#i started modding skyrim on console and then i was like

[d1anna]

fighting for my life trying to get my skyrim oc (and npcs) to look good

[anarcho-karlachism]

.

[dawns-beauty]

How to replace Skyrim NPCs with faces made in RaceMenu

(aka the method I used to make all my NPC overhauls)

This is an updated version of the tutorial from this post. I forgot a step originally.

Why use this method?

RaceMenu (RM) gives you a lot more creative freedom than simply editing NPC faces in the Creation Kit (CK).

Just installing RM gives you access to new sliders not found in unmodded Skyrim and you can install further slider mods (such as Expressive FaceGen Morphs, or Khajiit Character Creation Extended, etc.)

It also allows you to use Overlay mods (like DomainWolf's mod series or Freckle Mania 2) which give you many more options to layer warpaints or skin features and create a more detailed face.

Links are to the SE version of the mods, as that's what I'm most familiar with. They likely have LE counterparts.

Things you will need:

RaceMenu (and SKSE; be sure to get the correct versions of both for your game)

NifSkope - you will use this to open and edit the mesh. Here's GamerPoet's setup video

More Informative Console (especially if you're editing mod-added NPCs)

BSA Extractor (or similar mod that lets you open and extract BSAs)

Things I highly recommend:

Creation Kit Platform Extended for Skyrim - makes using the Creation Kit way less like pulling teeth

Unofficial Creation Kit Patch - if you're using AE

An alternate start mod - I like Dimes Quickstart for its simplicity, but any would work

Another Race Menu Rotation Mod - handy for seeing how the back of hairs look

Stand still in RaceMenu (OAR) - stops the character from wiggling out of frame

If you're looking to edit an NPC from an unplayable race (Elder, Child, etc.) you will likely need a mod that makes that race playable

Fun Stuff for diverse options:

Extra slider mods (I like Expressive FaceGen Morphs)

Skin Overlay Mods (for extra detailed faces)

If you want to get REAL funky with it, you can also use OutfitStudio to have a lot better time sculpting/getting super wild with assets, but that's too advanced for this tutorial (and my method is very 'goof around until it just works.'

I don't really want to cover using mod-added headparts (like eyes, hairs, etc.) There are basically two options there: add them as new headparts for your mod or make your mod dependent on the mod the headparts are from. The second way is probably simpler for beginners, but I definitely suggest installing Creation Kit Platform Extended, as it will allow you to load the other mods as masters without the Suffering™.

The Workflow

1. Design your character like you would a player character. For this example, I am redesigning Arcadia.

A recommendation: unless you really feel like you need to change it, it is typically better to make the Weight slider match the NPC's actual weight. You can see this value using either SSE Edit or the Creation Kit.

It is no big deal if you don't, but if you change the weight and load the mod into an already existing save you will get a gap between the NPC's neck and body (unless you use Save Unbaker.)

Be careful, though, there is a RaceMenu bug where if you load up RM again after exiting, it changes the weight by .01. So annoying.

For Skin Tone choice, if you do a custom skin tone (by pressing 'E' while hovering over the slider) I would recommend leaving the transparency slider (the 'A' value) at 100% (though I usually make the exception for Khajiit and Argonians.) This info will go into the Interpolation Value box in the CK, and the RM values can't be directly input, so you have to calculate the value with a (RM Number/255 = X/100, solve for X which is your Interpolation Value)

1a. If you are planning on adding faceparts from mods to your own plugin, I recommend saving and doing that now. Then come back to your save and change your headparts to the versions from your plugin. If you want to just have the other mods as masters, you can skip this.

2. Once you're satisfied with your design, I recommend saving your game and saving your head as a preset (click to enlarge):

3. Now, you will need to write down some stuff.

Skin Tone (RGB value):

Hover over Skin Tone slider. Press 'E'.

write down the R G B values (and A if you change it, see above note)

Even if you use a default skin tone, this is the best way to make sure you get the correct value for the CK.

Weight (number)

Scars (name) (if applicable)

Hair (name)

Facial Hair (name) (if applicable)

Eye Color (name)

Brow Type (name)

Writing down Hair Color is optional: with this method, the hair will inherit color from the head you export, not the CK value. Plus, RM's values are not really useful, because the default hair colors are named.

It's the same with the Face Complexion (wrinkles, etc), with this method it is exported with the head mesh.

4. Export the Sculpt:

It should end up in your SKSE folder (SKSE\Plugins\CharGen), wherever that is for you

5a. Method 1 (works for both Vanilla and Mod-added NPCs): get your NPC in front of you, either by console command (example with J'zargo):

~ help 'J'zargo'

then, using their RefID (the number that appears next to their name) type:

player.placeatme 0001C1A3

Or find them in-world.

With the mod More Informative Console installed, reopen the console (~) and click on them. Write down their BaseID.

5b. For Vanilla NPCs: close your game and search for your character's name on UESP and find their BaseID. Copy this number.

6. Open your BSA extractor of choice and Skyrim's data folder. Find the Skyrim - Textures0.bsa. Open with your BSA extractor, and paste the BaseID in the search box

Check the checkbox next to the main facegen file only and extract somewhere easy to find.

7. Repeat this process with the Skyrim - Meshes0 file.

8. Create a new mod folder. You can either make a mod directly in the mod organizer (MO2 lets you right click in the left pane -> All Mods -> Create Empty Mod Above) or on your desktop.

Cut and paste the 'textures' and 'meshes' files you just extracted into your mod folder. If you are installing it via archive, go ahead and zip and install the folder.

9. Now open the Creation Kit. Use the folder icon to load your masters.

Pick Skyrim, Update, DLC (if applicable), and any other mods you want to be masters for your mod (for eyes, hairs, etc.) If you've made your plugin already for headparts, just load it up.

10. In the Object Window, expand the Actors -> Actor -> Actor tabs and now you have a lot of tabs with Race names. Find the race your NPC belongs to then open the appropriate gender tab. Alternatively, you can just search the character's name in the searchbox.

11. Find your NPC's name and double click. This opens their Actor window, which is where you will use all the data you wrote down.

If you want a preview of their face, tick the box at the bottom of the window.

For weight adjustments: go to the Traits Tab. For all other values you need to worry about for this tutorial, go to the Character Gen Parts.

So, to parse this: you can ignore the Face Tint Layers box and pretty much everything on the left side of the screen.

Face Tinting Color

Type in your values for R G and B (you can ignore the Preset dropdown completely.) The Interpolation value corresponsed to the 'A' value, so unless you are working on Khajiit or Argonians, it will probably always be 1.

Base Head Parts

To change stuff in this section, click the line you want to change then go down to the dropbox below it and change it to what you want Face - unless you're using something like High Poly Heads, you can ignore this Everything else in this box: change to what you wrote down for each

Additional Head Parts

This is mainly used for scars and functions a little differently. To add a scar, you need to go to the Object window again. You can expand the Character tab and click 'HeadPart' then search the name of the scar you want. Click and drag the line with your scar into the Additional Head Parts box and it should show up there.

12. Once you've got the above like you want it, hit 'Ok', save your plugin. Now, to make the next step a little easier, you can click the NPC name in the Object Window again and hit f4.

This will export the meshes/textures file folders to the mod you just made in step 8.

Go ahead and exit the CK now

13. Go your your files exported from the last step. Open a second window from the files you exported from SKSE.

Open both meshes in two separate NifSkope windows.

If your SKSE head has a weird broken neck mesh like above, that's not a problem and can be ignored.

You absolutely must make sure your headparts match the head you exported from RaceMenu exactly, or you will get the dreaded dark face bug.

Now, you will need to find the Head textures in the head you exported from the CK. If your NifSkope is set up like mine, it should look like this:

Copy this line and paste it into the SKSE head in the same slot.

Save the SKSE NifSkope and close.

14. Rename the SKSE files (both .dds and .nif) to the number your exported heads are. You can then copy and paste your your SKSE files to their respective folders in your step 8 mod folder:

the .nif file goes in meshes/actors/character/FaceGenData/FaceGeom/[name of plugin]

the .dds file goes into textures/actors/character/FaceGenData/FaceTint/[name of plugin]

And now you're ready for testing! At this point I also recommend taking a second and converting your plugin to an ESPFE via SSE Edit. It's pretty simple and there are tutorials out there.

Scully, you're not gonna believe this.

[uesp]

hi! i saw the guide to make sure Skyrim doesnt update, and i have to thank you very much for that!

unfortunately, im running out of space on my pc and have to get uninstall skyrim and all my mods. is there any way to guarantee that, if i ever reinstall, it wont install the lastest version?

i really dont care about having the latest version even months from now, i just wanna make sure ill have an easy time getting mods back when i do reinstall

thanks for any and all help!

I'm not aware if you can prevent a fresh install from being the latest version (my assumption is no, but if anyone knows more please feel free to add on your knowledge), but you can downgrade to any previous version. And here is an older guide I've written on how to do this for Starfield, but the general instructions on how to do this are the same:

How to Revert Updates on Steam

There may be times where you wish to revert an update. For example, there may be mod conflicts from an update, the update may have caused unintended issues for your save, or you may simply wish to experience an earlier version of the game again. Doing so simply requires you to replace the updated files with their earlier version, and disable future updates until you wish to progress to the updated version. However, this will require more work unless you regularly backup your game files. Also, you will likely want to back your game files before you attempt to revert to an earlier version.

It is possible to download the necessary files to downgrade your game version from Steam. First you will need to access the steam console. Using the Run program on Windows and input:

steam://open/console

This will open a normally hidden tab of the Steam browser, the Console tab. At the bottom of the page will be a command line. The general format for the command is:

download_depot [App ID] [Depot ID] [Manifest ID]

For Starfield, the App ID is 1716740, and the Depot ID for the updates is 1716741. The Manifest ID is for the specific patch you wish to download. The Manifest IDs are documented on SteamDB. For example, at time of writing they currently are 4447793252473787578, 8383043874900915235, and 3276175983502685135. If you wanted version 1.7.29, you would input:

download_depot 1716740 1716741 8383043874900915235

If you wanted the files for the initial release, you would input the command:

download_depot 1716740 1716741 4447793252473787578

Once the command is inputted, Steam will download the depot. You will be able to tell it worked by this appearing in the console log after your command (this example being for the initial release of the game):

Downloading depot 1716741 (27 MB) ...

Followed by:

Depot download complete : "[Steam Download Path]Steam\steamapps\content\app_1716740\depot_1716741" (21 files, manifest 4447793252473787578)

Note that the exact location of your download location will change depending on where you installed Steam, but as the log helpfully tells you where that is it should not be hard to find. Go to the folder listed there, and extract its contents to your Starfield install location. Replace all files with the files from the depot, and you will have successfully reverted to a previous version of the game. When you start the game, it will be this earlier version once more.

Keep in mind that reverting to a previous version on a save that was created on a more recent version is likely to cause issues, if it works at all.

[mightymizora]

just saw your dao mention in another ask and i'm wondering if you have a ted talk about why you love it?

i also REALLY loved dao but i recently replayed it and i'm wondering how much of my affection was just nostalgia. some of that is just an aging game of course, but if dao came out today i'd be even crankier about some of the design choices than I am about bg3 (and I have a lot of cranky bg3 thoughts that I don't post haha)

I think I last played in 2021 probably, and that was my 9th playthrough lol.

Is it perfect? No, but to me it stands up really well still. I like CRPGs but with older ones I sometimes struggled with how much you needed to use your imagination and/or how unintuitive the UI was. I will say I first played DAO on console and switching to PC was a revelation, it was so definitely built for hotkeys and mod support! But I loved the voiced companions, the 3D graphics.

I think there have been other less graphically ambitious CRPGs that have also done things I love. The Pillars of Eternity games, for sure. Some of the Owlcat games. But there's something about the character design of the companions, the way the dwarven origins weave into the main narrative, the way the story unfolds in exactly the amount of time it needs to take that I love in Origins. (side note I think people that didn't like it so much really should play as dwarves, and if they don't like it for aesthetic reasons they need to. Grow up. That's my TED talk lmao)

Some of it is nostalgia, for sure. We've come a long way in a lot of areas from 2009. But I think the balance of exploration and linear storytelling is a sweet spot for me, I find endless open world really tiring unless there's excellent environmental storytelling happening (Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas do it very well, a lot of other games including Inquisition don't do it as well for me.) I love the writing on the whole, especially the two dwarf paths which are the highlight of the whole series IMO. You have a lot of narrative freedom with your warden in a way you don't with Hawke or the Inquisitor, and that's got a lot to do with not having a voiced protag. I'm not a voiced protag fan at all, unless you are telling a very tight story. I feel like if you're trying to allow for a really customisable main character it always hinders things. Shepard is that sweet spot for many, but is extremely hard to get right; it basically works because they are set in a very particular position at the start of the game, but their past is very broad brushstrokes, and the v/o is kept very neutral.

I actually am in the minority of loving BG3, lol. It's again not perfect and I do mourn the game we might have had from early access, but they struck a balance between appeal to audience, graphic level, scale and sheer amount of options that I think is insanely impressive technically. I just wish they'd kept a little more of what they wanted to do instead of responding quite so much to fan desires, but then again the game would have appealed to a much smaller audience had they done that.

But to me, BG3 combines gameplay I actually enjoy, characters I actually love, environments I like playing in, and choices that feel really juicy, and that's what I want in a game. And that feels like origins to me.

Origins certainly isn't perfect and there's BIG things I would change (why do the villainous men all have big noses? Why are the skin tones so poor? Why would a human society based on a church led by women with a woman as prophet still be patriarchal and sexist?) but I think it still has some of the more interesting writing of the series balanced with the narrative freedom I like in an RPG like that.

[awesomechocolatesauce]

Astarion: "You know, I didn't care for you when we first met. But I do now. Being with you is about more than lust or manipulating you into a tactical alliance. I love you. I love this. And I want it all."

---

Did I replay this scene over and over to get screenshots? Perhaps.

This scene just... it's so important to me. He takes her to his grave, where his mortal life ended and his slavery began. Then, after he's truly free, he decides he wants to live again, so he carves another year into the tombstone and turns to his love and says "I love you. I want you. I want it all."

He's starting out this "new life" by making love to the person who was by his side since the day they met, even though he threatened her with a dagger to her throat (which is hot, don't come at me). And he's making love to her on top of the place that started his two hundred years of torment, so now he reclaimed it, as well as his bodily autonomy. Symbolic, and also...hot.

Honestly, as a full time console player, mods never really mattered to me. I'm one of those people who plays vanilla Skyrim and Sims and is perfectly content with my limitations...except for this scene. With the free cam mod, it shows him climbing on top of her while hooking her leg with his knee as he lays her down onto her back in a passionate kiss. Hey, Larian, WHY YOU GOTTA HIDE THAT?! Biggest crime! Jail!

I've seen some people say how "weird" it is to have sex on top of his grave, and I'm just like "Uh...why?" Compared to the other things you can do in this game (bear scene, the Emperor scene, Haarlep), this is far more normal. It's not like he's still buried there, or anyone else is, so it's fair game in my eyes. Also, you decided to romance a damn vampire! What exactly did you expect? A feather bed covered in rose petals? Nah, we're doing a graveyard smash!

I plan on posting more screenshots as I play through Act 3 on the intent of actually finishing this damn game, so stay tuned. 💕

[mangosimoothie]

📩 Simblr question of the day: A non-sims simblr question/s! Besides Sims, what other games do you play and what platforms do you like to play on? (PC, Console, Mobile...) What would genre/s do you tend to lean towards? (FPS, Sandbox, Multiplayer, Simulation, etc.) Bonus! If a game has character customization, do you like to make a completely new character everytime or do you like to use the same OC/Sim? Feel free to ramble, especially if you really enjoy a game (❁´◡`❁)

answer in whatever way is most comfortable for you and feel free to share this SQOTD around, make sure to use the hashtag SQOTD and tag me in separate posts ~ 💛

Omg yay my first SQOTD! It is an honor 😌

Right now my go to game is Stardew Valley! I just started my second save (which is why I’m a little inactive here rn 😅 ) Usually I play games on my switch, but I decided to buy it again on steam so I could play on my laptop and use mods and omg best decision ever!! My lil modded character and farm are so cute 🥰 in games with character customization it’s always like, a version of Mango - my Internet/fictional self. I’m Maya and my cat is Zami - in Stardew we’re Mango and Zoomie. When I played as a kajiit in Skyrim I was Za’mijaa. My simself is also named Mango, hence the name of this blog.

My other top games include: Outerwilds, Hades, Ooblets, Undertale, BOTW/TOTK all which I played on my switch. Lately I’ve been really interested in learning about writing for video games. Like, do they have writers rooms? Do they hire out for a script? How does it work?? As a writer who loves games with amazing story, I would love to be involved in the creative/writing side of game development.

[progmetol]

13 levels of fallout 4 later and this play through is already shaping up to be a disaster

The Commonwealth Defense Agency has been formed. HQ in a shitty house in Sanctuary. We also have a greenhouse but it has no food because I can’t find fertilizer to build planters so all the farmers are just growing shit on raw grass. The whole settlement is covered in US flags and fairy lights.

Mama Murphy is a fuckin freeloader and I can’t assign her to any jobs for some reason. Cecil has told her 50 times to cut the jet but she won’t.

Valentine went swimming in a 50 ft pit of irradiated water. Okay

Valentine also really likes to stand in doorways. Hancock is the opposite and he likes to follow me 500 ft behind despite me being a sniper (I found a laser rifle with a recon scope and it slaps) and refuses to use anything but his dinky shotgun.

Cecil has acquired two RPGs within five minutes and already proceeded to use all ten missiles he had on super mutants, whiffing half of them

Made friends with the funny fellas at Graygarden :) they may end up becoming an army of patriotic murder machines in time but for now they will garden. Also Cecil won a car.

Blew up Kellogg with a fat man. I used alternate start so Cecil has literally no idea who Shaun is btw. He just found a holotape, heard a baby being kidnapped on the other end, and thought “yeah I’ll try to find him I don’t have much better to do—“ now he has something better to do called building his militia. It’s so joever for every other faction.

Hancock refuses to change out of his John Hancock cosplay drip. Honestly it’s growing on me. Kinda based

Once again this game would be soft locked if I was on console because Sonya the eyebot has some of the worst AI I’ve ever seen in a beth game. I miss ED-E. And Boone. I wish someone modded Boone into this game.

I will take suggestions on what to do next because I don’t know this game very well like I do New Vegas and Skyrim.

[danshive]

Skyrim Artificial Difficulty Increase

An artificial difficulty level for #Skyrim I've decided I like is basically starting the game at level 21 to artificially inflate level scaling. Instead of enemies simply taking less damage while you take more, the enemies selected are stronger variants.

By messing with level scaling, you encounter tougher enemies before you've caught up with them, but it still feels like options are on the table.

How Do

This can be done by getting Pickpocket to 100, and something else that doesn't make you stronger in combat (I chose Lockpick) to around 70, then spending perks on Pickpocket, Lockpick, and maybe some other-non-combat things.

The exact numbers to be level 21 could change depending on character race (different starting skills).

When leveling up those first twenty levels, put nothing into health.

This is pretty easy to pull off on PC with console commands, or with the cheat room mod on PC or XBox, but can sorta be done on anything if you're wiling to immediately level pickpocket and such once out of Helgen.

With the cheat room or console commands, though, you can leave Helgen with 100 health, no well-trained combat skills, and everything scaled to match a level 21 player.

Your few advantages are being a master pickpocket, plenty of stamina and/or magicka, and better loot (both from being level 21, and perks in the Lockpick tree if you took those).

Though if you REALLY wanted to, you could set Magicka and Stamina back to 100 if on PC or XBox.

Why Do

I significantly prefer this to just raising the difficulty in the menu, as I really don't think the game's balanced for that. It takes some of your offensive options and turns them into toothpicks, and it just feels like a lot of options are off the table.

By messing with level scaling, you encounter tougher enemies before you've caught up with them, but it still feels like options are on the table.

Unless, of course, you want to be an Illusionist, as those spells have level limits. Granted, if you really want to be an Illusionist, level up Illusion and put perks into THAT as part of the first twenty. Which segues nicely into...

Backstory

I also like the idea of choosing one skill tree to immediately cheat up to 100, and another to 70, in order to start Skyrim with a backstory.

It was only after I came up with this idea and tried it out some that I realized a lockpicking pickpocket with terrible sneak could very easily explain WHY my character was trying to cross the border into Skyrim.

Which got me thinking that you could do similar things with an alchemist salesperson, or a sneaky illusionist, or whatever. Less about the challenge, and more "my character has a history, thank you."

[cockles-my-dockles]

henlo, I saw your post about Gore in the tags on here and I just wanted to reach out and nerd out and say that if you feel immensely close to him and inspired by him and feel like hes such a friend shaped dude (all of which im giving a big hard AGREE to because s a m e ;__;) i highly highly recommend Vigilant and his integration into it. I'd have never tried Vigilant on my own, I've never really had a big interest in the DLC quest mods on Nexus usually, but after hearing so many things about his tie in with it that the dev worked so hard on, I made a dragonborn who's father was a vigilant, and its a whole thing and shes now a major OC of mine who is rotting my brain, and I did Vigilant and im gonna warn you now- you are gonna SOB. OUTRIGHT C R Y. Vigilant is going to throat punch you and then Gore is gonna come in with the STEEL CHAIR. It is so freaking good and I cannot recommend it enough; i restarted this OC on a new game to 1: iron out my load order some and 2: to really nail down her lore and I'm just starting Vigilant on this save and I am s o feral at the prospect of living through all of it again; of the emotional journey, the way Gore just,,, completely and utterly just became s o much of a beacon of hope and light and family and chosen blood for me; he was already all of that already to me by the time I did Vigilant but Vigilant made it that much MORE. Vigilant itself is also just an amazing work of art honestly; the amount of lore it digs into, stuff I'd only heard whispers of in TES lore research (I'm a bit of a nerd and i really like learning about the lore of TES, I joke I know more about TES history than real life history sfgksdkg) and it just really is very ambitious and does so much and Gore only adds to the experience in such a unique way that will have you just absolutely ready to start screaming from your rooftop at 2am. I hope you continue to enjoy your Skyrim adventures with the boy by your side and I hope you enjoy Vigilant if you decide to try it out!

God you have no idea how much I WANT TO, but I'm a console player and as far as I know, Vigilant isn't on Xbox as far as I'm aware! That, plus console skyrim having a mod and size limit really makes it impossible to play it, although I've been very tempted to watch someone play through it with him!

Either way, thank you for the recommendation!!!

[tomsawyee]

Every time a Pretty Good RPG comes out, the same brand of post crops up and gets reblogged by Pretty Much Everyone, and it always functionally boils down to:

"See??? People still love single player games!!"

It's pretty easy to see where this take comes from. With the advent of consoles and internet connections that can functionally "always" be online (ymmv, our private internet infrastructure is woefully lacking), AAA has been on a shift away from offline standalone experiences for ~15 years.

What this take ignores, though, is where this shift in what gets greenlit and published comes from.

No amount of "proof" that single player character RPGs still make money is going to change the fact that shitting out Call of Duty every year makes more.

The games audience on Tumblr is heavily skewed toward character games with flexibly approachable RPG mechanics and gamified relationship interactions. This community, large though it may seem from the inside as all fan communities feel, is a microscopic slice of the games market. Every rando who's ever worked in a store that sells consoles can confirm: The vast majority of Xbox One's and PS4's are/were Call of Duty + Fifa and/or Madden Machines. These games are annual releases with minimal change between titles and robust+heavily monetized online features.

Bioware didn't shit out Anthem because the (exhausted, mismanaged) workers there wanted to make Destiny: But Worse. Bethesda didn't shit out Fallout 76 because their devs thought it would be a compelling restructuring of the IP they had already rendered unrecognizable under the survival MMO umbrella. They did it because EA and Zenimax, publicly traded billion dollar parasites, wanted to cash in on the fact that, if you can tap this content well just right, you can convince people to keep paying for your game forever. They did it because we've been modding the shit out of Skyrim for 10 years and they're losing sleep over the fact that we haven't had to keep giving Zenimax (Microsoft, lmao) more money to do so.

The antidote to this problem isn't to cross our fingers and pray that Dragon Age 4 doesn't suck (It's going to) (If it even comes out at all). It's to stop placing our hopes in the hands of enormous publishers, and to do start digging for games that scratch the itches AAA is intentionally missing because they aren't infinite money pits.

The antidote to the frustration of corporatized art-making is the same for every medium: Go looking for the thing that you want. It probably exists, and it is probably being drowned out in the mainstream by multi-million dollar marketing campaigns for Assassin's Creed: We Promise We Don't Abuse Women Anymore Lmao XIII. You don't even have to manually dig through itch.io-- Investing a little more in this hobby we all love can start with something as simple as clicking the "more like this" equivalent tab on whatever online marketplace you use and reading more about a title that doesn't cost $59.99 but still catches your eye. Mainstream indie-adjacent publishers like Devolver and Annapurna Interactive have strong recent track records of enabling small/medium studios to make games that are compelling and fun without the looming specter of infinite monetization and breaking employee's backs to make sure horse balls shrink in the cold.

I really hope you consider this perspective if you feel like BG3 came out of nowhere. It was in Early Access for almost 3 years, but it was largely panned from the mainstream Hype Cycle. Larian self-publishes, and games journalism is by-and-large not journalism but marketing, so this enormous game was incredibly easy to miss if you weren't actively looking for it.

Every tier of this industry has its own foundational rot, its own bad actors, its own entities that we really don't want to give our money to. But I promise, taking a little bit of time to go digging past the AAA buzz of the week will net you a better experience than waiting for megacorps to place something in front of you that is worthy of your time.

[twosides--samecoin]

🤩and 💌 perhaps?

🤩 What led to your interest in the fandom?

As is the answer for most things in life: Depression! Fallout has been part of my life since I was 18, when I first tried the GOTY PS3 edition of F3. Skyrim had come out and I had played it 'til the load screens went on for 10 minutes on console, so I picked up F3 in 2012. I'm 29 now and have consistently returned to the games when life goes wrong.

My first foray into "fandom" was working on Nukapedia, the old Fallout Wiki. I preordered Fallout 4 and was editing on day 1 - I haven't done that for several years now, but I'm proud to have worked on it and to have helped others find the information they need. Makes sense to me now that I went on to journalism school and now paralegal :P

I'm here now because: Depression! I had totalled my car and gone through a cancer scare all at once and was disassociating from a failing relationship. So I returned to Fallout 4, played the shit out of it, modded it to high heavens and still couldn't get enough.. so I tried visiting AO3 for the first time.

Within a week I was drafting my ideas for Long Time Running! The rest is history archived >:P I have never interacted with fanfiction/Tumblr fandom, let alone read or written fanfic, and have learned a lot in the past year and a half of writing.

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write?

Enemies to XYZ. It's something I stumbled into and learned the name for after I started writing. To be fair to RJ, it's not his war and he didn't want to be enemies, but made a lot of mistakes and made himself one. To be fair to Olivia, she had some pretty serious safety concerns, personal and national, that made her treat him pretty harsh. Now that we're past the enemies stage I am utterly fascinated by the awkwardness post-enemies. You can't just skip to lovers with RJ and Olivia. They have to learn to be friends and find neutral ground, which has a lot of starts and stops right now.

[cescalr]

For the Minecraft asks! 🐺 Do you tend to tame wolves? 🌲Favourite tree and type of wood? 🎒 What items do you typically keep on your hotbar?📅 How long have you been playing minecraft?

Heyo :D

Wolf; I prefer to tame cats, because they scare away creepers and I'm terrible at keeping an eye on my surroundings, but if I have bones on me and there's a wolf near by, I don't go out of my way to avoid taming them :) they're useful, mostly admittedly because I'm bad at the 'new' combat system - can't see the bar to know the timing, and I have a terrible internal sense of such.

Tree; I'm partial to acacia trees and dark oak wood! Spruce, I like a lot, just not as much. Birch is painfully bright, while jungle is pretty situational and oak is just... kinda there.

Hotbar;

I like an organised inventory. From left to right; slot 1 - sword, then axe, pickaxe, shovel, followed by a slot that I swap between etc tools like hoes + shears + flint and steel, next is a water bucket because I'm clumsy and blind and likely to fall off things, and next is food, then torches. If I used elytra (I've never actually bothered to go get any yet since they were introduced; I tend to play on modded older versions) I'd swap the bucket out for rockets, probably! I make space for blocks as and when I need them availible, usually instead of etc tools and the water bucket. I like modded mc bc I like adding the hold alt to hotswap items from the inventory column above each hotbar slot mod - let's me free up some space by doubling up options so I can have some availability for quick access to blocks :). Mods my beloved qol changers lol

Calendar; Oh, forever, lol. Been playing minecraft snce I was 12-ish, 2012/13 or so! 1.7 would be the version of the game I started on, plus the legacy console edition. Really got into it in 2015, though - I was very busy playing skyrim in 2012&13, and besides yogs semi-scripted was still going strong then so there was less of a need for me to play it myself, since I could just watch a whole bunch of really funky stories unfold, and my computer at the time couldn't run modded well at all, and I prefer a modded experience in most modable games I play. :) but nearly all the stuff I watched in 2012-14 was dead and gone by 15, only flux buddies really remained, so I had reason to play it myself again (and doubly so Gopher was back to playing Bethesda games, so I didn't need to play those myself either, which spared up time for important things like my GCSEs, lmao). Anyway, I spend most of my time in 1.12 or 1.18, lately, though of course I did a stint in 1.16 and I'm trying out 1.19, though I'm considering waiting until 1.20 is fully established to move onto newer modpacks properly rather than just .easing around a bit and then going back to good ol' stoneblock or hexxit or what have you. I'm not a fully old school player, beta mc had a lot of things I'm not a major fan of and I do believe most additions since have improved the game - but I am a fan of the old school mods, so there's that, I guess. Can't help the Nostalgia :D. Plus, some of them are just good. Little Tiles is a great mod for builders, for example. Anyway, that's getting way off topic, lol.

Thanks for sending these in!!

[geroya]

HIIIIII heath love u and hope ur having a good day!!!!!! i was curious and wondered when u play skyrim is there a specific character you like to play? do you have a favorite faction to join? what's ur go-to play style? and (only if you want to) do you have any favorite mods? MWAH ❤️ KEESES

HIIIIII BELOVED JO <333 i had a pretty a-okay day !!!!! i hope you had a good day !!!

when i play skyrim i usually go back & forth between choosing a bosmer & dunmer rogue-like with a lot of their skill points put towards archery, speech, & the sneaking skill trees (like lockpicking & pickpocketing). mostly i start out this way, with my points put towards those sneaking skill trees so that it makes it easier for them to pass those skill checks, but then i also like to keep an off-hand weapon (like a dagger or one-hand sword) & level the one-handed perk alongside light armor for close encounters bc i don't always have a follower with me before this more recent run (mainly BECAUSE of my playstyle bc i preferred more quiet & i would forget that lydia LOVES to stomp around & charge enemies & traps &get us both killed mwah)

i NEVER touch any of the magic perks bc i get bored with the playstyle of being a mage. it works for other people but i cannot do it mwah. the extent of my using magic was using summons USUALLY HAHA

still figuring out my current run tbh!!!!

hmm my favorite faction... i like the nightingales from the thieves guild quest ! also it is ALWAYS fun to do the dark brotherhood quests so i suppose them too.

as for favorite mods ! im trying to remember what all are mods & what arent haha. my brother put in a few mods on my console back when we still shared it so ive been playing w my game like this for YEARS that idk what is vanilla & what isnt.

many of my mods are like. visuals, immersion, stuff like that, HOWEVER, i am a very big fan of the alternate start mod, even if i can NEVER choose how i would like to start. i just added follower mods so i am !!! having fun with those !!! trying this campfire mod & bc i like to play survival mode it adds to the experience. <3 & figuring out this character overhaul mod too bc it SOUNDS cool i like the concept HOWEVER i have yet to properly use it </3

[hungrydovahkiin]

Okey, I need to say this.

I was, and I am. A console player, I play mostly in my old Xbox One, Bonita (Yes, I call my Xbox one, “Bonita”)

In my Xbox I play for the first time dragon age, mass effect, Skyrim, and most of my favorites games.

And, for obvious reasons, In dragon age or mass effect, I never could play with mods.

Short version, like a week ago, I start to play DA:O in my laptop, (is a old one, but is ok, I like it a lot) and the freaking first thing I did, was, installing mods, mostly the famous ones, The Grey wardens of ferelden, the one what give you the option of have 3 party members AND the mabari, etc etc.

Now, I can’t imagine my game without it, but i really love play in Bonita, probably I just will get over it, but I wanna say it, most of the part of the community are pc players, and idk, I just wanna say it for some reason.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Josh trivia: my first tumblr URL was the-legend-of-elder-scrolls (I actually can’t remember if the dashes were there though lol), with “the legend of” referring to guess what, and the Elder Scrolls referring to, uh, yeah.

Skyrim’s a game that throughout my life I’ve probably put over 2000 hours in. I don’t actually know the exact number - I’ve played it through I think 3 different Xbox 360s with lots of corruption across them all, and even outside of the Xboxes failing me I’ve had plenty of 200+ hour files where I got bored of the character I was playing or bored by having done every major questline and would just start new files that would get however far they do.

Obsession went beyond just playing the game as well - my favourite YouTube channel was Fudgemuppet and I’d watch tons of other channels too, especially modded content, I think longing for the PC version of the game while I remained trapped on console lol. I’d stare at the UESP for hours, get into arguments in comment sections, Facebook even had a political beliefs thing you could add in your personal info for some scuffed reason where I established myself as a firm follower of the Stormcloaks. I was too stupid to get dosbox running on my laptop so I couldn’t play Arena and Daggerfall, and I was too “I don’t have a way to digitally use cash at all” to play Morrowind, but I could certainly get Oblivion on Xbox 360 as well and... not quite play the fuck out of it to the same degree because man that core gameplay feel is very rough around the edges, even compared to Skyrim. But still! For a few years I lived and breathed Skyrim and it was the best.

But yeah that, did kinda stop. Primarily because of how long I’d played the game for. It was just very easy for me to get bored of it. “Seen it all” mentality because true enough I’d finished every main guild questline and DLC story and Daedric quest like ten times over. I knew how to game the systems so strongly in my favour that I wasn’t so much “playing Skyrim” as I was just menuing all the challenge out of the game. I was also so committed to roleplaying specific characters with specific equipments that I’d almost lock myself out of doing fun things as well as purposefully kind of cheat the game (as much as 360 allows anyway) to achieve my desired build faster. But that’d mean once I had all the components of a build I’d kind of lose all desire to play that character anymore lol. I just lost the ability to actually enjoy the game anymore.

However, I’d never say I lost interest. There’s a classic question - if you could replay any game again for the first time, what’d it be? - obviously it’s purely a hypothetical you can never really do but, my answer’s probably Skyrim. And while I can’t replay it for the first time, perhaps if I give myself a good few years away from the game, it can feel fresh to me again? And that’s what I’ve done. After god knows how many years, I’ve gotten the game on PC and started finally replaying it. Several times before now I’d considered pulling the trigger and buying the Switch version for ease of accessibility - but the £50 price tag for an 11 year old game is steep lol. So we’re on PC now using Steam’s family sharing thing, since my little brother owns the game. It was actually helping him out with mods that kind of inspired me to push myself towards playing the game again, and yeah, here we are. I have Skyrim on Steam. We gaming.

Since it’s a relevant detail, I am running a couple of mods - but it’s important to me to fundamentally preserve the vanilla experience here. That’s what I fell in love with in Skyrim in the first place, and it’s what I’m here to re-experience all these years later. Accordingly, I’d describe basically every mod I downloaded as just adding a bit of atmospheric and some gameplay flavour. I didn’t even wanna fuck with Nexus so I’ve just gone workshop and downloaded the entire cities and villages enhanced collection, the entire sounds of Skyrim collection, what’s basically an immersive armours substitute adding the armours individually (I deliberately excluded one set that pushed outside the lore a bit too much for my taking) and an actual immersive weapons substitute just to get a couple more weapon types that still work with the world. I actually think the only gameplay mods I really got are a few that make like Daedric and other unique weapons a bit stronger to justify their lore position a bit more. For all intents and purposes though I really am just playing vanilla Skyrim but with a touch more atmosphere by way of sights and sounds. And that’s what I wanted.

Aside from that, the one other rule I’ve really set for myself in order to get the most out of this is just try play it like it’s my first time. By which I mean, let myself get distracted. Don’t lose myself in overarching goals. Wander into that cave. Take your time exploring. Chat with NPCs. I have a character, but I’m not really roleplaying. I’ve not specifically decided on an armour set I’d really like. I’m playing on apprentice even to avoid getting bored by damage spongy combat encounters. On finishing Helgen I walked westward, away from Helgen and that first main story segment I’ve done to death. I’ll get back to it eventually, sure, but I’m not interested in the urgency anymore. Instead I met Angi in her cabin in the southern mountains of Skyrim, where she trained my archery - which is not a thing I think I was ever even aware of having existed. Then I went down to Falkreath, where I learned that the current Jarl is a lazy bastard whose uncle the former Jarl was basically demoted in what almost seems to be an Imperial ploy. It’s weird, a younger Josh got so wrapped up in Tamriel’s version of the creation myth or whatever that I didn’t even really engage with the minutiae of actual current lore in just Skyrim as a place. And sure, reading wiki pages for hours has its charm, but just playing the game itself and talking to people and reading books? This is what I missed. This is what’s making Skyrim fun for me again.

I don’t know if I have a fun or interesting or really at all conclusive way to approach this post. I’m really just playing Skyrim again and wanted to talk about it, for nobody’s sake but my own. I’m just so happy to finally be playing it again.