A Question of Lore

[Wolfmod]

I have to laugh when people talk about "TES Lore" or a mod being "Lore Friendly" as if some cultural taboo were at stake. I am writing this to get feedback to discover if I am alone in my opinion.

 

I love this game but it is not an online game and if someone wants a mod that puts his favorite motorbike into the game where he can tear up Windhelm and do burnouts around the throat of the world... I don't care. It has nothing to do with me but if such diversity allows more players to enjoy this game it is better for everyone.

 

My personal preference is for role-playing. I will not do 'the dark brotherhood' or the 'thieves guild' quest lines if am playing the 'dragon born hero' and I find playing a vilainous character far too limiting and 'unreal' - every guard who mentions 'sweat rolls' would die very quickly and the game would become unplayable in short order. However, it comes down to my playstyle being my business and no one else's.

 

However, I'm not a modder and after installing several mods and going through a very steep learning curve with Wyrebash, SKSE, load order, Boss, TESS5edit, NMM, and hours of reading and blending and stuffing around I long for the day when I can actually play the game without crashing with conflicts and more techy stuff to research.

 

So my question is this: Is Skyrim broken or was it left in an incomplete form to fascilitate modding? I mean followers... Were they serious? Lydia can't jump, get's lost, gets in the way, has no quests, no dialogues apart from one or two comments and no immersion. How about a smile? Some AI? Something. With huge areas like followers, horses, alternative housing, marriage, the respect level from NPCs and many others in such an unworkable or incomplete state in its vanilla form it gives every appearance that these areas were left open for the modding community to go to town. So why is it so difficult for the general public to install the mods they want without breaking their games?

 

I realise that some things are just beyond our current abilities and cannot be for technical reasons but I see no reason why I can't have 10 followers if my PC can handle it. Why is it that the follower AI doesn't come with a settings panel where the player can determine how many followers he or she can have and to determine their behaviour and the assignment of variables to allow Lydia to be my housecarl, steward, spouse and follower and to retain all the available triggers and dialogues? As for marriage, can my spouse please hang around until I have actually said, "I do"? What a joke. I have "Amazing Follower Tweaks" and I have it because by drawing my weapon I teleport Lydia away from the hill, rock, jump, stump or minor obstacle that would have her running all around Skyrim to avoid to my side. I consider this to be mandatory to my play and I consider the vanila AI for followers to actually follow to be broken.

 

What I would like to see are separate patches that completely replace the different areas of followers/spouse/housecarl with player definable parametres. Another for horses and mounts. (Don't get me started on those). Another for housing. Another for guard dialogue and a realistic scaling of respect from guards and other NPCs with the player's status and accomplishments. And can we have global and local folders? Why must I have just one body texture set-up affecting all NPCs? Why can't I have the textures written for one follower in her folder to affect only her?

 

What confuses me is that so many 'fixes' actually conflict with the game and cause crashes. My attitude is that if you didn't have the time to do a decent job at least leave the space for others to do it for you. In any case, maybe there are strong technical reasons for the current status and I am playing Canute rebuking the waves but when I see Lydia looking at a rock as if it were Everest I do have cause to doubt it.

[AlienSensei]

I agree.