Honestly. I hear people talk about all the impressive content that come in mods, but I have to ask, has there been any player created campaigns with character driven stories? I was browsing the Oblivion mods on youtube, and while plenty of them seem like they might be adding interesting new dungeons to plunder, there are already plenty of dungeons in Skyrim.

I have a feeling most of the modded content is going to come across as "fan-fiction"y.

Obviously you didn't look very well around them interwebs: http://nehrim.de/

http://adamandjamie.com/mod/

This guy comes to mind when people ask for story driven mods. There are more for NWM, but his Shadowlords and Dreamcatcher are the best I've ever come across from a fan. In fact if you google his history, you might chance upon an article interviewing him where he was invited to join a development team but he politely declined citing family commitments and relocations as grounds for rejecting the offer.

@OP
and you would be wrong.

unless the steam addition is not what they promised and wrecks the modding of the game.

now...would they lie to us ?

http://nehrim.de/startEV.html

Damn you Thoros! I guess it just reinforces the argument that Nehrim is a great example of what modders can do, that two people have thought of it.

Isn't Nehrim an overhaul unrelated to the Elder Scrolls universe though?

If you go post in the Oblivion Mods section asking for good quest mods, the top five will most likely be very strong, character driven story mods. Not every one will be perfectly lore friendly, but they will all be fantastic. You will see a lot of simple dungeon diving quest mods, but that's because those are relatively easy to make and good, deep quest mods are fairly difficult (mostly on the creative writing front). I'd recommend to check that out and see for yourself what the modding community has done in the past.

Well, you never have to use any mod if it doesn't appeal to you. I think that seems a fairly easy solution to that problem.

And, what I would say about Skyrim specifically is it needs quest mods. While Oblivion had tons of quests that met the players needs, it had boring, identical dungeons. Skyrim has an amazing gameworld and boring, insignificant quests. I suspect a lot of us will be creating quest mods and there will be a greater emphasis on them than there has been in previous games.

Yeah ... I posted in the Mod section, telling people I'd be willing to do VOs and write stories, and that I'd like to work with a programmer to develop some interesting -stories- as opposed to -quests-, and I got exactly one reply.

You've brought up something I hadn't considered before. I wish there were as many -stories- as there are -quests- in Skyrim.

-Story- example: the Redguard barmaid in Whiterun and her problems.
-Quest- example: the Azura's star stuff.

I'd much prefer Skyrim was half -story- and half quests. The balance is way too weighted in favour of -quests-.

Well, it may be that you are trying to sell a skill to modders that know how to write stories for themselves. But I agree with you. There aren't stories in Skyrim; not for most of the quests and not for most of the characters we meet. In previous games Beth has been very good at drawing nice little character portraits with just a few lines, and even if the characters are somewhat shallow at least it's enough to give the player something to feel about the character. There isn't much of that here, and when they have done it, well, it's done very awkwardly. It's a shame because I feel emotionally indifferent to most of the characters in the game which I didn't in either Obliivon or FO3.

I'm not a modder, or use mods at that(360 guy, at least for now. I might get a better PC at some point), but I can tell you: The better modders of TES knows how to make excellent content.

I sure as hell dont, I have tried quests before and they are terrible

You will most likely get more responses by advertising your skills after the CK is released. Especially since VO is not usually the first thing a modder is worried about when planning a mod. They need time to actually start developing quest/story mods before a VO actor would do them any good. If you have some talent and willingness for VO, don't give up on it. Just give it a little time.

I agree with everything you've said here. (Oblivion has other problems that Skyrim doesn't, in terms of story, but that's another topic.) There have been a few parts that did get me interested in what was happening, but they've been pretty rare.


Good point.


Thanks guy. I'm not burned or disappointed. Still want to work with someone willing and able. As you suggest, I've decided to wait until after the CK comes out. I was quite surprised nobody wants to work with me to insert more random NPC dialogue, at least, though.