Monday, January 7, 2013

...one Nexus to rule them all...

Quite recently my attention has been returning to The Elder Scrolls series of games and in turn the modding sites for said games. One of my go-to sites for mods for Bethesda games has always been the Oblivion Nexus which, until recently, also included Morrowind mods. When I first got into game modding, this mod-hosting site and its forums were all webmaster Robin "Dark0ne" Scott had to offer us. Then Bethesda gave us Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas and shortly thereafter the Dark0ne gave us the Fallout 3 Nexus and the Fallout New Vegas Nexus. Later came the Skyrim Nexus. For fans and modders of Bethesda's Gamebryo-based games The Nexus Sites had become one of the mod-hosting sites most instrumental in unifying their gaming community.

So you might be asking yourselves: why is Herculine giving us this little history lesson seeming to praise the Nexus family of sites?

As I was browsing Oblivion mods today I accidentally stumbled upon the new NexusMods.com front page. I had known for some time now that Dark0ne had expanded his horizons by adding Nexus sites for Dragon Age and The Witcher, but until today I was unaware that the Nexus family now includes sites for over fifteen different games. Mister Scott seems to be building quite an empire lately. Which reminds me of the famous quote regarding the British Empire: "On her dominions the sun never sets." I suppose it could now be said that the sun never sets on NexusMods.

At this discovery my initial "knee-jerk" reaction was to think that Robin Scott must be simply creating new extensions of his Nexus whenever a new installment from any of his favorite game franchises hits the retail shelves. However, that is perhaps a bit harsh and unfair. Since roughly half the current Nexus sites involve my own favorite games like Neverwinter Nights, I really should thank Dark0ne for giving their mods another home because it's the mods that help keep these great games alive.

I do, however, have one question for Mister Scott: where's the Mass Effect Nexus?




6 comments:

  1. A Mass Effect Nexus would be great Herculine, but is there an official "world creator" tool available to mod the game with? If I remember correctly, Robin has stated that one of the requirements for him to consider creating a Nexus site for a game is for one to be available from the game authors. I know there is a community of ME modders out there, but they are using only third-party software to do it, to the best of my knowledge.

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    1. Maybe Dark0ne once said that an official SDK is a requirement for a new Nexus site, but appearently this isn't the case.

      He created a Nexus site for X-Com - Enemy Unknown before the game's launch day, there were no official modding tools available, and afaik there still aren't any. Shortly after the site launch, people came up with 3rd party tools that allow modding the game files (although somewhat limited).
      So he basically created a modding community from scratch, which is great.

      Maybe he didn't create a ME Nexus because there are already other, well established sites? I guess an already established community doesn't really need another download hub... but a Doom Nexus would be nice xD

      Here are two interesting blog articles that Dark0ne wrote around the time of the X-Com Nexus launch, they are basically about the philosophy behind all the recent changes.
      http://xcom.nexusmods.com/news/1/
      http://xcom.nexusmods.com/news/4/

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    2. Thanks for that De Vloek! The second post I had previously read, but the first one was new to me. Up until now, I had never heard of X-Com. With that said, I guess a Mass Effect Nexus could be a possibility, and one that I would welcome seeing. The Mass Effect series has become one of my favourite game franchises.

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    3. DOOM NEXUS! DOOM NEXUS!

      Control over my own uploaded files, the ability to see who it is that's calling me a failure and the ability to respond to such insults?

      DOOM NEXUS! DOOM NEXUS!

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    4. Don't forget the moderators who take their job seriously and don't hesitate banning haters and other idiots :)
      I somehow don't like that Doomworld is the only way to make my maps available to a wider audience... so yeah... DOOM NEXUS!!!

      @Druuler: X-Com is a great game, if you like turn-based tactics it's definitely worth a try. And now with all the mods from the X-Com Nexus, it has got a high replay value too.

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    5. I am currently not "Dooming" myself, and may not anytime soon (currently immersed in the Mass Effect universe, and still have a half-dozen or so games installed that I have yet to fire up once...), I'll "raise my fist and yell" DOOM NEXUS! DOOM NEXUS! XD

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