Humanizing and All That

[Adipose]

Okay, players want Orcs that look more human and still be Orcs. Same with Dark Elves, High Elves, etc. ad infinitum. Why not just create a race of Half-Orcs? There's already a mod for Half-Dunmer. See, when ya cross humans and whatever else, ya gonna get who knows what cause genetics are gonna result in a LOT of variables. Modders could make'em look as human as they'd like. Course, there's no dialog interaction niche for a half-race of any kind so they'd still need to be labeled as one of the vanilla races, otherwise they're nonentities as far as the game is concerned. There's a preset for a half-Orc character that really comes out looking pretty good...if ya take the time and do it properly. Still runs as an Orc, but that's okay.

[BlackRabbitFantasyandArt]

Well simple answer is different people want different things...but a big thing for some is that what you suggest may completely change the character they have in mind and are invested in. A half-elf is different than, and experiences the world differently than, an elf. If someone already had a character in mind...that may well be enough to turn them into something different.

[Adipose]

Well simple answer is different people want different things...but a big thing for some is that what you suggest may completely change the character they have in mind and are invested in. A half-elf is different than, and experiences the world differently than, an elf. If someone already had a character in mind...that may well be enough to turn them into something different.

 

No sure I grasp your point. Oh well, makes no difference really 'cause folks gonna do what folks gonna do.

[JerisEnigma]

Well, from a lore stand point, in the Elder Scrolls half races aren't really a thing. A halfbreed takes on the mother's race, with just small characteristics from the father like hair color or maybe skintone.

See the Grey Prince from Oblivion. He's a half orc, but as far as the game's code and other NPCs are concerned, he's just a pale orc.

Also, TES has its own 'flavors' of orc, elf, etc. so people trying to make them more or less 'orcish' are again fighting against the whole core of the thing.

 

From a modding stand point, people already do this, with both race edits and custom races, so I'm not sure what you're even asking about. Personal preferences?

Technically, you could give anything pointy ears and call it an elf, but you still have the actual game's coding calling it into question. If a script runs to check a character's race, it isn't going to detect 'half-orc' as an orc variant right out of the box, so a patch would need to be made for any quests that do that, for each modded half-race. Or, as you say, just use a preset on a regular orc and call it "Eric HalfBlood" and save all the trouble!

 

Myself, I HEAVILY edit things myself, like adding the khajiit types into the khajiit race itself. All the variants are added as presets or armor sets, but as far as the game cares they're all just generic khajiit. I still need to make a patch to change anyone else's khajiit into a non-catfaced version, but as far as the game's race checks are concerned, they all still count as khajiit... which is GREAT, because I am FAR too lazy to check for that sort of thing. :wink:

Edited June 10, 2019 by JerisEnigma

[Adipose]

Well, from a lore stand point, in the Elder Scrolls half races aren't really a thing. A halfbreed takes on the mother's race, with just small characteristics from the father like hair color or maybe skintone.

See the Grey Prince from Oblivion. He's a half orc, but as far as the game's code and other NPCs are concerned, he's just a pale orc.

Also, TES has its own 'flavors' of orc, elf, etc. so people trying to make them more or less 'orcish' are again fighting against the whole core of the thing.

 

From a modding stand point, people already do this, with both race edits and custom races, so I'm not sure what you're even asking about. Personal preferences?

Technically, you could give anything pointy ears and call it an elf, but you still have the actual game's coding calling it into question. If a script runs to check a character's race, it isn't going to detect 'half-orc' as an orc variant right out of the box, so a patch would need to be made for any quests that do that, for each modded half-race. Or, as you say, just use a preset on a regular orc and call it "Eric HalfBlood" and save all the trouble!

 

Myself, I HEAVILY edit things myself, like adding the khajiit types into the khajiit race itself. All the variants are added as presets or armor sets, but as far as the game cares they're all just generic khajiit. I still need to make a patch to change anyone else's khajiit into a non-catfaced version, but as far as the game's race checks are concerned, they all still count as khajiit... which is GREAT, because I am FAR too lazy to check for that sort of thing. :wink:

 

I suppose my point is that I prefer the Bethesda lore based races. It's okay if you want them to look more human, or whatever, but I think they ought to be called half this or that.even though they still need to be labeled with one of the vanilla race names for the program in order to be dialogue responsive. It's a personal preference I suppose. I usually create characters with bits borrowed from the other races, since Skyrim is well on the way to becoming a racial melting pot anyway. Creating a new race and putting it out there for play is fine but they've got no home/niche in the basic program. It just isn't programmed to recognize them. I just don't see much point in custom races since the game treats them like they don't exist. So, give a preset a half label and the player knows that it's not gonna look like a vanilla race, but it'll still need to be labeled Orc or Nord, or whatever in order for the AI to have fitting dialogue. Frex, there's a Half Orc male preset that I use a lot because it lends itself well to a new appearance that I can't develop on my own. The mod author made it clear that it's still gonna be an Orc as far as the game is concerned.

 

[JerisEnigma]

All very true, and I agree on the lore bit. Once you get the hang of things like Racemenu or ECE, none of this stuff is really necessary.

 

Really, in the end, custom races are just a short cut for adding new assets or making extremely over powered characters without fiddling with console commands.

Much easier for people to make their super special, one-of-a-kind characters by just overwriting NewRace5000's textures, especially when it comes with fancy powers built in.

 

The only case I can make for whole separate races is for anything needing radically different parts, like with the bird race.

Ever seen the mod "Crimes Against Nature"? It would be quite a feat to mold your head into a chair with just Racemenu, but at that point I don't think lore, game scripts, or sanity is on anyone's mind, haha.

[Adipose]

All very true, and I agree on the lore bit. Once you get the hang of things like Racemenu or ECE, none of this stuff is really necessary.

 

Really, in the end, custom races are just a short cut for adding new assets or making extremely over powered characters without fiddling with console commands.

Much easier for people to make their super special, one-of-a-kind characters by just overwriting NewRace5000's textures, especially when it comes with fancy powers built in.

 

The only case I can make for whole separate races is for anything needing radically different parts, like with the bird race.

Ever seen the mod "Crimes Against Nature"? It would be quite a feat to mold your head into a chair with just Racemenu, but at that point I don't think lore, game scripts, or sanity is on anyone's mind, haha.

 

Yeah, with a custom npc you never really know what you'll have. As followers, I like strong women, with perks for heavy armor and two hand skills. Today I'm starting a new trio of followers, with nonessential built in. I find them via search for two hand or heavy armor. I also use AFT, since it's handy for a wide variety of relationships. Anyway, one of the women I brought on board was carrying 65,000 septims in her backpack along with 2,000 Daedric arrows. All of that was a complete surprise. While I definitely felt like I'd opted for a cheat, which it was, I liked the way she looked and acted so I kept her...minus the cash. I'm not gonna turn my nose up at all that money, particularly at starting levels. I did feel a bit guilty though. As a rule, I don't cheat. Takes the fun out of the game...at least for me. I'm interested in how long they'll survive. If they die, I go into Vortex, delete the mod, and hunt for a new npc download. There's a really huge character mod which provides seventy-five followers scattered about Skyrim. It's very well done with a lot of interesting dialog development which adds quite a bit of depth to the game and they're not clones of each other. Unfortunately, my CPU or GPU one, can't handle that many and before I even reach level ten I've begun having totally random crashes. Followers are VRAM hungry.