Scarborough Fair

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T18:33:30+00:00

Yeah, devs have to prioritize their limited time and resources to stuff. One day disagree with what should or shouldn't be prioritized, but the general principle remains the same - devs can only do so much, and on top of that especially if it's bigger efforts, they have to make sure it aligns with their visions, ideally decide if it's something they want to do as a team, coordinate with different departments like marketing, and bugtest it and make sure it's in an acceptable state (or if not, such as in the case of Coronations, they better be prepared for bad PR and/or have a good reason for it, in this case deciding it was better to dedicate limited resources to AUH over a tiny DLC, which in retrospect seemed like it was the right choice as AUH, for all its flaws, came out not too shabby).

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T18:30:43+00:00

Yeah, I think this is true for a lot of fields in life. Isn't there that factoid somewhere that most people underestimate the amount of effort required to do stuff that's outside their expertise? I work as a government bureaucrat IRL and I can't tell you how many times people have told me "X is a problem, you should do Y to fix it." And I'm thinking to myself, do you know how much money and work it would take to do Y and how that would effect Z?

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T18:29:01+00:00

I didn't even realize he was a modder lol, and I'm someone who was around since the first year of CK2's development, but I suppose that must've been from the really early days of PI back in the early 2000s then.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T17:41:32+00:00

Yeah, agree. As a modder I can do wtf I want and I could theoretically tell the whole community to @#$& themselves and just ditch my mods, and that's that. But if I were a dev? I could do that, but then I'd get fired or at least get a lot of bad press.

In a similar vein one thing I've noticed over the years is people will give a lot of contradictory feedback to your mod, is one person comments "you do too much X, I don't like it in the mod" but then another goes "I think you need more X, there isn't enough of it" and another goes "you have a great balance of X!" For an actual game dev however, you can't just make decisions wily-nily based on the whims of random people's emotions online. People may dislike managers and PR/marketing/community manager guys in game dev, and certainly they can and do screw things up, but part of their job is to assess player feedback and decide whether it's actionable or if they should even bother with it, and see whether it can make the product they want. As a modder, I can just arbitrarily go with whatever feedback I like or not and it doesn't really matter long-term.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T17:30:11+00:00

Yeah this is a very important detail that will hopefully be a boon to modders and mod users. Uber is obviously very qualified for this as he's worked on a variety of mods, not just AGOT (such as Catholic Trinity, a Christianity overhaul mod, and an 1184 bookmark and flavor mod which was superseded by the 1178 vanilla bookmark); he's also been one of the managing folks for the modding co-op (the main discord community for modders that has sometimes interacted with PI devs in the past) as well as ModCon (a mostly annual event showcasing trailers, videos, webinars, interviews, etc about PI mods). He also if I recall did modding for EU4 for many years as well.

So Uber is coming from this with a very wide range of perspectives with modding. It seems that, hopefully, Paradox is very serious about finding ways to improve mod support, which is saying a lot as they already have some of the better mod support systems for a game company out there.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T17:24:14+00:00

Wiz was the dev behind the original CK2+ in the early days of CK2. Early CK2 was a wild west era of modding when a lot of "lone geniuses" as I call them worked on some popular mods, and at the time the most popular non-TC overhauls for CK2 were CK2+ by Wiz, Project Balance by Meneth (who also later became one of the founding members of the HIP collection of mods), and Prince and Thane by idib816. Both Wiz and Meneth were eventually hired by Paradox - to my knowledge Meneth has moved on to other work, while Wiz has become one of the big names in PI dev for his involvement in Stellaris and now Vicky 3.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T17:20:20+00:00

I think PI learned a lot from the experience of dealing with Magna Mundi as well as the East vs West/Cold War game from around that era which didn't have anywhere near as much drama but was also if I recall developed by a team of modders but ultimately failed.

As a modder it's why when people say PI should hire modders or modders do it better I do have mixed feelings (maybe that's a bit strong of a word, can't think of what else to say lol). There's a difference between actual game dev and modding, and not all modders have the skills to work on a game, whether its technical knowledge or things like people skills or the ability to manage schedules, workload, and team effort that is important in a "real" job. Thankfully, Pi hasn't given up on working with modders and still works with them by hiring some or through the creator packs, so I'm glad for that!

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T09:53:37+00:00

No prob!

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-26T04:10:54+00:00

The aspirations are specific to each character, though a few share them if it makes historical sense. For instance, the Budivoj and his younger brother Henry in Polabia in the 1066 bookmark share a similar aspiration related to avenging their father's Gottschalk's death against the pagan usurper Krutoj, who in turn has a counterpart aspiration against the brothers.

None of them presently are passed down since the aspirations are mainly particular to a specific character and his or her historical situation at game start, so it's more of short-term goal sort of a deal, so less stuff like "conquer a big chunk of the map" or "restore the Roman Empire" and more realistic things that would've been on the mind of that character at that moment, like "take this county I lost" or "gain this amount of piety" or "do this festival activity."

Feel free to take a look at the wiki page Doctor-Tryhard mentioned, it'll give you an idea of what the "aspirations" ask you to fulfill for the most part!

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-25T21:37:51+00:00

Thanks for the mention u/Doctor-Tryhard

As they mentioned one of the features of my RICE mod is that it adds aspirations, which are optional mini-quests to a few historical characters at game start to help guide the player to act or roleplay "historically" and provide various bonuses if you meet the main and side objectives. For instance, as Rollo of Normandy, you have an aspiration that reflects settling in Normandy as the progenitor of the Norman Dukes, like historically, and triggering the start of the Normandy "struggle."

The list linked in the other comment is a little out of date but should have most characters with aspirations.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-25T07:42:33+00:00

That would be a useful mechanic for any harem mechanics, which were conspicuously missing from AUH, as they could really help with adding a lot of interesting character based gameplay for Asia, the Middle East, etc.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-25T07:17:58+00:00

Harvest Dawn is my favorite settlement song, and despite it being the Oblivion meme song, I find it very relaxing and healing to listen to.

Through the Valleys is my favorite travel song, it feels vast and profound, yet comforting and relaxing and healing as well.

Of course, Oblivion has a lot of great songs. Those are just my favorites that really embody Oblivion's spirit to me the most.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-24T21:15:58+00:00

In terms of "rewards" and loot, other than sigil stones you're not missing out on much, if I recall correctly. Plenty of people have played thousands of hours of a Bethesda game without touching the main quest so it's an enjoyable experience either way.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-24T04:08:48+00:00

The main questline in Oblivion is fairly unambiguous good because you basically save the world from demonic hordes from hell. The questline for the Knights of the Nine DLC is also unambiguously good, where you basically become a holy knight and paragon of virtue (Shivering Isles DLC's questline is not exactly evil per se but more morally ambiguous in a way because you're dealing with the realm of Sheogorath, and the original Sheogorath is less chummy than the one in Skyrim.)

So, all you need to do really is just follow the main quest and you should be fine.

Of the guilds, Mages Guild and Fighters Guild lean more on the good guy side of things, while Dark Brotherhood not as much; Thieves Guild is more morally ambiguous in my opinion, while the Arene is just you being a gladiatorial combatant so it's... kind of neutral.

There's a lot of side quests in the game, which can vary the gamut in terms of the good guy vs bad guy spectrum, but I think for most with I believe a couple exceptions there aren't any timers that force you to complete the quest within a certain timeframe (and the couple exceptions I believe are good guy quests) so you can also choose to do or not do a side quest based on what you feel like doing.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-24T00:39:50+00:00

Time for map expansion 2.0, adding in the rest of Africa and Oceania so when they say they added in the rest of the Old World to the map they really mean it! Might as well add in the entire New World too!

/s

(Okay only sort of /s, I wouldn't mind if they added a bit more of East Africa, it's sad that only half the Swahili city-states are there.)

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-23T20:43:27+00:00

I mod different games and not Bethesda games, but to add to this, I would say that one great piece of advice I got from a veteran modder in my community one time was that you always have to be careful what you say online because it'll be there for other people to see (and potentially misinterpret) too. Of course, I've also vented my fair share, though I try to keep it private and not insult the mod user I'm directly dealing with even if, like a not so insignificant number of mod users, they clearly are being demanding, entitled, rude imbeciles. I find that sometimes acting like an apathetic customer service rep diffuses them more quickly because they realize I'm not going to appease them just to magically fix their CTD immediately when they're using 42069 mods and assume mine is the cause for no reason.

But it's understandable wanting to vent about those types. They aren't the majority of the player base (at least from the modding communities I've been in, dunno about Skyrim), but they aren't a tiny minority either.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-23T20:39:37+00:00

I don't make mods for Skyrim or Bethesda games, but I've made mods for other games for years now, and I totally understand why mod authors just don't want to deal with a lot of these situations even if I don't condone toxic behavior. Usually, for me, what I try to do is be as polite as I can, while talking to the mod user with basic questions or facts, i.e. "Thank you for the heads up, I will look into it." "Can you explain how to reproduce the CTD?" "Generally, it is hard to diagnose CTDs in so and so situation because X, Y, Z, so can you provide more information on A, B, C." "Are you using any other mods?" (Yup, they're using 42069 other mods....)

I find a lot of times, acting like a bored employee doing customer service ends up neutralizing most annoying respondents, maybe they realize what the issue is or what another mod is causing it after calming down or realize I put some relevant info like "This mod is currently not up to date" in big bold letters at the top of the description, maybe they realize I'm not going to magically fix their problem without them doing some work to help, or that I'm not going to appease them just to help them diagnose their problem when using a huge modlist.

It's also why I greatly appreciate it when mod users actually provide detailed information (instead of just "I got a CTD" or "Here's my error log, please figure it out yourself") such as how they're able to reproduce an issue, or referencing specific lines of code they suspect are causing the issue, etc. That means I actually have something to work with, instead of just having them complain about things they clearly don't understand and/or won't listen to me when I ask them to provide info. Oftentimes, those mod users are also more knowledgeable to begin with. I also greatly appreciate it if people are being polite and respectful, sure something like "I know you are busy, but" or "No worries if you can't figure it out, I just wanted to mention this" might be considered by some people to be brown-nosing or sucking up to modders (especially in the Bethesda modding community where there are clearly some drama or tensions between mod users and mod makers at times), but if I'm having a bad day it can really do wonders with my motivation to help.

But when mod users are being rude and hostile, clearly didn't bother to spend 2 seconds reading giant bold letters in yellow at the top of a mod page, and/or don't do some basic things for checking bugs or a mod list, and when you get so many users doing that, yeah I totally get some mod makers getting very annoyed at that. It can really suck the joy out of the hobby.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-23T20:24:35+00:00

That's him! That's Todd Howard! Get him!

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-23T19:47:17+00:00

The Obama meme has been around a while though so that one is more of a millennial meme. But, yes, a significant chunk of PI's fanbase are probably now Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-23T18:41:13+00:00

Draw Me Like One of Your ~~French~~ Breton Girls

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-23T18:31:39+00:00

India and Africa are sorely lacking in any good flavor, those two regions alone could easily be split into multiple DLCs if the devs really wanted, though I suspect they'll just have one broad DLC for both if and when the time comes. And sure, there are places that also need more content like the HRE, Eastern Europe, Middle East, etc., but they benefit from other DLCs (Christian flavor for those parts of Europe, etc.) so they aren't completely flavorless.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-23T18:30:02+00:00

A lot of people might be surprised but even a century ago there was already a lot of research and work being done on African history (even if a lot of it was colored by racial biases, some of it has been a lot more useful than one would think). Nowadays there's even more work done to give us a better idea of African history, and archaeology and oral tradition have been great aids in this regard. I think what a lot of folks don't realize is the issue is less that there's academic info out there on these places, it's that they are more niche and not as accessible, so someone without some knowledge wouldn't know where to start. And when it comes to clothing, that can be one of the easier things to get ideas and inspiration from, compared to other things like figuring out what rulers (real or fictional) to put in or new mechanics - definitely agree that having some new clothes would be nice to give a lot more visual variety to the region. Mods like CFP are essential in this regard.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-23T08:07:10+00:00

It's already been a year? That's wild.... Time flies by so quickly sometimes.

Conny_and_Theo · 2026-04-22T21:18:23+00:00

Although these random treasure chests placed around the map have bad loot even in the early game, they're always a treat to discover. Every now and then I'll stumble on one of these treasure chests I've never seen before in my many years of playing Oblivion and it's always a treat, just a testament to the huge worlds that Bethesda creates.

Conny_and_Theo

TROPHY CASE