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Modders and lore-buffs: survey!


Quarto

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Hi All,

I’m a long-time TES fan (but only a lurker here), and currently a PhD student at Bond University in Australia. I’m really amazed by how much TES fans do around the series, in terms of modding, compiling data in wikis, producing fan films and more. More broadly, my research is actually about what cultural heritage organisations can learn from commercial RPGs in order to produce great culture-oriented RPGs themselves. A part of that argument is looking at Skyrim and showing just how much world-building detail is involved in its world, but then I’m also arguing that it’s crucial to collaborate with fans – to give them the necessary means to produce mods and other works around a given game, in order to push it even further.
 
To show this, I want to document who the TES fans are, and how they work. I’m limiting myself to two particular groups – the lore-oriented folks at the UESP and the modders (yes, yes, I know some people do both :) ), especially (but not exclusively) those who publish mods on Nexus Mods. Myself being a modder (not TES, though – Wing Commander) and game developer in past lives, I have a pretty good idea about how much work is involved in fan projects of any kind, and how much effort fans put into learning all the skills needed for these projects. Not to mention the time devoted to better understanding the lore of the TES universe! 
 
My anonymous survey asks you to help document this by answering a bunch of questions about your experience as a TES fan, particularly in regards to Skyrim. If you have fifteen minutes to spare, please, pretty please answer my survey, and let others know about it, too! The more responses I get, the more interesting the results will be. And to thank everyone for their efforts, I will later on write a report from the survey for the UESP, so that as the TES community, we all know a little bit more about what makes us tick. 
 
tl;dr – got 15-30 minutes to spare? Please answer an anonymous survey about what you as a TES fan do with the games, particularly in regards to modding (at Nexus) and lore-related activities (at the UESP).
 
If you agree to take part in this survey, please click the link here. The survey page is mobile-friendly, so you can also do it on your phone - and actually, while it might take up to 30 minutes, most people get it done in under 15, so it's not so bad :). Needless to say, should you change your mind, you can close the survey any time you like. Oh, and feel free to contact me at jmajewsk (at) bond.edu.au (or just post here) with any other questions or comments about the survey!
 
Thanks in advance to everyone who decides to give it a go!
 
Jakub Majewski

P.S. Apologies in advance if you've already read about this at Nexus, Bethesda, or at another forum - I've already posted about this in a number of places, but I'm just trying to make sure I reach as many people as possible ;).

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That was interesting, hope my responses help. :)

One comment though regarding questions that relate to "mod types". You have cheats/utilities/tutorials all lumped into one answer, which I found odd as they have nothing in common. I mean, I don't use or make cheats, but I do write tutorials, so I had to check it. Now I feel like you'll think people use cheats a lot. :shrug:

Also, there was no category regarding "textures" as a mod type, which is a popular thing. I tried to include that in "other" where I could.

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18 hours ago, Hana said:

Also, there was no category regarding "textures" as a mod type, which is a popular thing. I tried to include that in "other" where I could.

I assumed that the 2D category was for textures.

I've never used cheats either, yet I had to tick that box because it's lumped in with utilities and tutorials. I took utilities to mean stuff like Nifskope, xEdit, 3D plugins, etc. If that's the case, then the vast majority of modders taking this survey would end up ticking that box, which is going to make it look like they're all using cheat mods.

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Took the survey myself and have the same issue. "Cheats" don't really belong lumped in with "Utilities". Mod managers alone qualify as utilities, and people obviously are not cheating by using them. I suspect you're in for some wonky results because of that.

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Hmm... I can definitely see where you guys are coming from. Nobody likes to feel like a cheater :). Let me explain my reasoning behind cheats/utilities/tutorials as one category, though. The purpose of this question isn't to establish whether players cheat in any way, obviously. Rather, in asking about different types of mods, I'm trying to get some sense of what benefits players get from mods. From this perspective, cheats and tutorials kind of  have the same purpose - to aid the player in playing the game. One thing's for certain - I'm definitely not going to try to draw any conclusions like "xx percent of Skyrim modders cheat" :).

Anyway, thanks for filling out the survey! Every response helps to make the results more worthwhile!

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