Skyrim Mod Group

[gengrimm]

I was wondering if there are any other modders or mod groups that are interested in starting some pre-production planning for Skyrim Mods.

 

Obviously it is too early to do anything substantial besides planning and theorizing. I think now would be a good time to start getting a list of fellow modders that would be interested in working on a project(s) for Skyrim.

 

I'm currently interested in doing some base mods, and maybe a Companion/Quest Mod.

[jamochawoke]

Once I 1) obtain the game and 2) learn the Skyrim CS I'd be happy to help.

 

Until those 2 things happen though I wouldn't get too excited (hoping for a Skyrim Christmas present :).

 

I only started Oblivion modding after I realized what the tools I had were capable of.

[ABVXYzackattack]

I was thinking the same about modding Skyrim, but I realized I only started Oblivion and Morrowind once I realized the flaws of the games. Skyrim is literally going to be perfect, and I wouldn't personally want to ruin its purity by creating mods. Sounds weird, but does any one else agree?

[David Brasher]

I kind of feel like it is too early for anyone to work on Skyrim mods. Nobody has the software and nobody knows what is needed. Most Oblivion mods address a particular lack in Oblivion. Like a modder might think that Oblivion heavy armor is ugly and boring so he or she makes a mod to add new Oblivion armor. Well in Skyrim, we don't know if the heavy armor is ugly and boring. So if a modder slaves away to make Skyrim heavy armor, when the game comes out, it may be discovered that there are tons of kinds of heavy armor and they are just awesome and beautiful, and the modded armor looks cheap and shoddy and does not actually improve the game.

 

There are some indications that Skyrim will use the same modeling and texturing system as Skyrim, but I am not holding my breath. Chances are that there will be enough differences to make things difficult. For example, you can't just grab a model built for a Morrowind mod and turn it into an Oblivion model, it is tricky and you really have to know what you are doing. So if you build things for Skyrim now, they could possibly be difficult to convert to the new system or even impossible.

 

In modding, the real bottleneck is with things like CS users and quest-coders. The writers can write hundreds of pages of plans, but the CS folks work for many hours to get a few pages of it into the game in an altered and diminished form. So in my opinion, it is not real productive to make elaborate plans for Skyrim quests at this time. There is also the matter of them possibly not being lore-friendly to Skyrim, which we can't examine yet, or having them be unneeded and duplicating something that is already amply covered by the new game.

 

In my opinion, the best things you could do right now as would-be Skyrim modders is either step away from modding and take a long vacation to rest up and gain enthusiasm and strength, or else work hard at learning the skills of an Oblivion modder. Many of those skills will likely be similar to skills needed for Skyrim modding, and a good Oblivion modder may be able to quickly learn to be a good Skyrim modder if the software is not too different.