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...
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, June 6, 2011
The Line?
Okay, I think Oblivion mods have finally gone too far.
Do we really need this much realism in our games?!
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...
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...
Sunday, June 5, 2011
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...
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...
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
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.
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.
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.
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