List of Mods in need of / open to new mod authors

Recently I have been downloading, installing, and testing an extreme amount of mods, and through my in game travels, searched for mods to fill gaps in my play style across my various characters. In my all my play time, I have obviously come across some completely amazing mods, only to find out the mod author left the community. Some of these mods are "Hidden Gems" and haven't received the amount of attention they deserve. Unfortunately some of these mods are either incomplete, or are in need of minor bug fixes with no author to do so. So, I decided to take the liberty of messaging these mod authors for permission to update/continue their work, and, to my surprise, they responded and have been completely happy to pass on the work and excited that they still have fans.

Provided is a list that I will update as much as possible, containing various exquisite mods that are in need of new mod authors. If you are interested in taking over one of these projects and updating them for the Oblivion community, or have any further suggestions, please state so here in this thread, and I will update their status. Anyone who releases content, based on this list, will be mentioned in the first post.

List update log:
?Friday, ?August ?05, ?2011: Removed Frans in favor of a take over. Thanks to Some Welsh Guy!
?Wednesday, ?August ?03, ?2011: Added Elsweyr and Alternative Oblivion Magic System to the list.
Tuesday, ?August ?02, ?2011: Added Frans to the list. Additionally, I removed Sorcerys Toll from the list (In favor of mods that have been recently developed to replace it).

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Enchantment Mastery [In Need of development!]

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24915

Enchantment Mastery allows you to enchant previously enchanted items to create powerful artifacts with multiple enchantments, enchant custom arrows (in stacks) and enchant weapons with constant enchantments. This mod does so in a very simple and intuitive way: open the (vanilla/default) enchantment screen and enchant. On top of that, Enchantment Mastery allows you to disenchant items, stack multiple effects of the same type together, set limits to the enchanting process and customize the way in which all of this works!

My Notes: "This mod is almost completely perfect, and only has a few small known bugs (Clearly printed in it's description) It's one of the best "enchant" arrows solution out there, and really has some great features. Olegbl was happy to allow the community to continue his work, and thanked me for considering it."

Version 1.07

Original Author: Olegbl
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Alternative Oblivion Magic System [In Need of development!]

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31918

This mod changes the whole way the spells are gained by the character, turning the game into a more immersive
experience, by making every character unique.

My Notes: "This mod seriously needs someone to take it over. It's really a revolutionary change to the spell system in Oblivion, you should check out it's features, it's pretty expansive, and has compatibility with all the great magic mods. There is a note here on permissions, Revolucion09 stated "just please give some credits up and make sure people notice that it is an extension to the original mod." So take that into account if you decide you would like to work on it

Version 0.36b

Original Author: revolucion09
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ZuTheSkunks Shivering Isles Overhaul v0111 [Currently in Development!]

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34245

Amber and Madness equipments were expanded and fixed; mostly for weaponry, which is now complete and doesn't lack any weapon type found in sets from vanilla Oblivion. Weaponry of Golden Saints and Dark Seducers was expanded too. You can now turn Vitharn Keep into your personal estate, and get there your own smith to forge weapons and armor from Obelisk Shards, found in e.g. bodies of Knights of Order. All clothing and armors that were present in vanilla SI but were unavailable (either always or in result of your choices) can be now obtained during the progress in SI's main questline. You can find them in Sheogorath's Palace, among other trophies from your journey. All bosses from SI's main questline have turned stronger (including first Gatekeeper, so you may need to get higher levels before being able to even enter the Isles). Now they're more challenging than before. Zealots and Heretics will be summoning bound gear now, making them more difficult in combat. Aureals and Mazkens will have much better appearance now (no more ugly faces) and their disposition towards you will be updating properly with your progress in SI's main questline. After completing the main quest, you will be able to summon portals to take you from and into Shivering Isles (based on Wrye Shivering).

My Notes: "I have a personal invested interest in this mod. Having play tested it all the way through Shivering Isles, I have personally come up with several bugs that need fixing, I have been incapable of doing so myself. Aside from it's issues it's absolutely amazing and shouldn't be left in the dust. The new meshes and armor/weapons are excellent. The enhancements to boss battles and overall difficult is exactly what it needed, especially with users of OOO/FCOM. If you are interested in working on this mod, contact me for my notes"

Version 0.111

Original Author: ZuSkunks
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Elsweyr the Deserts of Anequina [Currently in Development!]

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36303

High beyond the hills of the Niben lies the great desert plateau of central Elsweyr. From sandy desert wastes to rocky, red badlands, from grassy savannah to jungle coast, the lands of Anequina beckon. This new region, spanning the section of Elsweyr between Skingrad and Leyawiin, includes four new landscapes (desert to jungle), four new towns, several villages, Khajiit sub-races, a couple of dozen small quests, three small player homes and a monster-filled wilderness to explore. The deserts and badlands of Anequina are hidden behind high hill ranges, so are not readily visible from Cyrodiil, despite their close proximity.

My Notes: "Elsweyr is huge additional world space, with tons of new models, quests, and quests for the Oblivion adventurer to explore. The community outreach for this mod has been expansive, and anyone willing to take this mod on will have the support of many modders in the community. See this thread for details, there is a lot of stuff going on."

Version 3

Original Author: Iliana
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[size="4"]Francesco's leveled creatures/items mod[/size0

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=268

Tired that nearly all creatures level up with you? Bored that at level 25 all bandits of the world are god-like ones with daedric equipment? Than this mod is for you.
I think that the game has to be challenging but that not every fight has to be an epic one. This mod aims to create a more realistic and enjoyable experience, it will not make the game easier, just more credible (actually it can make it harder depending on the parts you decide to install)

My Notes: "Haven't heard of Frans? Oh you have? Well that might be because it's one of the most used mods of all time. However, no one can stay modding Oblivion forever, and Fransesco is no exception. It has been mostly public knowledge that Fransesco has made his mod open to updating for some time, so if you are a big fan of the mod, and have modding experience, you might want to consider Frans, and reach nearly the entire modding community."

[In development by Some Welsh Guy]

Version 4.5b

Original Author: Francesco
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I still have a few more to add to the list, as well as hear back from a few more mod authors (Only been at the list for a day or so), If you know of any mods that should be on this list, say so in this thread, and I'll look to getting it added (Given the permissions are in order)

For the first - I'd rather see more work on http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15587.

For the third - there are two better alternatives ... http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25616 and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25844.

A mod I'd like to see added to the list is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31918 - it removes all spell buying and relies on SM, LAME, Midas, and Fearsome to create spell lists that are awarded as abilities for gaining rank in spell schools that are determined by skills and stats at character creation. It is only about 40% done.

Maybe http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23189?

I can think of a few others that I wish was completed. Maybe I'll add more later.

Nothing to see here...

Errr no - I was suggesting people use that or Audacious instead of Sorcery's Toll not that they be added to the list. Why even bother with sorcery's toll when those work better?

Sorry if not clear.

Ah! My mistake - I clearly didn't read your post. Apologies.

Hasn't Francesco's overhaul been given the go ahead for updating/modifying/fixing, as of some time ago?

It has . I did have plans to take over this, time permitting, but I've got a full time job now so it's a bit harder than planned. But yes, it would be a good addition to the list.

I'd like to see a continuation of the ZutheSkunks SI overhaul..it is great but have to be expanded and be updated^^ Consider that..currently,FCOM has not a really complete overhaul like OOO for SI.ZutheSkunk's overhaul works but is not complete and it would be great even without fcom

Great idea and project, Zombiemold.

I contacted the author of Advanced Magecraft, and he was happy to say that he has a new update coming soon. Apparently hes working with another modder.

Iliana publicly stated that anyone is welcome to continue her work on http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25023. Would be a nice start for my modding career but I have still so much to learn and RL is leaving me little time to spare : /

Is there anyone interested in here?

I would be interested in helping with fixes and tweaks to ZuTheSkunk's wonderful mod. I haven't played the whole Shivering Isles with it installed yet, but what little I've seen convinced me to leave it in my load order forever.
I did check it through TES4Edit, especially comparing it to the unofficial patches, and saw some minor stuff mismatched. I don't really know if the things from the USIP really need fixing or if Zu already included them himself, since he states in the readme that he does work with the patches. Unfortunately it could be that he included some of those fixes in a way I can't perceive in the editor at first glance, so it would need playtesting.
If you have any solid leads to what needs fixing, let me know. If you need a particular quest line played (since I assume you haven't played all the SI branching quests with Zu's mod installed) I can play it to see if something is wrong. I'm no good at modelling/texturing, but I know a good bit about scripting (though I will have to restrain myself so as not to use OBSE in all the scripts I touch since Zu's mod is OBSE free, for good or bad)

Gosh, yes. Good call!

I am certain that many other players - and with any luck a few more modders! - share your interest here.

My only issues so far have been with the main quest, I'll jot down my current notes on it so far.

During the takeover of Cylarne, Dark Seducers and Golden Saints don't seem to fight each other. They make their proper battle shouts during the fight, but don't do anything but run around. Removing the mod fixed the issue so I assume it's the mod, and not another mod conflicting (or so I hope)

The final battle with Jyggalag is ridiculous. WAY too many Elite Order guards spawn, and is almost completely unbeatable, even in a decked out 30 (which I wasn't at the time). My own solution was to simply reduce the elite guards spawns to 2, and increase the time it took for them to rez (They automatically rez after death ) Additionally, I reduced Jygallag's size back to normal (He was too big to fit under certain arch ways, getting him stuck, and allowing you to pluck at him for an hour without risk. I also gave him life detect because invisibility breaks his ai, which is where my modding extent was capped due to lack of knowledge. My advice for this encounter is to make it scaled by level (Like it is in vanilla) but be scaled harder (I could 4 shot Jyggalag in vanilla :/)

The same goes for Syl and Thadon, way too tough, and set to be un-leveled.

Any NON-EE eye meshe race mod conflicts with this mod. An easy fix is simple taking out all redundant eye and/or race records, and leave that up to other respective mods.

The change to Ushnar's terror quest in this mod, conflicts with other mods of the same type, even if loaded after. My suggestion is to simply remove it as well (I have no idea how to do this)

One final thing, which I was un-able to figure out is... after you defeat Jyggalag, the game crashes (Even with no other mods loaded) I even took this mod out, and whatever it did to my game, still produces the crash. I have yet to figure out exactly what is happening here but... I suspect the changes made to the main quest.

ROM - Revised Oblivion Mod is a great 'Overhaul'. Underground has left and given permission for someone to take it further. Many have requested it to be made modular to make it usefull to a wider audience. It would be worthy of consideration for someone to do the following to it:

Remove dependency on OOO.
Make it modular. If anything, at least make standalone modules for:
Combat
Magic
Leveling

If there was a smoth way to make complementary for TIE that would be something worth playing again.

Found it - wow this is bad. They are scripted to stop fighting if the enemy shares ANY faction in common with them. At first this sounds nice, but A LOT of mods use dummy factions to add to actors for their scripts to work, which means using any of those mods makes them BFF. This can be happening in other parts of the mod, I'll check the use of SameFaction elsewhere.
Edit:the same stuff is used 53 TIMES!!!


They are supposed to be though, I imagine that is what Zu wanted. He even gives some tips like buying the permanent atronach stones to get some extra manpower. I agree on reducing Jygg's size, nothing good can come out of ginormous scales for the sake of it. Life detect won't help, but if the battle is so hard some invisibility can't be that bad (I guess invisibility can make everything in the game too easy, but I seldom bother to use).
You say the battle against Jyggy is hard, or against his cronies? If invisibility is making Jyggy too easy, an idea I have is making him cast a gigantic AoE dispel spell whenever the player has invisibility.

All I can recommend is Wrye Bash to do just that job automatically, I never did understand what is the thing with eye textures, but its too bad I can't see the new eyes this mod adds because of that above problem (Wrye Bash removes them to avoid googly eyes), I suppose it would be fixed if all the new eyes in this mod were changed to Non-EE (no idea how)

Which other mods conflict with that? You mean mods changing the dog? I think it should be fine if they load after, the dog is referenced only in his script and his placed reference doesn't have his script variables altered directly in any other script, so overwrites to it should be fine

I think it might be because the mod is trying to force Jyggy to equip his sword. Despite being flagged as capable of such, he doesn't have the required animations, probably an afterthought of the developers after they saw the sword was ridiculously small in his hands, they just scrapped that and attached a weapon model directly to him, so he actually fights unarmed.
His model is listed as 'jygganosword.nif' in the mod... very odd, I'll have to test this. You say uninstalling the mod doesn't help to avoid the crash on death, so its something serious then (and I suppose it means you haven't actually finished the whole main quest )

Yeah, I get that was his intention, but it wouldn't hurt if say you made an optional esp that brought them down a smidge, he is really strong, I know a lot of people complained about it.

If you use Supreme Magicka, life detect on NPCs actually takes the player out of invisibility, which effectively allows you to give life detect to npcs that shouldn't be fooled by invisibility (it worked awesome on my end) I still think a huge issue with Jyg is that he will NEVER attack the player's summons and/or allies. I wouldn't mind leaving Invis how it is for the fight but... only if he turned, and attacked my summons and what not if he can't find me. As it stands now, if he can't get to me, he just stands still..... allowing my summons to just.. kill him (over an hour) with no threat to me. Of course, I have no idea how to modify his ai scripting to do this however...

OH and another side note, this mod also breaks the re-enforcement script for ally Mazken/Aureals. Once he touches down, he kills them all, and no more spawn. In vanilla, one or 2 continue trickling in as they die off.


Wrye bash doesn't fix the issue, no idea why it doesn't but.. trust me it just doesn't. My remedy was to delete all the eye references, and clean it in edit. Everything worked perfect after.


Actually, just found out something about one of the quests in question, I have to remedy my CTD issue before I can troubleshoot that one.


I can't finish, I am stuck atm. Even with every single mod removed, simply leaving Oblivion.esm, and Shivering Isles, I get the crash. I have been going back in time, save by save, trying to see if I can remedy it, but no luck so far. I have kinda given up on it atm, and started a new character.

Actors having a fixation with the player seems a general bug, but I can't see why he wouldn't turn to other attackers if the player is not seen. I wonder if it also happens with other actors.
For the reinforcements, you mean they are supposed to resurrect after the final battle, but instead lie dead forever? Or that 1 or 2 should stay alive to assist you when Jyggy materializes? I don't remember any of them staying alive after Jyggy drops from the sky.

I would suggest starting a char with only Oblivion and Shovering Isles, then typing this in the console.
prid 825ce
moveto 14
exit the console and wait for Jygg to appear, then reenter it and type
kill
if the crash occurs it might have to do with models (I have little hope the crash will occur though, it sounds like some messed up variable, BUT I did see a SetActorAlpha stuff in Jyggy's script after he dies which caused crashes in mods that used a similar thing, like Mannimarco Revisited)

I meant, reinforcement come in through the doors and fight with Jygg if none are alive, or if one dies or something (I remember seeing this in a script as well, though I can't be sure)


The crash happens right after his ending speech, when the final quest is complete, I think to recreate this bug, I'd have to be AT the location, though I can't be sure. Any way to tele there?

Edit: If you would like to see the same game, I uploaded it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2608887/Saves.rar

Oodles of people interested, yes, but finding someone with enough time to care for a project of that magnitude is going to be tough. Does anyone have any idea of what's been left to do?

Well, according to Illiana, there's some quests that have been left unfinished... here, let me quote her reply to me when I asked...

"There were a few extra incomplete quests pencilled out in the mod which you can see if you open it up in the construction set. I had originally intended to do something with the Renrijra Krin smugglers which is why they have bases scattered all over the place, and also something about the Morrowind slave trade, and the fight for the palace in Dune. Dune was the last city I got around to populating which is why it doesn't have any quests except for the house for sale."

...So there's that. Perhaps it might be prudent to contact her to see what she'd like to see finished?

I just wanted to mention: if anyone is interested in working on a compatibility patch between ZuSkunks' overhaul and WEPON, I'd be open to assisting. That said, to honor the other two WEPON authors' wishes, only elements from the ESP file of WEPON could be used, and the SI Overhaul could reference meshes+textures that install with WEPON. In other words, any compatibility patch between the two would need to be dependent on a WEPON installation.

Other than a few incomplete quests and a few interiors to be done from scratch such a cave and maybe a few houses there are a bunch of meshes to be revised. Floating rocks, land tears and so on. I'm going to check what needs to be done later in the evening.

Ok, I had a look in the CS:

- the Hunters Guild quest ends at the very first part of the guildmaster stage
- the Merchants Guild quest ends abruptly at the third subquest, when the character rank in the guild is still at a low level
- there are three hardly sketched out minor quests. No quest stages, no scripts attached etc. I can't tell at all what the original intent was by the look of their IDs as they are all named SmallQuestXX and such.
- the city quests are completely empty

Had an in-game trip through the desert too:

- a cave door in the deep of a canyon doesn't lead anywhere
- a few minor land tears here and there and a lot [I mean, A LOT] of floating little rocks
- the western path to skingrad has a huge land tear by the bridge, don't know if a patch exists yet

Land tears could be from UL conflicts. There are patches for those. I can't imagine there being any deep within the province though since nothing touches that. Floating rocks are to be expected when the region generator is used. They just need to be knocked down when found. Someone could probably make a quickie dungeon for that unused door.

Quests are another matter though. Without some kind of notes on what the intent was, it's almost impossible to finish what someone else has started. Maybe someone could ask her for a copy of her development notes if she has any?