PC Mods Discussion

I have always been a fan of user mods. I think they are cool and can add a lot to a game. With all this talk lately about GTA 5 not officially supporting mods and the issue of paying for mods.... It got me thinking about mods in general. I realized that I barely try out any new mods these days. Back in the day I used to try mods for Doom, Quake, Unreal, Half-life, BF 1942, some total conversions, etc.

These days Skyrim is the only recent game that I have actively tried different mods. There are some other games that I will download simple things like HD texture packs, but I have become out of touch with the mod community. I guess my backlog is so big that I just move from one game to another and don't even bother with mods.

So, how often do you guys try mods? What are some good mods for recent games? What have been some of your favorite mods in the past? Any good total conversions out there? Feel free to discuss anything mod related.

I haven't really played many mods since cRPG for Warband, which I sunk over a couple of thousand hours into. It's kind of dead now, unfortunately. Something I totally need to do is go back and play the original Deus Ex with all the cool mods out for it. Seems like all my favorite mods have simply become standalone games.

Havent been modding many games lately, but I'll mention some stuff I've tried recently.

GemFX - A much better SweetFX variant, has made Elite Dangerous absolutely gorgeous.

Star Trek Armada III - Anyone that has Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion owes themselves to try this total conversion mod, better than many games made by actual developers today.

Man that game (Elite) looks absolutely amazing, and that's only from screenshots I've seen. Such a shame I'm not a space sim fan.

TC: what do you mean by GTAV not supporting mods? They allow any mods as long as they are not used online (which is fair).

GTA4 with all the super hero mods and used the graphics update mod for SS2. I wanted to try the angry planes mod from gta 5 but it contains a horrible malware. Gonna try out the tsunami mod though.

I haven't modded in a while but I do remember back in the day GTA III was the very first game I ever modded, it was pretty fun.

Rockstar said that mods are not officially supported, but they are not against them either. Agreed that Elite looks great in those screens.

I'm currently playing through Skyrim with many mods active. Quite fun. Atm most of them have only improved graphics, added new armours or changed some that are already in the game. A few mods for changing the player as well. Doing some research on that atm, as I want a new skeleton and animations for my character.

I remember playing the original Quake online and you could create your own skins and use them online. It was awesome. You would find yourself fighting some interesting characters. The grappling hook mod was great too.

@wis3boi: looks nice. I havent heard of GemFX before. But i've used Sweetfx for years.

Does GemFX have an option to use SMAA antialiasing? SMAA is the main thing I like about Sweetfx.

havent checked honestly, it probably does though since my Elite looks smoother with it (the ingame AA for E:D is terrible). It also adds lots of fancy lighting unlike SweetFx which just sharpens and changes colors. Really livens up a lot of games

Yeah, the visual mods make an amazing difference in that game. I never touched the "balance" mods so much except for some of the UI ones like SkyUI. Also, I use one of the many "unread books glow" mods.

-Byshop

@Byshop: What do the unread books glow mods do?

I have mainly used visual mods. Added a few new armours and made it so my character can double jump (and more if I want to).

Literally what the title says. Books that you haven't yet read in the game glow like magic items. This makes it so you don't have to open every book in a bookshelf to see which ones you haven't read yet. Books that do not glow are books or copies of books that your character has already read at some point in time during your playthrough. This makes tracking down those "skill books" a hell of a lot easier because you can tell at a glance which books in a room/bookshelf/etc are ones you've never seen before.

It's a bit of a cheat, but I put it on par with the "harvested plants art change" that was a mod/DLC for Oblivion but was made part of the standard game in Skyrim. In reality, there's no option to scan the spine of a book for a title like you would in real life so I don't think magically knowing what books you have and haven't read isn't necessarily an unfair advantage.

-Byshop

@Byshop: I have to try one of those mods. Sounds useful.

Frankly that and SkyUI are the two mods I think the game should have shipped with originally because they make the game so much more playable (especially SkyUI). Bethesda has taken cues from the mod community in the past so maybe something resembling these mods will make their way into the next game in the series.

-Byshop

I spent thousands of hours modding morrowind,oblivion,f3,fnv and skyrim.

I have made plenty of mods myself too.I've never published anything though mostly cause i used assets from other mods.

Recently i spend the last couple of weeks modding Skyrim again.I am running about 500 merged esps atm.

@Byshop: I use SkyUI and it is great, along with A quality map that actually shows roads. Makes a huge difference.

500? Damn, I have about 100 mods active I think.