Skyrim mods, years on.

[Riprock]

I see many, many well done Player Homes. Dozens hundreds thousands maybe.

 

There's standouts like 'Falskaar'. Must-haves like ' Wet and Cold'.

 

But I have been to the Nexus once a week or more, sometimes. Looking at mods. Downloading many, seeing how they are, keeping some and letting others go.

 

I have not seen the Skyrim equivalent of Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul yet. Did I miss it?

 

I never modded Morrowind. I heavily modded Oblivion. OOO was the single best mod- for me even better than DLC- I had. It made the game a thing of mysterious happenstances and that was a feeling I liked in Morrowind, a lot.

 

Have we simply not produced an equal to OOO mod for Skyrim yet? Player abodes, great...we need a shot in the arm like OOO gave Oblivion

[Mattiewagg]

I wish we did have something like it. ;) None of the overhauls are really the same though - I don't expect the same, but true deleveling.

[Terra Nova]

All most mods have done is cause players to have high expectations and unreasonable standards..

[Riprock]

All most mods have done is cause players to have high expectations and unreasonable standards..

 

 

:) I have made third-party content for a particular combat flight simulator. To do that I had to do a few things:

 

1) Spend hundrreds of dollars of my own money on historically accurate reference material

2) actually talk to WWII veterans about the subject

3) spend literally thousands of hours over several years actually making the mod

4) spend a couple thousand hours after the mod was made to accurately re-create the historical paint schemes for the aircraft involved.

 

I distributed this work for free. Anyone can download it for exactly zero dollars. It has been extremely well received, which pleases me and it is the reward I was hoping for- somebody else enjoyed it. And it was enjoyed precisely because I had two things to work towards-

 

I assumed that people would have high expectations.

I held myself to a very high standard.

 

While I do not wish to say that my own work is somehow superior to a mod made for Skyrim, I do feel that because of it, I can safely say that I understand high standards and that I can judge what a reasonable expectation could be.

 

It is my opinion that any 'high expectation' comes from the creator of the mod. Who else told people about it and supplied info about it, if not the creator? Any 'unreasonable' standard will undoubtedly come from very successful and well-received and crafted mods being compared to ones that do not meet that level of quality. Instead of looking at that as a negative, I suggest using that as a way any modder, for any game, to challenge themselves regarding the quality of their work.

 

If making high-quality mods were easy, that would be great. As it turns out, it is not. But with hundreds of thousands of modders making their work available...you will by necessity see a smaller percentage of high quality mods, and larger number of lower quality ones.

[volnaiskra]

I had about a 100 Oblivion mods, but I don't remember OOO. What did it do?

 

I take it you've already looked at overhauls like SkyRe?

[EnaiSiaion]

The first overhaul that is reasonably good, has sufficiently general appeal (as opposed to being blatantly the author's pet) and is not a minefield of bugs and broken features will rule.

 

Still waiting.

[lofgren]

Wait, what would you call Requiem?

 

And what features did OOO have that Skyrim doesn't? OOO's core feature, enemies scaling based on location, was integrated into vanilla Skyrim from the start, so there's no need for it to be added. That doesn't mean there's not room for another overhaul, but it's not like you can just point to OOO and say "do what he did."

[Mattiewagg]

Wait, what would you call Requiem?

 

And what features did OOO have that Skyrim doesn't? OOO's core feature, enemies scaling based on location, was integrated into vanilla Skyrim from the start, so there's no need for it to be added. That doesn't mean there's not room for another overhaul, but it's not like you can just point to OOO and say "do what he did."

OOO didn't rrlaly have scaled enemies. They were one level depending on where they were and WHAT they were.

 

I'll go back and look at it, since it's been a while since I played it. I just remember Oblivion was a hell of lot better with it and Skyrim never had felt that way with overhauls. However, that might just be because I don't think Skyrim is a particularly good game or one that interested me beyond my first playthrough, and Oblivion was a better aft isomers and I enjoyed the dungeons better. That's why mods exist I suppose, but I've never found one like OOO (like Enai said) for Skyrim. There's like 2 well known ones and a few others.

[lofgren]

 

Wait, what would you call Requiem?

 

And what features did OOO have that Skyrim doesn't? OOO's core feature, enemies scaling based on location, was integrated into vanilla Skyrim from the start, so there's no need for it to be added. That doesn't mean there's not room for another overhaul, but it's not like you can just point to OOO and say "do what he did."

OOO didn't rrlaly have scaled enemies. They were one level depending on where they were and WHAT they were.

 

I'll go back and look at it, since it's been a while since I played it. I just remember Oblivion was a hell of lot better with it and Skyrim never had felt that way with overhauls. However, that might just be because I don't think Skyrim is a particularly good game or one that interested me beyond my first playthrough, and Oblivion was a better aft isomers and I enjoyed the dungeons better. That's why mods exist I suppose, but I've never found one like OOO (like Enai said) for Skyrim. There's like 2 well known ones and a few others.

 

 

OOO did have scaled enemies.

 

Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul aims for a more static world. The features of “level scaling” are not completely taken away, but are tweaked to enhance the believability, immersion, and unpredictability of the Cyrodiil’s inhabitants. Most default NPCs are more static than default, but not completely static.

OOO scaled enemies based on their proximity to major cities.

 

Skyrim scales enemies based on their altitude. At low altitudes you are more likely to encounter bandits and wolves (capped at level 15 for norms and 25 for bosses), at higher altitudes you fight Draugr and trolls (capped at level 30 for norms and 50 for bosses), and on mountain peaks you fight dragons (capped at level 100 for named dragons and I think 50 for unnamed). Neither is 100% consistent about this but that is general idea.

 

Most of the mods that were merged to create OOO provided functionality that was included in Skyrim from day 1. Oscuro stopped development of OOO when he was hired by Bethesda so that's hardly surprising.

 

I think it's important to note that the vastly improved mod-making tools of Skyrim make giant merged overhauls less necessary. Different mods play together much better than before. In addition tools such as Wrye Bash and TESVEdit were available from nearly CK day 1. In fact at least TESVEdit and probably Wrye pre-date the CK.

 

OOO was necessary because of certain choices that the Oblivion creative team made, just as Requiem is necessary because of choices that the Skyrim team made. There is room for more overhauls, of course, aiming at different niches, but it's not like you can just point to OOO and say "Just do what they did." There is no need to do what they did because most of what they did is already in the game. That means that overhaul creators have to come up with new ideas.

 

Personally I probably would not use a mod like OOO for Skyrim because OOO mostly merged the most popular mods around into one giant overhaul. As I already mentioned this is just less necessary for Skyrim, thanks to Papyrus being a better scripting language and most especially thanks to SkyUI and the MCM which allows players to customize their experience like never before. I would not be surprised if the one-size-fits-all overhaul is simply dead at this point. I don't mourn it. My game is already thoroughly overhauled to my personal tastes, and that is enough for me.

Edited January 26, 2015 by lofgren

[Kerberus14]

Come to think about it.. "OOO mostly merged the most popular mods around into one giant overhaul.." sounds like what I'm trying to do with SkyEnd, although it is a shame I couldn't release at least a reasonable version of it yet(the ones in my signature are just test versions, created/posted just to receive feedback due to lack of testers). It's going to be months until I finish this overhaul by myself. And I've done something about the Encounter Zones that you might consider interesting : I didn't find a workaround to make a perfectly leveled world, but I made all levels useless, levels scale with stats, and the whole Skyrim world will accommodate to your stats.