Yes, starting out is a hurdle. But I believe a good modder doesn't even think about "getting started" or anything like that. The mod is naturally born from his creative mind and because of enthusiasm and aspirations, it's easy. As for beginner tutorials... yes there exist a few. I'm pretty sure that Ren and DCoder could point you to them, since they exist on their sites... I'm no expert in that matter since I never looked at such pages
