I will say this about at least one section of the modding community.

When bethesda released Steam workshop and the Horrors and stories heard from there.

(highly restrictive, No control over updates, SIze limits, the ammount of stuff that you get banned for, content)

Just to name a few that is in no way helping the community in its growth.

Anyone playing Skyrim and modding will know abotu Steam workshop first and foremost if they are new to the scene and when you get that + the ammount of problems CK has + what Bethesda pulls out for fixes Im surprised the community is still as big as it is.

Now I am not a Modder im merely customer service you might have seen me In the Deadly Dragosn series on Nexus and Im close friends now through that CS work with 3jiou. Hes workign on something huge right now very expansive on the loot tables and knowing him it will be compatable with other mods jsut as much as DD armory and DD spells is compatable with all other dragon mods. so Im very excited for it.

But really if you think of it from a salesmans point of view and a consumer. If I came into them odding community knowing Steam workshop only Id have pawned my skyrim within the first week of owning it. its almost like Beth is trying to kill modding in that sense because its making them look bad. but if you look at it from a producers point of view which you all can and I can too being an aspiring author the restrictivness of the leading showbunny for modding is more of a Killer than a muse inspirer. THe communitys not that big because the people who are new who might be great who are comming into this blind are being deflected immediately by the Bad publicity and showmanship of SW.

In my honest opinion thats the Leading cause of the lack of modders.

Now as to CK I am not a modder like I said 3jiou would have to post his findings and say on that end but it looks like quite the Beast I am a bit scared to figure out. I have made one mod a Resurrection spell to the same effect as Midas Resurrect seeing as Xilver seems to have Sojourned to Sithis' void and is not returning but even that was 75% 3jiou helping me with scripting getting it to work. it jsut seems like a scary merceless collosus that is waiting to smash me like the hulk.

Skyrim modding didn't take off the way I thought and hoped it would. Yes we had the 'influx' of new mods and modders that we always get for a new TES game, but as always that dies down as the hype and excitement of the new game dies. Most of those modders that pumped out those initial mods have moved on. Usually at this stage we are left with the 'in it for long term' modders, that are comprised of old modders and new ones that end up sticking around. But there seem to be a lot less of those for Skyrim. I hardly see any faces I recognise from Oblivion modding and I was there since Oblivion was released and before.

I really thought Skyrim would result in an influx of old modder friends and familiar faces....but it didn't. We seem to have lost a lot of modders and tool makers from past TES games and it has really affected the modding scene. I think the incredibly long delay in getting the CK, followed by the sheer number of broken functions and bugs, the lack of tools etc is the cause.... I have been concerned, as others have, at the very quiet Skyrim modding forum, both here and on other forums. It is too quiet.

Buuut... I have recently noticed something else. We are finally starting to get some of the resources we need, after such a dry four months, we are seeing paintings/rugs/furniture/architecture to name just a few categories.
My site just launched the Skyrim Real Estate Underground Homes Challenge, in an effort to get some more interest going and more variety of mods and we are not lacking in people signing up. In fact we have broken all previous records for modder sign ups and out of them I recognise no more then 3 names. So I still have hope that the next generation of modders is finally getting here. Right now I am hanging onto hope that we will get our needed CK fixes, our tools and our fellow modders, and soon. Maybe I am an eternal optomist, but I really think things are actually just starting to wake up and get going and that I am seeing the first signs of it.

*recharging*

There are also modders over at http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/ who don't hang out here.

There are also modders over at http://tesalliance.org/forums/ who don't hang out here.

I believe the same is true over at http://www.tesvskyrim.com/.

I do not believe this community is dead yet.

Let's just hope that the Navmesh bug is fixed before or with the Dawnguard release. Many potential modders might reconsider starting modding again if that DLC is appealing enough. If major bugs are still around then, they are shooed away again.

I dont think that the community is dead im sure that it will raise again after the bugs will be removed tools will be created.
In my opinion the community will be changed and not in a good way, first of all steam is a setback the uploading modder have a chance to receive money and valve have the right to use every asset posted in steamworks something that a lot of people dont like, the beauty of the modding community is that everything was done in a good faith, in order to make the game better people helped each other, released models atc. in skyrim things might be different because money might play a part here.

Were modders all in other places with previous games?

I think those sites are great, but I also really dislike them because they do seem to break up the modding community... Why have modders in 5 places if we could all be right here?

Mostly the Restrictive nature of the sites

One site allowes somethign appealing or brings somethign appealing that no other site does.

TESA has the Enclave for teaching new modders, bit hard to have that here

And yep modders were spread out across multiple sites with the last games.

They were also spread out all over with Morrowind too. It's nothing new.

Well, speaking from a mod user's point of view, it seems that every release has less and less modding interest. Fallout 3 never grew as big as Oblivion, New Vegas didn't even get to where Fallout 3 did. And Skyrim mods are looking quite poor too so far, apart from the skimpy armor ones

Best stuff takes time to make of course, but it seems very few large projects are underway.

And Wrye Bash is in limbo, and TES5Edit apparently will not be.

I don't think you should compare the FO series with the TES series though. I have zero interest in FO and love TES for example, I'm sure many feel the same or the other way around.

I think one of the strengths with the original Morrowind Modding community was that the Bethesda boards were the natural meeting point. I was there in 2002-2003, the forum was insanely full of activity.

During 2006-2009 I was forced to retire for a while from modding because of my family situation. When I returned, I found that ES-boards were no longer the natural meeting point for Oblivion modding. Instead people were in various smaller forums. The Oblivion forum was more of a place where modders - not mod-users - were discussing their work. And maybe that is why the Oblivion section today is very quiet while the Morrowind section of this forum is still fairly active. (This is of course still my own personal thoughts)

It IS good to have a place where everyone meets up (again this is simply my personal thoughts). It strengthens the community spirit. It's beneficial both for modders and mod users to know that regardless of which smaller forums we hang out at, there still exist a place where we all meet up. I think it is important that both modders and mod-users feel that this is a forum for us all. I wish and hope that this forum will be a place that it will strenghten the community and encourage modding projects.

True, no doubt there are players and modders who don't play both series, but i still see a trend here.

Yes, even some sites for MW tweaks and categories were independent. Anyways what's going on today, it seems, is that we haven't had many key modders that opens up new modding possibilities. I remember when @Timeslip brought MGE a whole new level of modding came to MW. Many talented modders have contributed to MGE since then. SKSE is one good thing that Skyrim has going for it.

In regards to perceived lack of modders for Skyrim.
Maybe Elder Scrolls modders are using forums less ?? (overall and across all sites)
It could be with facebook and the other forms of social media, people are just not using forums as much as they used too ?

If you look at the Nexus stats Skyrim already has over half the amount of mods available that Oblivion currently has.

Todays Nexus Total File stats

Skyrim (after 6 months)- 15,872
Oblivion (after almost 6 years) - 28,148

If we look at the total members who have files statistics, then it becomes clear that Skyrim has the same amount of modders (or atleast people who have released a file) now that Oblivion has.

Todays Nexus Members with files stats

Skyrim (after 6 months) - 6,511
Oblivion (after almost 6 years) - 6,885

The above statistics do not include modders and files exclusive to Steam Workshop.

One thing that is not clear is the amount of modders that have stayed with the Elder Scrolls modding scene. Eg the above stats could reflect a huge influx of modders for Skyrim, who released a file and then just as quickly departed (for what ever reason) never to be seen again.

I know it's been harped on extensively already, but from what I saw while playing FO3, not much happened. I never really looked into why, but then it quickly became obvious upon making my initial stabs into Skyrim. The navmesh bug. It's insidious. Mods you may not thing would be bothered by it are. House mods, village mods, quest mods, faction mods, you name it. Lots and lots of those larger projects critically rely on working navmeshes and there's no fix for the issue that can solve it in a smooth and consistent manner. So many of us are stuck in limbo waiting on that to get fixed before devoting serious time to stuff like that.

As far as Bash, it's not in limbo. It's still being poked and prodded, just not by people who can do anything meaningful to it right now. It still works just fine for Oblivion. It's just taking time to bring it up to speed for Skyrim. Hopefully one of the devs who knows the app will return from their hiatus and get the ball rolling again. The biggest and most critical part though is working fine - BAIN. Also leveled lists work fine in the bashed patch, so it isn't entirely useless.

TES5Edit is a whole other matter. Elminster has relayed that he's got no time to work on it right now and doesn't know when he'll be able to find time in the near future. So people should probably be prepared for that to shift into 2013 at this point. Andalaybay over at Dark Creations is working on getting Gecko working in Skyrim so hopefully we'll at least have something safe and reliable to use for that purpose soon.

I think many of the early Skyrim modders released a few fairly simply mods and then disappeared. It has been the same with all the moddable ES-games, but Nexus didn't even exist when Oblivion was released. Which is why these early mods aren't there (and why the highest quality Oblivion don't have half of the endorsemants that the early Skyrim mods already have). (I'm not quite sure when Nexus started, but from what I can recall it was still TESSource back in the days when Oblivion was new and it remained TESSource for quite some time)

It's going to take a ton of learning and practice to be as comfortable with Papyrus as I am with Oblivion scripting. I have had more than my fill of house modding, and everything else I'd like to do requires understanding basic Papyrus.

Also, and not to insult Skyrim, but it is my very strong personal preference to have control over what quests my character picks up, as for me that's a huge part of developing a character and that's what makes ES games so special. Be who you want to be, do what you want to do, and all that. Right now, it's nearly impossible to play for more than half an hour without having a quest I don't want forced into my log. It's hard to find motivation to learn Papyrus or make stuff when I don't enjoy playing.

So, I find myself at something of a crux. First I have to learn Papyrus, and then I have to make Skyrim Derailed (as Thomas Kaira has dropped it, and I have his blessing to pick it back up), and only then I can enjoy playing the game. And if I'm not completely estranged from the whole process after weeks of unenjoyable face-to-desk contact, then the possibility of making something creative and getting excited about it opens up. That's a really long way to go to get to the fun part.

Yes, and i keep using it for those. But having to manually correct the plugins.txt file every time i run it somewhat discourages that. Still having a shortcut to the folder where the file is, and having BOSS shortcut in that folder makes it only a minor anoyance. However i tend to change change character profiles manually from the ini file now

Doesn't the dev build support load ordering?

On the wrye bash scene of things Im pretty sure its not a voluntary Hiatus either they are there they are interested but they just do not have the capability. I believe its a combination of Real life Computer frying and Internet death thats causing Wrye bash not to expand to what it once was and so thats not fully something that can even be planned for let alone accounted before Hand. Im pretty sure the Wrye bash associates would have loved to have a crystal ball telling them hey in about 3 or so months your computer and internet and your Real life is about to get Fubared

Prepare now or suffer the Backlash.

Sadly this is not Video games and we dont have a Clairvoyance spell to cast knowing these Monkey wrenches ^^.

At least thats my understanding.

Exactly. It's fine that they all go to their own corner of the woods for various things, but people still need to come back here, it just doesn't seem like they do anymore.

Yeah it does, so there's no need to manually edit plugin.txt.

In Lojack's case that's almost certain as he's an active service member of the US Navy.
You can be pretty certain that he'll be back on board - if you'll pardon the pun - eventually.