Site history

TESNexus is the product of many years of work, starting in August of 2001. The site hasn't always been known as TESNexus and has taken many different shapes and forked off in many directions in its past.

Site timeline (click to enlarge)

Chronology

• Morrowind Chronicles (Aug 2001 - Jul 2003)
• The Middle-Earth Mod for Morrowind (Nov 2001 - Sep 2004)
• Morrowind Mod Library (Oct 2002 - Jul 2003)
• Morrowind Mod Hosting (Jan 2003 - Jul 2003)
• Morrowind Source (Jul 2003 - Jan 2005)
• The Elder Scrolls Source (Jan 2005 - Sep 2007)
• The Mod Site Creator (Sep 2005 - Feb 2007)
• The Elder Scrolls Nexus (Sep 2007 - Present)
• Fallout 3 Nexus (Oct 2008 - Present)

Morrowind Chronicles

Launch
Launched in August of 2001, MorrowindChronicles.com was a general purpose information  fan site created for the upcoming release of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (due March 2002).

The site was founded by Robin Scott (Dark0ne) who was 15 years old at the time, and Simon Blackler (Anubis) who was 16 years old. The majority of the web site's design and code was created by Robin, while Simon provided many of the ideas and wrote most of the content for the site.

Morrowind Chronicles was the platform from which all future Source and Nexus sites derived.

Focus
Morrowind Chronicles focused on pre-release information for Morrowind based on previews of the game across various media outlets, and through interviews with Bethesda. Areas that hadn't been covered in the media were filled in with largely speculative information based on information from the Daggerfall Chronicles book.

Other redeeming features included some very unique custom desktop wallpapers for Morrowind that have sadly been lost over the years, created by the users Mighty_Mule and Mochizuki. Both users are no longer present in the Elder Scrolls community.

The most prominent but perhaps least used aspect of Morrowind Chronicles was the “Seer Council”, a group of 10 individual members in the community who were considered to be masters of their particular field (combat, magic, stealth, thievery, etc.). Users could ask the Seers questions privately or on the forums and expect an educated response.

Community
The following for Morrowind Chronicles was relatively small, but considered to be “hardcore”. A community revolved around the Morrowind Chronicles forums that made use of the then very popular free forum software “YaBB” (Yet Another Bulletin Board), written in CGI. The forums were popular among Elder Scrolls fans looking for a more quiet haven, away from the official forums.

Sadly Morrowind Chronicles suffered from an extended period of down-time lasting a few weeks that was brought on by the sites growing popularity, especially after Morrowind's release. All the forum posts and members were lost in the down time and the community had to start from scratch around April of 2002. By August 2002, the forums had over 1,700 members and 11,000 posts.

Popularity
At its peak, around the time of Morrowind's launch in March 2002, Morrowind Chronicles received over 6,000 unique visitors each day.

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The Middle-Earth Mod for Morrowind

Launch
Founded in late 2001 by Robin (Dark0ne), the Middle-Earth Mod (MEMod) was initially private to 12 members. It was announced with its own site late on in 2002.

Focus
The MEMod was initially started as a hobby project of Robin’s via the Morrowind Chronicles and official forums before Morrowind was even released. The idea was developed when Robin received an early copy of the Construction Set for Morrowind from Bethesda that enabled him to get a good look at the modding potential of the game.

Seeing great potential in the tools Bethesda were planning to provide, Robin set about generating public interest in a total conversion mod relating to The Lord of the Rings. The result was the development of a core team of 12 members who coordinated privately via the Morrowind Chronicles forums.

In late 2002 the mod went fully public with its own site, making use of its own separate forum sections on the Morrowind Chronicles forums. The team expanded and over the three years the mod was in production it made use of over 60 volunteers.

The mod started slowly with much of the work being put off to create some amusing “meme’s” on the Morrowind Chronicles forum. In the latter year of the mod’s life the mod started to take more shape as more work was achieved under the leadership of Suzerain.

Community
The MEMod made extensive use of the Morrowind Chronicles, and later the Morrowind Source forums with a wide array of private forums for team members to coordinate, along with a few public forums for general discussions and idea brainstorming among all the members of the site.

The relationship between Morrowind Chronicles and the MEMod was beneficial to both sites; with many members of the official forums joining up on the Morrowind Chronicles forums to discuss the mod further and Morrowind Chronicles providing the initial platform for interest in the mod.

The MEMod forums contained over 10,000 posts on Morrowind Source, with a further few thousand on the old Morrowind Chronicles forums.

Popularity
Over the years the mod generated both community and media interest, with several interviews published in mainstream video game magazines, such as the UK’s “PC Gamer” and Germany’s “GameStar” featuring Robin, the infamous Daerk, and the last leader of the MEMod, Suzerain.

The MEMod was probably considered one of the most eagerly awaited mods for Morrowind, along with The Tamriel Rebuilt project.

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The sheer daunting task of creating a total conversion modification for Morrowind meant that the future of the mod was threatened on several occasions. Not least were the technical issues in creating a total conversion for Morrowind, especially in the size discussed for MEMod. Many of the technical issues were overcome, sometimes with the help of Bethesda themselves, which lead to many breakthroughs in the modding community. Perhaps the largest breakthrough was the discovery of creating the .esm format (that enabled total conversion groups to work from a clean slate) that would later serve many different mod groups.

The plug was finally pulled out on the mod in September of 2004 when it was discovered by current leader Suzerain that the group did not have the rights or permission to publish the free modification, despite words to the contrary from former mod leader Daerk, who left the mod in the dark a year earlier under mysterious circumstances that were never really discovered or revealed.

The closing statement of Suzerain, published on the MWSource forums (and, subsequently, across the internet) reads:

“Following contact and negotiations, first in letters with the solicitors to the holdings of Tolkien Estate, and today, in international telephone calls to the holders of the electronic media rights to the works of Tolkien, a decision on the Middle-Earth Mod has been made.

As a result of the contacts and discussions, it has been concluded that, barring a near miraculous turnaround in legal stance, MeMod does not have the right to the use of the copyright content of Middle-Earth for any Electronic Media production, profit-making or non-profit. Nor, it would appear, has it held any such rights over the last two and a half years, despite our belief in such an agreement. This comes as just as much of a shock to the current Dev and Team members as it does to you.

This situation therefore means that Memod is no longer a viable project, irrespective of its nature as a non-profit tribute. In light of this breach of copyright law with the holders of the rights, we would be unable to release the MeMod without threat of legal repercussion on all members, and it is therefore our only practical option to call a halt to the project at this stage…

…Thankyou. Each and every one of you, for the effort you gave, that got this project so far, to be halted. We’ve overcome letdowns, design changes, leadership issues, technical problems we thought would be impossible to overcome, and a hundred other problems. Sadly, this is the one problem we cannot get through.”

Morrowind Mod Library

Launch
Launched in October of 2002, Morrowind Mod Library was a spin-off of Morrowind Chronicles with a focus on mods, rather than information, for the recently released Morrowind Chronicles.

The site was founded by Robin Scott (Dark0ne) who was 16 years old at the time.

Focus
With Morrowind Chronicles designed to provide information and news for Morrowind Robin decided to create a totally new site for Morrowind modding. Morrowind Mod Library focused on providing direct download links to user made plug-ins for Morrowind as well as tutorials for those wishing to get in to modding.

Of most interest were the tutorials for creating plug-ins that were created by Scott Fisher and Morgoth.

Community
Morrowind Mod Library shared the same forums as Morrowind Chronicles and helped to stimulate discussion based around modding Morrowind.

Popularity
Morrowind Mod Library suffered from being too late to the field. With the site launched in October and Morrowind released in March sites such as Morrowind Summit (that would later become Planet Elder Scrolls) and Morrowind Files (no longer active) became the popular locations for users looking for new mods for Morrowind.

As a result the site wasn't used much. At its peak the site received 4,000 unique visitors each day.

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Morrowind Mod Library was merged with parent site Morrowind Chronicles and sister site Morrowind Mod Hosting to form Morrowind Source in July of 2003.

Morrowind Mod Hosting

Launch
Launched in January of 2003, Morrowind Mod Hosting was a specialist site for mod authors.

The site was founded and designed by Robin Scott (Dark0ne) who was 16 years old at the time, and coded by a friend, Brooke Bryan, who was 17. The site made use of ASP and MySQL.

Focus
In late 2002 - early 2003 it became clear that TheLys, a prominent figure in the Morrowind modding scene had less and less time to focus on his specialist site, TheLys Hosting. TheLys offered mod authors the chance to have their own pages, or several pages dedicated to their mods as well as offering the authors a place to host their files free of charge.

Robin got to work on a site that might offer a respite for TheLys by having a custom coded solution created that automated more of the operations that TheLys had to manually go through on his own site. Helped by a coding friend at school, Morrowind Mod Hosting provided mod authors with the chance to have their own dedicated pages set aside for their mods, complete with hosting, along with a number of different counters and statistics that showed how popular their mods were.

As the site grew older the processes became more automated, until it became fully automated in late April 2003 that meant users could update their own pages automatically through a username/password system without the need for intervention by admins of the site.

Community
Morrowind Mod Hosting did not have a community as such. There were no forums or points of general contact. The site hosted over 40 modification pages for authors of the community.

Popularity
While not particularly popular among general downloaders due to its small amount of hosted content in contrast to the amount of files available on sites such as Morrowind Summit and Morrowind Files, the site had a good reputation and following among the mod authors of the community. It was the first site of its kind to offer fully autonomous mod pages to authors.

Morrowind Mod Hosting peaked at 2,000 daily unique visitors.

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Morrowind Mod Hosting was merged with parent site Morrowind Chronicles and sister site Morrowind Mod Library to form Morrowind Source in July of 2003.

Morrowind Source

Launch
Launched in July 2003, Morrowind Source was a consolidation of all the services provided by Morrowind Chronicles, Morrowind Mod Library and Morrowind Mod Hosting. The launch came a couple of weeks after the demise of Morrowind Files, which was the primary resource for Morrowind modifications at the time.

It was founded by Robin (Dark0ne), who was 17 at the time.

Focus
A few months prior to the move over to Morrowind Source, in April of 2003, Robin, with the help of Simon (Anubis, co-founder of Morrowind Chronicles), had begun looking into the feasibility of providing a free hosting service to gaming fan sites in exchange for advertising real-estate on the sites being hosted. The service, called Gaming Source, was founded on the principle of offering service rather than making massive profits; mainly because there weren’t massive profits to be made and due to the numerous hosting problems Robin had faced with an ever expanding Morrowind Chronicles.

The focus of Gaming Source was on providing free hosting to as many sites as possible while also developing a core number of in-house sites, called “Source Sites”, that would be run by Robin or people close to Robin. The decision was made at this point to consolidate the three individual sites; Morrowind Chronicles, Morrowind Mod Library and Morrowind Mod Hosting in to one site.

After the death of Morrowind Files, the primary location for mods for Morrowind, a vacuum occurred that was quickly filled by Morrowind Summit (now Planet Elder Scrolls) and, later on, Elric Melnibone.

Morrowind Files was a site that made use of phpNuke, a content management portal with a relatively functional interface for users to upload and download files. Robin had already dabbled in the phpNuke code and decided to provide a replica site for Morrowind Files based on the same theme used by Morrowind Files before its fall. Old members of the community will remember the blue and grey design with clouds in the title image.

This solution was temporary while Robin could develop his own content management system, known as the Source Engine (not to be confused with the gaming engine created by Valve of the same name!), that would run all the Source Sites.

In October of 2003 the site had a complete overhaul and dropped its use of phpNuke adopting its own design created by Robin and making use of a variety of open source database systems and forum plugins. As a result Morrowind Source became a resource site for Morrowind information, files and modding tutorials.

Community
The Morrowind Source community was started from scratch rather than ported over from Morrowind Chronicles. This choice was made due to the design decision by Robin to change forum software from the CGI and flat-file based “YaBB” to the PHP and MySQL based “Invision Power Board”.
 
For the first few months the Morrowind Chronicles forums were left running parallel with the Morrowind Source forums, partly because the Middle-Earth Mod had a large amount of information on the forums that had to be ported over to the new Morrowind Source forums. The announcement was finally made that the Morrowind Chronicles would be shut down and that all members should move over to the Morrowind Source forums where their post counts would be reimbursed.

Community reaction to Morrowind Source was good, largely due to the use of phpNuke and the Morrowind Files theme that provided a similar interface for modders and downloaders alike.

Popularity
With registration necessary in order to download files the community expanded much faster than the original Morrowind Chronicles forums and by the end of 2003, 6 months after launch, the site had gained a following of some 30,000 members, far surpassing that of Morrowind Chronicles. Registration was linked with the forum database so members of the site were members of the forum, and vice-versa, sparking far more active forums.

Before the switch to TESSource, Morrowind Source had over 46,000 members.

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Morrowind Source was replaced by The Elder Scrolls Source in January of 2005.

The Elder Scrolls Source

Launch
Launched in January 2005, The Elder Scrolls Source (TESSource) was an expansion of Morrowind Source after the announcement of Oblivion three months previously.

It was founded by Robin (Dark0ne), who was 18 at the time.

Focus
The focus of Morrowind Source was expanded to encompass both Oblivion and Morrowind content, hence the name switch. The site adopted the current Morrowind Source template before changing over to a completely new custom-made solution based off a heavily modified version of the original Morrowind Mod Library template.

Prior to Oblivion’s launch in March of 2006 the site focused on pre-launch information for Oblivion as well as hosting Morrowind Source’s original services, including the modification database. TESSource had several high profile pre-release features including an up-to-date Developer Comments section that contained relevant information released by developers through press interviews and on the various forums across the internet. The site also contained a large unofficial FAQ for the game. The icing was put on the pre-launch information for the site with Robin’s visit to Take Two’s offices in Windsor, UK where he managed to play Oblivion for 4 hours a month before the game’s official release. Robin wrote up a comprehensive 7,000 word review of the game and published it on the site, sparking wide-spread interest in the review, and consequently, the site.

A day before the release of Oblivion Robin launched an all new custom-made file database for the site. Moving away from openly available software and deciding to completely code his own solution to his own specifications meant the system was much more specialized and well suited to the Elder Scrolls modding scene. Robin openly admitted to designing the new system around the databases used at Planet Elder Scrolls and ElricM, adding his own refinements and ideas to create a unique offering.

As the Oblivion modding scene exploded Robin continued to develop the file database system with new features and the site’s focus began to slowly shift from being a general information site for Morrowind and Oblivion into a more specialized location for modifications and community discussion.

In April 2007 the Image Share section of the site was released that enabled users to upload screenshots of anything they liked from Morrowind or Oblivion.

Community
TESSource picked up where Morrowind Source left off with no changes made to the forum software.

Popularity
Following the release of Robin’s 7,000 word preview of Oblivion a month before the official release of the game site traffic and popularity gradually increased, creating a healthy pre-release following and introducing new blood to the already developed Morrowind community on the site. Pre-release membership at the start of March 2006 stood at 83,000 members.

Things really took off immediately after the launch of Oblivion with thousands of gamers descending on the internet looking for mods for their new game. Oblivion modding took off much faster than Morrowind modding, no doubt thanks to the SDK for Oblivion being relatively similar to that of Morrowind’s enabling past mod authors to quickly release sought after modifications without needing to learn all new software techniques.

With the launch of the new file database only one day before the launch of Oblivion TESSource was promoted to mod authors by Robin via the official forums as a site to instantly publish their modifications without having to wait for admin approval – something no other Elder Scrolls based site could boast at the time. Popularity among mod authors meant the site also became popular among mod downloaders since the majority of modifications were available for Oblivion via TESSource.

TESSource smashed its highest traffic numbers of all time, through all its sites, peaking at around 75,000 unique visitors and 500,000 page views each day during April of 2006. These figures wouldn’t be topped until March 2009 by TESNexus.

With registration necessary in order to download and comment on files, membership numbers quickly increased with over 30,000 people registering to download from the site in the first two months after the launch of Oblivion.

As the initial post-release explosion started to dissipate traffic numbers started to average off at around 55,000 unique visitors each day.

By the time of TESSource’s demise in September of 2007 site membership had increased to over 450,000 members.

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TESSource was completely replaced in September 2007 by The Elder Scrolls Nexus.

Robin explained the situation in September 2007:

“Almost a year to this day I setup Gaming Source Ltd with a silent partner, a small company that would deal with the gaming sites I created. Unfortunately my feelings on the business situation changed, and I decided I wanted to move away from the partnership of Gaming Source Ltd. and focus on my own work. 100% of TESSource was coded, run, and maintained by myself, but I only had 50% ownership of it. It just wasn’t what I wanted and it reduced my impetus to make improvements and expand the site further. So at heavy expense to myself (somewhere in the region of £6,000, or $11,000) I have made that move, cut ties with Gaming Source Ltd., and now look forward to a new start.

So enough about the boring stuff. What does this mean? Alas, TESSource is gone, but all is definitely NOT lost. Through amicable negotiations with my soon to be ex-business partner I have retained the rights to use both the forum database and the TESSource site database. I can also point the TESSource.net domain toward a new site I have created from the ashes of TESSource, TES Nexus (http://www.tesnexus.com).”

Mod Site Creator

Launch
The Mod Site Creator feature was launched in September 2005 and marketed as an additional feature of TESSource.

It was created by Robin (Dark0ne), who was 19 at the time.

Focus
The Mod Site Creator was a database-driven, PHP coded content management system that enabled people to login to a special area and create their own pages, upload mods and add screenshots all through an easy to use web interface. The idea was to provide mod authors with a resource to have their very own websites that were simple to manage and possessed most of the features a mod author could need for publishing and receiving feedback on their modifications.

The site was used as a learning experience for Robin before he completely reworked the file database at TESSource.

Community
The Mod Site Creator had no official community and all news was relayed via TESSource and the forums.

Popularity
The Mod Site Creator hosted over 80 author websites in its time with just over 100 modifications available for download. There are no traffic figures recorded for the site.

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The Mod Site Creator was brought down in February of 2007 as part of a consolidation of features at TESSource and due to lack of time to offer support by Robin.

The Elder Scrolls Nexus

Launch
Launched in September 2007, The Elder Scrolls Nexus (TESNexus) was a completely reworked website using completely new code and a completely new design built around the original TESSource information database.

It was founded by Robin (Dark0ne), who was 21 at the time.

Focus
From the initial launch release provided by Robin:

“TESNexus is a site that follows in the footsteps of TESSource. TESSource was the product of three years of website coding; a mish-mash of various rookie and amateur website code, coded by yours truly. TES Nexus is a new site from the ground up, built off the TESSource database, and the result of all the things I learnt from creating TESSource. TESNexus is faster, more secure, more efficient and more user-friendly than before. TESSource took 3 years to code, TESNexus has taken 8 days; and it’s going to get better.

TES Nexus contains all the files that were available on TESSource. None have been lost. The new forums contain all your member details, so you won’t even need to register again in order to access the files. Uploaders will still have access to the files they uploaded to TESSource, and all the file comments and ratings have been retained. Alas, not everything could be saved; all the file images, and images that were a part of the Image Share section have been lost. These are easily replaced though, and I encourage mod uploaders to login to the new site and reupload the images that belong to their files once more.”

As part of the negotiations that took place between Robin and his old partner Robin gained access to the MySQL database of both the forums (that contained all the member details) and the TESSource database (that contained all the file information). However Robin was not allowed to use any of the old site design or any of the site’s code. As a result Robin had to create a completely new site with completely original code.

The task was time consuming, taking two weeks working 9 till 9 to get an initial skeleton site up that covered the bare essentials of the file database. As time passed features, both new and old, were added to the site focusing greatly on the “community-driven” aspects. Focus was put mainly on the file database, and later on the image database, and all static written content that was originally available on TESSource was removed, mainly because of copyright issues with the previous partner. The result was a much more focused website that completely revolved around the community; practically all content on the site was now dynamically generated by the community within the file database and image share databases.

While all file information and files themselves were saved in the change from TESSource to TESNexus the image files were not saved, meaning all file images were lost in the move. This spawned a new feature in the file database that allowed all users to upload images of files in action within Oblivion and Morrowind. To fill up the file images once more a successful competition was promoted to stimulate user uploaded images of files in action.

Community
With access to the forum database from TESSource the 450,000 members were not lost and the forums continued to make use of the Invision Power Board software.

Popularity
Aside from the initial loss of traffic while people tried to work out what had happened to the site and where it was located TESNexus’s traffic quickly built up to previous TESSource levels.

Through 2008 the site received steady traffic averaging around 55,000 to 65,000 unique visitors daily, with 1,000 new members registering every day. In March 2009 the site recorded successive highest traffic days of all time, smashing the original record held by TESSource in April of 2006 first by 1,000, then by 2,000, then by 10,000, and then by 18,000 to a new high of 93,000 unique visits on a single day. These new traffic figures could have been the result of old and new Oblivion players being drawn back to the community after the release of Fallout 3, or perhaps by price reductions for Oblivion.

New member registrations are up to an average of 1,500 per day and the million member mark was hit at the start of May, 2009.

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Fallout 3 Nexus

Launch
Fallout 3 Nexus (FO3Nexus) was launched in October 2008 only hours before the official US release of Fallout 3.

It was founded by Robin (Dark0ne), who was 22 at the time.

Focus
Robin was unsure whether he would release a Fallout 3 site and decided very late on to get to work on FO3Nexus. There were many reasons why Robin was skeptical, and why Robin finally decided to work on the site. Firstly Bethesda did not commit to releasing an SDK before the game’s release, and indeed they didn’t make mention of even an interest in releasing their SDK until a month or so after the release of the game that meant there might not have been a need for a file database. Secondly Robin was still at university and was unsure what sort of additional pressures releasing an additional site might produce. Thirdly there was no telling what sort of demand there would be for the site and what physical and financial requirements there might be in order to provide an adequate service.

In the end Robin finally decided to create and release FO3Nexus just two days before the official launch of Fallout 3, with the site taking a mere two hours to become fully functional from a blank canvas.

FO3Nexus is a direct port of the software used to run and maintain TESNexus. When TESNexus was coded back in 2007 the very premise of the site revolved around the concept of it being easy to replicate and duplicate to make use of on other sites, should Robin wish to create more sites.

Similar to TESNexus, FO3Nexus focuses on providing a community-driven file database and image share database with supporting forums.

Community
FO3Nexus makes use of the same forums as TESNexus and as such all users who were originally members of TESNexus had easy access to FO3Nexus without needing to create a new account.

Popularity
FO3Nexus became an instant hit within the Bethesda community. With only two other main sites within the Fallout community: No Mutants Allowed, a great haven for original Fallout fans that had a reputation for being very skeptical about Fallout 3 and Planet Fallout, a GameSpy “Planet” site that didn’t open its file database for several weeks after the launch of Fallout 3, there was a definite niche in the community for a centralized file location such as FO3Nexus.

Initial traffic figures started at around 2,000 unique visitors, quickly rising to 50,000 after the launch of Fallout 3, and rising to 65,000 after the official launch of the SDK in December of 2008. The site averages just over 55,000 unique visits daily with the highest day being recorded in February 2009 at 79,000 unique visits.

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FO3Nexus is still up and running :)