2021: A Year in Review

Hey everyone!

In addition to updating everyone about what’s going on in Simonland, I wanted to also take a moment to reflect on this past year, especially as it relates to my work on Skyrim modding.

2021 was a big year for Simonrim. A quick check of the “DP” section of my Nexus account suggests I got 4x more downloads this November than I did last November, and actual DP has increased even more than that. In addition, I’ve published a ton of new mods this year, including Manbeast, Apothecary, Pilgrim, Thaumaturgy, and Hand to Hand. Finally, I also published Adamant 5, a major update, and though it’s not yet complete, the lion’s share of work for Mysticism 2 was done in 2021. This has been a super productive year for me.

I didn’t do this work alone. In fact, the biggest thing that changed this year is that every single mod I published was a collaborative effort. Even some older mods are going to have collaborators added to them when I release their next updates (looking at you, B&B). Working with other modders allows the work to go faster, and it allows me to benefit from the incredible skills of people who work outside of my domain. (For instance, Pilgrim would look nothing like it does right now if I had made it myself, and I doubt Manbeast’s force transformation mechanic would exist without a co-author.)

My metrics look great as well. I’ve already mentioned I’m getting about 4x more downloads than I was a year ago. I’ve also had several mods cross major endorsement milestones. Mysticism has 6k endorsements now and is still climbing. Arena and Aetherius passed 2k endorsements, and Mundus is well on its way. Apothecary climbed fast, beating out several of my older mods. It’s sitting at 1400 now. Even less popular mods like Scion crossed the 1k threshold, and Manbeast is getting there as well. Every mod I’ve published this year has performed well on the Hot Files, and I’ve won Mod of the Month three different times this year, bringing my total win count to 4.

Along with all this growth, the community around my mods has grown as well. It’s been awesome to see more people interested in my work, and to have people in my discord that I now count as friends just because I made some spells or whatever. (Several of my co-authors, as well, have now become real personal friends.) Lists have come and gone but a lot of lists are still using my stuff, and that means more users getting exposed to my content.

Finally, we took Simonrim to some new heights this year, with our first SKSE dependent mod (and our first mod to use a DLL, no less) in Hand to Hand. This was a really fantastic mod to work on, not only because the co-authors were excellent, but also because it really felt like something special–something no one has really done before in Skyrim. Every “Adamant vs. Vokrii vs. Ordinator” thread for the rest of time will have to mention Hand to Hand now, and it will be a lot harder for people who either have ill will or who just don’t pay that much attention to brush my work off as “just Vanilla fixes or whatever.” Also, Adamant didn’t perform that well on the Hot Files or Mod of the Month when it was released (probably because Adamant 1 and 2 were pretty bad lol), and even though I’m incredibly proud of Adamant 5, it’s hard for an update to compete on the MotM page. So Hand to Hand being on its own mod page (because of the DLL dependencies and a few other reasons) sort of gave Adamant a second shot to get some of the recognition that I think it deserves.

Finally, I also started this Patreon in February of last year, and to date we've raised about $2300 for the National Center for Transgender Equality. That by itself is plenty to be proud of! 

And that’s a wrap, basically, on my 2021. This is the part of the post where I’d look forward to 2022 and talk about some of the exciting things that are coming, but the truth is, I have a hard time doing that right now. Most of my mental energy is focused on the fact that I have to go back to work this week. I am not expecting to enjoy the next six months; this year has been hell and I have next to zero interest in continuing a career in education after this. Right now, my goal is to just “grin and bear it” while doing the best I can for myself and my own mental health, my family, and my students. I am distantly aware that I have some cool plans for this year, but it feels like there’s a huge fog between me and those plans, and I have to get through the fog  before I get to them. When I get through, I’ll let you know, and we can start the hype train on some new content.

Since that’s a depressing note to end a year-in-review post, I’ve saved the thing you all really care about for last: Mysticism progress reports! I’ve been off work for the last two weeks. After some reflection, I decided it was important to me and my future success that I didn’t just disappear into my office and no-life modding for the whole two weeks (which I often did over the summer). Instead, I took a much more leisurely pace. My wife and I had a great first week off, and the second week was filled with visiting family, including my brother, who I haven’t seen for a while. I also got to play the new FFXIV update with my best friend, which is probably the most time I’ve spent actually playing games in about a year.

That’s not to say I didn’t make any progress. In fact, I made a lot! I finished everything (including staves & scrolls) in Destruction and Restoration, and I also worked through most of Conjuration. I’ve said this a few times before, but Conjuration was kind of a black box to me, because I hadn’t worked on it since 2019, and I really didn’t know much about the state of Mysticism’s Conjuration spells besides that they felt like a mess to me. I was able to work through all of that, and all the summons are now operating in a new balance framework, with some new bells and whistles I’ll be able to take advantage of in Adamant 5.4 or 5.5.

I still have a ways to go, but I’m probably one good Saturday of work away from saying that I’ve finished the first pass on Conjuration in its entirety. I think a release by the end of this month is still likely. The only real obstacle I see to that release is less about Mysticism itself and more a question of whether I’ll be in a good state to work. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next two weeks are pretty rough and I don’t get much work done. That said, the project is going well, I’ve made tons of progress, and I don’t see any major roadblocks. It’s just about time right now.

As always, I’ll be active in my Discord if you want updates on the progress I’m making, and I’ll make a post here when I know more about concrete plans, release dates, and etc. Until then, cheers!