15:01, 20 February 2008 | 36 Comments | [ Add comment]

Life outside the Elder Scrolls
Well it's that time again; middle of the university term, settled back into the swing of the uni life and been out and about socialising enough in the past few weeks that I can blag my way out of social events to stay in and game. So what games am I focusing on?

I started off with The Witcher, playing it casually while chatting to folks on Ventrillo and IRC and keeping up with the forums. I got to about mid-way through chapter two before the developers announced the enhanced edition of the game will be released some time in May. While great news that they've decided to go back and work the English game into what it's really meant to be, it's also slightly annoying. So I've stopped playing The Witcher for now. Despite some quite critical reviews I actually found the game entertaining for what it is; essentially a cross between Neverwinter Nights and Two World and I guess, going back a bit, Summoner, which I loved. If you're looking for a laid back RPG then you can't go amiss with The Witcher, just wait for the Enhanced Edition.

I was hoping to get my teeth into some games that I've always meant to play but have never gotten around to play such as Baldur's Gate and the Fallout games. Word from last month's PC Gamer in the UK said that Baldur's Gate 3 is definately in the works, and I would like to play both the previous games before starting the third in the series. I was a big fan of Icewind Dale too, which was my first PC D&D game.

But alas, the MMO rope caught me and I have been dragged into playing Eve Online. While I've been "playing" the game for the past 4 months I've really only been logging in to learn skills. For those not in the know, Eve Online has quite a different levelling dynamic to other MMO's; instead of grinding in order to level up you simply have skills that take x amount of time to learn. Learning skills gives you access to new ships, modules for your ships, research, industry, manufacturing, weaponary, etc. etc.. It greatly reduces that feeling that "everybody is the same as me" that I've gotten in games like WoW and EQ2. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Dark0ne | 05:15, 25 April 2008 | 4 Comments | [ Add comment]

If you have emailed me by any means, including the contact form, in the past 48 hours then I have not received the email. The webserver was under a mail attack that meant I had to take the mail server down while I tried to rectify the issue.

Hopefully all is sorted now!

Dark0ne | 13:54, 12 April 2008 | 6 Comments | [ Add comment]

The old poll that asked "Are your Morrowind/Oblivion characters the same gender as you?" is now finished. Here are the results:

• Yes - 7127 votes - 49%
• No - 2738 votes - 19%
• I have more than one character, some are different genders - 4099 votes - 28%
• My character has no gender! - 532 votes - 4%

The new site poll is now up and asked "What is your favourite game genre?". I'm expecting an RPG runaway with FPS coming a second.

Dark0ne | 10:00, 10 April 2008 | 2 Comments | [ Add comment]

The server will be going down very soon so that techies can get into the hardware and install some new memory modules. The server was meant to have 4GB of memory as standard but has actually only been running on 2GB since it was installed due to a fault in one of the memory components.

Fingers crossed this is the cure to the recent site stability issues!

Update
The server is back up with the 4GB of memory now installed. It's possible further tweaking will be necessary but lets see how it goes.

Dark0ne | 06:20, 3 April 2008 | 15 Comments | [ Add comment]

The server move went down yesterday without a hitch, and only a couple of hours downtime. There are a couple of "bugs" that have arisen as a result but both should be easily fixable.

Image uploading is currently broken pending the install of a missing Apache module that handles the automatic generation of thumbnails. That should be back and working within a few hours.

A few people have reported problems with file names not being accepted for their file uploads despite following the character guidelines. I cannot replicate the issue but have asked a few people to help out to try and iron out this problem. More than likely it is a legacy issue with the different versions of Apache and PHP being used.

Those are the two bugs that I know of. If you've found more please get in contact.

Dark0ne | 06:35, 1 April 2008 | 0 Comments | [ Add comment]

The results from the Files of the month feature on the site where each unique member is given a single vote for the file of their choice are now in. 750 members voted in March. Here are the files that you voted to be recognised last month:

Kvatch Rebuilt -- 45 votes
Verona House Bloodlines -- 35 votes
The Lost Spires -- 29 votes
HG EyeCandy Body -- 24 votes
Akatosh Mount -- 22 votes

Congratulations to the files that made it. Remember that all the votes have now been reset and you can now vote again for your choice for file of the month.

Dark0ne | 06:15, 1 April 2008 | 6 Comments | [ Add comment]

The scheduled downtime for today has been postponed 24 hours until tomorrow. The server was loaded in RAID 1 but I need both drives to store all your mods so I've had to request an OS reload that will take some time to do.

Once again I plan to take the site down at 2PM GMT and have the site back up around 8PM GMT.

Dark0ne | 09:57, 28 March 2008 | 8 Comments | [ Add comment]

After Oblivion's release in Asia the site has seen a significant growth in traffic from 950,000 unique visits and 8,500,000 page impressions to 1,500,000 unique visits and 14,000,000 page impressions each month. I have just purchased a new server for the site and forums to keep it upgraded to meet the current demand and hopefully keep things in check for the foreseeable future.

Thankfully The Planet, my server provider for the website (not including file servers), have a double-up promotion on at the moment that has meant I've been able to double the bandwidth on this server to 6,000GB from 3,000GB and add in some quad core xeons at the same expense as the current server that only has dual core xeons. Good news I'd say!

Approximately 6 hours of downtime is scheduled for this coming Tuesday 1st of April starting from 2pm to 8pm GMT. Understand that this time might decrease or increase depending on how the process goes, but the 6 hours alotted is accounting for a few minor unforeseen hiccups along the way.

It is important I take TESNexus offline during this time to make sure that new files, comments, forum posts and all the statistical data generated during the transfer period are not lost.

Thank you for your understanding.

PS. just realised the date might make this news hard to believe, but I promise it's true!

Povuholo | 10:17, 26 March 2008 | 3 Comments | [ Add comment]

At last, the long awaited update to Tamriel Rebuilt map 1 has been released today. The big difference between this beta and the last one? It has quests now! This version doesn't add all the quests yet, but more than enough to keep us entertained for a while.

Go get it now!

As always, the Tamriel Rebuilt team is recruiting new modders for the project (For both Morrowind and Oblivion), so feel free to help them a hand if you can!

I am not affiliated with the Tamriel Rebuilt project in any way, I'm just spreading the good news. Cheers!

Dark0ne | 19:34, 24 March 2008 | 0 Comments | [ Add comment]

The terms of service for the forums and site have been updated. You are encouraged to read-through the new terms of service and understand that you agree with them through your use of this site and the forums.

buddah | 22:01, 17 March 2008 | 11 Comments | [ Add comment]

TesNexus is based on the free exchange of ideas and materials in support of "The Elderscrolls Community", and as a rule does not censor any uploaded images or materials. The basic premise is this; If we were to remove a file because any individual or group of individuals find something offensive, the site would eventually have no files available for download, as someone will always take offense to whatever is offered.

With the above being stated there will be exceptions, the most inportant is violating the Terms of Service for the site.

The Admin, Staff and Moderators will take whatever immediate action as they deem necessary at the time to preclude a situation becoming disruptive to the operations of the site. This will in most cases result in the file page in question immediately being set hidden from public viewing, to allow the staff to make a determination as to the corrective action that needs to be taken. The owner, admin, staff and moderators reserve the right to remove any comment, image, file or member that we deem necessary to ensure the smooth and stable operations of the site.

These actions are not open for debate and as you may feel you have a right to freedom of speech TesNexus is not required to provide you with an open platform for your oration.

If you find something that you feel is offensive, please do not respond, retaliate or fan the flames use the "Report" button so appropriate action can be taken.

Buddah