And maturity, and at least one game design bone in your body. Exhibit A: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=1601 (I'll ignore the arrogance of that name for now). Tons of new content, and no small measure of work has gone into this. But is it balanced? Does it complement the existing game? How many bugs has it introduced? How well integrated into the core experience is it? I haven't personally used it, but the attitude on the front page seems to imply that the #1 goal is content for the sake of more content. Is it balanced and lore-friendly? Who cares, throw it in there!

Most of these styles of mods (Tytanis is not the only one) are not well-designed, not well thought out, not well balanced, and are engineered specifically to make someone's download counter go up. They are designed to be popular as possible by giving players as many new toys as possible. Maybe it's a fantastic piece of work and I'm singling out the wrong mod (I fully admit that I haven't played it), but the frontpage doesn't communicate to the contrary if it is.

Flip side of the coin: it would appear that quite a lot of folks want this sort of thing and he's just giving it to them, and there's no shame in that. But I don't think it moves the game and the modding community forward.

By the divines it's.... it's.... it's the COD of mods... T.T

While I'm not a Skyrim player or modder myself, I can't agree with the sentiment that modding for Skyrim is dying out or in some way not as large as for Oblivion, etc. Everything points in the opposite direction, with far more mods being made and downloaded for Skyrim as there was for Oblivion given the timeframe. The compexity/maturity of mods will increase as the "new blood" gets more experienced with modding. Everybody starts out with something relatively rubbish, though some may choose not to release it. Myself, I never even got that far, and in my not-so-humble opinion I think I turned out OK.

As for these forums being emptier (brought up in the other thread), I wouldn't be too surprised. The other modding sites weren't anywhere near as established, even though TESSource was pretty big back then it wasn't really the force it is today. Not to mention TES Alliance, etc. All these alternatives naturally split up where people talk. Which can be an issue for community cohesion, but that in itself is a bit of a joke, you only need to look at the subject of skimpy armours to see what community cohesion there is. I'm not particularly worried, at any rate.

I'm (predictably) concerned with the lack of programmers, which has previously been the backbone of modding IMHO. Modders can only do so much (though it's quite a lot) without proper support. The community seems to be relying on the established coders to get big stuff done (eg. SKSE, Wrye Bash team, Elminster), Dark0ne has had to hire someone (or is looking to hire, can't remember if he got anyone) to aid NMM development. Andalaybay is the exception that I know of on this forum, who's taken up TES5Gecko, but I don't see anyone deciding to have a go at a TES5Edit clone, despite there being no real ETA on Elminster releasing anything. You'd think someone would get fed up and do something. I certainly would (but avoid having to by not owning the game ). SKSE I view as an exception because those guys are legends and how they do what they do is still pretty greek to me. They seem pretty content, so best not to meddle in the affairs of wizards, and all that.

I suppose these things will settle down fine in time, but it's a bit frustrating to see what could have been a high-momentum transition from Oblivion to Skyrim be foiled by bad luck and RL concerns on the part of only a few people. Especially considering how many people are involved in Skyrim modding in general.

Yeah, i wonder where is the superhero modder @Timeslip. Programmers like him are really hard to come by.

But how do we fix something like this? Should we all learn a language and start programming? Or should make like a programming "group" or something and start working together?

I think its a legitimate concern after all and I've always said that the tools are the reason modding exists and can keep existing, so tools and their makers should be supported well.
Should we toss money at programmers?

What do you all think we need to do to make things start working in the right direction? If we have a plan, at least that way we can start working towards something instead of waiting around and hoping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBrGwtnzXD8&t=1m11s
This guy is doing mounted combat mod? Noooooooooooooooooooooo !

Anyway, I think each modder has her/his own style/culture to begin with. There is nothing really wrong about why/should they do it, it's just for self-satisfaction.
If this self-satisfaction is not .... satisfied, people will take a break from modding. Bugs & frustration can be big impact sometimes

I think he mentioned awhile back he didn't have time to mod this time around, unfortunately.

When Lojack vanished that took the last active Wrye Bash developer off the grid for the forseable future. All of the others are too bogged down with various things to have time. When it became clear that they weren't coming back (at least not now, when the timing is critical) some of us started talking about how to pick up the torch and run with it. So I reached out to the devs and got access to the repository so someone would be around who can at least do code commits.

That by itself is big time helpful, but it doesn't go far enough. I don't know Python, and so far attempts I've made to make sense of it end in frustration because the language itself is practically gibberish. I can make sense of parts of Wrye Bash's logic, but the app itself is also somewhat disjointed in its construction and there's a lot of bloated old code that isn't being used, or isn't apparent that it's being used.

So Wrye Bash isn't dead in the water, but it's certainly not thriving at the moment. Python programmers would be a welcome sight even if all that's getting done is to whittle down the existing bug list and enhancement requests that have sat idle since November.

TES5Edit is in limbo - Elminster is too bogged down. Don't count on seeing that before 2013 unless something unexpected frees him up. Nobody can take over either because he's used proprietary modules in the coding that forbid redistribution.

Related to that, he can't really help until the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:Mod_File_Format have been decoded. I've done what I could on this front by adding some missing info to that wiki page. It's currently the ONLY source for this information that anyone knows of. I've been using TESVSnip to examine Skyrim.esm and making notes on what subrecords exist in each record. The only problem there of course is that Snip is bugged as well and doesn't process compressed subrecords properly. So that missing IMAD record can't be documented. Snip displays corrupted header info for that one.

Information is the number one thing that's needed in the end. None of the tools and utilities can move forward as long as the info pool is lacking.

So what does that mean for an onlooker? What can we do?

Im praying for Mayan calender end of the world sounds like something to free up people right?

Yeah... I need my Skyrim version of FO3/FNVEdit! T.T

Damn, that's sad. That guy pumped some oxygen to the MW modding scene when he brought MGE to the spotlight. He's one of the few modders(programmers) that I have a deep respect and admiration for. Hopefully with the talent we have now something wonderful may happen.

Well, I suppose it means stop merely being an onlooker? Anything that can help with the info gathering will help speed the development of these tools we all want and need.

Well, I will be joining your ranks soon, though I am not really encouraged by all the problems that have been reported. Unfortunately, it looks like Skyrim has less support from experienced programmers/modders than Oblivion had.

That said, I will be trying (and probably failing) to create gameplay altering mods. Skyrim is in dire need of rebalancing.

I am sure there are other people like myself willing to take the plunge into modding. Sure, some of us noobs are intimidated by the Creation Kit, Papyrus, etc but so long as there are good tutorials the modding community should continue to grow.

My two cents on this is... everyone has to deal with RL and needs a break... I have to admit that I got into oblivion late (after OOO was in good shape) but I do realize, after diving into the CK and TESVnip that I should not expect game shattering mods this early...

To all modders out there.... first... Thanks... and please take care of RL issues first. I know in a few years this will be the best TES game ever. My game experience is so much better now thanks to mods. Yes, we don't have TES5Edit yet but... I have learned to use the CK and TESVnip to create "updated" mods to fit my game world.

Please do not expect perfection even before the first DLC.

Honestly modding looks great. I have a bunch of great mods installed and a load order that has given me 20 hours of playtime without a single CTD. Some bigger projects are already under way or have released early versions and I think the general state of affairs is similar to the past two games. Modding is a hobby for everyone so it must come second to work, school etc. So time is at a premium and right now tools to make that time more productive are not really available. Fallout New Vegas modding seemed to die after its release but I came back to it a year down the road and was pleased to find a plethora of mods, I made it through another 60 hr playthrough and stopped playing. I went back to check the Nexus today and hundreds of new mods were availabe. There is still the same amount of mods and modding talent out there, but in ratio to the huge population playing it early in the year its small, yet its probably still larger than the Oblivion modding community in its first year.

Once SkyProc has all records decoded it should be possible to make a Java version of TES5EDIT. And as large parts of my degree is Java I feel confident I can pull that off. I'd previously thought of trying to do a 3DS Max exporter, but I know very little C++, and I've only got a student edition of Max, so no SDK for me.

Listen to Arthmoor ppl.

Tools/languages have to be learnt, and then hard work has to be done, that is, IF the person has free time spare to commit to a sizeable mod.
I'm working on something for Skyrim, but a lot of my time is being taken up by having to find work-arounds to the issues cropping up. In fact there are even some issues which (at the moment) I haven't found any
work around for (frustratingly). So I may have to release my mod with said offending issues.
Many gamers are quick to complain if we release a mod that's broken, often not understanding (or even caring to understand) why it is broken and has bugs. So if it is slow for skyrim, maybe it's because
the tools are not up to scratch yet or maybe people are just working hard behind the scenes to resolve issues.

Also, Bethesda aren't obliged to provide tools for modding at all, and may even release them with bugs for a reason. Truth is, the modder has to do the best they can with the tools available, and the
gamers therefore have to 'put up' with any slowness in; or a lack of mods for the game based on this. The mods will appear given time.
For a modder it's larely self improvement which drives the work forward, so join in ? Take an interest in why people mod and join the community to understand the challenges they face.

When I got into modding (mostly modeling) I was quite spoiled with multiple tutorials on various websites created by, IMO, giants of TES modding. There was a super helpful community ready to assist with the pit-falls and road blocks. There are some familiar names around, but few, and things just seem different now. Most of the websites I mentioned are long gone and modding Skyrim is intimidating as hell to me to be honest. I'm whining I know, but I think I need to for a moment... I miss the 'good ole days'. Ok, enough whining.

Im going to try to get back into modding, but having no simple path from Blender to Nifskope is a pain in the ass, as I am sure the navmesh/collision bugs are. Im no programmer (I really don't have the brains for it) but I am willing to help in any way I can.

I totally agree ... .apart that most popular mod seem to me are the Doll loving stuff , the armour made by hacking pieces here and there from other mods and games and claim their own production ...

I usually avoided to use my name to define a mod , as I also tought it was a bit too much of shameful selfpromotion or arrogant , but I decided to name some of my mods with my name because in the end are easier to find in the search when I look for something or easier to find the mod when you want to gogle it as well as make the modder remembered more than a simple name ... sometimes when I look for a specific mod I look for author ... that said ofcourse unless your mod has a very simple and effective name ....

Now there's a scary thought. If that turns out to be true--highly unlikely--I would give Beth the same respect I give to commercial banks.

I thought SkyProc was written in Java?

Yes. I think it's absurd to expect the kind of major mods we had for Oblivion so soon. As I recall it took a few years before FCOM really became popular, and things like Nehrim only came out recently, with Andoran still in the works on a port to Skyrim.

Skyrim has a brand new engine, and I for one don't even have access to the CK yet because I don't have a home internet connection. It's only been 3 months, but, mind you, the opposite seems true that there is a low modding community for Skyrim.

Oblivion-imitation mods like high-rez textures and QT Interface, etc. came out before the CK even did, and we still don't have the proper tools that we do in Oblivion. If anything I think Skyrim had a modding explosion, and, as others have said, right now we are waiting for people to figure out the new engine. I think things will kick off once this happens, and who knows, in a few years we'll probably have an FCOM for Skyrim, maybe in even less time.

It is (for now anyways >_>). I think he mistyped. I personally do that rather frequently.

12.608 Skyrim Mods in 6 month, 25.986 Oblivion Mods in 6 years. Do I see a tendencie? Sure I do.

The only thing I could moan about is the mass influx of retextures, new armors and Manga related nonsense. Where are the good gameplay mods we're used to in Morrowind and Fallout? Probably gone with the boxes...