Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Ways to tell you've been modding too long, #62,476

You go to create a simple custom refrigerator; notice the custom mesh has a water dispenser in the door, and drop everything to write (freehand!) a sixty-seven line script that allows the player to fill all empty bottles they may be carrying with purified water -- because damn it, if you're going to build a house in the Mojave wasteland, it's going to have fucking water filtration systems.

And the stove that accesses the survival crafting menu to allow you to cook indoors probably doesn't help matters any.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Meanwhile, in Skyrim...




Well, there goes the neighborhood...


Hey! That isn't nice. Also: why is my back turned in that photo?! I'm there too, damn it!

You tell me -- I tried for like five minutes to get you to turn around. But fine, I have individuals, too...









Better?

You forgot someone.

...Fine.





Armor looks good on you. Not as good as that red and silver Imperial heavy armor, but...

You just liked seeing me in a skirt.

Not arguing.

She wasn't the only one. Nice legs. Rawr.

...I'm never going to hear the end of that...

At least our armors turned out well. Nice job on those. That brown leather never suited me; and the walking beer keg over there looks better in darkened steel.

*belch* You got somethin' to say to me, parakeet?

I'm pretty sure I just did, boozehound. I faced down a dragon the other day -- you think I'm afraid of your alcoholic ass?

...Objection withdrawn. I still say you have to be completely batshit to charge into the gaping maw of a dragon; sword drawn...

Pfft. I had a shield. Whatdya want?

Does anything scare you?

The knowledge that the people who keep Survivor on the air and vote for American Idol are now running the country scares the shit out of me.

Ba-zing.

And why am I the only one who didn't get custom armor?

...You wanted to be a mage this time around. Mages don't wear armor. You could always have him move you back to being an archer.

But but but! If I do that, I'll lose the ability to summon my puppy!

...So, did you two's mother believe in drinking heavily during pregnancy, or is there just a genetic predisposition towards fucking insanity in your family? Calling that thing a puppy... it's a goddamned barely corporeal ghost wolf!

So? That doesn't mean Princess doesn't love me.

Ugh. She named it Princess? Where'd I leave my flask...?

I've always subscribed to the genetic predisposition to insanity theory.

You say something?

Me? I said nothing. Damned sinus problems... my coughing must have sounded like words.

That's what I thought.

I think I can help with the armor issue, though. Here, try this on.




Ooh, this isn't bad. Does it have to have the fishnets, though?

'Fraid so.

Don't knock the stockings too hard -- he could've put you in this one instead.

...On second thought, fishnet stockings aren't so bad. Thanks!

Ah, that reminds me. We've scared up enough Daedra hearts to get some Daedric armor down. Here, try this on...

Gladly. Just a minute...





...Would someone care to explain this bullshit to me before the bloodshed begins?

SnrkGAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That's right; taunt me... nothing could possibly go wrong...

No, no! It looks good on you, really! I'm just usually the one who gets dressed up like a whore to "test new armor" so it's a nice change...

Nice change? Look at me! I'm supposed to be a DD-cup, damn it. This stupid armor has cut me down to a C at most! I mean, what the hell kind of shitty body replacer did you install this time?!

At least you have the abs for it?

That uh, must have been in one of the UNP armor replacers I installed... I figured they'd just re-cut the armor to fit the new body proportions; I had no idea it was a skimpy replacer...

Fix it.

Sure; let me just figure out which replacer...

Fix. It. Now.

Yes, Ma'am.





Better?

Much.

And your ebony crown.





Well, that's an improvement. It still sucks being stuck with this hair cut, though. Isn't fair that theirs got ported and mine didn't.

Look on the bright side: your hair still looks decent, but do you have any idea how many years it'll be in this world before I can get a bottle of Revlon #919 nail polish?

Here, Maeva; got a set for you, too.

Full chest plate, right? I'm not big on being run through. Well, not like that, anyway...

Yeah; the replacer is completely deleted.





Well, how do I look?

...Has anyone ever told you you're goddamned intimidating in Daedric armor...?





Intimidating? Me?

...Can't talk... heart attack... cuteness... so... wrong...

Still got it. Since it looks like Master's going to be out for awhile, I'll continue the post.





This is me, Natasha, and... ahem... Princess in the rift shortly after being jumped by some very stupid non-ghost wolves.





And here we all are in the Pawned Prawn; where Master stopped in to buy some more ebony ingots and unload some of his world-class alchemy work. At seventy-five skill, and with some enchanted buff gear; it's not unusual for us to have upwards of ten grand in potions to sell. We routinely clean out every merchant from Whiterun east in a couple days' trading expedition. As you might expect, hotness such as we three transcendental beauties required considerable work. In addition to the custom armor retextures, we all also sport custom hair, eyes, and jewelry; as well as classes, combat styles, and races.

Bethsoft actually half-assed Skyrim worse than previous games in many respects -- most annoyingly hair color. You don't get to simply select one from a box anymore; hair colors now have to be created and saved as records beforehand, then added to a form list... and then added to the race's available hair color entries much like hair or eyes had to be in previous games. Making the three of us proper redheads actually took almost an hour's work to figure out and implement. Stupid, useless Wiki.

Not to mention the skin texture problems. Skyrim has neat advances like being able to select various face colors -- lips, around the eyes, cheek blush -- from a list, rather than just on a sliding scale of pale-to-red; but apparently Dimon99's textures aren't compatible with that ability -- or at least the version we're using isn't. According to the construction set, for example, my lips are supposed to be black; the other twos' reddish. As you can see, they are completely uncolored and carry the same tint mask as the base skin. We won't talk about how shitty my hair looked until Master fixed the alpha threshold again. You'd think eventually the people who port these meshes would learn a threshold of zero looks like ass with all the clipping and transparency issues.

Wait, wait -- what kind of ass? 'Cause, I mean, I'm a bit of a connoisseur of fine asses, and...

Wal-mart patron ass.

...Ew. Thanks for that mental image. Almost enough to make a girl go full-straight, isn't it?

Sure; until you look at one of the men in there, anyway. Sweatpants, sandals, and a beard worthy of a'crossin' the Sierras in 1847...

Oh goddamn it... now the mental images are even worse. Where's that bottle of brain bleach Nos keeps around?

Over on the bookshelf -- it's the one labeled 'Stolichnaya'.

You guys are being mean, again...