Tag: Skyrim

So I tried the Skyrim Apple Cabbage stew.

Well, the recipe that can be found here.  I went with the ‘use bacon grease and add the cooked bacon’ option: the whole thing came out very nicely, although I probably made a mistake at putting the cooked bacon in before I let it simmer for forty-five minutes.  My wife isn’t sure about that; she liked the general of-pork flavor of the dish.  It is not a zesty stew as described, though: salt and pepper at the least, possibly more spices.

I really should revisit Skyrim at some point.  See what the modders have been doing with it since the last time.

My Skyrim Mod picks, part II: fun game-like stuff.

There are certainly more good mods out there for Skyrim that improve the game itself; these are just some of the ones that I favor.  In no particular order:

  • Falskaar. This is easily the most epic fan-generated add-on to date for Skyrim; there’s a coherent plot line, new spells, new Shouts, well-done voice acting, and the bugs are tolerable. The combat will stretch you, and the map (it’s a very LARGE island) is very, very pretty.  All in all, an excellent mod.
  • Helgen Reborn. This mod, in my opinion, measures up to Falskaar in terms of fun gameplay.  The basic premise is simple: Helgen is in ruins; it needs to be rebuilt.  You’ll be doing this either in one fell swoop, or while you’re running around fixing/breaking everything else in Skyrim. The dungeons are well-designed (they actually managed to kill my PC a couple of times!); the voice-acting is professional-grade (as good as Falskaar’s, or perhaps that’s the other way around), and you end it with a new town to visit. The mod is also extremely good about integrating quest locations into the map without interfering with other mods, which can be a problem. If you have a choice between loading this and Falskaar, I might say load this one; it’s more seamless than the other one.
  • Become a Bard. One mildly bizarre and slightly annoying thing about Skyrim: the world has bards. It has music. It has musical instruments.  It even has a Bard’s College, which you can join.  But you can’t be a bard. This mod changes that: it allows you to play in taverns, play for Jarls, do little quests for the Bard’s College, increase your Speech skill… that sort of thing. The mechanics are stable and the really nice thing about this mod is that the modder got the music from a bunch of people who write Elder Scrolls-themed music for the mod’s ‘songbooks.’ Which means that you can get your bard to belt out some pretty good songs .
  • Granitehall, Laintar Dale, Oakwood, Amber Guard. These four location mods are from the same author, and are all based on locations in the first Elder Scrolls game (Arena). They are fully integrated into the map, and help fill it without overpowering it. Granitehall is an actual quest location; the rest are just places to get some smithing done, take a rest, and get swarmed by bandits. Nice addition to the game.
  • Skyhaven Temple Glory and Nightingale Hall and Twilight Sepulcher – Improved. Both are revisions of faction headquarters to make them a little more nicer for your character to hang out at. They don’t go nuts on adding stuff, although Skyhaven Temple needs a bench outside for people to be able to sit down and enjoy the view.
  • Dragon Knowledge. Turns Dragon souls into perk points (2:1 ratio). Since largely superseded by changes in the game (you now can spend excess Dragon Souls on resetting perks), but it was and is a nice thing to have.  This is, however, a bit of a cheat, so maybe not on your first playthrough.

Hope this helps!

Since people asked… my Skyrim mod picks, Part 1: the boring tech stuff.

Apparently people do want to see this, so here’s part 1 of my favorite Skyrim mods.  Part 2 will be tomorrow, and mention actual gameplay mods: but it’s best to mention a few things that you’ll need to optimize the game itself. In some order:

  • Nexus Mod Manager. If you’re downloading stuff from the Skyrim Nexus, you’ll want this manager.
  • Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE). Offsite; found here.  Blah blah technical blah blah SOME OF YOUR MODS WON’T WORK WITHOUT IT.
  • Fores New Idles in Skyrim (FNIS). Another blah blah technical blah blah SOME OF YOUR MODS WON’T WORK WITHOUT IT.
  • Unofficial official patches. Unofficial Skyrim Patch, Unofficial Dawnguard Patch, Unofficial Hearthfire Patch, Unofficial Dragonborn Patch, Unofficial High Resolution Patch (all Skyrim Nexus links).  Don’t let the ‘unofficial’ fool you; those patches clean up a lot of bugs.  Tons and tons and tons of bugs.
  • Item Sorting.  You will be amazed at how much easier it is to figure out what you’re carting around now.
  • SkyUI.  Nexus here; Steam here. …and you will be equally amazed at how much more intuitive all the screens are now.  Also includes the mod configuration menu (MCM), which you WILL be hearing of a lot.
  • BOSS GUI. Short version: it will order your mods for you, so as to avoid conflicts between various mods.  Since conflicts between mods can lead to the dreaded crash-to-desktop (CTD), which is also something that you WILL be hearing of a lot, this is a good mod to have.
  • The Paarthurnax Fix. Nexus here; Steam here.  If you’ve played all the way through, you know that there’s a stupid false choice imposed on you at one point by Bethesda.   …[expletive deleted] that; you’re the goram Dragonborn.
  • Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers and Jiub’s Opus Quest Markers.  Allows you to actually find those stupid items for those stupid fetch quests but if you want to instead stare at the map until your forehead is bloody then go right ahead.
  • “Better Females by Bella:” core Nexus file here, core Steam file here. Improves the look of the female characters.  Presumably there’s also another set of mods that will make your male characters look better, but I wouldn’t know.
  • Unread books glow.  Nexus here, Steam here.  It makes unread books glow, so you can figure out which books to pick up/steal.  So. Totally. Worth. It.

That’s all that immediately come to mind: if I think of more tech ones I’ll add ’em.

Dogahkiin.

This is the cutest thing that is also such a thing to do to two clearly long-suffering and patient dogs.

skyrim-dog-3

“WHAT SINS DID WE COMMIT TO EARN THIS FATE, HUMAN?”

My wife suggested that we get one for the new cat.  I have to remember to cheerfully invite her to be the one to dress said cat, because I ain’t going to do it.

Moe Lane

PS: I understand that dogs actually don’t mind terribly wearing this stuff, especially when it’s kind of cold out anyway.  But I swear that those dogs look kind of resigned about the whole thing.