Love Letters for a Girl I Hate · 2:18am Jan 29th, 2015
So, this Christmas, I offered a few of my friends commissions as gifts. Among those friends was Cold in Gardez, who instead of getting something cool for his first winter in Japan, woke up one morning to discover this festering under his digital tree.
After realizing that, no, I wasn't the first of three ghosts sent to torment him for his lack of Christmas spirit, he made his request: a MLP/Skyrim crossover with the [Adventure] tag. I replied that I had never played Skyrim, which he said was fine, since it was on sale on Steam for $5 hint hint. So I bought it, and played it for about thirty hours over the break, and got a good enough handle on it to start writing.
I made a few early attempts at the story (one of which you can read here), but I quickly realized they weren't panning out. They felt bad, and more importantly, not very Skyrim. When I tried to fix them, they became less Skyrim, and when I made them more Skyrim, the writing got worse. It seemed like "good" and "Skyrim" were mutually exclusive properties, which puzzled me greatly. After awhile, I concluded that the problem was that I just hadn't played enough of the game to really get it, so my attempts to integrate the source material were weak. So I went back and played it a bit more.
Then I played it a bit more. And a bit more. And after about another twenty hours of play, this time taking notes on the game experience as I went, I came to a sudden epiphany.
I fucking hate Skyrim.
Surprise! Didn't see that one coming did you?
I hate the mechanics, I hate the story, I hate the gameplay, I hate the main character, and I hate the setting. The game is beautiful, yes, but it's beautifully rendered nothing. Exquisite, high-resolution, artisanally crafted nothing. It is the video game equivalent of going into a five-star restaurant and ordering the cotton candy. In short, I do not like it. And the fact that I don't like it is why my fanfiction of it sucked.
I quickly realized that was a problem. All good fanfiction is a love letter to the series it references. Even parody fanfiction has a sort of adoration to it, expressing that the series—for all its faults—was worthy of being played with. And I didn't love Skyrim. It actually really bothered me, because I felt I was left with the choice of either giving someone crappy fanfiction for Christmas (bad friend), or of telling someone they don't get their gift after all (worse friend). Unsure of what to do, I sat on the issue for a few weeks, and discussed it with my fellow writers and editors.
It was then that one of them said, "What, you're a writer and you've never written a love poem for an ugly chick?" Or words to that effect. I may be paraphrasing slightly. Regardless, lightning struck. And I had my good fanfiction.
And so, for all you Skyrim fans out there, I present:
It is all the ways Skyrim is so very beautiful to me.
Welcome to Bethesda games, according to my brother.
I've played about 20 hours of Skyrim but I uh... really spent a vast amount of time picking pockets.
Of everyone.
Ever.
I'm terrible like that.
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Read the fic.
Get to chapter 3.
Personally, I agree with you on Skyrim. The games are always very pretty and it's like I can feel this wonderful, massive story that lurks in books and hints and dialogue, but none of that really comes across in the gameplay itself, which plays like a bad hack-and-slasher. Or, more specifically, like if you took all the cool guns and fun out of Fallout's fight mechanics.
So yeah, there you go. Time to read that story.
I've been debating whether to pick up this game, now that I have a functional rig that allows for games to be played.
I think I'm cool with not pursuing this debate farther. My graduate program and my wallet thank you! (And maybe not tonight, but I'm definitely going to have to take a look at this story. The description of how you got there is pretty awesome.)
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I spend most of my time crafting and enchanting, in between searching for more junk to craft, forge, smelt, disenchant, and re-enchant. Eventually I've leveled up entirely using non-combat skills, which leaves my character with incredible gear and no clue whatsoever how to use it.
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Sadly the Gamebyro engine hasn't aged well, and though Skyrim is prettier than Fallout 3, the mechanics under it just aren't up to the task unless you're willing to invest time outside the game to immerse yourself in the the Tamriel universe. Luckily the literature is highly readable.
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The base game can be had for $5 during the occasional Steam sale, and $12 with all the DLCs. It's worth it to pick up at least the the base game and give it a whirl, especially if you're open to trying a few mods.
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Shameless plug: I liked the Elder Scrolls literature so much, I helped collect some of it for offline reading. Couldn't make myself go back to play the older games (even Oblivion), but I read their literature just the same.
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Honestly, I think you're much better off with shorter, more condensed experiences. Frankly, games are not terribly expensive if you buy them on sale (during the steam sales, they can often go for $5) and you're better off buying something which is great for, you know, 10 hours than buying something which sinks hundreds of hours in and isn't that amazing.
Says the guy who is approaching 300 hours on Civilization V.
Just one... more... turn...
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I'd say the problem isn't prettier, but just that it's not as fun to play. Like, yeah, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 3 aren't as pretty as Skyrim, but those two games were so engaging that I've logged 150+ hours on each in a single summer without hardly trying. There's just such a level of immersion that I could never get in Skyrim, though lord knows I tried with about 25 hours logged.
This is brilliant.
Mods, man. They make everything better.
I spent most of my early-game time behind people's backs and out of direct combat, and greatly enjoyed crafting my own sweet gear, so maybe I didn't see the same side of skyrim you did. Ah well, to each their own. While Skyrim is massive, I'm sure it can't match the diversity and wild adventures of tabletop RPGs, for those fortunate enoughto get in a good group.
I was going to pass this story up, not having played Skyrim, but after reading this blog post now I have to see what the deal is.
I strongly suggest that you nudge the story description to inject that hook in. "Inspired by discovering, after 50+ hours of gameplay time, that I f*cking hate Skyrim."
Just read the story and it was great. Sorry to hear you didn't like Skyrim. I enjoy playing it, but not really for anything the game designers put in. Heck, at this point one of my favorite games is Installing Skyrim Mods. Not playing the game with mods (though I do a lot of that) but just finding and putting mods in and seeing which ones will work. I enjoy the game to pieces, but I've probably spent just as much time finding and fiddling with mods. Last game I actually played had around 100 of them.
Still, great story. I'm glad your video game related suffering led to my reading related enjoyment. We should find more games you hate.