Casually browsing the Viva New Vegas guide, I found a link to a document that criticizes Sinitar's guides' problems. It's a pretty long document and it goes to Fallout New Vegas whose modding scene I know pretty well.
I also know Sinitar, I have discussed with him and I've been linking his guide to my mod's main description at ModDB for a couple years. So I'd like to offer my counterpoint to that of Phoenix, particularly on New Vegas.
Phoenix mentions the 140 plugin limit of New Vegas in relation to the extremely high number of mods in Sinitar's guide. The comparison however is simply wrong because most mods in Sinitar's guide are plugin-less. In fact my own mod was originally plugin-less, and the plugin is still opt-in.
So yes, you can have 800 mods and still be under the plugin limit.
Phoenix claims that "FNV mod authors were flooded with bug reports" because of Sinitar's New Vegas guide. Considering that (a) my mod is included in Sinitar's guide and (b) my mod is one of the hardest to support due to its dependency on multiple files that can get overwritten without giving you any clue, I can say that Sinitar's guide has not resulted in any bug report.
I did find an error in his guide. I told him about it and he fixed it in a few minutes. The error wasn't really his fault though, it's pretty common because it's propagated by other guides and wikis, such as Gopher's and Nexus. I have communicated to these authors and tried to make them understand how things work with UIO for the last 5 years, but they either don't understand or don't care. Sinitar did.
Claiming that Sinitar was "combative" for refusing to edit his guide because a mod author asked him to do so is pretty ironical these days. We have mod authors who have publicly stated they don't want to see their mods included in modpacks/lists/collections and not only are they ignored but we have an example of an executable installer being decompiled with the mod's licensing information being hidden against the author's wishes.
Besides, there's nothing combative in refusing to change one's text. Sinitar could ask Phoenix to remove his name from her critical review and Phoenix would be equally right to refuse to do so.
I would also like to make a comment about the "Nexus' Response".
Being booted from the Nexus means nothing. I had also been blocked from the Nexus because I had posted a "5+ year old quote" of Robin Scott the owner of Nexus. Despite my requests to explain the specific term that's against quoting Robin Scott, I found nothing relevant. As such, I'm still blocked by the Nexus because I cannot click on the checkbox that states that I have read and "understood the ToS" because I really don't understand their ToS.
To summarize:
- You can combine 800 mods and be allright, as long as most of these mods are plugin-less.
- It's not combative to ignore others when writing a guide, if you feel they are wrong.
- Sinitar did fix a mistake when I told him about it.
- Being blocked by Nexusmods doesn't mean anything.
PS. I'm no fan of Sinitar's guide because it's too big. I always prefer a short load order.
PS2. I've just found out this reddit Skyrimmods thread. pH levels near 0 as always there. The fact that Phoenix posted a hitpiece for these toxic people to rip Sinitar, speaks pretty badly for Phoenix herself.
