The in-depth exploration of mods in Skyrim has begun!
I’ve been using my PC as a sandbox first, trying out mods in sequence to see whether or not I like them well enough to deploy them onto the Deck for use in official play. So right now I’m doing that with a separate character from the ones I’m actually seriously playing–which may or may not turn into an actual legit playthrough later, we’ll see. For now she’s just a test character to give me opportunity to play with mods.
We interrupt my regular playthrough posts with this important news bulletin:
I FINALLY GOT MY STEAM DECK YOU GUYS! 😍 🤩
I’tm about to do TWO posts about this. One with general overall impressions of the thing, and also this post, which is going to be about the hoops I had to jump through in order to get at the screenshots I love to take for my playthrough posts. This did, I feel, deserve a whole separate post because it’s one of the few things I don’t like about the Deck so far. And I wanted to write up the steps I followed for my workaround, in case any other gamers out there also finally getting Decks want to do the same thing.
This is going to be long, so here’s a More tag, y’all:
It’s taken me quite a bit of work, but I have finally finished converting all of my various screenshot galleries to fix the problem that had broken them.
I’m using a WordPress plugin called FooGallery to manage galleries of my images on my site, and up until recently it’s been working great. But a recent release of the plugin code appears to have broken the type of gallery I’d been using up until now for my Skyrim posts.
Specifically, I’d been tagging all my various images for both Merawen’s and Delga’s runs with tags that matched which play session they were from. And I made galleries that dynamically looked for those tags and showed all the images that matched them.
However, there’s a bug somewhere in the FooGallery plugin code that’s causing galleries of this type to lose track of what tag they’re supposed to be using. And to show all the images in the WordPress media library instead. This is not optimal, given that I have over 1,000 images in my site library!
I’ve been in extensive conversation with the FooGallery devs about this. (Y’all may recall that software QA is in fact what I do for a living, and since my site lives on my own home server, I’m in a position to dig into the guts of what’s wrong. But I didn’t want to try it without talking to the plugin devs!) And at this point from what they’re telling me, they do know about this issue and have in theory fixed it, but a version of the code with a fix has not yet made it to me.
So in the meantime, to un-break my site, I have slogged through all of Merawen’s screenshot galleries and Delga’s current ones, converting them all over to a different gallery type that reads right out of folders on my server instead. This type of gallery has continued to be stable. Hopefully, moving forward, this will continue to be the case! I like this plugin and I don’t want to have to bail off of it.
For those of you who’ve been following my Skyrim posts, what this means for you is that I’m finally able to start adding screenshots to each post again.
I’ve had several Delga sessions since this problem started, so I’ve also had to go back and update the posts that were missing screenshots. That work isn’t done yet, but it’s in progress.
Here are the first five of the Delga sessions that now include screenshots:
Brief Twitter thread from 5/16/2021, in which I share some action screenshots of Alarrah killing a dragon at the Western Watchtower near Whiterun.
Skyrim action shots! Set out on a road trip to head to Solitude, and didn’t even get past the Western watchtower outside Whiterun before a dragon dropped out of the sky. Whipped out the ebony sword and suddenly I was in cinematic mode getting all Legolas-y on its head. 😀
Alarrah Vs. Dragon 1Alarrah Vs. Dragon 2Alarrah Vs. Dragon 36:44 PM · May 16, 2021
(I expect Lydia was down there yelling THAT STILL ONLY COUNTS AS ONE!)
6:48 PM · May 16, 2021
Notes
This post was originally written on 3/18/2022, but backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
Post updated on 12/31/2022 to reconstruct the Twitter thread in the body of the post, and remove the link to Twitter.
Twitter thread from 5/16/2021, in which I share several screenshots.
And now, in today’s episode of Jeez Skyrim is Pretty:
I think this was the stables near Windhelm, an abortive discovery given that that part of my adventures got wiped out by character death? I liked the moon behind the stable and the placement of the horse in the view, though.
Windhelm Stables11:23 AM · May 16, 2021
Skyrim has multiple moons and this shot let me see two of them at once! And also, Lydia! Hi, Lydia!
Moons of Skyrim With Lydia11:23 AM · May 16, 2021
Sunset shot coming west out of Whiterun.
Sunset Over Fort Greymoor11:24 AM · May 16, 2021
Another sunset shot, centered on this fort (I still don’t know what it’s called) west of Whiterun.
Sunset Over Fort Greymoor 211:24 AM · May 16, 2021
Auroras! Also from the bit of wandering that got reset by character death.
Auroras11:25 AM · May 16, 2021
Auroras, with bonus moon and Lydia, shot the first.
Auroras, Moon, and Lydia11:26 AM · May 16, 2021
Auroras, with bonus moon and Lydia, shot the second.
Auroras, Moon, and Lydia 211:26 AM · May 16, 2021
Clear starry night over the trees.
Starry Night11:27 AM · May 16, 2021
An Alarrah shot! This is Alarrah in her newly furnished home in Whiterun, near the cooking pit in the kitchen in front. Also after trying on the clothes I discovered in the dresser once I got the bedroom actually furnished up. It’s weird to see her not in armor!
Alarrah in Breezehome11:27 AM · May 16, 2021
Alarrah in armor, on the ramparts of Dragonsreach. Wanted this shot to get an idea of what she looks like now that I’ve started finding elven armor. If I get the helmet she’s going to look like she stepped out of Lord of the Rings! Which must be deliberate design, I feel.
Alarrah in Armor11:29 AM · May 16, 2021
Notes
This post was written on 3/18/2022, but backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
Post updated on 12/31/2022 to reconstruct the original Twitter thread here, in the post body, with original screenshots. Link off to Twitter removed.
