Shadriss

Not sure 2.10.0 will change based on this, but as I understand 3.0 is upcoming soon, it may make it there...

Aaaaaaaand not really disappointed, because I had no good expectations for it to begin with.

Users will have to generate their own, or it is un-needed? I've been away for a long while, so I'm not sure what's going on with STEP 3.

I haven't been paying much attention to E3 - but a friend of mine did clue me in about TESVI. As you may guess, this makes me much happies. I take it there was more to be said about FO76 as well? Care to share?

AMEN.

To the first, I reluctantly agree - I enjoy a few MMOs, and they've been a cash cow for a long time. My problem with that idea, in this case, is that as a MMO, the single-player narrative is essentially destroyed by the MMO format. Many companies have tried (with some more successful than others) to make the MMO story seem player driven, but the fact is that it isn't, and I am far more compelled by story lines than I am leveling up and grinding. To the second, I never once said they were bad - I said that I preferred it in the original games where it was a straight RPG, and not an Action/RPG Hybrid. While the open world engines Beth uses work fairly well with it, and it could certainly have been good, they are, as Starac mentioned, 'just decent'. It's gone downhill from there. Majorman summed up many of my problems nicely. Since they took up the torch and ran with Fallout, it has been progressively getting 'dumbed down', and FO4 was what finally killed it as a series for me. The setting is a good one - hence the reason it's still going - but the execution has been getting further and further away from its roots the longer they've gone. Of course, you already agreed with those points for the most part. The writing you refer to is the largest portion of my problem. The mechanics should support the story, not gloss over it as has been done in FO4 (Base building? Seriously? Dangit, Jim, I'm a parent on a mission to save my kid, not a city engineer!), and the over simplification of some of those mechanics in an effort to make them more accessible to people is a crime against the games roots. I do agree with your comment about partially completed masterpieces - each FO has had great potential and a good setting. It's why I've always managed to convince myself to buy the newest one, hoping it will be the one to get it right. But with three full games in the bag, they seem to be missing the mark by further each time, and I find myself unable to have any real hope for a good - not decent, good - Fallout game. Which, I believe, it pretty much what I said in the first place. :)

Only just now? I played the originals (1 &2) back in the 90's. They were straight up (and messed up...) RPGs, and I enjoyed the series far more back then. Bethesda's attempts to make this universe bigger and better have ended up, instead, flat and uninsipred. I gave them a shot - plenty, in fact. Despite my statement here, I do own all of the games they've released for Fallout. I keep hoping they will somehow get it right, get back to the style, gameplay, and storytelling that made the franchise noteworthy in the first place. They haven't. At this point, I'm not sure I have it in me to give it another try... especially if it does turn out to be MMO in some way. Seriously, Bethesda - why another FO title when a great many have been waiting thier turn for another TES game that ISN'T online MMO? Isn't it our turn now?

In the middle of a move, so my setup isn't going atm, but from the description, you are in a snowy area... and they ARE brighter than the sky if there is any moonlight reflecting off of it. Snow is highly reflective, so having it be brighter than the sky would be expected - or at leas that's what I remember it being from my time up in Alaska...

Not an official one - there are a few in the guides portion of this site though.

Well, one of those problems you already show the answer to. With regard to the red text, pay attention to what it says: "PATCH SPEEDHACK ENBoost turned on in ENBLocal.ini, graphic modification disabled." The ENB you have installed isn't being used because of a setting in your ENBLocal.ini file, which you helpfully posted. Opening that, and taking a quick look... sure enough, under [GLOBAL], you see UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics=true. Set this to false, save it, then run again to see if the other graphical issues are a result of not having the ENB running as it should be.

As Tech said, it's kinda subjective. There's a great deal of give and take you're gonna have to figure out for yourself. A) Are you willing to play Oldrim instead of SSE in order to get more availiable mods? B) If so, are you willing to deal with more frequent CTD problems that you'll have to work out? C) Have you looked at screenshots of the various modpacks? Which ones look best to you? D) Are you willing to add in additional mods on your own to change the way a pack is set up? So many questions... and nothing that anyone else can answer for you. Without knowing exactly which version of the game you prefer, how much modding you are willing to do on your own, which aethestic you are really trying to achieve... well, there's no real answer to "which is best". It's suited only to taste - and even STEP is more of a starting point than it is anything else. If you have specific questions about specific mods or packs, that's easier to answer, but on the level of packs... not so much.

Depends on the mods you add. Bashed Patch with every change, yes. FNIS only if you add a mod that will affect character animations or the character skeleton, DynDOLOD if it will affect the exterior landscapes (structures, not textures), etc. When in doubt, you can just run it, and at worst you've wasted a few minutes of time.

@Tech - is there some reason we hold onto this mod in particular that hasn't been discussed? I like Chesko's stuff as a general rule, but as a general rule his mods add something to the game, and unless I've missed something somewhere, this doesn't.

That being the case then, this would seem to be a shoe-in. Recommended for STEP.

I've liked the look of this so far - my only question is if Cabal did Ebony Weapons or not. If he did, then wouldn't it make more sense to keep his original textures, though? I like these, and they do fit well with the Cabal ebony armors, but you'd think if he wanted that kind of consistency, he'd do it himself.

Found that about 20 mins after I posted - thanks for the reply though. Just me having a Derp Moment.

I had a hard time reading your post, but I'll give this a whirl, as I am installing the new version of STEP as well. Let me make sure I understand the problem - LOOT is telling you that EBQO is requiring the skyforge weapons ESP? If that's the case, something's wrong, since the two don't even touch each other. Or shouldn't. I've never seen that callout, and it makes me wonder if you installed some odd variant of EBQO or a patch for it that you don't need? A list of the relevent portions of the load order may be helpful here... IE, just mods that relate to EBQO and the BoS.

Q: Per the guide, when installing the "Thinner Torches" mod, we are to use the Ultimate HD Torch compatible version. I see no use of this mod anywhere in the guide or the changelog - was this one that got moved into the compilation a long time ago?

Despite it's inclusion into Core, I've never put it into the mix. As was said at one point, eating up a esp slot for a single step that I was never even able to find (maybe I can't count?) never made sense to me. I know Lore is an important thing for STEP, but is it really so important that we push another script and esp slot for a single step? I think we should consider this, and if this mod needs to be continued to be included in STEP:Core.

Skyrim: Re-Leveled. Not something I'd use, but I get a lot of the premise behind it, Dread. Good luck with the full release.

As long as you keep it in the same slot in the mod order, there is no reason not to update this one - as noted it's being used as our 'improved vanilla' base for everything else, so the more he does, the more solid that base becomes in this case.

Even better - if it's all curated and approved by Bethesda, what does this mean for the MODDER'S vision of the content? "Well, we like the idea, but we want a few tweaks made. Here's the list! *sets down a ream of type-written paper*" "Uhm... it's my mod, and none of this is what I wanted or pitched to you?" "We're paying you to develop this, and this is what we want. Have a nice day!" Not sure it will be QUITE at that level (hopefully), but the creative freedom aspect has to be thought of as well.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, ALL mods listed in the Guide are installed through MO. This includes FISS. The reason it is showing up as an unmanaged mod is because you have installed it into the actual SKyrim Data folders, which MO does not do. I would advise you to delete those files (check in the archive to see which ones they were and be certain), then install them through MO as you would any other mod.

*sniff* Didn't quite make it into the lineup this time, eh? :) Well... there's always the next Hotfix.

Of course they'll need updating... they always need updating. PREPARE FOR 2.10.1!