A Skyrim modder with nearly 500,000 downloads has announced that she is stepping away from the modding scene despite devoting “thousands of hours” to her masterpiece as a result of community lawsuits and harassment.
Many of the 475,000 mod downloads amassed by modder Kukielle come from her extremely detailed Skyrim fan mods. Of them, the most popular is Daegon and Kaeserius“two followers with personalized voices and more than 6,000 contrasting lines.” The pair have crossover combat capabilities and were described by Kukielle as “my passion project”, providing the player with a D&D or Baldur's Gate 3 style 'party' rather than standard followers.
Since that first release, Kukielle has created three similar follower mods; Koemia, the little witch Taeka and 'Daegon Legacy'. The latter is a byproduct of the significant changes Kukielle made to Daegon a year after its release. At some point roughly halfway through its life, the original Daegon mod became the current Daegon and Kaeserius mod, changing various aspects of the former's personality and backstory in a way that was quite unpopular At the moment.
Kukielle would eventually re-release the original version of Daegon under the name 'Legacy', pointing out in that mod's description the mistakes he claims to have made in changing the character and suggesting that “it's something I won't do.” […] again.”
Combat between Kaeserius and Daegon | Mission Line Gameplay – YouTube
Look
Regardless, multiple minor changes continued to be made to the mods, most recently resulting in a two-part romance questline added to Taeka. As a result of a year of work, with over 1,600 voice lines, including custom lines for different player names, Kukielle claims that Taeka (like her other followers) is a “super follower” who is able to react to the world. with great detail. Noting that only “my free time is the limit” for that reactivity, Kukielle had also promised more work on her witch follower mod, with a third of that romance questline also “upcoming.”
However, it now appears that that questline is no longer likely to appear, nor are any other updates to any of the other Kukielle mods. On November 10, he received a comment on his NexusMods page asking about future Taeka updates and expressing hope for changes similar to what Daegon received. in it answerKukielle announced that he was “done” and that he “won't be adding any new characters to [Taeka]or any new job.”
“Taeka's last update was a huge two-part questline that picks up on the existing romance I painstakingly created for you, which I've never had any interest in,” he explains, before turning his attention to his work on Daegon. “I added more content daily for a year straight to make her more enjoyable, made her the most advanced follower ever, with methods that can't be replicated, all for free. […] And since you weren't happy, I created two simpler followers that everyone can run in a basic game, with player romance built in.”
“I spend thousands of hours on Daegon, creating, changing, adding options, and listening to everyone's preferences. […] I spent a thousand more hours undoing everything I created.” Kukielle says he's been working on other characters in the background in an attempt to satisfy his audience, but that those characters will now “never see the light of day despite the work I've done.” fact.” unfortunately put into them, because it doesn't make sense.”
Currently, Kukielle's Patreon claims that he makes a little less than $300 a month from his followers, but both this example and Goredev's retirement have sparked conversations about the way the community treats mod creators.
In the responses below a Reddit post about his departure, one of Kukielle's modding partners stated that they had to discourage “several recurring trolls” from commenting on Discord and discussion forums about the mods. That modder too gradeshowever, that “I don't know what the exact catalyst is for her to quit smoking today. I'm guessing something must have happened very recently that acted as 'the straw that broke the camel's back.'”
GamesRadar+ spoke with Kukielle to ask him about his decision. She says this was “one of those things that builds up over time. Daily harassment just for being a girl and never being taken seriously despite the enormous amount of technical work I've accomplished.”
“Thousands of hours were spent developing my characters until they seemed real in every situation they might find themselves in,” he says of his work. “They were built from scratch multiple times, more advanced each time, doing things that had never been done before in any game… I wanted a character with some real personality, that I could really relate to. I wanted a girl.” best friend.”
When asked how so much mod work fits into her life, Kukielle said, “It doesn't fit into your life. It swallows you whole and isolates you with terrible people and few good people.”
“Being one of the only girls in a 99% male field, I am constantly demeaned and known as the 'horny sex kitten,'” she adds. “I've never created sexual content, but I'm sure people talk about me as if I do, as if I owe them that.” Some of Kukielle's mods are marked Mature on NexusMods, but she emphasizes that they are not explicitly sexual and that the warning label mostly has to do with profanity.
Check out our list of best skyrim mods for improved graphics, gameplay and more.