My journey into modding

[TheTokenGeek]

 

As hard as it may be to fathom, before I began working for Nexus Mods, I had never really tried to "mod" anything. I mean, the only form of "modding" I had ever done in my life was add a spoiler to my first car back in 1996; put a window into the side of my first, self-built computer; and maybe change a console game with one of the cheat cartridges that were available at the time. Modding just seemed irrelevant to me, like an unnecessary hassle; I already liked the game so why on earth would I go tinkering with it? I mean, I’d probably make it unstable, or surely it would BSOD, right? It was the equivalent to me of taking a Ferrari and sticking a massive turbocharger inside it: it may be fun, but was it needed? No, of course not. I was also worried: Was I going to be VAC banned for changing textures? Would people think I am cheating if I added a mod to allow me to carry more in my inventory? Would it detract from the game if I added a map with all the roads? The list of concerns I had seemed endless.

 

So what has changed?

 

 

To put it simply, I tried it...  Robin told me to take a week or so to have a play around and see what happens. So I started with Skyrim, the most popular game on the Nexus Mods website with over 1 billion downloads and counting. It seemed like a relatively good place to start; mods were readily available and highly tested by our community, so I loaded it up. I played the vanilla game for some hours, taking in the standard game vistas, the armours, weapons, NPCs, weather, and the like. Skyrim is an incredible game, one you can get lost in as the hours pass by like they're minutes. One moment it's 5 p.m.; the next thing you realise, you've hit 1 in the morning! Your character has many active quests, each like an episode of 'The Walking Dead', and you just need to see it through to the end before you can tear yourself away.

 

I was enjoying the game...  That's a given! However, I had to take the plunge; my job was now on a modding website, the biggest on the internet no less, so the pressure was mounting.

 

To begin with, I went through the list of mods, which is a daunting task in itself as we're currently closing fast on 50,000 mod files. I explored the list of most downloaded mods and had a look to find those that were immediately going to give me something different, something I would notice, and something I would like.

 

 

In fact, the first mod that I ever downloaded was SkyUI, which is by far the most popular mod file we have on Nexus Mods. This mod has been downloaded over 13 million times, that’s more than the entire population of Greece! That is a crazy figure that indicates how good the mod truly is. SkyUI is designed to change the UI (User Interface) of Skyrim in a huge way; it replaces every menu within the game with a far more productive and informative version. Need to know how much damage your mace swings for? Just open the menu. It brings in so many useful tweaks; it makes you wonder why the developers did not create it this way in the first place.

 

Now, here is where I had my first RTFM (Read The f*#@ing Manual) moment! I installed SkyUI using Nexus Mod Manager (NMM). It seemed easy enough; you just click 'Download (NMM),' and the next moment, NMM opens, and the mod file is automatically added to your list of available mods. Then, you activate it directly from within the application. Easy!

 

(That is of course until Skyrim Special Edition gets released and we get a huge influx of people, so we have to turn off NMM so the sites don’t go down ;))

 

 

After activating the mod, I opened Skyrim and went about my merry way; but where was this amazing new UI that I was expecting? Everything still looked identical! I opened up a browser and navigated rather solemnly to the mod page and read through the description. It seems I had missed one ever so minor part that was necessary to get SkyUI working correctly: I had not installed SKSE (Skyrim Script Extender). SKSE is a mod that isn't available directly on Nexus Mods, so I had to download it manually from their website. To put it shortly, SKSE does exactly what it says on the tin, it expands the scripting language for Skyrim to allow for bigger and more robust mods. The memory allocation patch that it includes also allows you to add more mods to the game without it crashing to desktop, I however, just wanted to use SkyUI.

 

This time, I ran the game and pressed Tab – you could say that I was pleased when I was immediately presented with the updated menu system that I had been expecting the first time. I continued my game for another hour or two before stopping to think about what had just happened. Now I don't know about you, but have you ever thought about how much time that singular mod has saved you while you have played the game? Before, I would have to open up my inventory and then click to select Armour, Magic, Books, etc., and then run my cursor down the list to find their information.  Now, all I had to do was open the menu, look straight at a table of items, and all the stats were immediately available. I could even sort by any of their values if I wanted. It was just a pleasure to use.

 

 

SkyUI single-handedly changed my view of modding. Now, that may come across as a bold statement, but I'm pretty sure that most of the people who have read this far, and have Skyrim themselves (the original, not the Special Edition), will have SkyUI installed.

 

Now, I digress, but the impact of the mod was made clear to me the other day when the Skyrim Special Edition was launched. I was looking forward to checking out the new visuals and improvements that Bethesda had made to the already excellent game. After pre-loading and waiting for the game to unlock, I sat looking at the screen wondering what mods I was going to install first. Working for the site, I knew that the interest was high, and we would soon get an influx of mods that I could choose from.  Then it opened, and I quickly began the game and sat through that same cart journey toward Helgen, after which I had to configure my character (something I take my time over) and go into the actual gameplay. The dragon descended and away I went. I decided to follow Ralof and made my way through Helgen, collecting junk, choosing the sword over magic and following the path, only to emerge on the other side a little bit sad. Yes, the game was still fun; yes, it still drew me in, but the standard UI on the menu system was just terrible, and I was already missing the look and feel of SkyUI.

 

So if this was just one mod, what could I do if I began to find ones that were going to prove helpful and stack them together?

 

I must have spent a good few hours looking through the mods for Skyrim on Nexus Mods; I admit that I did it the 'easy' way and sorted through a list of 'Most downloaded' before going through each one to discover what it was offering. I believe that in the first few days of modding, I had downloaded, installed and activated around 50 mods. It was exhilarating to add new features to the game, jump into my character, and see what new items, tasks, quests, abodes and spells were available to me. The mini-games that I found tedious and (in my eyes) took away from the main game I no longer had to worry about. Lockpicking no longer deducted from my gaming experience as I installed 'KenMOD - Lockpick Pro - Cheat'. Concentrating on the quests now became the priority and it became clear that these mods had enhanced the game considerably based on my own personal tastes.

 

 

With a choice of 50,000 files on Nexus Mods for Skyrim alone, I needed to think about how I wanted my game to 'feel', so I began plotting. I wanted to find mods that were going to enhance the sound and the visuals. I wanted a few more abodes in which my character could relax. Also, as the standard map in the game is 'adequate' but not great, I thought that maybe I should go for a different map.

 

The list began to grow, and so did my frustration with the website. Nexus Mods is a vast repository; it hosts over 400,000 mod files and even more image files, but can you find anything on it? Yes, but barely. The search was only just functional and didn't allow many filters or arguments at all. Something was definitely going to have to be done to rectify that in the redesign!

 

Over the period of around a week, I must have installed around 75 mods into Skyrim. It most certainly wasn't smooth sailing, I had numerous crashes to desktop, problems getting mods installed, trouble removing ones I no longer wanted and much, much more. But through tools such as LOOT (Load Order Optimisation Tool), sites such as http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/wiki/beginners_guide and the Nexus Mods Wiki, combined with lots of perseverance, I have now ended up with a build that suits me down to the ground. Now, following the release of Skyrim Special Edition I have to go through the entire process again. But you know what? That's part of the fun!

 

I've based this article on Skyrim; it was the logical stepping-in point for me due to it being the most prolific game on Nexus Mods. But since then, I have had the enjoyment of creating a new experience within Fallout 4 ('Lowered Weapons' and 'Full dialogue interface' are two mods I now can't live without), adding different vault suits, changing the UI and allowing someone else to accompany Dogmeat and me on our travels.

 

I've tweaked some of our lesser known and used games such as Dying Light, Starbound, Wolfenstein and Dark Souls to name but a few. 

 

Each little tweak here and there adds to the experience, allowing new possibilities and fixing some of the bugs that remain in games. The hardest part, for me, has been knowing when to stop and play the game. I get engrossed in the build. It becomes like a powerful drug and I find myself saying "just one more mod, then you can give it a play-through". 

 

 

The great thing I have found with modding is that it is all down to personal preference; there is no wrong or right way to mod your game. I mean, you can have your files in the incorrect load order or can put two incompatible mods together, which would need to be rectified before your game will work, but what you want to install is entirely up to you and your overall aim.

 

The community that we have here at Nexus Mods (I know, I drum on about it a lot) truly is an excellent source of knowledge, one which I relied on a lot when I was first trying to get things working. I often found myself scouring the forums, trying to find a solution to some problem I had come up against, and more often than not, I would find the solution. I’ve found everyone I have spoken too to be exceptionally receptive, assisting me in all manner of queries and never begrudging my seemingly benign questions. Our community is a resource, one that each of us can tap into no matter how far along the modding journey we are. 

 

Over the coming months, Dave (SirSalami) and I will be presenting an 'Introduction to Modding' series that will concentrate on a particular game and show how we have modified it to meet our needs.

 

We'll most likely start with vanilla Skyrim (Standard Edition) and begin adding mods to it. As the weeks progress, we'll show you how we use tools to get everything working, how they make it easier for you to organise mods, and much more. We do hope you stick around and join us.

 

If you would like to submit an article to us here at Nexus Mods, please feel free to get in touch with Paul (BlindJudge) at [email protected].

[MEMEMANN]

SUCC

[kwc813]

I applaud the intent and initiative. Now, don't forget an additional server on the way in tomorrow!

 

[SnuffyIsMe]

This is a GREAT article!!! Thank you for sharing your experience. I, too, am relatively new to modding and Nexus. One year ago I didn't realize what I was missing. It is a rather disconcerting endeavor when first approached, however once you get that first mod going.... well, guess you know what happens. I look foreword to your intro to modding presentation, as it will only add to the pleasure of visiting this site and modding... especially for us that are newer users. I will have to say that Nexus is really a helpful community, most of what I had questions about, was rather effortlessly found here. Amazing community this is!!! Edited November 10, 2016 by SnuffyIsMe

[dooks]

Great article !!

can relate,

My early experience was in unreal tournament but i remember successfully loading my first mod and then thinking ........if i can do this then what else can i do?

then along came fo3 and modding really took off for me :)

i think personally modding is far more about personal choice than "cheating" and totally agree with your lockpicking woes!

whatever your view though .....modding is still the ONLY way to have a truly unique game and also extends that games life :)

[Kalell]

I've found that it's fine to just mod a game and not actually get around to playing it. There have been numerous games where I've spent much more time modding it than playing. Looking back I thoroughly enjoyed my time with those games and don't regret the time I spent modding rather than playing. Honestly I'd say I actually enjoy modding most games more than I enjoy playing them.

 

Btw, there is a version of SkyUI that works with SSE. There's no MCM and there's an error message in the corner of the inventory, but I've been using it for a while now and it works fine.

[Jonas801]

great article. i agree there probably should be done something about the search and once you start it is hard to stop and then you realise "i have not even played this game". Edited November 10, 2016 by Jonas801

[Kregen]

I think the most important thing about mods is that you don't realize you need them until you try that first one. After that you never look back and wonder how you did without them, they fix unplayable games, add or change content in ways that make you wonder why the developers did not do it that way. Don't get me wrong there are many great and wonderfull games out there, but having said that I do not think I have ever played a game without thinking I wish they had done that differently at some point. Mods let you change that one small detail that realy upsets you.

[Alexeus]

That was inspiring, you described exactly what i have feeled since i began to apply mods to skyrim (my first game) im grateful for this community.

Greetings brothers.

[badkrma]

cool :)