Post-Compilation

After you have finished the Compilation you are basically done with Wabbajack and can upload the resulting .wabbajack file to somewhere, share it with people or just keep it for yourself as a Modlist backup. This section is for people who want to share their Modlist with the community.

In the Wabbajack community we differentiate between official/featured and unofficial Modlists. The former being curated Modlists that comply with the criteria in Criteria for 'Featured Mod List' status and have met the standards of the Wabbajack team are available in the main Wabbajack Gallery with no further user action required to find them, while the latter are Modlists that come from custom repositories and are only visible when enabling the Show Unofficial Lists filter.

Official Modlists require to have their own support Discord and often have 500-2500+ users depending on the game. Do note that these Modlists receive regular updates and the authors are putting in a lot of hours to deliver the best possible version.

Managing a Modlist can be tricky if you have never done something like this. In the early days of Wabbajack we mostly relied on GDocs READMEs and hosted all accompanying files on GDrive while managing issues through the support channel on Discord. This system was later almost completely replaced through valiant effort by one of our developers: almost all new Modlists use GitHub for managing their Modlist.

GitHub was made for developers and is the site you are currently on. It mostly hosts source code for open source projects, such as Wabbajack, but can also be used for project management. Another strong point is Markdown support. This README you are currently reading is, like every other GitHub README, written in Markdown and rendered on GitHub.

On the topic of READMEs: you should create a good one.

It is not sufficient to just slap some install and MCM instructions in there. Your Modlist might contain a thousand mods and offer hundreds of playtime but the user might not know what in oblivion is even going on and what's included.

Example structure for a good README:

  • Preamble: Give a quick overview about what your Modlist is about, the core idea and also mention that it's a Wabbajack Modlist (some might not know what Wabbajack is so link to this README)
  • Requirements: Simple list of requirements such as min CPU, GPU, RAM and most importantly: Drive Space. Also include a list of accounts the user needs such as a Nexus Mods, LoversLab, VectorPlexus Account or any other sites your are downloading from
  • Installation: Installation instructions specific to your Modlist. You can take a look at some of the Modlists linked below as almost all of them use the same instructions with minor changes
  • Important Mods you should know about: This is an important section you should not forget. Go in-depth on core mods and talk about important mods the user should know about. It can be overwhelming for the user to just be thrusted into a completely modded world without knowing what's even included and possible.
  • MCM: If your Modlist has some sort of MCM like for Skyrim or Fallout 4 then you should give instructions on what settings to use
  • Changelog: Should not be in the README and can be in a separate file called CHANGELOG.md but make sure to create one

Some Modlists that host all their stuff on GitHub:

Other modlists opt to host all of their information on a dedicated website: