Confessions of a Skyrim Modder

 

Hello, all. Just wanted to make a quick blog post reflecting my experience in Skyrim modding and overall my take on this franchise.

 ***

First of all, I've been wanting to make this for a while but I wasn't sure how to word best my emotions. I have very deep feelings about, well just about everything.

 

 --What is an RPG?--

 

Let's start with Skyrim, a game made by Bethesda. Now, when it comes to my take on Bethesda I am truly, 100% with out a doubt empathetic to what they have to go through. To me, Bethesda is the gaming studio that always delivers one of the best RPG games in gaming. But, before all you nerds get at me about this, let's all just calm down and remember that EVERY game studio makes an RPG according to how they want to make them. There isn't any definitive way to make an RPG no matter how many snobbing elitist want to say there is. There is no authority on Dungeons and Dragons for being the only RPG or the creator of the modern RPG. RPG, just like jazz music, was not invented by one person

...it is a way of life.

Alright, but in all seriousness, RPG is something that people create time and time again no matter what middle thing is being used. If we want to argue that RPG started with Dungeons and Dragons, then I would backtrack to Lord of the Rings. And if you want to counter and say it started with LOTR, then I want to counter again that RPG started at Middle Age Fantasies and Folklore. And if you want to keep backtracking....

Anyway, do you guys notice now how absurd it is now just to discuss "RPG" and that Bethesda makes good RPGs? Seriously, some people just want to purify the term "RPG" to be what Dungeon's and Dragon's do. But even Dnd's core is about roleplay, not any other hard turn-based requirement or x other thing. Just because you might not like the elements that Bethesda uses does not mean their games aren't "authentic" RPGs. 

That's why, I as a long time gamer have grown to admire what Bethesda releases in terms of RPG themed games. I don't play bethesda because they make racing games or GTAs, they make great RPG games. It's so dumb that people today, even playing Starfield can't understand this. 

In fact, very few games according to myself really stand out when it comes to RPG. I've played Dragon's Dogma, Elden Ring, Witcher, even Zelda, but Bethesda is the only gaming studio I seem to find myself returning because of the way they do games beyond just RPG. They also do amazing lore, interesting and notable characters, grounded reality in a fantasy setting, and my most favorite--a dash of humor: an adoring fan, a Nazeem, a simple goblin with some alcohol in their inventory and your basic bethesda dungeon experience being "I fought some rats, a walking skeleton, found some trousers, and almost unsealed an ancient evil on Tamriel."

So anyways, now that I have marked Bethesda with RPG, let's move on to the next hurdle in the gaming community to understand: the bugs.

--BUGS REVEAL NITPICK GAMERS

Now, when it comes to Bugs, as I have said in my Cyberpunk blog post, I truly feel like the modern gaming community doesn't even KNOW what a bug is compared to your standard hiccup, glitch, or hardware issue. In fact, what's even worse is that the modern Internet Age THRIVES on blowing up gaming bugs as a clickbait front page in order to gain profit and more viewers.

I am 100% confident in this reality, that there are plenty of people online that exploit or nitpick to break a game in order to make the headlines and thus in the process hurt a company's public view. This whole debacle of bugs in today's internet age has been a free means for anybody, whether new to gaming or experienced to just fall back to in order to mock or make an excuse without any evidence and or with very few verification of reproducing beyond the typical random experiences.

On top of this, on the actual gaming community, there is no surprise to shared public reception on what is generally considered "good" and what is considered "bad."

To level headed experienced gamers, the "good" games with positive feedback are normally the games that are well made from start to end and are undeniable hallmarks or classics.

It's hard to bring gaming into a rating system, because there is always bias and just like anime, public reception can change or not even be widely known.

But generally, to those that actually play videogames, there is plenty of "good" games that were made and just like anime these games typically speak for themselves and have become hallmarks. These are games like the Halo franchise, TimeSplitters, Pokemon, Resident Evil, Witcher, Mortal Kombat, Mario, Spongebob, GTA, Just Cause, Batman, and so many others.

But along with this list of "good" games likewise includes the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series.

Yet, here's the thing about both of these franchises. Because they are made by Bethesda they automatically gain a bias turning them from "good" to "bad." 

And this is what I mean, because just like any other community on the the internet or in real life, there are selected companies or games that are just dumped into the automatic hate bias. I know this all too well. Just like Cyberpunk2077, a game that was truly next generation, became the synonym of "bad" almost all through out it's shelf life up until 1.5 and 2.0. 

When people talked about Cyberpunk like "I haven't played that game, is it good?" You're typical  gamer on the internet will have an 80% chance of saying "it's trash" before 1.5 or 2.0.

This is what I mean that certain games, no matter what they're about, get the automatic hate bias spread around the internet and in real life. Like something that isn't true, but that's just the "norm" to assume. 

This normality of an already good and bad bias is very tricky when it comes to the internet. Because if a game is so good and admired it is easy for people to just spread around "it's good"

and if a game is largely criticized or mocked then it is easy for people to spread around "it's bad" and thus affect other users and gamers that might not have even played for themselves.

It's all too common in today's age to find a comment say "i heard it was bad so I didn't buy it."  

That's why I always tell people to think for themselves. To not listen too much on reviews whether professional or on youtube. If you think you like a game, just play it. Don't rob yourself of a fun experience just because society or your friends all say it's bad or good. 

 

So, what does this all have to do with Bethesda? Everything! Don't believe everything you read online! Think for yourself again. Just like my blog post on Cyberpunk2077, I revealed how "gamer's take advantage of exploiting the smallest of things in order to paint a game to be bad. I revealed that in our clickbait culture, a simple messing with a physic engine, having the wrong hardware, or just simply taking advantage of a videogame as they are processing scripts have become the dirty tactics for the internet to use in order to say 

"this is what happened to me. IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU. IT'S EVERYWHERE IN THE GAME. THE GAME IS BROKEN. ITS BUGGY. DON'T BUY IT. DOESNT MATTER IF THIS WASN'T EVEN IMPORTANT OR JUST A FLUKE, IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU 100% FOR YOUR HOURS OF GAMEPLAY!"

But to all of us that actually play videogames, we're not trying to break the games, we understand how complicated modern technology has come, and we are more patient in seeing an npc walk into a barrel once in our several hours of gameplay. These are after all, videogames. Videogames are not movies, they are rarely scripted heavily. Videogames are a combination of 3D models, textures, gameplay, coding, audio, all in real time and often altered by You the player in control.

So when you ask me about "bugs," I don't really know what you're implying on your snarky comment. Do you mean you had a brief moment of seeing an npc walk into a building? Do you mean you heard an audio lag? Do you mean you played for hours and suddenly a script stopped working? Do you mean you somehow broke the game? Do you mean you didn't try to reload, troubleshoot your save, or just reset the game? Do you mean you were reckless in trying to break the heavy features in a modern game?  Do you mean you broke an animation by being reckless and button smashing? 

See, the thing about being an experienced gamer is that I have full knowledge about how videogames actually work and how new games are more complicated than previous older games.

It's sort of like breathing. You get use to knowing how to move around, how to use the combat animations, how to finish one script before moving onto the next, how to probably talk to npcs, how to make sure you are progressing a mission, how to and when to save. These are all things that don't often get talked about, except if you were into speed running and your actual goal was to find out how to use this knowledge to break the game.

But for everyone else, these are just the behind the scenes information that so many forget to realize or appreciate with videogames. 

So when it comes to bugs in all the years I have been gaming since the Sega, I have come across everything from random npcs sitting in invisible chairs, to npcs without face textures, to enemies that have died but are still walking, to game crashes, to game freezes, to infinite loading, to missions that won't ever stop, to being overpowered, to turning invisible, to breaking the camera, to even dying for no reason.

But NEVER have I been the type of person so many modern gamers become with spoiled comments like "look I can't break the window. this game is broken," "look the npc is bumbing into another npc, the game is buggy," "look my gun disappeared, i want a refund."

 --POPULAR OPINIONS BE DAMNED

So how does this affect our perception of Bethesda and Skyrim?

Well, like I mentioned about the automatic bias, for some reason, Skyrim to non-Skyrim players has become another victim to the go-to mockery. Pick your favorite, it doesn't even need to be creditable. Just say "Skyrim is buggy" and you already won the internet. Skyrim is one of those games that just fell to the internet bias. These are just phrases that people think of when they think about a game. Even if it's not accurate or true to the extent it's portrayed. That's why I always tell others to check your bias. Because you might be hating a game in your head, for the longest of time, just because you heard other people hate it publicly. In truth, our generalization is sometimes on point, but often times is used to unfairly bad mouth something we don't like. 

Most common ways people excuse Bethesda hate

1. Bethesda makes buggy games 2. Bethesda doesn't add this feature so it's bad. 3. Bethesda removed this feature so it's bad.

I wish our generalizations were more calm and sensible like "halo is a fun sci fi shooter" or "pokemon is a fun catch and battle game" or skyrim is a great rpg fantasy." But instead, we live in a time when it's easier for people to just say "halo is trash," "pokemon is dead" and "skyrim is buggy." I mean, people have a hard time even complimenting Bethesda. When someone does, it's normally because they are praising Bethesda for mocking a previous title; whether thats Skyrim mocking Oblivion, Oblivion to Morrowind, Morrowind to Daggerfall, Daggerfall to Arena. It's hard for people to understand that Bethesda makes great games all with their own features.

The satlyness that people have against Bethesda is ridicules and totally bias. Why aren't other games scorned to the extent that Bethesda does? Imagine if people were this critical to games like Gothic, Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, etc. Why is it just bethesda that releases a game like Skyrim in 2011 and years down the line are mocked for their low graphics, unrealistic next-gen AI, or simply the amount of features that people say aren't there? If I was this petty, I would be doing the same to other games like Dragon's Dogma by complaining about the water, lack of reflections, lack of being able to do x thing, etc.

So, what do I actually think about Skyrim's bugs? As someone that has placed almost 3k hours in Skyrim LE and almost a 1k in SE, I absolutely don't see Skyrim in the same view that critics do because I play the game more often and I don't experience the level of bugs that the media portrays it to be. I can say that 100% confidently that I live in a weird state where I actually have played this game and continue to play this way more than critics, yet the critics that barely get their little time to taste Skyrim flip out for the smallest of things. 

I can imagine the critics like an RPG follower. I am the Dragonborn, taking them with me as we go save the world. And just before we leave town the critic is trying to break the game by bumping into npcs or losing their marbles when an npc is not holding a piece of bread. 

 In the words of a remarkable comment I found on the internet, someone said that Bethesda get's a lot of hate for the smallest of nitpicks rather than the balls they have to be ambitious to try new things.

After playing other games, I can agree that I find myself appreciating Bethesda games more when other games just have their npcs stand in one spot, or not even have a name, or are there just following the rpg position of blacksmith. No, the reason I love Bethesda games is because they pioneer the importance of Roleplay, small details, and immersion. Like I said earlier, the RPG elements in a videogame often vary, but the goal of an RPG is always for the player to also fill in. That's what makes Skyrim a good game when it launched in 2011. You get an open world, so many weapons to use, so many magic spells, so many clothes, items, that if you have trouble immersing yourself as a character, it just means the childhood in you is dead.

 

Skyrim when it comes to mods 

Which brings me to my final point. That because Bethesda gives you the player the freedom to do what thou will, it sort of becomes a greater evil to some users and their enjoyment of what is in the base game. This is the shift that most people take when they begin to mod their game. Rather than enjoy what is in the game, people begin wanting more.....and more.....and more.

 

When the game gives you Alteration to cast a mage light, people eventually complain that they want to Alter time and space and create overpowered spells and summon outlandish things that Alteration was never programmed to do.

Like, in the Lore of Elder Scrolls, there is so much that you can do with Alteration that sometimes people take it for literal when they start demanding mods that will teleport you anywhere and such. Or flip a mountain upside down.

Mods are just a bonus. If you cant play a game without mods its more a crutch against your self. They don't give any game longevity. Replay value is based on how good the game loop is. And Bethesda has amazing gameplay loops. Rpg, explore,fight, settle down, its all playable without mods. Mods are sort of a modern drug we hardly had before, especially on console. You mean I can play a game and extent the loop even further? Yeah, I see how people get addicted to mods 

But it sorts of a damn if you do and damn if you don't. If Bethesda adds a feature, people complain what it removes. If Bethesda does one thing, people complain for the latter. It's seriously over-played at this point yet this argument of thinking is so common, even in today's criticisms about Starfield and Starfield to other games or mods. Mods become a slippery slope-

Yet, all these different scenarios are ways for people to HATE on Bethesda. Bethesda doesn't add enough bandits? Here's a mod for that! Thanks, modders! What's that, Bethesda doesn't give enough loot? There's a mod for that! Gee, Bethesda is sooooo bad. Basically, if Bethesda does a feature, people will complain it's not to their liking so it's bad. "It's too hard?" "Well just mod it! "It's not hard enough? Just mod it!" "It's too broken? Just mod it!" "It's not broken enough? Just mod it!"More quests, less quests. More bandits, less bandits. More crime, less crime. More Huds, less Huds. More loot, less loot. These are what mods do. So people don't really do a "combat fix" mod as they do a "combat is the way I want it, so it's fixed."

Back on Skyrim, when it comes to combat, the game was a fine standalone in it's own right, yet people began adding mods for Dark Souls parrying, rolling, dodging, lock ons, even absurd things like making every bandit perform some random martial arts, or my favorite, seeing someone mod their character to perform an outrages 10 hit combo for 1 enemy.

What I'm saying is, mods often introduce "new" methods to shape the game, but it never means these "new" methods are better. But, that opinion doesn't really attract the current gaming community when so many people say things like "vanilla skyrim is trash" or "wow this mod adds this, thanks again modders for doing something Bethesda never did!" or "modders fixing skryim again."

These are just the surface-level opinions that are so widely spread because of ignorance. I have been saying for so long that mods don't make a game "better." A game is great because of the original, not the mods. It's great games that produce great mods. It's not the other way around with great mods that make a game great.

The typical mods that come to mind, are simple things like new textures, new weapons, new content, new features. But all these are just mods in the end. People hardly play a game because of a mod as much as they play a game they enjoy plus being able to look forward to a new mod to add to their enjoyment as they quest, travel, or just enjoy their roleplay.

This is what I mean that mods often take us by our spoils. I am guilty of this too. I used mods left and right just to fill my game with more and more content. But now, I simply enjoy Skyrim, it's lore, and the mods second.

I realized this when I returned to my Skyrim save file on LE. Just playing the game was amazing to behold again. Yet, the one thing that I didn't care about was what mods were in my load order.

Something of an ironic thing, as a modder to realize, is that mods themselves are disposable. People can download your mod, but your mod is never guaranteed to be as important as launching the game itself. 

If that one certain mod wasn't in your load order after years of launching the game, can we really say we miss that one single mod more than the actual game itself?

So it's pretty humbling as a modder to realize this, is that my mods will make it into many people's fun experience, but my mods, just like all the other ones I love, are replaceable, disposable, and are never needed in order to enjoy the base game. In a few years from now, the same thing will happen to my mods. People will launch their game, discover my mod, but they won't even know who made it or care to all that's included. It's not something to be sad about, it's just the reality that modders are never as important as the game itself that we return to.

You could play Skyrim on LE, on SE, on VR, on AE or just on the Switch, but the mods in all those games aren't important as the game versions themselves. 

I could have Immersive Armors mod on LE, Imperial Armor on SE, and have nothing on AE, and they would all give me the same Skyrim experience just with different features.

 

--FREE MODS VS PAID MODS

So anyways, the last thing I want to bring up before I end this is the IRONY that modders face.

Who loves free mods? Everyone!

Who wants to support a modder by paying for a mod? NO ONE!

Who wants to tip or donate but never actually donate? SOCIETY!

I use to say "I support free mods because free mods build a community." But after all this time, I'm starting to realize the difference between fan mods and official supported mods. 

Fan mods are casual, often free, but also rarely supported unless someone donates.

Official mods are often freelanced, guaranteed paid for the labor in some way, and find official platforms for publicity.

As much as people hated Bethesda for their paid mods, how many other gaming companies actually cared to pay their modder legally?

Bethesda not only allows people to legally modify their game, unlike Nintendo, they also attempted to establish a way to pay modders. Yet, because people heard the words "paid mods" everyone freaked out.

It was sickening to see as a modder. Because so many people love mods, but very few actually care about the modders themselves. People will absolutely LOVE your mod openly. But in the same breath will talk down any forms of support because our labor is just "a hobby" or a "casual upload." Which may be true for the general sense of how the internet works by millions of people working for free to online websites by posting photos, networking, even providing a website with viral marketing. But that never changes the fact that so many people unknowingly are volunteering their time, effort, and work. 

This is especially true online with not just modders, but any website where people are posting and sharing for free. That the only reason society doesn't notice is this is because it's not just free at the expense of 1 person, but it's all people, at every minute, from all around the world that are able to make a new post, share a new photo, upload a new video, all the things we don't really noticed are being sacrificed for free content. 

When it comes to modding, this is no different that people don't want to pay for mods because it's already a norm that modders will always post for free because society views mods as "a hobby."

But what about those people that actual refine their mods, or are leaders in the modding community, or that are the one's making the quality mods outside of casual uploads?

The truth is that we should be supporting both free and casual mods, and mods that are behind a paywall in order to also support the mod author. This is fair. To not give into this means that society does not value a modder trying to support themselves.

Thankfully, there are very few sites like Nexux.mods that are actually trying to help out modders outside of official Bethesda alternatives. Since the official Bethesda route did not go well with people, modders have very little support if not for Nexus mods. Nexus has started allowing modders to opt in for their donation shares. So, every time someone downloads a mod that modder will receive a shared amount from the overall donations that users provide to Nexus. 

It might not be perfect, but this is literally all that modders have in order to support themselves legally. I would prefer we lived in a time when every modder would start receiving better payments like the revenue from ads too, but there is only this option for us. It's either opt in your mod to stack your pennies, or mod at the mercy of whoever tips, donates, or subscribes to your patreon.

All this because modders can't get an official break and be paid for their labor. That's why now I don't just say "free mods build a community" but I also say "paid mods help the modders."

Why can't there be both free and paid exclusives? 

But its disgusting to think about this. I have seen so many people praise their favorite free mods while also mocking the unpaid modder for their "hobby."

This is more sad when you realize that we all work in the field of gaming. Just like studios, some modders add in the scripting, some modders do level design, some even do their own 3d models, audio, and textures. 

Conclusion

All in all, I'm glad to those that help modders, and I'm glad for the gaming studios that provide us with such fun games. My biggest gripes with all this is addressing people that

-complain about Bethesda for the sake of complaining their butts are itchy

-complain about something that Bethesda didn't use, therefore Bethesda sucks

-complain about the smallest, dumbest of nitpicks so niche they only matter in niche examples compared to the whole game

-complain because Bethesda makes RPG games, but people ignore Roleplay and demand perfect, realistic, and smallest of details only modders have the post time to invest time in

-complain about Bethesda's game engine unfair while not doing the same to others like Gothic

-complain that modders fix Bethesda's games when in reality mods only add bonus content to the base game.

-complain about Skyrim's "releases" when each has been their own merit, port, or extra content i.e how many other games have been out on VR or Switch? How many get an Anniversary Edition?

-complain about a Bethesda game for all of the above while being absolutely quiet to other RPG games in the same standard

People love modders, but hate Skyrim. People don't want to pay modders but expect free mods. Here I am just trying to live another month, and society can't give us a break. Love mods, love modders, love the game. Stop trying to divide us.

My Mods-

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/85388

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/82690

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/81277

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/76410

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/73495

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/71575

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/67492

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/61533

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/61019

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/60345