Mods. I know that’s not really helpful, but it really is how many of us continue to enjoy it. That said, there are still things you can do to spice up your gameplay on vanilla. The biggest one is this- try a different playstyle. Archery is incredibly effective, so try making a character who absolutely refuses to use one because his whole family was slaughtered by a rogue sentient bow that laughed at him while it did it. Recruit different companions and try to keep them alive in different situations. Be an absolutely evil sonofabitch and kill everyone the game allows you to. Try Oblivion, for a similar, but distinctly different (and in my opinion, slightly superior, despite Skyrim’s many advantages) experience. Or, most simply, stop trying to get blood from a stone, and put the game down until the itch actually returns, not until you feel like it should’ve. Best of luck to you.

Removed by mod

Every new account isn’t a bot, though. We don’t have real numbers to work with yet.

I really hope this leads to actual change. Subreddits are becoming meaningless to visit and frustrating for normal users, so hopefully they just stop using reddit altogether.

Yes and no. It is true that going to reddit to troll reddit benefits reddit in the short term, but I think it’s harmful in the long term. By making /r/pics, /r/gifs, and /r/aww John Oliver themed, /r/wellthatsucks becoming vacuum themed, and /r/interestingasfuck and /r/iOS becoming essentially unmoderated, it is making those communities ultimately pointless, irritating users away from the site, and raising awareness. John Oliver even tweeted about it and provided dozens of pictures for their use, and it’s likely at this point that LWT will do something on the situation when the writer’s strike is over. I’ve only gone to reddit to vote in the troll polls- I don’t think that’s the kind of engagement reddit actually wants at this point.

There is actually an advantage to being part of a larger instance if you want to browse everything, actually. An instance is federated with another when a user from Instance A subscribes to a community from Instance B. The more users in an instance, the more people to subscribe to other instances, federating that instance with more instances for all users.

It’s a protest. It’s meant to be inconvenient. Be mad at the people causing the protest, not the protesters.