For the past 2 games I have never got why people modded their game, I thought sure you can add new stuff. but just how high quality is it and I always betted myself that it would look out of place and break immersion or even break your game.

How wrong I was....

....Been using mods in Skyrim now for the past couple of weeks and they have done nothing but enhanced my game. I have improved the graphics immensely, I have improved the game mechanics and behaviour and even altered the physics. I have even added all new content that is easily on par with the standard games and some even surpass it. Its just incredible some of the stuff you can do - and if done well and 90% of them that I have seen so far have been - you can't tell if its a mod or if its suppose to be there. Mods really do enhance your experience by a factor of how ever much you want and its a damn shame I opted for the xbox versions of the morrowind and oblivion, if I knew how great mods were I would of invested in a machine straight away.

So this is mainly a message to all those who are on the fence of trying out mods, all I can say is do it if you can you will not regret it!

Yeah, I wouldn't be able to play without certain mods to be honest. I absolutely despise the entire main quest and all that dragon garbage and was planning to create a vampire and avoid it entirely when I realized vanilla vampires are a joke. Found a couple mods that remedy the situation and now Skyrim is about a thousand times more enjoyable. With the unofficial patches and general gameplay improvements I finally feel like I got my moneys worth.

I'd love to mod Skyrim on my 360 so I can put in a quest line to deal with Maven Black-Briar.

I just recently gave up playing Skyrim on PS3 and got it for PC. With improved graphics/gameplay from mods, less load times, less crashes, and an astronomically improved framerate, I could not be happier.

Yeah i never modded a game before Skyrim.
but I'm so glad that i tried it
it really does make the game so much more enjoyable.

try playing any of Beth's game unmodded after modding them - its like trying to watch a video tape after bluray

Modding is great, maybe one day I'll be able to do it from a console. I wouldn't really change much besides a couple of tweaks from an RPG perspective and the ability to skip the damn tutorial.

You say that, but its a wonderful slippery slope - The first mod I ever got was a 'bag of holding' which was really just a cheat, but once you start looking at what's available you start trying out weird things. I want the cheese cannon. Done. I want a house in the sewer under the imperial city. Here you go. I want armour that doesn't really cover my character's 36 DD's - here you go, and it's got a better armour rating than Daedric for some reason.

On a side note, for those who have the console version, is there any way to actually see what mods are available through Steamworks? There's the nexus of course, but wouldn't it be great advertising if Beth let outsiders at least see what they're missing? Might drop some sales for M$ and Sony but hey...

I wish I had a pc for the mod reasons.

=(

There's always a line in the sand in concerns with modding. I personally wouldn't go the OOO route with Skyrim or give every female character huge boobs (Although the latter is tempting). I would do some tweaks in certain areas but I feel that Vanilla version aside from the RPG issues is excellent.

My examples were extreme cases of course. I don't get the bag of holding anymore, or the dd's. I mainly run some texture upgrades and a few mods that add all kinds of wonderfully balanced weapons into the game. If Oscuro was still doing his thing I'd take his work in a heartbeat, but I hear he works for Obisidian now. There was a great Morrowind mod that added dozens of new species of creatures to the game and had them interact with each other- animals hunted each other etc. Things that made the game more realistic, more alive. OOO just added more quests and items, extending the life of the game after you finished the vanilla material.

So true!!

I can't imagine playing gamesas games without being able to enhance them with mods. My husband plays on my computer because his laptop can't run the game and he always gave me a hard time for constantly fiddling with my game, he calls me a 'tweaker' because I can't seem to stop adjusting the settings of my realistic lighting/enb mod. But recently, I had to reinstall due to game corruption (most likely due to using pre-CK mods, I jumped into downloading right away) and he was able to see what the game looked like vanilla. He couldn't believe it was the same game and suddenly, he had a new respect for all my fiddling because he realized then how much his 'tweaker' enhanced his Skyrim experience. The videotape/blue ray is a perfect anology.

Which vampire mod(s) are you using? I've been browsing through a few on the Steam Workshop but I haven't decided which one(s) I'd like to use yet.

Of course after reinstalling you see just how stable the game is without mods running ... I have to save every time I leave breeze home because of my basemant lair.

THe thing that's the most fun with mods is just playing with them. You don't even have to be playing an actual game. Just load up things like Toy Soldiers, or the one with all the wars going on and just have fun messing around with that stuff. There are so many of them and the modders really do a great job for the most part. I've always modded Beth's games in the past but I need a new PC for Skyrim so I'm stuck on the 360 for now. Can't wait to get the PC version one of these days though and get back to messing with mods. It's one of the best parts of Bethesda's games.

I got a "balanced magic" mod and it helps tremendously with magic. I'm level 33 and I can still use the "flames" spell because it scales with my level. Mods are amazing.

I always do this after taking a break from a serious role-playing session. Toy Soldiers is an epic setup for some dastardly fun.

I think one of the most popular applications for mods is visual enhancement. Making Skyrim over in Technicolor is great, and even something that might seem frivolous, Crimson Tide, is a huge improvement over the default cranberry jelly blood. If Skyrim was a car, wouldn't you want to personalize it, even a little? I can't see anything noble about keeping it in "fleet vehicle" mode.

Back in my Morrowind days I used to say, "I don't play Morrrowind, I play mods." In Morrowind and Oblivion I spent years doing basically what you describe: install a mod that looks interesting and and just have fun messing around with it for a few hours. I wasn't necessarily looking to use the mod permanently, I was just having fun taking it for a 'test drive.' If I liked it well enough I might keep it. If not, no big deal. I imagine I'll be doing the same thing in Skyrim too, when more mods start coming out.

Im the complete opposite then from most people. The more stuff there is the more I casnt stand it. Id rather just play the game they way it was made, instead of adding a whole bunch of stuff. Heck, I havent even added any mods in minecraft, and even if I do it wont be much.

I run a LOT of mods, but I avoid ones that are plain cheats. I like ones that either improve performance / user expereince, or add balanced new options and items into the game. The end result is actually pretty subtle.

You obviously have a PC, find out if it has potential... lots of PCs just need a PSU/GPU [~$150 parts and up, plus install], some may even be good as is. Laptops too.

No, he doesn't obviously have a PC. A PC is not the only device that can access the internet. And even if it were, he might be posting from a computer he does not own.

Sorry... I must of woke up on the 1990s side of the bed. What I meant is if he does, he might be in better shape than he thinks.

Keep up the good words, people. With a little luck and a good tailwind, eventually all those console players out there will see the light, get PC's, and we'll finally get back to games being made the way they are supposed to be- primarily for the PC. PC gaming is just simply better_in_every_way.