I whine a lot and also Skyrim maybe?

[xyzzysqrl]

Let's start off serious: about a week ago I locked down comments. You have to be a registered Livejournal user or have a twitter or openID or whatever to post comments now on the Livejournal site. I was getting 50-70 anonymous spam comments a day and it was seriously starting to piss me off, so no more anonymous commenting. I've never had that problem on Dreamwidth, mind.

Of course if you're reading this, you're either my personal friend or came here from Twitter or something anyway. Thus, I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. It just... I wanted to be able to keep that line of communication open, because I still get encouraging anonymous commenters who find me via google or something now and then. However, like so many other things, the Internet has now ruined this part of itself.

Anyway y'all remember when I used to blog about games? I used to blog about games! I think I'm gonna pick that back up. Before I do though, I wanna remind myself of something.

Let me cut and paste the Hat Project rules from my first post on the subject:

Rule 0 - I will play games dictated by random draw ("The Hat", by Harmony Hollow Software) and write about them meaningfully in blog form.
Rule 1 - I should make a good-faith effort to finish each game I start.
Rule 2 - However, some are arcade style, some last forever/are super-long, some are really hard, and some will piss me off enormously or be in a genre I can't stand. As such, after a few hours of gameplay, I can Escape Clause out of a game and go "Y'know, screw this." or "I will come back to this." But I still have to write about it and why I quit.
(Rule 2.5 - For MMOs and online shooters, just playing several hours will do. I can decide to keep playing after that if I like.)
Rule 3 - I can mod games, but they have to remain recognizable. No turning Doom into a third-person turn-based strategy game.
Rule 4 - I will accept gifts. Is there something you want to see me play? Drop it to me on Steam or GoG and it goes IN THE RANDOM PILE with every other game. You may not see it soon, but... I'm grateful if you choose to support this insane plan.

I feel like I made a good-faith effort to finish most of my games, but sometimes other things come up and get in the way. That said, I feel the spirit of those rules got buried somewhere. Somewhere in there I got obsessed with FINISHING games and I started to get really depressed and sad about quitting. I don't feel like I have an unusually huge unfinished pile. (Actually I should go ahead sometime and count up the "complete" versus "incomplete"...)

The thing is, someday I need to figure out what my actual GOAL here is. Entertaining people? Finishing every game I own? Why can't I finish RPGs, then? Making myself write? If so, do I need to write up every detail or just a review at the end? Do I HAVE a goal? Is it more important to try new things, or is it more rewarding to finally mark something "finished for good" so I can cross it off the list? If this is just to amuse myself, why would I post it here? Shouldn't I be playing to the audience (you guys)?

I don't have the answer to these questions, which is a trifle awkward because if anyone would it probably should be me. I kind of hate getting people emotionally invested in something I'm not going to finish, it feels like dragging you all down with me and when I do that I feel like I am not a good person. Maybe not even an okay person.


Anyway. For now, I'm laying Metal Saga aside. (You probably guessed.)

Instead of drawing a game, I kind of feel like I want to just do a game I -want to play- for a change, and lately... well. Lately I've been really considering modding Skyrim all up and playing that. I never got around to the DLC or anything. There's a LOT of good mods. Also, I miss writing. What if I set myself a modest, Animal Crossing style goal: Play Skyrim until I get bored and quit, while blogging about it?

I am thinking about this and I like the sound of it.

So here's what I'm gonna do: Do you have any favorite Skyrim mods that... hopefully don't involve professional wrestlers or trains or breasts the SIZE of trains or anything HORRIBLY crazy/game crashing/annoying? (I can provide the silly myself, for the most part, and I do want the game -actually finishable-.) Stick a link in the comments.

I'll harvest my own favorites. I'll post the full modlist when I start. In a couple of days we'll get this started, unless anyone goes "no, don't, stop" and means it or really DEMANDS I play something else like Dragon Age or New Vegas or something. I'm gonna try to make this a month (at least) of Skyrim, just to get this out of my system, to get back into writing, and hopefully to entertain you.

(Also taking race suggestions and general character suggestions. Ashe again? Xao? Someone new?)

Comments

[phoenixtril.livejournal.com]

SkyUI, iHUD, Better Bound Weapons, Better Vampires, Dragonbone Crossbow, Steel Bolts for All, Barenziah Quest Markers, and the Unofficial Patches. I never could get any of the mods that dealt with lascivious things to work properly, much to my chagrin.

[xyzzysqrl]

Noted!

I never really -tried- to get the Naked People With Physics Everywhere mods working, myself.

[kiruppert.livejournal.com]

I only ever installed mods that improved playablity (I have one that reorganizes the menus and inventories), plus I think I did one that puts lanterns along major roads. I am not particularly good at finding mods that do new and interesting things to the game because I prefer to stick to vanilla for the most part.

Have you talked to Elix about this though? This is pretty well inside his ballywick though.

[xyzzysqrl]

Oh, I haven't talked to Elix since I snapped at him about Final Fantasy 11. That was, like... 2009. At this point I rather awkwardly assume we've both moved on.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit surprised the LJ spammers are still at it, but I suppose it's the same with any form of spamming: it's basically free to do, so even if the conversion rate is only 1:100,000, if you're gushing out 100,000,000 in a night, it's easily worthwhile. =:P (I've pondered if 419 spammers' English is always so delightfully wonky by design, so as to ensure only the most unsuspecting will take the bait)

FWIW, I just went the other way, re-enabling anonymous comments for the first time in a year or two - like you, I'd been seeing quite a bit of spam come in that way. I was filtering it fine, so it didn't really cause any problems per se, but it just felt untidy, somehow. So, I'll see how this goes. =:/

I'm fairly sure I've seen MLP:FiM mods for Skyrim. ^_^ Hmm. Yes, seems so. =:D

[xyzzysqrl]

Those are... not what I would call appealing-looking to me, I'm afraid.

[xander77.livejournal.com]

Why settle for a *few* mods? Do something like this:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/10/skyrim-week-of-madness-day-1-the-world-according-to-sheogorath/

and write up your impressions.

Also: What are you talking about, professional wrestlers make for the *best* mods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bifmj1O3D24

[xyzzysqrl]

No, that is the thing I explicitly said I DIDN'T want.