Hello community!

PLEASE HEAR ME OUT!

I know there has been A LOT of mod requests in the past regarding a multiplayer/co-op option that have never really lived up to the name. I have pondered the idea for quite some time on how this can be made possible without overcomplicating things. After given it a lot of thought, I think I may have thought of something. My only problem is I am not a coder of any sort. That being said, let me explain the concept.

The idea behind this mod came from playing Skyrim with my friend on the couch, something I'm sure we are all familiar with. We would trade off frequently letting the other watch as the other quested, crafted, etc. This constant trade off got me thinking: "What if there was a mod that could simulate this trade off while in game?" After thinking about how it could be done for quite some time, let me try and explain my concept.

As most of us know, having a follower in game for the most part is just annoying. But what if we had control to switch camera views to the follower, ultimately controlling their every move? Fuel for this idea came from in fact, another Bethesda game called Hunted: Demon's Forge. In this game, even single player focused on the story of two playable characters that the player can switch back and forth between using a specific stone. The idea involving Skyrim is that when having a follower in game, it could be possible to switch camera views to seeing out of the eyes of the follower. This would then turn the "main character" into the follower and turn the follower into the playable character. Let me try and explain the concept from an in-game perspective.

The mod would basically consist of these following processes:

1) Create a new game profile. The two players will have to agree which one will be the "main character" and who will be the follower in game. (Remember, I am attempting to keep things simple.)

2) Obtain a follower of choice. The obvious choice is Lydia, but there are many other followers in game for "Player 2" to choose from.

3) When wanting to switch to "Player 2" the Main Character would simply press the "Select" button on Controller (PS3, Xbox 360) or an unused key on Keyboard.

4) The UI of game would remain the exact same, with the exception of perspective (camera view), inventory, gear, and possibly even skill trees. (Skill trees may be asking for too much but I figured I should at least mention.)

5) When playing as "Player 2," the "Main Character" would simply become the follower and operate as an AI, fighting with the inventory, gear, and skill tree associated with that player.

6) The "Player 2" can then switch back whenever he/she chooses by pressing the assigned "Switch" button again.

Now to explain additional features of the mod:

• By using this mod, friends can enjoy Skyrim together while both have the feel of having a "designated" character.
• Players would be able to use two controllers, but both controllers would control the screen which would require some communication between players. (Again, trying to keep things simple)
• The mod would need to prevent all followers from "dying" to prevent gaming issues. Whoever not playing, acting as the "AI," at the time would behave similarly to Serena by "not dying" permanently.
• The player playing at the time can die normally as game intends.
• If a player dies while controlling the "follower," the game will resume at the last place it saved or autosaved for the MAIN CHARACTER.
• If modding allows, players would be allowed to have separate inventories, gear, weapons, spells, and skill trees associated and saved with their "designated" character.
• If follower decides to stop following the main character, it will behave the same as a normal AI follower in game. The follower would keep it's inventory and gear equipped saved with that follower.

That pretty much sums up the idea! If anyone finds this plausible please let me know. This may be asking much but I would greatly appreciate it that if this mod is possible, it would be possible on both PC and console gameplay. Thanks for reading and if anyone takes a stab at this, I'd love to work with them on direction and give credits where credit is due. Until then, here's hope to taking arrows to the knee with a friend!

No mods on consoles.

I'm not a modder, but as far as the rest of it goes, only reassigning skill trees would be flat out impossible.

i think I've played different mods with the basic other features you described. this would be a hellish amount of work for not much gain. no consoles basically removes that sofa element. controls for the "2nd player" would be extremely basic, we can emulate delayed movement up to a point but not let another character take our inputs directly.

Another forum member and myself schedule simultaneous play sessions about two or three times a week. We do the same quests or dungeon runs at the same time and instant message each other as we play.

I recreated her character as a follower in my game and my character as a follower in her game. So during our sessions she plays with my character and I play with her character and we constantly instant message back and forth as we go.

We've been talking about setting up webcams so that we can actually see each others' game, as well as read about it. But we haven't gotten around to that yet. It's not exactly co-op but it's a pretty decent low-tech substitute.