Bourbon with FG 2

To answer your question: not yet.

I want to talk about burnout, expectations, and hobbies tonight. If you’re just here for an update on LS3, here’s the short version: It’s delayed. Probably until the end of February, maybe even into March. We’ll see.

If you’re here for the ramblings of a madman or the long version of that update, keep reading.

Living Skyrim began as an afterthought, an “I wonder if I could...” And turns out, I could. And did. And am. Funny how that happens. Anyway, that “could” turned into a year long project that has grown beyond a scope that I ever thought was possible. As we come to the end of 2020, I find myself reflecting on how much has changed, and looking to where things might be going. I don’t know if you knew this, but Living Skyrim’s first version was rejected from getting on the Wabbajack UI twice before getting accepted on the third time. Third time’s the charm, I guess. And here we are, a year later, working on the third version of Living Skyrim. Third time’s the charm again, I think.

The combination of family visits, the holidays, and Cyberpunk 2077 has really stalled development of LS3. Taking a break from the list has been liberating, in a sense. Having a dedicated development team is something I never imagined would be possible, but now with Living Skyrim 2.6.0, I couldn’t imagine doing it without them. Huge shoutout to those helping me, you are valued more than you know. But time marches on as they say, and I expect LS3 development to pick back up after the turn of the year. Working on modlists almost as second job is inevitable to invite burnout. With the beta of Atelier, the work on LS3, the rebuild of D&D, and things I dream of doing with MOISE, it’s amazing it hasn’t happened before now.

But the truth is that I needed a break, and am taking one. I get that’s not ideal for those of you eagerly awaiting LS3, but that’s how it is. Speaking of, I feel the need to temper expectations for LS3 a bit. If you’re expecting “LS2 but more performant”, I hate to burst that bubble, but that’s not what’s happening. LS3 is pulling back from the insanity of overpowered mechanics that overlap and don’t mesh. We’re looking at a more coherent package of gameplay mods that, as usual, enhance instead of replace systems in vanilla Skyrim. In the interest of keeping the game somewhat balanced into higher levels and performant for 100+ hour saves, we’ve had to strip down a lot of the gameplay related stuff in the list. Personally, I think this is a good thing. LS2 was something of a “kitchen sink” list - things were included just for the sake of including them. Now, we’re returning to the core, guiding principle of Living Skyrim: Don’t introduce tedium to the game, breathe life into the often empty areas of the world, bring a huge list of new content to the game, and make the game as pretty as possible that a lot of people can play. We’re effectively refocusing our efforts to make these four principles a reality.

Finally, there’s a hard truth I’ve had to come to terms with while working on LS3 - this is a hobby. It doesn’t pay the bills, it doesn’t put food on the table, and while supporting a huge community of people who enjoy the list is amazing fun for me, it’s not the only thing I can do with my free time. That, and, I have other things I like to do with my time. I’m teaching myself to draw, I like to write, I play games other than Skyrim (shocker, I know.), I play Dungeons & Dragons with a couple of groups, and on evenings like tonight I sit and watch football while writing up an entirely too long Patreon post and sipping on whiskey or bourbon.

So anyway, that’s the long version of why LS3 is delayed. But not a long delay. The goal is still February, just later in February.

Cheers.

FG