19:14, 18 June 2009 | 52 Comments | [ Add comment]

When the bubble bursts
So my summer exams are now finished and I believe they went quite well, although I won't find out my results until a month from now, I atleast didn't hit any surprises and was able to write right up until the call was made to put down our pens. On the subject of pens; it was so long since I'd used one properly (i.e. for more than 5 minutes of continous writing) that I could barely write a line without my hand cramping up. I'm so used to using a keyboard that my hand has difficulty writing which is a slight disability when you're expected to write for 3 hours straight! I had to adapt my hand writing style in the second and third exams to circumvent this which made my handwriting look like a 5 year olds. Oh well, as long as the lecturer can read it I don't care!

So what now? The post-exam partying (for the most part) has finished and I've said my goodbyes to the people I've met over the past 4 years. It's 1am and I'm all packed up ready to head off to Reading tomorrow to meet up with friends before we all catch an early flight to Portugal on the Saturday, where we'll be staying in our own private villa in Central Algarve, about 10 minutes from the sea and with our own private swimming pool. Rest, relaxation, drinking and tanning for a week! Oh, and perhaps a spot of tennis as we'll be right next to the local club.

On the site front most of the week has been spent ironing out the IPS Driver Errors and server crashes that have been plauging the site over the past months. From my monitoring through today I think I've almost hit those problems dead but I'd be interested to hear from you all if you're still experiencing these problems, and if you are, is it better than before, worse, or the same? Naturally people will tell you when the site is broken but not when it's working, so give me a little feedback.

Whatever your holiday plans I hope you all manage to get some sun inbetween modding your copies of The Elder Scrolls.

Dark0ne | 06:14, 16 June 2009 | 6 Comments | [ Add comment]

The server is now back up with the necessary upgrades in place. Initial indications are good and the situation is being monitored over the course of the next week to assess whether a further upgrade will be necessary or not.

Dark0ne | 19:24, 15 June 2009 | 3 Comments | [ Add comment]

TESNexus will be offline today for scheduled down-time starting at 11am GMT (5am CDT) for a memory upgrade. This upgrade, along with recent tweaks in the server security, should help to stop the IPS Driver Errors and site slowdowns experienced over the past month.

Down-time is penned in for 4 hours, but these things normally take less than 2 hours.

Dark0ne | 11:51, 14 June 2009 | 8 Comments | [ Add comment]

The file database became corrupted today due to a user error at 5PM GMT today at which point the site was taken offline pending a backup restore. Unfortunately recent backups had also been affected by the glitch that meant a 13 day old backup had to be used to restore the lost file data.

The only data affected by this issue was the actual uploaded file data, that is information on files uploaded to the database. Not file descriptions/images/comments/ratings/etc.. As such any files uploaded to the site within the past fortnight will now be lost, unfortunately, and will need to be reuploaded. Similarly individual file download statistics will be lost but the total download counter will remain unaffected.

All other information has been unaffected and mod authors who have uploaded new files, or made edits to their current uploaded files in the past fortnight are recommended to ensure their files are present and up to date. If they aren't then I'm afraid the only solution is to reupload the file in question.

I apologise for this inconvenience; naturally steps are being taken to insure this situation doesn't happen again.

Dark0ne | 12:56, 5 June 2009 | 43 Comments | [ Add comment]

Just a heads up that the closing date for all entries in to the millionth member competition will be midnight on the 20th of June. Happy modding!

Dark0ne | 18:26, 22 May 2009 | 158 Comments | [ Add comment]

The matter of people requesting others to rate and vote for their files as file of the month has been discussed several times within the staff forums over the years. With the introduction of the files of the month section authors have begun to notice that they can get more people to vote for their files if they ask people to do it, and provide a link to the process, at the top of their file description. Now, this was fine because we made no mention of whether it was allowed or not.

However I've decided to add in a few new checks on file ratings and votes to prevent authors from doing this from now on. Why you ask? Well, because only the people that are asking for votes are getting in to the top 5 of the files of the month section. This isn't a god awful terrible thing, but I'd rather every author had the oppurtunity to get their files in to the top sections without having to solicit votes and ratings from users.

This will be offset in the near future by a new feature that will allow users to better see what files they have and haven't rated and whether they have voted for a file of the month (with some gentle encouragement if they haven't). This functionality will go hand-in-hand with a complete overhaul of the rating system in general, due to be worked on after I've finished my 4th and final year of exams at university. I haven't got £15k in to debt with student loans to throw it all away now!

Dark0ne | 16:00, 1 May 2009 | 13 Comments | [ Add comment]

Today, the 1st of May 2009, TESNexus has hit the one millionth member milestone. This means that in the past 6 years over one million people have registered on this site and the sites before it to download files, upload files, leave comments, post images and interact on our forums.

This is a proud achievement for me; to see this community continue to thrive and grow and for modders to continue to release awesome work on this site is a real honour. Over the past 8 years the sites have served over 70,000,000 unique visitors and 430,000,000 page views and long may it continue.

For those people who haven't been with us all this time (and I know there are only a few of you now!) you might be interested in looking at the new site history page, complete with a timeline, which provides a detailed look in to all the sites that have come before TESNexus and where they fit in to the grand scheme of things.

Don't forget that this now means you have 50 days to enter the TESNexus modding competition that has cash prizes for the winners! Similarly all people who become fans of the site on Facebook are entered in to a draw to win a $50 Amazon voucher which ends when the modding competition ends.

To all the productive members of the Nexus sites, thank you, and a big thank you to all the Premium members who help to keep this site running the way it does. I couldn't do it without you!

Dark0ne | 06:30, 20 April 2009 | 77 Comments | [ Add comment]

The Nexus sites are very close to hitting the million member milestone which is an exciting achievement for myself and the other staff here at the Nexus. We started accumulating members back in July of 2003 when Morrowind Source was launched and the site has been receiving a steady flow of new members each day since then.

The millionth member milestone is greatly coveted by me. As the owner of the site it makes me proud to see so many people registering to make use of the site's features and download modifications for some truely awesome games. But most of all the milestone is a trophy for the strong support of the modding communities behind Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3. Traffic figures on TESNexus have far surpassed those of March/April 2006 in recent months, which is amazing considering the game is now 3 years old. Similarly the Fallout 3 community continues to expand, develop and mature.

So how are we going to celebrate this monumental occasion? What better way than to get the creativity flowing and set an old school Oblivion and Fallout 3 modding competition for all to enter, complete with some prizes of the monetary nature straight out of the Nexus war kitty!

The theme for the competition revolves around that of the Oblivion and Fallout 3 community respectively. I want modifications that contain unique and innovative representations of members or locations within the community that have influenced your time within the community in a positive way. Perhaps you’d like to make a tavern on some well travelled road containing NPCs representing your favourite community members, or maybe a companion mod with a representation of Buddah wielding a mighty hammer of bannage + 5. Maybe, just maybe, even a quest mod to save your friends from the evil clutches of the worm like Dark0ne? The idea is to make something fun and interesting with the emphasis on including your community friends. It’s all about the community, folks!

For full details on what to do and how to enter go visit the competition page. Top prize for winners is a $125 Amazon.com voucher, with $75 prizes for runner-ups and $50 prizes for mods with the highest potential. The competition closes 50 days after the site hits the millionth member mark, so get your thinking caps on!

For those without the creative edge or time to create modifications for Oblivion or Fallout 3 you can always become a fan of Nexus sites on Facebook. All people who become fans up until the closing date of the competition will be entered in to a prize draw for a £30 Amazon.com voucher.

Further updates will come as the millionth member mark is reached. Happy modding.

Dark0ne | 06:47, 8 April 2009 | 9 Comments | [ Add comment]

Thanks to the very kind donations put forward by certain individuals of the community recently I have set up a second 100mbit file server located in Dallas for general use. The site is eating through bandwidth at an astonishing rate and last month both sites used over 70 terrabytes (70,000 gigabytes) of bandwidth.

Thanks again to all premium members who have made this possible.

Dark0ne | 11:57, 27 March 2009 | 30 Comments | [ Add comment]

The way in which files uploaded to the site are organised, sorted and displayed to both file uploaders and downloads has been changed.

Most importantly I have adopted a new category based system for organising the uploaded files that is changable by the owners of the files. There are five file categories.

• Main files. Files the user actually needs in order for the file to operate properly
• Updates. Files that are used to update from an old version of the file to a newer version.
• Optional files. Files that might improve or expand on the user experience but aren't necessary in order for the file to work properly.
• Old versions. Out-dated versions of the file in question.
• Miscellaneous. Files that don't fit into the other categories.

Files are now organised in the files tab based on these categories.

The way in which the files are sorted has also changed. All files are now sorted in alphabetical order within their respective categories and the "primary file" system has been removed. If you wish to have your uploaded files shown in a specific order then I'd recommend using a number and hyphen system. For example "1 - Main file" , "2 - Next file".

Lastly all new files uploaded to the site from here-on-in will have a date stamp placed on them so all users can see when the file was uploaded. At the moment all files uploaded before this point will have a non-applicable "N/A" indicator next to them as dates were not recorded before this point. I shall be looking at the viability of cross-referencing the first download dates of files and using this as the upload date for files over the coming days.

As a legacy feature all currently uploaded files have been placed into the "Main files" category and ordered by primary file first, and then by alphabetical order. It is recommended authors organise their file uploads as soon as possible to avoid any possible confusion. This can be achieved by clicking the "Files" link on the Manage Your Files page and choosing the "Edit file" option under each file.

Dark0ne | 07:18, 26 March 2009 | 69 Comments | [ Add comment]

EDIT 4/2/2009 by LHammonds - FileFront is no longer being closed as it was re-acquired by the original founders.

Popular file-sharing website FileFront is closing its doors in the very near future. Here's the blurb:



While FileFront wasn't as prominent in the Elder Scrolls community as it was in some other gaming communites (the KoTOR community, for instance, heavily relies on FileFront) it still represents a noticeable loss, and many people have mirrored their files on FileFront. If you are one of these individuals then you should be warned your files will no longer be available on FileFront after the 30th of March.

I wish the staff at FileFront all the best.

On a side note, please realise FileFront is not the same as FilePlanet, so PES is fine.