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SPOILER INFO
Apart from describing the working of one mod, this article doesn't give away anything that happens in the game.
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Proper modding
I saw it written somewhere that the game of Skyrim is supposed to last approximately 80 real-time hours. That is quite incredible. I used much more than that just for making the game even playable – that is, searching and testing mods.
You will probably see it written in the forums that Mod Organizer is supposed to have a "steep learning curve". Well, yes and no. It is not exactly install-and-play, but I assure you that learning to use MO is far less effort than trying to make things work with that piece of shit Nexus Mod Manager. (That is unless your computer is very slow. MO needs a lot of computing power.)
In order to use Mod Organizer, you have to watch the video series made by Gopher. Now, please note that I have despised all kinds of video tutorials for my entire life. So when I am recommending a video tutorial, it means it must be mind-blowingly good. Gopher's Mod Organizer series is mind-blowingly good. I can't stress enough how vital it is for everyone who is new to the Mod Organizer.
(FYI, the video number 1 is not the first in the series. The first video is titled "Introduction", the second video is number 1, the third video is number 2, etc.)
When I was setting up Mod Organizer, I actually had Gopher's video running. I watched a bit, then paused the video, did what Gopher had done, watched a little more, paused the video, did the same thing in my computer, and so on. I emphatically recommend that you do the same. It can save you very much time and frustration.
So, what about that rape mod?
The rape mod is perfectly real. It is called SexLab Defeat (or just Defeat for short). It enables you to mark any NPC as a target by pressing G . (For clarity, I refer to that action as G-assault .) When you approach the target from behind so that she is not noticing that you are there, pressing G gives you complete power over her (unless someone sees or hears you doing it, in which case the assault will fail and a combat will start; you'll be in a lot of trouble). A menu will open with the choices "Inventory", "Tie Up", "Kill", "Rape" etc. If you click on "Rape", the two of you will get naked and have sex in one of the positions provided by a corresponding mod.
The same applies when the target is asleep, except that then, strangely enough, the G-assault is always successful even in plain view of other people.
In case you mark the target with G while she is either seeing you or otherwise noticing you are there, she will be marked as a target, but before you can actually use her, she needs to be injured to the point where she will cease fighting and get on her knees (a normal occurrence in Skyrim combat). Then you can approach her and loot, rape, kill etc.
(Note: children won't ever get naked and can't be raped. They can however be looted, tied up and killed, if you have a mod that enables it.)
There is another similar mod called Death Alternative , but I am not using it as I'm happy with Defeat .
After 300+ hours of playing, I can tell you that rape in Skyrim looks as believable as can be expected in a video game, right to the victims' wailing. There is room for improvement (like, the victims could cry visible tears as well), but all things considered, it is astonishing. Skyrim rape mods are the definition of "too good to be true", except that they are very true. I still can't believe that the Lovers Lab forum is allowed to operate. I still can't believe that feminist activists aren't standing day and night in front of Bethesda's office with banners demanding that they alter Skyrim so that rape mods would become non-functional. But it is so.
By a funny coincidence, the Skyrim icon looks a little bit like a vulva. ;-)
Let's get to it
Of course, modding of Skyrim is not limited to sex. The large majority of mods aren't in any way sexual. During my two months of mod research, I ended up testing hundreds of them. There are, for instance, mods for making your character need food, water and sleep. (In the vanilla game, food and drink exist but can safely be ignored.) Or adding buildings and NPC's to a number of locations. Or correcting prices of goods to make them more realistic.
Someone wrote: "I like Skyrim. I just hate the fact that it sucks without mods! Players doing Bethesda's fucking job." I disagree. Yes, unmodded Skyrim sucks. But modding is actually a good thing. Each one of us can practically create his own Skyrim game. Skyrim is like video gaming 2.0. Modded video games compared to unmodded video games – that is like unmodded video games compared to board games.
Take sex, for instance. If it existed in the vanilla game, it would surely have been made absurdly complicated and unpleasant. For instance, all kinds of NPC's would pester you with unsolicited remarks about how important it is to always use a condom, and surely the game would have a rule that if you had sex without a condom, you would catch a VD 50% of the time, and so on. Years ago, I saw a prostitution sim which was all about condoms and gang wars, the actual sex trade being little more than an excuse to shoot your competitors dead.
Anyway, after two months of intensive mod testing I finally managed to create a mod configuration that worked satisfactorily. It was clear that there were things that could have been made better still, but I was fed up with mod testing and was dying to do some actual playing for a change.
So I started a game which I played for 382 real-time hours. (How do I know? Because the real time spent playing is stored in the name of each savegame.) I did not complete the game. I decided to abandon it and start a new one, but I will come back to the reasons later. For now, it is sufficient to say that Skyrim opened up a whole new world to me.
In the other articles in this blog, I am going to cover a variety of topics that I feel deserve to be written about. I also intend to describe the new game I will start after I have tested a number of mods I have found in the meantime. I don't really care if it will interest anyone. I just want to put it all in writing and release it into the world.
[originally published 2016-10-17]
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