ModDB feedback Thread

OK hello all. I noticed some things and changes to this website that I find change worthy and would like to voice these things. Here goes:

First of all the writing program that I use right here to write this is kinda busted and I have the space between lines because the separation is set to 2 or 1.5 or whatever. I don't know the english words for this since I learned Word in german. I am pretty sure you're aware of what I mean.

The INtense! feature is great but nobody ever uses it nor is aware of it. This needs to change. It should show up automatically when writing a comment or when you reply.

People keep being dumb that write comments about technical problems into the download page of mods and stuff sometimes often years after it was published. Such are not seen by the creators because they don't check daily but these comments harm the projects very much. I would appreciate it if we could get a notification when comments are made there or if such people are forced to use the @ feature or there being a notification displayed somewhere that tells them to contact the creator.

The way things are rated should change a bit since a single person rating something a 1 out of 10 has a much higher effect on the rating than 5 people voting it a 10 out of 10.

The categorizing of mods should be enforced. Many mods that are actually early access are counted as released and so forth. An early beta release does not count as released. Only a version 1.0 can count as released.

The "You may also like" section on mod pages is not just completely unnecessary but it pisses me off so much to see other projects n my mod page. It was a bad decision and should be removed asap. I do not want to see some trash, of which there is a lot on this website, displayed on my mod pages. Seriously there are so many abandoned or kinda deleted but not actually deleted mods here, it looks like a tumor on the page.

The descriptions should always be expanded.

The way how videos are thrown together with images was a bad decision and should be reverted. I do not even find the motivation to explain why because it was such an dumb move.

Finally, where is the new interface version of moddb? I heard some years ago that no changes will be made to the interface because a new interface is in the beta. That was like 2 years ago. Well scrap that I certainly don't want a completely new design for moddb but some tiny improvements here and there could really improve the experience.

Oh and the decision to no longer feature groups on the frontpage is... well I can kinda understand it there are so many stupid groups and so much shenanighans going on. But the existance of groups is marvelous nonetheless.

Oh also the image file size limit of 8mb should be increased to 20mb. I do not understand why that is even a thing since we can upload an unlimited amount of pictures.

Well thank you very much for your time and services.

Also the "You may also like" feature is discriminating my mod. At least thats how it looks like to me. No matter how often I reload the Twisted Insurrection mod page it never shows my mod or bad mods there but on my mod pages it constantly shows trash mods. The "point" of this feature should be to get people to check out other mods but it doesn't, it keeps people checking out the same old bad mods that are always in the top 10 anyway while other mods are even more buried by it.

Also bigger headers would be cool and that lower part having a 50% opacity black bar could go its unnecessary

Ya know MODDB Staff, I am very sad over the inactivity and effectively the death of hte community here. Well one hand it is a good thing, that way you can really jsut be a file hoster for mods. On the other hand, having communities that freely discuss and upload content and interact with each other can be a wonderful thing and inspire and motivate and so on.

Oh well, you may just disregard it all. Either way, I appreciate the service a lot. You've always been a cherish place on the internet.

Wow this place is more deserted than I had imagined.

Edited by: OrangeNero

People keep being dumb that write comments about technical problems into the download page of mods and stuff sometimes often years after it was published. Such are not seen by the creators because they don't check daily but these comments harm the projects very much. I would appreciate it if we could get a notification when comments are made there or if such people are forced to use the @ feature or there being a notification displayed somewhere that tells them to contact the creator.

I would support this suggestion. Some kind of low level ping like at the mod watch would be nice to have when other peoples are commenting on download pages or such.

The way things are rated should change a bit since a single person rating something a 1 out of 10 has a much higher effect on the rating than 5 people voting it a 10 out of 10.

When there are not many people rating, it doesn't matter how the rating system is organised or structured. All rating systems are only giving a proper feedback after a specific count of ratings has been handed in. It might be an idea to give the rating a less prominent position or extra text label, informing that the rating is not representative yet.

The categorizing of mods should be enforced. Many mods that are actually early access are counted as released and so forth. An early beta release does not count as released. Only a version 1.0 can count as released.

Another good suggestion. Some further splitting would perhaps be helpful.

The "You may also like" section on mod pages is not just completely unnecessary but it pisses me off so much to see other projects n my mod page. It was a bad decision and should be removed asap. I do not want to see some trash, of which there is a lot on this website, displayed on my mod pages. Seriously there are so many abandoned or kinda deleted but not actually deleted mods here, it looks like a tumor on the page.

First, the "You may also like" section is a feature of moddb. Since you are basically a guest on this place here and are allowed to create a mod page, you will have to endure something like this. If you don't like it, go and make your own homepage.
Secondly, the content. Not sure how it is at your place but at the mod pages I am walking around the list is only suggesting mods from the same game. Maybe there are only trash mods at your game but then this is nothing you should complain about at the team here. Would be interesting to know from the team here if the list is actually suggesting only mods from the same game or how the list is handled.

The way how videos are thrown together with images was a bad decision and should be reverted. I do not even find the motivation to explain why because it was such an dumb move.

I find it irritating that old videos have a more prominent place than new pictures. I would only suggest to sort them by date and not additionally by kind of file.

Oh and the decision to no longer feature groups on the frontpage is... well I can kinda understand it there are so many stupid groups and so much shenanighans going on. But the existance of groups is marvelous nonetheless.

I don't remember the featuring of groups. Groups are important in some way, yes, but the major point should be the mods.

Also the "You may also like" feature is discriminating my mod. At least thats how it looks like to me. No matter how often I reload the Twisted Insurrection mod page it never shows my mod or bad mods there but on my mod pages it constantly shows trash mods. The "point" of this feature should be to get people to check out other mods but it doesn't, it keeps people checking out the same old bad mods that are always in the top 10 anyway while other mods are even more buried by it.

Again, it would be nice to know some basics about how that feature list is working.

I would additionally add some kind of 'Report dead mod' button, so modding projects which have only been announced but never made any further step can get archived and sorted out of the mod list into another part like 'Tomb of mods'

thx for the reply mate, its appreciated.

I'll read it and respond to some things later on when I get the time

Just as a clarification. I highly respect mods, including unfinished ones or early beginnings. But then there is just stuff that is so... repulsive. I know this is a hard thing to judge because its a totally subjective thing and I can understand that someone from TI might find my mod to be trash or repulsive but seriously just look at those two examples:

Moddb.com

Moddb.com

My mod is put into a category with that trash and I find that insulting meanwhile I reloaded TI page like a hundred times and never ever get something remotely as garbage as that.

Here's mine Moddb.com

Its rated above 8 and as you can see for years moddb has burried it because nobody found it when I wasn't actively promoting it.

As for the groups. It was like 3 years ago or so that the staff took them away from the homepage because of shit going down in religious groups and star wars cannon shit groups also being led by christian idiots. All groups are dead now. Like completely. Nobody goes there anymore, nobody uploads anything there anymore, nobody comments there anymore...

The rule states that duplicates are forbidden and yet the staff tolerated duplicates and refused to properly moderate them. For them to be such a shitshow is to a certain degree blamed directly on them imo. Like there's what 5 anime groups and 3 starcraft ones and like 5 random C&C ones.

I remember news about metacritic or some other major community review site changing the way ratings are calculated exactly for the reason that a single person voting a 1 has a much higher impact than many voting it a 10 afterwards. Its not fair for a mod to be rated a 6 or 7 when its just one or two "users", often with a new profile that has done nothing in its entire existence apart from rating that one mod a 1.

For the mods you linked as comparision, I can understand why you are a bit angry. Maybe the should include some kind of filter for the feature list, so that only mods are shown there which (1) have more than 10 ratings and (2) have a rating score above 5 or 6.

For the groups, I only try to organise the one for the Tolkien Modding Community a bit, also to push a bit the different LotR mods for the different games which are sometimes less known. There could be more comments, true, but I get at least some at the articles I am writting. I am not around at the other groups (except the Fellowship one) which is mostly due to me having not enough time to do that additionally. All my modding work I do already is already taking enough time ^^
The duplicate groups could then be merged, true.

Hint: For having less space between paragraphs, press shift-key (Umschalttaste/Großschreibtaste) and enter at the same time. It's working for most of the formating styles except quotes. You can also use the horizontal line as a separator if you change the topic to mark it.

[Bcw wrote: Btm_Earendil]

which is mostly due to me having not enough time to do that additionally. All my modding work I do already is already taking enough time ^^
The duplicate groups could then be merged, true.

Have you tried different design philosophy approaches yet? See you're not a journalist and you don't get paid to write these. You sacrifice your free time to provide valuable drivel to people that frankly don't even read what you write.

A commendable effort nonetheless.

I can not only understand your freakish reaction in the article, I even expected it. On top of that I may use it, "escalate" it. Dumb shit is entertaining and that motivates.

I am not saying you should do things like I did there. Maybe what I say is, consider the whole of it.

In the end you have to be enjoying what you do. I love to exercise my freedom. Had I felt like taking a different approach I would have done so. And I may even do so later on.

Consider this, I am a long time member of that Fellowship group. Maybe now you're motivated to write a new article so that the one I made isn't shown on top there anymore.

You could consider toning your language down a bit. Not because it hurt me no lol quite the opposite, a random dude over the internet isn't capable of that. But uhhh... think of the children! Besides the article went through ModDB athorization so there's that.

If there's one thing that I really can't stand then thats all those cockteasing mods that didn't get anywhere within 10 years. Mostly a time issue. Biting off more than they can chew.

Moddb.com

Edited by: OrangeNero

Have you tried different design philosophy approaches yet? See you're not a journalist and you don't get paid to write these. You sacrifice your free time to provide valuable drivel to people that frankly don't even read what you write.

I have some few hundred readers per article, they are only not commenting ^^
The time issue was more adressed to the point of groups being less important than they might once have been.

And your article is already not present there anymore. I choose my words and tone wisely, it is only hard to find other words for the last article you have pushed there. I also wonder about how an admin could have let that one pass...

Pft screw that Fellowship group then. Sometime soon some LOTR videos will find their way into the channel and then a new article will be made.

yeah 3 years and nothing Moddb.com

Edited by: OrangeNero

OrangeNero wrote:

First of all the writing program that I use right here to write this is kinda busted and I have the space between lines because the separation is set to 2 or 1.5 or whatever. I don't know the english words for this since I learned Word in german. I am pretty sure you're aware of what I mean.

What browser are you using? I am aware of some glitches but paragraphing works for me

OrangeNero wrote:

The INtense! feature is great but nobody ever uses it nor is aware of it. This needs to change. It should show up automatically when writing a comment or when you reply.

It shows up when you type "@" - does it not show for you?

OrangeNero wrote:

People keep being dumb that write comments about technical problems into the download page of mods and stuff sometimes often years after it was published. Such are not seen by the creators because they don't check daily but these comments harm the projects very much. I would appreciate it if we could get a notification when comments are made there or if such people are forced to use the @ feature or there being a notification displayed somewhere that tells them to contact the creator.

Comment notifications is massively needed, has been for a long time. We definitely need to help bring this feature forward.

OrangeNero wrote:

The way things are rated should change a bit since a single person rating something a 1 out of 10 has a much higher effect on the rating than 5 people voting it a 10 out of 10.

We use a rating algorithm and attempt to filter out the extremes but as with any review system some users are bad actors. The alternative is thumbs up / down but then i'm not sure that'll be an improvement.

OrangeNero wrote:

The categorizing of mods should be enforced. Many mods that are actually early access are counted as released and so forth. An early beta release does not count as released. Only a version 1.0 can count as released.

Really hard to do. We try to let creators define this and to moderate and manage for tons of mods is close to impossible

OrangeNero wrote:

The "You may also like" section on mod pages is not just completely unnecessary but it pisses me off so much to see other projects n my mod page. It was a bad decision and should be removed asap. I do not want to see some trash, of which there is a lot on this website, displayed on my mod pages. Seriously there are so many abandoned or kinda deleted but not actually deleted mods here, it looks like a tumor on the page.

It finds mods based on the genre, theme, players options you have selected primarily. So it's a bit dumb in that if another mod matches that for yours, it will be shown.

OrangeNero wrote:

The descriptions should always be expanded.

We found many people didn't find the downloads when we had this. We need to put a download button up top.

OrangeNero wrote:

The way how videos are thrown together with images was a bad decision and should be reverted. I do not even find the motivation to explain why because it was such an dumb move.

The galleries are separated, it's just on the mods default few images?

OrangeNero wrote:

Finally, where is the new interface version of moddb? I heard some years ago that no changes will be made to the interface because a new interface is in the beta. That was like 2 years ago. Well scrap that I certainly don't want a completely new design for moddb but some tiny improvements here and there could really improve the experience.

The design was completed, but we couldn't figure out how to keep it compatible with the many custom profiles on the site... if we change the design much they all break. It's a difficult situation.

OrangeNero wrote:

Oh and the decision to no longer feature groups on the frontpage is... well I can kinda understand it there are so many stupid groups and so much shenanighans going on. But the existance of groups is marvelous nonetheless.

It's easy to add back - did activity drop after it was removed?

My response might be a little too late, but I appreciate your long service and feedback on the site. You are a cherished member.

Its with every browser.

Yes the mentioning feature does show up when you write an (@) but it nobody seems to be aware of it so maybe replies should automatically start with an (@).

Maybe just have a banner or notification there that throws the message into the face of people not to post technical problems there. Like some text much like (Search...) in the searchbar that goes away when you type into it.

What could help with ratings is if only people with level 3 or more could rate. Same should go for other abilities. That could also slightly boost activity. It should be a really low threshold. The calculation... I dunno how they did it or who it was anymore... be creative, ask a mathematician. Thumbs are a bad idea I think. Or maybe not but make it 3 thumbs, many people on Steam wish for a 3 thumbs feature. So when you give a middle thumb the rating would go towards the middle.

Ask the community to find these mods/files that are falsely categorized. Offer them a cookie then have one of your staff check the results.

Just kick the "You may also like" feature out. Nobody is too stupid to find other mods or similar mods. Don't cater to the most disabled idiot that comes to your page.

People who couldn't find the download section because of expanded descriptions seem to be disabled idiots. Like seriously. I can understand that someone can't find the tracking/following button but the download? That whole section on the right could become a window of sorts that scrolls with you and be a bit better visually. Like a widget or something.

Yes the galleries are separated but videos are no longer shown like they were back in the day with 1 big video window they're now among the images. I preferred the old design immensely. If anything, it made people watch videos even less and mod and group pages look worse now.

Screw those custom profiles over. Every time a game updates all mods have to update as well, the same must go for website mods. Seriously, just screw them. The new interface is gonna stay for 10 years or so, tell them to just make a new one.

If you feel like adding groups back to the homepage then do it. Yes they were absolutely hurt by this. But more importantly moderate them a bit. Merge some of them. Git rid of some. Most importantly tell them not to make racial or religious groups or groups about celebrities. Declare that it must be gaming related in some way. if people want to talk about religion or other topics like that then they should go to Facebook or whatever.

Yes the mentioning feature does show up when you write an (@) but it nobody seems to be aware of it so maybe replies should automatically start with an (@).

I support that. I was aware that they are functioning in articles but not in responses.

What could help with ratings is if only people with level 3 or more could rate.

I would think more that it would provoke just more random comments or trolling around instead of showing more useful activity and therefore doubt that this would work out. It could also swing to the other side and even less people are active. And I find a three-thumb-systematic even less informative. Maybe include that people need to make to write some minimum text blog if the extrem votes are given?

Just kick the "You may also like" feature out. Nobody is too stupid to find other mods or similar mods. Don't cater to the most disabled idiot that comes to your page.

I like that feature, it always shows nice other mods at my game. I am aware of the results at your end though.

People who couldn't find the download section because of expanded descriptions seem to be disabled idiots. Like seriously. I can understand that someone can't find the tracking/following button but the download? That whole section on the right could become a window of sorts that scrolls with you and be a bit better visually. Like a widget or something.

Maybe showing the description but only partly? Some mods have an intensive intro page and it would be more the annoying scrolling part at their pages to get to the download button.

Yes the galleries are separated but videos are no longer shown like they were back in the day with 1 big video window they're now among the images. I preferred the old design immensely. If anything, it made people watch videos even less and mod and group pages look worse now.

True that. And as mentioned above, older videos have a more prominent place than new pictures. I would only suggest to sort them by date and not additionally by kind of file.

Screw those custom profiles over. Every time a game updates all mods have to update as well, the same must go for website mods. Seriously, just screw them. The new interface is gonna stay for 10 years or so, tell them to just make a new one.

Again agreeing with OrangeNero. Some others might wait already with customizing their pages to see what the new interface brings.

If you feel like adding groups back to the homepage then do it. Yes they were absolutely hurt by this. But more importantly moderate them a bit. Merge some of them. Git rid of some. Most importantly tell them not to make racial or religious groups or groups about celebrities. Declare that it must be gaming related in some way. if people want to talk about religion or other topics like that then they should go to Facebook or whatever.

And again supporting the point of OrangeNero.

The problem with number ratings especially from 1 - 10 is that no one understands what these numbers mean and for some a 5 is already garbage when in reality its just mediocre.

I rated Misery a 5 because no matter how hard I tried or wanted to I did not enjoy playing the mod at all. Considering that I have like 5000 hours of STALKER experience I found that to warrant a 5 but I can definitely tell they did not like that at all.

But it goes to show that people are scarred of rating mods. I never gave a damn about what other people think but when you rate Misery below 7 or so then be prepared for some backlash. They might even come to your mod and rate it lowly. Luckily I only saw that happen very very sparsely. Almost never in fact I think. The developer of Misery even told me that he can not say in public that he enjoys CoD Black Ops 2 out of fear. But was glad to talk with me about it in PM.

Then we have Stalker Anomaly which I rated a 1 because its badly designed and it has critical bugs all the time and it crashed about every 35 minutes by just playing it. I didn't provoke these bugs or crashes. You wanna loot a body or shoot someone in the head BOOM there you go crash. And thats not even going into the horrible gamedesign. Especially that they promised realism and what I got was just miserable. But this is just an example to show how ratings can differ. Its not about Misery.

Some people will take anything below 8 like a heinous crime. Its quite marvelous what reactions I got lol. Just pointing issues out already gave me -11 on the comment xD Oh and the trash counts as released despite being early access. Same goes for Twisted Insurrection by the way.

Edited by: OrangeNero

I was not aware that the rating is taking that seriously at your games. At M&B it's mostly very civilized, every rating gets accepted without any bigger discussion and most modders are looking into the comments and giving responses when they have the time to. Mostly we have been very effective in sorting out the trolls with voting them down but critic stays and gets feedback if the modders are more present at moddb.

I assume you tried the preview for the new design DB Testing? What was your thoughts for it?

I remember taking a look yeah. I took a look at it again and... Do you see any of the changes as improving the design? Techspot.com Techspot did a similar thing and while the change was alright, the site doesn't look worse, it didn't improve the look.

Well the new ModDB... it looks a bit Windows 8 like? Typical BS approach, ultra minimalistic apple style faggotery with some Metro like windows and lots of empty "clean" space.

I dunno how much you payed them to come up with that but they ripped you off. Profiles have no banner by the way.

I really don't see any improvement as in it actually improving something. It just looks different and plain. The category bar is a bit bigger and more visible so thats neat. There's way too much white for my taste. All these black and grey elements we have here make it quite stylish. It also helps seeing where some elements start and where they end.

I am sorry to say but the new design does not convince me at all. Did you try to go for a minimalistic approach so that custom profiles have it easier? I really don't understand how one could prefer that new version. It doesn't even look like an evolution more like a devolution or modern retrogression.

Its like comparing this:

With your dentists waiting chamber. Know what I mean? Instead of clean its cleansed.

Maybe apply it for a week and see how it goes? What reactions you get.

Those 3 seem to like it. But seriously only 3 comments... Moddb.com

Edited by: OrangeNero

I agree with your feedback, it's a very generic design and we want a gaming feel that is edgy and practical. Back to the drawing board.

Take it easy, just keep the design and improve it here and there. That way you may not even break all those custom profiles.

One thing that most people would probably welcome is a better way to browse through the images and videos. Maybe make galleries or tagging or a sorting function.

Tiny improvements here and there can often be much more effective than a complete revamp.

This window here is the most suboptimal in my opinion:

It happens very often that people to not know how to watch a mod or profile. Also the contact option should be more obvious. Maybe make that whole segment scroll with the page and redesign it completely.

Maybe make it bigger and have an icon next to messaging messaging and another icon next to watching and the creator avatar next to the name and make the whole window a bit bigger and have the boxart of the game instead of just the name maybe.

maybe have a bar at the bottom that you can click away with those 3 options. Like those annoying bars that notify you about accepting cookies. But since this bar is very useful it would not be annoying. It would serve a purpose.

On hentai sites you can find other similar works with taggs. I think you culd do a bit better with the tagging and focus more on those than on throwing random mods at people.

Kinda like here Danbooru.donmai.us

People should use the taggs. The whole point behind taggs is that you find what you look for.

There's also this really cool game that the e-hentai website came up with Youtube.com By playing you earn credits which you can use to download galleries (99% pornographic). These credits can also be used as bounties for when people do a task like translating a work or finding a work. There's a reward system behind it. They got PVE and PVP and gear and leveling up. But none of it is essential. You can in theory ignore it all and still fully use the site. Apart from downloading but they give you the option to torrent the stuff. I've seen that mods started to offer torrents as well when the filesize is relatively big.

Ehwiki.org

Edited by: OrangeNero

There is a hidden browse feature in galleries (add /archive to the end of the URL) i.e. Moddb.com

Also yes the new design has the follow button up top, that does need to be incorporated

I found this Moddb.com

We need a designer

In terms of next steps, right now the v5 alpha is a little dull. It lacks the heart that v4 has, and the excitement that a gaming site should have. We need a kickass designer to help us change the flat colors and simple boxes into something more exciting, befitting ModDB and IndieDB. So if you consider your webdesign skills as elite, and know CSS well and can tweak and change what we've made with ease, we want to employ you! Please reach out via hello@dbolical.com

I used other words thou but we kinda agree.

The few designer contacts I have are either busy or silent sadly. I'll look around thou.

Yeah finding a designer that can balance the old and new is hard, and the last time we had a designer for moddb was 2008

You are probably thinking about DB Testing

We worked super hard to design this - then didn't like the feel it had, so the update is parked for now.

Yeah especially STALKER mods keep splitting their mod up into parts and offering torrents. I really don't understand why they do that. They claim when the files are too big it can cause corruption of data but I've downloaded much bigger files plenty of times in the past here on moddb with no issue.

It's weird they do, because we support 8gb sized files

huh a post from somebody disappeared because that post of mine was a reply...

Spammer who's profile was deleted

good riddance then I guess