Skyrim

[grumbler]

Weird question, but has anyone tried to remake Oblivion in the Morrowind engine? Or Skyrim in Oblivion or Morrowind? 

I very much doubt it.  The modding programs have gotten better with each release, and the older ones cannot handle the scripts from games that are newer than they are.  You'd have to re-write the whole thing, and who would want to spend lifespan like that?

[Solmyr]

Remake Skyrim in the Daggerfall engine.

[Jacob]

... in the Wizardry engine.

[grumbler]

... with Braille subtitles.

[Jacob]

... with Braille subtitles.

Genius!

I'm sure publishers will line up to fund it. We'll start a studio in Montreal and build this thing!

[Syt]

Someone released a new Apple II RPG on Steam in 2020, so why not.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1509080/Nox_Archaist/

(comes with Apple II disk images)

[Syt]

Inspired by the Elder Kings mod for CK3, I've installed Skyrim SE (with AE ... I'm a sucker ... ), and obviously mods are needed. I had dabbled with Wabbajack a bit before, but did a bit of a binge last week to try out various modlists.

Wabbajack is an incredible tool. It's basically a comprehensive installer for prepared modlists that require you to do very little (except follow each pack's instructions to the letter, but they're not complex). Now, some call this "nor real" or "lazy" modding. But I've spent in the past considerably more time going through modlists, and running Modmanager, WryeBash, LOOT (is that what it's called? I forget ) etc., to the point that by the time I was "finished" and everything ran with minimal hicups I was no longer in a mood to play.

That praise comes with caveats:
1. When using Wabbajack, you should probably have a Nexusmods Premium account, for the faster download speeds and because it automates most downloads (though 3rd party sites might require manual interaction, but many modlists don't use them). You ca still use it without a Nexus account, but for every mod download it will open a pop up and you have to click the download link manually. On the plus side: you can keep one big download directory, so once you have a mod downloaded, it can be re-used by other modlists.
2. Many bigger modlists are highly customized by the authors with manual compatibility fixes and patches they cooked up, prepared LOD files for the world etc. (the 3D files the game uses to display distant terrain that often should be recreated if you use any mods that change or add to the existing terrain). That means making changes to the modlists (removing components, adding more content) will require you to know what you do and make sure that everything still runs properly.

On the Wabbajack site they have "gallery" for the various games they support, with the vast majority of modlists being for Skyrim SE (some require AE content). The lists vary in complexity and size. Unfortunately, the navigation on the site is a bit crap once you look at the details of a modlist, with many links not working properly, because it's often a copy/paste of a github page and breaks links. So there might be some poking around required to get to  the list's "official" page; some of the bigger lists have dedicated websites or Nexus pages: https://www.wabbajack.org/gallery?selectedGame=Skyrim%20Special%20Edition

The lists themselves range from the low 100s to several 1000s, and the biggest ones will require a significant amount of disk space. You will notice that there are a few "staples" that many/most lists add (like certain combat or quality of life mods). There seem to be fewer "ultra hardcore survival" mods than when I last checked, and the lists I tried - if they had survival/hardcore elements you could disable them or adjust them to your liking. One mod that I hadn't seen before is Shadows of Skyrim, which adds a basic (and customizable) Nemesis system similar to Shadow of Mordor (and the game Outward), where if a base enemy defeats you, they can give you a debuff, steal some of your gear, and you "wake up" in a different location (either hostile, or friendly - all these conditions can be customized), and you get a quest to defeat them and reclaim your gear.

One of the smallest ones is Aminonculory Visual Overhaul - it's just graphical improvements and fixes, not gameplay changes. A good foundation to add gameplay and contet mods as desired. https://www.wabbajack.org/modlist/Animonculory/AVO

I've tried three larger lists myself, and I think I've settled on one for playing.

Elysium Remastered: https://www.wabbajack.org/modlist/Elysium/elysium
By far the most graphically impressive of the lists (and it focuses on looks more than gameplay, though it adds a ton of stuff there, too. Installed, it weighs in at 300 and a bit GB (that's without the downloads). Like many of the big gfx mods you should have a good gfx card (my GTX 3080 was managing a 60-ish frame rate at 1920x1080). Overall, though, I found it didn't add enough content, and I'm not a fan of its use of character models that makes everyone look like silicone sexdolls and supermodels. It focuses on immersion and graphical fidelity, though, like few others.

Lost Legacy: https://github.com/Lost-Outpost/lost-legacy/blob/main/README.md
On the far other end of the content spectrum sits this one. It adds tons and tons of quest mods/new areas, NPCs, city revamps, new creatures, encounters and loot (including lore-unfriendly stuff like enemies from Dark Souls, or Legends of Hyrule which adds a variety of Zelda loot/dungeons). I'm impressed it manages to run at all with all the stuff thrown in there, but though I do like MOAR CONTENT I thought it was a bit much. Running from Riverwood to Whiterun, there's two big player homes along the river, plus two or more outside Whiterun itself, making the area quite cluttered (the Aldmer fast travel shrines the game adds not helping, either). Not to mention that near the watchtower I saw Vigilants of Stendarr fighting a "tundra spider" while I was attacked by a woolly rhino. You can probably tweak things to tamper it down, but I like the world to feel a bit lonely at times at least. (It also has a bunch of meme mods under "optional" that are enabled by default - you may want to disable them, unless you want guards to explode into sweetrolls, or Nazeem flying into the air when he brags abot the Cloud District )

Living Skyrim 4: https://www.fgsmodlists.com/livingskyrim4/beforeyoustart/
This 4th iteration of the modlist focuses on making the world more alive. It adds a lot of content, but doesn't go quite as crazy as Lost Legacy. Overall it seems to strike a good balance between overhaul with new stuff and preserving the feeling of the original game, and it's the one I will play the most.

FG, the maker of Living Skyrim, has other mods on his site - one is Path of the Dovahkin. I've looked at gameplay videos, but what it basically does is try and turn the game into an ARPG akin to Path of Exile - speeding up combat, highly randomized loot, grinding locations repeatedly, character builds etc. Seems interesting if you're looking for a different approach to the game. Plus Masterstroke which ... errr ... yeah, not touching that one (browsing through the modlists, it's very NSFW focused, adding lots of consensual/non-consensual content, including post-combat rape (active and passive), sex minigames, an "economy" around breast milk, "creature interactions", BDSM/slavery gameplay ... err ... I admire the creativity and enthusiasm, but I think I'll pass on that one.

DroppedIceCream reviews some of the Wabbajack modlists for Skyrim and FO4 on his channel for further info: https://www.youtube.com/@DroppedIceCreamMods

[Solmyr]

I keep wanting to replay Skyrim with Legacy of the Dragonborn (or Odyssey of the Dragonborn if/when it comes out).

[Syt]

Yeah, LotD is one of those mods most lists include; and there's patches/add ons for various other mods that tie into it.

On modding -  I see Morrowind Rebirth is on V6.something and he's updated his recommended tie-in mods. Maybe time to re-install Morrowind. And have a look how modding for Daggerfall Unity is looking like these days.

[Solmyr]

For Morrowind I'm waiting for Skywind.

[Syt]

Understandable. I fell in love with Rebirth when I played it a few years ago. It's very much aiming for "Vanilla+", i.e. making the graphics prettier, re-balancing the mechanics (but not going hardcore punishing like some mods do), and adding lore friendly new content. It's expanding/redesigning cities and locations a bit, adding e.g. some small farms here and there where it makes sense, or a "suburb" to Vivec city that makes a lot of sense, plus new items and some pretty cool new dungeons. The main strike against it is that it's incompatible to Tamriel Rebuilt at the moment. https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/37795/

[Syt]

New Skyblivion trailer:

Looks quite impressive.

[Syt]

The mod team did a long stream showcasing the progress and talking about the project in general:

[Syt]

In the modlist I'm using there's a abandoned little shack on top of the waterfalls between Riverwood and Whiterun, with a little graveyard. Didn't expect to find this.

[MadImmortalMan]

I have a whole hard drive just for the Nexus downloads. I may be storing a significant percentage of their content by myself. Heh.

Makes installing new modlists take a lot less time. Many of the lists use a lot of the same downloads.