So They Get a Motel Room...

Bored this evening, awaiting the new seasons of Futurama and Ugly Americans to start; happened to browse across some chan boards.

You see a lot of video game posts in such places. Especially hypotheticals. "The protagonist from the last video game you played is now the MC of the last anime you watched, what changes?" et cetera.

Tonight's pointless post with four hundred replies? "The protagonists from the last two games you played are now having sex with each other."

...This is too stupid for me not to keep reading.

And, oh! The answers given...

"Pokemon Trainer Red and Mega Man. Eh, I'm sure that's a fanfic somewhere."

"If I use the term protagonist loose enough for it to work with the last two games I played, that would mean Raynor (StarCraft 2) is having romantic affairs with Bismarck (Civ4), and that's simply historically inaccurate."

"Oh shi-

The Jedi Exile is getting gangbanged by everyone who isn't Galactus in MvC3.

:<"

"that's great, because that means the loli girl from recettear is getting plowed by heavy weapons guy, THANKS GUYS I LOVE HAVING NIGHTMARES"

"So, Geralt from The Witcher is having sex with Hawke from Dragon Age 2 right now... A male warrior Hawke.

I'm not as Ok with this as I thought I would be..."

Hold on, I'm giggling so hard I can't breathe at that last image...

"Female High Elf mage from Morrowind
and
Female Malkavian from VtM: Bloodlines"

Y'know, I always thought the female Malk in Bloodlines would be a tiger in the sack. Batshit insane tends to do that.

"John Shepard and John Shepard.

Oh my."

"Let's see, I'd say I'm the protagonist of EVE, so me, and... Master Chief... fuck..."

"Master Chief and Samus. Well, that went better than expected."

Huh, I think VGCats did that comic already...

"Blonde female Courier from New Vegas and female Commander Shepard from the second Mass Effect.

My courier is an unarmed specialist. I foresee fisting, and now I have a boner."

Well, I could have lived without that visual, thanks.

"Femshepard and Ladyhawke.

Not even shitting you."

You know, I remember Ladyhawke. It wasn't a bad movie, I don't care what the critics say... what's that? As in female Hawke of DA2? Oh. Yeah, that makes more sense, then.

"F.E.A.R 1, 2 and 3 put together.

So New Point Man and Paxton Fettel are raping Samuel Beckett while themselves getting fisted by Old Point Man.

Pretty much sums up my opinion of the game's quality."


What would my answer be?

Well, I was playing Sins of a Solar Empire last; which doesn't have a protagonist... so I suppose I'd have to kick back to the two games before that, which would be: my redhead female Horkew (wolf girl) character in Oblivion, and a male Nosferatu in Bloodlines (never have actually finished a playthrough as a sewer rat, so was trying again).

Now... I have watched some screwed up porn in my day -- and enacted some other screwed up stuff via video games and mods thereof... but I can say with pretty good certainty, that is one video I would not be buying a copy of. I... really don't want to see a Nosferatu naked, thanks. Like, at all. Ever. Even a female one.

So, what say you, moderately loyal readers? Care to play? Can you top my soul-scarring answer?

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go start a new Bloodlines game with a female Toreador character, answer the question again; and figure out a way to film that shit. I'll make a mint...

HAY GUIZE!

WHY WONT DIS NCCS THNG WERK

I DONT NED 2 HAF TEH NEWST PATCH R GCK R NETHNG DO I LOLWTFBBQLMNOP

SUM1HELPMEH!!113FORTYSEVENSIXTEENTWELVEEXTRAECLAMATIONPOINTSSOYOUKNOWIMSUPERSERIOUS!


How many does this make, just this week, now? Four? And it's Thursday?

I'm apparently going to have to add a rather large notice to the file entry. Even auto-update in Steam obviously cannot defeat the anti-patchers...

In other news: the NosCo CEO has announced this morning that his company will shortly be attempting to corner the market on Russian vodka. This is not an attempt to expand business, but for the founder to drink himself into oblivion. And now, here's Dave with your five day forecast...

Coming Soon?

So... I know probably not most, but at least a few people have lamented the fact that Oblivion seems to get all the good adult mods. FO3/NV have been largely left out in the cold; with only a couple attempts -- neither of which actually worked worth a shit.

I was cruising that screenshot database this morning since I hadn't for a few days now, and ran across this shot (and fair warning, it's very NSFW).

Now, I don't know what forums the discussion surrounding that mod is taking place in, and considering the GUI is in Russian I doubt it would do me very much good if I did know... but apparently someone out there is working on these things.

I'd also like to know why the stick of dynamite in that screenshot has "inert" written on it... but that's a separate issue entirely.


Edit: and y'know, I'm beginning to remember this morning why I've been backing out of modding publicly more and more this year.

"Things is though - i'm fine with Super Mutants not raping since in the lore they are asexual. The FEV retracts/covers over/makes their genitals drop off."

"False. Real supermutants (the ones from Fallout 1 and 2, and which the NV supermutants are) are sterile, in that they can't breed, but they aren't asexual. They still have all their parts and still enjoy using them.

Now, in Bethesda's east coast lowest common denominator non-offensive post-apocalyptic theme park that is Fallout 3, the supermutants are asexual. On the other hand, the supermutants in Fallout 3 aren't proper supermutants because the process that makes them is different. There's also no good explanation of how they came to be."


Real Supermutants.

REAL. SUPER. MUTANTS.

Gods, they're arguing about reality in made up universes again...

One thing about it, though: lore-mongers do handily keep my desire to try FO1 or 2 completely destroyed so that I don't spend dozens of hours playing through them.

Also

While I'm posting stuff that no one really cares about this morning anyway, I'll also note that some people have entirely too much free time on their hands.

I recognize Cloud, Link, and Saber (and oh, how it pains me to admit I didn't even have to think about their identities...) but that fourth one... I know it's a Japanese superhero TV show; I've seen images from it, but never caught the name.

On Modern and Future Games

In the comments section of the last post, Kirtai posted a link to a Cracked article on trends in gaming.

It being Cracked, I was expecting something rather facetious; absurd, perhaps. This was spot-on, though, and echoes several things I've noticed myself.

I'm not thrilled at where gaming is going. Brushing aside for this discussion things like DRM and sales models where you never get an actual, physical product; there's still the matter that most new games suck.

Honestly? I haven't bought a game in months. The last game I bought was either STALKER: Call of Pripyat ($15 on the Target bargain rack) or VtM: Bloodlines ($19.99 on Steam because no one in the free world had it for sale on disc anymore). I don't really have plans to buy any in the near future, either.

The game situation now is so bleak that I'm actually a solid year beyond where I'd normally upgrade my computer to keep up. Why bother?

Let's run down some recent titles, shall we?

Dawn of War II: Have the first game, and its three expansions. I liked one of them -- Dark Crusade. Soulstorm did away with everything that made DC great, and DoWII looked to be more of the same.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Again, own the first one and expansions. Again, liked one out of the pack. Hordes of the Underdark rocked. The rest were ordeals to be survived, not stories to be enjoyed. 2 was said to be more of the same by virtually all; except with considerably worse reliability.

Resident Evil 5: Didn't like the first four. Aren't they out of zombies to be attacked by, yet? Shit, at least in the movies I get to look at Milla Jovovich hurt people. The games don't even do us that courtesy; and instead insist on sticking us with a male protagonist whose ass I really don't want to stare at for forty-nine hours of key-seeking boredom.

HALO 47: Played the first one. Was bored out of my goddamned mind. Generic shooter #11,790. Have largely ignored the series since.

Battlefield Whatever: Lost interest in this series during Battlefield 2 in what? 2001? 2002? EA/DICE are the only folks I'm aware of that can give Bethsoft a run for their money for the title of "most unstable game launch ever". Seriously. You Gamebryo players don't know. DICE's patches had about a one in three chance of corrupting your game install with every new version. Every patch. I think I reinstalled BF2 six times trying to get 1.3 to work. Then DICE announced that "realism would never get in the way of 'fun' in the game" which told me it would always be the bunny-hopping bullshit they had been thus far putting out. When BF2142 turned out to be a massive mess of spyware, I just stopped watching the series at all.

Call of Duty et al: First one was a great game. The others, not so much. They pretend real hard to be realistic, but in the end aren't anywhere close. The Modern Warfare series has convinced an entire generation of neckbearded douchebags that they're worthy of joining "special forces", as well. I'd pay money to watch that assault on a Taliban stronghold.

The Witcher 2: Not sure on this one. The first one was good, but mainly because it was different. Here was a fantasy world that was dark and ugly; full of poverty, racism, and plenty of people motivated by sex. The combat system was also fairly new; combining not just poisons and oils with sword combat, but also adding different styles that were suited to specific situations. The second seems to want to follow that model... and derivative works rarely turn out well. Plus, the ending to the first one (at least the ending I got) seemed kind of... tacked on at the last minute, rather than a real conclusion.

Dragon Age 2: I wanted to like the first one, I really did. I started like eight games, but never finished it. Between reliability problems, clumsy storytelling, clumsier controls, a retarded AI, romance that didn't really serve any purpose, and the just flat out poor story, I was never motivated to slog through it all. Why anyone would want more of the same is beyond me.

Oblivion/Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas: You'd think that I, being a prolific modder for all three games would start singing their praises here. Gods' own truth? All three are mediocre games, at best. Lame main quests, hit-or-miss side quests, tons of bugs and crashes despite multiple patches each. I mean, New Vegas' GECK has been out for almost eight months now, and they still can't be bothered to enable error reporting in the script editor. They also still haven't fixed the semi-auto refire bug in the engine; despite the fact that it was present from day one in FO3. Really, the friendliness of these games to modding is the only reason they're worth the sticker price.

Crysis: I never played this one. The specs were ridiculous when it was new, and aren't to be scoffed at today. From the synopsis I read when it first hit, I wasn't inclined to upgrade to play it. Time travel suit? Journeyman Project, anyone? This seemed like a remake; without the learning a bit about a history, and with a lot of first-person-shooter tacked on to seem "intense". No doubt the upcoming sequel will be the same thing.

Somebody tell me: why in the hell should I lay out six or seven hundred bucks on computer upgrades or a new system? Gaming seems to be formulaic, these days. You either grind online (and pay a monthly fee for the rest of your natural life) or get railroaded through some hack writer's ham-handed attempt at an action story.

I don't think I'm getting jaded. I still like my old games... it's just that these new ones suck. Much like new movies, they're virtually all derivative works; slapped together as fast as possible for budget reasons.

Now, I will confess: Skyrim has me... mildly hopeful. It'll suck at release, we all know this. But hopefully, Bethsoft has paid attention since 2006, and knows that mod-ability is the key to their games selling worth a damn. As long as it has a robust toolset similar to the one we know (and hopefully uses a similar scripting language...) it should have serious potential. Will it be worth buying a new PC for? Probably not... but by November, this system will be four years old, and on its last leg if not outright dead. They just don't build 'em to last, anymore. Not that Gateway ever built them to last, but that's a separate rant on its own.

What say you, readers? Am I off-base, and just being a codger? Or have we all really lived through the glory days of gaming, and now only get to look forward to getting reamed by DRM over and over in the pursuit of whatever the flavor of the week is, once it's been dumbed down to console-gamer level?

And just to be even more depressing: realize that we will likely never again see a proper simulator -- be it Battletech/Mechwarrior or Spacefighter. Even flight sims are getting pretty thin. No, we're moving square into a gaming future made up of Wii-bowling, drunken fratboys teabagging each other in Halo, and WoW's fifteenth expansion that ups the level cap by ten yet again, and adds a new dungeon raid that requires six hundred and twelve players to work in perfect unison for seven hours to complete...

Almost enough to make you want to go buy some printed-on-paper books to read, innit?

Tachyon: the Fringe

Most folks probably don't remember the game. It was notable mostly for having Bruce Campbell voicing the main character.

No, I didn't just finish it -- I'm not that far behind the curve. Bought the game new (wow. eleven years ago according to the copyright date on the disc case), and went Galspan on the first playthrough. Once that was finished, I attempted to play through the Bora side; but the game developed some weird issue that caused it to crash whenever I entered the Ripstar region... which made the campaign uncompletable.

Plagued by some rather severe boredom this last week, I reinstalled it to try giving the heretofore unseen campaign a go. It worked for once, and I finished it up last night.

I believe my impression of the Bora campaign can be summed up in two words:

That's it?!

Now, when you finish the Galspan side it's all neatly tied up. You've made yourself so valuable to the corporation that they turn the whole of their legal department to your aid, and soundly overturn the main character's exile from Sol; allowing him to go home when he wants. Which of course he doesn't for more than a visit in deference to the obscene amount of money they're throwing at him to stay.

Bora ending? "I could have stayed on, but I needed a vacation with a cute blonde... *credits roll*".

Gods, it's worse than Fallout 3...

We won't even talk about what a clusterfuck the final Bora mission is. In the end, it was just me against the Hephaestus platform -- my wingman and every friendly fighter in the area had gotten themselves killed off. I had taken out the enemy fighters; and destroyed the platform's weapons powerplant... so it basically consisted of me sitting next to the platform for fifteen minutes, trying to destroy it with a heavy mining laser. Took forever.

On the whole, my impression from 2000 remains unchanged: an otherwise unremarkable space sim made enjoyable mostly because of the personality and acting talents of the good Mr. Campbell.

Speaking of, we haven't had a good space sim lately, have we? What was the last? The last one I played was Freelancer, I think. I miss those. Where is the modern Descent: Freespace? The Wing Commander?

They're not really making much these days other than MODERN COMBAT SO REAL YOU'LL GET PTSD!, survival horror, and fantasy MMOs.

Setbacks. Setbacks. Setbacks.

See, this is why I don't announce any of my new mods until they're nearing completion, anymore.

I'm apparently operating at the bleeding edge of what the engine is capable of without using one of the script extenders already; and nine times out of ten when I try to take my personal companions a bit farther, it fails. Not just fails, either, but crashes-and-fucking-burns fails.

Myself and several players have banded about the idea of taking companion behavior to the next level, as it were. Something more akin to real MOUT behavior for FO3/NV.

Current companions, even with their enhanced combat styles, behave as they said in Mechwarrior 4: a mis-matched group of single combatants, and not a team.

I've had various ideas to remedy this; but written most off as too complex, and not flexible enough for general companion use.

I had another idea the other night. Tried it a bit today in FO3, and it was a spectacular failure.

The idea was this: rather than always being in such a state, companions would follow normally until the player drew a weapon; at which time they'd draw weapons and fall into formation. When combat was over, they'd return to normal follow behavior.

The packages were set up so that rather than the companions simply running off a-kilter, going off after whoever they liked; one would take point. Second would follow first, third would follow second. The one on point would decide where they went, and the others would follow in line, taking shots on enemies as they appeared.

I had the scheme laid out in my head well enough. Set up packages, modified companion scripts. Everything parsed and looked good.

Got in game to test. Drew a weapon, and the companions reordered; falling into a new formation behind the point(wo)man -- who then followed me until contact was made with the enemy.

Contact made... and they kept following me. Fight ended. They never fired a shot.

For some reason, with the new "formation" they won't enter combat. At all. Nor are they attacked by enemies.

I swear, some day I am going to get a hold of the drugs they were taking when they coded this damned engine, and none of you will ever hear from me again as I will become a permanent resident of the magical land of Oz.

As always, I have other methods of implementation in mind... but the problem is refusal to enter combat is usually a package issue and not a script issue... so I'm probably looking at having to go flag-by-flag on the packages and figure out what's fucking up where this time.

Ugh. Why does one plus two never equal three in these damned games...

Companion Trainer Spells

So... I wrote a new mod last night; but I haven't uploaded it anywhere because I'm not sure of the appeal.

As I have mentioned in non-specifics before, in my recent Oblivion games I've been toying heavily with a mod set called Lovers; a rather expansive and modular group of files that adds many... more adult aspects to the game.

One of these that the scripting behind has so captured my fascination, is a sub-set called Tomago Club. Basically, what it does is add pregnancy to the game for females (NPCs and player both). Now, this isn't some lame mod where after a certain number of acts or random percentage or whatever an NPC just magically gets knocked up. It adds full menstrual cycles; ovulation, the whole bit. Once the bun be in the oven, the NPC or player carries to term (though reduced length -- I don't think I've ever even seen an Oblivion game that could go 9 months of game days without the saves getting corrupt...). When the time is up (presuming that the mod settings on miscarriage and so forth let it reach that far) a new NPC is spawned, with the mother's hair color and similar features.

It took awhile to get working, but once I did I've played about a game-month, and now seem to have several kids around. Whoopsie.

Mods like MCS that I linked to before let you take the kids as companions; whether to move them to a new location, or to have them along on adventures -- but the problem is that they don't match level with the player (even at a reduced rate), and they default to Commoner class, I think it is. Which means less than ten hit points and no discernible weapon skills. Take them along on an adventure, and they die. Quickly.

MCS allows setting essential, but it doesn't have any provision for class or level. You can set such things via the console, but setting class via hex gets old fast.

So. Thinking on this issue the other day, I decided to write a set of "training" spells. A touch-range lesser power, that when cast on an NPC sets their class, combat style, and matches your level. Three spells at the moment: one each for Archer, Mage, and Warrior -- the three most useful general purpose classes I've found for companions.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any function to flag them as auto-leveling, so the spells just match your level at the time of casting; though I did condition all the spell effects so that it only applies the ones needed at the time -- EG: if you cast the mage trainer and the NPC is already a mage, it won't set the class and add spells again; if they're already your level it won't change the level again.

The trouble is, the spells have what you might call a limited appeal. I don't know any of my audience here that uses Lovers; and the spells aren't good for a lot else. If you use MCS or EZ or whatever to take general NPCs as your companions it might be useful; but those are more easily reset via the CS. The spells here are really only useful for game-generated NPCs that can't be edited any other way.

They appear to work fine; I've only had occasion to use the spells twice since writing the mod -- once for a mage and once for a warrior -- and both times went without a hitch.

Of course, I suppose I could just direct you all to the Lovers forums to get you running the mods... Spread the love, as it were.

...'Course, then you guys would probably want my edited plugins, too...

Number Two

After the last post and some of the comments that came along to it, you might have a preconceived notion about this post, from the title.

Well, it isn't one of those; so those of you not blessed with an affinity for toilet humor can breathe easy. (HA! Get it? Toilet? Breathe easy? OH, THE WIT!)

I was on the Nexus earlier this hellish summer's eve (must not make feminine hygiene joke...) answering one of those questions that make me wonder; and I happened to notice that NCCS has picked up thumbs-down numero dos. So, we now have one: The user couldn't get the file to work and one The file didn't do what the description implied; and neither with stones enough to leave a comment with their rate-down.

Now, here's where I'd normally hurl a bit of invective in a slightly passive-aggressive manner, but I'm not going to. In fact, I'm probably going to stop bitching about morons around here altogether. It serves no purpose except to bring down drama on the blog; for it seems stupid people don't like being called stupid. Who knew? Besides, I don't really care anymore.

What I am, is curious. What is it that people expect from mods? What do they want?

How good does it have to be, for you to take thirty seconds out of your day of cruising AZN PR0N and trolling forums to rate a mod up?

How much do you have to hate it to take those same thirty seconds to rate it down?

This is becoming a philosophical quandary to me. Why does one type of mod, one type of modder attract a crowd of sycophants; while another attracts a field of crickets with the occasional furious special olympian among them?

Is it the quality of the work -- or lack thereof? Is it the subject matter? The willingness of the author to "get out there" and whore their product in every forum on Earth that's even vaguely related?

This I must think on for awhile. The common threads are seldom seen, and I refuse to believe that it all comes down to simple random actions and whims.

The Line?

Okay, I think Oblivion mods have finally gone too far.

Do we really need this much realism in our games?!

I Really Hate Microsoft

Editing the NCCS companion creation guide. Adding the correct logo, and figured I'd fix some misspellings while trying to decide whether to expand the content somewhat.

Since Word has a spell checker, and Notepad doesn't, I opened the htm files in Word. Did a quick spell-check, fix, et cetera.

Save the files, close; open back up in Notepad to copy my CSS template for use in a new page, and see that Word has helpfully doubled the size of each file. There are now dozens of new tags. Metas for author and revision number and date of edit; sixteen different fonts declared... Hell, there was even one listing compatibility.

...And that was about where I closed the program and restored copies from the archive.

Ya over-engineered piece of office managerial shit! I just wanted the spelling errors fixed! I didn't need my html "improved" with two hundred lines of useless garbage.

Man, I've gotta get a proper html editor, again...

Ways to Tell You've Been Modding Too Long: #114

When you're hurtling towards one thousand screenshots taken, for one game alone:



It's going to be such a pain when I hit a thousand, too. Screenshots use a three digit number EG: Screenshot522 ; because of this, when it kicks up into four digit, all the shots in the one thousand block are going to screw up my 'sort by filename' setup. Unless of course I go through and edit the filename of each previously taken shot to a four digit.

Even though I haven't actually saved all 950+ taken shots, that would still be a lot of renaming...

That's Gonna Leave a Mark...

So, in Oblivion recently, I remembered something important. To be eligible to buy the houses in Skingrad and Chorrol, you have to have a certain level of "renown" -- that is, fame minus infamy. Well, I'm a Dark Brotherhood devotee, so my Renown is usually very far into the negative range.

I picked up a few points clearing out Kvatch, but not nearly enough. I happened to be in the Arena section of the Imperial City; checking up on my kitty companions... andstealingthecontentsofthearenabettingboxahem.

Anyway. It occurred to me that you get fame for winning matches, with even more for being named champion. So I competed. More than twenty points of fame by the end. Oh, yes. Had more than enough to buy the Skingrad house.

Found out something else important. MCS was written by someone like me. How do I know? My CMs could never come into the arena with me to unbalance the hell out of a match. MCS companions came right on in and took great delight in wailing on the yellow team for me.

The whole experience reminded me of another arena. One where I actually like competing. The Solaris VII Arena.

It doesn't come up much here, since I never modded for the game, but I was a huge player of Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries. A lot of "purist" players came down on the game as being too action-y and not enough sim elements, but I think Microsoft struck a good balance in Mercenaries. Not as much a fan of the base game, or Black Knight, though.

Naturally, I had to reinstall the game. I got around to the Arena as soon as it became available.

I just love having Bob Uecker call the play-by-play on my mech combat.

The Solaris VII arena progresses by weight category -- you have to place in a light match to be eligible to compete for medium, and so on.

Which brings us to the eternal question: how do I kick ass when stuck in a light mech? Thirty-five tons? What am I supposed to use, harsh language?!

In games past, I've used the Wolfhound to good effect. Pulse lasers rock. I wanted to do something different, this game.

In the heavier classes, I'm a sucker for the Light Gauss, and ERPPC. Neither mounts well on a light mech.

I've also used the Puma on a few occasions, with its twin ERPPCs. Still, two ERPPCs don't give me any rapid refiring weapons for keeping someone off my back. So, I got to tinkering; playing with every light mech I could get to try combinations of weapon mounts and weight.

Did you know... that you can get an Arrow IV Missile onto a Puma...?



(insert the sound of maniacal cackling here)

I did actually later revise the design to mount four ER Medium lasers instead of the one large. Less long-range punch, but better ability to bite when backed into a corner.

I had to strip that mech down to free up the weight to mount an Arrow IV, though. By the time I could mount it, I had relegated the poor mech to using an engine I suspect was scavenged from a Geo Metro. Seriously. There are heavy mechs faster than this thing.

It was fun sweeping the light matches in all three arenas with that thing, though.

"Hey! Wasn't there a Flea here a second ago? Where'd it go...?"

When medium class rolled around, I stripped down an Uziel; mounted one ERPPC in one arm, and three medium lasers in the other, with a Light Gauss in the torso for kicks. Again, I had to strip out the jump jets and scale the engine back to one from a golf cart... but it kicked much ass.

The heavy season hasn't started yet, so I haven't decided on a design there, yet. On the one hand: I loves me some gauss weaponry, and several heavy designs can mount enough to be fun... but on the other hand: I have access to a Nova Cat. Lots and lots of pulse lasers.

The Timber Wolf/Mad Cat has its appeal, as well... but I find the missile racks wasted space, since I hunt in the arena on passive sensors to prevent enemy LRM lockon. Trouble is, passive sensors means my missiles can't get lock, either. So most green weapons are useless to me; except in purpose-made setups like that Puma where I ping active just long enough to lock and fire, then go passive while it recharges.

Several years ago on an early playthrough, I hit on a loadout for the Dire Wolf/Daishi that cleaned house amazingly. I'm trying to dredge up specifics, but all I remember for sure was that it basically consisted of ER large pulse lasers, heat sinks, armor, and engine. The idea being to run circles around the enemy while hammering him with constant laser fire. Trouble is, I don't remember the exact setup... and light and medium mechs can't handle enough lasers to be useful for such things. I'm hoping the Nova Cat will mount enough to let me get a feel for how many I need, again.

I tell you, Kiddies, there are few things in life as much fun as blowing shit up in giant robots.

SSDD

Got two Nexus PMs in the last twenty-four hours that bear mention, lest I go insane(er).

One is from a person who wants to use part of NCCS in their own mod. I ask what part, curious which bit of my work they found so enchanting and useful. The answer? "The bit that lets me make my own companions."

So... the entire fucking mod, then? I mean, what else does NCCS do? Did it start making coffee and delivering pizzas while I wasn't looking?

So now I'm more curious. Is this individual actually planning to copy the entire mod to run a couple of NPCs in "his" mod? Or is this another moron who thinks that creating a companion plugin is including "code" from the master, and thus requires reuse permission?

Second PM, is another of those thrice damned "can I use your mod to create creature companions?" questions; but with a twist. This one is regarding the RR companions vault. Though the questioner didn't bother to specify whether they meant RR for FO3 or NV. Assuming FO3, I had to respond that you can; but it's not really a good idea. What's interesting is that this revolves around RR -- you know, the mod I haven't updated since November, or even answered any comments on since what? February? March, maybe.

Herculine has suggested I simply surrender to the tide, and add a creature framework. I have to admit, it wouldn't be that big a deal. I know from the NCCS quick menu how to script non-dialogue driven orders; so it would be a fairly simple matter to set up creatures to have their own scripts and packages.

The thing is, I don't get the appeal. Creature companions suck. They can't use weapons, can't change outfits, can't play idle animations, can't talk. They suck at combat, don't use stims, can't equip items at all...

It's just an animal that follows you around and gets in the way. And if you put food in their inventory, they'll be attacked by random NPCs.

The other issue, of course, being that I'm still not planning to update RR anytime soon; so additions would be for NCCS only.

This whole minor notoriety thing really isn't working out like I thought it would. Einherjrar, Dimon99, EARACHE42, Slof, and Colourwheel; modders that if not idolized, I have at least respected -- they all seemed to get endless streams of fawning praise; hundreds of kudos and thousands of endorsements.

Me? I get a steady stream of idiots wanting me to teach them to mod, or complaining that my mods don't do what they expected and are trash and so forth.

As I type this, NCCS sits at 7005 unique downloads; and has 122 endorsements. My math skills aren't good enough to calculate that percentage off the top of my head on four hours' sleep.

I wonder, sometimes: did the CM crew have to put up with this crap? Do they still get PMs begging for help running their mod?

The real pisser of it is I've got a whole stack of mod ideas for all three games; but by the time I've answered the day's inane questions from people too lazy to read documentation or check the forums, I don't care to work on anything for public consumption anymore.