19-year old spends a year to create massive Skyrim mod
Behind Falskaar, a massive new Skyrim mod, and the 19-year-old who spent a year building it
A new mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Falskaar, was released over the weekend, and it is quite a doozy. Falskaar adds almost 25 hours of content, a land mass a third the size of the original game, new characters, new voices, and dozens of quests. As impressive as it is, though, it’s nowhere near as impressive as the creative force behind it: Alexander J. Velicky, a 19-year-old gunning for a job with Bethesda with his first try at modding Skyrim.
“I organized everyone involved, but the voice actors themselves recorded all the dialogue and submitted it to me,” Velicky told me. Though over 100 people contributed in some way, including composing an original soundtrack, Velicky took their contributions and plugged them into Falskaar himself. “I had some people help me out with a few models and textures, someone wrote a book or two for me… But otherwise all content was implemented, written and developed by me.”
So how does a 19-year-old take the helm of a creative project of this size? Velicky wants a job. He graduated from high school over a year ago, and instead of finding a design school, he turned Bethesda’s Creation Kit into his classroom, spending 2,000 hours over the last year building Falskaar.
“My dad was incredibly supportive and allowed me to live here, paying for living expenses and charging no rent,” Velicky says. “I was able to not go to school and not have a day job. Meaning, more or less, that Falskaar was my day job.”
The mod is fully voice-acted by 29 voice actors playing 54 characters and the quality is much higher than most community-made content. “I’m still kind of shocked at some of the talent I got on the project… and every single one of them surpassed my expectations by leaps and bounds.”
A massive dungeon, “Watervine Chasm,” may be Falskaar’s crowning achievement. It took Velicky three weeks to build and players report it takes an hour or two to complete. The community response has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Falskaar isn’t perfect,” Velicky says. “I’m not an expert who’s been crafting game experiences for the last 20 years, so I certainly still have a lot to learn, and I always will. I’m always looking to learn and improve, and Falskaar was a huge chance for me to do this.”
According to Velicky, Bethesda is aware that he’s out there, and he isn’t shy about putting his goals right out on the table. “The best way to show Bethesda Game Studios that I want a job there and should be hired is to create content that meets the standards of their incredible development team.”
Falskaar is available now on Skyrim Nexus, and I encourage you to check it out.
reblog if you’re for equal marriage in australia, positive action on climate change or setting tony abbott on fire
2015 update: reblog if you’re against the forced closure of indigenous settlements, against university deregulation and still totally 110% for setting tony abbott on fire
because i’m really tired of rhetoric regarding egypt on this website, and because i’m tired of repeating the same things over and over, here’s a post of things every person who posts something about egypt should be aware of before opening their big fat mouths:
egyptians do not ascribe to western racial constructs. repeat this several times. egyptians aren’t white, or black, or white-passing, or brown until they’re forced to identify under these by westerners. like “poc” these terms are meaningless without something to compare it to. when you call people living in their own country “poc,” you sound like an idiot.
before mouthing off about “ancient/real egyptians” and “modern coloniser egyptians,” this is what egyptians look like:
but they also look like this:
and this:
none of these are considered “more egyptian” than the other, and if we don’t do it, frankly you shouldn’t.
(i had to take some of these off a government propaganda video, i hope you’re happy. also watch it, it’s pretty catchy.)
here is egypt on a map: (x) as you can see, egypt is located in northern africa. this makes egypt an african country. it is also usually included in the politically vague “middle east,” or more accurately the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. egypt is a culturally arab country. this makes it african and arab. egyptians identify as both without issue. it is not a big deal, nor is it up to you to tell us what to identify as.
egypt has also had the same borders for around 5000 years, give or take, due to the nile being a major factor in where the concentration of populations are. therefore ancient egyptians were also north african, with close interactions with the kushite kingdom in the south, where Sudan is now. got it? ancient egypt, geographically = egypt + sudan. we know exactly where ancient egypt was located. they were nice enough to write everything down.
egyptians were never enslaved by americans or taken to america. while the egyptian diaspora is large, most egyptian immigrants are recent first or second generation. this means that egyptians have no claim to african american history, and vice versa.
nubian egyptians still exist. they are a minority in upper (southern) egypt that faces erasure, oppression and discrimination.
the Egyptians have been in place since back in the Pleistocene and have been largely unaffected by either invasions or migrations. As others have noted, Egyptians are Egyptians, and they were so in the past as well. (x)
for reference, this is what egyptian traditional dress looks like:
(not super accurate because it differs in different parts of egypt, but you get the idea. surprise, it’s not cleopatra outfits after all!)
here is a list of the absolute stupidest (and most popular) posts regarding egypt i’ve seen on my dash that you should absolutely 100% not reblog ever:
and my personal favorite:
(please do not reblog any of these they have caused more pain and grief to egyptians on this website than exodus ever will.)
so to sum up: don’t tell egyptians what to identify as, don’t tell egyptians what they’re supposed to look like, don’t force egyptians into stupid western racial classifications and don’t talk about egypt unless you have basic knowledge of egypt.
* links with (*) on them lead to posts on my own blog that clarify each point or explain it further, not outside sources. i only have basic knowledge of most issues from an egyptian point of view, but that’s still more than 99% of the people on this website so you might as well listen to me instead of giving the fucking indo-aryan post 75k notes.
If you have ever reblogged anything about Egypt you better read this so help me
Alright so I know that everyone is super happy about the Garnet thing and Ruby x Sapphire and it’s wonderful and everything but…
Y’all do realize that a healthy relationship does not involve separation anxiety, wanting to be in contact 24/7, and wanting to physically become one person, right?
Like you realize that’s not a healthy romantic relationship and while it’s a children’s show and they are alien gemstones that you shouldn’t sacrifice your individuality for a relationship right?
this stupid
hi ive never heard of a metaphor in my life
merging into a fucked up gem freak with my partner is ideal actually
lemme tell yall ive been in unhealthy relationships and this aint it
It’s not separation anxiety they were PRISONERS on a SPACE SHIP being piloted by a gem that LITERALLY STABBED THEM UNTIL THEY EXPLODED it’s perfectly OK to be worried for your partner’s safety