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This may be hard to believe but once upon a time…
Life had become boring.
Everything started to change after that great Happening of the Hippie Movement…
WOODSTOCK
Woodstock was over.
The Hippie’s had pulled it off.
Three days of Love Peace and Music.
There was one death and one birth during the event.
A true city of half a million people.
No trouble.
No arrests.
Hippies and Straights joined together for three days.
Each side realizing that we are all the same inside.
We were one now.
Love and Peace was in the hearts of both the Hippies and the Straights.
The battle between the two sides was over…
and so was Woodstock.
We all returned to our homes.
We went back to our jobs or realized that we needed to find one.
Some went home and made amends between family hoping to start a new.
And yes many returned home the same as when they left.
No matter which reason you had…
you had to return and do something.
The Hippie movement was dead.
A new life for all now had to be figured out.
We all soon realized that there was something missing.
Something was missing in our lives and it started gnawing at us from deep inside.
Slowly at first.
It was a force that had grown within us during the ‘Movement’.
And now it was missing.
We all knew it.
You could sense it.
Hanging around all day.
Doing nothing.
No money.
Places you use to hang out…
‘kinda’
…didn’t want you there chasing away the real customers anymore.
Or your buds girlfriend also didn’t want…
“a bunch of free-loading bums mooching off them all day.”
We soon realized…
“We missed the Sixties!”
We missed the thrill of being different.
The wonderment at what the new day might bring.
Feeling life’s forces surrounding our entire being.
Yes we all had our moments in the sun back then.
But now those moments are burdened down with…
Work.
Responsibility.
Work.
Responsibility.
More work with more Responsibility.
We were glad to be back together with the Human Race.
“But come on man…did it have to be so boring?”
We still desired more.
What was society to do now that our minds had been blown by the Sixties?
The people had been exposed to a new and different form of our reality.
Peoples imaginations had been awakened.
What could possibly replace Psychedelic Trips?
Or groovy color patterns from Magic Mushrooms?
Even the Straights had seen the light.
They can honestly say…
“YES”
…now when asked, as the late Jimmy Hendrix once asked…
“Are you experienced?”.
What was there to look forward to now?
After all…
What could we possibly do to top Woodstock?
That’s what I thought.
No one else could think of what to do either.
Yes we all went back to our lives.
Back to our daily grind.
Our lives seemed emptier now.
There was nothing to look forward to.
We were all forced back into a dismal society whether we wanted to be there or not.
We all got the memo:
“Party’s Over”
The ‘Real’ world at this particular time seemed colorless and as mentioned above…
BORING!
What could be done to bring back the now fading colors of life?
To bring back the adventurous spirit that was now diminishing from within us?
To re-capture our imaginations?
????????
There was something.
There was a ray of hope.
A glimmer of light off in the distance.
Something good was about to happen.
About the same time the Hippies were beginning their adventure…
Another group of people were beginning an adventure of their own.
It was Mankind.
We were getting ready to go on a little trip.
A trip to the Moon.
And that’s just what we did.
We left our planet…
Landed on the Moon…
Left the moon…
And returned Home.
After their return from the Moon NASA gave a gift to the world.
This item helped them get to the Moon.
More importantly…
Helped them return home from the moon.
What was the gift?
Tang?
Dehydrated Ice Cream?
A pen that writes upside down?
Actually yes to all three.
The gift they gave was…
THE COMPUTER
Now I know there’s a lot of folk out there with the opinion that:
“They got that computer thing from that Space Ship.”
“You know the one they got hidden out there at that place they call…”
I have complete faith in Mankind’s capabilities.
Not only in the capability to manufacture the computer.
But the ability to think of it in the first place.Mankind had now entered it’s self into…
THE TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
After the dust settled…moon dust of course.
This new invention…
The Computer
…was coming our way full of promises.
“There will be one in every home.”
“This will change your lives.”
“You will have all the World’s knowledge at your fingertips.”
“Throw away that outdated Encyclopedia.”
“Get rid of that Pencil and Paper.”
“Forget about going to school.”
“The Computer will teach you.”
“Your Future Is Here Now.”
“Available to all.”
“Available to all residents excluding residents of the small print…
Bla – bla – bla – bla – bla”…
All for just $19.99
(plus Shipping and Handling)
( Just kidding )
The first ones did cost around…
$1999.99
The world was mesmerized.
We all wanted one.
Yes the Home Computer had come to the masses.
This was the missing link.
The new drug.
And it did not disappoint.
Communication.
Color.
Animation.
Sound.
What else could you ask for.
Well…
“How about Games?”
“You could play games on that thing…couldn’t you?”
Done!
And with that…
The ‘Gaming Industry’ was born.
Yes we all wanted one!
Most of us had to wait for our turn to come though.
All due to the cost of them at the time.
The rich were the first to get them.
They got the ‘Big Boy’ computers.
The IBM’s and the Xerox’s.
Radio Shack started to sell ‘Build Your Own’ versions for the true Geeks among us.
(Sorry guys no insult intended.)
Then finally two systems came out for the common man.
The Commodore 64…
…and the TI 99/4.
Now everyone had the chance to get one.
I mean everyone.
The two camps were divided as to who had the better system.
It was a fierce battle between the two.
Comparable only to the rival between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
The first video game I ever played was titled:
PING PONG.
I played it on the Texas Instruments, TI-99/4 Home Computer.
(My personal choice…the Beatles also)
I can still see myself sitting at home that first night with my new Computer.
A computer in my house.
I couldn’t believe it.
I could hardly contain myself.
All the things I was going to learn.
The new discoveries I was about to make.
The adventures that awaited me.
After what seemed like an eternity.
I started to understand what a computer was and how to get it to work.
Finally I was ready to turn her on and start the journey.
Let the learning begin!
…I found myself still trying to beat the computer at Ping Pong.
That’s right…all this knowledge at my finger tips and I went for the games.
I couldn’t help myself.
Learning was boring.
Compared to watching a ball of light moving on a computer screen.
There was no contest.
Game On!
Well that lead to a lot of…
Over and over and over!
“How can I beat this thing?” I screamed out.
My X (first wife) just happens to walk by and she utters a phrase that is as popular today
…as it was when shes first used it.
“Are you going to play with that thing all night?”
That’s how I spent the first three hours on my new Computer.
For those of you who are too young to know what the TI-99 4 Home Computer was.
(Be thankful you don’t.)
The picture below was what the complete system looked like.
It was such a beast.
It took all this hardware to run a game!
Not really all games.
But if you wanted to play something better than Ping Pong…
you had no choice.
The game Ping Pong only consisted of a small square of light in the center of the screen.
This represents your Ping Pong ball.
At each side of the screen there is a small rectangle of light.
This represented your Ping Pong paddles.
A dashed line down the middle…this was the net of course.
The two rectangle paddles would move Up and Down at your command through a Joystick.
Which consisted of a short stick stuck into a small black rectangular handheld box.
There was a red button you’d push…this was your Fire/Shoot button.
To be honest…there really wasn’t much joy using those things.
And I never understood how they arrived at that name.
Joystick?
But it worked.
You would move your ‘Paddle’ up or down to hit the square of light before it passed you by.
It took a whole computer to move a few pieces of light across a computer screen.
But we loved it.
We couldn’t believe that we were the ones causing all that to happen using this thing called a Home Computer.
This was truly a mind blowing experience!
(Gross I know)
The world was hooked. 
Unfortunately neither the…
TI 99/4
…or the…
Commodore 64
survived.
Flying down the highway of memories in my head I started pulling the pieces for this Post together.
Gathering pictures, animations and the like to match up with what I was going to write.
In doing so I was constantly overcome with memories and with amazement.
The memories of all the frustration and the money I had spent on this new invention.
AND…
The amazement of where we were as to where we are now in the Gaming Industry.
We have certainly come along way baby since those first glory days of Ping Pong.
My gaming taste changed over the years along with the changing trends of the games.
First-person Shooters, Strategy, Auto Racing, RPG’s…you name it…they made a Game for it.
Even though it took a while the graphics started improving.
There were numerous obstacles to overcome concerning Hardware and Software matters.
This was the next generation of Ping Pong.
WOW…3D.
So we thought.
The first game I feel that really caught everyone’s attention was Links.
A Golf game of all things.
What was amazing was the players character.
It looked like a human being and it moved like one.
Simplicity…yes!
But at the time it was truly an amazing thing to watch.
It was a great time in the history of inventive ideas.
By the way here’s what the newest version of Ping Pong looks like today.
FORTY YEARS YOUNG!
For forty years I’ve been playing the games.
I’ve collected a few of them over the years.
The sad part about gaming is that over time…
your older games eventually won’t play on a newer computer.
Newer technologies make it impossible to retain all the old coding for the software of olden days.
So…a lot of money was spent and wasted over the years.
About a year ago I had to buy a new computer.
That was a thrill.
When I tried to install the current game I was playing, just a few days ago on my older computer.
My game would or could not load into my new computer.
I was devastated.
A game I have been playing for some time…could no longer be played.
My heart was broken.
This caused me to wonder if any of my other games might be facing the same fate?
So began the tedious task of loading in hundreds of games…one by one.
And one by one I was informed that a game would not load onto my computer.
“Your file does not meet current system requirements.”
A game…
Such a terrible thing to waste!
I had to trash hundreds, let me repeat that…
Hundreds of game CD’s.
Some I paid for.
Most I copied onto CD’s from downloads from the internet or from friends.
Never to be played again.
To be honest I didn’t play most of them anymore anyway.
I’d try them out.
And soon come to that same point I would reach in every other game I would try.
It wasn’t like hitting a wall that I couldn’t get past.
Or that I’d get frustrated due to not being able to perform some special action.
I’d get the point of the game and understand how it worked.
From there it would become boring.
It was pointless to continue.
Game Over!
Completing meaningless task, over and over.
Following main story lines with predictable outcomes.
Tasks all seemed the same.
Somethings missing…”Would you retrieve it for me?”
Someones wife is missing…”Wold you find her for me?”
A key element is missing from a potion that will save the world…”Would you find that for me?”
Very boring after hours and hours and hours of playing.
Most games if you wander off the beaten trail…your dead.
Wonder off to explore…you hit invisible walls to prevent your entrance.
Your lead around like a dog on a leash in most games.
When you reach the end of the games quest…Game Over.
That’s it.
Move along.
There’s nothing left to see here.
That’s just the way games made me feel.
Ever since 1979 after my first passionate taste of gaming I have been driven to find the perfect game.
The one game that satisfies all my primal desires.
The one game that I could play for years and years and never become bored with it.
A tall order for any subject never mind a silly game.
I’m not a shoot-em up type player.
Killing everything in sight isn’t my cup of tea.
I like to play…
I’m a Roll Player kinda guy!
I love to explore and discover things.
A hoarder of sorts.
I love my stuff.
I’ve played every ‘Find The Hidden Object’ type game that’s out there I think.
I’ve tried every Roll Playing Game out there also.
Oh the money spent.
I liked a lot of them…
AND
…I hated a lot of them.
I gave up on all of them.
I felt there was never going to be such a game for me to find.
Until a new player came into my life.
BETHESDA
…and their…
ELDER SCROLLS GAMES.
The creators of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim.
Of course they produce many other game titles, but these were and still remain my favorites.
The year was…
While in a store that I had never shopped at before I found a game that I had never heard of before.
The games title was: MORROWIND.
I noticed that the release date of the game was 2004, over three years ago.
But…after reading the sales pitch on the back of the CD I thought I’d give it a try.
This was a Role Playing Game.
I never heard that term before either.
Around 9:30 pm that evening I decided to take a look at this ‘RPG’ game I had just purchased.
8:15 am was the next time that I noticed on the clock that was on the wall above my computer.
Ten hours and forty five minutes had passed by.
I was lost in Morrowind.
And I wasn’t even playing the game.
Oh no.
I wasn’t playing the game because I found something else that caught my attention.
This was something else that I had never heard of…
MODS
A modification to a program.
While reading the User Manual concerning installation of Morrowind I run across this word ‘MOD’.
Followed by the words; ‘How to Install and Run”.
“What the heck is a MOD?”
There was a website that I could go to to download ‘FREE’ mods.
“What’s this craziness?”
“FREE MODS?”
I wasn’t sure just what a Mod was…but I was determined to find out.
So it was off to see what this website was all about.
Well this just shook the very foundation of my being.
That’s right…
SIX MONTHS!
I had been completely…
That’s all I could think of.
There were so many of them.
Each one was the answer to a desire I had always wanted to see in a game.
I could change anything and everything.
And so it began.
My obsession with downloading every available mod I could find for Morrowind.
During that time I only played the game a few times only to check that mods were working properly.
All I did was load Mods into Morrowind.
Over 5,000.
That’s right.
OVER 5,000 MODS.
As I started to learn about these things called Mods I also learned two other new words.
CONSTRUCTION SET.
This is a program that allows you to load a Mod into it and gives you tools to edit said mod.
That was awesome.
This allowed you to install 255 additional mods into Morrowind.
Unbelievable!
Well that wasn’t enough for me.
The next thing I know I’m on this website called:
NEXUS
www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods
A modding community group of the most talented people.
While reading the comments on the Forum I make an important discovery.
I run across this little tip that explained how to add many more mods than the standard 255.
This option allowed you to add and combine 255 mods into a single mod.
You could load 255 mods into the Creation Kit, then combine and save those 255 mods under a new file name.
This allowed you to add 255 mods containing 255 mods in each.
So 255 mods with 255 mods in each equals: 65,025 mods.
Unfortunately there were only a little more than 7,000 mods available for down loading for…
FREE.
Imagine over 7,000 mods people had created to add onto Morrowind.
I was blown away.
It wasn’t as easy a process as it sounds.
Time consuming and frustrating are two examples that come to my mind.
And then there were the Texture and Mesh change mods.
These mods didn’t show up in your mod count so you could add unlimited amounts of them.
Changing the textures or animations of objects.
Changing graphic resolutions and adjusting Meshes of objects.
So I started downloading them.
Hundreds of them.
Between Loading in Mods and testing the game to be sure it worked and I liked the mod.
There wasn’t any time left really play the game.
To be honest with you I wasn’t all that pleased with Morrowind.
Due to it being mainly a Text type RPG game.
The graphics and sound were awesome and the variety of mods…mind boggling.
Interacting between other characters in the game was in text form.
Very little voice performing.
When you’d choose to speak to another character, a drop down menu would appear.
You would choose from a list of questions to ask.
A text reply would be returned to you.
This would go on until the character’s question and answer base would run out.
The game really wasn’t strictly text based.
There was just too much of it.
Bethesda seemed to have realized this because they added voice to everybody in Oblivion.
That made for a much more natural feel to the game.
There were so many things to keep track of in Morrowind.
I like “keeping track” of stuff but this was getting to be overwhelming for me.
I had started three, three inch binders with what seemed hundreds of subject dividers.
Cities, Towns, Villages
NPC’s I’ve met
Things to do
Vendors and items they sell
Advise
Tips
Rumors
Guilds I’ve joined
Properties I own
NPC’s for hire
Collectibles I’ve collected
Quests
Jobs
Scrolls and Spells
My inventory, etc, etc, etc..
It was during Morrowind that I discovered what it was that I was truly looking for from the games I’ve tried.
Morrowind offered an…
Open World Space.
There was a main story and hundreds of quests included with the original install.
Hundreds of hours of game-playing time.
And with the added mods, endless hours of playing.
I had over 450 mods loaded in that were just new quests.
And what was in all those Mods I installed:
Everything your imagination could come up with.
And then a heck of a lot more than you could ever imagine.
From Houses to Clothes including every accessory imaginable.
Dungeons and Castles.
Armour and Weapons.
Food and Drink.
Zoos, Libraries, Schools, People (thousands of them).
Pets, Businesses to Own and Run.
Farming, Mining, Hunting, Fishing.
Trees, Bushes, Grass everything Nature could throw at you.
Waterfalls, Lakes, Ponds, Streams.
Mountains, Rocks, Snow, Ice.
Animals, Creatures, Insects, Birds of every kind.
Sunrises…Sunsets.
…I think you get the idea.
There was nothing missing.
NOTHING!
An entire world (and then some) for me to put together.
These mods weren’t made by companies.
No…they were made by regular people.
Truly artist of the new kind.
I don’t know who these people are.
I’ve never seen pictures of them.
They could be the guy or girl who lives down the street from me.
Maybe an eight year old genius just doing it to keep from being bored.
Maybe even a thirty eight year old guy living in the basement of his parents.
Unable to find work?
Or even a sixty nine year old guy like me.
Who ever they are…
THANK YOU!
You’ve given the world, well at least me, a wonderful gift.
The gift of enjoyment.
So…
“Thank you again Bethesda and the Modding Community”
I was given the opportunity to create a whole new world.
A world that only I would be privy to…because I created it.
There will not be another game in the whole Universe that will be exactly like mine.
The Mod world turned me upside down.
I got so hung up on what I could install next.
A mountain range?
Maybe falling leaves from trees.
How about a dragon?
How about fighting that dragon?
Endless possibilities.
So install mods I did.
Then it was hours and hours and hours of trying to get all the mods to work together.
But was it worth it?
Why…yes.
Yes it was!
The mod bug followed right into Oblivion.
Another game not played but boy did I load in a lot of mods.
There was a very long pause between Oblivion and finally into my most favorite game of all.
SKYRIM SE
For me anyway.
Things in my real life started piling up and attention needed to be paid to them.
Besides I wasn’t truly happy with Oblivion either.
Some of the same problems as Morrowind.
Too much texting.
But…voices were now added to the main characters.
The modding community jumped right onto the voice thing.
That part was great.
Still something was missing.
I felt the freedom of the open environment, but not the satisfaction of the game.
It all seemed scripted to me.
Even the Mods the Modding community were creating seemed different.
Morrowind had over 7,000 mods.
And the subject matter was limitless.
Oblivion lacked the enthusiasm that the mod community had as they created the items of Morrowind.
The Creatures.
The Quests.
The Villages, Towns and Cities.
The Clothes…everything felt like it belonged.
There wasn’t that drive to add everything you could imagine into Oblivion.
Burn-out I guess.
It was fascinating to experience all the same.
Much time had past since I had played a game on the computer.
A very long time.
I spent an entire year putting together the website you are currently on.
I moved.
Started a new business.
Four years later…guess what?
Ah, you’re a smart one.
That’s right…
I HAD TO BUY A NEW COMPUTER!
My hard drive went and it would not except current days coding for a new hard drive.
It was easier and cheaper to just buy a new computer.
Imagine that.
A little problem with the computer…
“Eh, just throw it away and buy a new one.”
“What’s the big deal?”
Anyway…
Screwed again!
And once again no one bothered to buy me dinner first.
At least I got a new computer out of it.
So I get the new computer home and fire it up.
All is working well.
I load in all the required programs that I use.
Everything is running smoothly.
First off I can’t believe that the whole computer is in the monitor now.
At least with my new HP system it is.
All of a sudden I get the urge to see if any of my remaining games will load in.
Only 137 survived the ‘Inquisition’ that was received due to my now deceased computer.
Lets see which ones I will try first.
Why of course…Morrowind and Oblivion.
I loaded both games in and low and behold they both were running just fine.
I only installed the raw game…no mods for either one.
I was impressed how good both games looked.
The new monitor I assumed.
I made a decision that I was going to play these games all the way through.
No mods added…just the original games.
I began to play Morrowind first.
As I started to play the basic game I realized that it lacked a lot of things that the mods added.
I knew that there were about twenty mods that would improve the game.
It was decided…I’ll load in just a few.
Before I went into my old archives of Morrowind, I thought I’d scope out the Net.
I’d like to see what if any new mods there might be for Morrowind.
It’s been so many years surely no ones into Morrowind anymore.
Blown away again.
Three mods for Morrowind had been uploaded that very day.
Morrowind was created in 2004.
This is 2019.
People have been playing and making mods for Morrowind for fifteen (15) years.
This is crazy.
So I start looking.
It was amazing to see the creative ideas that are still being applied too Morrowind.
All of a sudden as I’m looking at Morrowind’s mod list I see a Download area for Skyrim.
I remembered that game was coming out just as I was starting my four year sabbatical from gaming.
I went onto the website.
A free download of Skyrim SE was the first thing I noticed.
A full working version.
No strings attached.
All functions of the game operable.
FREE
I couldn’t pass that up.
Well, it’s been over seven months now since I’ve been mesmerized by Skyrim SE.
First off.
I bow down not only to the creators of Skyrim, Bethesda…but to the Modder’s of Today!
Awesome.
The graphics are photo realistic.
Everything looks so real.
I just can’t believe it.
I’m walking around in a real, as real as I can get it, 3D world.
Fully voice activated.
The game out of the box would take me two years to play…especially the way I play.
Or at least the way I’ve always wanted to play.
The game is massive.
An Open World environment for me to explore freely.
Made even larger through the efforts of the modding community unlocking all restrictions to it’s limits.
Yes I’m loading mods in.
But I’ve restricted myself to only the max limit of 255.
This of course is without the added 255 combined mods embedded into each one.
There were a ton more mods I could have added but 255 is fine with me.
Skyrim by itself is simply put; mind boggling.
The mods I’ve added only enhance and extend the games ability to it’s max.
I had a really hard time choosing the ones that I did.
I tried to cover all the objectives that I learned from installing Morrowind and Oblivion.
And it’s paying off quite well so far as I venture further into Skyrim.
Okay, Skyrim was installed.
Mods loaded in.
Let’s get this show on the road.
BUT…
I didn’t know how or where to start.
I was still staring at the graphics with my mouth open.
The operators manual lacked leadership in that area.
So it’s back to the internet searching for help.
It didn’t take long before I had 382,853 responses to my request for a Walkthough for Skyrim SE.
The one I chose was from:
True Achievements
They seemed to have the same outlook about games as I did.
There was something they wrote that nailed it for me that this game was going to be the one.
They wrote: “When you play this game…play it as if it were real life.”
“The decisions you make should be decisions that you would make if this were truly happening to you.”
“How would you truly handle the situations you’ll run into while adventuring in Skyrim?”
“What if this were real?”
“Would you just run into any situation unprepared?”
“Or plan out a strategy…study your objective then…make your move.”
The walkthrough is very helpful.
Every detail of the game is described in full.
There is no right or wrong way to play this game.
This walkthrough only lead me to all the areas of the game that I may have missed.
If I hadn’t downloaded a walkthrough I wouldn’t have even started the game out correctly.
Skyrim is everything I could ever expect a game to offer me.
And then some.
I can follow the Quest line of the game or break away any time I want.
I can go on other Quests if I want at any time.
Go to one of my homes and sit in my library by a warm fire reading a book.
And of course with my trusty dog at my side.
Maybe do a little fishing or hunting.
I might like to get married and have children.
Own and operate a Ore Mining Company.
Organize a group to get rid of those Bandits that took over a small near-by town.
Or I can explore the vast landscapes that are now available through the mods I’ve added.
Take a walk through a beautiful wooded area.
Observe nature all around me from vegetation to animals and insects.
And if that’s not enough…
There’s more mods out there on the internet to download and install.
It’s endless the opportunities that are available to me within Skyrim SE.
I will be playing this game for years and years.
What has hooked me are the 3D Photo Realistic Graphics and the Open World Environment.
I’ve finished installing the mods I want and I’m…
ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME!
I can’t believe It.
I just saw my first dragon flying around in the distance the other day.
Yes I’ll be playing Skyrim SE for quite some time.
– OR –
At least until I need to buy another computer and try to install Skyrim onto it.
Will I get the dreaded message:
“Failure to install”
We’ll just have to wait and see.
LONG LIVE…
Happy gaming to all of you.
I hope that you find that perfect game you are seeking.
It only took me forty years to find mine.
For visiting my Blog.
Please…
…my Website.
My Blog (where you are now) is where I share with you the stories of my ‘Personal Life’ and my experiences as a ‘Musician’.
My Website is where you will find the ‘Business’ aspects of my ‘Music Career’.
Questions concerning Pricing, Booking, What style music I play, Where I am currently performing can all be answered there.
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