Satorinu

You likely are very aware of these but.. http://skyrimgems.com/ At the bottom is a list of Alchemy related GEM mods - imagine if you haven't found -any- mods then these might be something your interested in to. If you already know about them then .. well, nevermind =p

I want to say grand total I've spent -- around 200 .. ish? hours in the last month modding Skyrim. No, not making mods - just getting a long list of mods to work together and testing each one throughly one after another .. then finding more mods and starting all over in the testing process and I have now finally reached my max (granted could have saved a lot of time by researching the use of tes4edit, loot, bysh, ini tweaks ect. from the start.) My computer could not possibly handle another mod (it's broaching on semi-unstable for long-term saves I'm sure but I think it'll survive, teetering on that line.) nor do I desire to add anymore. (except something like opencities, or 4k texture style mods.. but again, computer couldn't handle it alongside everything else - using a ton of tweaks as is while not losing anything noticible.) Grand total of mods is at 148 mods with only a half dozen I think item mods in that huge mixup; and I know there are people out there with 200+ but .. couldn't imagine testing another mod. .. so yeah, Skyrim is alive and well. I took a break orginally sometime after Dawnguards release (and never finished it, till now.) - never finished Moonpath either and that was back when it was initally (or close to it?) released. Now I'm finally experiencing Skyrim mod fleshed out & dlc / patched and .. amazingness all around! Looking forward to a huge, endlessly long playthrough of all the different quests, guilds, main quest, dragonborn, hearthfire, another run at dawnguard, and the major voiced quest mods and new lands mods. Just have to wonder if my rig / skyrim itself will survive it all without exploding after I breach that 150-200 hour mark O.o

Rarely post on forums.. account's old as dirt for the most part and this'll be my first post my 133 post .. I just had no idea I ever posted before! <.< still, suppose it's from going through the top 2000 mods yesterday and poking around the forums recently that made up my mind to post this short-ish list. Just got back into Skyrim about .. three weeks ago, all of which spent modding to make the experience I 'will eventually have' be perfect. Or as close as possible. I can at least confirm they all work nicely together, had about a 24 hour long playtest with them and several others that don't quite make the cut for .. must have / animation mods that are personal choices more than must haves; these are just the "I wouldn't play a minute without these" list. Some might sound odd, like Better Vampires; why if I'm not going to be a vampire 'this playthrough' would it be required? Just is.. knowing it's there, makes the world go around ;3 Fair warning I don't list a lengthy set of patches, or the whole LOOT/Wyrebash/DuelWield Patch/FNIS/Real Shelter Patch hassle to get them all to work & still recommend to anyone reading really to always check the installation instructions & requirements / compability and for the list itself, this is just my personal opinion, hunt through the nexus yourself and I'm sure different mods will call to you as must have's whereas I had no interest in them or didn't even notice them at the time. Also all these mods that involve people, are fully voice acted. Which to me is important anyway =3 I'm not including any EMB or 4k textures .. for one I'm using performance enhancer EMB's and INI tweaks since my system can struggle at times otherwise this list might include those and Expanded Towns and Cities along with Open Cities and .. probably more, but this is 'my' must haves for an immersive - epic Skyrim that stays lore friendly and as close to what can be assumed the dev's intended it to be. Honorable Mentions; Safety Load Unoffical Patches Brawl Bugs Patch Wyre Bash (Used to change timescale, crime fees, ect.. and obviously fix things.. lots of things o.o) TES5Edit (To clean.. to clean.. I really must clean.. clean.. clean!) LOOT (Order is everything!) FNIS (.. required for .. well at least duel sheath redux and immersive animations I think) Racemenu (Because my character's would look like they were hit with bricks otherwise) Animals/Creature Mods : Birds of Skyrim - Functional Birds (usually anyway..) in Skyrim.. nesting, flying.. it's nice. Skybirds - Together with Birds of Skyrim adds so much to the game. Convenient Horses - Because it's convenient.. Monster Mod v4 Lore edition - Just yes Skyrim Immersive Creatures - Also, just yes. SkyTEST - Again, just yes. Animations: Immersive Animations (For Duel Sheath Redux - requires XP32 Skeleton & FNIS) The Dance of Death - There are other altneratives, but to me this one works fine.. and never tried any others. Audio: Audio Overhaul 2 - An amazing addition! Don't go another day without it provided it doesn't make anything explode in your load order. Clothing: Winter is Coming - Cloaks Cloaks of Skyrim Combat: Deadly Mutilation - Combined with The Dance of Death - tweaking both to 50% or more .. and you have more battles getting very bloody and gruesome. Without it happening TO often. Plus, burning a corpse to a charred bits goes so well with the CYUC Gameplay Alternate Start - Been required since .. well, feels like day one.. but .. for a very long time. Better Fast Travel - Carriages and Ships - Even if you fast travel on your own, this is a nice mod to have. Clean up your Corpses - Make a burning corpse pyre .. spear.. or toss them in a grave with a personalized stone.. or just for the fact you can up your grab strength to 2000 so those stubborn corpses can always be picked up. Hair/Face: ApachiSkyhair Superior Lore-Friendly Hair - An improvement for all of skyrim, without risking anything.. everyone's hair will look better. The Eyes of Beauty Immersion: Duel Sheath Redux - Just required now, it's a bit of a hassle sometimes (remembering to run the patcher after changes) but worth it. Equpping Overhaul - Just plain epic. I'd sacrifice a long list of other mods before this one. Frostfall - If your into immersion, you can't go without this one. Guard Dialog Overhaul - Can't say I notice this one much, but I started playing skyrim again after years; with this installed.. and the guards haven't annoyed me with repeat dialog, so I guess it's working? =P Immersive Patrols - Win. Immersive Wenches - .. Also win. Immersive Weapons - Win. Immersive Armors - .. yup, win. Faction Crossbows - Archery win. Real Shelter - An ABSOLUTE must have no if's and's or but's .. yeah you have to run a patcher, maintain it.. but you can now stand under a ledge, not get wet from the rain; and the rain doesn't clip through buildings.. immersive heaven. Realistic Needs and Diseases - Another must have for the immersiveness of Skyrim. Enhanced Camera - Started my first time in years playthrough with it, won't play without it. I mix 3rd and 1st person, and notice it often. Skyrim Realistic Archery Bows & Arrows - One of few archery overhauls, it's worth looking at. Take Notes - .. I ended up writing more in my new in game journal than I did playing the game like other people mention in the comments.. that's.. gotta mean it's good, or a distraction anyway. Items / Objects: Private Selective Quivers - Lets you choose what kind of quiver you wear with any set of arrows. Archery must. Wearable Lanterns - Archer but like low-lighting gameplay? A must. Same.. for really anyone to be honest, it's just nice. Magic: Empowered Magic - How it sounds, default magic is now empowered. Spell Combos - Combos with default magic (or modded in most cases) can inact combo's and do something special. Animated Enchantments Overhaul - Just a nice one I wouldn't want to be without. Apocolypse Magic of Skyrim - Diverse spells, a compliment to the rest; or the rest compliments this. I'm not sure which! Models / Textures Book Covers Skyrim - Another small-isk change that you notice time and time again while your playing. Skyrim Flora Overhaul - Sells itself, better flora, more diverse trees, on and on.. Better Males (FavoredSoulMeshes) - I wouldn't normally say this is a must have but I (think) it's required for .. maybe the mutilation mod, not sure to be honest. Smooth Male Body - Improves on the prior (imo) CBBE - Since if I'm going to list the male counterpart.. Ultimate Spinning Arrows - Archer? You'll want this. Vampire Lord Retexture - Dawnguard anywhere in your future? Then this is worth getting. NPC Tweaks: Amazing Follower Tweaks - UFO used to be my main go-to follower mod but this one is serving me well, works flawlessly and wouldn't go back. Inconsquential NPC's - More NPC's wandering around that don't give a crap what the dragonborn is up to. They just want to live their lives. Interesting NPC's - More NPC's wandering around that seemingly DO give a crap what the dragonborn is up to. Sort of.. there interesting! Non-Essential Children - Because I'm a heartless bastard.. or at the least prefer not to see a child stare down a dragon and live. Organized Bandits of Skyrim - You'll notice this one over time and it really makes each encounter just a little more diverse. RS Children Overhaul Overhauls: Arrow Recovery System Overhaul - Just started using this one and it's frankly a lot better to find 'parts of arrows' sometimes and rebuilding them, or just selling the parts. Better Vampires - One of those I won't play without even if I don't intend on being a vampire. It's something about having it and knowing, if I do become a vampire, it's there. Climates of Tamriel - Preference, but still. Lands / Questlines: I've had these n my load order without issues but haven't 'reached' them as of writing this in my 24+ hour playthrough. Provided they don't explode on arrival, they are must have's in my mod list. Moon Path of Elsweyr - Beautiful forest landscape, new creatures, professionally voiced questline; what's not to love? Undeath - Think Vampire Lord meets Lich with it's own voice questline as well. Falskaar - Entirely new landscape. More a expansionpack than mod. Wyrmstooth - Much like Falskaar, it's more a expansionpack than it is a mod. Thunderchild - A needed addition to the dragonborn questline with plenty of new shouts; utilizing the vanilla shouts & it's voices in a different order for a new shout; if you show enough devotion. .. and that concludes my 'must have' list. Hope someone takes something out of it anyway. Back to the shadows of .. searching for more mods because it's like an addiction now.. save me...

While I'm male, I've read enough of these threads and knew at one point / still know a decently good share of female gamer who are Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim lovers to essentially say exactly what they've said. 1.) It's just a game & OMGAH that may be skimpy but it's SO sexy!! (and have proceeded to ask me to buy similar outfits RL. :dance: OH Thank you Oblivion, you were worth every penny. Also special thanks to the Hentai group and a few other creative armor modders, she found you and fell in :wub: ) 2.) It's not realistic or to my taste, but to each their own. I won't use it, but I get why some would. 3.) Who cares? I want MALE skimpy armors to go with it! [proceeds to talk about buldge] 4.) It's so sexist and degrading, I hate these mods. (My personal opinion = #2) In the end it's like everything else, some LOVE it.. some won't care.. and some HATE it. On another note though, I try to only get to know the ones who love or simply don't care, kind of a test of sorts (male or female).. if they find things like a game's mods offensive they also tend to be well - hard for me to get along with, on average easily offended by way to much -- though even then there are exceptions where skimpyness is the one thing that really sets a person off and everything else is fine. Point being : oh diversive world, how complicated must thy be! :ohdear:

Thing is, sometimes the PC is irrelevant to the casualties. Upon entering Riften, my char was alerted to a scuffle by a stay arrow whizzing by her head. She bee-lined it to the market square but, by the time she arrived, there were 5 corpses - 3 of 'em citizens. ...And right there is the main problem....I have been wanting to start a new game, but have been nervous about the Vamps killing named NPC's ....but finally found a mod which sets Merchants, small quest givers, trainers, etc...as essential....activating that mod will be the first thing I do somewhere between Helgen and Riverwood. Just a note : incase you (or anyone) haven't heard about it, might be a lot better for your experience just to disable the DG Vampire attacks altogether, you'll still see them out and about during random encounters wandering the country side where they spawn no different than the vigilant or wolves ect but this is also where they can't do any notable harm, and will ensure you never see them in your holds / villages. It's not as though the story itself is delivered through them and setting everyone (most anyway) essential may really draw back on your enjoyment; specifically if you end up a criminal at some point. My signature contains a link to one at least, may be others by now and may be worth reading up on the Unofficial Dawnguard Fix .. I have no idea what exactly it fixes beyond placements at this point as I'm taking a break from Skyrim, but may resolve a lot; if nothing else worth keeping an eye on. :D

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/13.jpg and on that note, back to the shadows! :ohdear:

My preference is all of them, but at the same time I can't be sure how compatible they'll be with your other mods, specifically Deadly Combat. In any case, pretending you had no other mods, this is the load order I go with; just be sure to read what each mod does and ensure it's really what YOU want from Skyrim, and of course to install everything correctly :D @ the very end of my load order : Chesko Frostfall Duel - Combat Realism ACE / "Athyra's Comprehensive Enhancements" (Ace Load Order : Archery - Armor - BYOG - Enchanting - Magic - Melee - Realistic Fighting - Smithing - Speech - Synergy) ASIS Dependency ASIS

While there are quite a few mods designed to just outright make things harder, I've found my favorite to be.. Apocalypse Spell Package (Optional, pretty much anything that adds spells of your flavor might help; this recommendation only comes with the use of ASIS.. otherwise your just making your life easier not theirs :D) Duel - Combat Realism ACE / "Athyra's Comprehensive Enhancements" (Ace Load Order : Archery - Armor - BYOG - Enchanting - Magic - Melee - Realistic Fighting - Smithing - Speech - Synergy) ASIS (Important, since it allows the NPC's to use potions & they'll take advantage of Apocalypse, Duel, and Ace's alterations even more than they would otherwise in the spells/perk/buff/debuff department. Atop of that, you can have it adjust spawns altogether.. now instead of finding a pack of 3 wolves every frikking time on my way from Helgan, I find 4 wolves, a bear, and two bandits .. or no wolves, four bandits, and two imperials fighting them.. it's awesome O:) (Optional for difficulty & realism, indirectly having a stake in the outcome of fights for obvious reasons, specially Frostfall, but forgetting to eat/sleep/drink certainly can make your life harder in the next battle.) Frostfall & Imps Complex Needs / any food/drink/sleep mod, imps being the hardest from what I've found but at the same time also tedious after awhile. ____ In the end it feels an awful lot like I'm playing a far more expansive and wild version of Dark Souls xD - Expert Difficulty; while at 1-10th level it's pretty tame overall you still run into fights even at that level that will drop 40-60% of your health with just one mistake (Hit from behind or the sides or missing your chance to block.) Usually the 1-2 mistake = death's only come from someone who found a decent weapon, be it guards or your local undead buddy with a good ancient greatsword, so your typical wolf pack will still bite only small chunks of your health; thus not outrageously overwhelming; but a vast difference from what I was used to with Skyrim. Also have to take into account, with Duel they now block a lot more, power attack at smart moments, stamina costs are totally different (more akin to dark souls, at least with my two handed weapon character, you block a couple hits and your out of stamina, so you have to make tactically smart choices and swing when your given an opening to widdle them down or time to back off if you can't land a blow.) Back hits are deadly, and the enemy's try to flank and get around you throughout the fight. At this point I end up relying on having a companion or two around for those areas where you end up pitted against 4-8 opponents, simply because each encounter can be brutal.

I'm not a lawyer, but this is the case at least to my knowledge. They obviously, need a lawyer more than anything. (and have one.. and seem to comply with all the legal requirements : a lot of the forum posts even say this.) MERP can be sent all the cease and desist letters in the world, if they don't use a donate button : aka don't accept ANY donations at all what-so-ever even free muffins from fans or AD's on the webpage; at that point it's not something they can be legally fined for. It's just at home project being shared with friends non-profit and not for charity. Same with Morroblivion project. The only exception at all is if they are taking assets from say, Lord of the Rings games and using it in their project, at that point they are breaking TOS agreements they "sign" when purchasing the game; just as with Morroblivion's project - aren't allowed to directly transfer any asset of Morrowind; and why they had to build a on-the-fly converter so that your installed version of Morrowind would convert it's files to the needed settings and placement ect ect. They cannot claim intellectual property rights are being violated if no gifts/money changes hands, as the whole idea of copyright itself is just to protect x idea from being sold by another person within the limitation that your not directly 'taking' work someone else has put in and suddenly giving it away for free (pirates). Alternatively to deflect any lawsuits they can simply change the name of the mod to "Middle Nirn" and rename each city and character to some very slight difference. Indirect imitator's afterall are not illegal, as at that point it's just a re-imagining of the story, inspired by, but not directly the same and nobody is going to outraged that Legolas is now called Legolin .. and instead will just go into the construction set and rename people on their own time in all of ten minutes :tongue: The only reason I can see that WB would actually sue, is if they're stealing the voice files out of the movies rather than going to voice-acting websites and asking someone to do voices for them and I don't believe that's the case: So this is just a big company's set of lawyers trying to throw weight around and pretend they are actually earning the outrageous paychecks they get. Yay. Best of luck to them regardless; was never all that interested in the project myself but mainly just out of lack of belief they'd pull off anything of the scale I'd find worth investing time into 3; Then again I said the same thing about Morroblivion two years ago and .. here it is, with a Skyrim version on the way. Heh. Might have to peek in on project when this lawyer ridiculousness poofs.

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but YES :P Dear god yes. 1.) Mods are amazing with Oblivion 2.) Shivering Isles 3.) When you start to get bored, Google morroblivion and buy & install Morrowind GOTY so you can use it :D Now you have Oblivion + Shivering Isles + Morrowind (Quests, spells, armors and all WITH the radiant AI!) + (some) of Bloodmoon & Tribunal + Oblivion Mods (Some may not function, unfortunately, such as food/water mods though I hear some will; mainly due to the mods not knowing what the hell the 'food' is in Morrowind :P) + Oblivion Mods designed for use with Morroblivion listed on the page. Aka.. You have.. uh.. 5 games in one <.< and while some bugs exist they are not major that I came across in my time with it, though that was like.. six months ago.. so by now it's even more freaking awesome :D Edit: Also only a matter of time before Skywind is released, likely a year.. but then we'll have six games + Skyrim's DLC o_O Oh my brain it boggles, it boggles!

OP 1: Any mod produced for an ES Game through use of the construction set via TOS if I recall correctly, inherently becomes property of Bethesda as part of the agreement you sign to use the software they created to let you mod the game in the first place. OP 2: They did have this in the works from week one, they showed videos of the butler service via a skeleton as a placeholder and such. They basically have wanted to do this since Morrowind .. actually they have wanted to do far more than this since morrowind, but time constraints ect ect. Regardless, Bethesda is one of the few company's that support modders, thereby support them when they take a concept even if they didn't originally think of it or think it worth the effort. If they took the scripting code from Build Your Own Home mod and just rereleased it, I'd agree, they owe some kudo's to the creator, but they didn't (or we'll know about it swiftly upon release of the source) Even if the last point comes to light they outright took the scripting from BYOH through lazyness, they still had the right to. OP 3: -- A long winded rant, that this whole post was updated to include with version 2.0 of fuming anger :teehee: OK so I just felt like writing and feel strongly about the absurd lengths we go claiming stole this and stole that.. psh' we apparently owe royalty to the stone age out the wazu if that's the case.

As a review of vanilla what I'm about to say doesn't really help, but worth noting if you don't already know about them! Do check out ACE, Monk is possible (I think.. vaguely that there is enough melee damage + robes = light armor but you will still want to get heavy armor gloves for the +20% damage with it *I THINK* .. I have never really played that portion to any degree to say for certain but it's certainly worth looking into! The perk tree is revamped through ACE aswell -- revamped -- not totally ripped apart, the smithing tree by far was THE most interesting, what it does is you need I believe.. 6 perk points put into the bottom 6 teirs (two are light with different purposes, two heavy, and one is for improving armor one is for improving weapons.. and as you *LEVEL* in smithing, it adds perks automatically of which are quite a few perks, a lot more than vanilla, but you never have to spend perk points for them, and instead just have to activate the bottom tier of the line, and once your skills match the requirements it adds those you should have access to. So what your hoping for is absolutely possible, if you convinced a modder to look at ACE's perk tree system and revamp it for more automatic additions I suppose, hell, it may be done already. ACE also did quite a few other changes to the perk tree of course, Speechcraft is vastly different, one tree adds buffs to companions the more you invest, for instance, and still takes less perks overall to finish. Heavy armor tree is freaking massive in perk costs but your not suppose to try to go for everything, I mean two perk points lowers the casting costs and drawbacks (20% I think) for being a heavy-magecaster. Lockpi--- oh skew it, go read about it :P it's awesome! Revamps everything, for the most part.. even mage--- ok, gotta stop >;3 It's awesome, end! and it's all quite balanced when you combine all the plugins it offers, and is friendly with other mods that I've found. Lastly, search the Nexus for the Class system you wished for, it's released, and so is a stat mod (str,dex,end,ect) .. recently posted a link to the stat system in another thread.. ugh, dun wanna look.

I read through a majority of it. It's always good to voice your opinion and this is the place to do it really, but as with opinions comes MINE :ohdear: Firstly: I have kept the standard UI and I don't mind it <.< I have enjoyed Skyrim FAR more than vanilla Oblivion but about EQUAL to modded Oblivion, both have failed to surpass Morrowind however hope does not dwindle for Morroblivion was released in stable condition with working quests, and Skywind is on it's way.. so soon we'll have Morrowind+Oblivion+Skyrim on the skyrim engine. Then, I can rank SKYWIND atop Morrowind, mwahaha. Secondly: Regarding the skeleton key and forces choices, your not forced :P I chose not to give up the skeleton key once, just never went back to the guild's main quest.. eventually I slaughtered the thieves guild because a thief got me shot by a guard's arrow and nobody apologized. Well, in my defense, I envisioned more depth in that particular story but really it was just a reason to justify being a evil prick. So while you are technically forced into certain choices, you really aren't; since .. you can just kill everyone and so skew you! Oh.. and mods salvage a few of these issues.. I think the wholes blades thing is averted via a mod that lets you choose, you know, not to, do stuff. Not positive on that, but I could.. swear.. it's somewhere here on the nexus.. anyhow, originally yes, it's annoying to be forced into certain situations and perhaps why I'm so evil in the game, because you aren't forcing a Dovakiin to do **! , and mods salvage the leveling system and such, ect, so all in all I agree though at least SOME amount of option is there unlike other games :D (Ahm, selling my soul to continue certain quests.. Ha..ahahahah... No. I'll just kill these two and you and your missing [cough] is just gonna stay missing! ~.o) My current playthrough sort of proves the point, since I have around 50 mods now which basically the difference is, the difficulty is ramped up to dark souls level (80% health in one hit if you don't parry block sort of thing, and the AI is smarter, flanking and blocking often, more accurate and smart about power moves.), with Frostfall for freezing to death and ICN for food/sleep/hydration to make it all the more hardcore, I avoid the Main Quest altogether through Alternative Start so I never even learn shouts xD I almost became leader of the Mages Tower.. then said screw you all and killed everyone save a few who I turned into thralls so the item stayed in the main room, you know what I mean. I don't spoil : regardless it's my new vampire home. Became leader of the dark brotherhood, cause I wanted to, and practically wiped out all of that stone city built by the dwarves (forget.. the name.. I can't.. remember.. ugh!) during the mines-escape with the Forsworn xD .. and proceeded to kill those I escaped with AFTER just because I'm not a good person in this particular go.. rarely am.. I'm a horrible, horrible human being; but it's all skyrim's lack of choices fault. TL:DR Agreed on most every point except that I have no issue with the UI :P , at least to some degree. Mods make Skyrim. Hail modders. Ect. Skywind is my hope for the future. :) OT: Side note.. I just relized I have NEVER finished the main quest.. I think I have done every side quest, found every special item, been to every dungeon and worn out my welcome at every hold, modded the game to hell and back but I still have .. NEVER.. .. nope.. NEVER... in probably 500-1000 hours of gameplay .. EVER.. captured a dragon for the reach, stopped there, and have never went further.. my gawd.. no wonder I still can play the game, I left something untouched and it still never crosses my mind to do it xD so it's just there in the back of my mind there is something HUGE I still haven't done.. oh it's the main quest, well that's AWESOME .. but.. not right now, more bandits to kill.

There Is no spell creation mod. There is no good attributes mod, or anything I said. I didn't say anything about brutal. Wouldn't play a DS game for RPing, as it is shite for it. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13968 Good. There is another (or two) but I don't want to search for it, regardless that one looks about as polished as you can get. One I recall revamped starting races, perks, ect.. it was also quite complex. Not my thing, though. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12841 Degradation for weapons, actually has been made but is presently in a BETA stage; sometime soon you'll have your weapon and armor durability if your into that sort of thing, though I could swear there was one that already functioned but couldn't repair.. ah well, maybe something else. Best I could find in two minutes of searching. If you support this sort of thing, beta test it; help him where you can. :D Brutal+RP = Preference. I prefer it. :ohdear: Also, keep tabs on the mod Skywind (makers of Morroblivion) :D in regards to spellcrafting, but your right about that; that is one thing yet to really be created.. or at least I couldn't find it, imagine I got it mixed up with Midas Spells or .. no I think it was Tytanis that I recall and it was 'in the works' but suppose they haven't done it, though morrowind spells among all sorts of new ones have been made; including one that allows you to pre-set two mods to cast together in one hand, so you could technically cast four at once, which is actually very much in line with creating a spell of your own; but not nearly as well as Morrowind would allow.. and no matter how you slice it, that'll be a rough one to balance. Ah Skywind.. how I hope thee come soon anyhow, but alas.. 3-8 months longer I imagine, before a good stable release.

Well Dark Souls is CERTAINLY an unforgiving game, if you don't like brutal then yeah; best to steer clear though --- to be honest... If you really get bored, do consider this: Get Dark Souls + a cheat trainer + stay in offline mode, can link you to one if need be if you PM me - in case I don't check this thread again 3; From there theres a few things to keep in mind, memorize the controls and consider spending half an hour to an hour reading the manual and testing the controls out to get a feel for them, they ARE functional by default, just rough to get used to. Once you've done that, create a character you really want and cheat for inf health to get past the tutorial area if you can't do it otherwise, get to the 'real' first zone and cheat for 999999 souls and level up your character to 300+ .. something along the lines of 50 in all stats to start, you will still be killable but it'll be more Skyrim / Darksiders difficulty. Eventually scale up to 75 if things get to rough, 100 and it'll be a breeze, you'll still be killable regardless, but only if your just utterly wreckless. Fun game, I tell you. I use a keyboard and mouse myself and while the story isn't exactly enthralling, the combat and exploration IS, multiplayer is epic but only if you can handle the abuse, so at least your first go just stay offline-mode profile and if you find you LOVE it by then you'll know the enemy patterns and stand a real chance of survival. Even better, death isn't exactly the worst thing in the world. You die, you lose your humanity (You use humanity for three things, one to look human, one to kindle fires for more potions when you rest at them, and for higher loot chances between 1-10 humanitys) and your souls. But you don't actually lose them, they are in a green pile where you died, if you can get back to them without dying, you get it all back. Regardless, denying yourself Darksouls because it's to rough would be a shame, it's one where cheating to make the game more 'fair' if need be, is good for the experience until your ready to play multiplayer.