Normally, I’d like to leave more time between posts, but with the Christmas holidays fast approaching, I’ve got a lot to fit into a short amount of time. I hope you all don’t mind.
Anyway, let’s crack on with our last monthly roundup of the year (how wild is that?).
General Improvements
- Improved User Profiles: We’ve introduced a loading state on the ‘Mods’ tab to minimise layout shifts during slow loading. As well as boosting the overall performance of User Profile pages, especially the ‘Mods’ tab which now has faster load times.
- UI Enhancements: We improved the ‘Add Tags’ filter in the new design system for a smoother user experience. Check it out here.
- Spam Detection: Picky has kindly gone into a lot more detail about this below, but to quickly summarise. We’ve deployed a new spam detection and prevention system to automatically ban spammers. Ongoing improvements will adapt the system as necessary.
- Improved Logic Of ‘Updated’ Mods: You’ll see on game homepages, for example here, these sections now exclude mods with only one file upload, showcasing mods with subsequent updates instead.
- Ad Adjustments: We get it, no one likes ads, they kinda suck. So we’ve reduced the number of ads free users will see, by removing the side adverts on our https://next.nexusmods.com domain, leaving only top and bottom ads.
- Download History Limits: Download histories have now been capped to the last 30,000 unique downloads. This means older entries will be removed as new ones are added. Please note, that this has an impact on anywhere the download history is used.
Updated Webpages - Closed Beta Now Live!
We’re currently preparing a number of changes to key site pages, which are now in closed beta and will be expected to be open to all in January 2025.
Key changes include:
- Redesigned Game Home pages.
- Updated Mods Listing pages.
- Refreshed Games pages.
- Improved Quick Search UI for easier navigation.
We've also been busy getting ready to gather feedback from closed and open beta participants, and as a result, we have added a huge number of metrics and events in order to capture quantitative data. HotJar surveys will also be available on various pages during the betas, allowing participants to submit qualitative feedback that we'll read and assess.
Here’s a sneak peek at some of the updated pages:
Tech Talk
We'll start with some exciting news for the power users who make heavy use of the collections feature. Following a growing number of users hitting the fair use limits, we've decided that they were too low and doubled them. This means you can download even more mods and collections without the pesky "429" rate limit errors slowing you down!
- Improved internal QA process: Lots of documentation improvements and setting “gold standards” for our QA team.
- Notification system: Addressed an issue with our Notifications system that caused an outage over the first weekend of November.
- URL Shortener: A new URL shortener was set up for our Community and Content teams, so we can post short links. Although this one might not be very interesting for you all, for us it’s a pretty big deal as it means we have a better overview of what you’re all interacting with. The main takeaway from this for you all is that the visit.nexusmods.com domain is now valid.
- Tech upgrades: We upgraded our Kubernetes, Rancher and Elasticsearch versions, as well as moving our entire Elasticsearch to a hosted and managed solution.
- Stability improvements: Lots of under-the-hood changes to make sure stability is improved, by making sure things like our Forums don’t cause errors in other parts of the website when they’re not working.
- Reducing errors: We’re investing a lot of time and effort into reducing errors, which means fewer “Oops! Something went wrong” pages for everyone. Hooray!
- Going multi-cluster: We’re spinning up a second cluster, to keep the site running when the first one encounters serious issues. This involves a huge amount of work to get infrastructure, like Redis, running as high-availability services.
- New NAS: Replaced our ageing in-office NAS with a shiny new TrueNAS (not the rapper, sorry).
- Better tooling: Introduced a modern build system for JS and a new web framework for PHP, which helps us with future development and improves site performance.
- Caching: Prototyping new strategies for caching, so we can improve site performance.
- Lowering latency: Lots of work is being done to lower load and latency across the board, making the site more responsive.
Eww, Bugs
- Duplicate API Requests: We resolved an issue causing duplicate API key requests on the ‘Request API Key’ button.
- Mod Counts: Mod counts on User Profiles for users with adult content disabled have been fixed.
- Display Bugs: We corrected display bugs on User Profiles and Settings pages.
- Page Errors: Addressed styling and navigation errors across various pages.
A Note About The Recent Malicious Uploads
Hi everyone, Picky here! You haven't heard from me through the site news much since we brought in the Content Team but I am still here. I've asked SlugGirl to add a little note from me to the roundup about the malicious mods that I'm sure some of you have noticed being uploaded primarily in the Skyrim Special Edition and Cyberpunk 2077 communities.
The "mods" are usually characterised by having AI-generated images of sexualised women, making bold claims in the description about how much content they add and directing users to malicious files hosted outside of Nexus Mods. While it's quite obvious to seasoned modders that these are scams/malicious, newer players are - unfortunately - falling for this trick which leads to their accounts getting compromised.
I want to reassure you that we're actively taking steps to combat this but it will always be an arms race. So while we wage our secret war against the undesirables of the internet, I thought I'd share a few pointers about how to stay safe when modding your favourite games.
- Stick to trusted sources: I'm pleased to say that our built-in security scans are doing a good job of keeping you safe, but once you start downloading outside of Nexus Mods we can't protect you! If a mod directs you to an external link to download the mod or a requirement you should be very sceptical of it. Links to Google Drive, MegaUpload, GitHub or file-sharing sites you've never heard of should be treated with caution.
- Check the mod comments/bug reports: A great way to see what other users think of the mod is to read the comments/bugs section. If the mod has these tabs turned off (with no other way to communicate with the author), you should be wary of downloading anything.
- Verify the author's reputation: If you've not heard of the author it's always worth a quick check of their profile page. Here you can see if they've uploaded any other mods/images/videos before now. It's very uncommon for the first mod someone uploads to be massive and game-changing - we all start somewhere! For many of these malicious uploaders, it's the only thing they've ever shared on the website.
- Sense check the files: If you've been modding for a while, you will start to get a feel for which kinds of files a mod typically contains. Using the "Preview File Contents" button in the Files tab lets you peek inside the mod before downloading it. You may want to take a closer look at the mod description or comments if you see files that aren't commonly used in modding (e.g. EXE files).
If you're ever unsure about a mod, you can ask the community on our forums, Discord or anywhere modding chat about the game takes place. Mods that set off your spidey senses as being potentially dangerous can be reported using the "Report Abuse" button on the page too. Remember, the users who get caught out by these things aren't necessarily stupid, they just don't know better. Together we can help keep modding a safe space for everyone!
Nexus Mods App
In November, we've been working on adding initial support for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord to the app - including some useful diagnostics to help users understand issues in their loadout. In addition to this, we've added a new Collection Download page which will show which mods are part of the collection and if the user has downloaded them yet.
The 0.7.0 alpha release of the app also includes an early implementation of load order for Cyberpunk 2077 REDmods, improved Baldur's Gate 3 diagnostics and a more polished UI for the Health Checks and Games pages.
Our focus now is on allowing users to update the app without having to remove and reinstall all their mods. This will make it easier for early adopters to get involved with the app and help us shape its future.
And that's a wrap!
As always, keep your feedback coming; we’ll bring more updates next month!
29 comments
Need more clear explanation about this, so if mod have only 1 file at all and update done as re-upload original file with new one that not put mod in updated list?
If you create a new mod page and upload files during that process, your mod will now no longer appear in the 'Updated' tab (it used to).
If you create a new mod page and upload files during that process, THEN separately update your mod with new files, it will then appear in the 'Updated' tab.
Btw, for sound recordings made in the UK it's a bit complicated - though there's a 50yr baseline protection from the initial recording date, the actual protection is usually 70yrs from date of first public performance/broadcast (if done so at any time within those first 50yrs). See here.
And most users here probably don't (yet) realise that even seemingly legit sharing sites like Internet Archive are just now losing court cases in the USA (see here - it's mainly about digital copies of books etc, but states at the bottom they're about to face court over old music files).
I'll add the concern to our future projects list, specifically tied to work we want to do on improving mods (and everything related to mod data, including uploads).
It's excellent, thank you very much Nexus and all of your team of collaborators. Have a Merry Christmas and a more successful 2025
THANK YOU
Love the message here.
Some people might be just starting to explore the internet and haven't learned the "common sense" yet.
Wishing the Nexus Team and everyone a hella awesome holidays and new year! \o/ ♥
When will the bug fixes be implemented? Mod counts one specifically.