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Galleries on Anna Plays Skyrim are temporarily broken
Y’all, I had to downgrade the subscription plan I’m using on FooGallery, the plugin that manages to my screenshot galleries. The reason for this is, I’m still unemployed, and my unemployment benefits run out in January. So Dara and I had to start instituting some cost-cutting measures, and one of them was the subscription I’m paying for FooGallery.
I did not eliminate FooGallery completely from this site, but I downgraded to the cheapest option available for use on 5 sites.
But here’s the problem: I had forgotten that that tier of subscription removes a core piece of functionality I was using. Namely, creating galleries that read files directly off my server file structure and use a JSON file to get the metadata for them. I’d started using this functionality, longtime readers of this blog may recall, because I started running into issues with FooGallery being able to handle the huge media library this site uses by definition.
Now, though, I’m having to punt back to that previous functionality. Which is requiring me to manually recreate every single screenshot gallery from Merawen’s playthrough forward.
This, as you might imagine, is tedious as fuck. But it’s doable. It’ll just take me a while to fix.
Until I’m done with that, I’m putting a temporary hold on putting up new playthrough posts. I have not lost any actual screenshots or their associated data, but I will need to recreate all the galleries, and I want to do it in the same order they were originally created in. Which means not making any new galleries until that’s done.
And that by extension also means not putting up any new playthrough posts for a bit, just because I don’t want to put up posts and then forget which ones are missing their screenshots. It’ll be easier on me organization-wise if I do it this way.
One more thing: this does also raise the risk of my reproducing the earlier behavior of FooGallery breaking if I try to make it handle too large of a media library in WordPress. I’m going to try to fix this problem by seeing if I can save out a bunch of these files in smaller sizes, and maybe reduce the load on the library. Plus, I know the plugin’s gone through a bunch of revision since the last time I saw that issue. So the issue may or may not repro anyway.
I will post an all clear when I’ve fixed all the galleries and regular playthrough posts can resume.
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In Which Finds-The-Way Becomes Arch-Mage, and Thane of Hjaalmarch and the Pale
Swinging back around to my ongoing Argonian playthrough in Skyrim! Main action here: becoming Arch-Mage at the College of Winterhold, running Runoff Caverns and getting its assorted quest rewards (including the Dwarven Horse), running Laid to Rest and becoming thane in Hjaalmarch, and killing some giants and helping some Dawnstar residents to become thane in the Pale as well.
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In Which Elessir Battles Mercer Frey, Thalmor, and Forsworn
Just about everything in this post for Elessir’s run is familiar territory, but I still found things to comment on! Main action: moving the Thieves Guild further along; running the Thalmor Embassy; heading to Karthspire to hit Alduin’s Wall; and meeting Paarthurnax at the Throat of the World.
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In Which Kendeshel Hunts a Mysterious Criminal and Lost Relic Hunting Tools
This post covers running the Moon and Star mod’s plotline in Kendeshel’s Skyrim playthrough, and as such, contains massive spoilers for that mod. If you haven’t played this mod yet and think you might want to, you should hold off on reading this post for now.
I also have up a spoiler-free review of the mod if you’d like to read that instead.
There are also spoilers here for Legacy of the Dragonborn, covering how to find the Hall of Secrets and how to launch the Tools of the Trade quest to find a bunch of useful items.
And since the screenshots for this mod do involve spoilers for Moon and Star, the screenshot gallery is password-locked. You can find the password at the bottom of this post.
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Review of Moon and Star mod (non-spoiler version)
Since Kendeshel’s next post is going to feature my running the Moon and Star mod, and therefore by definition will have major spoilers for that mod, this post is to do a non-spoilery review of the mod for anybody who hasn’t played it yet and thinks they might want to.
The TL;DR version: mixed feelings about this one, though not as strong as with Project AHO. It makes a few small but mostly nice additions to the overall game environment. But I feel like certain aspects of the story are kind of lacking. And after you finish the plot, there are side effects that are kind of annoying.
Details behind the fold. I’ll structure this similarly to how I reviewed Project AHO.
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In Which Finds-The-Way Acquires Mehrunes’ Razor and Azura’s Star
All of the action in this post is stuff I’ve played through before, so not much in the way of new Skyrim commentary here; this post is mostly language commentary on the German run I’m doing with Finds-The-Way. Overall action here though is getting Mehrunes’ Razor and Azura’s Star.
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In Which Kendeshel Becomes Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold
This post for my Kendeshel playthrough primarily features finishing off the College of Winterhold plotline, and becoming Arch-Mage of the college. Some minor spoilers here for the Project AHO mod (involving usefulness of quest rewards from that), as well as minor spoilers for Legacy of the Dragonborn (more details about the beginning of the Shattered Legacy plot, and of a side quest available at Mzulft).
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In Which Elessir Becomes Thane of Winterhold and a Nightingale
Latest post from my Elessir playthrough! Main action in this one: finishing up the Saints and Seducers plot, by taking out the second Seducers camp and then the mad conjurer Thoron; returning the Sword of Jyggalag to Staada; locating the remains of missing College of Winterhold apprentices; recovering the Helm of Winterhold and becoming thane of Winterhold; reforging the Arms of Chaos; and pushing the Thieves Guild plotline along to the point of becoming a Nightingale.
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In Which Gyllerah Goes to Northern Elsweyr for a Dragon Problem
It’s been a while since I’ve done ESO posts, for the simple fact that I hit a big ol’ wall of ESO fatigue.
So with that in mind, here’s a catchup post to cover some of the actual RP highlights I’ve done with Gyllerah over the last month and change.
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In Which Finds-the-Way Becomes Thane of Haafingar and Saves the Gildergreen
There’s a bit of advancing the Thieves Guild plotline in this pair of sessions for Finds-The-Way, but mostly, this is all about a bunch of side questing since I’m trying to kill some time and get her more leveled up before I push the Guild plot further along. Main highlights here: running Mara’s Eye Pond, Cronvangr Cave, the Blessings of Nature quest, dropping off the horn at a shrine of Talos for Elisif, and two different quests for Forsaken Cave. And I got Proudspire Manor, and became thane in Haafingar!