An interesting development a short time ago was the “HDT Physics” project. Inspired initially, no doubt, by a keen desire to see jiggly parts and high heels abound in-game, the Chinese project seems to be developing into something as foundational as SKSE for future interesting mod projects. It’s described by someone over at Loverslab, as like putting Skyrim’s game engine up on blocks and interposing a more fundamental physics layer underneath it, such that anything with a mesh that allows animation, even if an animation isn’t scripted for it, will animate naturalistically.
Don’t know about that, but the jiggly bits (sort of) work (with collision detection, even!), the cloth moves (fairly) convincingly, the high heels elevate, the ponytail swings in fine Lara Croft style. The team (mostly one guy I believe) are strategically moving away from the initial connection with Skypr0n (they’ve moved a discussion off Loverslab forums - amicably) and now have their own website and discussion forum that has more of a semi-serious Boris-ish (famous ENB developer) air about it.
Interesting reading some of the discussion above. I’ll wager none of this fancy-schmancy physics will be worth a damn until the engine (via unofficial patches, etc.) is nicely finished being cleaned up, but if and when there’s a Skyrim that’s considered pretty much “done” in terms of bugsquashing, then this sort of stuff will come into its own. Physics-based combat might be interesting.
But yeah, as to the broader discussion, there comes a point with mods where you’re just looking at them for their own intrinsic interest rather than seeing what will enhance your Skyrim game. At the end of the day, the most you can safely (i.e. no late-discovered game-breaking bugs) do with modding is enhance the vanilla experience a bit, and add a few quests. You can’t, without a lot of work investigating the compatibility of your mods, turn the game into the CRPG of your dreams.
What always amuses me when I’m modding Skryim is that whenever I get back into playing the game, I remember what a cracking good fun game it is, and how it hangs together aesthetically as being of a piece. I think that danger of losing internal coherence of the game world with one’s fiddlings, is the great one. Depart too much from the lore, or from the levelling and combat system as is, and the game will start to become meaningless and less enjoyable.
Personally, I find a few “realism” mods enhance the game experience, if you set them at a somewhat less intrusive level than default. It’s nice to have a sense of journey when you want it (e.g. finding yourself freezing, having to camp for the night, etc.), and fast travel for when you can’t be bothered with all that stuff.
