The modding community for PC games is insane.

[February's Ghost]

Just a shout out to how impossibly brilliant I find the overall modding scene for games (and also kinda the endurance of Skyrim and some other games).

I use mods frequently. Generally they are quality of life changes; remove stuttering, clean up UI or inventory, enhance textures, stuff like that. Once in awhile I'll grab new weapons or combat enhancements or economy tweaks and things that directly affect gameplay. From time to time even dabble in the more risque realms out of curiosity (sometime to great regret). My most used kind of mod are ones that affect lighting because, well, lighting is everything.

Modding is ubiquitous in the PC gaming arena no doubt, but it just blows my mind that you can go to Nexus and find (checks website) 58 new mods for Skyrim posted today with 431 posted this week (though I am not sure where the week starts, but it's only Wednesday). While Skyrim might exist outside of the modding norm, the daily number of new mods arriving on Nexus is just astounding.

Anyway, I don't have the drive or patience to learn to mod and subsequently create mods, but I certainly do appreciate the people who do and am thankful that there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.

 

[DXCHASE]

Im there with ya! I always appreciate a mod shoutout thread. I dont use them too too often, i have played Skyrim's full-conversion mod Enderal but even having the option is really great.

Currently, and the only game im using mods in atm, im using 4 mods in Stalker 2. 3 of them are for optimization purposes, stutter, cut down on opening dev/publisher screens.

Using 1 to tweak my movement when over-encumbered too, but its not even that much which is what i like about mods, you can use the "im a running god" portion of the mod or the "just 10% more running" part, which is me. I want the challenge still but sometimes its a little bit much for no reason (walking/running slowly in an open field is tedious af).


Mods even save games, i cant think of any off the top of my head but the most under-appreciated part i think about modding is that it actually SAVES games from disappearing or losing the last of its player base because the dev have abandoned it or somethin like that.

 

[Frindis]

I remember installing a mod collection for Morrowind called Wabbajack. It was basically a large executable file that did everything from setting up the mods to having you pick between the game style and graphics of your choosing. I found it very impressive considering the time it must have taken to eliminate any mod conflicts and get it all to run smoothly.

 

[Pifanjr]

It's the wonder of digital creations. Someone who builds something amazing physically has one amazing thing. Someone who builds something amazing digitally can copy and share it with everyone.

And most of what's built is of poor quality, the little hobby projects of amateurs just having fun, but eventually some of those amateurs will become experts. Experts who might continue to share their work. Even if they decide to start charging money for their skills, a lot of experts will have hobby projects they will give away for free.

This is true for video game mods, but also for (open source) software in general, as well as tons and tons of art and knowledge. All of which are typically shared on platforms which are themselves maintained mainly by volunteers and/or hobbyists.

 

[red_5ive]

I don't use them too often, but when I do I'm often left in great appreciation of the modder community. The last time I used one was to fix a mission bug in Starfield where some folk from a town I was supposed to transport kept following me around because the mission didn't properly complete, and console commands wouldn't properly fix it, either.

I mostly appreciate them for QoL changes, and graphical overhauls for older games (e.g., Skyrim). By far the most memorable, if not my absolute favorite, was the Scrap Everything mod for Fallout 4. It literally does exactly that.

 

[Zimbaly]

I miss the old days of modding. Not that fixes and models and QoL changes are great for people, but man.

When mods were more like games all on their own in the good old days. Counter Strike, DoD, ToD, Movie Battles, Team Fortress, Desert Combat, Sven Coop...... makes me wish for more of those kinds of mods being made. Sadly that would mean companies getting on bored and these days game companies suck and are a sad form of their past selves and don't allow/do that anymore.

 

[Pifanjr]

I miss the old days of modding. Not that fixes and models and QoL changes are great for people, but man.

When mods were more like games all on their own in the good old days. Counter Strike, DoD, ToD, Movie Battles, Team Fortress, Desert Combat, Sven Coop...... makes me wish for more of those kinds of mods being made. Sadly that would mean companies getting on bored and these days game companies suck and are a sad form of their past selves and don't allow/do that anymore.

I think the "problem" might be that nowadays it's probably easier to make a game from scratch than to mod an existing game if you want to create something entirely different. Game engines are way more powerful and have a whole bunch of built-in tools and free assets you can use to create your own game.

 

[Colif]

Mods are a great way to extend the life of a game you like but might be getting a little bored of. I can't play Torchlight 2 without them. Might be due for me to play it again, its a few years now. Maybe, there isn't much left to achieve in it that is likely... 10 million gold? It took me 9 years to beat the 1 million gold record. And I only achieved that with mods.

not bad for someone not trying to get the achievements. Most of the ones I am missing are coop.

 

[thomas345]

Totally agree! The modding scene is incredible, and it’s amazing how Skyrim, among other games, has stayed relevant all these years thanks to its modding community. I’m with you on lighting mods – they can really transform the atmosphere. It’s wild that so many new mods are posted every day, keeping the game fresh and exciting. I’ve dabbled in mods too, but I don't have the patience to create them either, so I’m really thankful for all the talented modders out there who keep the community thriving

 

[mjs warlord]

I hope some noobie mod users read this cos its a warning to you all.

I have been a pc user for 22 years and when i got the game satisfactory i was a construction noobie so i got a trainer to quote ... help me .... but it caused more problems than help. When i ran out of things to do i got the 100+ milestones for the game. At that time it seemed to have more content than the main game and everything was ok till the main game got updated .

The next time i launched the game all the conveyor belts and pipework had vanished and i had no idea things like that could happen after a main game update so i had no choice but to start again and strange things still happened until i deleted left over folders in %appdata% local , i also used ccleaner to remove left over registry entries.

So whilst their are lots of good mods around for games you should be prepared for something bad to happen.

I remember when garys mods started to appear for half life games and valve tried to stop him until he pointed out that you need to buy the games .... from them ( valve ) so that you could use the mods.

 

[February's Ghost]

I hope some noobie mod users read this cos its a warning to you all.

I guess a trainer is technically a mod, but those are generally just executables that manage memory locations while the game is running, they shouldn't really affect anything else. So I really don't know what else that could have done.

Anyway, yeah, there certainly can be some risk in using mods, but it's always very low when you get them from trusted sites like Nexus. Some corrupted save issues and some random crashing is the worst I've seen.

 

[ZedClampet]

I guess a trainer is technically a mod, but those are generally just executables that manage memory locations while the game is running, they shouldn't really affect anything else. So I really don't know what else that could have done.

Anyway, yeah, there certainly can be some risk in using mods, but it's always very low when you get them from trusted sites like Nexus. Some corrupted save issues and some random crashing is the worst I've seen.

I could be wrong, but I think he's just talking about how mods break with game updates, and you have to wait for the modders to update their mods.

****

@Pifanjr speaking of digital creations, github is a remarkable place. So much amazing stuff.

 

[Pifanjr]

I could be wrong, but I think he's just talking about how mods break with game updates, and you have to wait for the modders to update their mods.

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@Pifanjr speaking of digital creations, github is a remarkable place. So much amazing stuff.

As far as I know, GitHub is by far the biggest repository for open source software. So yes, it's going to have a lot of amazing stuff. It's worth it to just research open source alternatives to paid software sometimes, there are a lot of them that can be just as good but just aren't very well known.

 

[mjs warlord]

I could be wrong, but I think he's just talking about how mods break with game updates, and you have to wait for the modders to update their mods.

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@Pifanjr speaking of digital creations, github is a remarkable place. So much amazing stuff.

hi zed and yes i was talking about how a games update can break mods.