Well some PC mods have started to come out for Skyrim already. Thought a thread discussing anything out now and new ones coming out would be appropriate.

Main mod site: www.­skyrimnexus.­com/­index.­php

Nexas Mod Manager: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/content/modmanager/

Warning about NMM: Not all mods will work when downloaded with the "download with manager" option. I recommend downloading them manually and then creating your own rar packages with the right folder structure with winrar.

GopherVids put up some interesting videos covering mods for past Bethesda games, I recommend at least watching some of the Nexus Mod Manager video

http://www.youtube.com/user/GophersVids#p/c/96C073B0B8BFC01D

Popular/mods I like:

note: Any texture mods and mods in general pose risks, so if you dont want to mess with them run Skyrim stock.

Texture/detail improvements:

• Improved armor textures (A bit of an improvement I feel): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=106
• change blocky faces ( if you get close to a character model notice their noses and mouth area, they look blocky before mod): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30
• Detailed faces (I honestly cant tell the difference, but its hard to tell without comparing screnshots): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26

Environment improvements:

• Enhanced night sky (This one is a must have, if you've ever been out to the desert at night you'll appreciate this one): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=85
• (NEW) Realistic Water Textures: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=711
• (NEW) Flora overhaul (You need to manually create a folder to put into nexus mod manager, or manually copy the chosen textures. The mod maker has provided several versions and types for some textures.): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=141

UI changes/improvements

• Display time on load screen (I'm sure Civ players recognize the importance of this one): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=98
• Font change (Pretty cool, gives you choice of 2 fonts to change the stock Futura font): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=95
• (NEW) UI MOD!!!!!!!! (MUST HAVE! Splits the categories to be more intuitive with mouse/kb. For now this will have to suffice.): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=667

Various gameplay mods

• Skip intro (Just a save to skip to character creation): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17
• Skip Bethesda logo (Must have! You can just rename the file or something, but this is easier): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=100
• "Best" mod so far. Spiders-->Bears http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28
• (NEW) Arrowsmithing (Craft arrows): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=490

Engine/performance mods (Untested so use at your own risk) I suggest going through the comments or just ignoring these entirely unless they are needed badly.

• Esbern quest fix: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=78
• Nvidia performance mod: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=123
• framerate fix for ati cards: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=48

gaf also has a pretty good performance thread going for tweaking your settings to get max visual:performance ratio http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=451616

If any mods are worth trying post em, I'm sure the volume will increase as we get further from release.

Ha, I was just about to link that no spiders mod. Brilliant.

Rofl, all the effort put into designing those horribly creepy spiders, and then people go and take them out and replace them with bears. I think i shall do just that actually.

How long before we get ridable mammoths? Or dragons?

Awesome, so glad I can run this well and not have to go with consoles for this game.

Sex mods.

@theguy said:

How long before we get ridable mammoths? Or dragons?

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

Sex mods.

Dragon on mammoth on dragonborn action here we come!

SSAO mod in the works! YAY

This is the first day of the rest of our lives.

Do the bears drop from the ceiling? because that'd be rad

@Tim_the_Corsair: Oh god, that would be so awesome to see. Bears are already bad as shit, but ninja bears?

@Tim_the_Corsair said:

Do the bears drop from the ceiling? because that'd be rad

Man, I hope so. I want to see bears rappelling from the ceiling, then spitting at you. Those spider models are freaky, and this is 100% in the opposite direction. I love it.

@Tim_the_Corsair said:

Do the bears drop from the ceiling? because that'd be rad

Drop Bears

"This is a simple mesh replacer that turns all the Frostbite Spiders into bears. They don't have the correct animations, so they look goofy and their hitboxes are low to the ground."

Ha, ha... That's ghetto as hell.

How long before we get ridable mammoths? Or dragons?

YES!

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=90

Updated op with some of the popular mods so far (non ironically). And the Spider mod is very useful if you legitimately have arachnophobia.

And of course, the obligatory nude mod: http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=70

Does using mods disable Steam achievements? I am ok with the game. Some UI stuff should be better. I am using a 360 pad though.

Call me when we get the super attractive sexy big-bosom tiger lady mod.

... What?

All these mods and not one to let me kill children. That should have been a day one!

Are...are there little tiny bears which come out of the big bear eggs?

Go PC community! Not even a week and already hard at work.

For anybody that uses a 360 controller this should help a lot. http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=246

This really should have been in the game in the first place, there's no reason that up and down both take you to the favorites menu.

So far I'm using better blood and an fxaa injector. Makes the clarity and colors much less washed out.

I like the mod that makes the female characters more muscular. Considering one of my characters is a female orc warrior it is pretty cool to actually have her look like she can slay some dragons.

@TopSteer said:

For anybody that uses a 360 controller this should help a lot. http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=246

This really should have been in the game in the first place, there's no reason that up and down both take you to the favorites menu.

Interesting. I dont even use the two hotkeys you get.

This is a cool idea, letting the game run for a bit after a death. http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=242

Some of the retexture packs just look way too clean for a video game. Looks really jarring in the screenshot samples. People see to like them, but sometimes they look like someone just pasted a real image of a wood panel onto the wall in game, which I guess is what they've done.

I'm waiting on the divorce mod.

@Vorbis said:

I'm waiting on the divorce mod.

I'm waiting for the kill children mod.

IM NOT AFRAID OF YOU YA KNOW EVEN IF YOU ARE MY ELDER

You will be, little girl. You will be.

Sounds counterintuitive to one of the great things about PC gaming, but I found an FPS Limiter mod on there that's pretty great for someone like me who wants to play the game at near-highest settings but hates the hard swings of 60FPS to 28FPS when in cities. Limiting the framerate to 30FPS makes these drops a lot less noticeable, and while of course it's not buttery smooth, mmm, mmm good 60FPS, it's less annoying I found.

My favorite so far has been this one, http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=134, that let's you unlock the game to use all availiable ram instead of just 2 gb's. My system's cpu doesn't even meet recommended specs, but with that mod I can run things on high with max draw distance fairly smoothly.

I haven't seen any must have mods yet. Might have to wait until there's an SDK.

@AlisterCat said:

I haven't seen any must have mods yet. Might have to wait until there's an SDK.

Bethesda needs to give people a release date on the creation kit. Everyone knows it will come out but it would be nice to know when. Oh well, there's still tons of game left to grind through before i complete my first playthrough of all main quests.

I'm going to wait until I've played the game a lot before I mod it heavily. Or until there's a UI overhaul mod.

I can't even access the Nexus, which is annoying as I want that mod that let's de-limit the amount of memory the game uses.

@AlexW00d: Same here, it looks like it's down. I am curious to see just how much it improves the game particularly the framerate in towns. I have a beefy system and the game runs butter smooth 95% of the time, with the only exception being some of the towns. Part of me wants to put the game down and wait for Bethesda to patch the game, or wait for a worthwhile UI mod... but the game is just so damn good.

@AlexW00d: That mod might just be this.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556

From the gaf performance thread. Since TESV.exe is a 32 bit exe it can only use 2gb, I guess the program above lets it use over 2gb. But this doesn't really affect performance so much as it pertains to FPS. I saw zero FPS improvement from this. I think its more for stability and also if you want to mess with ugridstoload.

i think the site is down

That enhanced star map looks great with the Northern Lights.

@thornie: I've been unable to access it at all though, not just now. It's odd.

@MrOldboy: Thank you my good man. I have no idea whether it will effect anything, but I have more than enough memory so why not try it.

I can access skyrimnexus right now, but it is very intermittent. 30 min ago I couldn't

This is the only mod I feel is worth using now. A small visual tweak to make ore mining so much easier.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=193

I wouldn't call it a mod, but you can turn on SSAO for Nvidia cards using a tool called nvidiaInspector found here. 
 

 edit: Nevermind. The latest nvidia beta drivers (290.36) add in a proper AO tweak that's more consistent. The Oblivion setting would sometimes stop working if I looked in a certain direction.

There needs to be a fallout-like gore mod.

Added a few new ones, highlight so far has to be the UI mod. Its limited, but it gets the job done.

I always see the no spider mods for every game, why?

@Lunar_Aura: I'm personally holding out for the "marry children" mod

Awesome. Thanks for keeping this thread updated. I'm going to install the inventory mod tonight :)

Added a few new ones, highlight so far has to be the UI mod. Its limited, but it gets the job done.

@gike987 said:

@MrOldboy said:

Added a few new ones, highlight so far has to be the UI mod. Its limited, but it gets the job done.

The horrible font ruins that mod. I'd rather have an easily readable font than a stylish font.

that font is another mod. He replaced the default with that one. The font mod is in the OP as well.