I was slightly late to the party where Skyrim is concerned having only started playing it last week; but it has already made a fantastic impression on me. That being said, after perusing the Mod community, I have found a couple of tweaks that make the game feel even better! Read after the jump to see which mods I have found to my liking!
A couple of notes before I get going:
- Go read Dash's review of Skyrim here!
- All current mods were made prior to the release of the Creation Kit, which should be coming any day now - expect another collection of mods when that launches!
- Massive shout-out to Skyrim Nexus - an amazing site with a great modding community
I am pretty new to modding, having had a 5-6 year break from PC gaming, my only real prior experience was with interface mods for World of Warcraft, but I see that, for the Bethesda games especially, modding is a true gaming behemoth! Thusly, I found the Nexus Mod Manager to be an invaluable tool, to save with the faffing with .exe and .ini files and potentially messing something up..
Since Skyrim was a multi-platform release, with versions for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, compromises had to be made where it came to interfaces. The out-of-the-box item interface isn't a deal-breaker by any means, but it really wasn't taking advantage of a keyboard and mouse setup. There are a million and one mods for changing the item screen interfaces, but this is one of the best.
This one screenshot really does not do it justice. The guys that made it have put a lot of time into making sure each item/spell screen you come to can be handled as quickly and efficiently as possible.
This mod is still a work in progress, so it is only going to get better, and make inventory sorting less of the chore it tends to be.
I've had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the map in Skyrim. I love the mechanics - only being able to fast-travel to places you have already been to/discovered emphasised exploration much more than i felt Oblivion did, in which the temptation to skip from place to place without ever seeing the world was always present. But I hate the way it looks - clouds getting in the way, and paths not always obvious can make it a frustrating experience actually getting to places for the first time - especially with all those mountains in the way!
What this mod does is relatively simple; it gets rid of the clouds for one, and unobtrusively shows roads and paths in more detail, allowing for better planning of travel! There are several versions of this mod, two with more/fewer of the roads showing, and one really funky one that makes the map actually look like a roll of parchment, while keeping the 3D-ness.
TESV Acceleration Layer & Skyrim HD - 2K Textures
I have bundled these together to tell you that quality and performance are not mutually exclusive! Not that you needed telling, I'm guessing, but sometimes it needs to be said!
The TESV Acceleration mod improves FPS in areas of CPU intensity so that you don't suffer any of that immersion-breaking lag.
SkyrimHD, as seen on the right, adds improved textures to many of the world's items, buildings and backgrounds. Again, this mod is a work in progress and more and more textures are being added with each update. If the prettiness of Skyrim just wasn't pretty enough for you, this is the mod to get!
A couple of days ago, Dash and I were talking about our characters, when he told me that the Daedra armour is stronger than Dragonbone armour, which we both found to be a bit strange. A couple of hours later, Dash tells me to install this mod, which not only fixes this issue, but adds Dragonbone weapons to the game as well!
I know, I know, there are balancing issues with Dragonbone/scale items, since the materials get so common later in the game - but this mod also introduces Dragon Hearts, which must be present when crafting the new and updated Dragon-based items. So you get the stronger items without breaking the balance - quite a compromise if you ask me! This mod has many, many tick boxes and extra options so you can mold it to your preferences - multiple skins for the armour and weapons; turning the heart requirement on/off etc. Another great mod, and one that will let you feel like the Dragon-y badass you were always destined to become.
Dash has dibs-ed the honour of writing about mods after the Creation Kit has been released, but I'm sure I will also post a follow-up with more of my favourite mods when the time comes.
Dish Out!
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