Kraeten

I wouldn't mind seeing a list of low-end ENB's myself. RealLike ENB is pretty performance friendly though.

I think this is important, because there was a good deal of rage at the time of Skyrim's release about companies removing content at the last minute just to sell for extra $. Activision and EA are big culprits here, and Bioware (surprisingly NOT due to EA's influence, if the internets are to be believed) got caught red-handed a few months after Skyrim's release with Javek and Mass Effect 3. Had they released Hearthfires first, when it was so obviously supposed to be in the shipped package (and probably only got cut because of the show-boat release date) the internet would have exploded in fire and brimstone. Considering how Bethesda released a broken Skyrim on the PS3, I rather doubt the DLC's timing had anything to do with worrying what the consumers would think. With that said, I found Hearthfire to be a stupid and shallow add-on that failed to justify its own existence. All the children in Skyrim look the same, and there are only two voices for those children. Who the hell would seriously want to adopt any of them? That whole mechanic was a half-assed way of pandering to the SIMS crowd. I would much rather have seen Bethesda create a few completely unique player abodes like Frostcrag Spire and Battlehorn Castle instead.

It does look like an official dlc in many respects, as it restores cut content that's stored away on the disc.

Windhelm is a fortress. Even IF the Empire could muster enough ships to transport their army, there's very little chance they could have stormed their way up Windhelm's docks before the alarm could be raised and the gates secured. Which would leave the Imperial army stuck outside the city, surrounded by Stormcloak aligned settlements. It would be a massacre.

Well, try to look at it from his perspective. The last time he saw Tullius, it was with a rag in his mouth and his comrades were being executed. If that wasn't enough, Thalmor Emissary Elenwen also accompanied Tullius and she personally tortured Ulfric . You'd have to have ice flowing in your veins to be able to simply ignore that kind of history and attend to the business at hand in a gracious manner.

This. People aren't getting paid to make mods and personally I believe even the shittiest mod is awesome simply because I have no idea how to. If you don't know how to mod, then IMO you have no right to insult anyone who can. Hear, hear!

On the contrary I don't doubt Tullius is telling the truth that the Empire is bolstering its defenses. They'd be fools not to. But the Empire has no intention of being the one to break the peace. Which goes back to the "they don't have the stomach for another war with the dominion argument." But like you said, that's another topic. Bottom line we agree Ulfric isn't racist.

No I mean scalded. The term "scalded dog" originated when people used to cook, can, and preserve food outside. A dog could come into contact with spilled hot water or foodstuff and run from the pain. Dogs will run away long after the pain causing entity is gone. A loose definition, but there it is. The Empire could make a stand against the Dominion, but that would mean opening up Cyrodiil to another invasion. And the Imperials are fiercely reluctant to risk that. So they've capitulated in the form of the White Gold Concordant, and even allowing the Thalmor to handle the enforcement of the ban on Talos worship. Anything to avoid another invasion. And that's what this really comes down to. The Empire doesn't have the stomach for another war with the Dominion. Ulfric knows he can hold Skyrim once it is unified. Can he invade the summerset isles all on his lonesome? No, but I don't think he would make the attempt without allies. And he stands a better chance at forging an alliance with Hammerfell than the Empire does. High Rock has typically only been concerned with High Rock, so what they'll do is anyone's guess.

Cell properties became a little buggy after the second Creation Kit update. Try loading up any interior cell OTHER than the one you want to edit. It won't let you edit the cell ID of the one that's currently loaded.

General Tullius himself attends a Thalmor party, as a demonstration that the Dominion can tell the Empire what to do. He fears not attending a party will jeopardize the peace. This isn't a Empire preparing for war, this is a scalded dog. Additionally, 26 years is enough time for a new generation to be born and grow into adulthood. The humans will have an easier time repopulating compared to the elves too.

Yes Ulfric desires power. He wants to be High King after all. Was Torygg similarly ambitious? Not likely. As for the Empire, there is very little that needs to be said. The great war ended TWENTY SIX years ago, and yet the Empire shows absolutely no interest in breaking their so called "peace" with the Aldmeri Dominion. Indeed they seem frightened at the mere prospect of a renewed conflict. And this is the force that imperial loyalists are hoping will defeat the Dominion? Ridiculous. As for the Dossier, people really need to stop bringing it up. It specifically states Ulfric is uncooperative, and that a Stormcloak victory is to be avoided. Maybe something happened between them during the Markarth Incident. MAYBE. Whatever happened there's do doubting Ulfric's present ambition of driving the dominion out of skyrim. Thalmor Justiciar Ondolemar himself is executed by the Stormcloaks when they take Markarth.

Seasons of Skyrim. It's the best of its kind.

As it stands, it's... Unfinished. Eventually it will be like a graphic novel, all we have right now is the writing, none of the pictures. It's publication by Michael Kirkbride, with the help of the current lore team at Bethesda (including Kurt -can't remember his last name- The be-all-and-end-all of TES lore gurus) set in a post-Landfall world (the Numidium returns and pretty much rips Nirn a new one). The basic conclusion of it is that TES reality is entirely subjective, and there is no 'canon'. And it's not so much badly written, as that's how Kirkbride writes everything. So it's a bunch of existentialist mumbo jumbo then. :tongue: Maybe I'll bother reading it for myself when it's complete. Maybe.

What is C0DA? I googled it, but it just looks like a poorly written fanfic. :confused:

When did I say that TESO will be the ultimate sequel? You should spend more time reading my posts instead of imagining my motivations.

And that's where we disagree. I see no reason why appearance and culture can't be synonymous. Perhaps if I believed Bethesda was already doing a good job of presenting the diversity of elder scrolls I would feel differently. But I think I've made my perspective clear enough. Cheers. :happy:

For the sake of appearance yes, and for the sake of making the universe appear more diverse. Certainly there should be small hints in their appearance that hearken back to a common ancestry, but to let that common ancestry rule what they should look like in the present seems to me at least a wasted opportunity.

Any time I see any kind of prominent brow ridges/wrinkles I think "Klingon!", but maybe that's just because the appearance of Klingons have more firmly embedded themselves in pop-culture. *shrugs* In any case you're right they do appear more like Romulans. Putting that aside, I'm of the opinion that the appearance of the races in TES should represent their respective cultures. Wood Elves looking more primal due to their close ties with nature and so forth. I'm very much a fan of strong contrasts. Putting aside lore, it just seems a waste to bother including so many races of elves if they all end up looking like simple retextures of the same 3D model. One of the things I really enjoyed about Guild wars 2 for example was just how different the five races appeared and acted.

I suppose I did get off-topic. My apologies. To reiterate part of what I said earlier, I'd prefer the next TES to look more like Oblivion's elves. Altmer being long faced, and generally more reedy in appearance compared to other elves. Bosmer would likewise be more round faced or owl like in appearance. Dark Elves meanwhile would appear dark and regal, without looking so much like Klingon's as they did in Skyrim. The more different the Mer races appear when compared with one another the better, is the bottom line for me.

I'm sure you do think tolkein inspired elves in TES is boring and derivative, but zenimax isn't marketing the game chiefly for lore-minded fans like yourself. Remember, TESO is an MMO....and building an MMO is all about catering to the lowest common denominator....and number wise more people prefer the supermodel look to the rough and eccentric look. Take Peter Jackson's Hobbit films for example. Sure he could have made the 13 dwarves a bunch of burly bearded little tanks like Gimli, but instead to attract the most people they made some of the dwarves like Fili, Kili, and Thorin quite attractive. You're asking why Zenimax decided to ignore the lore, and looking for an artistic reason on why they chose to do so....but the answer has far less to do with art as it does with marketing. Sexy sells rather well.

For armor, Nightasy is the king of tutorials.

Bear in mind, we're talking here on the Nexus. You saw something like that on the Bethesda forums and you're asking to get lynched. However, i don't think that the in-game portrayal is the best basis for judgement. Texture resolutions are rather low, everything is caked in dirt and everyone, regardless of race looks like they haven't slept in a week. I reference, again Kokomiko's artwork. I've also seen some rather impressive shots of Mer on here, such as But i understand the seeming popularity of the Tolkien-esque elf. My question, then, would be... Why? Its so... bland and comfortable and lacks anything remotely unique and interesting, wheres the appeal? Where's the appeal in trying to beautify every NPC/follower in Skyrim? The answer to that question would be pretty similar to your own I'd imagine.

People prefer the supermodel look pretty much unanimously. Just search for any elven mod here on this website. Personally I was more or less happy with Oblivion's elves. They were eccentric looking, and I rather liked how long faced the altmer were.

Not scaled realistically how? I mean, I understand a doorway might be a different width than ones we normally have, but there must be some form of measurement. Even if it's just points on a grid. But I suppose that'd be one of the restrictions I was asking about. I could potentially create a scale to base things on. Such as "The wall should be 4 beds long" which sounds silly, but it could work. It wouldn't be hard on my end at least because I can always change the measurement units to anything I want in CAD. Though learning how to measure in beds might take some getting used to. Your second point on lighting is actually something I had no idea about, and might explain why so many mods I see tend to have dark spaces and few lights. Technically that'd be something the modeler would have to worry about, not me. But now that I know about it I'd probably at least try to work around it. When designing a mesh for Skyrim or Fallout at least, the modeler is typically measuring in Generic Units or GU for short. Which is different from US standard or Metric. If for instance you wanted to create a tileset of meshes that worked with the Creation Kit's snap to grid system, you would have to make sure that the mesh was 128 GU wide or long. If the mesh needs to be larger, then it would be 512 units instead. But I'm probably making this sound more complicated than it really is. What kind of architecture did you have in mind? A small cabin/cottage?

He must mean modded. I've looked at plenty of Skyrim's meshes in 3DS Max and they're not really all that detailed. All that really sets Oblivion and Skyrim apart at the end of the day are texture resolutions and character models. Architecture and landscape meshes haven't really improved by much. Keep in mind I'm talking chiefly graphics. Skyrim's new scripting language is rather irrelevant to this discussion. ESO does appear to have superior architecture models compared to Skyrim btw.