[Latino HeaT]

The Future of Morrowind – A Discussion of the Modding Community at Large

And how we can all contribute

Morrowind is a game that all of us here love or, at the least, appreciate for various reasons: the world design, the characters, the lore, the music, the art style, the story, all of the above plus more, or maybe just the guars and scratchy Dunmer voices. The game was released in May of 2002; making it 12 years old and yet here we still are, keeping the game vivacious after all these years!

The community has downsized over the years, with players and modders alike migrating to newer games. But new modders still show up from time to time. This is especially true on the Nexus. Now the Nexus has gone through some ups and downs as far as quality is concerned, but I really think the site has shaken out into something worthwhile as many will agree. With the closure of PlanetElderScrolls and the loss of ElricM, our options for sites to download new mods from have been limited. In large part, we have been left with Nexus, Great House Fliggerty Downloads, or TESAlliance. Being part of the largest and most active repository of mods for the latest Elder Scrolls games, the Morrowind section of Nexus often attracts the most new modders, releasing their very first mod. Often they’re coming from Skyrim, experimenting with the Construction Set or they're entirely new to the series. They upload their mod and it gets a couple of comments, a few endorsemants but perhaps several hundred downloads. While the mod they just released for Skyrim got hundreds of endorsemants, downloads, and scores of comments. This isn't a competition with Skyrim modding, but we have the capacity to provide a better quality and quantity of feedback than what is currently being given on modding sites, the Nexus in particular; if we all attempt to provide feedback for any and every mod which we download and even ones which we don't if we can provide constructive criticism and/or recognize its potential. The ratio of comments to downloads is often better for mods released for Skyrim than it is for Morrowind. There are plenty of small mods which slip through with not a single comment on Morrowind Nexus while still getting comparatively lots of downloads. That’s a low quality and quantity of feedback.

This lack of feedback is something I think we as a community need to talk about. I realized recently that I have a tendency to reserve all my comments on a mod for its WIP/Rel thread right here on this forum - I've got tons of posts on this forum, while, before recently, I had less than 50 on Nexus. If I downloaded a mod from the Nexus, which often don't have a WIP or Rel thread here, I tended to think “that looks cool” and then just move on. Not really thinking much about the individual who made it. But I’ve thought back now, I remember I started modding around the shift from Morrowind Summit to PlanetElderScrolls. I remember the thrill of posting a mod, watching the download count rise, reading and responding to comments, checking the ratings; and then checking back on a daily basis to see if there was any new activity. Getting feedback kept me going. Heck, it still does to an extent, but now I’ve shifted from PES to this forum to look for feedback on things that I create. But the fledgling modder at Nexus often doesn’t use this forum, they upload, they wait, and they may or may not get any feedback despite how many downloads they receive. Should we be surprised then when they decide to take their skills to mod newer games where the fan base is more vocal? Where they have the chance to be recognized? I'm talking about modder retention.

The Morrowind modding community could use some fresh blood, and it’s out there, at the Nexus. But they are not being encouraged to stick around! I believe that we as a community need to step up our game and encourage these new modders by faithfully leaving encouraging remarks, constructive criticism, and detailed reviews. I myself have begun to go back and comment on many of the mods I have downloaded from Nexus, getting many responses back from authors who express an interest in making more mods for Morrowind. And I am not alone in doing this, Darkelfguy is the one who brought the finer points of this issue to my attention recently and he has been doing his part by leaving detailed feedback and reviews in the comments for many mods with active modders on the Nexus and receiving an immensely positive response. And I encourage you to do the same.

With [a certain Skyrim mod concerning Morrowind] on the horizon, it is difficult to predict what the future of this amazing game holds, but we as its members can do our part to strengthen this community as a whole by commenting, endorsing, and reviewing mods which are still being made. Where are the Quatloos’s!? We’ve kept the game vivacious after all these years, but let us not slip into stagnancy!

I know that I am not alone in this perspective, but I hope that you do not miss the point of this post: to maintain and advance the Morrowind modding community as an encouraging, creative, and diverse group which is attractive to other modders. We're active here on this forum, we need to remain active elsewhere in the community at large. This post is what I hope it looks like: a rally. I mentioned the unmentionable project above, but let's remember that OpenMW is near on the horizon as well! The future is bright for this game despite its age, and we the community are the ones who keep it that way.

Allow me to cheer my own post.

[Catherine Harte]

Great post MD! I usually try to leave a comment or two if possible, but I have to agree that new and old modders alike need more feedback on their mods. I don't think it's fair that only big projects, my own included, should stand in the limelight.
I will try to think about this post in the future, and leave more feedback for the author to improve his or her mod

I also plan to add a new section with recommended mods over at my moddb site, which is something that should give some of my favourites a bit more publicity (and hopefully more feedback).

[Bloomer]

Fantastic post! Now that I think about it, I do have a terrible habit of trying a mod, endorsing when I like it, but I won't leave any comments. Yet, I know myself that getting feedback on my own mods (whether positive or negative) really does push me to sticking around and producing more. While any criticism within the feedback allows me to improve in areas that I may not have realized that I needed to improve.

So... time to make a few more comments methinks!

[Mark]

Something you might find useful that I recently discovered: go to your User Area on Nexus and then click on the "view your download history" link. It will show you a list of all the mods you've downloaded and whether or not you have endorsed them. http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/history/?.

[Elisha KIng]

Thanks!

I'm just going my way through it now to provide feedback and constructive criticism where I can.

[Max Van Morrison]

Great post indeed. I admit when I use nexus pretty much all I do is download. I didn't even endorse until recently, let alone comment.

This kind of brings me back to when I started modding, I released my first little mod on PES and the comments and ratings encouraged me to keep going. I'm not sure I would have continued if I didn't know people appreciated what I was doing. It should be obvious that others would have the same response. It's good you brought these thoughts to my attention.

I know I've posted threads regarding the "future" of Morrowind Modding so to speak, about weither it's dying or not; after seven years of modding, I believe that it's still very much alive, and won't die any time soon.

That's not to say it couldn't use some fresh blood, I imagine Skyrim has garnered significantly more attention than Morrowind not only because it's more well known, but simply because it's more appealing to newer audiences of gamers and modders alike. In short, it's more recent. It's easier to mod in a lot of regards (actual normal/specular support for one) and because Morrowind is 12 years old, it doesn't share that same appeal.

Here's to hoping OpenMw will fix some of that, and at the same time, that Skyrim mod you mentioned , Morrowind modding won't die, but it won't be the same either. The future is very, very cool.

[CArla HOlbert]

I don't write comments unless I think I have something worthwhile to say.

Many modders over the years have complained that they they receive tons of vapid "Great!"and "Love it!" comments and next to nothing in the way of actual articulate feedback using real words and sentences. So, being the paranoid person that I am, I tend to keep silent unless I think I can write something that a modder might actually want to read.

Which, in my case, is pretty infrequent.

[Charles Mckinna]

While I personally would prefer it if every commenter would provide at least some feedback, I would still take those "Great!" and "I love it!" comments over absolutely nothing. As at least I know that some people have downloaded my mod and are enjoying it.

So throw out as many of those "Greats!" as you can!

[Cheryl Rice]

I get this. Personally, I've had more of a problem with people giving me responses such as the ones you described on my WIP threads than actual releases, but they can still be unhelpful if they are the only comments.

Like brucoms said though, they are better than nothing though, they at least let me know I'm doing something right.