Steam Workshop will not be too much different than current mod managers like NMM, its just integrated into Steam and installing mods and making sure they are compatible will still be the job of the mod maker and the players, not Steam or Bethesda. We will still use BOSS for load order and Bash for patches etc etc. I don't see why people would think it any different, Steam/Bethesda are not trying to reinvent the wheel they are just making easy built in instant access so people can go " oh that looks cool" click, and its done.

A one-click subscribe button implies that the process is as easy as that, subscribe and it works, but that's not true. It makes it easier to get the files, but you'll still have to worry about compatibility.

EDIT And with compatibility I mean load-order and merging forms (leveled lists and such).

I'll be ignoring all that and installing mods manulally, like i've always done.

Yes that's what i said, thank you. Steam Workshops job is just to find/download and install mods, getting said mods that step on each others toe's to work with each other will still be our job.

I suppose that in theory (and this is just wild speculation ) it'd be possible for Steam Workshop to include an automated conflict checker. Any .esp uploaded could be scanned against the other uploaded .esp's for conflicting records, then the mods flagged accordingly. Then (as with the Team Fortress items) mods that conflict with the one's you've subscribed to will be hidden by default.

That wouldn't help with resolving conflicts, but it would at least let newbies avoid them. Of course, if there end up being vast numbers of mods, the scanning may take a while, as it'd be a low-priority for the servers, but I doubt that it'd take more than a couple of hours.

I wonder if they'll use a system like this?

I was wondering something like that as well:
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1342563-will-steam-works-be-one-click-install-and-how-will-they-insure-compatibility/page__view__findpost__p__20238573

And if that's the case with Team Fortress 2 it could be that they implemented it for Skyrim as well.
It's the only way to assure 'compatibility'.

We'll found out tomorrow, I guess

The Data Files section of the Skyrim launcher already has a box for 'subscribed?' next to each mod, indicating that you have to specifically subscribe to a mod for it to automatically update. So if you're afraid of mods automatically updating and screwing something up you can simply not subscribe.

Would be nice if there was a separate 'subscribe' and 'subscribe & automatically download' option though, so we can still keep track of updates easily without having them installed automatically.

Compatibility is not that simple. Mods that modify the same forms can still be used together, some are intended overrides, others are harmless and don't impact gameplay, and then there are forms that can be merged easily.

Oh, I agree . But a brain-dead automated conflict checking system is the only sort that'd be practical, and it would at least let downloaders guarantee that they weren't going to have to think about any of these issues. Far from an ideal solution, but perhaps better than relying on everyone to sort out their conflict issues for themselves. Even mod authors might be glad of having a crude filter for the... less technically minded mod user .

Can't speak for BOSS, but nobody's contacted any of the Wrye Bash devs that I know of. How about NMM?
Doubt it, but I do want to look at how SW..works, to see if there's a reliable way to detect a newly installed SW mod, and make a BAIN package out of it.

Highlighted for the cause - data in the saved game is stored based on FormIDs which in turn are indexed by mod name, so changing the name tells the game engine that it's a completely different mod.

I agree, that this is the only way to guarantee this, but I am in no way in favor of keeping all this away from the user.

I also believe the result of this will be requests to make mod x compatible with mod y. Where compatible means that the system allows them to be used together.

Don't change the ESP name. I believe there's a description field that you can put the version in so people can track it. It's displayed in Bash.

If it are indeed just .esp's and .bsa's, one could just look at the 'date modified' for the files in the data folder? Maybe pick out the last modified or 'modified since last Wrye Smash run' or something? (But maybe I'm thinking too simple).

I have heard nothing regarding BOSS, and I haven't heard of any contact by Beth with the other team members.

Looks like they're leaving compatibility up to us. (Conjecture, as I'm not part of the beta)

are you planning this for nmm?

Well that's rather easy though. It's VERY likely you won't be able to change the ESP name without creating a brand new Steam Workshop "project" and that you cannot even upload a mod to the Workshop if the name is already taken.

So if you change the ESP name when you update, it'll appear as a brand new different mod that won't update the old mod in the first place, so it won't autoupdate on the users computers.

I think you're missing my point. I have no problem with everything being in one place, I'm one of those people that'd rather have all my games organized and backed up through Steam than have to mess with a bunch of fragile CDs. But I also have a few dozen texture mods installed, many of which I plan to keep even if there is a high res texture pack (like Hectrol's spider webs.) I don't want all that to be automatically overwritten as soon as I hit the "subscribe" button, and overwritten again the next time the texture pack gets updated. I want to be able to download it separately and install via a more sophisticated mod manager.

Well, who said here that the SW mods would come in a esp and a bsa file? As a result, there's no files that would be overwritten by updating a mod that way, no other files than the two from the mod itself that is.

Then, what you want with other texture packs is just a matter of load order I suppose. Or, as we are doing currently : loose files always trump files found in a bsa pack isn't it? So there's good reason the believe your texture packs will never be overwritten by the official pack.

Well, as long as you don't use the launcher, nothing will be downloaded or updated, I assume.

You could also make a copy of the data-folder, so you have a clean SW-only datafolder (named 'dataclean') and a play-folder (named 'data').
And copy the SW-mods from the clean folder to the play folder.
When you want to update or add SW-mods through the launcher, rename those folders (data->playdata and dataclean->data).

That way you still have complete control over your mods

Don't do that

Changing the ESP name tells the game you're installing an entirely different mod. Most modders actually don't change the ESP name btw. We'd have noticed this immediately in BOSS if it had been a regular occurrence.

NDA prevents us from saying one way or the other, and would have prevented any contact on the issue with members outside the beta.

True. So envious... Not that being in the beta would be a good thing in my case, I wouldn't be of any help even if I had Skyrim. Just need to work out how to travel at negative speeds.

Anyone want to venture a detailed anolysis of steamworks and how effective it is at:

1. Managing over and underwrites of loose files.
2. installing and uninstalling.
3. Managing load order.
4. installing badly packaged mods (including the readme) ... this I'd be interested to see a test on - purposely bad packaging to see if it has detection or auto warnings.

So far Steamworks looks to be very uninformative and I can't imagine a bigger waste of time than reading the comments for these mods - even less informative than reading the comments for videos with the word FAIL anywhere in the title on youtube.

Also is it only browse or can one search as well?

1) No consideration whatsoever, AFAICT
2) About the same as OBMM ie, blind removing of files, regardless of their source
3) Nonexistant
4) Not a problem so far - mods have to be uploaded via the CS, so their packaging is standardized. Once good point in favor of SW.

1. Non-issue as publishing to the Workshop packs ALL submissions into a BSA file.
2. Installing is super easy. Subscribe, start Skyrim Launcher, mod auto-downloads. Unsubscribing is a bit less straightforward because that just stops it from updating. Supposedly if you untick a mod you have unsubscribed from, the launcher will prompt you or something. That wasn't something we had come up during the beta.
3. No ability. Load order must still be managed elsewhere.
4. The archiving process when publishing from the CK has thus far refused to allow unsupported file types to be dragged in, which is probably good, because see #1.

What are unsupported file types? Or better yet what are supported?

As a test I subscribed to a simple mod with only an esp - hid it with Bash - then unsubscribed.

Not even a hint of a problem when doing so - Steamworks seems then work like a generic uninstaller for a program and will not give notice if it tries to remove files that are not even there.