The Gaming Den

*cough* invested magic *cough*

Also skyui. While it has its own redo of the favorites menu, I find Categorized Favorites Menu much better.

Also the Paarthurnax Fix.

Also 3d NPCs.

I'll copy paste my mods list when I get home.

"Cloaks of Skyrim" is something that should have been in vanilla. How do you have a faction called the Stormcloaks if you don't have any cloaks?

What does Paarthernax Fix do? I'm not paying to register at a mod community site and it's not on Steam anymore.
Ok, I just noticed that they do actually have a free option. I'm still dubious, given how many require old school mucking about with game files and my past experiences trying to mod Minecraft and Civ that way, but I'm making an account...

Also, Nall, I'm looking at your steam favourite mods now.

My steam favorites list is incomplete, since most of the things you really, really want are only available on the nexus.

You should also get Quality World Map, Ultimate Follower Overhaul, Unread Books Glow, any one of the ENBs, Achieve That, SkyTEST, Lanterns of Skyrim, Coverwomen, Warzones, and Live Another Life.

Ugh... how many of them require mucking around with files? I much prefer being able to tell steam "add this and keep it updated" or just run an installer.

If you use the nexus mod manager, you don't have to muck with files...

Oh, good to know. I'm going to test out Cloaks of Skyrim, if that doesn't work, I'll reset things and use that.

Skyrim Redone is a great gameplay rebalancer that nerfs the Alchemy -> Smithing -> Enchanting cycle, and adds more effects that slow down time, which are inherently fun.

Someone was even kind enough to do a conversion of my mod so that it's compatible with Skyrim Redone.

I don't particularly care for SkyRe, but whatevs.

I have an interface overhaul called SkyUI, which requires SKSE. It's something of a pain because I can't start Skyrim directly inside Steam. Other than that I have only Lanterns of Skyrim and Unread Books Glow.

SkyUI is pretty much a necessity, though. So whatchagonnado.

Desdan_Mervolam wrote:I have an interface overhaul called SkyUI, which requires SKSE. It's something of a pain because I can't start Skyrim directly inside Steam. Other than that I have only Lanterns of Skyrim and Unread Books Glow.

I actually have the SKSE launch added to Steam as a non-Steam game that sits just above my standard Skyrim entry in my library. It's not perfect, but it's not that much of an issue.

So, I've owned Skyrim for a while but I'm just now getting around to giving it a serious go. At some point do the two mane factions give you the Hard Sell for joining their cause? I mean, from what I've seen the Imperials are kinda oppressive and the Stormcloaks are kinda xenophobic, and the only arguement I've ever gotten from either of them to join is "We could use someone like you!"

Desdan_Mervolam wrote:the two mane factions

To answer your question, no. Essentially, you can lore dive through various books to get a general idea of the two sides. In brief:

Imperials - Enforcing unpopular law that was basically forced on them at sword point by the Thalmor. Reading accounts by various Imperials, it seems like they mostly want the provinces to shut up and play nice while they re-arm for the next war against the Thalmor (who are maybe trying to end physical existence and collapse the Prime Material Plane).

Stormcloaks - Xenophobic isolationists who want all the *anyone not sufficiently Aryan* off their lawn. Ulfric's history indicates that he's a "if it's not working, kill more people" kind of guy who's basically a war criminal. Their best case scenario seems to be driving off all their potential allies and waiting for the Thalmor to come kill them.

The best argument on behalf of the Stormcloaks is that the Empire is letting the Thalmor do shady shit to Talos-worshippers, but the general impression I got was less "the Thalmor snuck into his house at night and heard him muttering a prayer to Talos" and more "this guy tattooed 'I Love Talos' on his balls and ran around tea-bagging people."

Prak_Anima wrote:So, for the people who have Skyrim on PC, what do you consider necessary or good mods? I haven't mucked about with gameplay mods, just a few cosmetic-ish mods like "all enemies have lootable skulls" and "able to hang skulls in your home," so I'm just getting the "vanilla" Legendary experience at the moment.

Faster vanilla horses
Makes horses actually worthwhile. The rest are a matter of taste, but having horses be faster than walking, by a noticable amoutn, is awesome.

The thing that I have seen people really arguing about with which faction to pick is this.
Which do you value more? Religious freedom, or equality?

If you prefer religious freedom, pick the stormcloaks.
If you prefer equality, pick the empire.

The stormcloaks have the dark elf slums, and argonians only allowed to work at the docks.
The empire says no talos.

As someone who had played Morrowind and Oblivion (some Daggerfall), I was a bit put off by the "crapsack world" nature of Skyrim's Tamriel. In the previous games, it felt like the continent was enjoying an imperfect Pax Romana, with the Empire providing a decent degree of stability in spite of the usual injustices (slavery in Morrowind) and corruptions (fairly open Thieves' Guilds getting a nod and a wink from the authorities).

As such, the main character ended up being a hero who defeated threats that would destabilize the nation and often worked towards improving the ongoing problems.

In Skyrim, you find out that Morrowind was obliterated by a giant volcano. The humans in Black Marsh were killed by a floating city and the Argonians proceded to murderfuck half the people in Morrowind who weren't burned to death. Cyrodil is a post-war shit-hole. Hammerfell fought off a Thalmor invasion and is pissed that nobody helped out. The Sumerset Isles were devastated by invading demons. Valenwood and Elsweyr are held by elf-Nazis that are "disappearing" dissidents. Skyrim is infested with Nazi-Nazis. You don't really hear anything about High Rock.

Beating the big bad guy doesn't really improve the world so much as it clears up a possible impediment to World War 2.

I half expected Nazeem to make some sort of comment about how "war never changes."

What gets me is you don't get to kill the Thalmor. I forget which one it was, but one of the gods calls themselves the "nine divines" instead of the "eight divines".

Which means the gods themselves accept Talos as one of their number. Which means the Thalmor are in serious denial and refusing to admit their error because it hurts their ego and their authority. Which means I spend Skyrim doing my impression of Mahasamatman on the Thalmor.

AndreiChekov wrote: If you prefer religious freedom, pick the stormcloaks.

Of course, I rather doubt Daedra worshippers would feel particularly welcome once the Stormcloaks consolidated power.

Maxus wrote:What gets me is you don't get to kill the Thalmor. I forget which one it was, but one of the gods calls themselves the "nine divines" instead of the "eight divines".

Which means the gods themselves accept Talos as one of their number. Which means the Thalmor are in serious denial and refusing to admit their error because it hurts their ego and their authority. Which means I spend Skyrim doing my impression of Mahasamatman on the Thalmor.

You meet Talos in Morrowind and Oblivion (Knights of the Nine). Lore-nerds generally figure that Talos is an aspect of Lorkhan, the god who created the world. The Thalmor see ending Talos worship as a way of weakening the physical universe.

I wanted to fight the Thalmor, too, but I suppose it would've been anti-climactic. You can't say you've beaten the Nazis until you've actually marched on Berlin. World War 2 is brewing, so I wouldn't be surprised to see that being the central conflict of a new game taking place in the Summerset Isles (especially since the lore indicates every hard to draw aspect of the district was smashed by demons).

Maxus wrote:What gets me is you don't get to kill the Thalmor. I forget which one it was, but one of the gods calls themselves the "nine divines" instead of the "eight divines".

Which means the gods themselves accept Talos as one of their number. Which means the Thalmor are in serious denial and refusing to admit their error because it hurts their ego and their authority. Which means I spend Skyrim doing my impression of Mahasamatman on the Thalmor.

The Thalmor know that Talos is a god. They specifically want to do something about that.

Basically, Talos took Lorkhan's place in the Aedra pantheon, Lorkhan being the guy who created the mortal world.

The Thalmor believe that Lorkhan doomed their immortal spirits to realtively short immortal lives by tricking their ancestors and trapping then on Mundus. The Thalmor want all elves to become immortal spirits again. This requires destroying the world.

The first step to destroying the world is to kill all humans because of their connection to the dead god Lorkhan. Talos is especailly hated because he's a human (or three) who ascended and has a very strong connection to Lorkhan.

Basically, the Thalmor's long term goals are to kill all humans and destroy mundus. Talos worship is an obstacle to both.

momothefiddler wrote:

Desdan_Mervolam wrote:I have an interface overhaul called SkyUI, which requires SKSE. It's something of a pain because I can't start Skyrim directly inside Steam. Other than that I have only Lanterns of Skyrim and Unread Books Glow.

I actually have the SKSE launch added to Steam as a non-Steam game that sits just above my standard Skyrim entry in my library. It's not perfect, but it's not that much of an issue.

I use the same solution. It works fine for me. Steam even applies the hours I play SKSE to the normal Skyrim app (if you care about that kind of thing).

Stinktopus wrote:As someone who had played Morrowind and Oblivion (some Daggerfall), I was a bit put off by the "crapsack world" nature of Skyrim's Tamriel. In the previous games, it felt like the continent was enjoying an imperfect Pax Romana, with the Empire providing a decent degree of stability in spite of the usual injustices (slavery in Morrowind) and corruptions (fairly open Thieves' Guilds getting a nod and a wink from the authorities).

As such, the main character ended up being a hero who defeated threats that would destabilize the nation and often worked towards improving the ongoing problems.

In Skyrim, you find out that Morrowind was obliterated by a giant volcano. The humans in Black Marsh were killed by a floating city and the Argonians proceded to murderfuck half the people in Morrowind who weren't burned to death. Cyrodil is a post-war shit-hole. Hammerfell fought off a Thalmor invasion and is pissed that nobody helped out. The Sumerset Isles were devastated by invading demons. Valenwood and Elsweyr are held by elf-Nazis that are "disappearing" dissidents. Skyrim is infested with Nazi-Nazis. You don't really hear anything about High Rock.

Beating the big bad guy doesn't really improve the world so much as it clears up a possible impediment to World War 2.

I half expected Nazeem to make some sort of comment about how "war never changes."

This, so much this.

Stinktopus wrote:I wanted to fight the Thalmor, too, but I suppose it would've been anti-climactic. You can't say you've beaten the Nazis until you've actually marched on Berlin. World War 2 is brewing, so I wouldn't be surprised to see that being the central conflict of a new game taking place in the Summerset Isles (especially since the lore indicates every hard to draw aspect of the district was smashed by demons).

I've got to disagree with you here. Think of the Rebels blowing up the Death Star instead of the Allies marching on Berlin. I think Skyrim needed something like that with the Thalmor. Their short-term world domination scheme is destroyed, but they're still the most powerful force in the setting--just one whose plans can be stopped by sufficiently badass people.

Then The Elder Scrolls VI could be (and hopefully still will be, albeit with some adjustments) about a recovered (it's been a while, and while other provinces/nations/empires have built themselves up a bit, the Thalmor are still the biggest and baddest force in the region. So you become a bad enough dude to rescue the President Empire from ninjas Thalmor, and stop the Thalmor's plans of engineering armageddon because they want to be in Heaven Aetherius with Jesus Auriel. And it's in the conclusion of that game's main quest that you cripple their government and march on Berlin Summerset Isles.

Stinktopus wrote:

AndreiChekov wrote: If you prefer religious freedom, pick the stormcloaks.

Of course, I rather doubt Daedra worshippers would feel particularly welcome once the Stormcloaks consolidated power.

Let me see...
8 divines and no daedra (excepting the obvious asura and meridia)
vs
9 divines and no daedra (excepting the obvious asura and meridia)

I think the second choice contains more religious freedom than the first.

Or at least like the end of Casablanca, where you kill the local Head Nazi and blame it on some local petty theif.