xaliqen

This is the official Steam support article about moving your library and games. I've done it at least five times now. Just keep in mind you'll want to back up/sync games with the Steam cloud service for games that use it. For games that don't use Steam cloud, you may have to go digging in your documents folders if you also want to transfer your game saves, etc...

Personally, I hope we get more Dunmer, Dwemer or Argonian lore. The whole Nord thing was never my cup of tea, but I'll happily play anything they come out with provided it's *good*. :)

Really? That's part of what I enjoy about these games. I spend more time playing around with mods than playing the actual game, but I love every minute of it (except when there's mod conflict with 200+ mods and I'm going through Wrye and TES4Edit line by line, but that's the Oblivion situation, Skyrim's not there yet).

Yes, because it's those who have a reliable gaming experince who are creating the friciton, not the ones who, at every turn, bemoan their bad luck and make their experiences out to be the absolute truth. Skyrim doesn't create friction in the customer base, its bitter and resentful players who have been inconvienienced by the laws of probibility. Take it up with whatever god you beleive in, because theres no other legitimate blame to place. Developers have a tough job in the gaming industry. Long hours, often-times the benefits aren't as great as other development jobs, sometimes certain people don't get the recognition they deserve for projects they spent years on... That said, there's a difference between legitimate criticism of a software product and groundless bashing. I think criticising bugs in a game is fair if someone perceives particular bugs as taking away from the game experience. Very few people expect an absolutely perfect game, but that doesn't mean we should pretend a game is perfect when it's not. I admire the tremendous effort that goes into producing massive open world games, but that doesn't stop me from looking at areas where things maybe came up a bit short. It's a similar situation with a game like Mass Effect 3. Many people criticise specific story and plot elements in that game, and many believe that type of criticism is unfair. If you don't enjoy a particular design decision or bugs interrupt your gameplay experience, I think voicing those opinions is part of the feedback providing developers and possibly management a welcome opportunity to improve or shift the focus for their next product. Rather than looking at it as negative, I view some of the criticism as positive for the industry. There will always be a small number of people who have groundless pro or con viewpoints for any product, but there's also useful criticism and quite a few insightful critics out there as well. A wise development team is usually one which listens to all the feedback and prioritises prominent insightful criticism as something to take into consideration.

The modding community is always give and take. Bethesda gives us a game and the tools to work on it, and the community gives back their creativity and innovation to expand on the original. If Bethesda then takes popular ideas from the mod community and puts them into DLC or future games, then Bethesda should be applauded, because it means they are paying attention and evolving their games with feedback from their userbase. The 'build your own house' idea has been around for awhile (as was pointed out before), so I'm not entirely sure that's something Bethesda took from the community. In addition, most of the pieces necessary to create this DLC already exist within the game itself. House mods can be some of the most incredible mod efforts, and I don't think whatever Bethesda includes in this DLC in any way detracts from the impressive mods out there. If anything, it just reinforces how the modding community has the capability to rival or exceed what Bethesda releases for some of its DLC.

It won't be too long before it's been a year after the original game was released. Usually, that's around when Bethesda stops working on DLC for their games. So, I can't help but wonder if we're really going to get major add-ons for Skyrim at this point. I'm guessing we're all hoping for a major add-on before Bethesda stops working on Skyrim DLC. We'll probably find out soon enough.

Well, you can disagree with me. It's just my opinion, after all, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if we disagree. I enjoy Dawnguard a great deal, but I definitely believe it pales in comparison to the Shivering Isles. Dawnguard does include two new somewhat interesting areas, as for whether I'll revisit either of them, I highly doubt it. I appreciate this content, but it doesn't set a bar for excellent content the way Shivering Isles did with plot, setting and gameplay fusing together into a unique expansive experience above and beyond what the original game had to offer. It doesn't strike me as worth the price of two normal DLC add-ons and seems far from the full expansion that Shivering Isles offered. I enjoyed it, as I said, but I also don't think it measures up to Bethesda's best efforts.

I think that this is an evaluative problem. Skyrim has been around for less than a year. Oblivion has been around for 6. Yes, Oblivion is great with the mods available (if you can get past the almost sickening lack of character) but because of the time it's had to acumulate those mods, it can't be accurately compared to Skyrim. Straight out of the box, Skyrim is more enjoyable, IMO. That doesn't mean, of course, that Oblivion isn't fun, and if you're into the whole generic High Fantasy setting and the likewise Denomic Invasion theme, it's a great game. With the wealth of mods for it, it even becomes fantastic. The same can be said for Morrowind, which has had a decade to accumulate some absolutely gob-smacking mods. Still, it's not fair to Skyrim, Oblivion or really any game to compare a vanilla, or even a slightly modded version with something which has has at least 5x the amount of times to be modded. If you're going to compare them, do it in their clean state. Of course, it's pretty clear one of the reasons Oblivion has incredible diverse mods is because the Oblivion community has had way more time to make them. I accounted for that when I made the comment about playing Oblivion years from now, because, at its core, I just enjoy Oblivion more as a game either with or without mods. Same with Morrowind, at it's core, I just enjoy Morrowind more than Skyrim. Again, it's all just my opinion and my personal sense of fun with those games. Maybe it's just me, but I found Skyrim's setting to be a bit more generic than previous Elder Scrolls games (I know many people ridicule Oblivion for being generic; personally, I see Skyrim as closer to generic fantasy), and as they say "You know what's wrong with Skyrim these days, everyone is obsessed with death," and they don't have a good sense of gallows humor, made it harder for me to like a great deal of the characters (too serious for their own good). That said, I played Skyrim for around 150 hours so far. So, no one should interpret my preference for other games as suggesting I don't love Skyrim for what it is.

Bethesda was part of the industry trend in releasing lame DLC (come on, who doesn't remember the horse armor?). BUT, they really learned their lesson and released possibly some of the greatest DLC for any game ever (Shivering Isles and most of the Fallout 3 DLC). Based on the Skyrim DLC so far, maybe it's time Bethesda learned another lesson. Problem: Too many people are going to buy this, so Bethesda won't learn a lesson this time. Result: We're going to have to learn to live with some bad DLC from Bethesda. I suggest everyone wait for a Steam sale if they want to pick this up.

Oblivion is more fun than Skyrim, especially with all of the mods currently available. Just my opinion, but I think I'll still be playing Oblivion and Morrowind years after I uninstall Skyrim.

I suggest a version where the cow smokes cigars. Great work on the concept design!

I imagine most of the bad guys aren't so bad. They're just trying to make a living like anyone else. If you're in their cave/fortress/hideout etc, wouldn't it be pretty natural for them to respond in a violent manner? From that perspective, it'd be you (the hero) who would be the bad guy, right?

Carmack announced some good news recently on his Twitter feed.

Valve clarified their position on intellectual property disputes in Steam Workshop. I don't know if this really improves things, but at least it lets everyone know they're paying attention to the problem.

No, i'm actually trying to get a Computer Science (Computing Licentiate specifically) degree and be a software developer, and I still think it should be priced 15 USD at most. Try being a 3d artist with a tight time limit for a project. You suddently feel it should cost 40 USD. For 20 houres of gameplay, added tons of new models and textures, together with new animations and fun stuff to play with, I struggle to see the difference in paying 15, or 20, USD. Then again, I suspect the price will drop to 10-15 in not too long, and then drop to 5-10 for any steam deals it is included with. Of course, as long as Bethesda doesn't milk the DLC too much. Which wouldn't come as a suprise either -- as Bethesda likes milking. If I felt a significant portion of the cost actually went to those who developed the game, I might be more inclined to support a higher price-point. As it is, almost all of the money for games from larger publishers go to the publisher. Take a look at New Vegas, ZeniMax pocketed a pretty penny for that and Obsidian didn't even get a bonus because their Metacritic score wasn't high enough (what nonsense). Long story short, I see a lot of publishers out there wanting to jack the price up, and only seldom do I see a developer prioritizing that. I've worked on enough projects to know the people who do the work rarely get paid what they deserve, but it's usually because an undeserving executive team pockets most of the profits. I don't think paying more money for DLC is going to encourage better content if all of the extra money just lines the pockets of a Wall Street baron. I don't know how BethSoft divides their profits, it may be more equitable than elsewhere, but I'm cynical.