I know this question probably comes up alot, but I figured I"d ask it. I've always wanted to get into modding for the Elder Scrolls, but have never really had the time to devote to it. I do now, but have absolutely no experience scripting. Whats a good way to start learning? I'm on a pretty tight budget, so preferably something free online, but I could also spring for a cheap book.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Yeah I'm totally stumped too. Papyrus, as presented in the Wiki, seems impossible to decypher unless you are already someone who's experienced with real-world scripting/coding. The tutorials are no help at all on actually learning the language and how to do anything outside of basic simplified activators, and even then it is very confusing how everything works together and why certain things are done in the syntax that they are.

Sadly, I've already posted in several topics and started my own topic asking for help on the subject, but they all get buried on page 2-3 within minutes. It seems like nobody here knows a damn thing about it - the only people that seem to be making threads related to scripting and getting progress are those who are already well-versed in script languages like Python, and they don't seem to be sharing their wisdom :\

This is what I get for all my "years" of scripting experience being simplified game scripts and visual scripting instead of a full-blown language

#1 rule - Search!

I understand that at this point there is not a whole lot since the CK has only been out for a few days. Read up and practice the scripting tutorials on the wiki page. It is a difficult concept but you will have to learn the basics of it.

If you don't know the basics of programming , such as if, else, while, etc basics then you might want to find a basic beginning scripting tutorial outside of the Papyrus.

The Scripting language is better than ever imo...

Anyhow, you don't need to buy anything to learn Papyrus (the CK scripting language), all documentation is free and available on the wiki and various other websites.

Expect a *TON* of tutorials to be popping up soon enough.

I haven't really made a foray into attempting it yet (at work, heh), but when I was doing my own personal mods for MW and OB, I mainly learned through looking at existing scripts, and scripts from mods once those were being implemented pretty well. That's what I'm going to try doing again tonight. Hopefully more tutorials will be along soon, though.

The problem is that a lot of aspects of Papyrus aren't nearly as self-explanitory as your average game scripting language - which has to do with the fact that Papyrus is basically a full blown language. It has a lot of very perticular things in the operation, syntax, etc that will not work unless you follow it exactly.

What language is it based off of? If I can read into the basic stuff on learning the actual language it's based off of, I'm sure learning the Papyrus-specific stuff should be much simpler, and the "Primer" page on the wiki will actually make sense.

Any links you might suggest for these various other websites?

To me, It seems to be extremely similar to LUA (although the wiki also says Python, but I dont know it so I cannot compare.)

Honestly? Don't learn a scripting language. Learn how to write software. The principles you'll learn in a C++/C#/Java/Python beginners course will help you a lot in understanding any subsequent language you have to deal with.