Dark0ne | 02:33, 5 February 2010 | 13 Comments | [ Add comment]

Let me apologise for the spate of problems that have occured today from about 4pm GMT onwards. That time honoured favourite of mine, sod's law, exposed its ugly head again as I worked to fix an issue with the forums. Naturally fixing one minor problem produces one much larger problem to deal with.

After my supposed fix earlier in the day it turns out that the table indexes on forum posts (including file/image comments) became out of synch causing all sorts of problems; like posts not being made, duplicate posts being made and users having editing access to other people's posts. What fun!

In an attempt to fix this issue I've rebuilt the indexes and have had to remove some 250 odd posts that had duplicate IDs, which means if you've posted on the site sometime today then your post might not be there any more. You might want to double-check!

Normally I'd be happy to stick this update in the announcements forum but I'm looking for a bit of feedback to make sure that this problem isn't still here. I've tested out the comments/forums as much as possible but if you come across any new problems then please leave a comment in this thread detailing the issue.

Thanks.

Dark0ne | 18:09, 19 January 2010 | 7 Comments | [ Add comment]

The down-time scheduled for today is now complete and the forums have successfully been moved to a new server of their own. This should help to alleviate the stress on the forum server which was also hosting both Fallout 3 Nexus and Dragon Age Nexus while dealing with requests from TESNexus.

The servers will continue to be tweaked throughout the week. The weekends are the busiest times on Nexus sites so next weekend should prove to be interesting.

Thank you for your patience during this time. And thanks again to the premium members who make this all possible.

Dark0ne | 15:39, 18 January 2010 | 2 Comments | [ Add comment]

All the Nexus sites and the forums will be taken down tomorrow from 1pm GMT while the forums are moved to a new web server. The down-time is expected to last a maximum of 4 hours and all the sites should be back by 5pm GMT.

This move should insure a faster response and more stability across all the Nexus sites 24/7 for the foreseeable future while helping to facilitate an update of all the back-end code of the Nexus sites which I'm currently undertaking that should be finished by the end of February.

During the down-time all users will be redirected to a splash page to avoid confusion.

Dark0ne | 20:55, 4 January 2010 | 12 Comments | [ Add comment]

The new year is upon us and with it comes its share of joys and jolts.

First things first the move to the new file server architecture is now complete and there are now 4 file servers for the 3 Nexus sites. Please insure that you try and pick servers with the least number of users on them; although one location might be closer to you than the others the file speeds are still currently capped at 150kb/sec so it really shouldn't matter too much.

On a similar note there is now a second Premium Member only server available to all current and new Premium Members. One server is located in Denver, USA and the other in Kent, UK. Premium members who have been experiencing slightly slow speeds on the old premium server might like to try out the new premium servers and see what they think. And remember the premium only servers support download accelerators/managers so you can pump those download speeds right up with a simple plugin like Down Them All.

With the outstanding success of Dragon Age Nexus the current server setup is getting very strained at times trying to keep up with all the people visiting the sites. This is what the IPS Driver Errors you might be receiving are being caused by. I'm constantly reviewing the situation and making small tweaks here and there and I'm busy working on a fundamental recode of the sites to work with the leap from 2.36 to 3.0.6 Invision Board (which is what the sites link up with for member/posting functions). I'm also in discussions with my current providers to look at the server architecture again. But rest assured it's being looked in to and we're all experiencing these problems.

One quick note: if you're getting errors when trying to download files then DO NOT refresh the page continiously in a short space of time. You'll get locked out of downloading that file ever again. Please just be patient and come back again in an hour or so.

Happy new year folks. I hope you're all as busy as me!

Dark0ne | 15:53, 20 December 2009 | 10 Comments | [ Add comment]

All the Nexus sites have experienced issues sending out the validation emails for new members (or any emails for that matter) over this weekend. I apologise for this problem that I now believe to be fixed. I can't possible reply to all the emails sent in about this issue so sorry about that too!

If you try now it should now work. If you registered today then you will need to wait 24 hours for your unvalidated account to be deleted so you can sign up again. Alternatively try logging in to the forums and clicking the "resend validation email" link.

Thanks to all the people who emailed me letting me know of the problem.

Dark0ne | 02:30, 9 December 2009 | 32 Comments | [ Add comment]

Over the course of the next week the file servers across all the Nexus sites will be coming offline one at a time so upgrades can be made. The fundamental way in which the file servers operate will also be changing.

At the moment each Nexus site has its own file server(s); two for TESNexus, one for Fallout 3 Nexus and one for Dragon Age Nexus. Once the upgrades to the file servers have been made all four file servers will be used by all three Nexus sites, balancing out the bandwidth and load available across each site on four servers.

As each server is upgraded all the files will need to be restored from the backups on the other servers. About 400GB of files which takes about 24 hours. At this time file server #1 at TESNexus is down while the files are restored from all the other file servers. Once file server #1 is fully operational, file server #2 and the Fallout 3 Nexus file server will be taken offline while upgrades are performed and files are transferred and finally the Dragon Age Nexus file server will be upgraded after those two are finished. Naturally during this period the servers are going to be overloaded as users from both TESNexus and FO3Nexus are crammed on to one file server for a day so please bare with me while these changes are made.

As file downloads for premium members are now served directly from the webservers themselves premium members will not be affected by this change if they use the premium only server. Queue conspiracy theories!

Once these changes are made the speed cap for file downloads will be doubled from 150kb/sec to 300kb/sec.

Thank you for your patience during this period.

Dark0ne | 16:45, 20 November 2009 | 298 Comments | [ Add comment]

It's oh so cliché to say on the internet these days but this site is run "by gamers, for gamers", or maybe "by modders, for modders".

Recently I've been putting a lot of work in to improving various aspects of the site, ramping up the functionality, increasing usability and action efficiency and generally trying to roll out updates that are going to improve things around here based on recommendations from users within the community. Indeed I've found I have a lot more time for coding these days now that the infastructure behind the site is a lot more stable.

My imagination isn't the greatest, I'm not an experienced "outside the box" thinker and sometimes listening to the feedback of the people who make use of this site regularly is more important, and better, than my own ideas. This is my long winded call out to the community to come and tell me how you think this site can improve. What annoys you about the site? What would you improve about the site? Modders; think about what things you are doing regularly that you think could be better handled by the site. What are you constantly telling the people who comment on your files? Do you have any thoughts on how to make the site better, either in new functionality or in improving the functionality already available?

I'm not sat here doing updates for myself, I do them because I think people will use them and like them. I'm not a part of some corporate chain, bound by limitless bureaucracy and heirachies to get any changes done, so if you tell me what you want or waht you'd change then maybe I'll do it!

Some of the quickie ideas I've had recently have been:

• A way of listing the other files that are required in order for your mod to work, along with a list of other files the mod won't be compatible with
• Bringing back the "Author notes" field from TESSource, or having a list of options for mod authors to show quickly how they want their mods to be used, distribution permissions, etc. (feel free to chime in with more options)
• Providing a more elaborate way of authors being able to choose how their contacted, if at all, and describing their role of support for the file they've just released (a way of indicating whether you'll be willing to answer PMs, only stick to replying to comments, or won't be providing support at all)
• A changelog tab/pop-up so file descriptions aren't clogged up with 3 years worth of change logs
• Another look at the tracking system to see if I can't make it more versatile and increase usability

So help me throw some ideas around. Comment on this news article and get the ball rolling.

Dark0ne | 18:37, 19 November 2009 | 9 Comments | [ Add comment]

The Nexus now has its own Twitter page updated by yours truly. Now none of the staff are really big on Twitter as a personal tool; "Robin is going to the toilet", "Robin has had a hard day", "Robin is going to have a bath tonight", noone cares about that sort of rubbish, not even my friends, but what Twitter is handy for is keeping people up-to-date on changes to the site as well as providing a medium to communicate problems to people if for whatever reason (touch wood) the site goes down.

There's a new feed on the right-hand side and fellow "twits", as I like to call them, can start following the feed for updates.

Talking of updates there have been quite a few recently. First of all if you haven't picked up on it yet I've launched a new site for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age Nexus. This is the first Nexus site to not serve the Bethesda community so I'm really enjoying the new challenge of fitting in to a new community. Head-on over there if you haven't already to see what terrible colour scheme I've picked.

Moving on with the updates you can now set the time zone you reside in in your preferences area and all the site's times will update to fit your time zone. Tired of wondering how a mod got uploaded at 8pm when it's only 3pm where you are? Well no more!

You know that pop-up that shows once every once in a while to remind you to rate the files you've downloaded? Well now a new pop-up will show on the site whenever you receive a PM on the forums, just to remind you it's there.

I've updated Skinnynerd's Formatting and BBCode article on the site to list all the available BBCode commands you have at your disposal when adding descriptions for files, images and articles as well as making comments. The input fields also have a reminder next to them to let you know you can use BBCode.

File owners can now edit their files directly from the file page by using the new "Admin" drop-down area to manage different aspects of their file page more quickly. Note this only works for the uploader of the file page and won't work for people with editing access.

And lastly the Download/rating history page now lists the files you've rated differently. If you haven't rated a file you can choose to endorse, or not endorse, a file directly from the history page without having to go to the file page. Similarly if you've only just downloaded a file the page will tell you how long you have until you can rate the file.

More updates to come.

Dark0ne | 16:21, 30 October 2009 | 26 Comments | [ Add comment]

The file commenting system has been updated to the latest version that has been tested on TESNexus over the past couple of weeks. All simple comments and feedback can be directed to the "Comments" tab as before while the mini-forum discussion area can be used for more precise and topical discussion should it be necessary.

The discussion area can be disabled in your file attributes without affecting the commenting in the "Comments" thread. The aim was to please those authors who wanted a consolidated location for all posts as well as those authors who liked to split discussion in to different threads.

The file management page has been updated to accommodate this change. The total number of comments in the "Comments" tab makes a return, as well as a new attribute that shows how many discussion topics there are for each file.

Also worth a mention, posts made by the uploader of the file will now be highlighted by a gold border so users can easily pick out their posts.

As always feedback is welcome.

Dark0ne | 23:13, 26 October 2009 | 10 Comments | [ Add comment]

It's now been quite a while since the close of the Millionth Member Competition for Fallout 3 Nexus. While the competition blurb stated that the judging would be done by myself and a panel of judges I decided a while ago that I wanted to do it myself; several authors spent a lot of time to create community mods for Fallout 3 Nexus that I really wanted to play through thoroughly myself and give them the time and attention they deserved.

First of all let me say it was a real pleasure and an honour to play through all the mods that had been specifically made for this site. It was clear a good deal of thought and effort had been put in to the mods and I had the hard task of trying to rank them in order to hand out tiered prizes. Remember, first gets $125 in Amazon vouchers, second gets $75 and third gets $50. Without further ado, I'll list the winners, with the top prize winner at the top and I'll provide a little blurb with each one.



Top prize winner - Banished by Barrenzye
Banished wasn't a particularly long mod. Banished wasn't a particularly deep, technical or hard mod. But from the start to the finish I can honestly say I had fun throughout, from the ease of the install and the conveniently provided save file all the way through to the amusing end the mod made me laugh, grin and smile. The precursor story provided was entertaining to read and set the background well, the mod itself (played from the save file) kept you going and was straight forward and nothing hard. Perfectly short and concise, the mod ends amusingly, never making you jump through tedious hoops or over stepping its pre-set bounds.





Second prize winner - JaySus Commonwealth of Modders by JaySus
Clearly JaySuS put a hell of a lot of time in to this mod creating a whole new landmass with lots of buildings, interesting NPCs and quests. Obviously of particular interest to me were the NPCs based off of community members, including myself as an amusing "The Fly" style bug suited man! Sure enough I had fun on the troll hunt, finally attacking the troll queen with my band of moderators. As a minor criticism, and one that's a testament to the sheer amount of work JaySuS put in to this mod, it almost feels like too much has been put in to the mod, it's quite overbearing! A great piece of work, it was a real pleasure (if not quite time consuming endeavour) playing through this mod.





Third prize winner - The Magnetic War 2 by FrankSlimski
This mod was probably one of the most combat focused and intense mods I've played to date for Fallout 3. Chock block of enemies to kill from the three major Fallout 3 factions (Brotherhood, Enclave, Talons) this was a veritable shoot 'em up. Unfortunately the mod did feel like it had been made with the concept of the community, what the mod competition was for, in the background, playing a supporting role to that of the initial purpose of the mod. While mentions of the community are made, it wasn't until right at the end when I saw Dark0ne chasing Buddah that I had a slight giggle as I watched the two fight away. Feeling the need to help myself I started shooting Buddah which turned them both on me. A very entertaining mod (minus the fact if you missed a key for a locked door you had to spend 10 minutes going back through each level searching for it!) and very well made.




Congratulations to all the winners, you will be contacted by forum PM soon to discuss the delivery of your prizes. I want to thank them all again for spending the time to create these brilliant mods, and give a special shout out to ralf1234's "The League of the Nexus". Ralf had some lofty ambitions for his mod and I think it could be absolutely brilliant with a bit more work and a bit more time. I really admire his desire to learn through creating that mod. He'll also be receiving a $10 Amazon voucher for taking part and being patient while waiting for me to judge the competition.