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GitLab MegaMod Project - All The Mods


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Hello Everyone!

A little greetings are in order. I'm Anprionsa. I've played Baldur's Gate since I was a teenager back in 99. I've played and installed the game different times on a lot of computers. I've not always used this nickname, and I didn't always comment regardless of whatever username I chose to use. But ever since I found out about modding the game many many years ago I've always played with mods. I could never mod myself, as I'm just a terrible coder with a poor imagination, but I do like organizing. The current state of mods here is amazing and I'm glad I get to play all of your hard work on what may be one of my favorite games of all time.

That said, after my recent attempt at installing through the BWS or EE Install Tool and having different websites down or having files spread out all over the place, it got me thinking about something I could do to help organize the mods in a place that I could find out if a project was updated, search, or know if it was defunct. Now I couldn't build a website and do this, but I can use existing tools on other websites to help this. What I found was that GitHub had a lot of the mods and mod authors that had re-uploaded their work there (but not all!). I didn't want to use GitHub though as I didn't want to use the same platform. So I looked through everything and put together a very crude setup on GitLab that mirrored the work of over 200 mods and tools that I have checked (though at this current juncture I didn't realize that it was all set to private and I have to go back and set it all to public) from all sorts of mod authors. This will allow me personally to see if a mod has been updated as it mirrors the authors work. No one can edit this work or change it and I don't make any claims to the mods, everything is an exact copy that updates every hour.

What I'm looking for is all of the authors that have mods on SHS (which is currently down) or Gibberling (they have a lot of the mods on GitHub) to upload them and let me know when you have so I can mirror them in this giant list of searchable content that can be used by the whole community.

I'm also not able to do this all myself, so if anyone would like to help "maintain" this list, please let me know. I come in and out of community work like this and know that I won't always be around, but would like to know if others can be involved to help.

Perhaps this is an awful idea and people won't want to have it, but I was making it for myself anyway and thought I would share it with all of you.


You'll see this list update as I turn the mods from private to public.

 

This has been cross-posted with Reddit and Beamdog Forums.

Edited by Anprionsa
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Just dumping everything on a (git) hosting service won't achieve much. Authors need to be convinced to start using them or things will just get stale. We've had a long discussion about this sort of stuff before, which resulted in the current sitation, where more and more g3 mods are under external revision control. Not sure you can access this thread though:

http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27649

 

Either way, anything on github can be mirrored automatically, once you know it exists.

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I cannot access that thread, no.

 

I'm sure this has been discussed before. However, I don't mod. I take something like the fragmentation of where things are stored, and the information of where things are stored as something that can be solved, or at least made less confusing. I can understand wanting to stay loyal to communities. I get that. Just wish it didn't seem like I was out to either 1) Take credit or 2) that it was pointless to start from the get go because it was doomed to failure.

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Besides what has been said on the other thread, you seem to be mirroring the repos, so users would always download the main branches' HEAD. That can easily be unstable stuff in between releases, so not ideal.

 

Other than that, we probably all dream of a central place and the best we could come up with is the database used by bws.

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BWS is a great project. But the scope of what I'm looking for is trying to get modders to move to GitHub or another repository (it doesn't matter), so that the links can get every mod in a database that is catalogued and automatically updated from the authors on repository.

 

The links don't look any different from the Git where the mod is stored. If the directions are clear on what to do to download, then it shouldn't matter. You can't download unless you click on the project and open it up. Usually when that happens the authors have some sort of "Welcome to X Project!" on the readme that tells the user what to do and where to discuss.

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BWS already uses my microservice to be a bit smarter about projects hosted on github. While I don't agree with some individual choices (having been a packager years before), it does use the latest release, prerelease or master automatically. Here are some docs:

https://github.com/Gibberlings3/modhub

 

I don't see how you could do any better than that for (semi)automation. You could add extra tags for more categorization to BWS and create a simple parser for a web frontend ... voilà, you saved a ton of work.

 

Getting modders on to VCS is an orthogonal matter and you'll get everyone's support there.

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Yeah I saw that tool as I was searching through mods on GitHub. I guess my aim was mostly trying to get modders to agree on a platform that wasn't so fragmented. SHS is still down, and I know that Gibberling has been down plenty in the past year as well. Trying the BWS install again last night gave me so many different mods that weren't correct or couldn't be downloaded it was a little frustrating. And it wasn't just the recent spell that led me to think about a solution of some sort. I've been playing for years and years. It seemed to always be an issue and it has definitely led me in the past to just not play because of that frustration.

 

I don't know. I'm getting some hostility over this idea and I haven't even done much yet, any links to the original are gone now for well over a day and the mods were mostly set to private anyway, so there wasn't even an issue there. I was hoping for a more honest and frank discussion on the merits of community sourced mod platform that 1) didn't actually host the mods, just linked to their source 2) was more open then BWS or forums in terms of search-ability of the mods.

 

It's honestly surprising to me to see such defensive mentality to the idea before it's properly even begun.

Edited by Anprionsa
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@Anprionsa

 

Defensive mentality comes from the simple fact that you were told about problems with you "gitlab link list". You didn't present solution of and kind for those problems.

 

So if:

- list of the mods will be outdated when modders stop developing their projects and someone isn't around to move it to an archive ( very common )
- list of the mods will be outdated when modders stop their work and someone else picks it up and the link isn't updated ( very common )
- list of the mods isn't only a simple list but is a service which allows for creating unauthorized, without source tracking copies of the "gitlab links"
EDIT: Disable Forking was possible and it was apply globally. This is no longer a problem.
are currently unsolvable by you, then the case is closed. There is no point discussing "gitlab link list" until you find solution for those problems. Forget about GitLab, reach to the internet, web developers, tech guys etc and maybe you will discover something new. I wish you luck.
Edited by ALIENQuake
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Both BWS and its EET version are hosted on github, so there's no real danger of downtime plus they're innately unfragmented.

 

If an extra list is needed for TCs and bad mods, stuff that can't end up in the BWS, that can be a separate thing. I don't see any benefit of hosting a list of links on git though, it just makes it hard for other people to contribute if there's no userfriendly interface (eg. wiki or something more complex like lgdb).

 

Also, I've read the other thread and I don't really see any dishonesty anywhere. Harder to detect through text, but still.

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I can also assure you that 90% of modders don't know how to use github or what a gitlab link list is.

 

(Alien once handwringed at me about being able to code a mod and not being able to use github, but weidu language is basically COBOL, anyone with a grasp on over 50 words in English can code it)

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@Alien

 

Already posted in the other thread about the changes. Let me know. As for keeping the links updated? That's a tall task regardless of the solution, they will all have that problem. Which is why I'm trying to pivot into having the sources hosted on ANY website, but having modders kind of come to that themselves.

 

@lynx

 

BWS may be hosted there. But the mods needed to make it work are not all hosted there. Forum post after forum post is created when one of those websites goes down (SHS, here, dropbox dead link, or personal website). GitLab actually does have a wiki possibility. I've turned it off for now though. If you'd like to take a peak at it let me know. I'll PM you.

 

@Almateria

 

That's unfortunate, but understandable. I don't really care about where it's hosted. But I'm going to do my best to spur some type of dialogue on a common place for people that want to find mods, can.

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I have to agree, you manage to overcome "forks" problem even without "Disable Forks" GitLab feature - you simply change permissions :) That was creative thinking, good job :) Still, two renaming issue are still valid.

 

That's a tall task regardless of the solution, they will all have that problem.

Never say "never". But if what you say is true, then the problem which you are dealing with cannot be solved because:

 

Which is why I'm trying to pivot into having the sources hosted on ANY website, but having modders kind of come to that themselves.

this won't happen ever because you are adding "yet another site to post info". I won't report all my new Github repositories with tools to this list because I don't have time for that. It is similar to Steam Workshop mods - people ask authors to mirror their mods to NexusMods, some of them do it, some of them not because they not only have to release mod twice but also don't see benefit. So far I only see limitation of you list because you can't add non-github mods. You need to stop looking at GitLab because it's not the right tool for things you want to do. I don't know any service which might help you but I'm not web technology expert.

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It appears that GitLab is testing a "Group Wiki". This may solve the problem of mods not hosted on a git repository. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

 

For now I don't want any mod authors to link it themselves, that would be too much asking. I will do most of that myself. But once again I feel as if I can't do much until I get some type of OK from more than just the handful I've talked too. There is one modder in particular who doesn't want anything to do with this, which is unfortunate. It's only been a few days. But I'll keep doing what I can.

 

Thanks Alien.

 

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/48217

 

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/15082

Edited by Anprionsa
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