The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Monthly Modder: DarthVitrial
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
For some, modding can be an opportunity to inject their own ideas and creativity into games.
For others, however, it can be a way to learn the nuts and bolts of game design and development, as they sift through the code and source files of the game. Sometimes, they may even discover hidden gems this way and restore content that was cut for release. This month’s featured modder, DarthVitrial (Bethesda.net, Nexus) would fall into the latter camp, modding as a means to significantly level up his skills as a coder, and finding creative fulfillment in the maintenance and support of other mods and mod authors.
In our interview, DarthVitrial talks about assisting prolific modders such as TrainWiz and Dinosgamez through bug fixing, maintaining, and building upon the groundwork of their mods. And he expands upon his adventures excavating and restoring some of the questlines and content officially cut for release that are still hidden in Skyrim, and why he chose to start in Solitude’s Bard’s College with “Collecting the Edda” (PC,Xbox). The past few years we’ve interviewed a wide range of modders, and DarthVitrial offers an especially unique perspective on the process.
“Collecting the Edda” isn’t a typical mod, how did you start working on this?
My interest in modding started with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, a game that’s infamous for having practically half the content cut for time. The first mod I ever downloaded was the KOTOR 2 restored content mod (TSLRCM), and seeing all that cut content becoming a reality was mind-blowing to me. After that I became somewhat obsessed with learning about cut content in various games and, where possible, finding mods to restore them.
Skyrim, of course, has Arthmoor’s Cutting Room Floor (Nexus), and Exalderan(Nexus) has a number of restored content mods as well that work great when combined with CRF, but oddly nobody ever tried to restore any of the cut Bard’s College stuff. Since I always found the Bard’s College underwhelming, I figured restoring that might help liven it up a bit – and more restored content is always good, in my view.
Recently, you’ve been the custodian of Trainwiz’s mods, what’s it like maintaining such popular content?
Educational! Basically everything I know about modding I learned while working on Trainwiz’s mods (Bethesda.net, Nexus.) I’d find something that didn’t work, or think of something I’d want added (like crossover patches for his various mods), and I’d just poke at it until I figured it out. That and of course asking more experienced modders on discord for assistance. Thanks to that I went from thinking of Papyrus as an alien language I’d never touch in a million years to actually finding Papyrus scripting fun, and I even started finding navmeshing soothing rather than frustrating.
Maintaining the mods is a lot of fun – my team is great, and Trainwiz himself is really good to work with. And by maintaining the mods I’ve also made a lot of new friends in the modding community, which is great. It’s a very welcoming and friendly community with a lot of fun people in it.
Along with that, seeing players enjoying the mods, and knowing that my fixes and additions are helping other people have fun, is just incredibly satisfying.
Anything you can share about your current projects?
My current project is an addon for Wheels of Lull (PC,XB1,Nexus) that I’m working on in collaboration with the extremely talented Dinosgamez. It hooks into the Fishing CC to add a bunch of custom modeled Fabricant fish that players can fish up, put in tanks, cook, etc., as well as some new items and a really cool new area in Lull-Mor. It’s also planned for continuous expansion – after the first release (which we’re finishing up now) we’re planning to continue adding more new fish, including some undead (Unwound) variants, maybe a unique enemy for WoL’s underwater level, and some more unique loot (I love the little FRF critters in WoL, so if I can make a pet version for the player that would be ideal).
We’re also working on expanding Wheels of Lull with a new quest and puzzle involving the Wailways mentioned in one of the mod-added lorebooks, but I can’t talk too much about that yet. Beyond that, of course, I’m always working on fixing bugs and improving quality of life in the various mods I maintain.
There are also two modding projects I’d like to work on, though I haven’t had time in my schedule to start on them yet: Restoring another cut Bard’s College quest (where you have to steal Tullius’ coat and put it on the effigy of King Olaf before it’s burned), and making a new custom questline based on the cut Cronvangr vs Quarra vampire questline (since there’s not enough left in the game to restore the quest, I’ll be taking some creative license here).
What is your favorite part of modding?
I love fixing bugs. Basically since childhood, I’ve loved reading changelogs – I love the idea of watching things just get better and better. Finding a bug and fixing it is just incredibly satisfying to me.
Any mods (or authors) you’d like to recommend?
For new content, I have to recommend Razorkid (Nexus) (maker of Beyond Reach) and Vicn (Nexus) (creator of the Vigilant/Glenmoril/Unslaad trilogy). I love grim, horror-themed stories, as well as stories that tie into the deeper/weirder side of Elder Scrolls Lore, so those mods are right up my alley. I also have to give kudos to Aelarr, the incredible translator of the Vicn mods.
For bug fixes and QoL, I don’t know what I’d do without the engine-level fixes and tweaks from PowerOfThree (Nexus). In fact, I rely on one of those fixes in order to implement the optional low-gravity effect in the PC version of Aethernautics.
