News archive

I am happy to announce that we believe we are finally ready to move Skyrim Nexus over to our new code base and start moving on with our plans to improve the functionality and feature sets on the Nexus sites.

As the largest site in the network, we've left Skyrim Nexus until last due to the staggering amounts of traffic the site still receives. We want to make sure everything is optimised to reduce the chances of catastrophic failure. We've been using the other converted sites as benchmarks to root out and fix any inefficient areas of the code.

We're pencilling in tomorrow morning (the 8th of June) at 10am GMT for the necessary down-time in order to backup the current site and convert it to the new code base. During this period Skyrim Nexus will not be accessible (but other Nexus sites, and the forums, should be). Once we've gotten the site back up we'll closely monitor the situation and ensure that everything is working.

Once finished, the new site will already contain the recently announced content filtering system that will enable you to filter out any content that you do not wish to see, and we'll be very close to releasing our next major update to the Nexus network.

After Bethesda released the Creation Kit for Skyrim we partnered with Nvidia and iBUYPOWER to offer some great prizes to the mod authors here at the Nexus. The competition ended towards the end of May and I’m happy to now finally publically announce the winners of the competition.



iBUYPOWER Skyrim PC Winner – SkyUI by Schlangster
The winner of the iBUYPOWER PC was decided by tallying up the file with the highest amount of endorsements from fellow recognised mod authors (recognised mod authors being members who have more than 1,000 unique downloads to their name on one Nexus site). It was perhaps no surprise, then, that SkyUI took this great prize after comfortably sitting at the top of the Nexus Top 100 of all time for many months now. SkyUI is more than a worthy winner of this prize.



2 x PNY GTX560Ti Skyrim Video Cards Winner – Warzones, Civil Unrest by MyGoodEye
The winner of the two Nvidia graphics cards was picked by myself based on a wide range of criteria. To simplify those criteria I was looking for mods with a large scope and good execution that brought something new, unique and exciting to Skyrim. Warzones – Civil Unrest is a perfect example of this (with a very well presented mod page, which I always like to see!).


1 x PNY GTX560Ti Skyrim Video Card Winner – Open Cities Skyrim by Arthmoor
For the final winner in the competition, taking home a PNY GTX560Ti I was looking for a mod that brought something essential to the Skyrim experience. When Bethesda changed the way they loaded cities in Oblivion I noticed a huge drop in immersion in my playing experience. They continued with this approach in Skyrim, so the Open Cities Skyrim project that ensures a fluid transition between the outside world and cities of Skyrim is a god send for me. At the time of judging the winners Open Cities Skyrim was crippled by the long running navmesh bug that has been present in many of Bethesda’s recent games. Word is that patch 1.6 for Skyrim has finally (FINALLY!) fixed this issue, so fingers crossed on that one.



Congratulations to all three of the winners of our competition, and a big thank you to both Nvidia and iBUYPOWER who approached me to run this competition because of their massive appreciation for the work the modding community does in making these games so much better.

This weeks video covering some great mods including the popular Skyrim Monster Mod by dogtown1. Now with an encore video covering some of the questions that arose from the main video itself.

Download Links:
Skyrim Monster Mod
Skyrim Monster Mod Replacers - Lore Friendly and Others
SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators
Einithars Lantern
Wearable Lanterns
Sustained Spells

Want a chance to play Dawnguard early? Bethesda has had such a success with the PC beta updates, that they are making one for the Xbox 360 - and it is not just a beta update, it is the beta for Dawnguard!

Visit DawnguardBeta.ElderScrolls.com to apply. The process only takes a couple of minutes. You'll also need an account on the official forums.

They'll select the testers in about a week. "Players accepted into the beta will receive an Xbox LIVE code to redeem Dawnguard. The beta is the full version (complete with Xbox LIVE achievements) and those participating will not have to purchase the content."

Bethesda couldn't wait until E3 to release the trailer, and were quite right in the guess that we couldn't either. So, here it is - the Dawnguard trailer! (Also, check out the Trailer analysis after watching the trailer!)



Features:
New questline, involving vampires, vampire-hunters, the elder scrolls, Falmers and lots more!
Two rivaling factions to choose between; Vampires and the Dawnguard.
Playable Crossbows.
Playable Vampire Lord.
What looks like a frost giant/yeti.

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The DLC will be exclusive to the Xbox 360 for a month, until going live on both PC and PS3. The price on the Xbox is 1600 Microsoft Points (~$20). No release date has been set yet.

The ELECTROCITY maestro is back with a new lights mod, this time for Skyrim. Brighten up your game and take a night time journey on a Scenic Carriage.

Download Links:
CLARALUX - More and Brighter Lights
ScenicCarriages

Finally it is coming; mounted combat! You can now fight, both melee and ranged on horseback!

Modders (and players alike) rejoice: The Navmesh bug is fixed!

The beta update is already available on Steam, so give it a go! Release date for the update is unknown. (Compatible SKSE)




Bug Fixes:
- General stability and memory optimizations
- General AI pathfinding optimizations and bug fixes
- Optimizations and crash fixes for data leaks
- Fixed rare crash with lighting
- Fixed crashes related to loading and saving games
- Fixed crash with summoned creatures/NPCs
- Fixed rare issue where saves would be corrupted
- Improved logic for when ranged kill cams are played
- Fixed issue with ranged kill cams while killing a dragon
- Fixed rare issue with certain ranged kill cams not playing properly
- Fixed issue with nirnroot lighting not properly cleaning up
- Fixed issue where bow damage was being calculated incorrectly
- Fixed rare problem with werewolf kill moves would not finish animating properly
- In "The Break of Dawn" fixed rare issue where Meridia's Beacon would disappear from player's inventory
- Fixed occasional issue where followers would disappear after player pays off a county after committing a crime
- Fixed issue where certain creatures and NPCs would fail to respawn properly
- Fixed rare issue with dialogue subtitles not displaying properly
- Fixed issue with water appearing blurry when loading a saved game after creating a save underwater
- Fixed issue where map cursor would occasionally disappear after closing a message box with Kinect enabled (Xbox 360)
- Fixed rare issue with shouts only performing the first level and not other unlocked levels with Kinect enabled (Xbox 360)
- Fixed issue where the shout buttons would stop working properly if users mashed LB and RB during cooldown with Kinect enabled (Xbox 360)

How to opt-in on the beta:
1. Log into Steam
2. Click on Steam in the upper menu
3. Select Settings
4. Under the Account tab, go to the Beta Participation section and select Change.
5. A drop down menu will appear. Select Skyrim Beta.
6. Select OK.
7. Steam will now restart. After Steam restarts, Skyrim will be updated to the Beta version currently available.
8. Disable ScriptDragon, animation mods, etc. and update SKSE.
9. Report bugs to Bethesda's Beta forum!

This episode of Skyrim Mod Sandctuary covers some great follower mods including the popular UFO mod. There is a lot more to this mod than just having more followers.

Download Links:
UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul
Follower Trap Safety
Move it Dammit for NPC Companions and Followers

Skyrim Online, after being thought 'dead' for a while, is now updated with animation and equipment syncing! You can now see what other players are wearing and what they are doing, instead of half-naked prisoners floating around! Along with that, Face morphing and genders are now also synced and a few bugs have been squashed.



Currently, AwpSoLeet (Author/Lead Developer), InDev (Co-Developer) and Tytanis (Co-Developer) are working on more equipment syncing (currently, about 75% of the equipment are synced), parties, PvP and even guilds and guild towns that can be upgraded and customized by the guild leader!

They are aiming for a 'Guild Wars'-styled system, where you can meet other players in the major cities, but once you head outside, you are only with your party.

If you are unfamiliar with Skyrim Online, the project was started by AwpSoLeet and is being worked on by him and Tytanis. Skyrim Online takes the game's singleplayer experience and turns it into an online multiplayer experience. Tytanis' Ultimate Mod will be the exclusive content of the multiplayer world (but can still be used in singleplayer!) and will continue in the development of "Tytanis: Online" which will be powered by Skyrim Online's multiplayer networking. There will also be an option to play Skyrim Online that hosts the vanilla version of the game.

Skyrim Online can be downloaded right here on the Nexus and Skyrim Online's website is available at Skyrim-Online.com

Tytanis: The Ultimate Mod can be downloaded here and be sure to check out Tytanis.com if you have any content ideas or would like to help create or donate your mods!

Part 2 of my new video series aimed at helping people tweak the game and fix bugs and glitches. This episode continues discussing the fix for the flickering mountains problem (Z-fighting) and issues that the fix itself causes.

Resource Links:
STEP - Skyrim Total Enhancement Project
S.T.E.P. Community Wiki
S.T.E.P. Project Wiki:Z-Fighting