Critical Miss: The Guide To Skyrim Modders: Part 1

[Nouw]

Next:Spiders into bears mods.

They forgot the anime...mods

Anime mods? What, do the characters have large eyes?

 

[Blind Sight]

Have no problem with the mod myself, I don't even use it, I just have a problem with the moral superiority complex that some people are developing over this. I can understand the argument about gaming's vision in the media, but the people who act like they're some how of a wiser moral fiber because they don't like the mod are insufferable, i.e. calling someone a sociopath. If you have played an Elder Scrolls game or any game for that matter and murdered an innocent adult who was not attacking you, be it for money or just for fun, I don't see how you can make the claim of sociopathic action to someone else.

 

[Reptiloid]

Guys, I'm gonna use a calm tone to mimic human emotions here and not let my murderous hate show...

You know, the child killing mod isn't for sociopaths who want to murder delicious children, it's just about realism! Realism for normal humans! After a long day of fighting dragons with magic until you are one bug bite away from death, you take an hour long nap and wake up completely healed, and then some kid is mildly rude to you, so you react the way any healthy-minded human would, by violently hacking her to bits of coarse!

I mean, what are you supposed to do, brush off some childish teasing because you are an adult and it shouldn't bother you? Hell no, you need bloody murderous revenge! But to your disgust, the life and innocence has not left her eyes because she is still breathing! That's not what happens when you attack a child with an axe! Not that I would know personally. I am a normal human.

So the realism of the game is completely ruined because children are among the dozens of npcs in the game who can't be killed, what's the point of even playing anymore? You don't have to be a sociopath to care enough about not being able to murder children to go out of your way to install a mod to change it, and then take the time to make a very weak argument defending it every chance you get.

Normal people play games to escape from reality, and in that reality, they don't want to have to use the bathroom or eat or sleep but they want to be able to murder children, or else it ruins the REALISM of the false reality. Are you not convinced of how normal I am yet?

 

[fanklok]

Now obviously the real queston is: Why on earth would you pick up 47 goblets?

What else are you going to drink your stolen 286 bottles of mead out of?

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

< Sociopath and proud!

OT: No matter how much I love consoles more, mods really are an unbeatable PC experience. Very funny and true. Forgot the nude people though...

 

[Danceofmasks]

The elder scrolls is Bethesda's original IP, so if they want to make children invincile, it's up to them.

When Fallout 3 has Bryan Wilks being shot by raiders while being pounced on by a Deathclaw, I went and got a mod.
Now, to those who have played the old school fallout games wherein you could kill kids, the question is: did you?
How you play a game is up to you. But a child tanking a deathclaw in a fallout game is fucking retarded.

 

[Polite Sage]

They forgot the anime...mods

Anime mods? What, do the characters have large eyes?

Those too, the mod sites are going to be filled with character saves, armor, weapons, loading screens, UI-mods, races etc. from various anime/manga/JRPG.

 

[sifffffff]

Hmm, assuming everyone does something for a single, bizarrely specific reason eh? Let me try. You like fighting dragons because you want to torture animals in your basement. And you're climbing mountains, which means you secretly want to kill your mother. And you're accusing the tens of thousands of people who have deemed this mod worth the DL of being abnormal on a public forum, which means you're a pretentious douche-bag who enjoys wallowing in a tub of his own self-righteousness. There are many reasons someone might download a mod that allows children to die. Maybe they want serious immersion, or maybe they normally love the kids in the game, but there's a particular NPC who deserves to choke on a mace. But I guess there's nothing wrong with just assuming the worst about someone and leaving it at that.

You know there are rules on these forums right? I reported this post and I'd like to ask other forum members who also enjoy the rules on these forums to do the same.

To answer your accusation, no I'm not a pretentious douchebag. I'm a 27 year old father to be who thinks it's weird to want to kill a child in a game because they got mouthy with you, because games allow us to act in ways we normally wouldn't sans consequences.

It boils down to this. In my opinion games act as a way for us to act out things we can't do in the real world. Lets say Bethesda made it so children could die out of the box. I still wouldn't kill them because it's not an urge I want to "try out" and have it be part of my gameplay experience.

And as others have already argued the "immersion" argument is total bullshit.

Much like how you can choose to speak to another person in the manner you just chose because the anonymity of the internet allows for it.

But I guess there's nothing wrong with just assuming the worst about someone and leaving it at that.

you're a pretentious douche-bag who enjoys wallowing in a tub of his own self-righteousness.

Interesting....

 

[danirax]

the Irony of the realist, epic face of the sociopath,
and I found the Inventory manager easy to use so I guess that makes me a crab person!
so looking forward the next one, hope my type will be on the next part....

 

[Caliostro]

it's weird to want to kill a child in a game

I just wanna point out something I keep finding hilarious ironic in these kind of posts (yours was just the one that poped up first, nothing personal).

It's weird to kill children in a game right?

But killing every other living thing is just fine right?

Just like, OBVIOUSLY, people who want to kill children in games have serious issues in real life, the people who murder other people in videogames are, obviously, all psychopaths! Right?

Also not weird: Dragons! Magic! And a bunch of other perfectly realistic things present in videogames (like Skyrim)!

But yeah, it's the whole... children killing that's weird. But brb now, riding my dragon to work!

 

[Alphalpha]

Snip

First, I'd like to thank SpaceBat for presenting such a reasoned, temperate argument against the vilification of such mods.

Hmm, assuming everyone does something for a single, bizarrely specific reason eh? Let me try. You like fighting dragons because you want to torture animals in your basement. And you're climbing mountains, which means you secretly want to kill your mother. And you're accusing the tens of thousands of people who have deemed this mod worth the DL of being abnormal on a public forum, which means you're a pretentious douche-bag who enjoys wallowing in a tub of his own self-righteousness. There are many reasons someone might download a mod that allows children to die. Maybe they want serious immersion, or maybe they normally love the kids in the game, but there's a particular NPC who deserves to choke on a mace. But I guess there's nothing wrong with just assuming the worst about someone and leaving it at that.

You know there are rules on these forums right? I reported this post and I'd like to ask other forum members who also enjoy the rules on these forums to do the same.

How did you manage to single out this sentence without taking into account the context provided by the preceding two? His post is attempting to illustrate how silly it is to jump to conclusions based off of limited information and your only response is to jump to the conclusion that he's simply trying to insult you?

Also, I find the moderation on these forums to be excessive and arbitrary, as such have no interest in fulfilling your request, and would appreciate it if you attempted to resolve debates on a forum without appealing to a higher authority.

To answer your accusation, no I'm not a pretentious douchebag. I'm a 27 year old father to be who thinks it's weird to want to kill a child in a game because they got mouthy with you, because games allow us to act in ways we normally wouldn't sans consequences.

Well of course you're going to find depicting the death of children disturbing! War veterans often find games which convincingly portray war unappealing, as it reminds them of real-life trauma.

It boils down to this. In my opinion games act as a way for us to act out things we can't do in the real world. Lets say Bethesda made it so children could die out of the box. I still wouldn't kill them because it's not an urge I want to "try out" and have it be part of my gameplay experience.

I wouldn't kill them either. I'm a huge fan of Fallout 2, which notoriously allowed such things, and I both appreciated the possibility and did not indulge in it. You seem to be assuming that everyone who uses the mod uses it for the same reason and for that reason alone, and your response to those arguing another reason is:

And as others have already argued the "immersion" argument is total bullshit.

The only 'argument' provided to that effect in this thread was that because there exist other immersion-breaking elements in the game, the immersion argument is a lie. This is a mind-numbingly poor argument.

If I saw some kid emerge from some lethal situation unscathed, it would break my immersion. I know this because it already happens to me with immortal adult NPCs.

Lots of things break my immersion: invisible barriers preventing my from jumping over walls; immovable objects on tables, et cetera; passing time by waiting/sleeping having no effect on NPC location/activity; horses charging into battle; weak NPCs charging into battle; being assaulted by every wild animal in Skyrim; being unable to use a carriage while over-encumbered; being attacked by dragons every 15 minutes; NPCs I'm jogging past without making the slightest eye contact spouting dialogue at me; NPCs using outdated dialogue long after it would be appropriate; there being no way to contract brewing/smithing/alchemy to an NPC despite there being many quests facilitating such contracts between NPCs; Guards/NPCs knowing about my transgressions without having any credible witnesses; Materials being crafted into into items of much greater/lesser weight; being unable to craft most jewelry; auto-aiming archery; range limitations on archery/spells that do not correspond to visual representation; enemies with ridiculously high HP that do not look robust; spazzy dragon skeletons; and jarring transitions to third-person when I perform finishing moves, to name a few.

I've fixed a few of these already with mods, and you'd better believe I'll be keeping an eye out for mods to fix the rest of them. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

To argue that someone is lying about using a mod to fix an immersion-breaking aspect of the game because the game possesses other such aspects is atrocious logic. That's like calling someone a hypocrite for fixing a leak on a boat because there are more leaks. Not to mention, it also assumes both that the modder doesn't care about those other issues, and that he hasn't taken steps to rectify them as well. Mods take time to make and you can install more than one. Rome was not built in a day, why do you expect the same of someone's personal vision of Skyrim?

Much like how you can choose to speak to another person in the manner you just chose because the anonymity of the internet allows for it.

But I guess there's nothing wrong with just assuming the worst about someone and leaving it at that.

you're a pretentious douche-bag who enjoys wallowing in a tub of his own self-righteousness.

Interesting....

Again, this dichotomy is deliberate.

There's often mention of realism in regards to this and similar topics, but I think more appropriate term would be believability. As long as everything is relatively seamless and consistent, believability is maintained. Dragons, undead, magic, et cetera do not undermine believability because they have been established as part of the world. Waiting, fast travel, inventory/magic screens, et cetera can be accepted as abstractions of in-world actions. Even more suspect things such as regenerating health or pot-on-head exploits can be overlooked, if not forgotten, because they are not blatantly obvious or require deliberate intent on the part of the player. Things such as invincible NPCs (adult or child, it is the same to me) often highlight their inconsistency centre-screen, making it exceedingly difficult to ignore and shattering believability.

I could give all sorts of reasons why I would want to install this mod: greater immersion; increased difficulty in town-defense situations; petty revenge; completionist murder sprees; emotional impact; but in the end, it all boils down to one motive: I simply dislike arbitrary and illogical limitations.

 

[Durgiun]

Personally, I'm waiting for the giant dildo sword mod.

 

[Therumancer]

I'm a little put out here because of the last panel about "sociopaths". To me it seems that the gaming media, and The Escapist in general, is selling out here. We've gone from arguements in defense of extreme and mature content in gaming and advancing the medium to compromise with mainstream sensibilities.

To put things into context, it's not really about the child-killing but about the playing of an evil character. One major criticism of gaming, and one made on this very site, was that the moral polarity of games was screwed up because while it was easy to have a game where you could be a white knight and go around and do GOOD deeds, there was rarely any equally vile evil alternative presented. You can either be a Boy Scout, or a Puppy Kicking jerk who
sneers at people.

Now, instead of arguements being made for how gaming needs to advance in this direction and start really embracing it's potential for extreme, adult, content that can involve things that are just plain out wrong... we're seeing people like you and Yahtzee asking "what the heck is wrong with you people" in your own ways. In Yahtzee's case it's worse because this is a guy who has spent time ranting about how he couldn't properly pretend he was "Ming the Merciless" or something similar in games like FABLE.

The guys writing at The Escapist could understand how someone might want to say murder every NPC in a sandbox RPG. It's hard for one to argue that they REALLY get gamers who have been doing this since the option first appeared, and then to claim that the people involved are some kind of deranged sociopaths. Especially seeing as I'm pretty sure by his own comments Yahtzee in paticular (which goes beyond Critical Miss I admit) is a bloody hypocrit.

Doing evil things in a video game no more makes you a sociopath than say watching "Dexter" or various horror movies where the bad guy gets away. Heck, it can be argued that the "classic" point of horror movies was specifically a bit of social vengeance and commentary on the youth. Basically you wind up with a bunch of obnoxious kids/young teens/whatever, who are bad, or even just obnoxious, some deranged killer or supernatural force murders them sadistically, and the survivor is the one kid, the classic "final girl" who didn't engage in any of that behavior and remained relatively pure. The point is that someone who can empathize with these movies isn't a sociopath even if they do have a rather warped taste in entertainment.

What's more, one point nobody seems to bother to consider, is that kids are not nessicarly innocent victims. People tend to forget about the child soldiers throughout the world, The Hitler Youth, Saddam's Lion Cubs, and similar things. To be blunt the current round of the arguement being made here started not with Skyrim, but with Fallout 3 where you had a community of kids blocking the way to a major plot objective (you pretty much had to deal with them), kids who incidently insulted you, pointed guns at you, and were obnoxious in a way that went beyond Skyrim. This being in a totally uncivilized setting.

See, you have to understand that the problem is that when a game tries to offer the option to be good or evil, and your literally robbing and killing your way accross the countryside, capturing people as slaves for sale, trapping people's souls callously, engaging in cannibalism, and everything else, why would you suddenly stop because you run into some kid, especially if the kid is an obnoxious brat?

The question you should be raising here is not one of "what is wrong with child killing" but rather, should people be allowed to play evil characters in games at all... and really, good luck with that, because I doubt think I'll find one known personality in the industry who has not done exactly that and thought it was fun.

Speaking for myself, I tend to play the good path, but I do occasionally play evil characters as well. In my current Skyrim game I've done things that are more foul than murdering kids, even if I generally do good deeds (translation: I've completed multiple Daedric quests). I mean luring some dude back to Namira's shrine for dinner is about as evil as your going to get, that was very much "bad guy in a horror movie" material.

Let's say your not RPing a generally good person who is doing bad things (and probably actually becoming evil) to gather the power to save the world. Other than events like the Daedric quests I've pretty much tried to make the right desician at least in the short term. Let's say your playing a complete bastard and are killing and looting every NPC game that isn't directly useful to you. WTF would your mass murderer suddenly stop with the little girl wandering around telling you she isn't afraid to fight you.... I mean think about it.

Even if I'm not liable to exploit the option (believe it or not) I do think the option to murder kids should very much exist in the game for those who want to engage in a "pitch black" playthrough. Just because it might not be my cup of tea (I tend to gravitate towards Dark Gray at the worst) doesn't mean I'm going to insult the people who want it, because I can understand where they are coming from.

 

[Frankster]

Child killing mod was one of the first i installed, children i killed so far in my game: 0.

When a dragon attacks white run (happened twice in my game so far, INSIDE the city no less!) or whether something unexpected happens, i want children to be at risk same as anyone else. If yall wanna judge me as a sociopath for it go ahead.

 

[Biodeamon]

I'm pretty sure the killing children mod was actually put in the game so that they could get rid of immortal witnesses, cause admit it, it's pretty annoying to see a kid run around screaming murder for the rest of the game if they witness you stealing a pot accidently.

 

[Ganath]

...Someone needs to make a mod where children are all dragonborn, can breathe fire and use Unrelenting Force, along with having Boss-like stats. They should naturally be killable in this state. "You don't want to end up on my bad side." should have some meaning to it! Some kid told me that, and I got this idea.

 

[Alphalpha]

...Someone needs to make a mod where children are all dragonborn, can breathe fire and use Unrelenting Force, along with having Boss-like stats. They should naturally be killable in this state. "You don't want to end up on my bad side." should have some meaning to it! Some kid told me that, and I got this idea.

That sounds like an awesome mod! You should make it when the Construction Kit comes out.

 

[Vault Citizen]

Is the Sociopath a reference to the child killing mod?

 

[Taunta]

Guys, I'm gonna use a calm tone to mimic human emotions here and not let my murderous hate show...

You know, the child killing mod isn't for sociopaths who want to murder delicious children, it's just about realism! Realism for normal humans! After a long day of fighting dragons with magic until you are one bug bite away from death, you take an hour long nap and wake up completely healed, and then some kid is mildly rude to you, so you react the way any healthy-minded human would, by violently hacking her to bits of coarse!

I mean, what are you supposed to do, brush off some childish teasing because you are an adult and it shouldn't bother you? Hell no, you need bloody murderous revenge! But to your disgust, the life and innocence has not left her eyes because she is still breathing! That's not what happens when you attack a child with an axe! Not that I would know personally. I am a normal human.

So the realism of the game is completely ruined because children are among the dozens of npcs in the game who can't be killed, what's the point of even playing anymore? You don't have to be a sociopath to care enough about not being able to murder children to go out of your way to install a mod to change it, and then take the time to make a very weak argument defending it every chance you get.

Normal people play games to escape from reality, and in that reality, they don't want to have to use the bathroom or eat or sleep but they want to be able to murder children, or else it ruins the REALISM of the false reality. Are you not convinced of how normal I am yet?

Realism is perhaps the wrong word. At least from my standpoint, it's not so much "realism" as it is "consistency". I don't care what a game does, as long as it plays by the rules it set up for itself. Magic A is Magic A. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA] Therefore, I'm okay with standard video game mechanics (health bars, regenerating health, not having to poop, etc) because I understand that they're necessary elements to making a game smooth and/or playable.

So in a gritty fantasy game where murder, genocide, rape, racism, and giant creatures destroying entire towns is the M.O, I don't want to have arbitrary invincibility and rules shoved in my face for no reason. Perhaps Bethesda is at fault here. If they had bothered to give a reason why children are invincible (bar "we think it's wrong") then I bet half the people crying "immersion" wouldn't be able to do so. Basically, let me kill all of the innocents, or let me kill none of them. Or better yet, take all of the children out.

Also, accusing people of being "abnormal" for the types of games they play is not making you sound any less like Fox News. The community can't fault Fox for claiming that video games make people sociopaths, and then claim that mods make people sociopaths/only sociopaths download this mod.

EDIT: Perhaps people wouldn't be constantly defending the mod if there weren't an equal number of people on a self-righteous crusade to brand them all as sub-human.

 

[taltamir]

Another major kind of modder for skyrim is the "bugfixer". there are a bunch of bug fix mods already out.
And in addition to mods the PC version enjoys the command console, which allows you to troubleshoot a lot of bugs as well.
Also having more then 512MB of ram means PCs don't get terminal lag after certain amount of playtime.