Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

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Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby Marcuse » Fri Aug 07, 2015 4:29 pm

As someone who's played a few hundred hours of Skyrim, I began to find it more and more odd that there wasn't some kind of weather and cold mechanic implemented within the game. As my Orcish warrior barrelled across Winterhold in naught but a hide skirt and a pair of fluffy shoes, I decided to look into ways to make my journeys through Skyrim feel more authentic.

So I checked JT's amazing Skyrim mod review thread and found mention of Frostfall, a community mod for Skyrim that does pretty much what I wanted. Now if I get caught in a blizzard, I have to run and find shelter; I can't zip about the map as if by magic because I turned off fast travel (which is optional), and I have to plan journeys with far more care than I did previously.

So what does Frostfall actually do? Well, it adds in a meter for "exposure", which ranges from 20 to -100, and declines in cold and inhospitable climates. It also adds a percentage rating for being "wet", which multiplies the rate at which the exposure meter decreases. In the most extreme conditions you have to travel in short hops, taking shelter and resting in caves to keep warm before venturing out again. Clothing and food can improve your resistance to this exposure (thereby marking the first time I willingly cooked anything that wasn't Elsweyr Fondue) and torches help a bit too (which is convenient, given I need a light source due to the realistic lighting overhaul).

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Need a light?


This might sound tedious, but for two very important things:

Firstly, Skyrim generates random events while you're travelling in the world map. That means when you're out and about random stuff might spawn, more enemies might appear and NPCs you can speak to will wander up the road. All these things are both fun and interesting, and my experience of higher-level play in Skyrim using fast travel have led me to think it's worth preserving those random encounters, because they're fun.

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See? All the fun.


Secondly, as fun as killing all the enemies and completing all the quests is, there's only a finite amount of it on offer in any one game, and prolonging the fun of one game means you have more fun to have when you come back to it as a screaming barbarian next time. That's not to everyone's taste, but I find it a lot of fun.

Now, to get to the point. This kind of gameplay is great for emergent stories that can't be predicted, and here's one of them:

Velehk Sain is a Dremora pirate bound to a relic in the bowels of Winterhold College, aptly named the Midden Dark. While probing the Midden Dark (should I be winking here?), I chanced upon the relic, and remembering that this was a quest I'd not yet completed before in a game I've played for several hundred hours, I figured I might take a crack at it (keep the puns coming...).

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Well hello there, this doesn't look suspicious AT ALL.


A notebook told me there were rings to steal and place on the relic fingers; Google told me which ones to place where. What I wasn't prepared for were the floating skulls and the giant nearly nude Dremora that manifested itself afterwards. He gave me a choice: speak his name to release him, and he'll give me a treasure map to his booty (okay, now this is getting silly), or I could try and destroy him myself. Thing is, he's tall, and I'm not; I'm a beardy wizard with more sense than courage, so I release him, and he drops a treasure map in my inventory...

Image


Oh come on! That's not a treasure map, it's a vague drawing!
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Fri Aug 07, 2015 5:15 pm

...
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby Revolving Royal » Fri Aug 07, 2015 5:37 pm

You played Skyrim before and trusted a Dremora?
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby Anglerphobe » Fri Aug 07, 2015 5:55 pm

I got this fantastic mod this week. It really tarts up wintry scenes in Skyrim and I highly recommend it. With my crude hybrid ENB it makes the game feel cold in snowy areas and works wonderfully with Frostfall. It might make your computer explode, but it's pretty.

That last line is my general philosophy on graphics. I don't care if I could cook bacon or smelt aluminum on this thing, I want my game to look good.
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby FieldMarshalFry » Fri Aug 07, 2015 6:19 pm

actually.... the standard nigh time lighting IS the realistic one, as it accurately depicts what the light levels would be like, since there is no air or man made light pollution the full light of the stars and sunlight reflected off both moons would make everything surprisingly visible
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby Marcuse » Fri Aug 07, 2015 7:05 pm

actually.... the standard nigh time lighting IS the realistic one, as it accurately depicts what the light levels would be like, since there is no air or man made light pollution the full light of the stars and sunlight reflected off both moons would make everything surprisingly visible


I dunno, I used to walk across a field in the middle of a village with no lights and I literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face. There was a ton of light pollution there (because it was literally surrounded by light sources) and when I was there I nearly killed myself falling into puddles and shit.

Also Skyrim lighting interiors is utter nonsense.
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby FieldMarshalFry » Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:50 pm

I'm with you on the interior lighting, but as you said, there was a lot of light pollution in that village, as I said, without light pollution you can see the millions of stars out there in the sky, here's a picture of the difference light pollution makes
Light_pollution_It's_not_pretty.jpg
Light_pollution_It's_not_pretty.jpg (944 KiB) Viewed 4407 times
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby Andropov4 » Fri Aug 07, 2015 10:24 pm

I get what you're saying, Fry, but the reason a lot of that light pollution exists is because we couldn't see a damn thing at night. I'm pretty unconvinced that even a planet with two moons would have particularly high visibility at night. Especially since those stars don't really contribute much in terms of illumination down on here on Earth.
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby Anglerphobe » Fri Aug 07, 2015 10:43 pm

In my experience of taking night shifts on a ship hundreds of miles from land: kinda.

On a clear night with a bright moon it's quite easy to see without artificial light. It's also one of the most breathtaking sights in the world. I was actually lucky enough to watch part of the Perseid meteor shower like that and it is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. It was topped by watching a big thunderstorm roll in from the horizon at night in the Biscay though. That was the coolest thing I have ever seen.

On the other hand, going by just starlight is a bad idea. If you're out on deck, you have to carry a torch and there must be two people on duty at all times because of the poor visibility. When it's cloudy - or worse, foggy - you can't see shit. Skyrim's default nights are quite bright, but I can see it happening with two moons and everything. Really, those conditions are quite rare though. I use night darkening mods in the game because although it could be that bright in perfect conditions the likelihood is that it would be much darker. That it happens to make the aurora and stars look nicer is the icing on the immersion cake.
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"Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,
Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe couldst never thrive.
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont
To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt."

Anyone who has any kind of opinion fucking disgusts me.
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Re: Falling Snow: Adventures in Skyrim

Postby Beernpotatoes » Mon Aug 10, 2015 6:29 pm

Good article, but it makes me weep with the knowledge that, by GOD we need a new Elder Scrolls title.  Come ON, Bethesdasoft!  Get off your asses and release a new game!
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