The Sad State of Skyrim Modding

[Pzychotix]

As we all know, Bethesda games are incredibly popular not only because they are good, but because they are able to be modified or added to. This is a very good thing that we can all agree upon. What we can't agree upon is the mods that are made. If someone were to look at the main page at almost any given time of the day on any given day, odds are they would see armor and weapon mods, clothing mods, companion mods, savegames, textures, player housing, ENB settings, and translations of mods. Furthermore, you will almost never see quest mods, new dungeons, or non player-owned housing. This can all be verified by just looking at the main page or going to the categories section and looking at how unbalanced the uploads in each area are.

 

First, I would like to cover the things that you would see when you look at the new uploads on the main page. I will briefly talk about them, and then cover the pros and cons of them. The first section will be very long, but only because it lays the ground work for some of the other sections. Feel free to skip this section if you don't want to read a lot (ctrl+f for &1).

 

Armor, Weapons, and Clothing - This is basically exactly what you would think, new armor, weapons, and clothing. The good thing about it, is that it allows for a change in the game, something new. The problem is, it doesn't do that. 99% of the mods in these categories only add stuff for the player to wear (or companions), not the NPCs. Some of them don't look like they even belong in the game, and most of them are unbalanced. Even more troubling, is the fact that almost all of the items are basically given to the player for free. It's either just laying somewhere to be picked up, or, here's what's really stupid, let's make it so you can craft it. Now I know what you're thinking, "This is just an item mod, we aren't required to make you work for it." That's true, and I won't argue with that, but what you must realize is, by doing so, you aren't adding to the game, you are taking away from it. "What do you mean we are taking away from the game?" What I mean is, by basically giving overpowered stuff to the player without having to work for it, you are taking away from the kill and loot mechanic of them game. Why bother looting someone when you know their stuff won't compare? Sure, this happens at the end of the game when you have 100 smithing, but what you're doing is making it happen at level 1 (also making the smithing interface a giant mess). What I want to make clear though, is that all of this is actually fine, that's right, it's completely OK. The real problem is, these categories make up over 25% of the Skyrim mods.

 

Companions - I personally don't use companions. I find them stupid, useless, and completely lacking any kind of use of tactics. If you take a look at the companion mods you will notice that about 90% of them (that's right, only 90%) are just, HOT <insert race> FOLLOWER. These uploads provide absolutely no content value to the game at all. That isn't an opinion, that's a fact. What I will say is, the other 10% (which are usually in gameplay changes) are good. They change the AI of companions so they aren't useless bags of flesh. Once again, yes, that's what that category is for, and you are completely allowed do it, but what the problem is, you aren't adding anything to the game (except an overpowered female that looks like she should be on America's Next Top Model).

 

Savegames - These aren't even mods. It's just like companions but less work. <female name> - HOT <insert race> CHARACTER (requires CBBE, a hair mod, some face remesh so they look like they are from a cartoon, and an eye mod). I will just say it right now, nobody cares that you spent 5 hours editing sliders to make an attractive female. Stop uploading them, there are almost 900 choices to choose from, nobody is going to use yours.

 

Textures - What's good about them? Come on, it's obvious, you make the entire game look good (better). The textures I want to talk about though, are the retextures of companions and NPCs. That's right, we're talking about the majority of the textures, the ones that are pointless. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, try searching for "Lydia" in the search box. I'll spoil it for you, 99 files, most of them retextures. Sure 99 isn't much, but almost every companion or female character you can marry has been retextured an insane amount of times. I've even seen retextures of companions that other people created. It's ridiculous. There are enough choices, stop it.

 

Player Homes - What's good about it? Well, you get a house for free. That's a joke...not really. Sure, some of the homes in the game are boring or get boring after a while, and you want change. But I ask you, how much time do you actually spend in your player home? I know I don't spend much. I run in, drop my ores and dragon bones in a chest, ingredients and soul gems in another, rest in the bed for the exp bonus, and leave. That generally takes about 2 minutes. Seeing as there are over 1k user created player homes, you guys(and girls) must spend a lot of time in there decorating or something. As with the other categories, there are enough choices, we don't need more.

 

ENB settings - The good thing about ENB is it can make your game look fancy. I applaud Boris's work on ENB, I think it is amazing both as an addition to the game and as a feat of programming. Furthermore, it allows a person to customize how they want the overall game to look and feel, which is a very good thing. The problem is, everybody is uploading their settings. Yes, I'll admit some do look good, but most of them are horrible. I've seen people upload modified version of settings someone else uploaded. There are enough options to choose from. Even if you get tired of the one you are using, there are enough of them out there, you will never run out. Stop uploading them.

 

Translated mods - The good thing is quite obvious, it allows people of different languages to enjoy whatever mod is being translated. I want to make it clear that I have no problem at all with mods being translated, in fact, I support it. What I have against it, is people creating entirely new mod pages for the translated version. The problem with them is that it makes searching for mods a giant pain in the butt, it clutters everything up, it prevents actual measurements of how many actual armor mods there are, and are generally not worthy of having a separate page.

 

&1 (for the people that don't want to read the problems)

 

To summarize what was covered above, most of what is being uploaded is trash. I do not mean to offend people this, but I know I will. What is happening, is that people are uploading a bunch of junk in large numbers. A lot of quantity, but very little quality. This is bad because it adds little, if not nothing to the game. If nobody else noticed, the majority of the content is focused on the player, not the non-player character. Now that does seem like the logical thing to do to enhance gameplay, but it isn't. You can only wear one set of armor. You can only equip one shield. You only equip one or two weapons. You can't use 20 different magic spells in a fight (I know I didn't cover magic above but it follows the same principals as weapons). You only need one player house. The fact of the matter is, if you want to enhance gameplay, you need to focus on what the rest of the game is doing. Adding new armor to the game won't make playing the same storyline again be any better. It won't make raiding the same dungeons any different. And it definitely won't make you want to play the game more.

 

Well how do we go about making the game more enjoyable? As stated above, we need to focus on the non-player character. This doesn't mean we should just plop a bunch of NPCs down in cities. It means that there needs to be a focus on what the player (you) can't use. New lands need to created for you to explore, new dungeons need to be made to crawl through, new bosses need to be created for you to master. There needs to be new NPCs with engaging personalities that make you want to take on their quest, not just do it because it is a quest. All of this can be done using the same methods that are being used to create the useless or redundant content.

 

Most of what is being uploaded has the potential to be useful in better, higher quality mods that add to the game.

-Armor, weapons, and clothing could be added to complete overhauls, new lands, new dungeons, new factions, etc...

-Companions, savegames, and retextures can be used as the basis for new NPCs for those overhauls, new lands, factions, cities, etc...(obviously we'd need a lot more male NPCs since they make up about 1% of the work done in these areas)

-Player homes could be used to populate the new lands, cities, etc. Even better, the people with the knowledge on how to make player houses, could use the same knowledge to create dungeons, castles, and other interiors for quest mods, adventures, or other things requiring interiors.

-ENB settings...well since that just involves editing an ini...I got nothing. Just please stop uploading them.

-Translations. This is a big one. Instead of creating an entirely new page for the translation, send the files and the translated readme/mod info to the author. I'm sure the author would gladly add it to their mod as a separate download. As for the mod info, they could post the translated version to a website such as textuploader.com.

 

These are just a few examples. Am I saying people should have to learn something new to create good content? No. They can do what they enjoy doing and still contribute good quality content. How can they do that if what they upload already is not quality? What they could do, is work together with other modders to create something truly magnificent. The people that know how to create worldspaces can create a new landscape. The people that create player houses can build houses to create cities in the new worldspace, and create dungeons to explore. The people creating companion mods can use their companions for the NPCs in the cities. The people making weapon, armor, and clothing mods can use their abilities to create new world objects to fill space (seriously, why is there only like 2 fruits in the whole game).

With all of those people working together, we have a new Skyrim...almost. What's left is for people to come up with some engaging dialogue for those NPCs, and a storyline to follow that is actually interesting. Now that we have a new land with new cities and dungeons filled with interesting people, we need something to do. Have those interesting NPCs give you interesting quests that take place in these new dungeons (or forts, etc) that are filled with new items. Don't think I forgot about you translators out there. You could translate the content so that even more people get to enjoy the game.

 

Now I know what I am saying sounds like I'm telling people to create an entirely new game. That's not what I'm suggesting (but if some people do based on this post, I would overjoyed). What I'm suggesting, is just find someone else with modding experience and work with them. If you are an armor creator, team up with a home builder and a companion maker. With those three people you could make a haunted mansion(home builder) filled with talking zombies(companion maker teamed with armor maker). The same team could make a tower that is owned by a wizard, decorated with floating objects. They could make a city built completely in trees, populated by little gnomes that want you to go kill the wizard in the tower because he murdered the family in the mansion and is now plotting their demise. The possibilities are endless. I consider myself a very uncreative man and I alone was able to come up with that completely unique storyline in less than five minutes. Imagine what a group of people could come up with if they worked together.

 

To sum everything up (TL;DR because I will be getting a lot of it): If you are a modder, stop working by yourself, uploading tons of content that very few people are going to download, and even fewer appreciate. Find yourself another modder that specializes in something you don't and work with them to create something people will actually enjoy, and make them want to play the game more. Focus more on things to do, not things to collect. If you upload ENB settings or lots of savegames, please just stop.

 

Thank you for reading. I know it was a lot, but I believe it was enough to bring light to how modding is currently and how it should and is intended to be.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Pzychotix

[CallMeIshmael]

I dunno, tbh, I kiiiinda agree, mostly disagree with you on the majority of your assessment. I think the thing that people seem to forget is that Skyrim is running on a "new" engine (well, it's not, but new enough to be confusing at the very least), and that makes the development of huge mods such as the sort you are proposing not only a monumental undertaking in and of itself, but a perpetual exercise in trial & error to boot. Rest assured, they ARE in development (check out some of the things Prometheus and Tumba Jumba are constantly teasing), but who knows how long off they are at this point, or even how many are ever gonna see the light of day? From what I can gather, Bethesda didn't exactly release the "full" tool set this time around (or at the very least, any kind of 3rd party support), and that certainly does not serve to make the hobby any more enjoyable.

 

That's also another thing to consider: as the technology advances, modding (ie, developing) will only become an even more convoluted and time consuming past time (kind of backwards, that) - why spend your evenings and weekends putting so much time into something that you can get paid to do full time? Go ahead and crucify me in the square for this, but I for one would not.

 

Speaking of technology - actually before I do, I want to quickly make clear that I am not one to scoff at the creative expression of others, nor will I as you suggest (treat others as you would have them treat you and that ol' bag), and am only ever gonna encourage one and all to upload their work, regardless of "quality"; there's a definite learning curve, and a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Now moving on, as I was saying in regards to technology, we live in a day and age where the higher end specs of yesterday are becoming more and more affordable today, for better or worse. Combine this with our ever shifting pop culture landscape where suddenly our beloved TES series was able to become a household name seemingly overnight (OMG!!! DRAGONS?!?!), and you have an influx of people coming to sites such as this one in a very short period of time. And let's face it, with the typical PC gaming mentality, that influx of people is never a good thing: unfortunately, it's typically the more elitist (maybe impatient is a kinder term?) of the bunch that seem to have the most talent, and that are likewise gone the quickest...how many great long-time modders did we lose in those first few months?

 

One last thing to keep in mind: most of the well-received "ambitious" mods for MW/OB/FO3/NV came near the end of their life cycle, after the official dust had more or less settled. In contrast, the folks at Bethesda are still actively developing content and support for Skyrim, and when that big, ugly, yellow triangular question mark is looming overhead - "Will the next official patch/DLC completely break, rape or otherwise render my 100+ hours of work unplayable?" - I can understand the hesitation.

 

Ask yourself: would you rather folk tinker around with the tool sets available, releasing the small mod here and there, or nothing at all?

 

Give it time, my friend; the best is yet to come.

[Dark0ne]

One question: have you made and released any mods?