Mod browser found lacking

[LDiCesare]

I have a lot of gripes with the mod browser but I just launched it once.

-Mods are supposed to go in 'My Documents'. This means that, by default, they cannot be shared by users on a single machine, which is just totally lame.
-When using the mod browser, there is no way to sort by author. Ok, I can search, type "Kael", and find his mods, but that's not as useful. Right now I need a lot of time to see who made a mod, and it's important for me. Just add a column?
-There is no mapscript category
-You need yet another login...
-You can only upload 'mod packages' which don't make sense for map scripts.

Basically, the mod browser is either impossible to use for map scripts or overly complicated.

Plus how do you tell the game a mapscript is to be seen in the initial, non advanced, screen?

 

[LDiCesare]

Since I'm ranting, I'd also like to say that I don't understand why you have to go into Mods/Accept/Single Player instead of just Single Player every time you want to play with your favorite mods active.
And yes, you can create a mod package with a single map script inside. Still no category in the mod browser so you have 0 chance of finding it unless you first checked it from a forum where you could have downloaded it in the first place.

 

[Abremms]

Since I'm ranting, I'd also like to say that I don't understand why you have to go into Mods/Accept/Single Player instead of just Single Player every time you want to play with your favorite mods active.

pretty sure this is because you can't get achievements with mods running. they wanted to make sure you can always easily access the base game.

the mod browser has a few issues to sort out, but i think over-all its a stellar feature. WAY better than combing through various websites and manual installing everything, imo.

 

[LDiCesare]

It's definitely a good idea.
But I think it's a pain to use.
If I enable a mod, I want it running all of the time. I don't care about achievements.
Rant:

Spoiler :

In fact I tried to look for a way to prevent Steam from popping up a small window telling me I had achieved whatever it may be during the game, but there's no option to prevent that spam.

The selection of filters and columns is very bad. As I said, credits and author names don' appear. Map scripts category doesn't exist. Hell. MAPS don't even exist either.

There is also no 'stable/beta/in progress' information either. Look at the current mods, you get a lot of "don't download"/"don't open" mods.
Maybe the way of actually publishing mods should be redone so people only share finished stuff or can mark their mods as being alpha/beta/usable.

 

[Abremms]

It's definitely a good idea.
But I think it's a pain to use.
If I enable a mod, I want it running all of the time. I don't care about achievements.
Rant:

Spoiler :

In fact I tried to look for a way to prevent Steam from popping up a small window telling me I had achieved whatever it may be during the game, but there's no option to prevent that spam.

The selection of filters and columns is very bad. As I said, credits and author names don' appear. Map scripts category doesn't exist. Hell. MAPS don't even exist either.

There is also no 'stable/beta/in progress' information either. Look at the current mods, you get a lot of "don't download"/"don't open" mods.
Maybe the way of actually publishing mods should be redone so people only share finished stuff or can mark their mods as being alpha/beta/usable.

the system for publishing mods is actualy quite good, people are missusing it with the "dont download" bits though, thats just bad form. there should be some sort of moderation for that. the modders can always upload it and check "private" so it doesn't show up on the lists. I have several person mods that i don't want to share because they are either not working right or old versions. i haven't figured out how to remove them, but checking them as private works well.

I agree that the author name should be in the main browser (are you sure it isn't? i thought it was, will have to doudle check). all of that information IS available with a single click though. beyond that its up to the modder to provide documentation in the description.

could it be that there is no mapscript catagory because there are no maps available yet? the browser hides all empty catagories when it starts.

anyways, I'm not trying to argue with you, i agree that it needs some work, especialy the search feature. its fine now that there aren;t many mods but as more roll out it will get worse. I don't think its quite so bad asyou make it out though.

 

[LDiCesare]

Plus I'd like to understand why, when I create my map script, everything works fine and I can use it until I load a mod with another map script and then mine no longer appears anywhere.

 

[LDiCesare]

could it be that there is no mapscript catagory because there are no maps available yet? the browser hides all empty catagories when it starts.

No there is one already.

 

[Szpilman]

It should be moddable, but I didn't have any success trying do change the Mod Browser.
See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=386988
Maybe I'm doing something wrong? I did read Kael's tutorial and was able to get the Unit Icon hidden while fully understanding the process.

 

[ArgentumStudios]

the system for publishing mods is actualy quite good, people are missusing it with the "dont download" bits though, thats just bad form. there should be some sort of moderation for that. the modders can always upload it and check "private" so it doesn't show up on the lists. I have several person mods that i don't want to share because they are either not working right or old versions. i haven't figured out how to remove them, but checking them as private works well.

I agree that those who are publishing test or do not download mods are misusing the system (intentionally or unintentionally). There isno need to even upload the mod to test it, ModBuddy publishes it to the local machine automatically as part of the build process. And marking them private for those who have already uploaded is easy.

In any case, I agree that the browser definitely needs some work when it comes to organizing the mods and making them searchable based on various criteria.

I'll look into the mapscripts issue after I take care of a few other things. I'll also poke around at the browser UI itself and see if I can find any hooks that will allow us to mod it ourselves, but I'm not sure it will work based on what I've seen so far.

 

[Shiggs713]

yea maps or map scripts do not show up, and neither are empty.

 

[cephalo]

I saw in the Terra.lua map script there was a function to set up the initial map options, and one of the options (going from memory here, bear with me.) was IsAdvanced or something. So it's similar to Civ4 in this regard.

 

[Szpilman]

I'll also poke around at the browser UI itself and see if I can find any hooks that will allow us to mod it ourselves, but I'm not sure it will work based on what I've seen so far.

So that would confirm my suspicion that the ModBrowser's UI files are locked? I couldn't change a letter, but maybe I was doing something wrong.

 

[Who Dat?]

I might like the Mod Browser... if all of the files didn't vanish about five seconds after opening it. Or after clicking on any navigation tool. Essentially, I can only download what appears on the front page, and only within five seconds of it opening.

Has anyone heard of what causes this issue for those of us who have it? Is it a router thing?

 

[Evalis]

I dislike that I can't categorize my mod into anything but gamerules, fantasy, other, and all... It would be nice if it actually listened to me when I told it to put something in the civ or leader category. You can however search for mods this way by typing in 'civ' for example in the little search bar, but I don't think this is very well known.

 

[LDiCesare]

Putting a mod in one of the categories is a bit painful since you usually have to click twice (and scroll) to just get it to work, but the real pain is that the categories you chose don't show in the mod browser.
The state of the mod (beta...) isn't shown either in the list.
There should be a lot more filters for the tool to be user-friendly, and installing/enabling should be possible in one action, maybe using a wizard-like interface?

 

[poncratias]

I'd like to be able to comment on mods inside the modbrowser.
That's something necessary.

 

[Shiggs713]

don't forget the screenshots part isn't working at all yet, and even though they have the homepage part active, it doesn't work either.

 

[xxxlambo]

I'll just throw this out there, but I'm actually happy that a mod browser is there at all. I never got into Mods with Civ 4 because I didn't want to take the time to look for them and figure out how to install (yes pure laziness I'm sure I am more then capable of actually doing it). Now it may not be perfect but I easily found a good number of mods that I like to play with, mostly UI stuff, however if it wasn't for the browser I wouldn't have bothered looking for any. I'm sure it will get better over time.

 

[ArgentumStudios]

I'll just throw this out there, but I'm actually happy that a mod browser is there at all. I never got into Mods with Civ 4 because I didn't want to take the time to look for them and figure out how to install (yes pure laziness I'm sure I am more then capable of actually doing it). Now it may not be perfect but I easily found a good number of mods that I like to play with, mostly UI stuff, however if it wasn't for the browser I wouldn't have bothered looking for any. I'm sure it will get better over time.

Oh I agree that it is great that it is in there at all, but there are a lot of new users who still get confused and it will only get worse as we get more and more mods submitted. However, I expect that they will improve on it as time allows, so I'm not too worried.

 

[StittsvilleJame]

I tried to mark one as private, and it didn't work.
Some people already downloaded it though. Is that why I can't make it private?