Skyrim video #2 update (posted to YT in 9/25)

Skyrim video #2 update: I know I promised this was gonna get out the day after the last stream  but yeah. The good news is the delay in this update was due to a lot of  progress being made on the script for the video. I’ve just been busy working on that and recording voice work for parts of the script that had been finalized.   

So where are we at progress-wise? As of today I made the decision to push the discussion of Dawnguard to either video #3, or more likely, into video #4 as an opening act for Dragonborn. The reason being the script for #2 is growing a lot more than I expected. By cutting Dawnguard (which wasn’t going to be a major section in this video, anyways), I can shave at least a week off the schedule. Unfortunately, it’s looking less likely I’m going to hit my original release of the end  of October. It’s technically doable, but I want to take my time with this video and this script in particular. I’m trying to refine the aspects of video #1 that got the best feedback, and honestly just trying to make every part of this video the best I can possibly make it. I  learned a ton off the Skyrim Mage video, and I plan to improve this video with that knowledge.  

Writing has been a lot more challenging than I expected which is just the nature of the beast with these things. I’ve been slowly pushing  through a lot of the generalized and very technical topics which always take me the longest to write. In the next couple of days I’ll finally be getting into discussions about quests and those usually write muuuch quicker. The flow I wanted to go for this next video just necessitated I slam the really technical topics out of the way, first.  

The script is sitting at 22.5k words now, which is roughly 2 hours of runtime for an edited video. I’m really hoping to have the video land around 4-5 hours, so I’m about halfway into the script in terms of word count. That might not sound like much after 10 weeks of production, and that’s partially due to writing snags, but mostly due to a lot of admin  work I’ve been putting into the channel the past month or so. I picked  up a new mic for this video and that’s been a really steep learning curve—probably close to a full workweek at this point just getting it to  sound right. I’ve also been throwing away a lot of voice sessions because I’m trying to up the quality of my narration style, too (I wasn’t kidding, this is meant to be an improvement on the Skyrim Mage video on every front.) I’ve been doing more livestreams and spending  time on my Discord more trying to build that into something more engaging, too. Just a lot of stuff non-video related, but I’m at the  point where I want to do nothing else but work on this video, which is when things start falling into place much quicker. (70% of the last  video happened in about 6 weeks before the video released.)  

So far the script covers:  

Part 1: Dungeons (Bethesda design philosophy, horse mechanics, level scaling, enemy factions, the dungeon experience, ways to improve dungeons). Part 2: Melee Combat (Too much to summarize, structured pretty much identically to how the magic mechanics section was structured in video #1).  

Once again, it doesn’t sound like much, but this is 2 hours of dense runtime spent talking about sections most videos glance through in 20-40 minutes total. And I mean dense: the horse mechanic section has the highest joke density of any section I’ve ever written in a video.  

What’s left: Smithing skill (ez), the Companions, the civil war, select  sidequests/Daedric Prince stuff, maybe some Creation Club hotshots. Oh, and an introduction/conclusion (also ez). It sounds like a lot, but I’m remaining optimistic I can run lean on those topics and hone in on the heart of their discussions. The civil war in particular I can get very creative with because only 3 or 4 of its quests are even worth discussing in any sort of depth.   

There’s more I’d like to get into but this post is starting to run long, so we’ll save it for next time. I appreciate the continued support and interest for this next video. I’m trying to make it a good one; It’ll be here soon enough. 

- P.S. <3