|
Dragonborn
This is the new expansion to Skyrim and HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, so the PC users may have liked Dawnguard and thought it was pretty rad, but SERIOUSLY. Dragonborn puts Dawnguard to shame by smacking its nose and telling it to stand in the corner with a dunce hat on. Get this fucking expansion as soon as you can! Anyway. What's great though is that this isn't the last DLC that Skyrim will have. Bethesda has stated that they plan on adding even more expansions. Yes. That's expansions... with an S at the end. Anyway. This expansion is AS MASSIVE and AS interesting as Shivering Isles for Oblivion. You basically go back to Solstheim, the island off the coast of Morrowind where Bloodmoon took place and HOLY SHIT! This expansion just got crazy creepy. What's great about it though is that it tends to take a departure from your typical snow and cold weather setting and gives you places to explore that are... well... ash wastes, really. Something about this expansion makes the game even darker than Dawnguard. I mean; DG has a sort of campy creepy vibe because of vampires, but so far... this expansion makes one feel like something terrible is just on the peripheral of everything. You get to the island and just get this weird sense of... abandonment. You go beyond Raven Rock and just... weird shit is going down. And the new armors... Wow. Let's just say that one of the new armors makes you look like a cross between robocop and a frickin' grizzly bear! |
Fucking sweet! Can't wait for the expansion next year!
|
Dude... you can throw spiders at people.
|
|
...Yeah. I mean; if you'd be into that kind of thing. I used it like... ONCE.
|
The dragon riding thing made me excited because dragons and unicorns were two things I fucking loved as a kid and while I think Skyrim does a good job in making dragons scary enough that I don't feel the OOOOOOH DRAGONS YAY squees in my head, I squeed like a five year old when I saw that preview.
Until I was reminded of Dragonriders of Pern and how much I fucking hated those books but read them anyway because they had dragons. |
I'm really not feeling confident that you guys are going to like how the dragons are handled.
Spoiler about how they work: Dragons are not mounts like horses are. You do not have direct control of a dragon. It is true that you can ride a dragon's back and command it to destroy things and fight and such. But do not expect anything like horses that behave like airplanes. The dragons are not your own car. It's more like they're like "Hey bro. You're cool. Get on my back and I'll take you for a ride and you can suggest to me that we should totes scorch that bandit camp. Oh you wanna fly to Dawnstar? Ha. Fast travel, broheim!" |
Now some things I do want to bring up.
Solstheim is a frickin' weird place. I don't know why but I think that island is practically cooler than almost the whole country of Skyrim. This expansion is scary. I mean hardcore spooky like a Lovecraft story is spooky. Way creepier than Dawnguard. The new gears are cool. I mean REALLY REALLY cool. Depending on what kind of mage you are, you might be disappointed. Spellswords will like it. Squishy destruction mages? Not really so much. (Where is your dragonskin spell anyway? Fuck's wrong with you? Wear that shit!) |
While I'm a little disappointed in how they did the dragon riders, my character is more of a scout/assassin type. I must say I love the like of the place, and wonder what kind of new light armor they'll come up with because I love the Dark Brotherhood gear.
|
Oh there's a BADASS light armor that I think you'll love. Unfortunately, you can't improve it through smithing and you can't forge it either.
If it means anything to you though, the light armor perks apply to it... o_0 It's basically a huge thick fur coat with thick fur hat, boots, and gloves. Then there's the Stalrim(sp) armors which are aesthetically BAD ASS. It's like the Nord version of glass armor and looks fucking dope as hell with a mage hood. Carved Nordic armor and weapons are slick too. Like high tech nordic gear. There's also new Dunmer armors like Chitin and Morog Tong assassin armor. Kind of a beetle meets steampunk meets the desert kind of look. |
I picked it up but haven't played it yet. I want to see the main quest first and I spent like all of last week finding words.
Which reminds me; KONTAN. I found some sick mods you would love. |
Which ones? I'm rolling with Skyrim Redone, Frostfall, and Wet and Cold with Immersive Weapons and Armors right now.
There's been a few cool ones lately. :) |
Most of my mods are cosmetic or drastically overhauling stuff, but here are some I think you'd like that don't change the game much.
Winter is coming - Adds big ass cloaks and hoods that are craftable and on NPC leveled list. Wet and cold will actually make NPCs equip them in the appropriate weather. Footprints - Adds footprints to everybody that walks in snow/ash. Enhanced Night Skyrim - Makes the night sky look fucking gorgeous. I have increased star density and blue galaxies that are turned up really bright, but mixed with darker lightning mods so I get that really cool black landscape/dark blue night sky effect. Lightning During Thunderstorms - Just like it sounds. Pretty great. Realistic needs and diseases - A VERY unobtrusive to game play hunger/thirst/sleep mod that goes great with Frostfall. Recommend that you use it without fast travel because it can get annoying. W.A.T.E.R. - A water texture and mold revision. Looks great. Static MESH Improvement - Makes things like chairs and fruit bowls ect. look 3 dimensional. Better Vampires - GET Predator Vision - Fun mod that adds heat vision and night eye to vampires, werewolves, and Khajit. Auto unequip Ammo - Switching from A crossbow or Bow takes off your quiver automatically. Birds - YES. BIRDS. IN FLOCKS. SKSE Hotkeys - Because fuck the fucking favorites menu. Convenient Horses - Really great. Gives horses an inventory, follows can use and fight on horses when you do, Horses don't attack everything in a 1000 mile radius. Ultimate Follower Overhaul - GET. |
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/...42B1E7CD5AD41/http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...3/screenshots/
This is what my Skyrim looks like right now. It's a pic of the sun coming over a mountain. |
|
|
That's nice!
|
And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for that meddling Saya. She doesn't think my character is "cute" and I'm like "I'm not going for cute! UGH!"
I wish I could show you my weather effects. Or how awesome and annoying it is to not being able to see a mother fucking thing because the sun isn't out or it's raining or snowing hard. >_> I mostly just wanted something that made the harsh weather look harsh, you know? Skyrim is supposed to be cold and unforgiving so nothing really looks warmer then "chilly" or "bitter," even on the nice days and nights where the sky is clear. |
Oh. This is the armor I'm using. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/28287 Looks boss with a big bear cloak.
|
The latest ENB series is like a god damned god send for people with ATI Radeon cards. So the new ENB series works wonders.
What I did notice is these freaky new effects it did to the rain. I was sitting there watching it rain and I was like... DAMN. The lighting actually looks kinda believable. I'm walking by this fire and I'm like... damn. What's those weird orange and shinny streaks in the air? Oh my god. Is that the rain reflecting the light I see? Then I look up and gaze at the sun during a storm and the damn thing is piercing through the clouds but doesn't have that odd pink look like the old ENB, but it's like these white streaks just blasting through. THEN the sun changes color for the morning and the evening and I'm all like what the actual FUCK??! Why did it take so long for ENB to get so god damned good. And I'm just freaking out cause I'm rocking like 40~60 frames per second FINALLY with all effects going on in ENB. JESUS H JONES! I'd try lightning during the thunderstorms, but I have Climates of Tamriel going and I'm not sure if it's compatible. Also, Realistic Lighting Overhaul is a fucking miracle in my opinion. |
lol, dude. I've been using version 0.119 of ENB series. No wonder my water reflections are shit. I just wish I could remember what my presets are.
Also, I didn't use Climates of Tamriel because I had some other stuff that conflicted. I wanted like hardcore-thrash-your-face-storms and at the time CoT was still pretty new and it's harsh weather was kinda lame. I see that it's come a long way so I think I'll give that one a try. Realistic lightning is nice. :x I can't see a mother fucking thing. |
So, I dropped CoT and Realistic Lighting. I'm just annoyed with tweaking them and they don't really add a lot to me anymore. I fucking love CoT's cloud variety and sky textures, but a) the ENB I made (which is totally goth) doesn't really show it, and I don't look at the day sky enough to notice.
This is goth mode. http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...ps2b1610fc.jpg |
Yeah. I think CoT's cloud cover is really really good.
Sometimes on very rare occasions, I will get a thunderstorm with lighting and shit. Someone needs to make an extreme version of CoT for fun though. Like end of the world weather kind of stuff. Thundersnow. Tornadoes. Unrelenting force wind bursts. Heat lightning. |
Oh, no. I meant the sunny weather clouds. There are a lot of variations to them. I don't like CoT for any kind of drab or inclement weather.
Frostfall has an option to make snow storms slow you down and that lightning mod I have has option to let it land stupid close and hurt you! I don't use that one, though. I like to see it fork in the distance. |
I play with Frostfall. It really helps.
Have you seen that overhaul where some people turned Skyrim into a tropical paradise? |
Yeah. I think they made a texture pack for it, now.
|
Yeah. I like the look of it, but I want to hold off on it. Mainly because it's a totally different theme, yeah?
I want to play it, but I don't want to have to employ the massive amount of mod surgery to get it to work or even seem okay. |
Why would you want a tropical skyrim? lol
|
Raptors from the bushes.
|
Touché, Touché.
|
Have you messed with settings in Skyrim's ini files, yet? You can exceed the game's presets for things like render distance by manually changing their values. It's not usually an issue because of all the obstructions that break line of sight, but sometimes distant terrain looks really really awful. Mess with the shadows and such, too.
|
Pump up the uGrids. I played it on 7 uGrids once. It was stable and ran fine for the most part. It also never crashed, but it made things a bit more difficult because things would be happening 7 grids away instead of 5.
I have heard that those with monster machines attempt to go up to 11 to 13 uGrids. Basically, you do this to uGrids because instead of distant objects popping in too early and looking weird, the game actually loads all of those grids at once meaning that the distance that you're seeing is the actual object that you'd see point blank. If I'm not mistaken, you've got a monster machine, even compared to mine. Give it a shot if you want. I think the best thing raising the uGrids did for me was make the water not look ridiculous at a far away distance. If you get far away enough from a waterfall, it'll freeze and look like a block. But if the uGrids are high enough, the game will go ahead and render the water like it's supposed to be. If you do that, you have to be super duper careful cause it can ruin your saves. Apparently, if you raise the uGrids, you can't go back to the default 5 if you don't like it with that particular save file. Also, your machine is pretty badass. See if you can run this. http://www.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31070 It crashes me to the desktop. |
Yeah, I put mine to 9 last night because I was worried what 11 would do. Didn't even know 13 was possible lol. I found a fail safe to undo it after saving so I should be good. Backed up my save folder and ini files so it should be good.
|
Well that's good. I went back to 5 after an upgrade. I think my actual bottle neck now is my processor.
|
I'll maybe try it when I get home. I donno, my video card is kinda old. I have an ATI Radeon 5800. :/
|
Seriously??
That's wild. We have like... inverse computers. I have a Radeon 7970. It's a beast. But my processor is totally mid tier stuff. Since you have an ATI, I highly recommend upgrading ENB to 1.55. It's really friendly to ATI cards. Saw a nice performance boost. Then again, I also upgraded my drivers too. So... maybe a little of column A and column B. |
Oh, shit! It's all running fine! I'll post screens in a sec. I don't think you'll appreciate my ENB lol.
|
You mean going up to uGrids 13 or upgrading ENB?
|
I mean the grass!
0.155, ugrid 9, and Dat Grass. o_o http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...ps7cf7dfa1.jpg |
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...pscc3cd166.jpg
My render line http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...pse23a28d4.jpg Now the free camera is on the line looking back at my character and follower http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...ps7c8db2a6.jpg This person needs to make GRASS for EVERYWHERE |
I just had a hilarious idea for a white privilege mod. XD
When the player is a redguard, it flags a script that makes npcs stop talking to you without you actually initiating the conversation, they don't pay you as much gold for completing quests, guards will randomly accuse you of stealing and your fine will be higher and prison sentences longer, and guards will arrest you if anybody attacks you and you defend yourself. |
That actually sounds kinda awesome in an kind of offer of perspective way.
Jesus, man! Now I KNOW that any short comings I have with Skyrim is due to my processor. Christ on sale.... |
|
What's your RAM like? Isn't it 8G?
|
It is.............
|
| All times are GMT -7. The time now is 01:15 PM. |