Yesterday, Skyrim received an update to its Creation Club menu and some of its hardware support. This patch could signal what’s to come for Starfield, and what we could possibly expect for the future of Bethesda modding communities. Aside from the wider implications, the update provides additional fixes and general improvements to Skyrim and the Creation Kit (mod creator / editor).
Genral Updates
Let’s cover some miscellaneous updates quickly before analyzing the modding changes:
- Now finally optimized for the Steam Deck – Skyrim should run much smoother for the handheld platform, and it now has the official checkmark for being Steam Deck verified.
- Ultrawide Monitor Support – Skyrim is now compatible with monitors that have ratios of 16:9, 16:10, 21:9, and 32:9.
- Console Code Improvements – Using console codes and finding items’ base IDs should be easier on PC.
- General Fixes – A litany of other random fixes, like Xbox Controller recognition with the Epic Store.
We imagine that some of those weren’t high on players’ priorities, but support for Steam Deck and larger monitors is a welcome change to the classic game that some Dragonborn will surely benefit from.
Skyrim Creations Update
Other than the actual game changes, the main substance of this patch lies with modding. For some time, Bethesda has been increasing its monetization of the famous modding community of Skyrim. From a business perspective, it makes sense. This modding system has been a part of the game for a very long time and adds a ton of content, but most of it is free. Furthermore, this old game with its mods has been extremely popular, even having a higher player count some days on Steam than Bethesda’s brand new game, Starfield.
Don’t worry, this update hasn’t changed your mods, and your load order is probably fine. Bethesda hasn’t monetized all the mods or anything like that, but they are putting a higher emphasis on paid content. The main differences that players will notice next time they log in is the Creations menu itself. The “Mods” menu and “Creation Club” menu are now integrated into a single “Creations” menu. When you click on it, you will almost exclusively see purchasable mods until you scroll down.
Our biggest gripe with this update is that players who aren’t familiar with mods, might assume upon first entering this menu that they have to pay to mod. That’s likely what Bethesda is hoping happens, and it feels disingenuous, especially since there are a lot of free mods available in the menu.
Our concerns would be alleviated if there was a “Featured Free Mods” section below the “Featured Mods”. Yet, as it stands, new players might feel swindled by this menu layout. Grievances like this might be too doom and gloom, though. After all, we wrote a piece way back in 2015 titled, Paid Mods In Skyrim: Is This The End Of Modding As We Know It? Of course, it wasn’t; the modding community is alive and well.
On the other hand, there have been some positives for Skyrim that came from a built-in mod menu like “Creations”. On the whole, these menus make it much easier for beginners to get into modding the game – since it doesn’t require a third-party mod manager – and it allows for more easily finding the more important mods like the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch (USSEP). Also, it’s a boon for creators who want the option of monetizing their mods. A lot of work goes into these mods; in our opinion, that’s labor that deserves compensation.
Creations and Starfield
But how does this affect Starfield? Well, this update doesn’t change anything to Starfield directly. It does, however, give us a glimpse into what a Starfield mod menu and system will likely look like. In addition, we can expect Bethesda to immediately allow creators to apply for selling their mods through a similar style Creations menu. To that end, we will probably see many more purchasable mods for Starfield.
In our opinion, this has its pros and cons. On one end, your wallet is probably going to take a hit. The chances of there being some outstanding paid-for mod that you must have goes up with this model. However on the pro side, with modders being financially incentivized and vetted by Bethesda to have a greater standard of modding, we might see a higher quantity of quality mods than we’ve seen in the past. We just hope that the price is right, and not so outrageous that no one is interested.
Regardless, we can discern from this update that Bethesda will continue supporting its paid mods with updates and fixes, as it did for many mods in this update. If they do decide to roll out a Creations menu like Skyrim’s for Starfield, then at least it’s reasonable for us to expect ongoing updates and fixes to mods we purchse.
This is all speculation until the mods start really flooding in, which will probably happen sometime in 2024 when a Creation Kit for Starfield releases. Creation Kits are software that Bethesda releases for its games, and they allow for easier creation of mods. The current rumors are that Starfield’s creation kit will come in 2024, but it’s always possible it will be delayed.
Creations Update Patch Notes
New Features
- Mods and Creation Club menus have been combined into a unified Creations Menu.
- Missing Creation check feature added to resolve missing Creations when loading a save file.
- Store your Active Load Order and retrieve it from Bethesda.net
- ESL Range has been doubled to 4096 records. Source scripts for Fishing, Rare Curios, Saints & Seducers and Survival are now provided as a Creator’s resource.
- Resource Pack added to the game to assist Creators.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed crash that could occur when fighting Dwarven Ballista.
- Fixed crash that could occur when transferring a large number of arrows to a follower.
- Fixed issue preventing Kindred Judgement from starting if certain NPCs had died.
- Fixed slowdown when running with a large number of Creations.
- Fixed issue that could result in the world being underwater when fast traveling.
- Fixed issue that would result in NPCs getting stuck in sit-and-stand loops when trying to use furniture.
- Fixed control lock that can occur while eating a corpse with Namira’s Ring equipped while Survival Mode is active.
- Fixed missing dirt for slot 1 on female faces.
- Resolved issue preventing bartering with some hunters.
- Fixed issue where Miraak sometimes does not appear while stealing Dragon Souls.
- Arvak can now be summoned in the Forgotten Vale.
- Vampire Cattle faces are no longer black in Volkihar Keep.
- Fixed Soul Cain sky becoming corrupted after exiting Reaper’s Lair.
- Restored cobblestones to the execution area of Helgen.
- Fixed unlootable NPCs at “Cragslane Cavern.”
- Fixed bad alpha properties on some Solitude assets.
- Fixed bad alpha on Blades Armor and Blood Dragons.
- Fixed bad weapon values on Glass Mace, Glass Warhammer, Honed Draugr War Axe, Ebony Mace and Ebony War Axe and most daggers.
- Fixed some Orcish war Axes not using the correct model.
- Fixed Ebony Shields being invisible when equipped on Vampires.
- Banded Iron Armor of Restoration has had its value corrected.
- Dwarven Scrap Metal can now be sold to Blacksmiths.
- Honeycomb can now be sold to the appropriate vendors.
- Removed errant collision marker west of Windhelm.
- Fixed collision issues that could occur after lowering the drawbridge during The Battle for Whiterun
- Fixed issue that sometimes presented the portals in the Forgotten Vale from playing their visual effects.
- Fixed issue where portals in the Forgotten Vale would turn purple while opening.
- Fixed bad geometry along columns in Vyrthur’s throne room.
- Removed errant ‘Activate’ text on wheat windmills.
- Blessing of Talos now properly shows a 20% reduction in the Active Effects menu instead of 0%.
- Argonian Account, Book 2 now uses the correct world model.
- Fixed kidnapped NPCs clipping cell door in Treva’s Watch.
- Adjusted placement of iron ore vein that would result in the player’s camera colliding with a mammoth skull trap in Halted Stream Camp.
- Fixed floating rocks on bridge under Solitude.
- Fixed gap in terrain west of Embershard Mine.
- Fixed hole in Wolfskull Cave.
- Fixed hole in the Argonian Assembly.
- Fixed gap in level in Nchuand-Zel Control Room.
- Fixed flickering on floor in Largashbur.
- Plugged gap in rocks near Lake Ilinalta.
- Removed deprecated grass files from Miscellaneous archive.
- Improved performance in Vyrthur’s throne room.
- General performance improvements.
- Various typo and localization fixes.
Alternative Armors – Ebony Plate
Alternative Armors – Elven Hunter
Alternative Armors – Orcish Scaled
- Armor now is found under “Orcish” at the forge instead of Miscellaneous.
Alternative Armors – Leather
- Updated quest description to more properly reflect the quest.
Alternative Armors – Silver
Alternative Armors – Steel Soldier
- Aldepius no longer has a topic about the Moth Priest during the Prophet quest.
Bloodchill Manor
- Extra Emerald Paragon holder replaced with missing Sapphire Paragon holder.
Bone Wolf
- Fixed issue preventing Zombies from spawning in certain locations while Bone Wolves are present.
- Fixed translation errors for wild encounters.
The Cause
- Arvak can now be summoned in The Deadlands.
- Plants in The Deadlands now respect the “Green Thumb” perk.
- Fixed localization issues.
Civil War Champions
- Fixed missing translations.
- Fixed crashes that can occur after receiving associated armor.
The Contest
- Fixed inability to temper Fists of Randagulf.
Dead Man’s Dread
- Fixed missing leg meshes when “Captain’s Boots” were equipped.
Expanded Crossbow Pack
- Fixed localization issues.
Fishing
- “Caught in the Rain” quest description now properly describes Pygmy Sunfish.
- Adjusted textures with Draugr Weapons to closer match the rest of the set.
- Localization fixes.
Ghosts of the Tribunal
- Prevented freeze that may occur when performing the Trueflame ritual too quickly.
Necromatic Grimoire
- Players can no longer loot arrows used by the “Skeleton Marksman” summons.
- Localization fixes.
Saints & Seducers
- Plants in the Root Tunnels now respect the “Green Thumb” perk.
- Fixed Madness Sword having too low a value.
- Localization fixes.
Shadowrend
- Player can no longer pickpocket items off of the Shadow.
- Localization fixes.
Staff of Sheogorath
Sunder & Wraithguard
Survival Mode
- Fixed issue where player could use magic infinitely while their magic was depleted.
Wild Horses
PC Only
FEATURE: Support for Ultrawide monitors (16:9, 16:10, 21×9, 32×9).
FEATURE: Support for Steam Deck.
FEATURE: Various console improvements.
- CTRL+C now copies the selected Reference in the console.
- CTRL+V now pastes text from your clipboard into the console.
- “KAH” added to the console as a command to kill all hostiles.
- “GetSelectedRefBase” added to the console as a command to return the base form ID for the selected reference.
- Base form ID is now displayed alongside the selected reference ID.
- “Help” command can now filter by form type.
FEATURE: “sStartingCell”, “sStartingCellX”, and “sStartingCellY” can be added to the General section of your SkyrimCustom.ini to autoload into the specified locations upon game start.
FEATURE: Macro support.
- In your game directory you will find the new file: SkyrimConsoleDefault.ini. This contains the layout and new basic commands. This list may be customized by creating a new file in the same folder named SkyrimConsole.ini.
- Resolved issue with screen shrinking after using Alt+Tab.
- General stability improvements and optimizations.
Epic Only
- Fixed issue preventing Xbox controllers from being recognized.
PlayStation Only
- Resolved issue forcing the player’s camera to face north while exiting the Character Menu while on a horse.
- Fixed button prompts sometimes being stuck on screen after loading a save.
- Fixed flickering lights in the Ragged Flagon Cistern.
- PS4: Fixed Options button icon.
- PS5: Fixed misalignment with bullets in the quest list.
Xbox Only
- General stability improvements (Morthal).
Creation Kit
- Stability improvements.
- New “Show Edited Forms Only” checkbox in the Object Window.
- Data Menu now has “Modified Date” Column.
- Plug-ins and Masterfiles can now be sorted by clicking any of the category names in the Data menu.
- Titlebar now shows if your plug-in is ESL compliant based on last save.
- Landscape borders now toggle between, visible, visible over all geometry, and off.
- RoboVoice is now included, allowing you to easily add temp voice lines.
- LipFuzer is now included, so you can generate game ready FUZ files.
- LipGenerator has been updated to 64-bit.
- Users can now browse to select existing voice files in file explorer straight from the Edit Response Window.
- Creation Kit now warns if your plug-in is flagged as “Read Only”.
New Papyrus Functions
Function SetContainerAllowStolenItems(bool setAllowStolenItems) native
- Sets whether to allow stolen items to appear in the menu (for Containers only).
int Function GetAllItemsCount() native
- Gets the number of items in a container/inventory.
bool Function IsContainerEmpty() native
- Returns if the container/inventory is empty.
Function RemoveAllStolenItems(ObjectReference akTransferTo = None) native
- Removes all stolen items, transferring it to the other object if passed.
Sourced from https://bethesda.net/en/article/4ORD7tshfmHUN8H4ULSgE4/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-special-edition-creations-update-patch-notes
Would a similar Creation Club feature be a good move for Starfield? What kind of Starfield mods would you be willing to pay for? Let us know in a comment!
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