So who decided Lost Spires isn't lore friendly? In what way? How do we know what went on in the time before history?

See, even something as supposedly objective as this is going to run into problems. I'm all for the idea of consolidating a "recommended mods" list somewhere to refer to. The problem, as always, will come from what to recommend and who is recommending it. There's some mention of category heads and needing a certain number of people to "vote" something in. That's doomed to fail. The category experts are already likely to have one or more mods that would be appropriate fits within it, yet their opinion requires MORE validation than some random person who shows up out of nowhere JUST because they have their mods on the list? So yeah. If you're going to have category experts, you'll need to expect that these people will be recommending their own stuff, because chances are it belongs there precisely because they're the experts for that category.

As far as essentials, there is only one set of mods which is essential. The unofficial patches. Nothing else could be considered an objective requirement, which is why "recommend this" threads always get the same scatter-shot responses.

And I'll just repeat my standard mantra about wikis. I hate them. They're disorganized glops of crap in most cases. I've yet to see any that are navigable without knowing what you wanted to find ahead of time. Even the ones with awesome content waiting to be found are ALWAYS seriously lacking in proper link structure. I don't even begin to understand why the format got as popular as it is.

But then threads get purged - or look what happened to the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1010109-list-list-of-mod-lists/. Now near useless as it got updated then a few months a later a forum overhaul and all the links don't work. So threads are great for WIP but not a home.

I know that Wrye really didn't like A's Oblivion mod list due to recommending mods he didn't even play, but it had a format that was easy to follow and it and several other recommended mod sites (arwen, ball of fire, TOTO, even a few pages on UESP) is what got me into trying many mods. Those were mostly blogs or simple web pages.

Then finding themed mod threads here bg's theads, Delte, Running for cover, etc. Those I liked better.

I think the best lists of these varieties are written by people who had their personal views on why to use this mod over that mod and kept it concise and to the point and didn't try to cover all categories.

The most important thing for any website to be useful is clear, concise communication. I personally don't care about the delivery method (wiki, custom built .php/mySQL combo, something else), as long as users get an understanding of what it is for and that the site is actually useful.

Regardless of what information we put up there, it's all going to be subjective. What's lore friendly to one, may not be to another. What's complicated to one, may be easy for another.

Arthmoor does have a point that it may be pointless to have voting at all. If someone is in charge of a category, that would be their category to maintain. As long as they treat the category objectively, are open to suggestions and recommendations, then that's all that matters.

Quality control would be nice, but if we're all volunteering, it's really not worth getting too red-tape over this.

I want to make sure that if this goes somewhere, that our time is not wasted and it's something that can easily be carried forward in the future, especially since I won't always be available.

It's either that, or it's just a one time deal: bam: - here's a starting point, go figure out the rest on your own.

No matter what list it will always become outdated.

As for categories. I can see people letting me write a combat section, but have a difficult time if I attempted an overhaul section. I think though that if any list needs updating it is bg's scaling overhaul comparison.

Categories also bleed over. immersion mods bleed over into combat which can bleed over into stealth and magic and so on.

I think voting wouldn't work either - I think we can all agree that there is one definitive answer for Economy, Hotkeys, and Map Markers ... but save timers, dialogue additions, Body mods, cosmetics, overhauls can easily be a matter of opinion or load order goals.

So maybe a goal would be a guide on how to plan a load order for a playthrough. Each load order would have a basic plan (what kind of character/quest arc), then categories for each section:
Official Patches
Early game mods
overhauls
quests
Late game tweaks
magic
Stealth
Leveling/Race
Combat
Final touches
then replacers.

Any list will have scope creep.

And really how often do the folks who ask for recommended mods settle for what is recommended to them? It seems to me they go OK then what about this ... and this ... and this.

Most wikis are poorly designed because 99% of people who create wikis don't know what they're doing. Wikis are popular because (duh) you don't have to know HTML/XML/Flash/Java to design a site - Joe Blow the internet user can learn simple wikicode and be creating a page in a few minutes.

Back on topic: Here's my idea re: ratings. You have a mod, say, Reclaiming Sancre Tor. It has a number of listings below it:

Lore-Friendly: Yes/Maybe/No
Size: Small, Medium, Large
Complexity of Installation: Mild/Moderate/Complex
Voiced: Yes/Partially/Not.

Someone could probably add a few more. For the ratings themselves, we have a page of standards where a user (or a contributor) can read up to see what, for example, a "Maybe" Lore-Friendly rating means. Other mods, would have different ratings. Texture replacers, for example, would have:

Performance Hit: Mild/Moderate/Heavy

As long as you keep them simple (and limited) and explain all the ratings clearly, I don't think there should be a huge problem. You can also have a filtering system whereby someone can search for, say, Large quest mods or mods that add swords or whatever.

Yes, that kind of simplicity would be good. And granted, it may not be perfect. But as long as it's made clear that this is intended to be a starting point, not the be all/end all, I think it would suffice. The goal is to provide a link to relatively new users to help get them started that helps answer that question:
"I'm new to modding, what mods do you recommend?"

Re: wiki. I would imagine there must be some good wiki alternatives out there by now.

Edit: then again, maybe I'll just build my own thing and have folks submit content. All of the wiki "alternatives" that I've googled are just wiki variants. Thing is, I really don't have the time to do it! Not if I want a career in my chosen field. (sigh)

An idea for tags/badges/whatever, and their definitions given on the site:

Lore correct: follows lore, maybe expanding on ideas, extrapolating, and making believable additions.
(Integration would be an example of proper expansion, extrapolation, and believable additions. An example of trying to be lore related but not lore correct would be: creating new Aedra Gods, or Deadric Princes, making completely "out their" explanations for lore mysteries; like saying the Dwemer disappeared because they were abducted by aliens.)

Dungeon Crawl: if the primary gameplay of the mod takes place in dungeons. For instance I wouldn't really consider The Blackwood Company to be a dungeon crawl even though it does have a decent amount of dungeon related content. The town/character interaction parts are a pretty integral part as well. Lost Spires on the other hand would fit into this category because most of the out of dungeon content exists just to send you to another dungeon.

Collectathon: If something requires you to collect things, or "kill 10 sheep" for a fair amount of it's content. Perfect example: Kragenir's Death Quest.

Experimental (Stable/ functional/ unstable) : For mods like Deadly Reflex, Unnecessary Violence, Vector, Integration, etc. where one of the main design focuses was to sort of experiment with what was possible in Oblivion. Integration would be in the stable, DR/UV in the Functional, and Vector in the unstable (Last I checked there were still a lot of issues with it not working forsome people, or causing crashes after uninstalling)

Character development (base/ back story/ fleshed) Base would be like quest mods with NPCs that exist to only give quests, back story would be for the ones that offer some back story, and fleshed would be the Integration, and Simyaz type mods.)

Romance (flirty/flingy/sixual/developed) Flirty would be small stuff that never develops into more, flingy would be the weird romances that make no sense(you said nice words to me and got me a flower, I love you forever!"), sixual is... obvious, developed would be like ones with multiple stages and actual character development and connection forming.

Performance effect: (none/small/medium/large) Pretty obvious

Performance Improvement: same

Combat heavy/dialogue heavy: I guess some mods might have both.

etc.


Basically anything a mod author might try and sell their mod as being would get a tag, so there can be a more unbiased opinion, and probably not limit too much on the tags except for the obvious "great!" "sux!" type stuff. (ie: why I put basic character development, instead of Zero character development)

Anything that wouldn't fit into the stable category should not be on a list of recommended mods. Every time I see someone mention FCOM as a must-have mod for new mods users I cringe. The problem isn't that FCOM is inherently unstable, but that getting it stable requires doing the install perfectly and no novice could ever be expected to do that!

As Arthmoor said, the only universally recognized essential mods are the unofficial patches. The main reason people post requests for mod suggestions is that the list of mods on the modding sites and the posts here are overwhelming. So any recommended list that gets too long (as a single list) will fail. And any list that tries to cover everything will have to be too long.

I personally love the design of Arwens site because everything is broken into nice categories, descriptions are short but accurate, etc. A collection of similar pages targeted a other character and play-style themes would be great.

Another problem is updating to newer mods when available.

Arwen's site hasn't been updated in a while for Oblivion, and this problem is inherent to any sort of database...

I certainly agree with the "stable" point. And I would never recommend FCOM as a starter mod.

I think there is some room for two or even three llists:
First time/inexperienced modder recommemdations:
- covers a wide range of categories
- some if not all mods should be plug-n-play with minimal (if any) setup
- they should all be compatible with each other (sort of a pick one mod from each category)
- none of them (preferably) should require bashing or OBMM, although both tools would be recommended.

Advanced list recommendations are for those who have done the beginner stuff and want to try more challenging (and fulfilling?) mods
- these mods would have more settings involved and would no doubt require using OBMM or wrye bash
- these mods may have a few conflicts, but not so many as to make it game breaking
- these mods may have a bit of a learning curve as it may require adjusting to changes in game mechanics and overall strategies

Expert recommendations would be the really gnarly stuff:
FCOM
Nehrim
etc.
rather than go into great details, just a list with links. Because by the time they get to that list, they should be able to figure out everything on their own.

For modders who have gone through FC

The most important aspect, IMHO, is to properly define what the project should be about initially. Who is the main intended user? What info should it provide to him? The board certainly does not lack in good ideas. But at some point somebody must decide what is going to be built initially. Not everybody will be happy with whatever the decision will be.

I firmly believe the OB newbie is the most in need of guidance. This site should be first and foremost for him. Once you are into modding for a while, you need such a database less and less, as Saebel just said. I say let's first build something with the newbie in mind. Let it be relatively small in scope but done well (categories, tags, difficulty to install) and constantly maintained and updated. Let's see if the people involved (admins, editors) can run this relatively small website / info board with the available resources. It could be that even a small database / site is difficult to maintain in the future once the initial enthousiasm is vaning. And getting outdated is about the worst that can happen because then it is of no or very limited use anymore. This has already happened too often in the past. Can this time really be different? The odds are not in our favor.

So I would caution not to get too ambitious at the outset. If there are the people, the time, the money whatever, to grow the content later is not the problem. But I firm believe to have a well-maintained small site for newbies (mainly) is better to have than a dead dinosaur. There are too many of those already.

One thing that would really be useful is to cover the replacements and updates for stuff that changed "owners" a few times. I got hit by this with New Roads and Bridges just a few days ago, not realizing that it got redone and re-released, until I did some more digging.

Also stuff like Quest Award Leveler being supplanted by Auto Updated Leveled Items and Spells. And it took me forever the other night to finally find http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35969, which is all the map replacer 95% of people will ever need.

And definitely clear links to, and explanations of, the various body replacers.

Somewhat off-topic for the discussion but...

Oh yeah?? I missed that too then... still using QAL... must check out this Auto thingy you mention!

Which shows I could benefit from the Concordance as well at times, even though I'm pretty diligent to keep on top of the mods I'm using....

I still prefer http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26638 better. Why bother with leveling them and instead just get the best right off the bat?

But see that is where a best of mods won't work - too many preferences.

Still better I think to have tutorial on constructing a load order with categories. Then each category consist of best contenders. Mix and match - what mods are all about.

That strikes me as fulfilling a slightly different role. I personally would not want to get "the best" at level 1. You can get Debaser easily at level 1, and getting it with the level 25+ stats is not something many people are going to want.

So in this case, both should certainly be listed.

This discussion is similar to Pluto's http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1305729-mod-recommendations-for-new-players/ (http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1060141-mod-recommendations-for-new-players/) thread and that was started over two years ago, so something like that thread could be useful for anyone which have updated links as well.

The question is; What's consider to be a recommended mod? I think the answer lies in the fact what a mod does and what purpose it has for the game.

An example for a typical question that many new players always asked in Morrowind subforum is what mods do you recommend. Most of people there always say... "You need to have MCP, MPP and MGE (if you want better graphics)" ...is an answer for those questions is a standard comment and most people who have that kind of response are grateful for that kind of suggestions.

I've been playing both Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, so I know what essential mods/tools there is for Morrowind and Oblivion in general.


I suggest that a list of recommended mods should either be on a Wiki or a small forum perhaps both, but not on BSF since Psymon mention the threads that got pruned or having a forum upgrade are completely useless in the long run.
Sorry to drag in Morrowind into this, but I need to explain how it was for us in the community of Morrowind.

I second Tommy's post. Newbies are most often the ones looking for mods; the more experienced people generally know where to go and how to look for what they want. Start it off with a group of basic mods for each aspect of Oblivion - graphics, sound, quests, music, etc. If it takes off, we can add things for more advanced users. I think that as long as it's maintained by more than one person, it should stay up to date - look at the UESP Wiki and the CS Wiki.

One final thought: Instead of rating mods by install difficulty, rate them by user experience. I borrowed this from the Better Cities entry on TESNexus:

I got a chuckle out of the "skill level" descriptions. I know I'm doing things the hard way, but I've never used OBMM, BAIN, or Wrye Bash, and still do just fine. BOSS and TES4Edit pretty well do it for me.


Of course, that comment isn't very pertinent to this conversation. Instead, what I wanted to write about is the following:
It's clear that most of us agree that this is a good idea, even if we have not yet reached a consensus on some of the major details (how to rate, how to categorize, etc.). If I may be so humble as to make a suggestion - I would recommend that we focus on deciding the following first:

• What platform will it be on? I've seen several ideas - TES4Mod, UESP, TESCOSI, an independent website, a thread here, TESNexus - all thrown out as options. We need to make a decision on which one we're going to do; that decision needs to be palatable to everyone who's planning to contribute significantly.
  
• We need to decide who is going to make significant contributions to this site - who will do the scripting, programming, etc. as necessary, who will do a significant amount of administration, who will just contribute, and even who will "advertise" the site on TESAlliance etc. so newbies know it exists.
  
• After those two things are figured out, THEN we will have both the location, and the personnel, needed to start trying some of the voting, categorization, etc. suggestions that have been thrown out. Until we have those first two things figured out, I believe conversations on these latter topics will just distract. After the platform and personnel are figured out, we can start trying out some of the voting, category, etc. options that have been suggested, to see what works best.

To summarize the above: I'd like to see this switch from conversation to action

We (http://www.darkcreations.org) can step up and offer a home for this, but others would need to maintain it. We have a full IP.Board with a wiki connected to the forums.

We're currently hosting several modding projects and the Skyrim provincial collaboration effort, called Beyond Skyrim. They also have a wiki.

So we could offer forums and/or a wiki, but someone or several someones would need to step up to maintain the list.

Why don't we just put it up on the TESNexus wiki? It IS a site dedicated to mods, after all - where better to put articles for newbies looking for mods? It's already existing, so we needn't worry about hosting; it's got discussion functions; it's moderated; and anyone who wishes to can pitch in and add stuff.

Whichever is easiest for admin purposes. My only hesitation with hosting it on any site that also offers mod downloads is a perceived bias, whether it's real or not doesn't matter. But then I may be over thinking it. (I usually do).

Probably the best thing to do is see how each possible site is structured and decide if it meets the need or whether a site from scratch would be better.

Provided the Nexus staff isn't opposed to using the wiki for that I don't see why it would be a problem.

Nexus would be ideal if they permit such a thing. Just to clarify, Dark Creations doesn't provide mods for public download. We just host modding teams while projects are in development.

Okay. I'll contact Dark0ne to see what he has to say about it and point him to this thread so he knows which way the wind is currently blowing. If that's a no go we'll go with Dark Creations.

Oh looks like this project was already done: http://www.somethingfornobody.com/2011/oblivion-modding-guide/

next