BombBloke

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Given that the 360 / PS3 versions don't support mods, and given that these are the sales stats as recorded just two years ago, I reckon they'd say it's the "Skyrim" part exclusively.

Wrong. Historically, when it comes to massive fan projects like this, lack of updates has ALWAYS meant that work on it has stopped due to personal lives getting in the way. To assume that's not the case this time, especially when the last update basically TOLD US that life got in the way and that work had not been done for months, is really rather naive. Whether your "assumptions" are "likely" is no indication of whether you "know" what's actually happening. A guess is a guess; educated or otherwise. My own "guess" is that progress is indeed staggered, but if it does stall to the point where completion is really unlikely, odds are we'll be told within the quarter.

Skyrim SE uses DX11, which doesn't have the VRAM limits imposed on DX9. Since these limits only apply under Windows 8 and later (they're not related to the whole 32bit thing), the current choices under post-7 operating systems are "Oldrim without massive texture mods" or "Newrim without the script extender".

In my first run of Oblivion, due to OOO reducing skill gains to a crawl and a lack of knowledge about the skeleton key, I treasured Opening scolls. But under normal circumstances, spells are simply too cheap. They consume nothing but mana, which regenerates entirely too quickly to care about. Morrowind would've handled this well if not for its enchantment system, as mana didn't naturally regenerate on its own there. Reagent-based systems encourage scrolls (or things like them - eg enchanted tombs, charged talismans, etc), whereby additional components are needed to cast spells (think "eye of newt", that sort of thing). You either carry all of these around with you all the time, or you pre-cast your spells into single chargeable items and simply carry those. Catch is that TES already has a system like this: Alchemy, but it can work quite well when you need to store spell charges in specific talismans, and their availability is limited. Something like Neloth's Staff Enchanter could be bent towards this sort of purpose if you didn't have access to Soul Trap. Class-based games also encourage them, as a fighter for eg is never going to master the higher level spells on their own, but can buy some scrolls from a mage as an alternative to actually dragging said mage along with them. This works for the economy of at least a few MMOs, but Skyrim isn't at all a class-based game. And there's the thing - a large part of the problem is that players within the game's main demographic expect to be able to go into any combat situation at any time and be able to throw lightning from their fingertips until everything is dead. And they can! Even if they've played through everything thus far sword'n'board style and never cast a spell before! You can't allow that sort of thing and expect them to want to use the likes of scrolls at all. You either make it hard to be able to cast the spells (eg lots of skill points before you can do anything at all useful), or you make it expensive to be able to cast the spells (eg either you deplete your entire mana pool with each cast, or it depletes slower but can't be regenerated without potions / sleeping / whatever). Buffing scrolls themselves instead only risks pushing them from "vendor trash" territory into "too awesome to use, put into long term storage" territory.

It took about two months to get the first build out the door. This was then followed by about three and a half years to reach the current SKSE build, 1.7.3. The current task isn't the same thing, of course - at the moment they're not piecing together a new extender, they're instead working on porting that entire existing final version over to a heavily altered engine (not altered to the point of FO4, thankfully, but still). This project is significantly more complex than developing the first release of SKSE was (as there's a lot more functionality in 1.7.3 than there was in that initial build), but on the other hand, it's a lot less complex than building 1.7.3 for Oldrim was (as the existing work means that not everything needs to be re-written from scratch).

lol That'd depend heavily on whether you're a member of the Skyrim Online team.

At least part of the issue is that introducing a new developer typically also involves work. It's a bit of a gamble. You could spend weeks explaining how given bits of code function, only to find that the new member then disappears and contributes nothing (regardless of their abilities and intentions - life happens!). It's a bit of a gamble, and when you consider that most people have a life to live, it's a bit of an unfavourable one. Truth be told, if you're good enough to take over this sort of development, then you really don't need the current team to induct you. Yeah it would save a lot of time on your part, but if you're able to figure out how the Skyrim x64 binary works in order to extend its scripting capabilities, then you're also capable of reverse engineering SKSE x32 in order to see what needs to be extended. No. We're talking about experts who already have full-time jobs and responsibilities, signed up under contracts which would actually make life more difficult for them if they received funds related to this. Even if those agreements didn't put a damper on such things, pumping money towards them won't dissolve the social impacts of neglecting their other duties.

Er, good for you. I simply saw some confusion as to whether he'd have any insider information or not, and decided to clarify - he doesn't, and he isn't trying to pretend otherwise. As a lot of users have been helped by Ilja, it's not uncommon to see his word taken as gospel. I'm hence not at all surprised that Zeridian would've linked to one of his quotes.

Regarding Ilja - He's indeed a well-known and respected figure around the Oldrim / SE discussion boards on Steam. He spends a lot of time helping other users solve problems with their installations (be they Bethesda or user inflicted), and has a considerable amount of knowledge and experience with most modding tools. Unfortunately his English is imperfect (he's not a native speaker), and his technical knowledge isn't anywhere near "developer" level. When he says "SKSE64 should be out end of this month", he's simply attempting to portray what's written on Silverlock - he doesn't have any secret insider knowledge, and he's not trying to pretend otherwise.

I don't actually use it, so I don't know exactly what it does, but I can tell you that unless MO actually tries to run alongside Skyrim in the same manner as SKSE it won't matter in the slightest whether it's 32bit or 64bit. All it does is move files around and alter configs, right? That doesn't mean it won't need any update at all, of course; the remaster will likely have a new install path, new config paths, etc... but one copy should be able to manage both versions of the game. Regarding the "mod compatibility" thing, I'm getting the impression Hines isn't too sure how it'll work himself. I suspect when he says old mods will need to be loaded through the new CK, that's only because that's the only way to publish them to Bethesda.net, so he means (or whoever gave him his info meant!) that that's the only way you'll be able to play old mods on consoles. On PC we've got full filesystem access, and can install mods however we like; heck, we can redo our configs with Notepad if we want to. Engine compatibility is our only problem.

Don't suppose you've got a link confirming those statements?