The Foxhole Reloaded... Again!

Out now. Right now. I mean it. It's available NOW.

Deluxe edition. Downloading. 115gb. ~770mb soundtrack. Includes Horse Armor. Oh, and all that other DLC/expansion stuff...Vile Lair, Shivering Isles, etc.

I bought the original at GameStop (I think) back in 2006. I still have the CD...the box...even the strategy guide, which I didn't need. But I got it anyway.

With that said, do I get a discount? No? Well, if I sent Todd a pic of the CD case, would that...? No? Okay, then. Grumble.

Screens, screens, need screens!

Looking towards Vilverin from the sewer exit:


Looking towards the Imperial City. My focus was mainly on the flora and not on the view.
That's a good-lookin' tree.

I had to kill a wolf before I could take the shot. Some things remain the same. ::)


Chargen is...a lot better. Sort of. As for visuals: the Dark Elves are still butt- ugly, as expected. Mods needed.


PLUS: the sliders work independently now. Can I get a hallelujah? No? Well fuck off, then.

MINUS: Instead of male or female, you choose "type 1" or "type 2" body. This is patently dumb, but what can you expect these days? They can't even define what a woman *is*, for Christ's sake. At least there isn't any pronoun nonsense. "My Hero of Kvatch identifies as zippety-doo-dah/zippety-ay!"


Self-portrait, right outta the sewer:
Gotta say, she looks orders of magnitude better than the first Breton thief/witch I created back in 2006. I would post a comparison shot to show exactly what I mean, but I'd have to go through a bunch of old CD-Rs to find old screens and I don't want to.

The hell of it is, she looks better than anything right out of the box in Skyrim. Can't play Skyrim without mods. Lots of mods.


And...well. The "nude" aesthetics are definitely much-improved:
Disclaimer: No, I don't care about an actual nude mod (God knows there was enough of THAT shit back in the day). I'm just showing off the modern-day work.

Not Seen: the male version.

Because: I don't care.

Oh, and you should really see how improved Jauffre and Baurus are. I'd include shots of them, but there's a limit on attachments and I concluded that a thicc chick in her undies was far more interesting. I will stand by this statement to the death.

Anyway, so I played for a while. Three hours. Or four. Missed lunch and feeling woozy.

Apparently it's some kind of record: there were a couple of simple mods that changed "type 1" and "type 2" to "female" and "male" and they're...gone. Vanished! So the rainbow flag-wavin' sissies at the Nexus are in full-on censorship mode yet again.

However...there are other places you can get mods. I recommend BasedMods (https://basedmods.eth.link/) and browse for "[TES4R] Classic Body Type". It's just a simple mod, but holy shit, does it piss off the pansies.

It's not that it bothers me personally, it's just that I find it wholly egregious to ban something so innocuous.

Btw, on a related note: if you find Sirona Ryan's voice in Hogwarts Legacy to be fundamentally disturbing, try this mod (https://www.moddb.com/addons/sirona-ryan-girl); it actually works even with the latest version of the game. (The latest patches broke most of the "unofficial" mods in favor of a heavily-policed system. Meaning, of course, that quite a few mods will not work anymore.) The only downside is that the subtitles for his -- yes, HIS -- lines don't work, which is an acceptable tradeoff. You have to put the file in:

...\Steam\steamapps\common\Hogwarts Legacy\Phoenix\Content\Paks

(Assuming, of course, that you're playing it on Steam. For other platforms...I don't know. Figure it out, maggot.)

Just FYI: there are other places to get that mod, but this is the most SFW option. :o

But back to Oblivion Remastered.

You remember the female version of the old Iron armor? It's been changed. This is the original, shot courtesy of a wiki:



This is the remaster version:


While I don't find the new version a complete travesty, I do question the de-feminization (is that a word? it is now) of her upper body. (I like the chainmail "skirt" instead of the filthy cloth, btw.) People whine about Boob Armor not being "realistic", but hey: when your game features elves, the "realism" argument is rendered null and void.

I haven't picked up Steel armor yet, so I'll see how that goes. If you recall...or maybe you don't...I don't care...that had no female-shaped version. I remember that was a problem with many of the armors, come to think of it. Huh. :P

I hope you enjoy your game. Comments on your experience and screenshots are always welcomed, especially because I won't be joining the Oblivion Remastered crowd for a number of reasons. Don't get me wrong I love Oblivion despite its flaws (well, it's Bethesda so of course it has flaws and I'm guessing that the remaster has some as well, maybe not the same...).

The real reason though is that I recently took a long hard look at what Bethesda has done over the past 15 years. We got three new games, TES V (2011), Fallout 4 (2015) and Starfield (2023). That's an average of 5 year development cycle time (more if you count the fact that each game was in the design phase far before switching to production, often at the same time or before the release of the previous game). That makes of Bethesda Softworks the game production company with the most development time between each game, which is weird as the engine for each game is basically a new iteration of the same engine dating back to Morrowind, so it's not like if they had a whole lot of new stuff to learn.

In the same time we got 3 re-mashing or existing games, 2 for Skyrim alone (Legendary Edition and Second Edition), Fallout 4 Remastered. Now with Oblivion, that makes 4. Four Remasters, three new games.

Add to that that the writing has been degrading with each game release since Skyrim (fine game with the exception of the introduction of the Radiant system and a passable main storyline), Fallout (mixed bag continuing the Radiant system -- Cf Preston: "there's another settlement needing your help" -- and a terrible and boring main quest directly copied from Fallout 3) and Starfield (full Radiant and an uninspired main quest supported by radiant with a distressingly unoriginal NG+ -- especially considering the possibilities that could have been exploited and were not --, NG+ that is on Radiant life support).

How many mods do I have installed for Starfield? Zero. I'm not interested enough to care. How many do I have installed in Fallout 4? 246, which is dangerously close to the 255 limit imposed by the game engine. However I do need those mods to make the game at least palatable and fun to play (and I never switched to F4 remastered because a good chunk of those mods would be broken). How many mods do I have installed for Skyrim? Less than 50. That's how good this game is, because when you don't feel the need to add a shitload of mods just to make it fun, you have a winner. Number of mods in Oblivion (the old one)? Less than 40 and that's including mine and yours, Silver (I never play Oblivion without it -- I need my dose of Scribonnaise :D ).

Then there's the price. Sure as long as you had Skyrim plus the official DLCs, the upgrades were free. Same for Fallout 4. But now, we have to pay the price of a full new game for a remaster, even when one has in the Steam account the full edition of the original Oblivion? Nope, that doesn't cut it for me.

And of course there is the fact that I don't have the material time to get into a 100+ hours game.

Also, we all know that a mod was in development (Skyblivion) with a release date set for this year. Essentially, Bethesda "remaster" kills that mod throwing the hard work of the team involved in the project down the drain. And you'll tell me "sure, but it's their game they can do what they want". Fair enough. But when you're still alive becasue of fan-made mods, is that a way to treat a community that sustained you for two decades? And this is not the first time they pulled a similar stunt ever.

Tell me, Silver, is there a Creation Club option in the main menu of this remaster? Because if it isn't there I guarantee you it will be soon. Profit is profit after all...

QuoteHowever...there are other places you can get mods.

I must say, the Nexus is getting on my nerves too. These past few years, they have done more to damage the modding community than Bethesda itself.

And that's one other thing I don't get about Bethesda. The only reason why their games are highly sought is because they are easily moddable and consequently have a vast range of fan-made mods and expansions that still makes them relevant several years after their initial release. If it wasn't for mods, Bethesda would have been turned into a footnote in gaming history a long time ago. So you'd think that they would want to keep the ball rolling but no. They were so willing to turn mods into profit with their Creation Club, often to the point of breaking a lot of free mods out there, appreciated by many fans. In essence they are slowly killing the only thing that is sustaining them. It's certainly not how quick they release new games (not to mention "excellent ones") that can compensate.

All I wanted was TES 6 but well, I'll have to go without it.

Quote from: Starfox on Apr 23, 2025, 05:42 AMI hope you enjoy your game.

I'm really not.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but a couple of days ago I was on the receiving end of the Shingles vaccine (since I had chicken pox as a kid). I was doing okay with the game until yesterday, when I had to take a break to go for a series of eye tests -- long story, not relevant -- and near the end of my visit, I began to get severe chills. I was practically freezing as I sat there waiting for the financial lady to inform me of how much I'd be funneling into their coffers. As it turns out, the vaccine has the curious side effects of 1) a sore spot on one's arm where the shot is administered (check! hurts like hell! thanks!), and 2) flu-like symptoms for 2-3 days afterwards. Since I've had quite a few encounters with the flu, I recognized the reason for the uncontrollable shivers. It just got worse as my day went on; in short: I felt like warmed-over dog snot, so to speak.

So after a short nap -- these 4-hour doctor appointments wear me out, oddly enough -- I shuffled over to my computer and listlessly went about my evening. Nexus banned a couple more mods relating to body type, so all was normal. I thought I'd put a bit more time into my heavy armor character, so I loaded it up. I knew that joining a guild right off the bat was a good way of getting a free place to sleep in towns, and the Fighters Guild was a perfect match. Strange how that works, isn't it? The porter still watches me sleep, bless his creepy little heart.

After joining in Cheydinhal and fulfilling one contract, the ugliest Orc in the entire world pointed me to either Anvil or...or...I forget the other one. To hell with 'em. So as I was rounding the Ring Road (slowly...heavy armor, remember?) so as to make my way to Skingrad first, I was overwhelmed with a profound sense of...how shall I put it? Existential ennui? Blackest, suffocating depression? All of that and more! As I trudged at top speed (read: very slowly, indeed) past Skingrad and past Kvatch -- ignore the thunderstorm and the panicky high-steppin' homeboy -- it was dark and I was forcibly reminded of how much trouble I had gone through back in the day to get that one Night Eye mod working. Killing the three million bandits inhabiting the 2 million bandit camps along the road past Kvatch did nothing to improve my mood.

SIDE NOTE: melee combat remains the same. Block their initial strike, smack 'em. Repeat until one of you is dead.

So I got past Kvatch and was headed for Anvil, and by this time everything hurt. Arms, joints, back, head...I was also running a slight fever. And then I got another severe attack of the chills. As I sat there, shivering uncontrollably, I hated this game with a heaping helping of  weariness thrown in for good measure. So once I made it into Anvil, I wrapped it up and quit for the evening.

So was it the flu-like symptoms? Was it the realization that I was just repeating an experience from 20 years ago? All of the above, I think.

SIDE NOTE #2: thanks to how stupidly Bethesda implemented the Knights of the Nine DLC, you can't just go to the Anvil chapel and wander around. This is how it was back then, and this is how it is now. It's the very reason that I would hold off enabling the mod until I was ready for it. There's no option for that here, as far as I know.

So what to do now? While most of my intent was to see how various things had been changed and/or improved, I really don't feel like making the effort. There's no rush, really; I still have plenty -- too much -- to do in Hogwarts, so it's not like I'm down to one single game. I'll go through it at my leisure, but I don't see it as a potentially pleasant experience.

I just can't wait for bandits to start showing up in Glass armor. ::)

Here are the notes that I jotted down once the shivering stopped (yes, yes...the Shivering Isles. Shut up.):


- I think I've played this game before. In fact, I'm sure of it. It looks a lot prettier than it used to, but it's still the same...basic...SLOG through the land of Cyrodiil.

- Wearing heavy armor sucked, it still sucks, it will always suck. Until you reach dizzying heights of proficiency, you will be moving at a snail's pace everywhere.

The typical solution:

1. Set the difficulty to its lowest.
2. Acquire a full set of heavy armor (e.g., Iron), including a helmet.
3. Buy a ton of armorer hammers.
4. Important: acquire some healing spells or potions; those mosquito stings will eventually wear you down.
5. Let a low-level bandit or bandits beat the living snot out of you until all of your armor breaks. Heal yourself as necessary.
6. Kill the bandit(s).
7. Repair your armor.
8. Repeat until you've maxed out your armor skill and your armorer skill.
9. Sleep the sleep of the leveling-up.

Bonus: If you're a warrior class with both skills as your Majors, you'll be a higher level in no time.

Some things never change.

What has changed is the complete absence of a power-leveling mechanic. You get no Attribute bonuses for leveling up your Minor skills at all. While it doesn't hurt you to do so, you won't be getting a 2x-5x boost for your grinding efforts.

Instead, you get a screen upon leveling up, which tells you that you have 12 "Virtues" to increase 3 of your Attributes. In short, 12 points to spread across three...not one, not two, not four, but three...of your Attributes.

For example: you can give yourself 5x points in Intelligence, 3x in Willpower, and 4x in Luck. Or 4x, 4x, 4x. Or...you get the idea. Or...I sincerely hope you do.

- Using the console disables Achievements, as usual. As if I cared about Achievements. What are they so afraid of, though? That someone might enjoy the game outside of their rigid parameters? This and the whole paid mods debacle is a very telling symptom of a deeper sickness.

And some screens.


The Virtues:

Distributing these Virtues:
I'm a Nord. What can I say? Besides "ooga-booga", I mean.

Female Steel armor.
Not as bad as I'd feared. It actually has shape to it.

Okay, back to the show.

I don't think Bethesda has it in them anymore. From needing to control every aspect of the player's experience, reusing a creaky old engine, rehashing what they've done in the past...it's clear that it's not worth wasting money on their games anymore.

As for this game: I believe Skyblivion will probably be a much better experience.

QuoteTell me, Silver, is there a Creation Club option in the main menu of this remaster? Because if it isn't there I guarantee you it will be soon. Profit is profit after all...

No CC option yet. :D  But yes...there will be.

Mods aren't really supported yet, although that hasn't stopped people from making them. But give Bethesda time: they'll fuck it all up eventually.

QuoteNumber of mods in Oblivion (the old one)? Less than 40 and that's including mine and yours, Silver (I never play Oblivion without it -- I need my dose of Scribonnaise :D ).

It still works?? :o

I'll be back with more later. I just want to curl up in a ball and focus on not throwing up.

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on Apr 24, 2025, 07:01 AMSome things never change.

Well, except for the fact that you can't install the Leveler's Shack on this remaster (this mod is such a blessing when you get to replay Oblivion for the nth time and just want the story without the grind).

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on Apr 24, 2025, 07:01 AMit's clear that it's not worth wasting money on their games anymore.

Which is why I didn't buy the DLC for Starfield. Regarding Bethesda I think Starfield was the last drop in the bucket for me. Space is supposed to be fun but Bethesda space is... bland. Plus the language in there is not even believable. Even bad guys like pirates talk like if they had a full Harvard education. Tell me, in real life, who doesn't go with "shit" or "fuck" once in a while?

Sign of the times. They try to sterilize their games so much to be PC compliant that it's not even funny. I challenge anyone who ever hit their finger instead of the nail with a hammer once to tell me that the only thing they came up with was "Oh, my. I made myself a booboo. What a bummer."

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on Apr 24, 2025, 07:01 AMIt still works?? :o

Which one? Your mod or scribonnaise? XD Actually both work, why wouldn't they? It's not like they actually changed something to old Oblivion that would prevent it. And Bethesda is going to be far too busy screwing the remaster to fuck up the original as well. Which is kind of a blessing. :D

Unrelated:
=========

Ooh, look at that! Google is wishing me a happy birthday by making a lot of fake balloons float over my avatar. They even have giant balloons and a big "Happy Birthday" on my profile. Cute! I guess that's the thought that counts... Now if they could gift me 10 grands that would be even better. And there I can hear the Google execs: "Oh, wow! The balloons are OK but let's not get carried away."

Completely off topic, I stumbled on a YT channel today of a girl who started a let's play of The Witcher 3. Well, in itself not very surprising, right? Except that either this girl appears much younger than she really is or she's really around 13 years old. She claims that her father wanted her to play that. I have to ask, what kind of parents would say to their 13 years old daughter: "Yeah, Witcher 3 is a perfect game for you". I mean, I'm not a prude by any mean (anyone on this forum knows that ;) ) but even me have some limits. If my daughter (supposing I had one) wanted to play the Witcher 3, she'd better be 16 at the very least (because of the sex) and more possibly 18 (because of the violence with blood splashing everywhere). And yes, in case you wonder, in Europe we're fine with letting 16 years old watch sex (in Greece it's even 15) but we're not fine with kids playing violent games before their adulthood. Call us weird. The philosophy behind that is that nudity and sex are natural while violence shouldn't be glorified.

But my original point is: some parents are weird... Then again, maybe I'm mistaken and this girl has a medical condition making her appear very young when she's anything but... Who knows?

Funny how Bethesda is keeping to their own path. From what I've read on the web, they got the new engine, they got the prettier graphics and... they kept all the bugs, including the ones dating back to 2004 that were never solved (by them that is). XD

How do I know? Because I've been replaying the original and I stumbled upon a couple of bugs that I didn't remember how to work around out of the top of my head. So I browsed the web to refresh my memory and what do you know. The exact same bugs for 2025 version. Someone even joked that Bethesda kept the bugs for nostalgia. I don't know if it's nostalgia but if it is it's the kind nobody needs.

So I guess we can put Oblivion Remastered in the category of "just making money". The sad truth is that they have nothing new to propose, TES VI is possibly 4-5 years away (they're waiting for computers to go beyond their current limitations because they have no idea of how to optimize a game), still they want the juice.

Meanwhile I've been replaying a bit of Enderal and here's the thing. Enderal runs on the Skyrim engine, is about as long and maybe more complex than Skyrim, but you can divide the number of bugs by 10 compared to Skyrim. And those guys weren't even paid, they did that on their spare time for the love of it (I hope they got thanks by the way of donations because the end result is so professional that you wonder how Bethesda cannot manage the same while being paid to do their job all day long). Enderal is not perfect, sure, but it's a heck of a lot better that Bethesda delivered this past 15 years.

Anyway, old Oblivion is perfectly fine with me (barring the bugs). I have a lot of fun with it and I get to load my favorite mods. And I'm reminded why I never really had any fun with Knights of the Nine (is that just me? could be...)

I'm just venting. In five days in my fine Normandy we got from 19°C to 27°C then down to 12 (in °F that would be 66 and 80 and 53). My sinuses are ecstatic. BTW, when is America switching to Celsius? Ooh, or we can go for a compromise... we all switch to Kelvin, that way we'll all be hot all the time. 19°C = 66°F = 292°K. Isn't that marvelous? :D And that would be the scientific approach anyway. After all at 0°K, all electrons and atoms freeze and stop moving. There's nothing below 0°K which makes it the ultimate temperature measurement.

*Dragging myself away from real life.*

QuoteWell, except for the fact that you can't install the Leveler's Shack on this remaster (this mod is such a blessing when you get to replay Oblivion for the nth time and just want the story without the grind).

I miss the Leveler's Shack. There are a good number of mods that I miss, really...Unique Landscapes, for example. A real pain to make it all work, but totally worth it. I would have considered the price tag of the remaster perfectly justified if they had incorporated UL.

QuoteThey try to sterilize their games so much to be PC compliant that it's not even funny.

This is actually quite true in other aspects of the game: they've censored/altered quite a few of the female armors, outfits, statues...obviously they're attempting to cater to the nose ring crowd, who 1) make up a laughably tiny segment of gamers, and 2) don't buy these games anyway. Asmongold had a video--


I don't think he played the original, so I think the Alessia's statue example was something of a surprise.

QuoteWhich one? Your mod or scribonnaise? XD

Either...or both...okay, now I'm confused. It's a comforting feeling, really.

Out of sheer morbid curiosity, I found that my mod crashes the game. Oh, well. :D

[For the record: the door to Golgotha is there -- just the door -- but attempting to enter? Crash! Plus, you can't choose one of my custom races, either. I would have to put in a ton of work to make it happen, and I'm not about to do that.]

QuoteCute! I guess that's the thought that counts...

If they could at least give me a cupcake with a candle, I'd consider their well-wishes more or less sincere. As it is, I ignore such things anymore.

THEM: Happy birthday! Digital balloons and glitter! Wheeeeeeee!

ME: Whatever. Where's my cupcake, you insincere bastards?


As for kids playing games well above their age rating, I paraphrase Dave Barry: you can play the Witcher 3 when you're 40.

[I mean...my mother flipped out when I was playing Doom, and I was 19. My defense? "I'm killin' the demons, not makin' friends with 'em." She was fine with it after that, but geez...cut the apron strings already, wouldya?? Still, I think she would've punched me in the head if she had seen what "options" you could explore in Cyberpunk's chargen.]

QuoteThe exact same bugs for 2025 version.

Yup. I think they kept all of the bugs because they just ported the bulk of the game without a thought in their heads. Overhaul the UI and the graphics, but don't touch the things that should've been fixed nineteen years ago.

All of the weird things that people don't like or want changed in the remaster...were changed in mods for the original. All they have to do is pick up OB for cheap -- I think the Steam and GOG deluxe packages include all of the DLCs -- and then immerse themselves in the wonderful wild wacky world of mods. Thousands of 'em are out there. Sure, it's not as pretty, but it's a damned sight less annoying.

(My favorite mod trend right now: mods that are attempting to make the NPCs look like they did in the original. A simple solution: why not play the original, morons?)

QuoteAnd I'm reminded why I never really had any fun with Knights of the Nine (is that just me? could be...)

Nah. I hated KotN. I don't remember the specifics of my hate, I just remember that I never had it enabled in my mod list. It's kind of built in to the remaster (unless you want to mess with the plugins.txt buried in the folders somewhere), which means that the Anvil chapel is toast right from the beginning. No delay at all. No thought was given to actually researching what the players thought of the thing ("A mod that delays the quest?? Are they insane?"). Just port the damn thing and rake in the cash!

Shivering Isles, by contrast...I'm still working my way towards that one at my own pace, but I have other things to do at the moment. I expect to be supremely disappointed by what they've done to the Amber armor, though.

QuoteBTW, when is America switching to Celsius?

Probably about the same time that rednecks stop using kilometer signs for target practice. ::)

I'd like a compromise as well, as the conversion is a bit too much for me when I don't have a calculator (I used to be good at math! When did I get so stupid??). But I do understand that anything above 20 celsius is too warm. I guess that's all I need to know.

The sad, pathetic state in which I live -- it's so windy here because Kansas sucks and Texas blows -- flip-flops like that all the time. Last week? Lots of rain, temps in the 50's and 60's. This coming week: very little chance of rain, but temps going up to 95 on Wednesday. Then back to the 80's. And it's only May. Transition months are the worst. If it's not the temps on a pogo stick, it's the sky cones of death wrecking everything. But hey...come back for July and August, where it will be a constant struggle between "hot" and "heart of the sun". Glad I got my A/C fixed last week...

More Reblivion stuff:

"I understand that Daedra worship has become increasingly prevalent in the Summerset Isles."

And that's when I killed everyone in the Imperial City.

Actually, to clarify my last post: when I said "thicc chick" I was being sarcastic. She's a fine, broad-shouldered lad...uh...lass, and doesn't look a thing like a man. Nope! Totally female.

Blood and shadows, they want everyone to be goddamn androgynous. People are working on that, of course. My barrel-chested fellow...um...gal will be glad of it.

The things that it does differently from the original...well, I don't know that they're worth it. Sure, it looks pretty. The characters look a lot better, but some of the NPCs are still hideous, no matter what. I guess if you can have fuzzy rats and fuzzy fur armor, you can overlook the fact that the various elves look like ugly aliens. New voice acting? Sure, why not. You heard Wes Johnson and Lynda Carter EVERYWHERE in the original, so I guess that some change is good.

Some things are kind of puzzling, though. The menus are something of a drag, and they removed easy access to the local map. If you're in a dungeon, for example, and want to see its layout, you need to open the map (which always defaults to the world map) and zoom all the way in until it switches to the local map. Every time. Irritating, to say the least.

Also, it's easier. Sort of. See, people are complaining about a couple of things regarding the leveling. For example, the extreme swing in difficulty settings. From the almost absurdly easy "novice" (which I find kind of relaxing, actually) to the thing that's shrinking their asses into bleeding little pinholes, the insanely difficult "master".

I, for one, don't see the point of playing on hard difficulties, because it's a single player game and I have nothing to prove to anyone. These are the clowns who jump into every game, flip on the most brutal setting -- or so they allege -- and brag how they "beat the game" at its most insane and they're so great and...and...and I want them all to BURST INTO FLAMES AND DIE SCREAMING IN AGONY--

That is to say, I wish they would just go far, far away. Somewhere without the internet. Perhaps Hell.

Another thing is that there's a lot of complaining about how goodies are distributed via leveling, i.e., finding out that every bandit and marauder has glass and daedric tier armor at a certain point. Well...yeah. That was a problem way back then, but it was addressed a long time ago. Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is something I miss dearly as I wander through this pretty little bugfest in my ridiculous elven bird boots. Oh, yes: the bird boots are still in there, and they're still ridiculous.

I did stumble upon a bug that I'd never experienced in the original, though: I decided to hit Anvil, bypassing my first trip to Kvatch for the moment -- yeah, yeah I'll find Sean Bean later, lemme explore -- and noticed that there were markers for Oblivion gates popping up all over the surrounding countryside. No gates themselves, but markers. Huh. One even opened by Nagastani (the Ayleid ruin east of the city isle, on the plain south of Cheydinhal). I went inside and closed the gate. Wondering if this was a new thing, I went on with my life and eventually quit. On loading up the next day, I noted that the OB gate markers around Anvil were gone. The gate ruins by Nagastani were gone too, like it never happened. I did a bit of searching and, yes, it was a bug. Genius.

Before I forget: leveling *any* skill, regardless of major or minor, will contribute towards leveling up. It's just that major skills level up *faster* (I think I saw that it was 20% faster?). So leveling up is a bit quicker in Reblivion.

One thing I saw a lot was the advice to get the Kvatch gate done as early as possible. For experimental purposes, I tried it out at level 3, level 17, and level 20 (with different characters, obviously). At level 3: stunted scamps, clannfear runts, and the occasional Dremora Churl. The toughest thing I faced was a couple of regular scamps and a fire elemental in the Count's quarters. That's it. There are a *lot* of stunted scamps though, which is ominous news for the higher-level player.

[Side Note: Oh, another bug I'd never seen before: Captain Matius gets stuck in the courtyard after you open the gate to the castle and will only shout to clear the courtyard; you can either find a mod that fixes it or, what I did, just go inside and fight my way to the Count's body and return to Matius with the ring. Things will go on from there. But for new players, I see that there may be some confusion as to what to do next.]

At level 17, that ominous feeling was confirmed. The number of daedra spawns was not changed, but the *type* of daedra was, obviously. Tons of full-strength clannfears in the courtyard. Lost several Kvatch guards and a couple of Imperial troopers that day, not that I shed one tear as I looted their still-steaming corpses.

Level 20: As I was following Inian...uh...the gate key guy, I was beset by four Clannfears, two spider daedra -- those things are friggin' scary, man -- and a storm atronach or two. Then the game crashed right in the middle of this daedra gangbang, which makes me wonder if anyone's even playtesting these things anymore.

["Who cares? Just release it! Get that cash flowing *in*, goddammit! Todd needs a win!"]

Speaking of bangs, I've seen quite a few saved character mods touting a "cute" or "pretty" elf, which is a blatant lie. No matter how you screw with the sliders, they're still awful for one reason: the brow ridge. (The dunmer are probably the most afflicted of the lot.) So witness the one thing these saves all share: any hairstyle with either long bangs or strands of hair that hides the corners of brows. If you try hair that doesn't hide 'em, I imagine that the elf won't be so cute anymore. So I have no interest in mucking about with the elves; I had a bad enough time of it making my Breton presentable.

The Nord was okay, although the Imperial...well. She was a bit more difficult. And still looks a bit too manly.

Fun Fact: I'd never played as an Imperial before. Okay, not a "fun" fact at all. It's more of a "boring" fact. Much like playing an Imperial, come to think of it. It's like driving a brown car.

The real thing here is that I'm merely idly playing through Reblivion when I'm tired of the process of rebuilding my Skyrim modlist. (Not to mention those real-world concerns that I absolutely do not count.) I haven't played that in several years, so I'm updating my staples and so on. I'm somewhat curious to see if I can get it to work. If not, I'll simply install my Legacy backup.

Disclosure: since I'd had enough with the headache of burning BD-Rs for backups, I've been storing all my game crap on a 2TB external drive. So when that drive decided to go tits up, I was not happy in the slightest. I had resigned myself to never playing Skyrim again, as my most recent backups dated to 2017. And I know I had done at least *some* work on my personal mods since then. But I decided to give the drive one last shot and plugged it in.

Windows wouldn't exactly recognize the drive, but it assigned it a drive letter. So I ran "chdsk d: /r" and, after about 7+ hours of rumination and so on, it tells me that no errors were found.


However, it did recognize the drive and I was able to start copying files off onto my internal storage drive, including the backup of an attempt at playing Skyrim back in 2021, apparently...I don't really remember anything about that. My memory sucks.

Even though I'm relieved to have my files accessible again, I am less than happy with Western Digital's products in general.

Okay, screenshots. Why not.

Evidence of this being not much more than a port: the huge skull in Fort...Something. It's a vampire lair. Anyway, it's still there.

Hope that's not a baby's skull. Its poor mother.

To quote William Lord...

QuoteAnd the aged beldames napping,
Dreamed of gently rapping, rapping,
With a hammer gently tapping,
Tapping on an infant's skull

What did they do my Antoinetta???

Put her back the way she was!


Oh Christ kill it with FIRE--

I still killed her last. Tee-hee.


Uhhhh...okay...

Would you guys like a bit of Scribo! to spice things up? No? Shall I go away, then? Okay, okay, I understand. Look, you don't need to yell, I'm goin' already! GEEZ!


Hey, wait...this guy looks familiar.

It's *says* "Bandit Hedge Wizard", but I suspect that I may have accidentally killed Jesus. Whoops. I wonder what that'll do to my Infamy rating?


IMPORTANT ELF UPDATE:

Would you trust this woman?

There are at least FIVE mods active here, three of which are specially crafted to make her presentable (spider daedra hair, young elf face fix, young textures).

And thus I wend my way merrily along, back to whatever slimy hellhole I managed to extract myself from in the first place.

Addendum: here's a video of some armors in Skyblivion.


That glass armor. :o  (not to mention the necromancer armor...)

My point? This is why the mod's gonna be better than the remaster. Should be out this year, hopefully.

My only concern is that they might take the realism thing too far; just a woman's head on male armor? No thank you.

I reiterate: "realism" is fine until you introduce elves into the mix. And let's not forget those guys with the cat and lizard heads, huh? "bOob aRMor iS uReaListIc!!!11" said the Furry. ::)


Yeah. YEAH!

*sigh*

This looks so...empty.


So, so empty.

But wait! What's that?


Oh, that's better. Much better. Maybe not as "pretty", but what's inside the little ruin on that hill of so many skulls is far more fun than the mere pocket change you may find in other, lesser ruins.

Okay, yeah: a new install of Oblivion. Without my happy fun mods, I feel like the remake is just half of a game. Strangely, apparently I attempted to play OB again in 2020, but never went anywhere with it. I had a full backup of what I had installed, but...I don't know. So I copied that over, updated a couple of things (OBSE, Wrye Bash, etc), but kept everything else just the way I had it. For some reason I hadn't installed OOO, but I also had a sub-folder where I had stashed all of the mods that I removed for that instance. So I have it. I just haven't installed it yet.

Come to think of it, a few (or more) years back, I actually got the 3 major overhauls (at the time) working together -- OOO, MMM, Francesco's -- with a ton of help from the guides. I think dev_akm put 'em together? Anyway, I don't think I was that interested in recreating that experience in 2020 (assuming I can fathom what the hell I was thinking five years ago), so it's kinda bare bones.

Still, the most important thing is that my stuff works. Yay.

I think I had two versions of the plugin: one normal and one with non-hostile inhabitants (I don't think I released that version). So with that in mind, I slipped into Golgotha wondering if I had the friendly version.

"Nope," I muttered as I backstepped an irate dark elf bodyguard's katana.

Still, I was investigating as a Ximer, which meant I didn't die instantly.

I still wonder why I put so many hairstyles into this mod, when I hate perhaps 98% of them. Or why I had so many different races. And I'm astounded at how much work I put into the dungeons, just to provide a place to pick up a bunch of recolors. One vivid memory -- yes, I do have memories of some things -- was of putting together the initial room of one of the sub-dungeons, using the Imperial sewer set, and trying to figure out how to drop the player down a long, dark shaft into the water. While I messed with aligning room meshes, there was a tornado system passing very close...overhead, actually. The wind and rain lashed at the windows mercilessly, the tornado sirens were going off, the TV was blaring about how we're all gonna die (meteorologists' sangfroid varies from station to station; the CBS affiliate was a longtime veteran of such things and was not prone to panic, while I think the NBC and ABC affiliates' guys most likely pissed themselves), but I was only concerned about getting those alignments perfect. (The tornado ended up skipping over my section of town, going on to wreck parts of the eastern side, by the lake.)

On an unrelated note, I'd forgotten how fast you can run in this game...

So here's the dilemma: pretty graphics...


(She's just been in the rain, FYI. That's why she's shiny.)

...or adequate graphics?


The original is certainly smoother, with none of that fancy slow-'em-down-so-they-don't-miss-the-scenery nonsense that I find exasperating. The menu is certainly more useful than I remembered, with everything in a central hub (so to speak) of convenience. The remake's menu...is a mess. It took me a while to get used to it, and I still don't like it. It wasn't broken, so they fixed it until it was.

So the original isn't this breathtakingly beautiful experience. So what? It's had almost two decades' worth of people toiling away to fix the bugs that Bethesda never managed (or even bothered) to fix, as well as a boggling number of mods with which to tailor your perfect experience.

And here's the thing: the remaster has people working diligently to make it just as good, but...enh. It's fun to watch 'em come up with body mods and squabbling over the definition of what a "woman" might be and all the "modern" sensibility garbage I know I never get tired of seeing, day after life-sucking, soul-disintegrating day.

So...really: would I recommend the remake? Only if you never played the original and have a few bucks to spend. Or if you're morbidly curious (as I was). Other than that, I don't think it's a waste of time or money, but don't expect it to *play* better than the original.

And furthermore...

I've seen a couple of examples of Morrowind rendered in the Unreal engine, and it looks great. However: a remake would be a divisive thing, to understate the case. Purists would have aneurysms. But me? I would enjoy a remake as long as it's not just a graphical thing. Combat would need to be brought up to match Skyrim's, at the very least. Blocking as a *conscious* decision rather than the game deciding when and where to block for you? Imagine!

So a "remake" would need to be a remake in earnest instead of the same buggy game in a pretty engine. Or they could go the retro route, which I don't like. I'd like a full-scale modern day update, but it remains to be seen if they'd even attempt it. The OB remake's raked in a ton of cash so far, but would it be enough to justify revisiting their back catalog and redoing everything? Arena and Daggerfall remakes would be nice, I admit.

Actually, I'd rather see TES VI first. Then a Morrowind remake. Priorities, people.

Bonus screenshot:
Why? I have no idea.

I've finished most of my replay of Oblivion original and I'm pretty satisfied. I'm done with all the guilds, the main story, a bunch of side quests and even Shivering Isles (Sheogorath is still his hilarious self and pretty much very demented, of course now that I'm the madgod (funny, my character is female but there's never been a madgoddess option in Oblivion) I have lessons to give to everyone muhahaha.

Better graphics is just a selling point. It's not and has never been the substance of a game. Take The Witcher 3 for example, excellent graphics, but if the quests, characters and story weren't excellent too, it would be shit and I would be the first to say it. Take Deus Ex or Thief TDP or TMA. By today graphics definition they are horrible, atrocious, look like crap... But they are still some of the best games out there because they have "substance". Substance is always better than looks (I was going to say "substance trumps looks" but that's definitely a verb I don't want to use these days).

Bethesda is just giving the crowd what they want, the magic stamp of "remastered" so overused these days. Note that they chose the word carefully, it's a "remaster", not a "remake" so nobody can accuse them if all the old bugs are still there. The fact that the bugs are still there only prove that the engine is really freaking old. I mean, it's so old that even the bugs follow. I'm sure they could also "remaster" Morrowind because guess what, yes the engine have known some evolutions since those days but not that much. Someone who modded for Morrowind could mod directly for Starfield, skipping all the engine iterations between with just a couple of weeks of adaptation and learning a few new things.

Game modability (is that even a word?) is the thing that propelled Bethesda up, but now it's killing them slowly. I remember everyone complaining about the constant loadings in Starfield.

And now, I see that some problems plaguing Starfield (not bug related) were already very much present in Oblivion, first and foremost the game inability to know what you have done between quests. Ever tried to play the Arena in Oblivion after beating the game? So you go to the "blademaster" and what you get is "Who are you? I don't know you. You've got 10 seconds to explain what you're doing in my Arena!"

Ok dude. When was the last time you actually left your fucking arena? I just resolved the Oblivion Crisis, it's in all the newspapers for God's sake. I'm the Champion of Cyrodiil, I'm the guild master of the Warrior Guild, I'm the Arch-Mage, I'm Sheogorath (or at least I hold his throne for the time being which will probably be until I die), I'm the listener for the Dark Brotherhood (so if you want me to wipe that smile off your face, I can have my minions do it, no charge) and the grand master of the Thieves Guild (ooh, you had some money in your pocket, sorry, not anymore) -- well I forgive you for not knowing those two last points of my resume as actually no one is supposed to know -- Oh and yes... I'm also a vampire (for all the good it does in Oblivion -- much more fun being one in Skyrim) and yet, you don't know who I am, never heard of me?

That's what is killing our society. Complete ignorance.

Is it that hard to implement? Let's see. You put some flags (referred to in Bethesda engine as "Globals") when you complete a quest line and the NPCs from other quests refer to those flags to see how they should address you when they meet you for the first time.

So for example, supposing you're Arch-Mage; "Arch-Mage? I'm surprised to see you here. Come to get your hands into some entrails, maybe doing some blood divination? Good place to stock up on soul gems too, if you have black ones, that is... *wink*. Anyway, I know how it is, everyone got their hidden vices, right? *double wink* I hope you have something to get rid of the blood though. What am I saying, of course you do. A good old washing spell!"

A 12 years old could do it. But you know what? Too much freaking work! Bethesda is not Bioware, they don't want the complications. They prefer to go "remastering" things, much simpler. "Ooh, pretty graphics! That's good enough for the masses! Who cares about good games being made even greater nowadays?" I agree, sadly. Less and less people care.

All Bethesda games, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Starfield are suffering from the same "I don't know what happened in the universe and I couldn't care less" syndrome. Starfield... you're Crimson fleet? You're also Vanguard? Oh and you added Freestar Ranger in the mix?  No problem my boy, we'll just pretend that nobody knows.

And that problem is the cherry on top of many others.

It's also the main reason why I won't be playing KOTN. Because that fucking preacher is getting on my nerve real quick. Not only you have to tell him who you are but all he does is going on about how you must prove yourself... to him! And I'm like "OK pal, whatever you want. I'm not seeing a queue behind me of lads and lasses waiting for the honor of your judgement to have the privilege of helping you on your quest. So hey, bye and good luck! Maybe in century or so you'll find someone. I heard from Haskill that in about two hundred years another gullible moron could be agreeable. Haskill called him a "Dragonborn"... whatever that is... Wait, wasn't Martin one? Oh well, whatever. Now if you excuse me I have some laundry waiting for me. All this daedra blood won't go away by itself you know, and I'm sure it will be more fun than talking to you. Shadowmere! Come here girl, we're off".

And I imagine he would go: "But you don't understand! The entire world could be destroyed".

And I would reply: "Well, yeah, I've done my share this week to prevent that with all that business with Dagon, which is more than you can say for yourself so again... bye! It's been a real non-pleasure!". 

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on May 14, 2025, 07:51 PMI think I had two versions of the plugin: one normal and one with non-hostile inhabitants (I don't think I released that version).

Not that I know of. I only ever had the "hostile" version. But hey, it's worth it for all the cool OP weapons you get (if you survive). XD

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on May 14, 2025, 07:51 PMAnd I'm astounded at how much work I put into the dungeons, just to provide a place to pick up a bunch of recolors.

To be frank, I always preferred it that way. Much better than simply stashing a bunch of chests outside the Imperial City and say "Take it, it's all yours, no really". And the journals make for some funny reading. "SCRIBONNAISE RULES!", that's IMHO anyway. Although I think I remember that you were much heavier on the scribonnaise in your Morrowind mod (god I haven't been playing that one in ages... Morrowind I mean, so by extension your mod too).

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on May 14, 2025, 07:51 PMOn an unrelated note, I'd forgotten how fast you can run in this game...

And how high you can jump. That's one of the things we've lost with Skyrim, "Athletics" and "Acrobatics". Fortunately, there's a mod for that too... Dragonborn Powers (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/37326), among other things it let's you configure through the MCM how fast you can run and how high you can jump. Be warned and responsible... "badly" used it's completely a cheat mod. :D

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on May 14, 2025, 07:51 PMI've seen a couple of examples of Morrowind rendered in the Unreal engine, and it looks great. However: a remake would be a divisive thing, to understate the case. Purists would have aneurysms. But me? I would enjoy a remake as long as it's not just a graphical thing. Combat would need to be brought up to match Skyrim's,

Not to mention that a switch in engine would mean not that many mods anymore. Believe me, I've modded in the Unreal engine (Deus Ex) and it's really not the same thing as modding in Bethesda games. In the Unreal engine you really need to have some real basics in coding to achieve results (not as much as you'd need in Half-Life but still). The big pro of Bethesda is that they made modding "friendly" starting with Morrowind.

And to be honest, Bethesda could have gone with a remake, even on the same engine. Fixing all the bugs for a start, tweaking the playability, the combat mechanics... all of those could have been done and they could even do that with Morrowind. They chose not to because that would have implied basically remaking the game and why do that when they can sell a mere remaster with just the graphics and models tuned for the price of a new game?

Oh, and since I'm replaying a bit of Skyrim too, and I was evoking Thief earlier, the eternal question is coming back: wouldn't it be easier to count the number of NPCs that Stephen Russell DIDN'T voice in this single game? I must admit though, the choice of Stephen for voicing Mercer Frey was obvious. You can't have the Master Thief at your disposal and not make him voice the "evil" Master Thief. XD

Funny thing...or maybe it's just irony; I have no way of knowing anymore...but people are experiencing crashes aplenty. Not just CTDs, but there's a "helpful" crash dialog box with which you can elect to send all the relevant info (probably including a bunch of other stuff you might not want to send) to The Developers so that they can completely ignore it.

And there hasn't even been a patch released; all of a sudden I'm getting frequent crashes across different characters. 99% of them have one common description: "GPU Crash dump Triggered".

Now that's something I'd never seen in the original, so props to Virtuos for giving us *something* new. Anyway, I'm more curious than enraged (I'm not emotionally superglued to the thing), so I did a little digging and came up with two conclusions:

1. The internet is even more useless than usual, and

2. It's the Unreal 5 engine that's the root cause.

There are plenty of alleged "fixes" for the crashes ("run as administrator!"..."delete your shader cache!"..."roll back your drivers!"..."send Jenna Ortega nude pix pls thx!"...etc.), but I saw a lot of "none of these worked!" responses from the hapless masses. Someone pointed out that most (if not all) games involving UE5 have the same cause: the engine itself.

My favorite "fix" was: lower your graphics settings!

Ah. Okay. Sure, why not? I'll just dumb down the graphics to the point where they're at the same level as the original! Yay, progress! (For the record: I am *not* rolling back my drivers or futzing about with shaders. As for Ms. Ortega...good luck.)

Waste of time. I'm having a lot more fun revisiting Skyrim in the form of the Anniversary Edition. I never thought I'd play it again (thanks to my problems with my storage drive), but I can say it's a bit more interesting with the nine million Creation Club DLC tossed in there. Never a dull moment. F'rinstance, I'm playing with Live Another Life and the Not So Fast Main Quest mod (both permanent fixtures in my mod list), and before I've had a chance to kill my first dragon, I already have two free homes. And they're *nice* homes.

Purists may grumble at the AE version, but hey...without it, I have about 440 plugins, a mix of esps and esls. To be honest, most of those are patches to make everything play nice with each other. Still, I have a fairly stable game. I may get the occasional slowdown in some interiors, but that's just the creaky old engine not dealing with lighting all that well.

Every so often I'll play a bit more of Reblivion, crash out, and go back to other things. When I crashed out of original Oblivion recently, I just shrugged: that was just Oblivion being Oblivion. I reloaded and played on without further problems. But the remaster? There's no excuse for the crashing. A buggy game in a problematic engine.

So...yeah. It's pretty much a cash grab.

As to Oblivion's obliviousness to the player's status in the world, I'd like to point out a couple of personal gripes of my own: one, the tendency of quest NPCs to just stand around forever after their quest is over, and two: what the Night Mother says about your true journey beginning.

Of course, this comes right at the end of the questline and all that's left is the irritating task of visiting her statue every week, ferrying information to Arquen (sp?), collecting the pittance that is the sanctuary's earnings, and...nothing else. It's over. Done. Kaput. Same thing with Skyrim, essentially. It's why I dread ending faction questlines because all you have in the end is a title, some measure of fame (or infamy), and nothing else happens. You either readjust your focus to other endeavors or opt to play through it all again with a different character, although it'll be the same experience again with little variation. Yawn.

Stephen Russell. The MAN. His casting as various Thieves Guild members was absolutely perfect. Did they overuse him in the rest of the game? Probably. Not as much as LGS did, but hey: I just know if I had access to his voice, I'd have him doing every part, just for fun.

Overheard in the Bethesda dungeons:

"We got Stephen Russell!"

"Yay!"

"We also got Lynda Carter!"

"...oh."

"What's wrong with Lynda?"

"Is she gonna show up as Wonder Woman?"

"No. She's almost 75, man."

"Ah. Wait...age hasn't stopped Cassandra Peterson from doing the Elvira thing. She's the same age!"

"Granny tits!?? Barf."

END SCENE

[Side Note: It's been pointed out that "Elvira" releases a wall calendar every year; however, the pictures are recycled year after year, all of them originating from photo shoots in the late 80's/early 90's when she was relatively young. I guess that's cheaper than hiring some guy to photoshop out the stretch marks, liver spots, and wrinkles. At least Lynda hasn't fallen into that particularly cynical practice.]

[Another side note: sorry about the rambling. It's 4am.]

QuoteAnd the journals make for some funny reading. "SCRIBONNAISE RULES!", that's IMHO anyway. Although I think I remember that you were much heavier on the scribonnaise in your Morrowind mod

I think I was; by comparison, it was just a passing reference in OB as I recall. In Skyrim, though...



I went through all the trouble, but I'll likely never release my mod. I'd worked on the thing off and on between 2011 and 2020, but I've never been happy with it. Only the few weapons, the hideaway "home" in Riverwood (with a couple dozen music tracks for ambience), and some of the armors are any good. I *am* happy with the various custom races, having jumped through a million flaming hoops just to get them working, but I think to get them in a state where others can play them might be a nightmare? I don't know.

My presets, for example, were made with ECE and not RaceMenu; ECE was more inclined to an exotic look, which is what I was going for. (I think I even had both of them working together at one point.) And I don't have any idea how to go about making the outfits or bodies compatible with Bodyslide...so many variables and nitpicky little things, I just resigned myself to keeping it local.

But I'll show a comparison between a preset I put together in 2018 under plain ol' Skyrim, and the same face in the Anniversary Edition.

2018:

2025:

Big difference in lighting. I also updated the body/face textures to Diamond Skin, which is a more modern version of Fair Skin. (The upside being that I don't have any more issues with texture seams.)

From certain angles, however...she's somewhat odd. The nose, for example, is something I've never been able to get right. So I updated her a bit:


It's not too noticeable, but I tweaked her nose and mouth. Her sellion and bridge are improved (I've improved my nose sculpting, I guess), but I'm not entirely happy with her mouth.

And so it goes, ever on: never truly happy, but willing to fiddle with sliders until the end of time.

QuoteAnd how high you can jump.

I, uh...sort of messed with that in my custom races. :D  I run like the wind, jump like the Hulk, take zero falling damage, regenerate health and magicka like crazy. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear I turned on god mode. Tee-hee.  :P

I exaggerate the experience, but only slightly.

[Explaining Myself: I hate slow, plodding character movement. I hate taking massive fall damage from otherwise minor heights. I hate carrying and relying upon potions. I like sneaky one-shot kills, fast, responsive weapons with some power to 'em, and not being massacred by mangy-looking wolves.]

Dragonborn Powers might be the perfect answer for playing without using an OP godlike race. A Breton mage who can jump over a fallen log without breaking an ankle in the process? Sounds perfect.

Btw, I'll extract the text from the Scribo! book and post it here. I just need to deal with the CK... :P

Yahtzee!

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on May 17, 2025, 04:53 AMI just know if I had access to his voice, I'd have him doing every part, just for fun.

Funny thing that happened to me last day and I didn't remember from my past playthroughs Of Skyrim because it's within a side quest I tend to not do, not interesting enough I guess. It's the quest where go to the Cidhne mines in Markath and meet the leader of the Forsworn (Stephen Russell) he then proceeds to tell you that you should talk to another guy in the mine and hear his story. So I go to that other guy and there... Stephen Russell again. well, it was certainly quite comical.

It's sad to see Bethesda managing to be funny when they're desperately trying to be serious.

Anyway I went back to the previous Stephen Russell and just killed him. "That's one less", I told myself. Next one my list, Belethor... Oh, there's also the merchant in Riverwood (actually can't remember his name and don't really care)... and Enthir in the College and of course Mercer Frey because I'm not there yet. That's a pretty long list... XD

Seriously Stephen should try to vary his voice from time to time (F4 Valentine, Codsworth -- at least he went for some kind of British butler variation --, the other Mr handy serving drinks in Goodneighbour and many others... seriously?). Take the guy who voiced Geralt of Rivia. He talks to you in the street, I guarantee, you won't even know it's him, unless he does "the voice".

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on May 17, 2025, 04:53 AMI think I was; by comparison, it was just a passing reference in OB as I recall. In Skyrim, though...

Been holding out the scribonnaise on me, huh? :D

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on May 17, 2025, 04:53 AMBut I'll show a comparison between a preset I put together in 2018 under plain ol' Skyrim, and the same face in the Anniversary Edition.

Honestly, I prefer the 2018 version.

Quote from: Silver Sorrow on May 17, 2025, 04:53 AMI, uh...sort of messed with that in my custom races. :D

Yeah, I got that impression after I chose to be one of the Khovian (actually I can't remember of what particular persuasion) and after I fell from a mountain side, totally by mistake. Once on the ground I wondered "Hey, how comes that fall didn't kill me?"

Other than that, the video above kinda prove my whole point about "remasters".