Basically, he wanted the whole FWE5 experience (what can I say, he has good taste.) He's seen me play it many times on my own PC when he visits and I wanted to ask you what approach I should take.

1: The "Give him the fish" approach, where I do pretty much all the setup of mods

2: The "Teach him to fish" approach, where I go over how to do everything, from downloading to installation to creating merged patches, etc

This guy has been my friend since he was a freshman, and he got his gaming PC setup for his graduation. So I want to set him up right as my thanks for being such a good friend. But then again, teaching him to do it himself, while a big hassle at first, could eliminate the need for me to run maintenance when he wants to try something new. So I ask you, my modding peers, to give me some of your opinions, I'm all ears.

#2 will be your best option.

Sure it will be a lot of work right now, but less work down the road. If you do it all for him, he will only call you up when he wants to install a new mod. Just give him the tools that he needs, for example, make a folder called Fallout 3 for bookmarks, and find a few pages to bookmark for him so that if he does need an answer, he has a few sites already bookmarked for him.

I would sit there with him and walk him threw his own downloading, searching, installation and sorting of the mods. Good luck to both of you!

Hard work? Pffft. download. unzip. put in. check. play. Or make him go to the Mod FAQ if he doesn't understand.

both.

Have him learn basic installation of FOSE and a mod installing program and packaging of mods. Then after he masters a few things throw him some good catches.

I suggest a bit of both. A demonstration of how to do the first couple with help him do the rest on his own.

I would suggest sitting down with your friend in front of the computer and going through the process of installing the mods and the tools. Explain what you're doing as you slowly and pacely go through the process yourself, and introduce him to the tools as you go along, installing the mods for him. Show him what the tools are capable of, show him the 'Nexus and what sort of stuff is available there.

Basically, give him the fish - but make sure he's probably equipped to manage to catch a few fishes of his own if he later wants to.

I say teaching him is better for both of you in the long run. I would do it together with him but let him do all the work.

If you do it all for him, he will have to call you whenever there is a problem or if he wants to add some new mod or change the default settings. If he learns about it himself, he can add new mods and do updates himself without having to wait for the two of you to get together. Its more empowering.

I find juggling mods and working with FOMM (and OBMM/wrye bash) to be almost as fun as playing the game. Its like a minigame you have to complete before you can play the real game.

So you can see why I'd want to do it all then, because it's fun. But your right, I want him to have that same feeling, too. Thanks for the advice, guys.

Or you could do literally everything for him and make his dependent on you.

Mez him.

That might get tiring though.

Alright, he says he has Windows 7. I've always used Windows XP, what do I need to know about using FO3 and mods on the W7 platform?

I have Fallout installed on a Windows 7 x64 system and have had no problems. I installed to the default folder (Program files (X86) ) and it runs exactly as it should. The saved games and config file are in Libraries\Documents\My Games\Fallout 3. So there should be nothing kinky required.

Alright, thanks for the heads up. I thought I heard from somewhere that if you install it to the default directory mods act screwy.

I have the UAC switched off, so that may be the reason things have been easier for me than for others.

If it makes any difference, I have win 7 with Fallout 3 installed in the default directory with UAC shut off. I have had no problems installing any mods. Of course if I had it to do all over again I probably would have not installed it there in the first place.

For me as a general rule of thumb, install all games in some other area then Program files. It always works out better in the end. That way you can leave the Uac on, and not worry about what it does. Of course that's just me. I've run mods both ways, and I just like the custom install better.

Alright cool. Thanks again, guys.