerd that loved Battletech since she found [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BattleTech_novels]the books[/url] as a kid. I pretty much always tinkered with my games and tech. Also certifiable bullhead with a temper, but more than willing to help and assist if respect is there ;)


[b]What sort of things do you like to do when not working on your mod?
[/b]
Usually, I game, mod other things ([url=https://www.nexusmods.com/stellaris]Stellaris[/url] currently), waste time on Discord or Twitch/Netflix, or read comics and books, all the usual nerd stuff. When I can I cycle around the city and into nature for a while, usually with really loud metal shredding what remains of my ears ;)


[b]For those who haven’t heard of RogueTech could you explain what it is?
[/b]
A mod for the game Battletech that aims to introduce everything from lore and create an open-ended sandbox where you pit your tiny company against the whole known universe. The goal is to have a challenging playthrough where you have to use every advantage you can get to survive against the whims of RNGesus, provide an advanced AI that won't just suicide but plays for keeps, a strategic layer that isn't just tacked on but provides more depth like having to actually repair battle damage and the ability to customize your Mechs to the fullest. Also, the ability to actually pick your side, want to play for one of the Great Houses? Pick them and you start on their home planet with mechs that are tied to that faction, or just be another Mercenary on Galatea, starting with a bunch of random mechs and freedom to go as you please. With the online client enabled, you fight in an asynchronous multiplayer against everyone else trying to make their faction take over the whole Inner Sphere.
 
[center][img width=500,height=281]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1545227782-713922811.jpeg[/img] [img width=500,height=281]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1545227764-1254182330.jpeg[/img][/center]

[b]How did you first get involved in modding Battletech?[/b]

I was curious what was possible with the game files and then wanted a couple of Inferno SRMs (Short Range Missiles), it all went "downhill" from there, looking to add ever more toys I missed, trying to make a smarter AI and cooperating with the awesome mod community what else could be done.

Then came [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/11789743]Morphyum [/url]along with the [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/148]Inner Sphere map[/url] and people started calling the combination of my rebalance and the IS sandbox a RogueLike... now we're here ;)
 

[b]You work as part of a small team on the project, can you tell us how each person contributes to the overall mod?
[/b]
Everyone brings their own ideas and vision to the mod. I work on the gear, AI, the majority of mechs, balance and keeping it all together with duct tape and spite. 

[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/11789743]Morphyum[/url] works mostly on the Simgame DLL files, like salvage improvements, drop cost, variable maintenance and the making the Inner Sphere map work with the online client. He is helped by FrostRaptor to make the server as stable as we can.

[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/1517510]Cargo_Vroom (aka SrJoben)[/url] creates new tanks and adds new contracts to the lance generation. They also smooth out many issues both had in the vanilla game.

[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/28969875]Janxious (aka JoelMeador)[/url] contributes many small parts to RogueTech such as fall damage, melee improvements and the “weapon realizer” - this allows for many new mechanics not found in the base game. He has also taken over as curator for [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/135]ModTek[/url] and the BattleTechModLoader, with a RogueTech specific fork to allows us to inject the new factions we’ve created. 

[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/8754251]Tim (aka Guiltyspark34)[/url] is basically our community guy and the “Keeper of [url=https://roguetech.gamepedia.com/Roguetech_Wiki]the Wiki[/url]”.

Our newest member, GentlePayload has been adding new mech models. Most recently MadCat MKII, Arctic Cheetah and the Bushwacker. 

The [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/260]CustomComponent[/url] is made by [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/938055]Denaden[/url] and the Mechengineer rewriting to MechLab allow for greater control over how each piece of the mod interacts with the other parts.

[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/21710174]DonZappo[/url], who created the [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/136]Consolidated Company Commander[/url] mod also deserves special thanks for sharing his Pilot Quirks and improvements to the Panic System from their Genivler mod. Genivler is a great alternative to those who may find RogueTech too difficult. 

Lastly, there is Sheepy, the creator of AIM (a rewrite on how attacks play out and how the combat game GUI works) and Turbine (a performance improver that allows the game engine to load the ~8000 files in RougeTech).

A couple of honourable mentions go to m22Spencer for the performance fixer, SolahmaJoe who was first to figure out how to add models into the game and BloodyDroves - author of Annihilator and Assassin. 

Aside from that, we have many contributors on our Discord Server too. They help with proofreading, QA, technical support and figuring out new ways to use the assets in the mod. A few of these people are:


[list]
[*]Arcanan and Alandauren who contributed many DLL and code fixes.
[*]AkodoReign who made many totem mechs and kitbashed additions.
[*]MXMach who keeps coming up with new overpowered toys.
[*]LB who broke their install enough to know how to fix almost any technical issue.
[*]RobertMerlow, GroggyGrognerd and GingerMagician who often stream RogueTech.
[*]Razunter who helped with the installer script.
[*]Cwolf who made the Modders Debug Tool and MissionControl features which we plan to add into the mod.
[/list]
And all our other lovely degenerates who participate. Hopefully, I didn’t miss anyone out! (If I did, just nag at me ;)) 

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[b]Have you had any interaction with the developers of Battletech during the development of RogueTech?
[/b]
We have, in general as modders, but the code piece that allows enemy spawns to be based upon factions is actually added by Harebrained Schemes for RogueTech. Especially the HBS team member known as “Eck” helps us to understand a lot of nuances of the game.
 

[b]What tools do you use to create your mods?[/b]

I for my part mostly just use Notepad++ for the JSONs and DNSpy to find what I can manipulate through them in the game's code.

Other coders use VisualStudio to write the DLLs for the Harmony injection to change and add the mechanics into the engine.
 

[b]Have you ever worked on mods for a different game?[/b]

This is the first I actually released, but I've modded my games going all the way back to Doom and always love taking things apart when I can.
 

[b]Now it’s been available for a few months, what is your opinion of the Donation Points system?
[/b]
I got a pizza out of it, that's nice ;)

[center][youtube]ENlBmHEf-LA[/youtube][/center]
 

[b]How do you see the current state of modding across the industry?[/b]
 
Depends a lot on the publisher, for me if a game is moddable it is a big reason to consider buying it. I dislike how games get evermore closed down, or even modding being impacted by game updates like it happens with the Fallout 4 Script Extender. Those of us who use and make mods are the most loyal customers, often buying DLC just for a single piece of code to reuse, but instead do some companies try to milk and shut down the art fans create, which is just a shame. 

[b]Who is your favourite modder and if you could ask them one question, what would it be?[/b]

That's a tough one since I'm really really bad with names, but I'd ask each of the authors of my fav mods what made them decide to create this specific mod.
 

[b]Do you have any future plans for your mods you’d like to share?[/b]

I really look forward to when I start rolling out the mission improvements with Cwolf's Mission Control mod, it already is very fun with what it allows us to do.
 

[b]Do you have any advice for people in the community who might want to start modding Battletech?[/b]

Get yourself Notepad++ and [url=https://dnsspy.io/]DNS Spy[/url], use jsoncompare.com to find errors, embrace the output log and prepare to break it more often than have it work. If you are interested in getting yourself into harmony patching, read that wiki and be even more prepared to be driven crazy. But for all that is possible, the modding community is just wholesome and awesome, everyone will help when they know something.


[line]
A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/users/6191338]LadyAlekto[/url] for answering our questions. If there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

Good news, everyone! [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13881]As we mentioned the other day[/url], GOG's Winter Sale is here with some amazing discounts and if you like the idea of games for cheap, you will love the idea of games for free!

That's right. Thanks to our friends at [url=https://www.gog.com/?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]GOG.com[/url] we are giving away [b]5 GOG keys for a game of your choice[/b] valid for any game that is available on GOG (regardless of whether it is on sale or not).

Please note that a [b][url=https://login.gog.com/login?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]GOG.com user account is required[/url][/b] both for participation, as well as for redeeming the prize.

In order to ensure the winner comes from the Nexus Mods community, there are some mandatory steps to ensure your eligibility.

[list]
[*]Leave a comment on this article. You can say anything you want (site rules still apply)
[*]Log into the Gleam widget with your preferred method. (Facebook/Email)
[*]Click the second entry action that says "Leave a comment on Nexus Mods"
[*]Enter your full Nexus Mods username into the field (check your spelling!)
[/list]
If you forget to leave a comment or don't include a valid username, you'll lose out on your chance to win. If you are not sure what to write as a comment, why don't you tell us about your favourite holiday tradition?

Good luck and thank you for participating!


[url=http://2nex.us/MFGK30mXw36][size=5]Click here to enter for your chance to win 1 of 5 Game Codes for a game of your choice from GOG.com[/size][/url]
[i][size=1](Entries close at 16:59 GMT on 23rd December 2018 - all prizes must be redeemed by the end of January 2019 or they will expire.)[/size][/i]

Ever since [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld]Monster Hunter World[/url] released on PC in August of this year, we have been very proud to host the modding community for one of Capcom's most popular games of all time. In the few months that Monster Hunter World has had a home at Nexus Mods, we have seen a massive surge of mods created by our community. We are, therefore, very excited to talk to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/users/3913354?tab=user+files]MHVuze[/url] today - one of the modding pioneers for Monster Hunter World who has contributed various tools and quality of life mods for our community.


[b]BigBizkit: Thanks, MHVuze, for taking the time to answer our questions. Many modders of Monster Hunter World will know your creations, but could you tell us a bit about yourself first to start this off?[/b]
 
MHVuze: Thanks for having me! I'm a 24-year-old from Germany working in law. I've always had an affection for tuning games to my liking and one of the first games I can remember modding is SpellForce 2. If I recall correctly, it had an official Editor / Mod Kit which is something I wish more game developers offered in this day and age.
 

[b]How would you describe the kind of mods you like to create for Monster Hunter World?[/b]
 
I would consider the majority of them QoL-improvements and temporary workarounds for game issues such as the texture loading or (now fixed) effect stuttering. I also released and open-sourced [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/mods/6]WorldChunkTool[/url] which allows interested users to unpack the game data files and take a peek at them, as well as [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/mods/18]WorldProcessTool[/url] which allows users to pause and resume the game - features that are unfortunately missing in the vanilla game despite being present in other titles of the series.

[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1544009182-288921319.jpeg[/img]  [img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1544009330-1030368534.png[/img][/center]
[b]Ever since launch, the modding community for Monster Hunter World has grown rapidly. Why do you think has the game been so successful both with players and mod creators and what sets it apart from other games in your view?[/b]
 
First of all: I'm super happy to see the community thriving on PC. The success of the game itself on PC (and console, too) has gone well beyond my expectations. Same goes for the modding community: I'm excited to see a working 3D model conversion tool and a lot of quality projects by the modders in general.

As you might know, this is the first time ever a mainline entry of the Monster Hunter series has made it to the PC platform. The games have always had some weird design choices in the past when it came to a select few aspects and while Monster Hunter World is an incredible improvement in that regard over the older games, there are still some portions that a lot of players would like to experience differently. The by default lacking multiplayer gathering hub serves as a great example of things we modders can improve upon in the PC version.

That combined with a relatively low barrier of entry, all things considered, has certainly helped to get people interested in modding the game.
 

[b]You were one of the first mod authors to jump on creating content for Monster Hunter World. What is it that draws you towards the game and what made you want to mod it?[/b]
 
As pointed out above, this was the first time a mainline Monster Hunter game made it to PC, so I was excited to finally have a title that could be tinkered with without the drawbacks of a console (repacking, resigning, long loading times etc).
 
[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1544010541-850194555.png[/img] [img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1544010549-1022485843.png[/img][/center]
[b]How did you first learn about how to mod Monster Hunter World? Do you have any tips for people who want to get involved with modding?[/b]
 
I've been a big fan of the game ever since a friend introduced me to Monster Hunter Freedom on the PlayStation Portable in 2006 - it has been the platform seller for me personally. Unfortunately, the series had a hard time catching on in the west and as such, there were severe delays when it came to the localization of the titles (a bunch did never make it over here at all!).

Stumbling across English fan translations, I decided to research how they are done and one thing kinda led to another. Ever since that point I've been dissecting the game files (alongside and with the assistance of some other smart minds, of course). Monster Hunter World was just the natural continuation of that but in fact, I have briefly looked at the PlayStation 4 version before the title was released on PC to get a first look - which absolutely paid off.

Dedication and willingness to learn new things are definitely key for those looking to get started. Things will eventually start falling into place and you will start to recognize patterns quickly the more time you spend investigating file formats and the like.
 

[b]Which creation of yours are you most proud of and do you have a favourite Monster Hunter World mod from a different creator?[/b]
 
I honestly don't have any creation that I'm most "proud" of but I am quite happy that WorldChunkTool got the modding scene for Monster Hunter World rolling so quickly after launch.

As a dog guy, I absolutely adore the somewhat proof-of-concept mod [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/mods/378]Canine Palico by UberGrainy[/url] - I just wish it gained more traction and people adopted the armor sets and sounds for the changed appearance.

But it's still early days and it's very cute as is!

[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1544008867-216961771.jpeg[/img][/center]
The [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/mods/261]app launcher by HelloWorld[/url] is also of great use to me. I combine it with the aforementioned [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/mods/18]WorldProcessTool[/url] for example.
 

[b]What would you like to see in the near future in terms of mods for Monster Hunter World, and maybe even in terms of DLC?[/b]
 
Adding completely new monsters, equipment and quests is the end goal in my opinion. For now, all mods in those categories are basically just replacing existing used or unused spots left by Capcom. Unfortunately, the game has a lot of stuff hard-coded as well as some sanity checks and so far the modding community is constrained by all of that.

Another point is transferring save data from the PlayStation 4 version of the game. That hinges on a more recent version of the PS4 firmware being exploited though and is likely well beyond the control of anyone reading this. I just hope it will be possible soon (with the PS4 version having launched in early 2018, I have my main character on there)!

As for official DLC, I am hoping for a G-Rank expansion in 2019. For those unfamiliar, it will add another rank of difficulty with harder quests, new monsters - thereby equip - and areas.
 

[b]What other games do you like to mod? Have you tried your hand at creating mods for other games?[/b]
 
Currently, I'm working on dissecting a so far seemingly untouched game of the Monster Hunter franchise. I don't really intend to mod it but am mainly interested in acquiring the assets that are exclusive to it so they could be used in Monster Hunter World, for example.

I did create some (personal use) mods for Spellforce - as I pointed out above - as well as The Sims 2 and a few other Monster Hunter games. I also tinkered a bit with God Eater and helped to create the [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma/mods/108]Japanese Voice-Over Dub[/url] for the PC version of Dragon's Dogma which can also be found over here on Nexus Mods.
 

[b]What other hobbies do you have outside of gaming and/or modding?[/b]
 
I love languages and have started learning Mandarin just three weeks ago, so that has been taking up a lot of my time recently. The rest of my limited free time is spent taking care of our pets, doing a little fitness and watching documentaries or shows.
 

[b]Would you like to say anything to our wider Nexus Mods Community?[/b]
 
Thanks for all the positive and civil feedback as well as the generosity expressed by a bunch of community members! Nexus Mods really is a great platform with talented creators and supportive users, so I am proud I could make a little impact in the Monster Hunter World portion of it.

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[line]
A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/users/3913354?tab=user+files]MHVuze[/url] for answering our questions. As always, if there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597][b]BigBizkit[/b][/url] or [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975][b]Pickysaurus[/b][/url]. 

The [url=https://gog.com?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]GOG.com[/url] Winter Sale has begun! With great deals on over 1500 games over the next 3 weeks.

Almost every game on GOG's website will be on offer during the event with special Daily Deals featuring 8 different games per day. If you've been looking to dive into [url=https://www.gog.com/game/kingdom_come_deliverance?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]Kingdom Come: Deliverance[/url], [url=https://www.gog.com/game/the_witcher_3_wild_hunt?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]The Witcher 3[/url] or [url=https://www.gog.com/game/battletech_digital_deluxe_edition?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]Battletech[/url] there's no time like the present. 

[center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1544626039-2059297149.jpeg[/img][/center]

Check out the [url=https://gog.com/partner/WS18_nxm/?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]Nexus Mods Winter Collection[/url] for our favourite moddable games offered in the deals. If you make a purchase by following one of the links on this page, you'll be supporting our site as Nexus Mods gets a kickback for every purchase - at no extra cost to you! Be sure to keep your eyes peeled as we'll be updating the collection during the sale too.


[b]Free Stuff
[/b]
Just purchasing a game will earn you a free copy of [url=https://www.gog.com/game/fantasy_general?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]Fantasy General[/url] and if you spend over $15 (~£12) you'll get [url=https://www.gog.com/game/everspace?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]EVERSPACE[/url] too. 

You can also pick up a free copy of [url=https://www.gog.com/game/full_throttle_remastered?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]Full Throttled Remastered right here[/url] (valid for 48hours from the launch of the promotion). 


[b]More Free Stuff
[/b]
[url=https://www.gog.com/connect?pp=a120fe5cad51f0d0942d7c283478628047d6cfce&utm_medium=content&utm_source=nxm&utm_campaign=ws18&utm_term=en]GOG Connect[/url] is back too, letting you get DRM free versions of games you've already purchased on Steam with a different batch of titles to import each week. Just log in and link your Steam and GOG accounts. 


[b]Even More Free Stuff
[/b]
And it gets better... Thanks to our friends at GOG.com we'll be doing some special giveaways over the holiday period where you can win your choice of ANY game from GOG.com.

So keep an eye on our [url=https://facebook.com/nexussites/]Facebook[/url], [url=https://twitter.com/nexussites]Twitter[/url] and site news so you don't miss out!