Hi Everyone,

I've been playing Skyrim on PS3 and really enjoying it, but when I learned about the workshop in Steam and how easy it is to add mods, I had to jump ship. So here I am starting Skyrim over from the very beginning.

I'm looking for mod recommendations, I've added a couple mods to enhance the towns and villages, an enviromental mod for lamp posts and guard dialgoue. Are there other mods out there that people recommend that can either 1) continue to enhance the enviroment of Skyrim (simple touches like more lamps is cool) 2) more towns or villages 3) more NPCs. I'd like to see more NPCs while I travel, but am not sure if there is a recommended mod for that.

I'm really into improving the world enviroment, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

To all the modders, thank you for creating some awesome experiences, I look forward to what the community has to offer.

First off, welcome to the world of mods!

Steam Workshop is a great introduction to mods, but there are many mods available at the Nexus that aren't available on the workshop.

Interesting NPCs (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8429) is the mod to add voiced NPCs with their own stories, some of which can be recruited as followers, and a couple of associated quests. They're dotted around, and some are so well voiced that you may be fooled into thinking they're a vanilla NPC at first! Usually the giveaway is that they are much more willing to chat than vanilla NPCs, with multiple dialogue branches.

For the more aesthetic mods, I'll let others fight over which is best...

Congrats for making the switch! I recently jumped from xbox too and am loving Skyrim on PC. Here are a few mods from Nexus that I am using and love:

• W.A.T.E.R.
  
• Project Reality Climates of Tamriel
  
• Dynavision

I'd second W.A.T.E.R (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13268), but would also suggest using Rivers For W.A.T.E.R. as well (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/18958)

Are you using (and can your system handle) HD textures to start making everything look much more detailed? Skyrim HD 2K (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/607) or Skyrim Realistic Overhaul (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/5400/)?

SMIM (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8655) makes some of the meshes more elaborate - making those items look much nicer.

I also tried out Project Reality CoT but prefer the skies from vanilla or the HD pack - as I said before, a lot of it is down to personal tase.

Dynavision has a couple of issues at the moment (the summon helper spell is a little immersion-breaking to me in any case) - the summoned helper doesn't behave as it should, and the mod can cause save game bloat - might be better to wait until gopher can fix these before you install.

Word of warning: prepare to crash to your desktop without warning or explanation multiple times.

I can recommend Skyrim Monster Mod together with the Lore friendly version by jackstarr (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/16411 & http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9694), it's one of the reasons I myself am returning to Skyrim for a new game. Basically it makes the world more interesting with lots of new and interesting creatures. The lore friendly version has my recommendation if you prefer not seeing cyclops's, abominations and all those kind of creatures that never existed in TES.

Ok, if you want to minimise crashes to desktop - follow a few simple steps....

1) Download and use BOSS to correctly manage your load order. Mods that are not ordered correctly can crash your system. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/6 for info about BOSS and http://code.google.com/p/better-oblivion-sorting-software/downloads/listfor the download. Download the installer version. BOSS stands for Better Oblivion Sorting Software, but is also designed for Skyrim and is essential if you're new to mods and use more that one mod.

2) Make sure you read the readmes of all mods you download. Don't install mods that look as though they conflict. (Wrye Bash can solve that later on, but best start off simple).

3) Don't overload on mods. Install one or two at a time, and thoroughly test in-game by playing for a number of hours.

4) Look at your system specs. Mods that add a lot of new content (creatures, visuals) can overload some systems causing crashes.


Go slowly, and don't be too ambitious with your load order. Only once you're sure everything is stable can you start testing the limits of your system with more mods.


Edit:
@Crowbar - posted just before I saw yours - thanks for the recommendation!
@Omaeka - Monster Mod can be quite heavy on systems as it adds a large number of new monsters, so I'd suggest only trying that out once you're sure your game is stable.

Like you I am a fair noob to mods but not TES. I can not recommend the http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11318/ enough. Makes the game look gorgeous. I have it on my machine now and my wife is seriously jealous. She's been playing Sims of late but might have to get Skyrim running again. The README appears daunting but is super-easy. Just follow the steps and you'll be set.