Live Blogs Dungeons and Draughr: a Skyrim survival challenge

sa90972012-02-27 14:39:38

Since I picked up a used copy of Morrowind on Xbox, I've been a TES fanatic. After making it about a third of the way through the first main quest, I upgraded to the PC GOTY edition and went onto finish the main quest, and then proceeded to install a copious amount of mods, starting with the Official Plugins and Tamriel Rebuilt. I particularly enjoyed the well-known "Necessities of Morrowind" survival mod, which inspired me to create a outdoorsman wilderness explorer character, living off nothing except what I could hunt and kill. After many months with that character, I finally moved on to Oblivion, installing many similar role-playing enhancement mods.

Fast-forwarding to 2011, I pre-ordered Skyrim early in the summer, and arranged to have the 11/11/11 release date off months in advance. It took me about two weeks to finish the Alduin main quest line, and then another two weeks to finish the College of Winterhold and Civil War (Imperial side) quest lines. Before the Creation Kit was out, I had already downloaded dozens of simple mods - mostly texture packs and the like. With the recent release of the CK, I've been adding survival mods, in addition to some major overhauls like Wars in Skyrim and Deadly Dragons. With that done, I'm about to begin a new game, with the following major mods:

• Imp's More Complex Needs - an NOM-esque survival mod, with detailed nutrition
• Deadly Dragons - self explanatory; also adds many new varieties of dragons
• Wars In Skyrim - adds many new random encounters to the world, with rival factions battling for supremacy (playing on "normal" mode)
• Warzones: Civil Unrest - similar to WIS, adds large scale battles between Imperials and Stormcloaks
• Sky UI - an overhauled interface, better optimized for PC

Additionally, I'm adding one self-imposed challenge - and this is a big one - character death will be treated as permanent. Obviously, this is going to take a lot of discipline, and it will depend on the honor system. If any of you readers feel up to the challenge, I invite you to take it with me and compete to see who can stay alive the longest.

With that introduction out of the way, its time to roll up a character

Comments

montagohalcyon Since: Dec, 1969

Feb 27th 2012 at 4:44:06 PM

This sounds interesting, I've seen some similar challenges around the web.

Haven't actually played Skyrim yet myself (!), but I got Oblivion when Skyrim released and loved it, which persuaded me to buy Skyrim for 33% off on Steam recently.

I should be starting soon, so I'll keep an eye on this, might try it myself, at least the permanent death part (don't believe in using mods the first time through any game).