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Skyrim has been out a while and modders are working hard to add new content. While there are a large number of house mods available, there is very little variety.

Skyrim Real Estate aims to change that and increase the variety and quality of house mods available for player download. Following in the footsteps of it's sister site, that served Oblivion's house mod needs, Oblivion's Real Estate (known as ORE to the community). Skyrim Real Estate is issuing a challenge to all house modders. The challenge is to make a unique Underground Home!

With the vast variety of caves and the fact that unlike Oblivion, in Skyrim you can actually have multi story caves, it is surprising that there are so few underground homes available. This challenge aims to change that and provide players with a wide choice of magnificent, quality underground homes!

We challenge you, fellow house modder, to think outside the box and come up with something truley unique and special, by the June 30th deadline!

Once the winning mod is selected, it will be revealed on Skyrim Real Estate along with all the entries and available for public download. The winning mod is given the title 'Winner of the Underground Homes Challenge' and bears that title on SKYRE permanently. Letting mod seachers know that this mod is a truley exceptional home. In addition, the author will have a golden cup by their user name on the SKYRE forum, letting all members know that this modder is a Skyrim Real Estate challenge winner!

To enter, sign up in the comments here or go to the SKYRE forum Challenge sign up thread for full details on the first Skyrim Real Estate Challenge, 'The Underground Homes Challenge'. For a full listing of all rules and proceedures, please see HERE. http://www.skyrimrea....php?board=18.0

We are in the final stages of rolling out our new codebase on all the Nexus sites and the only site left to be converted is Skyrim Nexus. We’ve been converting each Nexus site one at a time and then tweaking and updating the code to reflect any performance issues that have occurred. Due to the sheer amount of traffic that Skyrim Nexus still receives we’re being extra careful and ensuring we’ve optimised all the code as much as possible (based on our observations from the sites we’ve already converted) before doing the final conversion. So stay tuned on that one.

Back when I did my State of the Union video at the end of February I mentioned that the three priority features we’d be working on at the Nexus after the conversion would be:

• Content filtering that enabled you to hide any content that you’re not interested in. If you have absolutely no interest in anime, skimpy outfits, nudity, unbalanced content or mods that aren’t lore-friendly (to name but a few of the regular dislikes) then you should be able to remove these mods from view on the sites as much as feasibly possible.
• Improving the visibility of mods and ensuring that mods can still be found among all the clutter after the first few days of release.
• Improved and enhanced moderation features so we don’t have to have such a black (you’re banned) and white (you’re not banned) method of moderation.

I’m happy to report that the first of those features, the content filtering, has been completed for all sites except Skyrim (which will be supported once we convert Skyrim Nexus!).

The new Blocked Tags page will list a number of tags that you can use to filter content out on the site. Unlike past attempts at doing this, this newest version will filter mods out across all the features on the site including the hot files, category view, search results, top 100 lists and so on. Because we don’t want you to completely debilitate yourself using the new blocking features, we’ve added in the ability to see exactly what it is you’re blocking when browsing categories and search results. The easiest way to test this functionality is to block the “English” language tag and then do a blank search. You’ll see that a new information box displays above your results:



So the content filtering will let you know exactly how many files have been filtered by your filtering preferences and even allow you to repeat your search (or browsing) showing all the previously omitted results, without changing your preferences.

Obviously, because the content filtering system is using our tag system then content filtering is only as good as the tags that have been applied to files in the first place. The site can’t filter out an anime mod if the anime tag isn’t being used. To that end I’ve worked on rearranging a lot of the current tags so they’re more accessible while adding some more content classification tags on some of the more regularly complained about content, including: anime, lore-friendly, not safe for work, nudity, sexy/skimpy, translation and saved games. As some of these tags are new it’s up to us, you, and mod authors to begin adding these new tags to these files.

To further help in this process we’ve added a new page to the “Files” drop-down menu on all converted sites labelled Files without tags. This page will list every file that has absolutely no tags at all.

To remind people of the tagging procedure, anyone and everyone can tag files on the site as long as they’re logged in. You can tag files by going to a file page and clicking the “Tags” tab (it’s the pencil icon) and using the green up or red down arrows next to each tag label. If you’re a mod author you can instantly tag your files. If you’re not the author of the file then you can recommend tags in the same way, using the green and red arrows, but it will take 3 recommendations from 3 separate users for the tag to become “confirmed” for the file. A “confirmed” tag will mean that mod can be searched for or blocked based on the tag. Mod authors automatically confirm their tags without the need for any other users to recommend the tag.

If everyone browsing the sites spent 10 minutes of their time to go through the Files without tags page and tagged a few files then all the features that rely on the tagging system would be a lot more powerful. I don’t want anyone coming to me complaining that the tag system isn’t powerful enough if they have “Files tagged: 0” in their profile. We’re all in this together, folks!

My hope is that this new content filtering is going to alleviate a lot of the complaints about seeing content that you’re not interested in. If you don’t like anime mods, block the content and you’ll never ever have to see it again. If you see an anime mod that hasn’t been tagged as such, do the right thing and tag it yourself, ensuring that you don’t go off on a crusade in the comments section while you’re at it.

We’ll continue to tweak the content filtering and tagging system as necessary, and if you have any recommendations or bug reports then feel free to air them.

We’ve got lots of really cool stuff in the works at the moment for both the sites and for NMM but I think I’ve said enough for now, so check up on the news soon as I provide an update on the other stuff.

This episode of Skyrim Mod Sandctuary covers some mods that will help light your way and one that will improve Winterhold by adding a lot more destruction.

Download Links:
ULTRA REALISTIC WORLD LIGHTING for Skryim BETA
Lanterns of Skyrim - Around Cities
Lanterns of Skyrim - Bridges
Expanded Winterhold Destruction Ruins
IMAGINATOR - Visual Control Device for Skyrim

Elder Scrolls News

As part of it's coverage of the Elder Scrolls Online, GameInformer has launched a hub of information. Topics include:

-An interview with the Creative Director Paul Sage;
-A video with Matt Firor;
-Information about what the game offers Skyrim and MMO players.

Kotaku has an article about how games like Skyrim can interfere in people's social life.

Steam has a sale of 33% off for Skyrim this weekend (12-13 May) only.

GameSpy has an article about several thief mods for Skyrim.

Matt Grandstaff, Bethesda Softworks' Community Manager, has confirmed to Skyrim Nexus that intrepid game journalists will see Dawnguard in action at E3.

He was not able to release information about whether the content would be demonstrated or whether it would be playable. "Sorry, we haven't announced exact E3 plans. All I can say is that folks will be seeing it there," Grandstaff said.

Grandstaff confirmed that members of the general community will not be able to see it. "Something to keep in mind, most of our stuff at E3 is behind closed doors and appointment only," he said.

Part 1 of my new video series aimed at helping people tweak the game and fix bugs and glitches. This episode focuses on something known as Z-fighting which causes distant mountains to flicker when the player moves.

Resource Links:
STEP - Skyrim Total Enhancement Project
S.T.E.P. Community Wiki
S.T.E.P. Project Wiki:Z-Fighting

The first preview article for ESO written by Game Informer's Adam Biessener has been splashed across the internet through a leak before it appeared in the magazine's print version.

As a respectable modding site Skyrim Nexus will not be linking to the scans on its front page. There are plenty of links to the scans available in the forums including comments on previous ESO news articles.

There is also nothing stopping readers from googling "elder scrolls online game informer scans" and following the links from there. One version is particularly high quality, which suggests that it was a leak of the original pdf, rather than a scan of the magazine. Game Informer has been contacted for confirmation and comment.

Find more through Google.

Game Informer has provided the first non-leaked screenshots of the Elder Scrolls Online (hereafter referred to as ESO). The screenshots show players fighting Storm Atronachs.

Reaction to the graphics and announcement has been mixed.

Jara commenting on Bethblog was dismissive. "You gotta be shitting me. This looks like a beta screenshot for Morrowind," Jara said. "Warcraft has pretty lousy graphics by today’s standards too, but this looks… after how gorgeous Skyrim was, this looks like an insult," he said.

Yoda Unleashed on GameInformer.com was also unimpressed. "Looks like your typical run of the mill MMORPG," Yoda Unleashed said. "So long as Bethesda continue to make singler-player Elder Scroll RPG's I don't mind this existing. But if this replaces that single-player experience then I'll be disappointed to say the least."

Matt7895 from RPGCodex was even more critical. "Third-person, cartoony graphics," he said. "F*#k them to hell."

But GoldvsSilver on GameInformer.com was happy. "Looks great!" he said.

Other commenters pointed out that MMOs need lower system requirements to allow players with lower end machines and internet connectivity to play the game.

In typical Bethesda fashion (or should I say Zenimax in order to stop people getting confused as to who is making the game?) the first trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online tells us absolutely nothing. So this week we've had a DLC announcement for Skyrim that told us nothing, and now a new game announcement that tells us nothing. Great ;)

So why am I posting this? Because I love Michael Gambon. Americans will probably only know him for his role as Dumbledore in the latter stages of the Harry Potter films, and perhaps, for a bit-part role as a cannibal elderly person in Book of Eli, but over in the UK he has played numerous brilliant roles and I have a bit of man-love for him, in a completely platonic way. After watching the trailer I was left bewildered as to whether it was Michael Gambon doing the voice-over or not. Decide for yourself!

Last month I posted some news that it was widely rumoured that Bethesda would be announcing the title their MMO department have been working on over the past 4 years in May some time. That announcement has come today from Bethesda via the Beth Blog and their long time announcement medium, Game Informer magazine.

Here's the blurb from the Beth Blog article:



We can expect to hear lots more about the game over the coming months. But perhaps the most obvious secret in the gaming industry is now out of the bag so we can all get on with it!