What I found strange was that the fox didn't swim (no animations for it?) but walked on the bottom as if it were dry land. At least the necrodudes knew they needed to swim, even if they didn't get the hang of where the surface was.

Actually I think the player character is the only one in the game who can drown. I've seen Lydia and a bandit at the bottom of a lake staring each down for an unreasonable amount of time. Neither could fight, of course, so they just looked at each other threateningly.

Oh, if NPC's can't drown that kind of stacks the odds against the player. Isn't it odd they wouldn't give the fox a swimming animation! And I think the navmesh would have to be wrongly colored for the fox not to avoid it if they can't swim, wouldn't it? I mean, that is what they taught in that class, to color the navmesh blue for water and any NPC's that couldn't swim would avoid going near it.

In Oblivion; my "Alix the Mouse" mod (Oblivion mouse follower mod) - Alix walked on the bottom of all water areas too, but I had to provide him with water breathing that was with him at all times for it to work or he would drown. Mice/rats can swim, I never knew why he wouldn't. (So gave him the water breathing to accommodate that).

Buffy had Stump the dog blocking the exit path from Alvor's forge area in Riverwood. So Buffy hopped up on the forge, then over the dog. I was quite surprised to hear the dog's owner (Frodnar) say, "My parents get mad at me when I jump on the furniture."

But Dorthe's parents don't mind when she levitates over the firewood!

Great that you captured that. How funny!

I had one happen this weekend, but didn't get a picture.

The usual incident where the thief gives you an item to hold and runs off, but the hunter chasing him stops to talk to me just as a mudcrab crawls out of the lake nearby. While the hunter is in the middle of his "Did you see a thief?" spiel, the mudcrab kills him!

Well, maybe it's not exactly a new thing, but . . .

I've started playing the Helgen Reborn mod. The second quest you get (the first after entering Helgen), you have to go find the Thalmor prison up in the mountains south of Helgen. You get two of the group as followers, and you're supposed to go in there with a forged prisoner transfer (from Elenwen, who else?) and get some guy named Korst out of there. The three of you are masquerading as the Imperial prisoner escort we've all seen around Skyrim.

So I go there with my two fake Imperial guards and Argis. As we're standing outside the door of the prison (added by the mod), it occurs to me how much like going off to find Princess Leia in Death Star this is.

Next thing I know, the skeptical Thalmor guy inside reads: "Transfer Prisoner THX 1138 (blah blah blah). That doesn't sound right, I'll have to clear it with my superior."

Anyone who's watched Star Wars as much as I have will recognize that dialogue as being lifted almost word for word from the movie! I cracked up so badly I almost got killed when the Thalmor went all hostile.

And more recently, as I was traipsing around Skyrim looking for reinforcements for the Helgen squad, I came across a Breton in Solitude who has never fought in a war or in any kind of conflict. But he wants to break the family tradition of the most boring lifestyle anyone can lead and go into adventuring for himself. So when asked about his combat experience, he said, and I quote: "I saw a mudcrab by the water the other day. Disgusting creatures, I hope to never see another one again."

Buffy's had that 'here, hold this' encounter happen during some very odd and surprising circumstances, but your mudcrab ambush takes the cake!

I'm hesitant to mention this next one because it might be caused by the JK's Skyrim mod that spruces up the cities/towns. Buffy encountered a 'rat' while roaming Windhelm. It was clearly a 1/3 scale skeever but was not responsive to the player - just roaming around like the chickens do. Anyone ever seen such a thing or should I chalk it up to that mod?

Edit: Rider was posting as I was slowly composing the above. Wow, what a couple of neat Easter eggs!

I love the homage to Star Wars. And of course THX 1138 is an homage Lucas himself made to one of his earlier films. Too bad there was no way to work in "Aren't you a little short to be a Stormcloak..."



Mini-Skeevers? I have never come across them. I don't use JK's, so that might indeed be the culprit. What you can do to verify is open the Creation Kit, go to the screen to select the mod, but don't open it. Just click on it once to highlight it. Then click on the Details button. It will spit out a list of everything it alters and adds. You can sort it by type, which makes it handy to find things. Then go down through the list to the creature section, and see if your rat is in there.

Woot! Something new to learn about the CK! So I tried what you suggested and it worked like a champ. There is a skeever entry so I figure that is it. Makes sense too since I've never heard of rats wandering around town in game. I do believe there is just the one that JK put near the gate going out to the Windhelm docks. There's a few chickens there as well. Thank you!

Or "It was a lousy conversation anyway. Argis! We've got company!"

And I'm waiting for the classic line: "I've got a baaad feeling about this . . ."

And yes, I knew THX 1138 was a homage to an earlier film of Lucas's. One of the first pieces of Star Wars trivia I learned nearly 40 years ago. Yikes, has it really been that long??

Definitely mod-added, no doubt. I spent dozens of hours on Xbox in Windhelm with Mycharonna especially, looking for all sorts of places to hide. Never saw a scaled-down rat like this.

Now that kid is some scary stuff! Can we all say "Exorcist?" I thought we could!

"And I thought they smelled bad, on the outside..."

Alduin: "Alise . . . I . . . am your father."

Alise: "Nooo! That's not true! Noooooooooo!"

Guess we'd better quit before we turn this into the Star Wars Conversation Thread . . .

OMG, I saw the vid of Molly Hatchet and the Deathclaw here !!! Have I seen that before? Anyway, it was Awesome !!!

I have to love that, an actually apropos spontaneous comment from an NPC!!! Awesome!!

First time I've ever seen this glitch, and it happened to my own mod.

Prizna built the Greenspring Stronghold, and put up some of the mounted heads etc. On returning from a mining trip, she found the Mounted Elk Antlers had fallen off the wall, and were blocking the doorway. This item only exists in the CK as a static, but the antlers and mounting plaque were behaving like a fully-havoked clutter item.

Of course Lydia got stuck behind it. It was in a doorway, and blocking those is her job.

Ha ha ha my goodness!

I can't help but laugh at Lydia getting stuck behind it, But I have had static objects havoc in Skyrim too, what is the deal?

I'm used to Serana always using the ore vein just as my characters want to do so, but yesterday i came across a hunter and his dog as I approached an iron ore vein out in the wilderness. Before I could quite get there myself, he pulled out a pickaxe and started using the ore. I didn't think hunters would carry pickaxes, but apparently they come with the animation.

The same character came out of Greenspring Stronghold to see a mudcrab land at her feet. Looking down towards the stream, there was a giant down there clearing out threats to his mammoths.

The pick does come with the animation. I made a spell to summon pickaxes and wood axes. I found that after you summoned axe or pick (which is automatically equipped in your hand like a summoned weapon), then click on the ore vein, the pick vanishes. Then one the animation to mine starts, and new pick automagically appears in your hands. Until the animation ends, when it too disappears.

That is neat to know about the axes/pickaxes.

Buffy, of course, lacks the physical strength to use either. Besides, she considers them to be (ugh) melee weapons. . . but she can be fairly clever.
1. For ore mining, she has an alteration spell that coaxes the ore right out of the rock.
2. For wood cutting however, she needs to hire a follower to do that for her.

New thing for Buffy in Skyrim today, despite her 2200 hours of playing there. She encountered Sond and his friend - a pair of young boys trying to sell instructions to a dwemer ruin. Sure enough it is a standard wilderness encounter, just one she has never come across until today!

Was it a good map of/to the place? Oh, that is so cool, now that is the kind of random encounter that makes a game special! I love that, and hope I find it one day!










I had no idea NPC's would mine in the wilderness, that is Awesome!

I would think that would have to be in his AI package, like City Swimmer's bread stealing was an eat command with no food in her inventory; and even though she had food in her house, it was at a time when her package had her wandering outside her home. So she was bound to steal and be killed in every game (which is why I set up outdoor un-owned food supplies for her in my game - and she does use them, I've seen her).

Oh wait, no - Skyrim has the sandboxing built in! I wonder how you can ensure an NPC you have made will sandbox in a location you set them in?

It simply marked the location on her map. Conicidentally, it was to a dwemer ruin that Buffy'll need for the Aetherium Forge quest.

Skyrim AI packages are nested, so you have a travel package that sets their location, and the sandboxing is inside that. The outer layer determines a radius of the target point that they stay inside, as well as how close they need to get if they come from somewhere else.

A travel package? Oh, Skyrim may not use the wander packages like Oblivion did, I can't remember.

I haven't messed with the AI packages yet, but was trying to set up a smithy NPC and an Inn proprietor/vendor NPC; but wanted them to sandbox in their work locations (like in the Inn sweeping the floor, wiping the tables, leaning on the bar, etc; and in the smithy to hammer around on the anvil or pull the chain on the forge, pick axe or shovel the coals, etc).

Do you just stick them in their places with a travel package to ensure they use the sandbox cues?

Had a fun time when going back to Windstad Manor in the current game. As with all the Hearthfires home, you get periodic visits from giants, wilderness creatures (usually just wolves) and bandits.

The first trip had a giant and a troll arrive at the same time. Giant was initially neutral and just wandering around, and when the troll turned up, it joined our side to beat it into a pulp. Unfortunately it was then in the mood for a fight, and turned on the steward. I had to put it down.

The next trip, it was bandits. The two melee ones were soon sorted, but the archer stayed at a distance, just far enough to annoy the local trio of horkers, who proceeded to chase him out into the bay.

And I hope they drowned him in the bay!

That was the one thing I hated about the Hearthfires DLC - the fact that baddies still spawned near my homesteads. Windstad had visits from Draugrs on more than one occasion. Fortunately the steward for that place, Valdimar, is a sorcerer class fighter, and throws frost spears like they are iron arrows (i.e. plentifully) as well as swing a blade. I haven't picked him up since the first play through, but now I'm thinking I want to get him again. He was cool, if a bit grumpy. Maybe I'll create an NPC follower based on him . . .

I replaced Valdimar with a Rayya clone (to help test more variants of the Alik'r outfits) but kept his combat style. It makes a very versatile follower, as they'll all use a bow as well, if they ever run out of magicka, which isn't quick.

So I'm gaming with Claire Voyance and she's in Winterhold, trying to get a better spell or two from this new NPC who works at the College (mod). Claire finds this woman, buys a spell, and she's outta there. It was the quickest College-joining I've ever done, because usually my characters have had to at least participate in the initial stages of Sarthaal to get some better spells from the mages who go there.

Later on Claire is walking out in the lower part of Winterhold, and this "Student" comes up to her and says he wants to learn how ward spells work, so Claire taught got to show him how this is done. Never seen this guy before. It's basically a repeat of the ward demonstration Tolfdir wants us to do as we're in that first quest, but I've never had this random student come up and ask for this.

He was vanilla too. Same voice as Marcurio.

Neat. I think I may have gotten that request for Ward schoolin' with one of my characters. I tend to get the mage demanding a duel to the death more often!

Yeah, I get the 'duel to the death' guy all the time too. I usually get the student sometime after I've finished getting the books back from Fellglow Keep. A few times I've gotten caught in a bug that makes the student continue casting firebolts at you long after your magic well has run dry. I've had to kill him several times on various playthroughs just to make him stop! Now I don't even ask: I just treat them the same and shoot first.

Three new things in a row, today...

1). Serana's eyes glow on PC, glow in the dark, that is. They don't do this on consoles, at least not that I remember. I haven't added any mods to Serana or Dawnguard specifically, so this seems to be vanilla.

2). Serana can resist Healing Hands, when Claire tries to heal her up!

3). Dangit I forget #3. It'll come to me, though

Bold =


2. That is so strange, why wouldn't she want to be healed?

Claire probably needs to use the Necromantic Healing spell on Serana. She is supposed to be a vampire after all.

Resurrection?

I discovered something new in Persephone's game today. Whenever you mine an ore deposit, it adds 1 to your list of ingredients harvested. Persephone does not use any alchemy at all, so she never harvests any ingredients from plants and the like. So I could not figure out how I had over 20 ingredients harvested listed in her Crafting stats. It took a while, but I figured it out while I was playing today, and I noticed it going up every time I mined an ore deposit.

Huh, that’s funny about the ingredients harvested. I’ve seen a number under Potions Made on characters who have never mixed a potion. I wonder if it’s counting food as potions?

Also I’ve been checking my Chests Looted stat and noticed that all containers looted add to that figure, even sacks and barrels. I wonder if that’s just my game.

Renee, I had a new thing too and it’s gone right out of my head.

I checked in my treasure hunter’s game, and it seems that when she makes food it counts as potions. She has never mixed a single potion, so her 300-some “Potions Made” must be food items. She’s hungry!

I remembered the new thing! Three Hired Thugs attacked my character without the warning dialog. Turns out they were hired to avenge the (accidental) death of a loved one. Then funnily enough the third thug was non-hostile and followed for a while until getting killed by frostbite spiders near Morthal.

It's because we're right in the middle of gaming, totally immerrrrrssed, and so it's hard to bring those moments to these forums.

Whoa, so one of those thugs showed up but did not attack? Weird. I've seen that happen before with bandits. In Lord Haaf-Mersey's game, there were a couple times bandits would not attack him, even as he looted their precious hideouts.

Yeah, that is weird about "harvesting" ores. Interesting.

Here’s something I’ve never heard before. Kjeld of Kynesgrove hitting on my character: “My wife is a good woman, but every man needs a little variety, you know?”

Whoa wow holy [censored]. Do you use that mod which makes rare sayings from NPCs more common? There's supposed to be a mod which does this. If not, that must be super-rare to hear that eh?

He also calls his children "brats," lol. Not a real catch,

Yeah, Kjeld is so obnoxious I can’t imagine him turning anyone’s head. He seems to have quite the extramarital love life, though, at least according to his dialog with Roggi.

I put a screenshot of this somewhere, but I thought I’d mention it here too. There’s a captive spriggan in Snapleg Cave that you can release and she will be friendly. If she survives the cave she will run outside and make her way to the Eldergleam Sanctuary! So far she has not entered the sanctuary and has stayed friendly. It’s very neat!

Yeah, that does sound rather neat. Spriggan freak me out.

I've released the spriggan a few times, but she's always out of sight when the player character leaves the cave. How did you manage to follow her?

Julia let her out after she was completely finished ransacking the cave, and she followed the spriggan straight to the exit because she did not remember which way it was. (Julia is directionally challenged.) Then she watched the spriggan run off while she fiddled with her horse, but Julia caught up when the spriggan paused to fight some critter, I don’t remember what it was. At the fork in the road the spriggan went down the road to the left while Julia went down and to the right, so she didn’t stay with the spriggan the whole time even though I really wanted her to! Julia does not cooperate. She just found her again when she went past the sanctuary cutting through the volcanic tundra.

I wonder if that spriggan has a new AI package courtesy of the uesp? She must be different from the regular ones to stay non-hostile, which would explain why she doesn’t go inside with the sanctuary spriggans and why she fought the road critter.

Buffy just cleared Snapleg Cave yesterday. She killed all the baddies in there first so no harm would come to the spriggan, then freed her. The sprig ran toward the exit and stopped by a blocked area where Buffy pulled the pull chain to open the passage. Then the sprig continued for the exit. Buffy ran after her and I think saw her actually exit the cave. Buffy exited right after but didn't see her. Lighting up the area with her custom 'detect any freaking thing bigger than a butterfly that can move' spell, she still couldn't find the sprig.

How strange. Dar-Ma just ducked into Snapleg Cave and cleared it the same way Julia did, but she lost sight of the spriggan at the exit just like everyone else. Hmm. I have to think there’s an unknown mod involved, but since Julia had very few mods active due to the contest I am puzzled as to which.

I dug around a little in the USKP change notes looking for a possible fixed spriggan, and while I did not find her I did find a lot of fixed dialog and scenes that will sound new when I hear them. So that’s a future mystery solved. I did find a reference to the sprig in the wikia, which I usually don’t trust. However there’s a lot of info about that spriggan! I wonder how much of it is true.

That’s disappointing. Pretty much all of my characters would have loved to have a sprig pal to visit. Sorry, folks! If I can figure how she got out of the cave in Julia’s game I’ll come back and report.