The Types of Mods Being Produced

[madman132]

Another simple Reason, it's been done already. Just about everything one could think of has been made already. I try to do something new, something that hasn't been done already and better then i could ever do it.

 

Now i am good a conjuring things out of nowhere People did never think of, but there are more then 1000000 Mods out there. There are mods in which you can transform enemies into apples, where you can fight Pikachu or have Girls run around with K-Cups. You can have Morrowind GOTY Edition. I don't mean morroblivion, someone made Objects that look like the Box and the Discs of that game.

You can take a dump, you can cook food and bake Pies, you can have Sex and you can travel via Stargate. You can have a giant monstrosity out of Cheese follow you around, you can fire Laserbeams and "forcepush" People.

 

Now, i want to make something useful. On the Top of my head, i'd say female hygiene Products have never been made into mods. Btu i wouldn't download that...

I want to make something new, which is as you may have noticed, rather difficult.

And i want to make something that i actually can do.

 

With these Restraints, making new mods will take some time :D

 

 

I will continue to read tutorials, but this is something i'm not very good at; until i am really adept with the CS, i'll be reading tutorials which tell me whats new in the Elderscrolls 5 Construction Set :D

 

And then...

 

I wont make much Quest mods. I do not like those too much, you have solved all the Quests and then you'll have your Rewards.

Most of the Work goes into something the Player will experience once.

Because the "Crusader of the Nine" Mod conflicts with my lighting mods, i play it through and then deactivate it. I play it again sometimes because the Werewolfs are awesome, but now i don't have anything from the rewards...

[nipwip]

Biggest reason you won't see a lot of really elaborate dungeons is because a lot of modders prefer to work alone, or in like-minded cliques.

 

It isn't easy to gather a competent team together for one big project or keep it together when there are creative differences and the prospect of working out an entire, professional looking dungeon mod all on your own is just plain oppressive - you have the idea, the story, even the plan, but the sheer volume of work it would take to do it alone makes it a most unattractive goal.

 

Add to that the fact that the only people who are going to appreciate all the effort that has gone into a mod are other modders, because the average player just devours the content and moves on without a thought to how much work went into it, or in some cases will go as far as to rip into the author because "it doesn't work" and everyone knows a readme is just there to fill out the file list, right? :rolleyes:

 

So instead of a lot of good modders working together on cool projects like game-spanning quests or a new and original dungeon, they work on small personal projects where they don't have to compromise with others and aren't slaving away for something they aren't going to get much out of. When you create a dungeon or a quest line, you know all the answers and everything that is going to happen, you know how to clear the dungeon and what monsters are down there, so there is little to no reason for you to ever use it yourself - it is exclusively for others, often others who won't appreciate it, never mind thank you for it.

 

Making a new piece of armor, some flash combat animations or a high resolution texture for the latest "Tiny Elves With Huge Mams" mod, on the other hand, are all things the author can make use of and enjoy, no matter how the community responds to them.

 

You just get more out of small personal projects as a modder... and until the all-consuming masses start to show appreciation, all the best modders will stick to smaller projects with less hassle, or as is the growing trend, leave the community completely.

[ThePearl]

I have some nice ideas for mods, but I really don't get around do creating them..

 

Either it's school, problems, school, various IRL things, me not feeling like it or just school.

 

There's so many things other things then learning and creating things for Oblivion. I'd like a week where I can just sit down, without any other work and do what I want to do - mod Oblivion. Right now I am creating a mod but if you look a I created a topic about my character walking all the time so I can't test my mods out...

 

I hope I can create a quest that you'll like, why not just create a poll for what kind of quest you want?

[MontanaBlueSkies]

Biggest reason you won't see a lot of really elaborate dungeons is because a lot of modders prefer to work alone, or in like-minded cliques.

 

It isn't easy to gather a competent team together for one big project or keep it together when there are creative differences and the prospect of working out an entire, professional looking dungeon mod all on your own is just plain oppressive - you have the idea, the story, even the plan, but the sheer volume of work it would take to do it alone makes it a most unattractive goal.

 

Add to that the fact that the only people who are going to appreciate all the effort that has gone into a mod are other modders, because the average player just devours the content and moves on without a thought to how much work went into it, or in some cases will go as far as to rip into the author because "it doesn't work" and everyone knows a readme is just there to fill out the file list, right? :rolleyes:

 

So instead of a lot of good modders working together on cool projects like game-spanning quests or a new and original dungeon, they work on small personal projects where they don't have to compromise with others and aren't slaving away for something they aren't going to get much out of. When you create a dungeon or a quest line, you know all the answers and everything that is going to happen, you know how to clear the dungeon and what monsters are down there, so there is little to no reason for you to ever use it yourself - it is exclusively for others, often others who won't appreciate it, never mind thank you for it.

 

Making a new piece of armor, some flash combat animations or a high resolution texture for the latest "Tiny Elves With Huge Mams" mod, on the other hand, are all things the author can make use of and enjoy, no matter how the community responds to them.

 

You just get more out of small personal projects as a modder... and until the all-consuming masses start to show appreciation, all the best modders will stick to smaller projects with less hassle, or as is the growing trend, leave the community completely.

 

 

 

Add to this creating your own new custom tiles for interiors and exteriors and you'll get some idea of the stables I'm cleaning for my new "Tribute to Ayn" Penthouse mod. Almost any small part of what has turned into a gargantuan mod could stand alone as a seperate mod and I'd be reasonably proud of it. Much thanks go to all my team, Dezi, GM58, RavenWhiteFeather, and EvilKingGumby.

 

 

Live Free and Die Proud

Montana

[LHammonds]

I am probably going to anger people by posting this topic, but sometimes I look at the list of latest mods uploaded, yawn, and go to another screen without downloading anything.

 

It seems that most of the mods being uploaded are houses to live in, new armors to wear, new uber-weapons, prettier bodies, and small game tweaks to fix a small pet-peeve someone has.

 

In all fairness, I must say that there are some very talented modders doing some very good work in all of these categories. Much time, effort, and skill has been expended on these game improvements. But I find myself wanting new things for my character to do. I want quests, adventures, and dungeons that take some time to complete.

 

So why is it that people are producing their fine mods almost exclusively in these other genres?

I'm certainly not mad that you asked such a question. It is fair. There are several replies explaining some of the reasons why things are they way they are but to fully understand this yourself, ask yourself why YOU are not doing this. Take the mod I worked on called "Lost Paladins of the Divines" for example...if properly prepared, you could go through that mod in about an hour. It took 4 months of a fair amount of time and dedication between two people working several hours each night...sometimes all night. That was a point in my life where I was married and had my 1st child on the way. It didn't feel like it then but I had all KINDS of spare time. Now I am head of a household with 8 people living here, 5 of which are children under the age of 7 and 3 of them mine. It's a full house and it is REALLY hard to find any downtime to work on mods.

 

If you look at most typical game companies, there are tons of employees all working on different areas of the game. One team may only work on just the cinematics. Another team may be animators only. Another team only creates the dungeons, etc. And they get paid to do that for a living.

 

Now enters a modder. Somebody who is not paid, does this on their own hobby time and works alone. Out of the thousands of "modders" out there, it would be a very small and exceptional few that 1. have the time, 2. are technically skilled, 3. artistically skilled, 4. creative in literature to make a compelling story and 5. focused and driven enough to make such an epic mod by his/herself. Oh, and number 6 can be a team leader who can gather other talented modders and keep everyone focused on getting the project done (if there is a team that is).

 

And as evidence of this, you can see what is being released. The vast majority are small mods that can get completed by an individual. Some of these "epic" mods are released but it is obvious they cannot be in great numbers because the modders creating them are the exceptional few who can.

 

It is simply staggering to think about everything necessary that a newbie would have to learn in order to jump into Oblivion modding and crank out a masterpiece quest with all the bells and whistles.

 

So again, to understand this fully, you should open up the Construction Set and have a stab at making a plugin with NPCs, quests, buildings, dungeons, creatures and rewards. Then open up GIMP and have a stab at creating a texture. Then open up Blender and have a stab at creating new models and animations. Then write down a storyline, dialog and quest achievements on paper. Then open up a voice editor and do some voice recordings for dialog script. Then go back to the CS and put it all together, package it up with an excellent readme, screenshots and file structure and drop it on TESNexus and other sites. Then begin to advertise for your mod using RELz Threads at various fan sites and begin the process of taking feedback/criticism for the purpose of improving/supporting your released mod.

 

Please do not take this as an attack, I am merely trying to give you an idea of the scope for what you are trying to understand. If you really want to know the truth, you'll give these all an honest shot to see for yourself how you'd fit into the overall picture. Would it be one who throws his hands up and says "its too hard", or one who quits when complaints start rolling in, or one who only likes to make buildings or are you the one who can do it all and become an all-star modder?

 

NOTE: All-star modders have the potential of being employed by game companies and work in those small, contained groups only to get burned out on trying to realize somebody elses dreams. :thumbsup:

 

EDIT: Also, if I were a fortune teller and you became a modder, I would bet by just what you were saying in your 1st post that you'd become a quest maker more than anything else. I could also see you incorporating many of the cool individual releases to enhance your quests. ;)

 

LHammonds

[dezdimona]

Please do not take this as an attack, I am merely trying to give you an idea of the scope for what you are trying to understand. If you really want to know the truth, you'll give these all an honest shot to see for yourself how you'd fit into the overall picture. Would it be one who throws his hands up and says "its too hard", or one who quits when complaints start rolling in, or one who only likes to make buildings or are you the one who can do it all and become an all-star modder?

Bravo!!!

[stars2heaven]

I actually am one of those who want to learn every facet of the modding area. I plan on producing quest type mods mostly and I have several in mind that I want to produce. But time is a big factor. Between school, work, social relationships, and time for actuallly playing oblivion myself, I dont have much left for modding, especially when I run into something that I want or need to do but havent yet learned how to do it. That adds loads more time.

 

After all that and the natural tendency for quests to take a while to produce Im not thinking Im going to ever be able to get around to many of my ideas that I think would be great.

 

Im sure other moders have the same issues.

[lonewolfkai]

You know, the more I read this, the more I get pissed off. :verymad:

 

Personally, a lot of hard of work went into my mods and that's just too bad if my visions doesn't fit your requirements and you just dismiss them. But perhaps there are other people who share the same visions I have when they want a nice two handed sword that they were looking for and that's the reason I even released mine.

 

Instead of being critical of "types" of releases, how about you make some suggestions/requests in what you want. We do have a forum dedicated to that. Look it up.

 

 

 

It's crap like this that makes modders quit.

[LHammonds]

You know, the more I read this, the more I get pissed off. :verymad:

Well you shouldn't...he's a modder too just trying to figure things out.

 

Some people take longer than others to realize that one persons trash is another person's treasure. We all have different desires and they change over time.

[dezdimona]

Biggest reason you won't see a lot of really elaborate dungeons is because a lot of modders prefer to work alone, or in like-minded cliques.

 

It isn't easy to gather a competent team together for one big project or keep it together when there are creative differences and the prospect of working out an entire, professional looking dungeon mod all on your own is just plain oppressive - you have the idea, the story, even the plan, but the sheer volume of work it would take to do it alone makes it a most unattractive goal.

 

Add to that the fact that the only people who are going to appreciate all the effort that has gone into a mod are other modders, because the average player just devours the content and moves on without a thought to how much work went into it, or in some cases will go as far as to rip into the author because "it doesn't work" and everyone knows a readme is just there to fill out the file list, right? :rolleyes:

 

So instead of a lot of good modders working together on cool projects like game-spanning quests or a new and original dungeon, they work on small personal projects where they don't have to compromise with others and aren't slaving away for something they aren't going to get much out of. When you create a dungeon or a quest line, you know all the answers and everything that is going to happen, you know how to clear the dungeon and what monsters are down there, so there is little to no reason for you to ever use it yourself - it is exclusively for others, often others who won't appreciate it, never mind thank you for it.

 

Making a new piece of armor, some flash combat animations or a high resolution texture for the latest "Tiny Elves With Huge Mams" mod, on the other hand, are all things the author can make use of and enjoy, no matter how the community responds to them.

 

You just get more out of small personal projects as a modder... and until the all-consuming masses start to show appreciation, all the best modders will stick to smaller projects with less hassle, or as is the growing trend, leave the community completely.

 

 

 

Add to this creating your own new custom tiles for interiors and exteriors and you'll get some idea of the stables I'm cleaning for my new "Tribute to Ayn" Penthouse mod. Almost any small part of what has turned into a gargantuan mod could stand alone as a seperate mod and I'd be reasonably proud of it. Much thanks go to all my team, Dezi, GM58, RavenWhiteFeather, and EvilKingGumby.

 

 

Live Free and Die Proud

Montana

and now we have added Rebel Oconner to the team also.Our next mod will contain many new things and I think be a welcome addition to the modding community as a whole.