Creation Club – Rao Dao Zao

Blog 862: The Decline

Nov 25, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

I had played Skyrim several times before, but never as hard and deeply as I did this time. Part of that was simply the novelty of trying to hoover up all the stuff I’d never seen before — the 74 Creation Club packs, Dawnguard — but I think most is owed to the transformative pacing of Survival Mode.

So please indulge me one last blog about Skyrim before I return to playing… literally anything else. Oh god please, let me play anything else. It’s time to let it go.

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Gaming

Blog 858: Creation Club

Oct 21, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

I actually tend to play my Elder Scrollses completely unmodded, accepting only official expansion packs. I find it’s rare for a modder to perfectly match the fidelity of a base game — not just in terms of art style, but also in terms of balance and structure. While you can get away with a lot in Warcraft III because each map is completely self-contained, the Elder Scrolls modding experience is additive: you put more stuff into the existing open world, and that means it has to fit.

Skyrim‘s Anniversary Edition comes with 74 pieces of so-called Creation Club content, which ranges from bite-sized chunks to full-on dungeons and houses. While Survival Mode is a systemic addition that settles across the whole world like it was always meant to be there, a number of other packs struggle to conform.

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Gaming

Blog 857: Surviving Skyrim (Anniversary Edition)

Oct 14, 2022Oct 14, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

I have so many problems with Skyrim, but there’s still something compelling about it. Maybe the simple act of trudging through an expansive wilderness, replete with ancient ruins to explore, is enough to carry all its weaker elements.

Well, whatever — the legendary game that has been re-released more times than you’ve had hot dinners is at it again, and has finally appeared DRM-free on gog. I have to admit, this is the signal I’ve been waiting for to give it another go; I didn’t get all the expansion packs the first time around (only Dragonborn), and nor have I seen the visual upgrades of the Special Edition or the reams of “Creation Club” micro-packs that came after that.

Here we go again…

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