The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a role-playing video game being developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fifth installment in The Elder Scrolls action role-playing video game series, following The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It was released on November 11, 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Skyrim's main story revolves around the player character's efforts to defeat a dragon god who is prophesied to destroy the world. Set two hundred years after Oblivion, the game takes place in the land of Skyrim in the midst of a civil war after the assassination of the king. The open world gameplay of the Elder Scrolls series is continued in Skyrim, as the player character can explore the land at will and ignore or postpone the main quest indefinitely.
- Dragonborn has been released for the Xbox 360.
- A trailer for Skyrim's next DLC, Dragonborn, has been released.
- Skyrim's Hearthfire DLC has been announced and dated for September 4th. The DLC features the ability to buy your own home, adopt children and raise a family within.
- Dawnguard has been released for the PC.
- Dawnguard has been released for the Xbox 360. Playstation 3 and PC release date information has not been announced.
- A trailer for Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC has been released.
- The Elder Scrolls Online will be revealed in Game Informer's June issue.
- Skyrim Dawnguard DLC has been announced. No details have yet been revealed aside from an Xbox 360 timed-exclusive release set for this summer.
- Skyrim's Creation Kit and Steam Workshop support have both gone live. In addition, Bethesda has released an official HD texture pack for the game. See the Information & Tips section on how to use all your current texture mods with the official pack.
In the game's launcher, disable traditional anti-aliasing and enable FXAA instead. And under its View Distance tab, check the Object Detail Fade box.
Open "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim\SkyrimPrefs.ini" and change the "fGrassStartFadeDistance=" value from 7000 (its max in the launcher/in-game display options) to 14000. You won't see any difference between 14000 and higher values, but 7000 to 14000 is a fantastic improvement.
Open "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim\SkyrimPrefs.ini" and add "iMinGrassSize=20" under the [GRASS] heading.
Disable "HighResTexturePack01.esp" and "HighResTexturePack02.esp" in Skyrim's launcher. Next, open "steamapps\common\Skyrim\Skyrim_default.ini" and "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim\Skyrim.ini" and change the following entry to look like this:
sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa, HighResTexturePack01.bsa, HighResTexturePack02.bsa
If there's a mod not in this list that you feel should be, send me a PM and I'll check it out.
Most of the descriptions below have been taken from their pages.
Every Skyrim in-game book, available in Kindle and e-pub format.Nexus Mod Manager - Highly recommended. The Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) is a free and open source piece of software that allows you to download, install, update and manage your mods through an easy to use interface. It integrates with the Nexus sites to provide you with a fast, efficient and much less hassle free modding experience.
Skyrim Script Extender - Required for many advanced mods
BOSS - BOSS is designed to assist mod users in avoiding serious conflicts, by setting the correct load order for the plugins they have installed.
Wrye Bash - This is an advanced tool that allows you to merge mods and leveled lists together.
INTERFACESkyUI - SkyUI is mod that aims to improve Skyrim's User Interface by making it easier to use with mouse and keyboard (it can also be used with a gamepad), less wasteful of available screen space and nicer to look at.
Immersive HUD - The aim of iHUD is to provide the immersive feel you get from having no HUD, whilst keeping the usefulness of having one. It takes the permanently visible HUD elements such as compass and crosshair, and hides them when not needed. It's also configurable, allowing you to disable or enable various features, set HUD elements to toggle or reactive, and more.
A Quality World Map - With Roads - This mod replaces the map with high resolution textures that also includes optional roads.
3D Paper World Map - This mod replaces the map with one that looks more like an actual paper map. It includes three textures choices.
GAMEPLAYSkyrim Redone - SkyRe is a full Skyrim overhaul, centered around its gameplay, from the perk system to enemy AI.
Note: You will want to download a skill level cap remover for use with SkyRe. Check its mod page for more information.
ACE - ACE is a collection of mods which can be run independently of each other. ACE aspires to brings more depth and balance Skyrim while maintaining its original feel. (Dashui: ACE may be more balanced than SkyRe, and is more compatible with other mods. It doesn't alter the magic trees, however, so you may wish to download the recommended Empowered Magic mod.)
Skyrim Perk Enhancements and Rebalanced Gameplay - (Dashui: SPERG is similar to ACE - more modular and lightweight than SkyRe - with a few additional features.)
Note: Use only SkyRe, ACE or SPERG.
ASIS - This mod increases the difficulty of combat by giving the AI access to more potions, perks and spells, improving their general intelligence, and includes options to increase and randomize their spawns.
Note: This is not compatible with Skyrim Redone. It is, however, recommended for use with ACE.
The Dance of Death - The Dance of Death is a new kill moves mod built from the ground up... it adds around 25 new/reassigned killmoves against NPC's not already included in the 1.5 patch to virtually all of the combat styles and situations. It also allows you to customize various kill move settings, such as perspective, decapitation chance and more.
Sneak Tools - This mod aims to improve stealth gameplay by adding new tools and options for the player, such as different types of arrows inspired by the Thief series.
Ultimate Follower Overhaul - UFO gives you greater control over your followers.
Dawnguard Compatibility Note: A compatibility patch was released under the optional files section, but there are still reports of issues.
Deadly Dragons - This mod overhauls dragons making them a much tougher challenge, as well as introducing more than a dozen new types of dragons to fight.
Convenient HorsesFaster Horses - This mod makes horses sprint faster.
Spend Dragon Souls for Perks - Self explanatory. The more advanced the perk, the more souls it requires to purchase.
Note: This does not work with ACE, SkyRe, or any mods that alter or add new perks to the game.
Magic Duel - It lets you get into Dragonball Z energy beam fights with other mages. 'Nuff said.
Note: Use only one of the following magic overhaul mods. These are not compatible with Skyrim Redone.
Better Magic - The Better Magic series is a group of magic changes that was built simplistically in order to make it compatible with as many mods as possible. In working on this, I've had two main goals: improve the balance of magic (compared to similar effects and costs), and make magic feel more fun to use.
Empowered Magic - This mod changes some mechanics related to general spell casting, as well as perks and spells in all schools of magic, making them scale with level and also more balanced. The goal is to give the player more options and variation to choose from, encouraging the use of all available spells instead of just sticking to the obvious best choices.
WEAPONS, ARMORS & ITEMSBandolier - Bags and Pouches - This mod adds many new items that will increase carry weight and appear visually on your character.
JaySus Swords - This mod adds a large variety of new, high quality swords for you to craft.
Weapons of the Third Era - This mod contains a pack of 50+ new weapons (not replacements) with Morrowind-themed designs. They are added to the loot tables and so you can find them on enemies you encounter, and several can be crafted, as well.
Immersive Armors - Immersive Armors currently adds 22 new sets of armor the the game (28 including variants), 13 addition non-set helmet options, 12 new weapons and shields, and a large number of other items such as eye patches, capes, earrings, scarves, and more! They are all craftable, upgradable, enchantable, and are integrated into the game through leveled lists or placement in dungeons or onto specific people.
Omegared99 Armor Compilation - Omegared99's compilation adds 14 high quality, lore friendly armors to the game.
Skyrim Adventurers Tent - This mod adds a very large, portable tent to the game.
Cloaks of Skyrim - This mod adds almost 100 new styles of cloak to the world of Skyrim, via crafting, levelled-lists, and static loot. They are lore-friendly and enchantable, and more are being added with every update.
Winter is Coming - Cloaks - Winter is Coming adds new cloaks, hoods, capes, scarves and wraps to the game's leveled and crafting lists, and is fully compatible with Cloaks of Skyrim.
Tamriel Compendium - Tamriel Compendium adds 177 books that were present in past Elder Scrolls games but not included in Skyrim. Books of fiction, theatrical plays, jokes, metaphysics, guides, poems, debates, religion and more. The new books are added to the game's book leveled lists. This means that they randomly appear in dungeons, merchant wares, homes or any locations where books are spawned. But the best way to find them is to browse through the College of Winterhold's library or purchase them from the librarian.
QUESTS, LOCATIONS & NPCsMoonpath to Elswyer - Moonpath adds an entirely new landmass to explore in Skyrim, the deserts and lush jungles of Elsweyr, and features entirely new assets, items, voice work, quests and creatures.
Interesting NPCs - This mod adds more than 90 voiced NPCs with nearly 20,000 lines and over 300,000 words of player and NPC dialogue, and new quests and companions.
VISUALS: ENVIRONMENTSPerfect Whiterun - This mod adds pines in Whiterun and its immediate surroundings and replaces its old textures with forest textures.
Texture Pack Combiner - The Texture Pack Combiner (TPC) merges the three popular texture packs - Skyrim HD 2K, Serious HD Retexture and Skyrim Realistic Overhaul - together. It also supports the merging of 33 optional mods, putting them all together into a single, fully compatible and load-order free package.
Enhanced Night Skyrim - This mod replaces the night sky with a beautiful, high resolution one.
Project Reality - Climates of Tamriel - Climates of Tamriel is a weather and lighting overhaul mod for Skyrim.
Note: This can be used with ENB mods. (Dashui: I highly recommend installing this. If you're planning to use it with an ENB mod - as I do - set Climates' night settings to vanilla level 3 in the installer.)
WATER - Water and Terrain Enhancement Redux - High resolution water textures and meshes
Pure Waters - High resolution water textures and meshes
Lanterns of Skyrim - This mod adds lanterns and other light sources around the world of Skyrim - along its traveled paths, towns and bridges.
Enhanced Distant Terrain - This small texture mod enhances the distant low-detail terrain by upping the amount of noise and quality of the the texture maps.
Better Dynamic Snow - A mod that changes the ugly, pure-white dynamic snow effect to actually use the default snow texture (landscape\snow01.dds). This minor change greatly improves the visual appearance of dynamic snow.
Footprints - Adds footprints to the snow from the player, NPCs, and creatures.
Vurt's Skyrim Flora Overhaul - Skyrim Flora Overhaul is a WIP mod project dedicated to overhauling the Skyrim flora.
Lush Grass - Lush Grass enhances the world's foliage by making it look fuller and more lush.
Lush Trees - This mod fills out all the pine trees in the world by adding extra branches and needles to the current ones. Download the available compatibility file for use with Vurt's Flora Overhaul.
Note: The latest version is no longer compatible with Vurt's Skyrim Flora Overhaul, but they can still be used together. They share three tree-related files, so if you install Lush on top of Vurt's, you'll lose a slight amount of tree variety added by Vurt's. If you install Vurt's on top of Lush, some trees won't be as full brushed.
Glowing Ore Veins 300 - This mod makes the game's ore veins much more visible, especially in darker environments.
Real Ice - This mod re-textures the ice/glaciers in the game, as well as adding parallax mapping to their surfaces. (Dashui: My personal preference is the Dark Classic + Parallax version.)
Chopping Block / Wood Fires FIX - This mod fixes the missing textures on skyrim HD pack Chopping Blocks and replaces the ugly textures of Wood Fires.
Revamped Exterior Fog - This mod makes distance fog 50% thinner, making for a better view and more subtle blending with the skyline, and pushes the fog start distance further away.
Static Mesh Improvement - This mod edits many 3D models to improve their appearance and to fix many of the ugly seams and other oddities present in many of the 3D models.
Note: If using Better Dynamic Snow, install this after and select yes when it prompts you to replace.
Visible Windows - Visible Windows replaces the window glass (customizable), most frames, railings, and detailing with new, high resolution textures.
VISUALS: CHARACTERSXCE - Xenius Character Enhancement - XCE is a compilation of Xenius' character enhancement mods.
Xenius Character Enhancement - Dawnguard - This improves the textures for the new Dawnguard races and characters. It requires XCE.
Apachii Sky Hair - This mod adds new hairstyles for females and males.
Wet and Cold - This mod adds dynamic wet and cold related effects to characters and certain creatures.
Get Snowy - Adds a snowy visual effect to the player and NPCs when snow is falling. Works well with Wet and Cold.
VISUALS: LIGHTINGIMAGINATOR - Visual Control Device - IMAGINATOR allows you to separately control visual elements like Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Sky Brightness, Sunlight Output, Bloom and Tint all from within an easy-to-navigate helper spell.
Note: Use only one of the following lighting mods, unless specified otherwise.
Realistic Colors and Real Nights - This mod use the power behind FXAA Post Process Injector to generate a new and realistic color palette and an enhanced night-time gameplay experience. It is much less system intensive than ENB-based mods.
Project ENB - An ENB configuration designed for realistic and sharp colors. It includes Climates of Tamriel support.
Dashui's Picturesque ENB - (Dashui: This is my own personal version of HD6's Cinematic Lighting ENB 11.3. I've also included Revamped Exterior Fog to make the distant landscape more clear. However, my personal preference is now Project ENB.)
Note: ENBseries mods include a feature called SSAO, or Ambient Occlusion, which is a system intensive shadow rendering technique. For the best performance, you should disable it. You may have to do this manually, depending on the ENB mod you download, which you can do by opening your enbseries.ini file and changing the "EnableAmbientOcclusion=" variable to "false".
VISUALS: OTHERAutomatic Variants - AV Provides an easy place to drag-and-drop alternate monster textures and have them automatically integrated into the game.
Enhanced Blood Textures - This mod adds a bloodier combat experience, with higher resolution and detailed textures.
Auto Unequip Ammo - This mod will automatically unequip ammo when ranged weapon is unequipped.
Deadly Spell Impacts - This mod gives fire, lightning, and frost spell impacts with their own unique textures, as well as improvements and variety to decal sizes.
Silly Level of Detail - Potions & Poisons - This mod replaces the textures for potions and poisons in the game.
Silly Level of Detail - Wine Cellar - This mod replaces the wine bottles and mead bottles in the game with higher quality ones.
-- If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to send a private message to Dashui for help. (Dashui: Some mods may have newer versions since I've written the guide.)
- MGSO installs all the latest audio and graphical mods to the game through an easy to use application. You choose from a variety of different mods, and can make changes later with the press of a button through the same application and without having to start a fresh game. Included is a very detailed readme that will guide you through the install and setup process.
Posts
Yeah, had a bash at that. Not without its flaws, but is beautifully made. And a gorgeous change of scenery from Skyrim too. Recommend having a dabble in it!
Now I want Elder Scrolls 6, Elsweyr. Thanks :P
Now where's that mod that makes Lydia wear the damn items I give her?
Oh thank science. It's pretty hilarious in that one quest where the guy you're with tells you to beware of traps and then stumbles into every damn one himself.
Yeah, assuming they don't do it as an xpac or major DLC, I want the next Elder Scrolls to be set either there or Valenwood. Everything about the Thalmor seems to lead up to it.
Drama.
Moral of the story - always keep a backup, kids!
Apparently it's been on Nexus since last month, but it doesn't look like anything has been significantly done since then.
I thought the same, then decided to make a kick arse vampire character in preparation.
It was amazing... my gpu is a 7980 so it handled it no problem, so it just looked epic.
I don't have that many mods either, some visual and sound tweaks... enhanced high level play (but this was around lvl 15)... a few others, but nothing that I think would cause 100+ enemies to suddenly spawn in town. It was odd.
I'd like to get more mods to add to the game though, not break it... I don't want cheater items, but I would really like more variety in a balanced way.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Stupid Microsoft.
Skyrim's third-person animations are still not great at all. I don't think it would work isometric.
unfortunately, it still looks to be a glass cannon, though slightly less of one with another 100 HP from a perk and doubled feeding regen
but the starting damage perk is 25% with four ranks
if that goes up another 25% with each rank the damage output will be ridiculous
werewolf claws top out at 70 damage base, and double that will be way more than I have ever had with any of my weapons
I really doubt it would go up 25% at each rank.
I take it you're getting bored of Civ?
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
I'm very ADD when it comes to games. Im constantly thinking about playing other games while playing what I'm playing.
Which currently is Civ V, Krater, and Gravity Rush.
And playing Krater and before that D3 really made me want a Diablo-sorta game with the customization of Skyrim/Krater.
Oh, with a secondary town building game ala Little Kings Story
I don't think the perk tree is complete yet. I can't imagine there won't be a perk (with upgrades even) that increases armor in werewolf form by X per rank, or just reduces all damage by X percent per rank.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
the only thing we haven't seen are two totem perks and "savage feeding"
How do you know that's final?
Edit: Vampires now won't get attacked on sight unless they transform into Vampire Lords. That's not in the perk tree either, who says there won't be some changes to Werewolfes as soon as you install the expansion as well, like, say, armor in werewolf form that scales with level?
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
I forgot the expansion was already out. Would you mind sending me a copy?
Day one patches exist as well.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
...also all of this.
they're not going to be adding new perks at this point
i mean theoretically, i guess they could change it so that werewolf form actually has armor, but you'd think a mechanical change like that could very well have been in the last patch, rather than the paid DLC
i'm not holding my breath
Same thing applying to Vampires being attacked on sight when at stage 4 vampirism instead of being attacked only when performing vampiric activities. Or crossbows even, I guess.
It'd just be something I think Werewolfes need to be viable, even in addition to their paralyzing/ragdolling attacks they already have.
If it's not in, I'm sure there'll be a mod sooner rather than later that does exactly that, so it's no big deal.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
I can still dream!
Not in the ENB mod itself, but do you have any AA enabled? And do you have the Object Detail Fade box unchecked in the launcher's graphical option?
Later this year, though, I'm going to be doing a GPU upgrade and won't know what to do with this ATI 5870... *WINK*WINK*NUDGE*NUDGE*
Most surfaces only render one-way, so you can see in while not being able to see out. Dungeons with multiple levels would still be problematic. And everything being tiny from forty feet up.
I can just imagine how dragon fights would be.
Aim for the shadow! Aim for the shadow!
no no no
lead the shadow