207 replies to this topic

[Tes96]

I'd say the Morrowind community should start archiving mods. Better safe than sorry. I recall an instance where a game, an old space sim [a one of a kind in its genre, similar to MW], had all of its uploaded mods disappeared off the internet, and were lost forever. (The community still hasn't recovered. )

PES could be a sign of collapse... Or not. I could just be a little melodramatic.

Holy crap, this looks like the sign of a coming to the end of PlanetElderScrolls! What's worse is that there are many awesome mods on there from years ago from modders who have not been in the modding community for many years. This is terrible. I agree that we should put together a team that downloads all Morrowind mods from PES. One person could be in charge of downloading just all texture replacers and another could be in charge of downloading and storing all Weapons/Armor mods, another for Clothing, Utilities, etc... You'd probably need terabyte external drives. But that way, if that website and its servers and databases were suddenly lost or destroyed or hit with an electromagnetic pulse or whatever, we would still have all of the work from all the modders saved safely amongst the community.

[Ryu Hayabusa]

I gave 'em a piece of my mind. Soooo many anime mods on the front page...

Edited by Ryu Hayabusa, 05 April 2012 - 02:56 PM.

[gaddgadd]

Holy crap, this looks like the sign of a coming to the end of PlanetElderScrolls! What's worse is that there are many awesome mods on there from years ago from modders who have not been in the modding community for many years. This is terrible. I agree that we should put together a team that downloads all Morrowind mods from PES. One person could be in charge of downloading just all texture replacers and another could be in charge of downloading and storing all Weapons/Armor mods, another for Clothing, Utilities, etc... You'd probably need terabyte external drives. But that way, if that website and its servers and databases were suddenly lost or destroyed or hit with an electromagnetic pulse or whatever, we would still have all of the work from all the modders saved safely amongst the community.

Well, probably not terabytes, considering most mods are at most a few KB.

Edit: Uneeded Comma My grammar skills seem to be on break for the day.

Edited by gaddgadd, 04 April 2012 - 10:46 PM.

[papill6n]

If this week-end no news about a rescue by the admin of TESNexus, or Fliggerty.
I will backup all the files I can of PES.

[NZdawghaus]

-snip-

You keep making posts over there slamming the flagship community, and you'll find out another reason some folks avoid the Nexus.

[Tes96]

If this week-end no news about a rescue by the admin of TESNexus, or Fliggerty.
I will backup all the files I can of PES.

Thanks, Papill6n. I have a terabyte external drive and a very fast broadband connection. I'm sure I could download all files from PES, too. The more people we get collecting these mods, the more safe the mods will be. I hope more people than just us gets involved. This is our entire modding history of the past decade at stake here.

[Tes96]

Good idea. I mean, there is a new site for Skyrim. It isn't right that Morrowind and Oblivion are stuck together.

+1 This. Morrowind should have its very own modding website. I don't like how it has to be shared with Oblivion.

[tronvillain]

As far as I can tell, that just takes you to the list of Morrowind categories, which isn't the same as a full listing in order of upload/update. Searching by Morrowind tag and then setting to sort by upload date in ascending date doesn't give you that either. It's just silly.

[Tarius]

Oh yea, for any of you wondering, I had sent an email a few days ago to the address listed on PES for contact(for a listing idea) and got an email back from IGN saying they were no longer supporting it. I had just figured that they had just decided to split though; didnt realize the guy was going to drop it all the way.

Edited by Tarius, 04 April 2012 - 11:44 PM.

[Spiffyman]

Looks like Knots' request on the TESNexus forums to seperate MW and OB would make much more sense now.

[Tonal Architect]

Oh yea, for any of you wondering, I had sent an email a few days ago to the address listed on PES for contact(for a listing idea) and got an email back from IGN saying they were no longer supporting it. I had just figured that they had just decided to split though; didnt realize the guy was going to drop it all the way.

You know, I had emailed the site concerning the pending approval on the last mod I submitted there (it was taking an usually long time for it to be approved), and usually when I do that, I get some kind of response, but I didn't. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now, I estimate there's a connection there.

I guess this is probably a good a time as any to check out some mods on PES that I would've otherwise ignored. Let's see just how cool Ravenloft really is...

[Era Scarecrow]

So do we have enough people and resources working on moving all the mods/utilities to another location? For the majority of it doesn't seem like it should be too difficult.. Especially since most of the files are hosted on FilePlanet, you'd mostly need the basic mod description/data. (Course then there's the pictures/previews)

I'll try and be helpful however I can regardless...

[Tonal Architect]

For my part, I intend to host as many mods as I can on the website for Sunfall (which isn't up yet, but will be by the weekend I think). So long as I still breathe, I will keep the fire burning. Viva la Morrowind!!

[Era Scarecrow]

Well if someone is orchestrating the backup/moving process, then great. I'm sure inside eight hours I could create a bot to filter through and grab all the mods, and Page datas, extract it to some type of csv format for a db, as well as download the pictures and perhaps files not FilePlanet related. But I know I don't have that Patience right now to work on that And may not for 3 months. _{(Don't you hate med changes?)}

I need to wonder, why they would stop supporting it. Even if you don't have a technical staff, I'm sure there would be volunteers that would be willing to deal with the minor details, and even then the database of information (minus FilePlanet and file upload details) should handle itself.

[Tonal Architect]

I'm operating according to the worst case scenario, for the purpose of preserving a pathway for the new people who come to Morrowind (which, as we've seen here on the forums, is common), and are looking to upgrade it at least a little (usually a lot). I'll be starting with the Hall of Famers and then moving onto the mods I think are most deserving of preservation. Have to prioritize, because there's an epic ton of them.

[NZdawghaus]

If anyone's interested, TESAlliance looks like it could be a nice replacement for PES. It offers ratings, reviews, screenies, etc. Apparently you can get updates when comments are added, too.

[Tonal Architect]

The more places we have committed to keeping the community alive, the better. The loss of PES is going to be quite a blow though.

Also, for anyone taking part in archiving mods off PES, I would advise concentrating on mods by people we can't easily reach on here or other popular forums. I just thought of this as I was going through the Hall of Fame list, as I noticed that a good deal of the mods on there could probably easily be acquired through their authors, as they hang out here (Trainwiz, Vurt, tronvillain, Bahamut, etc.). Others, like Acheron's Camping Gear, perhaps not so much.

[papill6n]

Well if someone is orchestrating the backup/moving process, then great. I'm sure inside eight hours I could create a bot to filter through and grab all the mods, and Page datas, extract it to some type of csv format for a db, as well as download the pictures and perhaps files not FilePlanet related. But I know I don't have that Patience right now to work on that And may not for 3 months. _{(Don't you hate med changes?)}

I need to wonder, why they would stop supporting it. Even if you don't have a technical staff, I'm sure there would be volunteers that would be willing to deal with the minor details, and even then the database of information (minus FilePlanet and file upload details) should handle itself.

I have time and space for backup the mods, but I miss a softxware/script for automatized this backup process.

[DarkRider]

If anyone's interested, TESAlliance looks like it could be a nice replacement for PES. It offers ratings, reviews, screenies, etc. Apparently you can get updates when comments are added, too.

Indeed, and we have had plans to add a Hall of Fame type incentive as well in the near future. Our MW section is kind of thin, but only because we came after the days of MW, but TES Alliance is a growing active site, and has always made separate, equal consideration for Morrowind fans on our boards and in our downloads section. We'd be happy to welcome our MW friends who may be looking for a new mirror with the trouble on PES.

[Ryu Hayabusa]

Okay, that's good!

I edited my post over at the Nexus to the true meaning BTW...

wish I'd have gotten there sooner...

Edited by Ryu Hayabusa, 05 April 2012 - 01:18 AM.

[gaddgadd]

Let's look at it from a corporate perspective here. Relatively speaking, the Morrowind playerbase, and indeed, Oblivion's, are fairly small compared to the Skyrim playerbase. If TESNexus doesn't make 2 sites for OB/MW, the Morrowind modding community will grunt, scream. and stamp our legs, but honestly, unless the Admin CARES, our protests/requests will have little effect. Now, if they didn't make a SkyrimNexus, think of all the emails they would get:

lolz y is sykrim on same website as SUCKblivion and MORRO(BLEEP)!!!1!! u guys suck, y are people still playig gmes with horiblle grafics?!?!?1!

Imagine 500 of these every day (but with much more cursing).

[PeterBitt]

The more places we have committed to keeping the community alive, the better.

i dont 100% agree with that as i think the best about PES was that almost every TES player went there for mods - you get by far more feedback and DLs there than on any other site. Having dozens of different sites will sure mean that not all mods are available at a single space and that our small community will spread all over the different sites and dont be together in one place. Also it would be a little annoying for uploaders to maintain their mods on to many sites.

but the idea to back up the mods on as many sites as possible i agree with.

Indeed, and we have had plans to add a Hall of Fame type incentive as well in the near future. Our MW section is kind of thin, but only because we came after the days of MW, but TES Alliance is a growing active site, and has always made separate, equal consideration for Morrowind fans on our boards and in our downloads section. We'd be happy to welcome our MW friends who may be looking for a new mirror with the trouble on PES.

i like this website, it has a very nice look to it and also the functionality seems very good!

realy nice would be if we get a new major place for all our mods and if that place includes something to show the ratings/comments the different mods had on PES, mabe just screenshots or something. iam quite sure no matter how nice our new mod site will be - it will never again reach the reknown and comunity activity as PES, thats why i think its needed to include all those ratings/comments/downloads from PES. i agree with Logitech that those are essential for downloaders to check the bug reports and the quality of a mod before DLing it and testing it for hours.


edit: i dont know nothing about this, but isnt it possible to get the sourcecode from PES and just host the whole thing eslweyr? might be a little naive from me.

Edited by PeterBitt, 05 April 2012 - 03:21 AM.

[APY_PES]

Just decided to chime in here and add an official statement from the ‘PES guy’

I’m sorry that some confusion has arisen over the question whether Planet Elder Scrolls will shut down or not. It won’t. There’s two main issues right now:

• IGN has laid off support staff. That means Planet Elder Scrolls is not getting much technical support anymore and issues (such as the Hall of Fame selection system not working) are not always getting fixed.
• I started working on Planet Elder Scrolls (then Morrowind Summit) in 2001, when I was still in school. Over the years, as I moved to university and then to a fulltime job, I have had less and less time spend on the site.

Concretely, starting on May 1, the following will happen:

• I will no longer personally approve content. This means new content may, or may not be, approved. I’ll try to find people who are willing to take over, but I cannot guarantee that new content will timely appear on the site.
• Large files will no longer be added by me. Our large files upload procedure involved me manually adding them to entries. I will either try to find someone else to do this, or you can choose to upload your file to Fileplanet and edit your entry with a link to Fileplanet.

I’ll be on the lookout for someone to take over at least the approval of mods and adding large files. As the site will not be taken offline, extensive backup procedures won’t be necessary right now. However, as my involvement will end later this month, I won’t be able to support any undertakings after that date.

[Dark0ne]

Edit: ninja'd by the man himself. Sounds like things will be fine once a budding recruit is found (and I've seen plenty in this thread already!). Good luck APY.

There's plenty of reasons Morrowind and Oblivion mods were linked on the Nexus sites. To begin with, they were the first games I hosted mods for, and it made more logical sense for me to keep them together as I wasn't running around supporting as many games as possible at the time. Similarly, PES and ElricM were always there so the Nexus became a back up mirror more than anything else. It made no sense for me to take the time to separate the two games as there were other, more supported sites for Morrowind that meant it wasn't important for me to do it. PES and ElricM did a great job, so there was no need for me to attempt to muddy the waters by making a competing site.

To be fair, a lot of the Morrowind community has always stuck its nose up at TESNexus, just like I'm sure a lot of the Skyrim community sticks its nose up at any site that isn't the Nexus or SW. People defend the sites they use, so I regularly see comments on these Morrowind boards that "the Nexus only has endorsements and forums" or "the Nexus has 90% nude mods" or similar, from people who've clearly only spent 5 minutes max on the sites else they'd know it to be utter cods-wallop. It comes part and parcel of communities in general. And I hate that sort of mindless crap.

I can most definitely separate the two games on to separate sites, I imagine it would take about a day of work. To be honest though, I see lots of non-sense spread about me or the Nexus on various sites about how "Dark0ne doesn't care about this community" and it just makes me shy away from attempts. Look at my join date here; the Morrowind community is where the Nexus started and the entire root of all the sites I have made since. I think Morrowind is a great game. I think Oblivion and Skyrim are great games too but I always seem to find myself stuck, in this Morrowind community, with people who either want to tell me PES is superior (hey, you're entitled to your opinion!) or that I'm a fool for enjoying Oblivion and then I sort of just leave the ghosts of 11 years past where they are. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Edited by Dark0ne, 05 April 2012 - 03:55 AM.

[Fergus]

Just decided to chime in here and add an official statement from the ‘PES guy’

I’m sorry that some confusion has arisen over the question whether Planet Elder Scrolls will shut down or not. It won’t. There’s two main issues right now:

• IGN has laid off support staff. That means Planet Elder Scrolls is not getting much technical support anymore and issues (such as the Hall of Fame selection system not working) are not always getting fixed.
• I started working on Planet Elder Scrolls (then Morrowind Summit) in 2001, when I was still in school. Over the years, as I moved to university and then to a fulltime job, I have had less and less time spend on the site.

Concretely, starting on May 1, the following will happen:

• I will no longer personally approve content. This means new content may, or may not be, approved. I’ll try to find people who are willing to take over, but I cannot guarantee that new content will timely appear on the site.
• Large files will no longer be added by me. Our large files upload procedure involved me manually adding them to entries. I will either try to find someone else to do this, or you can choose to upload your file to Fileplanet and edit your entry with a link to Fileplanet.

I’ll be on the lookout for someone to take over at least the approval of mods and adding large files. As the site will not be taken offline, extensive backup procedures won’t be necessary right now. However, as my involvement will end later this month, I won’t be able to support any undertakings after that date.

Thanks for the explanation APY. And many, many thanks for your efforts over the years, often in the face of similarly strident comments.

Just decided to chime in here and add an official statement from the ‘PES guy’

I’m sorry that some confusion has arisen over the question whether Planet Elder Scrolls will shut down or not. It won’t. There’s two main issues right now:

• IGN has laid off support staff. That means Planet Elder Scrolls is not getting much technical support anymore and issues (such as the Hall of Fame selection system not working) are not always getting fixed.
• I started working on Planet Elder Scrolls (then Morrowind Summit) in 2001, when I was still in school. Over the years, as I moved to university and then to a fulltime job, I have had less and less time spend on the site.

Concretely, starting on May 1, the following will happen:

• I will no longer personally approve content. This means new content may, or may not be, approved. I’ll try to find people who are willing to take over, but I cannot guarantee that new content will timely appear on the site.
• Large files will no longer be added by me. Our large files upload procedure involved me manually adding them to entries. I will either try to find someone else to do this, or you can choose to upload your file to Fileplanet and edit your entry with a link to Fileplanet.

I’ll be on the lookout for someone to take over at least the approval of mods and adding large files. As the site will not be taken offline, extensive backup procedures won’t be necessary right now. However, as my involvement will end later this month, I won’t be able to support any undertakings after that date.

Thanks for the explanation APY. And many, many thanks for your efforts over the years, often in the face of similarly strident commenting.

[Fergus]

Edit: ninja'd by the man himself. Sounds like things will be fine once a budding recruit is found (and I've seen plenty in this thread already!). Good luck APY.

There's plenty of reasons Morrowind and Oblivion mods were linked on the Nexus sites. To begin with, they were the first games I hosted mods for, and it made more logical sense for me to keep them together as I wasn't running around supporting as many games as possible at the time. Similarly, PES and ElricM were always there so the Nexus became a back up mirror more than anything else. It made no sense for me to take the time to separate the two games as there were other, more supported sites for Morrowind that meant it wasn't important for me to do it. PES and ElricM did a great job, so there was no need for me to attempt to muddy the waters by making a competing site.

To be fair, a lot of the Morrowind community has always stuck its nose up at TESNexus, just like I'm sure a lot of the Skyrim community sticks its nose up at any site that isn't the Nexus or SW. People defend the sites they use, so I regularly see comments on these Morrowind boards that "the Nexus only has endorsements and forums" or "the Nexus has 90% nude mods" or similar, from people who've clearly only spent 5 minutes max on the sites else they'd know it to be utter cods-wallop. It comes part and parcel of communities in general. And I hate that sort of mindless crap.

I can most definitely separate the two games on to separate sites, I imagine it would take about a day of work. To be honest though, I see lots of non-sense spread about me or the Nexus on various sites about how "Dark0ne doesn't care about this community" and it just makes me shy away from attempts. Look at my join date here; the Morrowind community is where the Nexus started and the entire root of all the sites I have made since. I think Morrowind is a great game. I think Oblivion and Skyrim are great games too but I always seem to find myself stuck, in this Morrowind community, with people who either want to tell me PES is superior (hey, you're entitled to your opinion!) or that I'm a fool for enjoying Oblivion and then I sort of just leave the ghosts of 11 years past where they are. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

And many thanks to you too DarkOne. The Nexus is a great and very much appreciated resource, notwithstanding the occasionally "exotic" interface changes.

[PeterBitt]

phew that is a relief! i was realy worried some time

@APY - can you tell me what will happen to the people who cant login to PES?
i have the problem that i couldnt login with my password and password recovery didnt work.
maybe you can sort this out before you stop working at PES?

thank both APY and DARK for being awesome!

[Mr KWMonk]

I like both sites, can't say I favour one over the other, they're both good

So thanks to both of you for providing an awesome resource that I've used time and again over the past few years.


-kWM

[APY_PES]

phew that is a relief! i was realy worried some time @APY - can you tell me what will happen to the people who cant login to PES? i have the problem that i couldnt login with my password and password recovery didnt work. maybe you can sort this out before you stop working at PES? thank both APY and DARK for being awesome!

I don't have any pending e-mails about password resets - could you please e-mail me (apy ~ planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com)?

[tronvillain]

Well, that is indeed a relief. And, if Morrowind does get seperated into a seperate site on Nexus, I will definitely put all of my stuff on there, and give it more love overall. And, of course, I know that the stereotypes APY mentioned aren't true, since I browse TESNexus for Oblivion mods all the time (including the various nude mods *chuckle*).

Edited by tronvillain, 05 April 2012 - 06:04 AM.