Mods for Skyrim

Ran across this mod which is very appealing. I don't care for the modder but the mod looks good.

it is up on steam as well as NEXUS. Here is the NEXUS link
Alternate Start

/The Alternate Start mod is great. You have quite a few different choices and can ignore the Main Quest altogether if you wish or start it when ever you like. You, of course, can't do any of the quests for the Main Quest but the others are working just fine with no problems. The only glitch I have found is the broken dialogue which came with the 1.6 patch. No big problem, you have sub-titles if needed. The choices you are given are pretty obvious since this mod is for people who have played the game and just want to change how they start off.

You can start as a ship wrecked survivor or as a low level member of a Guild or faction, be a camper in the woods or start in Windhelm (that is the name, yes?)

The mod can be found on NEXUs. Alternate Start- Live another Life.

Ha, that's pretty cool. Personally, I'd like to see a mod like that that lets you later do a quest and get captured by the Legion, then go through the main quest as normal.

With the problems people are having with Skyrim I don't know if that is possible. It is a good idea though. If it could be done it would fit with this mod quite nicely.

Yeah, that'd end up being pretty sweet.

Even without that excellent idea I recommend this mod to anyone who is restarting Skyrim. You won't get to see that dragon fly down and save you from the executioner but the various starts are interesting and quite different. I find it adds to the role play.

I say give this game a few more years and it will be much better.

As for me I've got an urge to go back to the classics. I'm thinking of starting a new IWD2 game. Good old times.

I am back to Oblivion since a good friend is doing a mod and will need testing. After that I am considering "Sins of a Solar Empire" Haven't made up my mind yet. I also have Assassin Creed games to play with and the Fallout games.

Fallout is still the best game I've ever played. Only a few other games can compare but no other game has procured me the same quality entertainment.

Fallout is awesome. Enough said!

Are talking about Fallout one and two which I am not familiar with? Or are the two later games included?

Fallout 1, and it is awesomely good.

Thanks, Skorp.

What Skorp said.

Fallout 1 is definitely the best game in the series.

Fallout 2 is too tongue in cheek but it has an incredible depth. Fallout 3 looks like a Fallout game but it is more like Oblivion. Fallout New Vegas is much more like the original Fallout games and it's a fair compromise if you can't cope with old graphics or with the nonsense of Fallout 3.

For me, I prefer New Vegas, simply because, well, I'm not that old. I started gaming only a few years ago. Even though I have played many a classic, a part of me will always yearn for newer-style gameplay like Fallout 3 offers: A big open world, fast-paced gameplay, etc. Yet, the gamer part of me that loved Fallout 2 cries out for the incredible style and world of Fallout 1 and 2 that just wasn't there with Fallout 3. New Vegas combines the elements of the classics and the new beautifully, while adding a system of choice that blows every other game with "choice" out of the water.

As for Fallout 3, my main problem with it is its crapsack world. Fallout should not be like that: I mean, how many towns did Fallout 3 have? Two? It was basically nothing but a giant green radioactive wasteland with a few scattered people. It wasn't Fallout. I get the in-lore excuse for it, but they really shouldn't have put it in DC.

Also, how in the hell does the Enclave have an entire Virtibird fleet, an enormous army, and tons of incredible technology, when most of them and their things got blow sky high at the end of Fallout 2?

Fantasy, my dear Dragon, fantasy. Fallout is not science fiction it is fantasy.

Fallout 1 is my favorite game of all time. It's one of the few games (like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines) that I can just play over and over and not get tired of. Like Carabas said, Fallout 2 is just too silly for it's own good. I like the fact that New Vegas moved a lot of the silliness into the "Wild Wasteland" perk, so you only have it in your game if you want it.

My main problem with Fallout 3 was the plot, which was basically Fallout 1 and 2 tossed into a blender. Particularly after James dies, it's just a regurgitation of the plots of the first games. I enjoy playing it well enough, but it has some of the laziest writing I have ever seen.

New Vegas is the real Fallout 3, IMO. It's a proper sequel. It moves the series forward and tells a new story. I really hope Bethesda will let Obsidian develop more Fallout titles, or even consult them on Fallout 4. If not, there's always Wasteland 2.

I agree with everything Kana has posted above.

I simply don't want to get started on Fallout 3... Too many things didn't make any sense at all. It's best to take it for what it is (i.e. a nice diversion) and leave it at that.

I remember playing the Fallout 1 demo in the summer of 97. From that moment on I was hooked. I spent most of the late 90s playing these games almost exclusively (only taking a few breaks to play the first Diablo and BG1). After years of playing these games I still found some cool things I had overlooked or new tactics that I could use with different characters.

Fallout 1 and 2 both offer big worlds that you're free to explore without any level scaling and complete freedom. In fact Fallout is the opposite of a linear game. You can go anywhere as long as you don't expect to survive without displaying some ingenuity.

I don't know of any other games that can be completed with a non violent character (there are many opportunities to level up outside combat). I've finished both games with characters who never ever used a weapon and that's something that can't be said about many games out there. Many games claim that they can be finished with different characters, combatants, sneaky types and diplomats but in my experience no game does that better than the original Fallout.

I tried Fallout 3 and didn't much care for it. I have FalloutNV somewhere if I can find it. All this house straightening out meanss I can't find anything.

Is FalloutNV a free roaming game to or is it more linear? Maybe we should move to the Fallout forum.

Skyrim for me is pretty much a dead game. I got my moneys worth so I am not complaining. 600 hours play is not bad. Not a record but good enough.

I got over 100 hours out of Skyrim, which is certainly my money's worth in terms of time spent. I don't think I'll be bothering with the DLC, though. Nothing about the game struck me as particularly bad or particularly good. The whole thing was just... meh.

New Vegas is open world, but it doesn't focus on free roaming to the extent that Bethesda games do. In my experience, people who go into NV expecting a Bethesda free-roaming experience end up disappointed.

New Vegas's focus is on questing, and making those quests as open-ended and non-linear as possible. If you ignore the quests and just go wandering in a random direction, you will likely find yourself being repeatedly murderized by deathclaws and cazadores (sometimes both at the same time). The game isn't designed for that kind of random wandering, at least, not until your character is geared up and quite high-level.

Thank you, Kana. The quest lines in both Oblivion and Skyrim are very linear and once you have done them I find thm boring. My fun with Oblivion was because of the mods I found that made it interesting and replayable. Skyrim I have had five different characters and have concentrated more on the many side quests you can do some of which with the radient story can have different out comes. I found the main quest very boring. The dragons were uninteresting and more annoying than anything else.

From what you have said I think I might find FalloutNV interesting. Since I already have the disks some where I really should give it a try.

Thing about New Vegas is, at least for me, it always followed a pattern. The game guides you along a pretty linear path until you hit New Vegas itself, at which point it opens up.

Main quests in Elder Scrolls games are always 'meh' for me. In all my playthroughs and hours of playing Oblivion, I never once completed the main quest.

dragoniguana wrote:

Thing about New Vegas is, at least for me, it always followed a pattern. The game guides you along a pretty linear path until you hit New Vegas itself, at which point it opens up.

Yes and no. If you really feel adventurous you can stray off the beaten paths. It may not be easy but it can be done.

IMO going through some of the most dangerous areas in the game with a low level character is incredibly fun when replaying the game. I see it as a challenge. Sometimes you can be surprised at how far you can go with a low level character and some average gear.

I agree that going off the beaten path can be fun. One of the advantages of having a world without level scaling is that those challenges are there, and you can decide for yourself when you are ready to face them, rather than the game deciding for you. Then you can push yourself and try to face them a little earlier, seeing if you can come up with a strategy that works.

But for first time players, especially coming from Oblivion or Fallout 3, it is definitely a good idea to follow the advice the NPCs give you, and don't try to go North out of Goodsprings.

Yeah, if you feel like going north through Deathclaw territory at level one, you can do wonders

One thing I find very fun is going back at level 30 with an anti-materiel rifle loaded with armour-piercing and incendiary rounds and sniping them all. Great fun, slaughtering them.