Skyrim Steam Workshop

A place to discuss anything related to The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. No spoilers here please.
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Maigrets
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This isn't a for or against post as such or meant to cause an argument, but has anyone tried Steam Workshop for mods and what kind of experience did you have? I know it's early days, but there seems to be a lot of uploads already and it's only been going for a week.

I don't like the idea of subscribing and having mods and future updates directly installed to my game without knowing exactly what's inside the files, nor do I want to be online to be able to use the mod while I'm playing. The impression I got from some reading I've been doing is you have to be online with Steam for the mod you subscribed to to actually work while playing. So, if you put Steam into offline mode like I do, no mods from SW will work.

I did read today though that an easy way to keep a mod downloaded from SW is to subscribe and download, remove the bsa and esp from the data folder (apparently they are all in BSA format) then unsubscribe and replace the files in the data folder. I imagine that will be squashed when word gets around though.

I had a quick look at SW today and it does look organized and well set out, but as I said that was a quick visit. There is a search function that makes it easier and though I've said in the past I'll probably be staying with Nexus for my mod downloads I only have to look at the New and Recent Files pages every day to get frustrated with the number of "joke" and other "junk" files that obscure everything else. Hopefully in six months when the novelty has worn off for the casual one time CK user who makes Uber God items, and some of the more ridiculous adult mods among others move down the lists to obscurity things will get better. And I'm saying this as a former modder myself so if it offends anyone, that's tough.

One thing I would like is a nice house mod that suits the style of the game and I believe there are some already on the SW that are not on Nexus, but if one has to be online to use them while playing I guess that's not an option. I'm not sure if I can be bothered to make one myself as I think I'm past learning a new editor and scripting system. I don't really mind the vanilla houses if only they had decent named storage, alchemy sorters, properly working weapon racks that don't "eat" my swords and book shelves that work. They are still buggy after the 1.4 patch.

To tell you the truth all I use house mods for is somewhere to keep my gear, so they may as well just be chests just dropped anywhere behind a bush or around a corner out of the way. Even the good old "crate" that features in almost every game ever made, (not only Bethesda's,) aren't usable in the game and just take up space and look ugly which is stupid. There were and probably are still a lot of awesome house mods being made for Oblivion, but I can't get into the virtual reality of them being a home, which I suppose is because I don't role play as deeply as some. I'm an adventurer first and foremost.

Anyway, I think I'll be treating SW as another option like any other mod site and wait and see how it develops. At least I know the ins and outs of Wyre Bash and BOSS etc so I won't be one of the complainers whose game is messed up because they can't be bothered to read or they just trust it all to work because it's a one click thing. This is assuming there are more complex mods on SW eventually.

I'd really hate to see a childish mods war over this. It was enough before the SW even opened for business and it's still going on. I had some misgivings and actually still do, especially about things like load order, managing "conflicts" and all the other micro management we do for Oblivion to keep it running. Then as I've seen, a lot of the comments in some mods pages on SW already leave a lot to be desired, so if some modders thought they had it bad at Nexus they might be in for a rude shock at the Workshop. I wonder if you can disable comments there.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. It's early days yet and I foresee in my crystal ball that this type of mod delivery and control over mods will be staying and will probably lead to even stricter methods for future games so we better get used to it.
Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it sayingEnd Of The World Switch PLEASE DO NOT TOUCHthe paint wouldn't even have time to dry. Terry Pratchett
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Swordmaster
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Yeah i will be sticking to nexus myself as well, the way SW seems to work is not my style. There are way to many things that can go wrong in my opinion.
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