Mihail Mods
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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Index:

. Lore Friendliness and Canonicity of Mihail Mods
. Why you should use Mihail Mods
. An explanation on how I implement my mods
. About my themed mod packs
. Usage of assets rules



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. Lore Friendliness and Canonicity of Mihail Mods


Are all your creations lore-friendly? -First, let's define Canon, Lore-friendly and Immersive: Canon- is part of the official TES lore, presented in official games, books, trailers, etc., and in the case of TES, we can say that it is a partially open-canon franchise, as presented by C0DA, later confirmed at ESO, for the disgust of some fans, and the happiness of the majority; Lore-friendly- something that is friendly and compatible with lore, not necessarily Canon, but something that could be, since it follows the pre-established canonical rules. The partially open-canon feature that allows fans to expand the lore of TES fits like a glove in the concept of Lore-friendly; Immersive- something that, in the field of mods, whether Canon or Lore-friendly, is inserted into the game in a logical, fluid and interesting way for players. So, are mihail mods Lore-friendly? Absolutely always, for my great respect and love for the franchise and its lore, but they are not always Canon, and they are always as Immersive as possible. When not canonical, I create a lore-friendly background to insert them immersively, and due to the partially open-canon feature of TES, they fit seamlessly, without spoiling anyone's gameplay. I know that there are very purist users who don't like this approachment, but my mods follow of course my own philosophy, and obviously being my creations they will always follow that line of thinking.

But you sometimes bring content inspired by other franchises, isn't that a problem? - No, because other franchises are other universes not related to TES and you have full intellectual and creative capacity to disassociate a concept from another franchise from that same original franchise, and see it adapted to the TES universe in an immersive and lore-friendly way without it affecting your immersion and enjoyment, because, as I said before, you are an intelligent player and not a limited individual. It is important to think outside the box.



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. Why you should use Mihail Mods


Why should I use your creations, especially the creatures? - My mods are the result of hard hours and hours a day of work for years to give you the best job possible, to give you allways the best i can. Unlike a lot of available content, I try to cover all the spectrum of each mod I propose to launch, mainly in creatures, where I revolutionized the way to produce this type of mod years ago. I am not limited to making models and textures and throwing them into the game without any care and without concern for your immersion. All my creatures, besides their new models and textures  have their own abilities, be they magic, melee, or others, also they have new sounds, new dialogue when necessary, loot, they carry sometimes diseases, and are even featured with new areas in many cases. Also the way that they move, their speed settings, the AI, the aggression radius, and others, are the most unique possible within Skyrim's limitations, which are many. I also learned how to modify skeletons and add complementary external skeleton sets to the main ones, thus allowing to do things until then considered impossible, such as Imps, Will-o-the-wisps, Nixads, Dreughs, Centaurs, Beholders, and much more. New music and battle mechanics are present in many of these mods as well, making my mods, especially those of creatures, stand out drastically in relation to what had been produced in this area until then. And I say this without any pretense, I speak as someone who knows the product and is just being realistic, and happy with what I managed to produce to make this community richer in experiences and immersion.



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. An explanation on how I implement my mods


How does the ingame implementation of the new elements you add work? - I rarely edit leveled lists, because it interferes a lot in the compatibility with mods of other authors. You will rarely need a batched patch, only in rare case of mods such as the Rustic Weapons Pack, but I will always warn you beforehand. Armors are generally placed as possible to forge with the logical requirements of perks for this, and in cases of more common armor it is possible to find them on the map randomly too, while in some rare sets I usually spread a single set in pieces around the world, that becomes very difficult to find, but it also becomes a very rewarding treasure hunt. And so on, but as most mods of mine are creatures, this is where I should explain in detail how I implement them: I am an old-time RPG player, and absolutely disgusted with the current RPG mentality where everything is leveled with you, and where you can conquer everything anywhere you go and destroy any enemy regardless of your level and skill, because everything is done to bring instant satisfaction, because the company is very afraid of losing the player if he gets frustrated or needs to work hard and think. This is the way Skyrim works, and even trying to get around it is frustrating because mechanics, especially combat, do not help. But, a lot of what I do in mods, and everything different I was able to do, was because I am stubborn, and I also bring that stubbornness to the implementation, so, expect difficulties like an old RPG, but justice too, and balance. Not everything will be leveled, but everything will be logical, for example:You will find many Goblins or Imps all over the map, they vary in power, but they are all weak enemies and you should be able to handle them easily at low level. As you evolve, they evolve a little too, but never to absurd levels, because it would make no sense at all; You will find lesser number of Ogres, and they will also evolve with you, but obviously starting at a more advanced level than Goblins, and are much stronger than their smaller cousins. Contrary to the stupidity of the vanilla game, they do not start to appear only when you are already strong, but are there from the beginning, as it would be in a real world, but they usually just stay inside ruins, caves, or in isolated places, hardly showing in the middle of roads or open fields, being avoidable until you can and want to face them. Even so, some may eventually decide to ambush people on the roads, representing a real danger for low-level players, thus increasing risk and realism, and in such a case, it is up to you to just run away, until you get stronger. This need to admit when you need to escape, or create a strategy, instead of always going up to battle like crazy, is difficult to accept for many players used to current RPGs, but when they understand how it is and how it works, everything is more fun and immersive, and they tend to start to value this concept. Minotaurs for example are found more easily than Ogres, and are just as or more powerful than these, however, they are slow, and you only enter into combat with one if you really want to; Continuing, animals are there as part of the scenery, most are weak, but predators are aggressive and large megafauna, although generally peaceful, can kill you with a few stomps, all normal as it should be; Necromantic aberrations and daedric monsters are inside caves and ruins, or guarding their entrance, rarely being seen outside that areas. Many are too much for weak players, but entering these places is optional, and the taste of getting stronger and finally defeating them later is very rewarding afterwards. Eventually you can be unlucky enough to find a cultist walking randomly in the outside world, he can summon something powerful, but this is realistic, unpredictable, and you can fight, run away, or even attack the cultist instead of the summoned thing, making the battle easier, and making the beast disappear in the air. And this is an important point, everything I create has weaknesses, resistances, each boss battle has strategies that you can use, always explore it, and everything will be fair, and sometimes just assume that you must run and escape, as you would in the real world. And when you win, the loot will also pay off. Start to move away from the current childishness of the role-playing world where you can destroy everything in front of you, you are not playing God of War; It is also worth remembering that creatures with status of boss and sub-boss are usually in very specific places, guarding them, or protecting those in them, often even in new areas added by me, being even more optional and avoidable than all my other creations, and most of them can also be dodged and not faced, being you able to intelligently go through them and complete quests and objectives without drawing a sword if you manage to create a strategy; Plus, you can totally disagree, dislike it, think that you can't do that in Skyrim, etc., and it's okay, you think what you want, I think what I want, but in this case, the mods are mine, so obviously they follow my own philosophy.



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. About my mod packs


How do themed packs work? -They are packs that compile individual mods of mine, be they creatures, armor, weapons, etc., by classifications in common between these files, whether they are dwarven automatons, undeads, daedra, player homes, robes, daedric weapons, etc., thus facilitating the use of more mods, taking up less space, and making everything simpler.

What will be the frequency of these? -Variable, I will only compile themed packs when I have the amount I consider sufficient of individual files, for a consistent and complex pack, that fulfills the purpose of immersion that is proposed. For example, a themed pack of animals from the megafauna, due to the greater extent of the terrain where they appear, needs to have a large number of mods launched individually prior to the merge, so that it pays to form a themed pack, while a themed pack of dwarven automatons for example requires much less, because the places where these occur are much smaller, and it is easier to fill all the gaps in that sector in the vanilla game.

Do I need to keep the individual mods merged in the themed pack? -No, check in features what mods are merged in the themed pack, and you can delete all files related to them, or just the esps if you want, since meshes, sounds, textures, etc. will naturally be replaced, and if you are asked during the installation of the themed pack if you want to replace files, click "Yes for all".

Will individual mods continue to be released? -Of course, and after a while of the launch of an individual mod, it will also be included in the respective pack, then stay tuned for updates on the themed packs and the releases of new packs, but as the creation of a themed pack only occurs when I consider that the pack attends well to what it proposes, it can take a while until I consider that a new update is justified, when I already have a good number of new individual creations released, which can take many months, so, keep downloading mods that I release, and allways checking when they will be included in a themed pack.

Will you make a modular option for themed packs, allowing me to choose what I want, and disable what I don't want? -No, it totally goes against my philosophy regarding my mods and their immersion. Things are thought and implemented with a view of using everything together. For example, artificial intelligence and positioning, mainly of creatures, are linked to the use of my other creatures alongside them, they are made to be used all together and thats when they will function at full potential. Ultimately, if you want to pick and choose, individual standalone mods are available.



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. Usage of assets rules 

(The rules were updated on April 22, 2022, and are not retroactively applicable, being
effective only from this date forward in relation to present and future usage of my assets)
OBS- I unfortunately barely have time to respond to DMs, so if you have any questions, contact
me directly on my Discord server. The link is available on all my pages and in my profile.


- Unless the general permissions specific to the page of the mod you are viewing indicate otherwise, you can use the models, textures, special effects, sounds and scripts, and general .esp settings contained in my mods, in your own mods, as long as you put a link on your mod page to my mod pages from where you are using assets. This will automatically create a link where users of your mod will be able to see the credits section on my mod page, crediting not only me but also other authors who may have worked on some of the assets you will be using;

- Out of respect for player immersion, which is my main modding philosophy along with the ideal of making all my assets open source within what is reasonable, without losing respect for the integrity of my own work, it is not allowed to drastically change the lore (official or created by me) of the assets you will be using. For example: this means that you are not allowed to create completely different lore for a creature I've published by altering its nature and origin, species name, animations, spiritual alignment, or drastically changing its attacks or sounds. This is not just a rule, but common sense advice for you, as users don't like to have mods in their gameplay that cause immersion conflicts with each other. Obviously you can give a unique name to a creature of mine, and a special and unique origin to it, but still respecting the origin and concept of the species. Again as an example: you are not allowed to release a mod that uses my Wampa but calling it Yeti, but you can use it in your mod as, for example, the Beast of Coldwind Catacombs, which would be the name that the people from that region gave to the beast, but it would still be a Wampa. This makes my mods and your mods compatible in immersion to the users of this site, increasing the number of downloads and interest in general;

- It is also not allowed, under any circumstances, the release of patches for mods of quests and locations, made by me, that exchange my creatures added to them for creatures created by other authors. They don't always use the same animations, so this can affect the actions planned for them in these mods, or make certain intended idles impossible, and even breaking dialogue and quests. Also, it would affect the consistency of the lore in the overall scenario of my mods;

- I give users permission to modify my files, including releasing bug fixes, or improving features that my files add to the game, and publishing it as a separate file. But if it's just an expansion over my own mod, please put my original mod as your requirement. This includes simple .esp fixes, retextures, "more spawn points", etc. The only situation where you don't need to publish the mod with this dependency is if my assets are just a minor part of your mod, not the main focus of it;

- As mentioned before, if your mod doesn't have my assets as its main focus, you don't need to put my mod as a requirement for yours. For example: a mod that adds a dungeon, with several of my creatures inside, doesn't need to have my mod as a requirement. You can add the assets directly to your folders, and you just need to credit me on the mod page;

- You are not allowed to sell mods that use my assets, nor are you allowed to make them only available behind a paywall on Patreon, but you are free to receive Donation Points for mods that use my assets;

- You are not allowed to upload my mods in other sites besides Nexus. My mods are and will allways be Nexus exclusive and will never be found outside Nexus in a legal way;

- The only exception to this rule applies to the Bethesda.net website. I allow the publication of my mods on the Xbox console, however, because I don't own an Xbox, I am unable to port the mods or test them myself, and I don't have an official porter either. So I kindly ask porters to keep mods up to date, always leave a very clear statement that Mihail is not involved in the port and does not officially support the Xbox file, and that you are responsible for keeping the mod up to date and for the bug fixing of problems that may be caused by the port;

- My assets are, in theory, generally exclusive to Skyrim, please don't use them in other games without asking me first. In general however I usually authorize the use in other games;

- Although my mods are exclusive to Nexus, my assets can be used in Skyrim mods hosted outside of Nexus such as Loverslab, ModDB and others. Just publish a link to my mod page, or create the dependency on the original mod, depending on what kind of creation you will be releasing;

- Ports of my mods released in Legendary Edition to Special Edition/Anniversary Edition made by other users are not allowed;

- Likewise, users are not allowed to release packs of my creatures on Nexus or Bethesda.net, a rule that also applies to adding my creatures in mixed packs, which add creatures from various other authors together;

- I do not support translations of my mods, including those linked on my original mods pages, so please if you are translating my mods, first receive my deep gratitude, and second, please keep it updated, and third, always put the original mod as a requirement. And if you're looking to use a translation of one of my mods into your native language, first check if the version is up to date, and it's the same version as my original mod. Unfortunately Nexus does not allow authors to delete outdated translations linked to the original mod pages;

- My mods can be included in Collections, I am an absolute supporter of them. I only ask that the curators take care to keep the lists up to date;

- I do not generally authorize any kind of integration patch or replacement between my content and Creation Club content, including the one included in the November 2021 Anniversary Edition. To me, CC is an abomination that should never have existed , not only disrespecting the lore, but also excluding the LE edition users who helped build the fame Bethesda has today, many of whom are unable to migrate to SE, nor will they in the near future. Furthermore, the implementation of the content is lazy and careless, breaking any kind of immersion and coherence. I don't accept CC content as canon, and Bethesda should be ashamed to accept it too.