Skyrim Hearthfire: Nick Brekon's This Old House

[arccos]

NEWS FLASH!

Nick Brekon taking over for Bob Villa in This Old House:

Did you go with the classic maple floor, or the oak, Bob Nick?

[a purple future]

when this popped up in my youtube feed, it took me a solid 20-30 seconds of narration to realize why the voice was so comforting to hear.

[Orv]

This seems like the biggest waste of time I could imagine at this point, regarding Skyrim. Dawnguard was actually fun and good to play through, and now this.

[elmuerte]

no happy little trees?

[TurboPubx-16]

I actually enjoy the opposite of this in my RPGs. I really like the sense that you are a person without a home or any real base of operations, like in games such as Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, Planescape and Fallout 1&2. I feel like there's a big difference between having a home that you leave to do adventures and come back to (Dragon Age and Mass Effect), and being on an adventure every minute that you play the game because you have been kicked out of your home or you are stranded in strange land. One thing I don't like about modern Bioware games is this segmentation between missions and social time because it makes both parts much more predictable. I don't want to feel like one of the NPCs who goes through mundane tasks every day; I want to feel like a dangerous vagrant who has no responsibilities but also no safety net to fall on. It feels like every character in Skyrim is an adventurer or works in the adventuring industry or the military so I had to play specifically as a "neutral evil" thief, the type that gets chased out of every town he visits, to get enjoyment out of that game. Let me tell you, having to sneak into and remain stealthy in a town makes Skyrim a very different game.

I also try to resist the urge to horde items and pick up everything to sell for pennies later (Have you ever finished an RPG and not had tens-of-thousands of coins at the end?). I really like the idea of a Conan the Barbarian type, who goes into a dungeon with just a sword and a rope and leaves with just one piece of awesome treasure. That can be tough in Skyrim because of all those items that are related to quests that don't automatically disappear when you're done with them. I ended up buying a rundown shack just to throw a bunch of items into it that I was 99% sure were useless, but didn't want to loose forever just in case I needed them for something.

So I guess I won't be picking up this DLC then. Unless you can build a gigantic wizard tower that lets you build armies of skeletons and park a mountable dragon on the roof. Can you do that? Or do you just kill rats in your basement and have nice family dinners?

[dibs]

I thought this was a parody until Google told me otherwise. I'm long gone from Skyrim, but i doubt this will be getting me back.

[Roswell47]

"fish hatchery".

[Frenetic Pony]

And I'm Nick Breckon.

But seriously, I now consider Bethesda as a studio nothing but a lazy, unimaginative, sloppy, and uncaring group of commercialized bargeheads who think a game is just copying all the stuff modders do for free in their previous games, but not as well, and then selling it to people with trumped up marketing. And I'm kind of sorry Nick works for them, you're better than this Nick!

[bd_monkey]

Yeah i tell my self, how much I hate all those dumb mundane activities. Yet, with out even realizing it, I got to the top of the black smith, enchanting and speech trees in Skyrim way before anything else. The time I spent smiting and selling might be equal to all the adventuring i did. And when I look back at it, all that siting in a menu pressing the "r" key and "enter" over and over again was real dumb. But I'll do it again when I go for another play through. sigh

[Orv]

And I'm Nick Breckon.

But seriously, I now consider Bethesda as a studio nothing but a lazy, unimaginative, sloppy, and uncaring group of commercialized bargeheads who think a game is just copying all the stuff modders do for free in their previous games, but not as well, and then selling it to people with trumped up marketing. And I'm kind of sorry Nick works for them, you're better than this Nick!

You wouldn't happen to be a fan of Obsidian Ent would you?

[mikemariano]

This is cute!

I will not buy this.

But I will watch YouTube videos of people Fus Ro Dah-ing their pet oxen.

[arccos]

I think it's a pretty good idea!

360 and PS3 players don't have access to mods, so official DLC is basically the only way they'll ever get to do a build-your-own-house mod at this point.

Additionally, the variety of mods means there will inevitably be some overlap between the mod space and DLC. Even if it was a case of Bethesda seeing a popular mod and basing DLC on it, as long as they aren't directly ripping assets or code, I don't see it as a problem. They aren't preventing PC players from using the mod.

If they integrate the top 5-10 mods from the last Elder Scrolls every time a new one comes out, can you imagine how quickly the series would improve? Hell, now-standard game modes and sometimes entire genres have been created from companies copying mods of games with or without the mod's original creators. For me it's a plus.

[Frenetic Pony]

Yeah i tell my self, how much I hate all those dumb mundane activities. Yet, with out even realizing it, I got to the top of the black smith, enchanting and speech trees in Skyrim way before anything else. The time I spent smiting and selling might be equal to all the adventuring i did. And when I look back at it, all that siting in a menu pressing the "r" key and "enter" over and over again was real dumb. But I'll do it again when I go for another play through. sigh

No, just totally unimpressed and had no fun with Oblivion and Skyrim. Also this is a mod before it was paid DLC. As was cooking, and having a wife, and companions to begin with, and... basically half the "cool stuff" Bethesda's done is just copying what modders have already done with their games. And yet they still manage to do it with less skill as their coding is crap, their sounds are replaced by modders working for free, their artwork is crap that's also readily replaced by better stuff from modders for free. Basically anything they've done, unpaid modders have been able to make better quickly and readily. Which makes you wonder.

They could hand pretty much their entire development off to their dedicated modding community and get a much better game out of it in all likelihood.