apecallum

Sigh. I knew people would get all emotional about this bull****. Just relax you douche nozzle. Endorsing people's decisions purely on the merit that they have the freedom to make them is just an outright retarded way to look at anything.

It's early days but so far, aside from some excellent graphical improvements, I feel the overall quality of Skyrim mods has been really poor. I check the nexus front page and top 20 maybe once every two weeks and it is just totally dominated by busty erotic female companions (Jesus H Christ sort yourselves out, there is this great invention called pornography that caters for that sort of thing you horny freaks) and boring superficial additions. Where are the quests, overhauls and added features that actually add depth to the game? Maybe I'm not qualified to criticise you folks because I've never made a mod in my life nor do I think I possess the patience or ability to do so, but it's kinda embarrassing how bad the state of modding is at the moment.

Glad I'm not the only one finding Skyrim a little tiring. What's strange is that it only really took me about 60-70 hours to get sick of it but with Oblivion I clocked in around 200 hours without getting remotely bored and that was just the xbox version. I'm not sure why but I enjoyed Oblivion significantly more than I have Skyrim which really kinda bothers me because Skyrim is definitely a "better" game in almost every way but it is no where near as enjoyable. Skyrim misses that illusive "X Factor" that the very best games seem to have. Odd. I wish I could pin it down.

Is there any way a voice command system could be modded? I was thinking it would be cool to have a selection of short NPC dialogue specific to each race that could be spoken by the player, threats, insults etc. Just for immersion. Would this be possible?

bump

I'm more or less undecided on which faction is in the right morally, but it seems apparent that the most important consideration to make when picking sides is which faction has a better chance at defeating the Thalmor and I think I'm throwing in with the Stormcloaks on that one. Yes the Empire has a significant manpower and monetary advantage over the Stormcloaks, but all great empires must fall and I think it's pretty obvious that the Empire in its current form is soon to face irreversible collapse. It's simply run out of momentum, and if real world precedent is anything to go by its highly unlikely it will ever recover. It's time for a fresh, new order to arise that is efficient and coordinated and perhaps an independent Skyrim fits that model. Putting Ulfric's brutality and greed for power aside, it seems like he's got his s*** together and commands a great deal of authority and loyalty over his people, opposed to the Empire which just seems like an impotent bureaucratic mess. I think a strong autocratic model of government is better suited to waging war than an oligarchic one, vested interests etc. Perhaps Skyrim could eventually be in a position to annex Cyrodil and take the fight directly to the Thalmor.

I've just downloaded Volek's excellent Alternate Starting Factions mod and I was wondering whether there are any mods that allow you to have Forsworn or Bandit companions? I tried using Gotika's Marry and Companion any NPC mod but it doesn't work with either Bandits or Forsworn for some reason.

Is there any good reason why the Dunmer in general would hate the Thalmor? As in politically not just because they're a bunch of arrogant chodes. I'm not too versed in TES lore, but aren't the Thalmor elf supremacists who aspire to ethnically cleanse mankind from Tamriel? Wouldn't the Dunmer therefore be supportive of them? Or are the Thalmor only interested in high elves? Last question how do Morrowind natives feel about Skyrim and the Nords? Thanks for the advice. I dunno about morrowind natives view of nords, but the thalmor consists of an allience between high elves, and wood elves, not dark elves. So considering that the dark elves were "excluded from the club", my guess is that they still dont like eachother very much. Yeah that makes sense. So how do the Dunmer feel about High Elves in general?

Is there any good reason why the Dunmer in general would hate the Thalmor? As in politically not just because they're a bunch of arrogant chodes. I'm not too versed in TES lore, but aren't the Thalmor elf supremacists who aspire to ethnically cleanse mankind from Tamriel? Wouldn't the Dunmer therefore be supportive of them? Or are the Thalmor only interested in high elves? Last question how do Morrowind natives feel about Skyrim and the Nords? Thanks for the advice.

Any ideas? It would be like playing as the Jewish ghetto police or something.

So people may miss out on some part of the game if they decide they want to add in spiky hair, giant swords, chainmail bikinis, or pink ponies... does it really matter to anyone how someone else chooses to enjoy their game? Hell, pink ponies and ultra-hardcore-realism-modes don't seem that appealing to me personally, but it has absolutely zero effect on my own enjoyment of the game that someone else feels they need such things to get more out of their game, so why worry about it? You're correct in saying that other people's preferences don't affect me whatsoever but I didn't really ever assume otherwise. This thread is more motivated by my general bemusement in the face of certain mods that seem, at least in my opinion, unsuited, rather than outrage at "heretical" modders deviating from lore. Still, I don't think that the fact that other people's preferences do not directly affect me really means that I am not entitled to express my opinions on why I feel such preferences seem flawed. I've had disagreements in the past with friends that have had perfectly decent PCs but were against modding games like Fallout 3 because they genuinely felt that the vanilla version was good enough. Do you think that a natural reaction to that sort of thing is just to accept that decision and move on even if you feel that you can convincingly argue to the contrary? I'm not sure if this relevant. We're discussing the merits of lore vs non-lore mods, why wouldn't lore friendly content increase the lifespan of the game? I apologise then if that's how I seem. I of course don't think others are inferior for having different viewpoints, I guess I need to tone down the hyperbole. Anyway you make a strong argument and your reply is exactly the sort of logical response I was looking for.

Gaius Marcius Coriolanus.

Well I found your problem, right there. TES games (and more recently Fallout as well) have gained massive popularity amongst PC users not just because of the base game and lore, but because of the open modable nature of the game world thanks to BethSoft's release of the CS/GECK/CK. This leaves the game open, thanks to mods, to expand and encompass a nearly unlimited variety of alternate "realities" for each player's personal game world. Some like a more strict interpretation of what was released originally, as you appear to, and others prefer more alternate variations in their gameplay. Neither is wrong in their preference, as that preference is purely for their own enjoyment. If BethSoft wanted only purely lore-friendly mods to be released for all eternity, they would state so clearly in their CK terms of service/license agreement/what-have-you. As they choose not to, the obvious conclusion is that they simply fail to care one way or another as long as certain specific legality rules are not broken (in most cases very similar to what restrictions the Nexus already has in place regarding what can or cannot be uploaded). All that said, this consistent pushing by the lore-friendly-only crowd recently is getting old fast. If you (general, not specifically the OP) don't like a mod or mod-type, ignore it and move on to the next rather than keep popping in and trying to antagonize the community-at-large by repeatedly making veiled attempts at starting flame wars simply because someone likes something you don't. I don't think I'm making myself very clear. I completely 100% understand that people have every right to mod Skyrim however whichever way they please. Yes certain people have preferences for zany characters over lore fitting ones, and of course Bethesda (as a collective) doesn’t care how people play their games as long as they actually pay for them. My contention is that it’s quite possible that people are outright missing out on the full intended experience of the game. Yes you can argue from a subjective viewpoint that there is no intended experience, and that Skyrim is by its nature a non-linear, open world sandbox in which you play however you want to play and that anime mods are just an extension of this principle but I'm inclined to disagree. Subjectivity only goes so far. If someone were to read LOTR and alter significant texts within the book and replace characters such as Aragorn or Boromir with scantily clad, sterile (not in a negative sense) anime characters with giant lightning swords, you would be hard pressed to argue that the reader isn’t being fully stimulated or moved as Tolkein intended. If you don’t care about Tolkein’s intent then fine, but I would say that you are foolishly denying yourself the full experience of the book by crudely segmenting a very deliberately crafted and multi-faceted narrative. There is a reason why (as far as I'm aware) people don't do that sort of thing. Obviously Skyrim is nowhere near approaching the level of complexity of LOTR but I think the analogy sticks. An anime character in Skyrim is always going to be separate from the tone of the game. Yes you have every legal, moral and ethical right to play as one but just because that choice exists does it really mean that it is a sensible one? I guess I’m a purist to a naive degree, but it will never make any sense to me that people justify their decisions purely on the merit that they have the freedom to make them.

What Malakai88 said. I don't download and use mods because they conform to some rule about how Skyrim is supposed to look or be played. I download and use mods that work, do what the modder says they do, have something I like when playing the game and look great in game. If it makes my character or my companions look like an anime character - so what? Its a stupid game that I play to relax and enjoy. Just as you have asked, I am asking you why is it you think someone using some mod is "missing the point"? Exactly what is the point of Skyrim? I ask, because really, Skyrim has no point as far as I can see and apparently you know what the point is, and I'd appreciate being enlightened. I People are free to do as they please, that's just a truism. I don't want to stop people doing as they wish nor could I ever do so. I do however think it is perfectly acceptable to scrutinise people's perceptions and opinions purely because it makes for an interesting exchange. I have a fairly concrete idea of what Skyrim means to me so I am genuinely interested in what people who have polar opposite views have to say for themselves. In regards to the "missing the point" quote. I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of time, money and effort went into making Skyrim conform to a very deliberate tone and setting. To me, it seems that many people are missing the direct appeal of this specific setting. I do think that games like Skyrim are some of the very few examples of games transcending just pure entertainment, and mods that drastically break the game's continuity or context are in my opinion detrimental in that they just s*** all over a very precariously crafted world with little or no regard for the actual intent of the game. For example, say in the future some hyper advanced editing software is released that provides almost anyone the ability to seamlessly splice characters from one film into another and someone ends up putting Hellboy in 2001: A Space Odyssey battling HAL 9000 with an explosive crossbow. They are welcome to do so, but why would they ever do that? The meaning and sophistication of 2001 would be totally lost on the viewer and it would be an awkward collection of disjointed scenes that would detract from the original appeal of both films. I'm sure the guy that came up with the idea of pitting Hellboy and HAL 9000 against each is enthralled by the sight of a giant demon in a leather trenchcoat beating the s*** out of an inanimate black panel on a spacecraft but I think you could make a very reasoned argument that he is entirely missing the point.

Didn't realise this was old news. Anyway the crux of this thread was to hear from those that do enjoy anime mods, I'm genuinely interested in their points of view.