The Old North
[BETA]

The Old North is a modlist based on the philosophy that vanilla Skyrim is fundamentally good, and only minimal tweaks are needed to smooth out the experience. Upscaled textures, improved NPCs, and streamlined gameplay all work together to remove friction between thinking about vanilla and actually playing it.

Mod Highlights

Wander is a weather mod that increases that variety and quality of vanilla weathers, improving on distant visibility, horizon seams, nighttime brightness, and a lot more.

Nordic Faces is the ultimate vanilla+ NPC overhaul. NPCs retain their rough and dirty looks, but with much more detail and personality. The mod also includes physics-enabled hair in combination with Vanilla Hair Remake!

Blade and Blunt makes combat more tactical and balanced. Harsher resource penalties and attacks of opportunity means you'll need to think more about when and how you attack. TON uses vanilla's difficulty sliders instead of Blade and Blunt's, so the game won't be that much harder than vanilla.

Perks Plus Plus is a minimalist facelift to some of the less interesting (or less powerful) vanilla perks. Perks have been moved, tweaked or completely rewritten to allow for more playstyles and more logical progression.

Timing Is Everything adds customization of quest timing, allowing for more reasonable level requirements. In TON, the DLC open up much later than in vanilla. You'll need to be at least level 30 to start Dawnguard, and you'll need to finish the main quest before Miraak's cultists set their sights on you.

System Requirements
The list shouldn't be particularly demanding, but the new hair physics might put a strain on some older CPU's. Download size is ~26GB and install size is ~60gb for a total of ~86gb (if you're strapped for gigs, you can delete the "downloads" folder after installing).

Installation

Make sure you have:

• A steam copy of Skyrim Special Edition (the paid Anniversary Upgrade is NOT required)
• A Nexus Mods account, preferably premium.
• Visual C++ 2019.
• .NET Framework 4.8.
  

Preparing Skyrim

• Perform a clean reinstall of Skyrim by deleting both content in the install directory (On steam: SSE>Properties>Installed Files>Browse...) and the documents directory (documents>my games>Skyrim Special Edition)
• Confirm first that you are on the latest version of Skyrim (version 1.6.1170). You can check by going to SkyrimSE.exe, right-clicking and selecting Details
• Launch Skyrim once to generate INI files. You don't need to download AE content if you have it purchased.
• Set the game language to English. This is a temporary measure as Wabbajack requires the English version of the game to work correctly. You can revert the language back after installation
  

Preparing Wabbajack

• Download Wabbajack
• Extract the file and place it in an easy to access location. DO NOT place it inside any UAC controlled folders e.g. Program Files, Program Files (x86), Downloads, Documents, etc.
• Run Wabbajack and let it update.
  

Installing The Old North

• Download "The Old North - Wabbajack Installer" from the files tab.
• Extract the "The Old North.wabbajack" from the .7z
• Double click "The Old North.wabbajack" and open it in Wabbajack.
• Pick an installation location. Again, keep it outside of UAC controlled folders.
• Optionally, pick a downloads location. Wabbajack will automatically set a directory based on your install location, but you can change this if you want.
• Press the "play" button on the right to begin installation.
  

If Wabbajack fails or you need to pause the install for any reason, you can quit the window without losing any progress. Wabbajack will resume from where it left off if you start the install again in the same locations. If the install repeatedly fails and you need help, take a look at the troubleshooting section.

Post-Install
Once the installation is completed, navigate to the install folder, run ModOrganizer.exe, and hit the big "run" button on in the top right corner of the window. Everything will be set up and ready to go, enjoy!

Updating
Updates must be performed manually, and work exactly the same as installing the list. Make sure you're installing to the same location as the installed location, and let Wabbajack run. It's recommended to back up your saves if before you update, just in case.

Troubleshooting
The list is currently in beta, so will probably be issues. Please report bugs in the bugs tab, and I will try to help you.
Thank Yous
This list is based on ForgottenGlory's (now defunct) SSEE modlist.
This readme is based on Ferroxious' readme for Little Bit of Everything