I mean the map VIEWER is more technically able, sure, but that's because the MAP is unnecessarily complicated and impossible to read from a top down perspective (which is actually the default in daggerfall as well). It's like saying you'd rather navigate using one of those ball bearing maze cube toys to go to the store rather than read a paper map.
Well in morrowind, oblivion, and skyrim your dungeons generally don’t exceed the complexity of, say, your average quake/quake 2 level, wheras a typical daggerfall dungeon is like you took an entire quake episode, folded it in on itself, and dropped a bunch of acid at the same time. You need better tools for that.
One thing seriously though is that I think the later game dungeons are more just big cells with a bunch of hand placed “stuff” in them that may not lend themselves as well to automap tools, wheras daggerfalls maps are procedurally generated and you can probably use the same procedural processes to make the map.
Ok, spoiling this in case this is getting old for people, but I'm kind of worried that having the high-res engine is turning me into some kind of bizarre sicko just entranced by these MC Escher-esque maps. Just, goddamn. This thing has multiple figure 8's across different levels. I feel like there should be a way to 3d print this and put it in a museum.
They will mine ever more Escheresque dungeons for you.
+1
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Skyrim dungeons were generally a single corridor design with some big rooms along the way and maybe some side rooms to explore. There wasn't a lot of stuff where you could take a wrong turn and wander for hours not getting closer to whatever the main chamber was of the place. There are plusses and minuses as far as that design goes.
Daggerfall dungeons though, those were insane. I remember some amazingly breathtaking (given the low resolution graphics) chambers with giant floating bridges and other stuff. Almost impossible to navigate, but damn impressive.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I have one of those mods (probably a gem/jewelry/valuable stuff overhaul) that adds a very small weight to each piece of gold, forcing my character to deposit large bags of coins in various "safe" places, so that's a solution too.
Soo...is anyone else now getting immediate CTD after the loading screen with the most recent update?
I thought updating SKSE, RaceMenu, and other DLL alerts would do the job, but...this is a new problem. I thought it was ENB caching problems, but disabling that didn't fix the issue. Usually the game just flat-out won't start, but this definitely feels like a step backwards.
EDIT: Whew, checking about a dozen script/utility/Papyrus for updates did the trick. Though MO2's update notifications aren't starting to slack off.
Synthesis on
0
augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
So this is tangential of stuff, but...posting more out of interest? I dunno.
Nexus has these things called Donation Points. Link goes into detail, but tl;dr - Nexus takes some of their cash (from various income sources like premium memberships) and also all money from a patreon which folks donate to for all mod authors, make a giant pot, algorithmically divide by number of unique downloads, and pass out DP to all mod authors. You can redeem them for games in the nexus store, donate to charity, give people premium accounts on nexus, or pull it out via paypal.
I'd mostly ignored this and hadn't turned it on, but discussed with some folks on my working server and people have been using it, yaddah yaddah. Anyway, I turned them on (and for my major hubs which are joint works, split evenly among all contributors regardless of how much the initial setup was from on my end) and I've had it turned on for two months now.
....I'm apparently making over $300/month >_>
I still don't understand the whole paid mod fiasco. People want mods, people want to make mods, people need money to live, people can still make free mods... personally I was super excited for it.
I mostly lurk this thread, but as a Person Who Wants Mods, thank you for being a Person Who Makes Mods. 👍
So this is tangential of stuff, but...posting more out of interest? I dunno.
Nexus has these things called Donation Points. Link goes into detail, but tl;dr - Nexus takes some of their cash (from various income sources like premium memberships) and also all money from a patreon which folks donate to for all mod authors, make a giant pot, algorithmically divide by number of unique downloads, and pass out DP to all mod authors. You can redeem them for games in the nexus store, donate to charity, give people premium accounts on nexus, or pull it out via paypal.
I'd mostly ignored this and hadn't turned it on, but discussed with some folks on my working server and people have been using it, yaddah yaddah. Anyway, I turned them on (and for my major hubs which are joint works, split evenly among all contributors regardless of how much the initial setup was from on my end) and I've had it turned on for two months now.
....I'm apparently making over $300/month >_>
I still don't understand the whole paid mod fiasco. People want mods, people want to make mods, people need money to live, people can still make free mods... personally I was super excited for it.
I mostly lurk this thread, but as a Person Who Wants Mods, thank you for being a Person Who Makes Mods. 👍
I can completely understand the paid mod fiasco. Huge swaths of mods were partially, or completely, dependent on the work of others, including people who might want to monetize, people who might be convinced in time, and people who adamantly refused to monetized for any number of reasons--thereby affecting every person down said chain.
The "giant pot" system might be the only model of this that is viable. Aside from the whole, "if you want to donate, you can do so here," which was already in effect for years anyway. It's great to see it's working out for you!
Yeah having some way to support modders is great but making it a specifically transactional thing IE: Pay X to get Mod Y is really fraught with issues because of how mods build off of each other and of frameworks that tend to be provided freely.
I'm also more of a Cathedral-type modder when I do get around to tinkering. NexusMod's system is probably the best way to handle it.
The whole thing was practically doomed from the start when you ran into the same distressingly common scenario so immediate obvious that it became evident even while people were still putting on their shoes:
Modder B wants to monetize, and has "product B" that enjoys x thousands of subscribers (leading to a reasonable expectation of profit, whatever, we live in the worst dystopian timeline where we either hustle or die, through not fault of said modder).
It so happens that product B is entirely (as in, "nonfuctional without") dependent on Modder A's "mod A", which they have stated openly will be not be monetized, presently or possibly in the future. Which, depending on A's opinion on B, can lead to an immediate conflict. Never mind potential scenarios, "What if A is not able to update in response to a future mod-breaking patch? Does A owe anything to B?" (Answer: "No.") Never mind more complex, category-crossing dependency hierarchies, which are absolutely common (e.g. a redesign of a companion whose introductory quest relies on script extender), which necessitate agreement between more parties.
The previously socially-accepted scenario--"This mod is free, and I take donations,"--wasn't even without conflict itself (plenty of other games had donation-driven mods shut down when component creators in said mod put their foot down, not even to "demanding their cut" but in simple refusal). But it wasn't hedging on a transactional sale or subscription of said product. It does seem like the most workable models are revenue sharing that attempts the most abstract, self-blinded approach, wherein someone (like Jragghen) isn't being paid for a mod, but for eyeball time on the actual, ad-driven website.
Because it's not like paid mods weren't already a thing in Skyrim. They were for years. And, to a point, they were almost never dependent on other mod content, and were obtained outside of Nexus; and if someone on Nexus realized their free content was enabling a paid endeavor, they were will within their right to take action (say, pulling their mod if that was the only way to stop it). Even if I was never a customer of theirs, I don't really have any moral objection to the specific practice, acknowledging that any dependency on other content taken at their own risk.
Me making a mod that stops NPCs from telling the player they smell like a wet dog after curing Lycanthropism, aside from not really being worth anything (especially after that fix was incorporated into the Unofficial Patches) is immune to this because...it's just a few simple instructions I made on my own. Unless the creator of XEdit changes their policy...
On a less abstract note, I still haven't actually played AE, as I'm waiting for True Directional Movement to be updated (curse you for opening that Pandora's box, Jragghen! ), though an update to Immersive First Person (or rather, it's dependencies) would be appreciated too.
Ok, I just beat the Daggerfall main quest (via DF Unity) and have done enough side stuff already that I feel like I'm done. This is really wrapping up things for me on several levels. This is me finally beating a game I started seriously sometime last year, me finally beating all the mainline ES games, and also finally beating the first one I played - I played a bunch of the Daggerfall demo when I got it with a PC Gamer magazine back in the day and couldn't afford the full game yet, so I've been wanting to play through this for a long time.
I'll just say again thank god for DF Unity, without it I definitely would not have the patience for this janky ass piece of software, and I actually got to play the game much more like it was originally intended. I do think that it pushes the game from 'Do not recommend' to 'Try it out if you're interested', so if anyone is curious, I'd say it can be pretty fun. Playing normal daggerfall I think you need to use guides to know how to actually make a character well and just survive, but I think with the new engine and updates it's more forgiving, and you have more freedom to just play how you want (mostly).
It's really interesting seeing how some of the mechanics were built around this engine being so broad and open ended. As an example, to get Daedra quests to get their artifacts, you have to get to a high enough rank in a guild and use their summoner. Even if you're maxed out with the guild, it's still extremely expensive. Each daedra has a specific day they are associated with, and so can ONLY be summoned on that day (with a couple obtuse exceptions). If you miss that day? Well, you gotta wait a year. Just...wow.
Also, the last dungeon is a real weird one. Probably the weirdest I can think of from any Elder Scrolls game.
Since DF Unity has mod support, I figure I'd recommend a couple. I really enjoyed Interesting Eroded Terrain, especially combined with Distant Terrain and Enhanced Sky. It really made the outdoor areas feel more realistic, and gave a much stronger sense of place. They don't really change the gameplay at all, but they make it a lot more fun to wander around outdoors. Fixed Dungeon Exteriors gives each dungeon type a unique outer building, so that they actually look like whatever dungeon type they are, instead of everything being a door into a sad mound of dirt. Again, no gameplay changes, but it helps build the sense of place a lot. DREAM is the big overhaul package with better textures, cinematics, etc. It has like 10 parts and changes a lot of things. It also has a bunch of links to other stuff.
While I'm at it, might as well finish off with a screenshot in action. You can see the combination of the Interesting Terrain mod and another mod I found adding roads there, that technically work together, but not quite. And the distant view lets you see the really far hills in that valley on the right - which works better in Daggerfall than anything else, because it has such a ludicrously huge map size that you actually can have distant rolling hills.
edit:: actually let me spoiler that
Hrm, playing through oblivion, using the Through the Valleys modset, for the most part (Using oblivion upscaled textures 2x instead of Really textured normals, using improved trees and flora et al and my own edit of Arboretum, ditched dungeon surprise attacks, added push’s costs for fast travel to balance it with mage guild teleportation).
Its a bit of an odd game because it really isn’t bad at all, but there’s never really a hook to draw you in like in morrowind or skyrim. The daedra invasion is supposed to be that but no one outside the main quest really seems to give much of a shit so it fals a bit flat…
Hrm, playing through oblivion, using the Through the Valleys modset, for the most part (Using oblivion upscaled textures 2x instead of Really textured normals, using improved trees and flora et al and my own edit of Arboretum, ditched dungeon surprise attacks, added push’s costs for fast travel to balance it with mage guild teleportation).
Its a bit of an odd game because it really isn’t bad at all, but there’s never really a hook to draw you in like in morrowind or skyrim. The daedra invasion is supposed to be that but no one outside the main quest really seems to give much of a shit so it fals a bit flat…
I did a run recently that I just stayed at Lv 1 and just did the 5 guild quest lines + Shivering Isles. It was the most fun I've ever had with the game. Oblivion guilds do a good job of having a quest line while still feeling like an actual guild.
Oblivion was my entry into the series. I made several characters, partly to explore different builds and partly to avoid the series' Omnicompetent Protagonist Syndrome (where one person ends up holding every leadership position in the game).
I spent several hundred hours playing every quest and exploring every point of interest in the base game and the expansions. Then I uninstalled the game and threw away the disc, and I still won't allow myself to buy a digital version for fear of getting sucked in again. That game had a serious hold on me for a couple of years.
+4
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited January 2022
Started a new play through of Morrowind today using OpenMW and the I Heart Vanilla modlist from Modding OpenMW. I didn't want to drastically change the game, just clean up a few things and have some nicer textures and such. I wish Wabbajack supported OpenMW modlists, but I guess because it mostly uses MO2 it's not really compatible with the "OpenMW way" to do mods. Thankfully I Heart Vanilla is a small mod list, only took me about 45 minutes to setup.
Excited to do a play through of Morrowind again. It's been a very, very long time since I did one.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Installed a couple more QoL mods, mostly around magika and health regen (very small amounts, but better than nothing), and movement speed. I know why Morrowind had slow movement speed but I just can't handle it in 2022.
Honestly, I don't find paid modding inherently bad either, for those who want to.
The main issues with it were a) they were applying it to a game that already had only free modding, thereby breaking the existing ecosystem, b) there were no controls in place which allowed someone to take someone else's stuff and release it as a paid mod (or also take a paid mod and immediately offer it as free), and c) the cuts were obnoxious - it was what....80% Bethesda, 20% mod creator? Something like that?
But dead serious - if they'd left Skyrim alone and rolled out the exact same system with Fallout 4, there'd have been complaints, but a HELL of a lot less because point a wouldn't be happening.
Yeah, the core issue with their paid mod system wasn't money going to mod-makers, it was Bethesda just needing to stick its corporate dick in the situation and make sure it was getting money from what was literally other peoples' work. And not just some money, but most of the money. It was just such blatantly bald-faced ripoff greed.
So I just reinstalled Skyrim SE on my XBO; last time I played an ES game on console, mods weren't a thing - now I'm on the precipice of a rabbit hole I'm not sure I want to jump down, but a big part of my brain is saying "Sure you do. DO IT!"
So... "essential" Skyrim mods on an Xbox for a vanilla+ type experience? I'm looking for graphical improvements (This is an OG XBO, so ixnay on the 4k texture packs, etc), maybe some increased immersion, upgraded cities/towns/interiors. A shortlist I'm working on now looks something like:
Improved Shadows and Volumetric Lighting
Water - something like Water and Terrain Enhancement Redux
Cities - JK's Skyrim - or alternative/others?
I don't know much about AI/NPC mods - I don't want to break any key quests/events/items. I also want to keep the vanilla character/skill/level system; for now, at least until I finish a playthrough.
I'm also torn on the unofficial patches, from what I've read.
Installed a couple more QoL mods, mostly around magika and health regen (very small amounts, but better than nothing), and movement speed. I know why Morrowind had slow movement speed but I just can't handle it in 2022.
I would advise maybe being prepared to uninstall that move speed mod. Morrowind doesn't necessarily have slow move speed it has move speed that depends on your speed statistic. At 100 speed, move speed is good to great. And 100 is not the speed cap.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
0
BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
edited January 2022
I've been running the entire the Anniversary Edition mod wad on my latest character on PS5 and it has a nice balance of fun new uniques and quests, along with some minor UI tweaks, definite improvement in all weapon and armor textures, weather is more dynamic in terms of particle effects and physics on snow and running water and the load times are incredibly sexy.
All this good shit and Trophies/cheevos are still attainable. Though throwing some additional tweaks and packages on top will require some experimentation with load orders and there's just enough different under the hood (I'm assuming mainly due to subtle differences in when stuff is pushed and popped off the memory stack at the compiler/assembly level) that PC load orders and workarounds don't always play nice.
Most fun I've had thus far was using a blood dragon's skull as a snowboard that I was able to ride off a cliff on the northwest side of the Shrine of Azura and finish about 10 steps from the outskirts of Winterhold, leaving a clearly visible path in the snow on the mountain side, like I was Shaun White on skooma.
BlackDragon480 on
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
+6
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Installed a couple more QoL mods, mostly around magika and health regen (very small amounts, but better than nothing), and movement speed. I know why Morrowind had slow movement speed but I just can't handle it in 2022.
I would advise maybe being prepared to uninstall that move speed mod. Morrowind doesn't necessarily have slow move speed it has move speed that depends on your speed statistic. At 100 speed, move speed is good to great. And 100 is not the speed cap.
I'm aware. I've already dropped it down a level as my Athletics and Speed have gone up. I just didn't want to deal with the snail pace movement of early Morrowind.
So I just reinstalled Skyrim SE on my XBO; last time I played an ES game on console, mods weren't a thing - now I'm on the precipice of a rabbit hole I'm not sure I want to jump down, but a big part of my brain is saying "Sure you do. DO IT!"
So... "essential" Skyrim mods on an Xbox for a vanilla+ type experience? I'm looking for graphical improvements (This is an OG XBO, so ixnay on the 4k texture packs, etc), maybe some increased immersion, upgraded cities/towns/interiors. A shortlist I'm working on now looks something like:
Improved Shadows and Volumetric Lighting
Water - something like Water and Terrain Enhancement Redux
Cities - JK's Skyrim - or alternative/others?
I don't know much about AI/NPC mods - I don't want to break any key quests/events/items. I also want to keep the vanilla character/skill/level system; for now, at least until I finish a playthrough.
I'm also torn on the unofficial patches, from what I've read.
As someone who has been playing SE on the XBox myself, I'll grab my mod list for you later, but it's basically just graphical stuff. I've stayed away from most game play related items, even new cities and land masses, because I think they mess with the vanilla experience sometimes. There are two exceptions: I do use the unofficial patches, as they fix a ton of stuff, and I do use the "paarthurnax dilemma" fix which you should probably not use on a new play through since you won't even know what that is as a new player
I managed to put together an initial modlist pretty quickly, surprisingly.
Right now I'm running:
- Immersive Sounds Compendium
- Skylands AIO
- Mythical Ages
- Immersive Citizens
- Beauty and the Beasts
- JKs Skyrim AIO
- Improved Shadows and Volumetric Lighting
- Realistic Water Two
I have a couple more I want to add, like a grass mod and a weapon/armor texture pack, but these essentially give me a prettier and better sounding vanilla Skyrim.
After I play with that for a while, I'll probably experiment with bigger gameplay and mechanical changes like Ordinator, Apocalypse, Imperious, Wildcat, etc.
So I've been messing around with town mods a bit and basically just been touristing around with an alternate start mod. As a note I tend to avoid modding the main cities and Riverwood because they are so familliar and I like vanilla. I also tend to avoid settlement mods that add towns with just generic dialogue that aren't connected to anything. Some neat stuff :
Kynesgrove:
This is what got me started playing around with things again, wanting to try out the combination patch of Expanded Towns and Cities and Great Village of Kynesgrove Janquel posted (had to change the masters though because I use modular ETAC). This is pretty awesome. The original vanilla Kynesgrove was pretty lame, the NPCs being just in a mine with nothing really there but one guys house and an inn but with a vanilla quest involving it and a lot of backgroud talk with NPCs referring to things that just didn't exist. Great Village of Kynesgrove added all the stuff the NPCs talk about but IMHO just really didn't go far enough because you still have a lot of homeless NPCs. Adding Jennabee's ETAC buildings makes it feel like what it should have been for vanilla. Also Great Village of Mixwater mill is a must for a nearby community with the same architecture.
Darkwater Crossing: Another town that is mentioned a lot in lore and quests that is just terribly anemic in Vanilla. Expanded towns and cities makes it into a real town which is really great.
Rorikstead: Another town I really like Expanded towns and cities for, it makes it into a lot more bustling farm comminity and adds nearby services for a player using the shoal's farm as a home.
Soljunds Sinkhole/ Old Hroldan: So the patch on the patches page for Great Villages of Old Hroldan and Settlements Expanded (which I run along with the recommended Arthmoor towns of Soljunds sinkhole and whistling mine) actually ends up with a really nice town. The Great villages architecture actually fits in pretty good with the town buldings added by the other mods, so it looks like one overseer/manager/mayor's house and some worker houses. The effect actually leads to a pretty cool town.
Edit:
Also I have to say I love this patch for COTN and great cities winterhold:
The combination of the castle built into the mountain and the great cities ruined stone city revamp go well together and really give the city a nice ruined capital look.
COTN Falkreath with great cities and patch and COTN morthal both look great so the only major city I can’t really decide on is dawnstar. I don’t care as much for great cities dawnstar, ETAC seems a bit too big and crowded, so right now I am just using COTN + Arthmoors +patch.
Edit 2: In addition to the above I’m basically using all the great villages/towns stuff at this point (along with rodryks dragonbridge +arthmoors patch and quaint raven rock)
The great town of Shors stone always annoyed me a bit with how there was a castle of random companions that didn’t so anything,I found this mod:
Posts
One thing seriously though is that I think the later game dungeons are more just big cells with a bunch of hand placed “stuff” in them that may not lend themselves as well to automap tools, wheras daggerfalls maps are procedurally generated and you can probably use the same procedural processes to make the map.
Ok, spoiling this in case this is getting old for people, but I'm kind of worried that having the high-res engine is turning me into some kind of bizarre sicko just entranced by these MC Escher-esque maps. Just, goddamn. This thing has multiple figure 8's across different levels. I feel like there should be a way to 3d print this and put it in a museum.
They will mine ever more Escheresque dungeons for you.
Daggerfall dungeons though, those were insane. I remember some amazingly breathtaking (given the low resolution graphics) chambers with giant floating bridges and other stuff. Almost impossible to navigate, but damn impressive.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Bravo
I have one of those mods (probably a gem/jewelry/valuable stuff overhaul) that adds a very small weight to each piece of gold, forcing my character to deposit large bags of coins in various "safe" places, so that's a solution too.
I thought updating SKSE, RaceMenu, and other DLL alerts would do the job, but...this is a new problem. I thought it was ENB caching problems, but disabling that didn't fix the issue. Usually the game just flat-out won't start, but this definitely feels like a step backwards.
EDIT: Whew, checking about a dozen script/utility/Papyrus for updates did the trick. Though MO2's update notifications aren't starting to slack off.
I still don't understand the whole paid mod fiasco. People want mods, people want to make mods, people need money to live, people can still make free mods... personally I was super excited for it.
I mostly lurk this thread, but as a Person Who Wants Mods, thank you for being a Person Who Makes Mods. 👍
I can completely understand the paid mod fiasco. Huge swaths of mods were partially, or completely, dependent on the work of others, including people who might want to monetize, people who might be convinced in time, and people who adamantly refused to monetized for any number of reasons--thereby affecting every person down said chain.
The "giant pot" system might be the only model of this that is viable. Aside from the whole, "if you want to donate, you can do so here," which was already in effect for years anyway. It's great to see it's working out for you!
I'm also more of a Cathedral-type modder when I do get around to tinkering. NexusMod's system is probably the best way to handle it.
Modder B wants to monetize, and has "product B" that enjoys x thousands of subscribers (leading to a reasonable expectation of profit, whatever, we live in the worst dystopian timeline where we either hustle or die, through not fault of said modder).
It so happens that product B is entirely (as in, "nonfuctional without") dependent on Modder A's "mod A", which they have stated openly will be not be monetized, presently or possibly in the future. Which, depending on A's opinion on B, can lead to an immediate conflict. Never mind potential scenarios, "What if A is not able to update in response to a future mod-breaking patch? Does A owe anything to B?" (Answer: "No.") Never mind more complex, category-crossing dependency hierarchies, which are absolutely common (e.g. a redesign of a companion whose introductory quest relies on script extender), which necessitate agreement between more parties.
The previously socially-accepted scenario--"This mod is free, and I take donations,"--wasn't even without conflict itself (plenty of other games had donation-driven mods shut down when component creators in said mod put their foot down, not even to "demanding their cut" but in simple refusal). But it wasn't hedging on a transactional sale or subscription of said product. It does seem like the most workable models are revenue sharing that attempts the most abstract, self-blinded approach, wherein someone (like Jragghen) isn't being paid for a mod, but for eyeball time on the actual, ad-driven website.
Because it's not like paid mods weren't already a thing in Skyrim. They were for years. And, to a point, they were almost never dependent on other mod content, and were obtained outside of Nexus; and if someone on Nexus realized their free content was enabling a paid endeavor, they were will within their right to take action (say, pulling their mod if that was the only way to stop it). Even if I was never a customer of theirs, I don't really have any moral objection to the specific practice, acknowledging that any dependency on other content taken at their own risk.
Me making a mod that stops NPCs from telling the player they smell like a wet dog after curing Lycanthropism, aside from not really being worth anything (especially after that fix was incorporated into the Unofficial Patches) is immune to this because...it's just a few simple instructions I made on my own. Unless the creator of XEdit changes their policy...
On a less abstract note, I still haven't actually played AE, as I'm waiting for True Directional Movement to be updated (curse you for opening that Pandora's box, Jragghen!
I'll just say again thank god for DF Unity, without it I definitely would not have the patience for this janky ass piece of software, and I actually got to play the game much more like it was originally intended. I do think that it pushes the game from 'Do not recommend' to 'Try it out if you're interested', so if anyone is curious, I'd say it can be pretty fun. Playing normal daggerfall I think you need to use guides to know how to actually make a character well and just survive, but I think with the new engine and updates it's more forgiving, and you have more freedom to just play how you want (mostly).
It's really interesting seeing how some of the mechanics were built around this engine being so broad and open ended. As an example, to get Daedra quests to get their artifacts, you have to get to a high enough rank in a guild and use their summoner. Even if you're maxed out with the guild, it's still extremely expensive. Each daedra has a specific day they are associated with, and so can ONLY be summoned on that day (with a couple obtuse exceptions). If you miss that day? Well, you gotta wait a year. Just...wow.
Also, the last dungeon is a real weird one. Probably the weirdest I can think of from any Elder Scrolls game.
Since DF Unity has mod support, I figure I'd recommend a couple. I really enjoyed Interesting Eroded Terrain, especially combined with Distant Terrain and Enhanced Sky. It really made the outdoor areas feel more realistic, and gave a much stronger sense of place. They don't really change the gameplay at all, but they make it a lot more fun to wander around outdoors. Fixed Dungeon Exteriors gives each dungeon type a unique outer building, so that they actually look like whatever dungeon type they are, instead of everything being a door into a sad mound of dirt. Again, no gameplay changes, but it helps build the sense of place a lot. DREAM is the big overhaul package with better textures, cinematics, etc. It has like 10 parts and changes a lot of things. It also has a bunch of links to other stuff.
edit:: actually let me spoiler that
Its a bit of an odd game because it really isn’t bad at all, but there’s never really a hook to draw you in like in morrowind or skyrim. The daedra invasion is supposed to be that but no one outside the main quest really seems to give much of a shit so it fals a bit flat…
I did a run recently that I just stayed at Lv 1 and just did the 5 guild quest lines + Shivering Isles. It was the most fun I've ever had with the game. Oblivion guilds do a good job of having a quest line while still feeling like an actual guild.
All the individual quest content in oblivion is fine though, the world just never coheres for me into something interesting.
Excited to do a play through of Morrowind again. It's been a very, very long time since I did one.
Yeah, the core issue with their paid mod system wasn't money going to mod-makers, it was Bethesda just needing to stick its corporate dick in the situation and make sure it was getting money from what was literally other peoples' work. And not just some money, but most of the money. It was just such blatantly bald-faced ripoff greed.
Its like all the sudden Bethesda just learned how to do compelling outdoor landscapes between 2006 and 2007.
So... "essential" Skyrim mods on an Xbox for a vanilla+ type experience? I'm looking for graphical improvements (This is an OG XBO, so ixnay on the 4k texture packs, etc), maybe some increased immersion, upgraded cities/towns/interiors. A shortlist I'm working on now looks something like:
- Improved Shadows and Volumetric Lighting
- Water - something like Water and Terrain Enhancement Redux
- Cities - JK's Skyrim - or alternative/others?
I don't know much about AI/NPC mods - I don't want to break any key quests/events/items. I also want to keep the vanilla character/skill/level system; for now, at least until I finish a playthrough.I'm also torn on the unofficial patches, from what I've read.
I would advise maybe being prepared to uninstall that move speed mod. Morrowind doesn't necessarily have slow move speed it has move speed that depends on your speed statistic. At 100 speed, move speed is good to great. And 100 is not the speed cap.
All this good shit and Trophies/cheevos are still attainable. Though throwing some additional tweaks and packages on top will require some experimentation with load orders and there's just enough different under the hood (I'm assuming mainly due to subtle differences in when stuff is pushed and popped off the memory stack at the compiler/assembly level) that PC load orders and workarounds don't always play nice.
Most fun I've had thus far was using a blood dragon's skull as a snowboard that I was able to ride off a cliff on the northwest side of the Shrine of Azura and finish about 10 steps from the outskirts of Winterhold, leaving a clearly visible path in the snow on the mountain side, like I was Shaun White on skooma.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
I'm aware. I've already dropped it down a level as my Athletics and Speed have gone up. I just didn't want to deal with the snail pace movement of early Morrowind.
As someone who has been playing SE on the XBox myself, I'll grab my mod list for you later, but it's basically just graphical stuff. I've stayed away from most game play related items, even new cities and land masses, because I think they mess with the vanilla experience sometimes. There are two exceptions: I do use the unofficial patches, as they fix a ton of stuff, and I do use the "paarthurnax dilemma" fix which you should probably not use on a new play through since you won't even know what that is as a new player
Right now I'm running:
- Immersive Sounds Compendium
- Skylands AIO
- Mythical Ages
- Immersive Citizens
- Beauty and the Beasts
- JKs Skyrim AIO
- Improved Shadows and Volumetric Lighting
- Realistic Water Two
I have a couple more I want to add, like a grass mod and a weapon/armor texture pack, but these essentially give me a prettier and better sounding vanilla Skyrim.
After I play with that for a while, I'll probably experiment with bigger gameplay and mechanical changes like Ordinator, Apocalypse, Imperious, Wildcat, etc.
Kynesgrove:
This is what got me started playing around with things again, wanting to try out the combination patch of Expanded Towns and Cities and Great Village of Kynesgrove Janquel posted (had to change the masters though because I use modular ETAC). This is pretty awesome. The original vanilla Kynesgrove was pretty lame, the NPCs being just in a mine with nothing really there but one guys house and an inn but with a vanilla quest involving it and a lot of backgroud talk with NPCs referring to things that just didn't exist. Great Village of Kynesgrove added all the stuff the NPCs talk about but IMHO just really didn't go far enough because you still have a lot of homeless NPCs. Adding Jennabee's ETAC buildings makes it feel like what it should have been for vanilla. Also Great Village of Mixwater mill is a must for a nearby community with the same architecture.
Darkwater Crossing: Another town that is mentioned a lot in lore and quests that is just terribly anemic in Vanilla. Expanded towns and cities makes it into a real town which is really great.
Rorikstead: Another town I really like Expanded towns and cities for, it makes it into a lot more bustling farm comminity and adds nearby services for a player using the shoal's farm as a home.
Soljunds Sinkhole/ Old Hroldan: So the patch on the patches page for Great Villages of Old Hroldan and Settlements Expanded (which I run along with the recommended Arthmoor towns of Soljunds sinkhole and whistling mine) actually ends up with a really nice town. The Great villages architecture actually fits in pretty good with the town buldings added by the other mods, so it looks like one overseer/manager/mayor's house and some worker houses. The effect actually leads to a pretty cool town.
Edit:
Also I have to say I love this patch for COTN and great cities winterhold:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54097
The combination of the castle built into the mountain and the great cities ruined stone city revamp go well together and really give the city a nice ruined capital look.
COTN Falkreath with great cities and patch and COTN morthal both look great so the only major city I can’t really decide on is dawnstar. I don’t care as much for great cities dawnstar, ETAC seems a bit too big and crowded, so right now I am just using COTN + Arthmoors +patch.
Edit 2: In addition to the above I’m basically using all the great villages/towns stuff at this point (along with rodryks dragonbridge +arthmoors patch and quaint raven rock)
The great town of Shors stone always annoyed me a bit with how there was a castle of random companions that didn’t so anything,I found this mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/45543?tab=description
Which turns the area into an abandoned castle (that can be used as a rest area / home if you want.