Grimrock Nexus and You
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 4:44 pm
Hi guys,
My name is Robin and I run the Nexus Mods network. Thanks to the folks at Almost Human games we've been given a little heads up about the public beta, and were given access to the closed beta (thank you AH!) in order to get our service ready for the release of the modding tools. I'm happy to say that Grimrock Nexus is now up and running and ready to accept mods.
What is Grimrock Nexus?
Grimrock Nexus is a part of Nexus Mods, a strong modding community that has been running for over 11 years. At the time of writing the community consists of over 28,000 mod authors for 11 different games, over 80,000 mods, 4,500,000 members and over 400,000,000 mod downloads served to date. We are one of, if not the biggest modding network on the internet by traffic.
Each game Nexus Mods supports has its own site. This makes it easy to find mods you're looking for within specific games. Mods for specific games are then split in to specific categories to make the mods you're looking for even easier to find.
One-click download and install
Legend of Grimrock is also supported in our Nexus Mod Manager. NMM allows you to download and install Grimrock mods straight off Grimrock Nexus with the click of a button, without the need to mess about with installation folders, much like Steam Workshop (except we give you the choice to also download the file manually, because more choice is good, right?). NMM is still in public beta, but we've just passed the 1 million users mark, so it's well tested and supported by now.
Getting your mod to work with NMM is very simple. All you need to do is include your .dat file in a rar, zip or 7z archive:
Steam Workshop and Nexus Mods, which should I upload to?
The short answer is BOTH.
Steam Workshop is great because it's simple for both mod authors to upload their mods and mod users to download the mods while opening up modding to a wide install base, with a massive down-side being that only people who bought the game on Steam can download and play your mods. Nexus Mods has always been about mixing the simplicity of uploading and downloading mods with the option to go wider and deeper with more tools and choices for those who want to get a bit more complex, and making it available to everyone. We don't want to treat all modders like simpletons, because we know lots of you like to do lots of different stuff with your mods. That's what modding is all about, after all. That's why, for example, we give you the option to download and install the mod through our client, the Nexus Mod Manager, or manually which provides you with the raw archive of files to do with as you please.
We've always focused the Nexus sites around making them as user friendly for mod authors first. Mod authors are the most important part of any modding community, and if you keep them happy, then everything else will fall in to place much easier. You'll find the Nexus has a lot of management options above and beyond Steam Workshop. If you want to keep things simple like on Steam Workshop, you can, but once again we want to ensure you have as many tools and options at your disposal should you want them.
One of the biggest reasons you should be uploading to both, however, is that many people who don't have the Steam version of Legend of Grimrock will not be able to play your mods if you only upload them to Steam Workshop. Steam Workshop is Steam exclusive, meaning that only people who have the game on Steam can download from it. Nexus Mods is distributor agnostic, which means that no matter where you bought your game from (including Steam) the mods on the site will always work. So if you only upload to Steam Workshop then you limit the amount of people who can download and play your mods.
At the time of writing the editor is currently in beta and only Steam users can currently play mods and use the editor. When the editor is out of beta and the game and mods are available to all players things will be very different. There are a lot more dungeons currently available on Steam Workshop than on Nexus Mods, however, like-for-like traffic on the mods available on both sites is extremely similar. Nexus Mods is a large network with a large following. You might think that Steam would have more traffic, but it hasn't been the case with Skyrim, and if you give it a chance, it probably won't be the case with Legends of Grimrock either.
At the end of the day it's all about choice. Choice for you, and choice for the users of your mod. Not everyone likes Steam, and not everyone likes the Nexus. So giving people the choice to use both platforms is great for everyone. I imagine that's one of the main reasons Almost Human liked the idea of working with both Steam and Nexus Mods. End-user choice
Where can I go for help?
If you need specific help with problems you're having using Grimrock Nexus then you can contact me here via PM, or in this thread, or you can catch me on the Nexus sites as well. If you'd like to chat more personally then you can ask for my contact details (MSN, Skype, AIM, Steam) in a PM and I'll happily provide them. Alternatively we've got very popular forums with lots of helpful members who are happy to answer any questions you might have.
Feedback
Right now we've setup some default categories that we think might be used, but I'd love your feedback if we need some more categories or if you think that some of the categories need changing.
If you think there's anything we need to do, or if there's something we could improve on or something the community needs, just let me know.
My name is Robin and I run the Nexus Mods network. Thanks to the folks at Almost Human games we've been given a little heads up about the public beta, and were given access to the closed beta (thank you AH!) in order to get our service ready for the release of the modding tools. I'm happy to say that Grimrock Nexus is now up and running and ready to accept mods.
What is Grimrock Nexus?
Grimrock Nexus is a part of Nexus Mods, a strong modding community that has been running for over 11 years. At the time of writing the community consists of over 28,000 mod authors for 11 different games, over 80,000 mods, 4,500,000 members and over 400,000,000 mod downloads served to date. We are one of, if not the biggest modding network on the internet by traffic.
Each game Nexus Mods supports has its own site. This makes it easy to find mods you're looking for within specific games. Mods for specific games are then split in to specific categories to make the mods you're looking for even easier to find.
One-click download and install
Legend of Grimrock is also supported in our Nexus Mod Manager. NMM allows you to download and install Grimrock mods straight off Grimrock Nexus with the click of a button, without the need to mess about with installation folders, much like Steam Workshop (except we give you the choice to also download the file manually, because more choice is good, right?). NMM is still in public beta, but we've just passed the 1 million users mark, so it's well tested and supported by now.
Getting your mod to work with NMM is very simple. All you need to do is include your .dat file in a rar, zip or 7z archive:
1. Create the mod, compile it using the Export button (File menu) in the editor.
2. Navigate to where you saved the mod's .dat file (eg. yourmod.dat).
3. Compress the .dat file with your favorite program, just the file, not the folder where the file is!
Note: As long as the .dat file is in the root folder of the archive it will work with NMM. You can put any eventual screenshot or readme to go with your mod inside a folder (which is preferable to including it in the root of the archive you've made)
Ideally the archive should be structured as:
--> mymod.dat
--> MyMod (folder)
----> mymod_readme.txt
----> mymod_screenshots.jpg
Steam Workshop and Nexus Mods, which should I upload to?
The short answer is BOTH.
Steam Workshop is great because it's simple for both mod authors to upload their mods and mod users to download the mods while opening up modding to a wide install base, with a massive down-side being that only people who bought the game on Steam can download and play your mods. Nexus Mods has always been about mixing the simplicity of uploading and downloading mods with the option to go wider and deeper with more tools and choices for those who want to get a bit more complex, and making it available to everyone. We don't want to treat all modders like simpletons, because we know lots of you like to do lots of different stuff with your mods. That's what modding is all about, after all. That's why, for example, we give you the option to download and install the mod through our client, the Nexus Mod Manager, or manually which provides you with the raw archive of files to do with as you please.
We've always focused the Nexus sites around making them as user friendly for mod authors first. Mod authors are the most important part of any modding community, and if you keep them happy, then everything else will fall in to place much easier. You'll find the Nexus has a lot of management options above and beyond Steam Workshop. If you want to keep things simple like on Steam Workshop, you can, but once again we want to ensure you have as many tools and options at your disposal should you want them.
One of the biggest reasons you should be uploading to both, however, is that many people who don't have the Steam version of Legend of Grimrock will not be able to play your mods if you only upload them to Steam Workshop. Steam Workshop is Steam exclusive, meaning that only people who have the game on Steam can download from it. Nexus Mods is distributor agnostic, which means that no matter where you bought your game from (including Steam) the mods on the site will always work. So if you only upload to Steam Workshop then you limit the amount of people who can download and play your mods.
At the time of writing the editor is currently in beta and only Steam users can currently play mods and use the editor. When the editor is out of beta and the game and mods are available to all players things will be very different. There are a lot more dungeons currently available on Steam Workshop than on Nexus Mods, however, like-for-like traffic on the mods available on both sites is extremely similar. Nexus Mods is a large network with a large following. You might think that Steam would have more traffic, but it hasn't been the case with Skyrim, and if you give it a chance, it probably won't be the case with Legends of Grimrock either.
At the end of the day it's all about choice. Choice for you, and choice for the users of your mod. Not everyone likes Steam, and not everyone likes the Nexus. So giving people the choice to use both platforms is great for everyone. I imagine that's one of the main reasons Almost Human liked the idea of working with both Steam and Nexus Mods. End-user choice
Where can I go for help?
If you need specific help with problems you're having using Grimrock Nexus then you can contact me here via PM, or in this thread, or you can catch me on the Nexus sites as well. If you'd like to chat more personally then you can ask for my contact details (MSN, Skype, AIM, Steam) in a PM and I'll happily provide them. Alternatively we've got very popular forums with lots of helpful members who are happy to answer any questions you might have.
Feedback
Right now we've setup some default categories that we think might be used, but I'd love your feedback if we need some more categories or if you think that some of the categories need changing.
If you think there's anything we need to do, or if there's something we could improve on or something the community needs, just let me know.
