So, I finally got around to purging the Picasa account tonight (you were warned).
Managed to free up around 300mb; which should keep me uploading for some time to come. Vast majority of the purges were either redundant (RR screenshots that are uploaded to the Nexus file entries as well) or were showing off mods that I ended up never releasing or never finishing.
So... you may notice some broken images now in old posts. I'm not going through more than six hundred and fifty posts one by one looking for them, though.
One thing I noticed though, looking through screenshots from 2009 was just how far my abilities as a companion maker have come. Those old works were just... embarrassing. Not only in setup, but in my visual settings, too. Yikes all around.
Also trashed the rose garden and waterfall photos because no one really cares about trip photos (even me who took them, apparently). They were just wasting space. Kept the ECSA photos because hey; who doesn't like to see cars set ablaze by 20mm incendiary fire?
Also kept the firearm and gunsmithing photos -- not because I think anyone online gives a shit about them; but because I give a shit about them, and wanted an online backup. Being as there's nothing illegal going on in them, I see no reason to set the folders to hidden or anything dramatic like that.
Anyhow, the cleaned space should allow for three hundred forty or so new screenshots at the current video settings I use in the games, and will probably still have free space left when you've all forgotten I exist.
Showing posts with label Oblivion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oblivion. Show all posts
Monday, August 13, 2012
Friday, September 23, 2011
Shudder.
The trouble with lurking imageboards and such is that sometimes, you come across something wrong.
Very, very wrong.
Oh, man, where'd I leave that bottle of brain bleach...
Very, very wrong.
Oh, man, where'd I leave that bottle of brain bleach...
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Cheater!
Recently, my favorite Neko declared that I should unwind and lose my "modding blues" by playing a game I don't mod. Just play for fun.
Well... this is me we're talking about. If I don't mod the game? I'm not still playing it. I've written mods for C&C: Generals, Galactic Civilizations 2, Neverwinter Nights, DAO, The Witcher, even STALKER (yes, I threw one together for the one half-assed playthrough I attempted and quickly bored of; it's the way I'm wired).
About the only games I don't mod are the MW4 series and Sins of a Solar Empire -- both of which I've played so much that they hold little interest for me now.
So, I simply started a new Oblivion game. No worries on lore, no attempting to improve any scripting or packages; no new companions -- just a play. I reinstalled the Gun Mage mod, ramped up the difficulty, selected a set of companions to play with, and created my new character.
On a lark, I decided to try a new race. I mentioned some time ago installing the X117 race package. One of the races it contains is called simply "Xeo", and appears to be a modification of Ren's Mystic Elves. Kind of bishie... but what the hell.
Get it going, all my mods' scripts set up, and play a bit. Look through the character sheet to check my progress on getting a Sneak point, and I notice something off. My sneak skill is 55. In the tutorial.
Got to looking, and the race has severe bonuses to seven skills. Playing as the Xeo race is essentially getting a second set of class skills for free.
I took Sneak as a class skill, and the Thief as my birthsign; and when I stepped out onto the island as a full-fledged level one, my sneak skill was 80.
EIGHTY. Without changing it in the console. The other overpowered bonuses were to destruction (55 as a class skill), blade (75 as a non-class skill), block, restoration (55 as a non-class skill), conjuration (55 as a class skill), and marksman (55 as a class skill).
As well, "Xeos" get a greater power that grants fifty percent shield for sixty seconds; in addition to full time fifty percent resistance to magicka, and twenty-five percent resistance to fire. Or the other way around... I was running on two hours' sleep at the time. I know one is 25% and the other 50%.
Now, look, I'm all for racial skill adjustments -- even resistances. Five points here, minus five there; it adds an incentive to play a particular race beyond the strictly aesthetic. Makes them feel different. Nords stand up to cold, Bretons make better mages; it's all an added bit of depth.
This shit, though, is on the same level as the douchebags who make nuclear minguns for Fallout 3 -- it's cheat-gaming, plain and simple. Doing it in the CS does not make it any less of a cheat than if you do it in the console.
Jeez, and I thought the Horkew were bad (they have Hunter's Sight and resistance to normal weapons -- vampire abilities without the need for blood or sun damage).
Well... this is me we're talking about. If I don't mod the game? I'm not still playing it. I've written mods for C&C: Generals, Galactic Civilizations 2, Neverwinter Nights, DAO, The Witcher, even STALKER (yes, I threw one together for the one half-assed playthrough I attempted and quickly bored of; it's the way I'm wired).
About the only games I don't mod are the MW4 series and Sins of a Solar Empire -- both of which I've played so much that they hold little interest for me now.
So, I simply started a new Oblivion game. No worries on lore, no attempting to improve any scripting or packages; no new companions -- just a play. I reinstalled the Gun Mage mod, ramped up the difficulty, selected a set of companions to play with, and created my new character.
On a lark, I decided to try a new race. I mentioned some time ago installing the X117 race package. One of the races it contains is called simply "Xeo", and appears to be a modification of Ren's Mystic Elves. Kind of bishie... but what the hell.
Get it going, all my mods' scripts set up, and play a bit. Look through the character sheet to check my progress on getting a Sneak point, and I notice something off. My sneak skill is 55. In the tutorial.
Got to looking, and the race has severe bonuses to seven skills. Playing as the Xeo race is essentially getting a second set of class skills for free.
I took Sneak as a class skill, and the Thief as my birthsign; and when I stepped out onto the island as a full-fledged level one, my sneak skill was 80.
EIGHTY. Without changing it in the console. The other overpowered bonuses were to destruction (55 as a class skill), blade (75 as a non-class skill), block, restoration (55 as a non-class skill), conjuration (55 as a class skill), and marksman (55 as a class skill).
As well, "Xeos" get a greater power that grants fifty percent shield for sixty seconds; in addition to full time fifty percent resistance to magicka, and twenty-five percent resistance to fire. Or the other way around... I was running on two hours' sleep at the time. I know one is 25% and the other 50%.
Now, look, I'm all for racial skill adjustments -- even resistances. Five points here, minus five there; it adds an incentive to play a particular race beyond the strictly aesthetic. Makes them feel different. Nords stand up to cold, Bretons make better mages; it's all an added bit of depth.
This shit, though, is on the same level as the douchebags who make nuclear minguns for Fallout 3 -- it's cheat-gaming, plain and simple. Doing it in the CS does not make it any less of a cheat than if you do it in the console.
Jeez, and I thought the Horkew were bad (they have Hunter's Sight and resistance to normal weapons -- vampire abilities without the need for blood or sun damage).
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
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...
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...
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?!
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Weekend Oblivion Mods, Again
A bit over two weeks ago, I posted about some race mods for Oblivion that I'd started using, complete with links.
Any of you who actually downloaded those mods, more likely than not noticed the same thing I did: that several races don't display correctly. They're missing the resources needed to drive them.
No, I don't know why they didn't just include it all in one package.
Nonetheless, a couple days ago I did some digging, and came up with the resources needed to drive the Sirens and Tritons (and their sub-races of Angelic, Dark, Freckled, and Southern); the Chocolate elves (which seem to be ridiculously popular on the forums I lurk) and the lop-eared modification of the same Hershey tree-huggers.
I had assembled the three packages into one 7z file to link to Herculine to simplify download; but since I appear to be doing fuckall else this morning (that's a technical term for it, I believe), I figured I might as well share the mini-compendium with everyone else.
So, here ya go. No screenshots to show off. I haven't actually done anything with the races in-game yet; it just bugged the hell out of me having invalid race options.
Given my tastes in companions, I'm far more likely to use the Ice Elves than the Chocolate ones; but who knows, one of you could find these super neato keen.
As always, I didn't create the resources or the plugins; take no credit for them, etc etc. I just crammed it into one archive to avoid having to trawl as many Japanese forums/databases.
Any of you who actually downloaded those mods, more likely than not noticed the same thing I did: that several races don't display correctly. They're missing the resources needed to drive them.
No, I don't know why they didn't just include it all in one package.
Nonetheless, a couple days ago I did some digging, and came up with the resources needed to drive the Sirens and Tritons (and their sub-races of Angelic, Dark, Freckled, and Southern); the Chocolate elves (which seem to be ridiculously popular on the forums I lurk) and the lop-eared modification of the same Hershey tree-huggers.
I had assembled the three packages into one 7z file to link to Herculine to simplify download; but since I appear to be doing fuckall else this morning (that's a technical term for it, I believe), I figured I might as well share the mini-compendium with everyone else.
So, here ya go. No screenshots to show off. I haven't actually done anything with the races in-game yet; it just bugged the hell out of me having invalid race options.
Given my tastes in companions, I'm far more likely to use the Ice Elves than the Chocolate ones; but who knows, one of you could find these super neato keen.
As always, I didn't create the resources or the plugins; take no credit for them, etc etc. I just crammed it into one archive to avoid having to trawl as many Japanese forums/databases.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
More Interesting Moonrunes
Glancing over that Japanese image database, I saw this.
Interestingly, a fair bit of the text in the screenshot is actually Russian; contrary to the post title here.
Regardless, I'll have to keep an eye out for a download of the animations to go with that AI package. NPCs actually cooking on a campfire would be pretty cool, thinks I.
Interestingly, a fair bit of the text in the screenshot is actually Russian; contrary to the post title here.
Regardless, I'll have to keep an eye out for a download of the animations to go with that AI package. NPCs actually cooking on a campfire would be pretty cool, thinks I.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
A Request
Okay, I wasn't going to bug you guys about this; but Herculine's speedy finding of some of that Guyver stuff in the last post made me think there might be good odds at least someone in the audience would know...
I got it into my head the other morning to create an Aeris/Aerith Gainsborough (Final Fantasy VII) companion for Oblivion. I thought I had seen one before, thought I had the hair mesh... but no.
I'm not sure if it was in a previous install, and I've since lost the files; or if I'm just off my fucking rocker again and never did have them.
I've searched the Nexus, and run a couple Google searches as well; with no results. Lots of tutorials on how to cosplay as her... no hair meshes for Oblivion. Found her staff over on PlanetElderScrolls... but that wasn't really something I was worried about...
Kind of odd, really - I have two Tifa Lockheart companions for CM, and I'm pretty sure there are others out there that I didn't bother to download. I've seen her outfits in Oblivion, FO3, and now FONV as well.
But no love for the flower girl?
Guess it's true what they say: most guys really are all about the tits.
Anyway.
I found a hair in my myriad race installs that looks sort of similar... but I was hoping for a specific model - I mean, we have hairs for Tifa, Cloud, and that bishie-emo nutbar Sephiroth... so why not Aeris, too?
So, if someone knows of the hair meshes' existence, and could point me in the correct direction in the form of a download/file/forum topic link for either standalone hair, or a complete companion, I'd be much grateful.
In fact, if the pointing-to is just the hair meshes, I'll be happy to share the completed companion once she's ready to go.
I'm not even going to bother asking about a mesh for her dress...
I got it into my head the other morning to create an Aeris/Aerith Gainsborough (Final Fantasy VII) companion for Oblivion. I thought I had seen one before, thought I had the hair mesh... but no.
I'm not sure if it was in a previous install, and I've since lost the files; or if I'm just off my fucking rocker again and never did have them.
I've searched the Nexus, and run a couple Google searches as well; with no results. Lots of tutorials on how to cosplay as her... no hair meshes for Oblivion. Found her staff over on PlanetElderScrolls... but that wasn't really something I was worried about...
Kind of odd, really - I have two Tifa Lockheart companions for CM, and I'm pretty sure there are others out there that I didn't bother to download. I've seen her outfits in Oblivion, FO3, and now FONV as well.
But no love for the flower girl?
Guess it's true what they say: most guys really are all about the tits.
Anyway.
I found a hair in my myriad race installs that looks sort of similar... but I was hoping for a specific model - I mean, we have hairs for Tifa, Cloud, and that bishie-emo nutbar Sephiroth... so why not Aeris, too?
So, if someone knows of the hair meshes' existence, and could point me in the correct direction in the form of a download/file/forum topic link for either standalone hair, or a complete companion, I'd be much grateful.
In fact, if the pointing-to is just the hair meshes, I'll be happy to share the completed companion once she's ready to go.
I'm not even going to bother asking about a mesh for her dress...
NosCo CM Plugins for Oblivion
I haven't made it any secret that I've been tampering with CM off and on over the last several months.
This has resulted in some plugins, that I have decided to share.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RYFKV2UI
(If Megaupload is a problem for you, let me know and I should be able to upload somewhere else)
These, as you might notice, are not on the Nexus. Call it a regular reader reward for the blog here.
There are three plugins, totaling less than seven kilobytes. No meshes or textures are required.
From the readme:
Nos' CM Partners Strip Order.esp adds a command near the bottom of the CM dialogue labeled simply enough "Strip for me." It does what you would expect. Useful for checking body mods, or... whatever. I'm not here to judge. Opening the companion's inventory and closing it again will cause them to re-equip their items as normal.
Nos' CM No Armor Wander & Offer Services Follow.esp modifies the CM system's Follow and Wander packages. With this active, companions will offer services (the buttons for merchant, repair, recharge, and training) even when following you; so that you can use your special companion's abilities at any time. The modification to the wander package sets it to use the "Armor Unequipped" and "Weapons unequipped" flags; so that they'll sandbox in normal clothing. Remember to put some normal clothing in their inventory, though.
Nos' CM Common Party Containers.esp was specially made at the request of my modding partner, Herculine. She wanted a companion container that would let you offload loot, but in a way that they wouldn't be able to equip it to mess up carefully coordinated outfits. I decided to put six, since Oblivion has that issue with too many items in one container causing engine bugs. You can find the new options on the "Party Items" menu, at the top. Fair warning, I have seen some instances of one of the containers "sticking" in the air in the dining room of Benirus Manor with the Better Benirus Manor mod active. I have no idea why this happens. It doesn't block movement; and is usually only noticable if you're looking for it, but it may bother some people. If I ever figure it out, a future revision will fix this - but since it isn't even an inconvenience; let alone game-breaking, it isn't high on the to-do list.
For the record, I add my handle to plugins not because of my severe pretentiousness (though that doesn't hurt) but because it makes it easier to keep track of them in the load order.
Comments/problems/whatever about the files should probably go in this post's comment section, but I couldn't add a link to the file's readme; what with the post not being made yet and all. Assuming this goes over acceptably, you'll probably be seeing some of my CM companions from over the years uploaded in a similar manner.
As well, this post is also going to be added to a new "Oblivion Files Uploaded" link list on the right side, for keeping track of everything in an easy-to-find locale.
This has resulted in some plugins, that I have decided to share.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RYFKV2UI
(If Megaupload is a problem for you, let me know and I should be able to upload somewhere else)
These, as you might notice, are not on the Nexus. Call it a regular reader reward for the blog here.
There are three plugins, totaling less than seven kilobytes. No meshes or textures are required.
From the readme:
Nos' CM Partners Strip Order.esp adds a command near the bottom of the CM dialogue labeled simply enough "Strip for me." It does what you would expect. Useful for checking body mods, or... whatever. I'm not here to judge. Opening the companion's inventory and closing it again will cause them to re-equip their items as normal.
Nos' CM No Armor Wander & Offer Services Follow.esp modifies the CM system's Follow and Wander packages. With this active, companions will offer services (the buttons for merchant, repair, recharge, and training) even when following you; so that you can use your special companion's abilities at any time. The modification to the wander package sets it to use the "Armor Unequipped" and "Weapons unequipped" flags; so that they'll sandbox in normal clothing. Remember to put some normal clothing in their inventory, though.
Nos' CM Common Party Containers.esp was specially made at the request of my modding partner, Herculine. She wanted a companion container that would let you offload loot, but in a way that they wouldn't be able to equip it to mess up carefully coordinated outfits. I decided to put six, since Oblivion has that issue with too many items in one container causing engine bugs. You can find the new options on the "Party Items" menu, at the top. Fair warning, I have seen some instances of one of the containers "sticking" in the air in the dining room of Benirus Manor with the Better Benirus Manor mod active. I have no idea why this happens. It doesn't block movement; and is usually only noticable if you're looking for it, but it may bother some people. If I ever figure it out, a future revision will fix this - but since it isn't even an inconvenience; let alone game-breaking, it isn't high on the to-do list.
For the record, I add my handle to plugins not because of my severe pretentiousness (though that doesn't hurt) but because it makes it easier to keep track of them in the load order.
Comments/problems/whatever about the files should probably go in this post's comment section, but I couldn't add a link to the file's readme; what with the post not being made yet and all. Assuming this goes over acceptably, you'll probably be seeing some of my CM companions from over the years uploaded in a similar manner.
As well, this post is also going to be added to a new "Oblivion Files Uploaded" link list on the right side, for keeping track of everything in an easy-to-find locale.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Weekend Oblivion Mods
Well, I had planned to type out a big piece on "big mods"; discussing a couple of the "big ideas" I've had, that others have had, and why they invariably almost never come to fruition - whether mine or other.
But... Friday sucked. Today sucked more. I'm wiped, and just not feelin' it.
So, instead, I hope to placate the rabid masses with an offering of some more obscure Japanese mods.
I know we all love companions, 'round these parts. CM is the standard, but what bout taking other characters as companions? Well, there's CSR, but it has some issues.
I ran across a new mod that's (supposedly) considerably better. It's called Mad Companionship Spells or simply MCS. Despite the page being in moonrunes, the mod itself is supposed to be in English.
If you take a look at the screenshot, it also appears to keep track of recruited NPC locations.
On that note, I may have to dig into the scripting to see how they did that. Would make for a great addition to NCCS - even if NVSE was required (which it almost certainly would be).
Now, I use qualifiers like "seems to" and "supposed to be" because I haven't tested the mod, yet. It's downloaded, and installed; but I haven't fired it up just yet.
I do have some small modicum of trust in the source, though; so I don't foresee many problems. Interestingly, one of the forum-goers reports that MCS is so good it's completely replaced CSR in his install. Apparently there are fewer problems with ex-Bandits getting into fights with the guards, and NPCs in general wandering away when left in their new homes.
There's also the MCS Extension. Machine translations are dodgy at best, but the extension appears to... add new functionality. (ZOMG AN EXTENSION THAT EXTENDS? WHAT NEXT?!)
Specifically, it seems to add things like better inventory management - I see one function here that's supposed to get your new companions to equip tail-slot items; long the bane of we CM players. There is also a sort of 'sleep now' order; something here about telling them whether to wear clothes or armor, some stuff about managing factions to prevent companions from attacking you or each other... and something about an escape portal from "Oburibiongeto" (Oblivion?).
Hell, I dunno. I'll edit the post and report more when I've played it. I would suggest some caution while figuring out what's what, but the system on the whole appears to have quite a bit of potential.
Edit: As promised, I fired the game up and actually had a lookie-see at MCS.
Interestingly, as the name implies, it is not the traditional dialogue-based companion system most of us are used to. MCS is spell based (hence the word 'Spells' in the title, I suppose...).
Rather than speak to a potential or current companion to issue orders, you hit them with the spell:
Now, one of the things that sets MCS apart from other mods, are the other spells:
You get to clear bounties for one, but if you look below it; there's also MCS Repair/Recharge. Hit someone with that spell, and it repairs and recharges all their equipment. Handy.
Not only is this less trouble than CM's dialogue option, but it works on any NPC regardless of their companion system framework - or more to the point lack thereof.
I still haven't gotten to play with it heavily - or use the extension at all - but so far it seems a straightforward and user-friendly universal companion system. I doubt it will wholly replace CM in my game, but it's nonetheless pretty cool.
(and of course, you can also see my hot-as-fucking-hell redhead-wolfgirl character. MBP, how did I live without you...?)
Edit the second:
Done some more playing with MCS, and I'm rather impressed. The MCS extension includes the outfit selector that I mentioned before. What I didn't realize, was that when the setting says "auto", it means it - when weapons are sheathed, the companion dressed in clothing; but when weapons drawn and they go into alert status, they switch to armor automatically. Less than amazingly realistic, the insta-change... but it's nonetheless much better than other systems I've seen.
But... Friday sucked. Today sucked more. I'm wiped, and just not feelin' it.
So, instead, I hope to placate the rabid masses with an offering of some more obscure Japanese mods.
I know we all love companions, 'round these parts. CM is the standard, but what bout taking other characters as companions? Well, there's CSR, but it has some issues.
I ran across a new mod that's (supposedly) considerably better. It's called Mad Companionship Spells or simply MCS. Despite the page being in moonrunes, the mod itself is supposed to be in English.
If you take a look at the screenshot, it also appears to keep track of recruited NPC locations.
On that note, I may have to dig into the scripting to see how they did that. Would make for a great addition to NCCS - even if NVSE was required (which it almost certainly would be).
Now, I use qualifiers like "seems to" and "supposed to be" because I haven't tested the mod, yet. It's downloaded, and installed; but I haven't fired it up just yet.
I do have some small modicum of trust in the source, though; so I don't foresee many problems. Interestingly, one of the forum-goers reports that MCS is so good it's completely replaced CSR in his install. Apparently there are fewer problems with ex-Bandits getting into fights with the guards, and NPCs in general wandering away when left in their new homes.
There's also the MCS Extension. Machine translations are dodgy at best, but the extension appears to... add new functionality. (ZOMG AN EXTENSION THAT EXTENDS? WHAT NEXT?!)
Specifically, it seems to add things like better inventory management - I see one function here that's supposed to get your new companions to equip tail-slot items; long the bane of we CM players. There is also a sort of 'sleep now' order; something here about telling them whether to wear clothes or armor, some stuff about managing factions to prevent companions from attacking you or each other... and something about an escape portal from "Oburibiongeto" (Oblivion?).
Hell, I dunno. I'll edit the post and report more when I've played it. I would suggest some caution while figuring out what's what, but the system on the whole appears to have quite a bit of potential.
Edit: As promised, I fired the game up and actually had a lookie-see at MCS.
Interestingly, as the name implies, it is not the traditional dialogue-based companion system most of us are used to. MCS is spell based (hence the word 'Spells' in the title, I suppose...).
Rather than speak to a potential or current companion to issue orders, you hit them with the spell:
Now, one of the things that sets MCS apart from other mods, are the other spells:
You get to clear bounties for one, but if you look below it; there's also MCS Repair/Recharge. Hit someone with that spell, and it repairs and recharges all their equipment. Handy.
Not only is this less trouble than CM's dialogue option, but it works on any NPC regardless of their companion system framework - or more to the point lack thereof.
I still haven't gotten to play with it heavily - or use the extension at all - but so far it seems a straightforward and user-friendly universal companion system. I doubt it will wholly replace CM in my game, but it's nonetheless pretty cool.
(and of course, you can also see my hot-as-fucking-hell redhead-wolfgirl character. MBP, how did I live without you...?)
Edit the second:
Done some more playing with MCS, and I'm rather impressed. The MCS extension includes the outfit selector that I mentioned before. What I didn't realize, was that when the setting says "auto", it means it - when weapons are sheathed, the companion dressed in clothing; but when weapons drawn and they go into alert status, they switch to armor automatically. Less than amazingly realistic, the insta-change... but it's nonetheless much better than other systems I've seen.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Ouch.
So, I mentioned my new Oblivion game, to get some race mods... and some *ahem* other mods fully working.
I've been hitting the ruins surrounding the Imperial City, picking up loots to sell, for pretties from the Goddess store, and houses.
We worked our way around the west shore this evening. I was just going through everywhere as I came across it. Strip everything that isn't nailed down; and if it is nailed down? Here's a crowbar.
Eventually, we happened across Vindasel.
It's been so long since I did Clavicus Vile's quest that I had completely forgotten the significance of the place.
Turns out Umbra is in there from the game start; and we blundered right into her.
At level four.
Amazingly, I survived. It was dumbest luck that I had a few healing potions and a flame-enchanted sword found in previous ruins. I pretended to be a Spartan; hid behind my shield and held Umbra's attention while dealing what damage I could. Survived - barely. Thankfully, I had not just Branwen, but all four of my CW-Neko race companions along as well.
That ebony armor of hers should fetch enough to put us over the top for acquiring Benirus Manor, at least.
Oh man, do I miss carrying automatic weapons and explosives. Going to be sore, tomorrow.
I've been hitting the ruins surrounding the Imperial City, picking up loots to sell, for pretties from the Goddess store, and houses.
We worked our way around the west shore this evening. I was just going through everywhere as I came across it. Strip everything that isn't nailed down; and if it is nailed down? Here's a crowbar.
Eventually, we happened across Vindasel.
It's been so long since I did Clavicus Vile's quest that I had completely forgotten the significance of the place.
Turns out Umbra is in there from the game start; and we blundered right into her.
At level four.
Amazingly, I survived. It was dumbest luck that I had a few healing potions and a flame-enchanted sword found in previous ruins. I pretended to be a Spartan; hid behind my shield and held Umbra's attention while dealing what damage I could. Survived - barely. Thankfully, I had not just Branwen, but all four of my CW-Neko race companions along as well.
That ebony armor of hers should fetch enough to put us over the top for acquiring Benirus Manor, at least.
Oh man, do I miss carrying automatic weapons and explosives. Going to be sore, tomorrow.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Cosmetic Overhaul for Oblivion
So, I mentioned the other day installing some race mods; specifically, Modular Beautiful People, MPB++, and XEOSP.
I showed off a screenshot of my Aribeth companion as an example of what the mods did to the High Elf race.
This morning, I happened to get in some more play, and started taking note of what it had done to default game characters. Took a few screenshots; thought folks on the fence might be interested to see just the sort of caliber these mods are.
Now, obviously those are a small fraction of the changed NPCs in the game; but it should give you an idea of the skill of the mod-makers.
As I said, these definitely won't be for everyone - as they're more than a tish anime-inspired. Then again, considering the comment-conversation that broke out a few posts down from this one, I'd say many of us are hiding more than a bit of powerlevel, and probably wouldn't consider the inspiration to be a bad thing.
Even if it isn't your bag, tell me that isn't an improvement and a half? I mean, Goddamn; they actually look good. Not "well, I guess this doesn't suck as bad anymore..." that you get from most beauty mods, but actual good.
Now, if you are planning to make this here drastic change to your Oblivion install, do yourself a favor, and go ahead and edit your Oblivion.ini file. bFaceGenTexturing= needs to be 0, where it is 1 by default. This is important; otherwise you get the splotchy, crappy face textures. The number one complaint of people who try to run these mods is that they don't come out looking right because the downloader didn't pay attention when told to make that ini mod. It helps that much, yes.
I showed off a screenshot of my Aribeth companion as an example of what the mods did to the High Elf race.
This morning, I happened to get in some more play, and started taking note of what it had done to default game characters. Took a few screenshots; thought folks on the fence might be interested to see just the sort of caliber these mods are.
Now, obviously those are a small fraction of the changed NPCs in the game; but it should give you an idea of the skill of the mod-makers.
As I said, these definitely won't be for everyone - as they're more than a tish anime-inspired. Then again, considering the comment-conversation that broke out a few posts down from this one, I'd say many of us are hiding more than a bit of powerlevel, and probably wouldn't consider the inspiration to be a bad thing.
Even if it isn't your bag, tell me that isn't an improvement and a half? I mean, Goddamn; they actually look good. Not "well, I guess this doesn't suck as bad anymore..." that you get from most beauty mods, but actual good.
Now, if you are planning to make this here drastic change to your Oblivion install, do yourself a favor, and go ahead and edit your Oblivion.ini file. bFaceGenTexturing= needs to be 0, where it is 1 by default. This is important; otherwise you get the splotchy, crappy face textures. The number one complaint of people who try to run these mods is that they don't come out looking right because the downloader didn't pay attention when told to make that ini mod. It helps that much, yes.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Race Mods for Oblivion
Feeling the need to decompress a bit today, I tinkered with Oblivion.
I've mentioned in asides in the past working with Lovers with PK, an Oblivion mod of a... oh, let's call it "more adult" nature. I haven't been intentionally holding out on you guys in this regard, it's just that it's been something like four months now, and I'm just now getting it all in line. It's truly massive mod, comprised of dozens of optional plugins.
I'm not posting about that, though, since I still haven't gotten it all figured out myself, just yet.
What I'm posting abut, is my messing with those mods has led to several others that are apparently popular. Namely:
Modular Beautiful People, MPB++, and XEOSP.
The MBP files are new races; but can also modify vanilla races if you use that plugin. For those interested in trying it, MBP 1.4 gets installed first, with the ++ version overwriting. Be careful, these install a lot of stuff; and the omod for the main part is in Japanese, so you may want to make a backup of your data directory, in case you don't like something it does.
What really got me, was what the package did to the vanilla elves.
I'm sure many of you remember my version of Aribeth, from Neverwinter Nights:
Well, here's how she looks now:
I didn't touch the plugin; that's just MBP's race edits to the new meshes and textures. Cute, yes; but looks nothing like the original character anymore.
It did similar to all the other high elves. Don't know that I've encountered a wood elf or dark elf yet in the new game, but I expect them to be similar.
Race edits aside, the two MBP mods are very nice if you're interested in non-standard characters. There are dozens of new races including: "Tolkien" elves, Mystic Elves, Blood Witches, several forms of Tabaxi, Ainmhi, various "lop-eared" elves in standard and toy groups; amongst many others. I will forewarn that many don't work right "from the box" - apparently the authors don't feel the need to include all the resources in the packages to actually make the races in the master display correctly. I'm still tracking several of them down, and will most likely update with more links when I find them.
XEOSP is an NPC beauty overhaul. It's different. This is one of those "anime inspired" mods. It's not for everyone, but I like it. I actually run this one alongside Colourwheel's Oblivion Overhaul, which I have loudly praised before. I run XEOSP lower in the load order, so that it takes precedence. XEO does some neat stuff, but it does not affect guards; which Miss Colourwheel helpfully converts to virtually all females in skimpy, midriff-revealing armor.
Now, when I say "anime inspired" I mean it. I was walking through the IC Market, and noticed that beggar (Simplicia the slow, I think?) now had bright blue hair. Don't get me wrong, it was not unattractive a look... but if you're one of those annoying "immersion" players? Skip this one. You'll hate it.
These three mods actually took a bit of time for me to get running. Being the obstinate ass that I am, I refuse to create a "bash patch"; believing instead that most all such issues can be solved by careful load order finagling - and those that can't are probably heavy enough conflicts that you need to just remove one of the mods and be done with it.
It's interesting and a bit sad. On the one hand, CW's overhaul, MBP, XEO, and Apachii's Goddess Store has pretty heavily transformed my game world. It doesn't even look like the same set of NPCs anymore. On t'other hand, it's pretty sad that I've been playing this game since September 2006 and I'm just now getting into installing this stuff.
I've mentioned in asides in the past working with Lovers with PK, an Oblivion mod of a... oh, let's call it "more adult" nature. I haven't been intentionally holding out on you guys in this regard, it's just that it's been something like four months now, and I'm just now getting it all in line. It's truly massive mod, comprised of dozens of optional plugins.
I'm not posting about that, though, since I still haven't gotten it all figured out myself, just yet.
What I'm posting abut, is my messing with those mods has led to several others that are apparently popular. Namely:
Modular Beautiful People, MPB++, and XEOSP.
The MBP files are new races; but can also modify vanilla races if you use that plugin. For those interested in trying it, MBP 1.4 gets installed first, with the ++ version overwriting. Be careful, these install a lot of stuff; and the omod for the main part is in Japanese, so you may want to make a backup of your data directory, in case you don't like something it does.
What really got me, was what the package did to the vanilla elves.
I'm sure many of you remember my version of Aribeth, from Neverwinter Nights:
Well, here's how she looks now:
I didn't touch the plugin; that's just MBP's race edits to the new meshes and textures. Cute, yes; but looks nothing like the original character anymore.
It did similar to all the other high elves. Don't know that I've encountered a wood elf or dark elf yet in the new game, but I expect them to be similar.
Race edits aside, the two MBP mods are very nice if you're interested in non-standard characters. There are dozens of new races including: "Tolkien" elves, Mystic Elves, Blood Witches, several forms of Tabaxi, Ainmhi, various "lop-eared" elves in standard and toy groups; amongst many others. I will forewarn that many don't work right "from the box" - apparently the authors don't feel the need to include all the resources in the packages to actually make the races in the master display correctly. I'm still tracking several of them down, and will most likely update with more links when I find them.
XEOSP is an NPC beauty overhaul. It's different. This is one of those "anime inspired" mods. It's not for everyone, but I like it. I actually run this one alongside Colourwheel's Oblivion Overhaul, which I have loudly praised before. I run XEOSP lower in the load order, so that it takes precedence. XEO does some neat stuff, but it does not affect guards; which Miss Colourwheel helpfully converts to virtually all females in skimpy, midriff-revealing armor.
Now, when I say "anime inspired" I mean it. I was walking through the IC Market, and noticed that beggar (Simplicia the slow, I think?) now had bright blue hair. Don't get me wrong, it was not unattractive a look... but if you're one of those annoying "immersion" players? Skip this one. You'll hate it.
These three mods actually took a bit of time for me to get running. Being the obstinate ass that I am, I refuse to create a "bash patch"; believing instead that most all such issues can be solved by careful load order finagling - and those that can't are probably heavy enough conflicts that you need to just remove one of the mods and be done with it.
It's interesting and a bit sad. On the one hand, CW's overhaul, MBP, XEO, and Apachii's Goddess Store has pretty heavily transformed my game world. It doesn't even look like the same set of NPCs anymore. On t'other hand, it's pretty sad that I've been playing this game since September 2006 and I'm just now getting into installing this stuff.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Note to self:
You should not attempt to use the rigged wig meshes from Apachii's Goddess Store as normal character hair. This is important to remember for future endeavors. The results are not pretty.
I wonder if it's just missing the egm files; or it's in the rigging, itself...?
I wonder if it's just missing the egm files; or it's in the rigging, itself...?
Tantrivaylia - A Review
This review is about Tantrivaylia, a player home/quest mod for Oblivion.
I don't normally do full mod reviews. I may mention one that I like; that I think my readers here might like - or I'll mention one that I didn't like; that I removed for some reason or another.
I'm not prone to going in-depth, because my tastes are different from others', and I'm not normally one to simply denigrate a mod on the grounds that it didn't mesh with me.
Still, as a modder myself, Tantrivaylia is something I can not pass up commenting on; and I want to qualify my comments to show you where I'm coming from, and why I'm going to end up saying what I am.
This mod is a wonderful learning example for us modders, because it does some things very right, and some things very, very wrong.
We'll start at the start: installation. Installing the mod is straightforward and simple; with few possibilities of file overwrites. Documentation at first glance is acceptable, if not exhaustive. There are two readmes included with the download, one "normal", one intended to be read only after completing the quest. The one for after the quest doesn't contain any spoilers or useful information, so I'm not sure of the purpose behind it.
On loading a game with the mod active, you'll receive a new quest objective, detailing the rumors you've heard about a town in need of a hero, or something. Enjoy it; this is the high point of the quest.
Here we run into my biggest problem with the mod. The author is one of those... annoying people who hates quest markers. I should probably count myself lucky the mod doesn't have the added "benefit" of removing fast travel, since he's so interested in "immersion".
The quest journal notes the lake the town is on the south shore of. Do you know the names of all the bodies of water in the game? I don't. Fortunately, I hadn't explored heavily in this game yet, and so my map was fairly sparse on markers. It didn't take long to find the town's added marker (not fast travel enabled; so if you haven't been in the area before, have fun on your cross-game-world hike).
I reached the town, to realize again that there was no quest marker. Who in the hell was I supposed to talk to?
I picked the first guy I saw, and got a story about some kidnapped people, monsters in the forest, would I help, yadda yadda. Standard fantasy quest schtick. If you've ever played a D&D quest, you'll know the outline already. He mentions that you should talk to the other residents to get more information; but no one else really has anything useful. Your quest notes will not be updated with any information beyond the first bit.
You're told that there's a weird guy spying on the town, and you should go look for him. He was last seen... heading towards Cheydinhal. Thanks, that narrows it down to the entire northeastern quarter of the blasted country.
Again, without quest markers; I have no idea if I'm supposed to intercept him on the road, if he'll be waylaid at some camp somewhere, or if he made it to town.
Having played many poorly laid-out quests in my day, I took a gamble, and made straight for town. Great; we're in town... quest journal doesn't update. Which building is he in? Is he even really here? Again, I gamble: and take the nearest inn to the eastern gate. Not there, but the innkeeper knows who I'm looking for - apparently he isn't in town at all. Find him out near where he was sighted; talk a little bit, combat ensues - creepy guy gets his ass zapped by Branwen. Turns out attacking a party of four when you're unarmed isn't bright. Who knew?
Note on the corpse from "the master"; who mentions that he will absolutely not reveal the location of the castle. Fuck you, too.
Creepy guy is for some reason carrying this amulet:
Which has nothing to do with his character, or class; or the story. It's just a fat buff with an over the top shield for its own sake, apparently.
Return to beleaguered town, report results; find out that in my absence, there has been an attack. Shock on my part, I assure you. Another girl kidnapped, town protector hurt bad, "they went to the north".
Well thanks for narrowing that down, Skippy.
There's also a mention that there's nothing to the north except the mountains. I want to note that this is patently untrue. Malada is due north of the town; and there are numerous other ruins, caves, and so forth clustered in the area. "Not pertinent to my story" does not equal "nothing".
So, we strike out north. Across the lake, we're attacked by random (but obviously mod-added) enemies. These must be the mysterious warriors I heard about.
They wipe the floor with my companions. Being the sneaky and quick thinking so-and-so I am, I exploit the AI's limitations and jump onto a rock; where I can rain death onto the enemies with impunity. Well, impunity until they start slinging lightning bolts every two seconds. Warriors with high destruction skill. Nice. My silver bow isn't working; so I swap out for something I picked up for special occasions in my favorite store - a Goddess Black bow that does 20pts shock per hit. To top it off, I add some health draining poison. They still take a half dozen arrows a piece, and end up nearly completely draining the enchantment on my bow. I barely survive the lightning storm, but eventually prevail.
Climbing down, I wonder at their toughness, and open the console. A quick click and GetLevel command returns a value of 35. It's going to be one of those days...
From there, I used some profanity, and decided to skip the other parties that were doubtless laying in wait on the straight-line path north from the town I had been on. Instead, I swing wide to the east; around Malada, and come into the mountains off the beaten path. In this manner, I saw no other bands of uber-warriors.
Eventually, I spy a city map-marker on my HUD. Moving closer, it turns out to be a castle. Coming in from the side, I apparently not only subverted the fighting I was supposed to do on the way; but missed the trigger to have the person in front of the castle talk to me. She eventually did; giving me the standard fantasy spiel again. You must be a great warrior to have survived the trip here! (No, Lady; I'm just smarter than a box of rocks and know how to avoid ambush sites...) You must help us! Lord EvilGuy #666 is making us do horrible things and we can't stop him because of our stupid and pointless yet non-binding traditions!
I of course agree to go inside to the safe room and hear her out. Long-lost sub-species of elf; last of their kind; live forever because a Goddess granted them eternal youth as long as they constantly have random sex with each other...
...Wait, what? No... I did read that correctly. Okay, I'm pretty sure I've seen this hentai before...
LordEvilGuy! is a vampire, who took control of the clan and is using their ZOMGSEXMAGIC to gain immortality and ultimate power. (Aren't vampires already immortal?) Okay, now I know I've seen this hentai before! If you remove the vampire aspect, I'm pretty sure this was the plot of Bible Black. Except, you know, they were in a high school and not a magical fantasy land. Then again, for schoolgirl outfits and stockings, I think it's a worthwhile trade in venue...
...Sorry, where was I? Oh, right.
Again, more of the standard spiel. The eeeeeeeeeeevilvampireguy is currently sleeping, but will awaken soon, and I am the only one who can kill him by attacking before he has a chance to feed... et cetera et cetera. Again: play pretty much any D&D module and you'll have read it all before.
Rescue the captives so he can't feed on them, then attack and destroy him while he's "weak". Got it.
Directions to half the castle ensue. This is another problem with the lack of quest markers. Our author did not see fit to append the directions to the quest journal; so if you don't take notes or have a good memory, you get to wander aimlessly looking for the correct part of the large castle. And if you do take notes, take them fast. You have eight seconds worth of silent sound file before the wall 'o text vanishes. This probably isn't a big deal if you have the time to play the quest straight through in one sitting; but if you have to save the game mid-quest and come back later... well, good luck.
Rescue captives. Last one is locked in a sex-chamber with a vampire; running around like a chicken with its head cut off - presumably to avoid being bitten. Kill vampiress... captive keeps on running. This makes it very hard to successfully engage him in conversation to get the little retard to follow you out. I was tempted to simply shoot him. It's hard to run with an arrow in your femur... but I didn't figure the quest would take kindly to me not rescuing everyone.
Return captives to head-sex-elf, who says she's going to hide them somewhere until the fight is over. I guess it would be too much to get to use one as a human shield in the boss fight, huh?
What? When have I ever claimed to be anything but evil?
Another wall 'o text ensues; this time regarding the final battle, where and when and I need to hurry and more directions that aren't committed to my damned journal...
This time I'm ready for it, and am actually paying attention to the wheres. It's still convoluted, as the boss battle takes place three floors up, and across the castle. Couple this with the fact that companions fail to follow through the cell-change doors correctly (more on this later), and I had to backtrack about six times to recollect everyone who had gotten stuck or lost on the way across.
We reach the ambush site, and LORDEVILGUYHAHAI'MSOBAD! is already waiting there for me. Some talky-talky and pointless bravado; and the fight ensues.
It seems LORDEVILGUY! has some goodies added to him. One of them is a staff that knocks down and paralyzes everyone in a twenty foot radius. And he uses it, over and over, until it's completely out of charges. No damage; just endless knocking you all down. Interrupting attacks, stopping spells in mid-cast... Urgh.
Once he runs out of charges for his stick of annoyance, the girls have had enough and decide to cram that thing so far up where the sun don't shine that our vampire friend will be tasting Minwax. We whip his undead ass from one end of the floor to the other.
...He doesn't die. Somehow, he has infinite health, infinite mana, and an unending supply of master-level summons and shock spells. Tesla would be proud. Since he's throwing these things all at me, and every five odd seconds, sheer weight of numbers eventually gets me; as I fail to dodge one too many of his endless spells.
I die.
So, fine; I reload, and try again - this time I pull out all the stops. We gon' get medieval on his ass. I summon in a full party of six companions, make sure everyone has weapons that bypass immunity; break out my Goddess bow - and have Branwen recharge it, the rest of my cold arrows, a case of health-draining poison, and pull on my bladeturn hood.
The fight begins anew; with much the same opening results. Again with the staff of pissing me the hell off +5. Once he runs out of paralyze charges, the companions get serious. Four of them back him into a corner in the stairwell and proceed to beat, cut, and zap the holy living shit out of him for five straight minutes. I add my magic bow and poison to the deluge.
He. Never. Dies. EVER. Five solid minutes of pinned-in, pure abuse; and his health will never drop below 10%. Still, he slings infinite shock spells - at the end, it was to the point that we were killing his constant summons as an aside; not even breaking stride.
Eventually, I get sick of the shit. He can't beat us, can't escape, can't even knock any of my companions unconscious anymore. He just won't die for some reason. I use a kill command in the console. That took the wind out of his sails. Cheat at me, bitch, and I cheat right back.
I save; close the game, and pop open the Construction Set. This I have to see. Why would six sets of immunity-bypassing weapons backed up by spells not kill him? Why did he keep auto-healing?
In the CS, I found the why. LORDEVILGUYZOMGI'MBADUKNO is a cheat boss. Of the LOLUCANTKILLMYGUY variety.
Now, the first thing I notice is 666 base health and magicka. Fuck me; this tired gag again?
Okay, LORDEVILGUY! is bad, we get it. The 666 health and magicka are actually the base values, if you look. This means they're further adjusted by the endurance and intelligence scores. You can see in that shot, that his adjusted magicka is over eight hundred. Really, if you're going this far over the top; you may as well run it up past 9000 and make the Dragonball joke. It wouldn't be any more lame.
Looking over other areas, we also see that "The Master" is non-scaling, level fifty.
Really? Why wasn't there a mention of this being a high level quest in the documentation? I skim the comments section, and see that the author says he does mention it. I read the readme closer. There it is. A mention that it's for high level characters, and that his level thirty-five character with cheat equipment had trouble killing the boss. Where is the information? Near the end, between the changelog and credits. Who the hell puts a warning about character levels between the changelog and the credits? No sane person puts important information at the bottom; nestled snugly between the two least-often read subjects in readme history.
Back to LORDEVILGUY, though.
You can see here LORDEVILGUY!'s spam spell, good for 110pts per hit.
Here's the total spell list. Charm spell... for some reason... spam lightning, spam summon; full vampirism; and a set of custom abilities specifically for THEMASTER!
Oh, yeah. Double-speed, constant fire shield, resistance to magic; and health and magicka that regenerate eleven and seven points every frame. Totally not cheating at all.
I take a look at LORDEVILGUY!'s equipment.
Oh, look; his robe gives five more points of health regen every frame. That brings him up to sixteen. No wonder he wouldn't die...
Then of course there's the ring...
The other ring...
The amulet...
And his staff-of-pisses-Nos-the-hell-off-+5.
Seriously. This? This is one of the greatest examples I have ever seen of how not to set up a boss. There is challenging, and then there's LOLITROLLU! Guess which this is. This is a case of the author wanking over how great his characters are, and nothing more.
When I first got a mod by the name of Enchantment Mastery - which lets you enchant one item multiple times - I made a sword that had three or four grand-level damage enchantments on it at once; totaling like sixty points, on top of the normal damage. If you had a weapon like that, I think you could take the guy out; especially if combined with an engine exploit of using 100% chameleon on armor to get sneak bonuses on every attack. But... base game items, and normal play tactics? No way in hell.
So, ZOMGTEHEBIL! killed, I return to the head-pointed-eared-slut. Seems that by killing LORDEVILGUY! I am the new head of the clan. Seems LORDEVILGUY! became leader by killing previous leader, as well. Really, they need to get a new selection process. May I suggest pulling names from a hat? Roshambo tourney? Hey, I know! Sex contest. Anyone who can outlast the entire clan gets to be in charge. Problem solved. Or just hang up a sign that says "No Vampires, no necromancers" out front.
Amongst lots and lots of talkie-talkie and exposition, there is the information that I may now take any of the clan members I like as companions; they have merchants and trainers; and there's some talk about teaching me the live-forever-sex-magic stuff.
I want to note here, that while the quest itself is Godawfully cliche and boring; the dialogue is quite well written. I noticed no spelling errors, no missing punctuation; and the back story is very well fleshed out - the author even came up with a justification for stealing the term "Tantric" for the sex magic.
There's also a book in the castle library that even goes so far as to explain the theories behind it, and notes specific positions and techniques. If I hadn't flipped through a kama sutra years ago, I might have thought it was an original work.
From the build-up in the documentation, comments, and in-game text, I was expecting the elves around the castle to be really cool.
I was mistaken.
The talk about adult content refers only to dialogue; and that you can ask the elves to strip. There are no animations included, and no actual sex options that I could find in either the game, or by looking through the dialogue in the CS.
As companions, the elves suck. You cannot access their inventory; so they can't get better equipment, can't get repairs, can't get a staff recharged, and so on. They just follow you. If you want, they can ride a horse - but being as I don't use horses in Oblivion, this option was pretty pointless to me.
As for their around-the-castle lives; again, I didn't see the sort of things that people went on about. The elves bathe in the basement at night, and hang out in the ballroom/bar getting plastered and dancing. They strip naked when they go to bed. No naughtiness anywhere that I saw. I never found any options to do any "learning" of the magic, and though head-slut alluded to the player being able to take her as a permanent, live-in lover, I never saw the option come up.
There are references to the elves "learning" new skills as they travel with you; so perhaps this is something that only comes up after a certain amount of time.
As well, I bummed around the castle for two game days; and no matter what time of the day or night I caught the elves, no one was ever willing to sell anything or train me. Even when the blacksmith was behind his counter, he wouldn't open a merchant screen.
Now, I've talked a lot thus far about bad things in this mod, and there are a lot.
I want to mention the good thing, and what makes it worth putting up with the asinine quest and useless elves.
The castle itself, is GORGEOUS.
It is huge. There are tons of alchemical components to pick, dozens of storage containers, respawning food stocks, a small private bath for you; as well as the larger pool-type tub that the clan uses. There is a ballroom and bar, a library, stables. All the elves have their own bedrooms. The head elf has an office. There's a throne for you to sit on.
The curtain wall has a path that leads clear around the castle.
And of course... there's the view from the terrace outside the player's bedroom:
As it a player home, it is outstanding; and has all the storage, display, and bumming-around amenities you could ever want. The alchemy lab is well stocked; there are spell-making and enchanting altars; and you can open and close the portcullis at will. The elves do have a daily schedule, and even if it isn't as perverse as their being a sex cult would suggest... it does lend a sense of life to the place. Guards guard; one patrols the road near the castle on horseback; the head-elf works in her office; the smith works at his forge; the librarian tends the books; the alchemist experiments.
The castle is well removed from the cities, and in a location that lore-obsessed players should find little fault with.
It is a bit of a cheat, in spots. The altars, for example. Beyond that, in the library you'll find a stock of varla and welkyd stones for free. The alchemy lab has a free set of master-grade apparatuses. The lab also has containers similar to the one for the head of the mages guild - that duplicates components. The smith has a stock of elven weapons that are free to take. Once the quest is completed, there is little to interfere with you simply hanging out, collecting the infinitely restocked items, and selling them for massive profits. The castle is self-supporting and requires no actual work or input of gold on your part.
Now, we've got the views. The storage. The feeling of being in an inhabited castle.
I'm still probably not going to keep it in my game. Why?
For all its beautiful design, careful placement in the world, and small army of potentially naked wemmenz roaming about; the castle has one major flaw.
It is not companion friendly.
First and foremost are the doors I mentioned before. The stairwells in the castle are transplants; inlaid sections of ruin:
Now, this would be okay - and indeed, I applaud the author for making such a solution work - except that in several places, they're too tight:
They're so tight near some of the doors, that the pathgrid doesn't function correctly; and companions won't follow you through the doors unless you position them perfectly beforehand. Even if you do, if you have four or more in tow; at least one will always get left, or stuck.
In addition, the teleport-markers on the doors are too close. Since followers spawn into the new room behind you, this setup tends to deposit them behind the door; where they can't get to you. The only way to even tell they're there half the time is to use a console command to switch to wireframe view. Because they're behind the door/wall, a TCL command won't help; since you can't click on them through the wall. The only fix is to either go back and forth through the door until you roll correctly and they don't get stuck, or to TCL yourself through the wall; toggle their clipping, and then come back out. It is a massive pain.
On top of that, for all the space; there's virtually none for followers of your own. There are two "guest" bedrooms, and the bed in the master bedroom will sleep two. If you want somewhere to sleep, that's three you can leave there, max. There are also precious few idle markers in the castle. CMs that I left there ended up doing nothing but wandering, and weapon training.
On the whole, if you're a player who likes "epic" quests to defeat "evil"; downloads every overpowered god weapon you can find on the Nexus; and don't keep companions, you'll love this mod.
For players like me, though... it was a colossal waste of my time and energy. Three stars out of five. It obviously had a lot of work put into it, but the story is just too cliched; the characters thin and not compelling, and the "adult" options aren't - if I have to use outside mods like Lovers to get the stuff in there, then why go to the trouble of getting the castle, instead of just filling up another place with companions? The followers aren't upgradable at all, the merchants don't appear to work, and it's not even suitable as a CM base of operations. I'm willing to give an extra point to the mod just because of the author's attention to spelling and punctuation. That's fairly rare these days. Without that, it'd be a two. Lastly, either give us the option for quest markers, or take the time to note at least the bullet points of where we need to go in the quest journal - not everyone gets to play a mod straight-though, and I hate when games make me take paper notes.
I don't normally do full mod reviews. I may mention one that I like; that I think my readers here might like - or I'll mention one that I didn't like; that I removed for some reason or another.
I'm not prone to going in-depth, because my tastes are different from others', and I'm not normally one to simply denigrate a mod on the grounds that it didn't mesh with me.
Still, as a modder myself, Tantrivaylia is something I can not pass up commenting on; and I want to qualify my comments to show you where I'm coming from, and why I'm going to end up saying what I am.
This mod is a wonderful learning example for us modders, because it does some things very right, and some things very, very wrong.
We'll start at the start: installation. Installing the mod is straightforward and simple; with few possibilities of file overwrites. Documentation at first glance is acceptable, if not exhaustive. There are two readmes included with the download, one "normal", one intended to be read only after completing the quest. The one for after the quest doesn't contain any spoilers or useful information, so I'm not sure of the purpose behind it.
On loading a game with the mod active, you'll receive a new quest objective, detailing the rumors you've heard about a town in need of a hero, or something. Enjoy it; this is the high point of the quest.
Here we run into my biggest problem with the mod. The author is one of those... annoying people who hates quest markers. I should probably count myself lucky the mod doesn't have the added "benefit" of removing fast travel, since he's so interested in "immersion".
The quest journal notes the lake the town is on the south shore of. Do you know the names of all the bodies of water in the game? I don't. Fortunately, I hadn't explored heavily in this game yet, and so my map was fairly sparse on markers. It didn't take long to find the town's added marker (not fast travel enabled; so if you haven't been in the area before, have fun on your cross-game-world hike).
I reached the town, to realize again that there was no quest marker. Who in the hell was I supposed to talk to?
I picked the first guy I saw, and got a story about some kidnapped people, monsters in the forest, would I help, yadda yadda. Standard fantasy quest schtick. If you've ever played a D&D quest, you'll know the outline already. He mentions that you should talk to the other residents to get more information; but no one else really has anything useful. Your quest notes will not be updated with any information beyond the first bit.
You're told that there's a weird guy spying on the town, and you should go look for him. He was last seen... heading towards Cheydinhal. Thanks, that narrows it down to the entire northeastern quarter of the blasted country.
Again, without quest markers; I have no idea if I'm supposed to intercept him on the road, if he'll be waylaid at some camp somewhere, or if he made it to town.
Having played many poorly laid-out quests in my day, I took a gamble, and made straight for town. Great; we're in town... quest journal doesn't update. Which building is he in? Is he even really here? Again, I gamble: and take the nearest inn to the eastern gate. Not there, but the innkeeper knows who I'm looking for - apparently he isn't in town at all. Find him out near where he was sighted; talk a little bit, combat ensues - creepy guy gets his ass zapped by Branwen. Turns out attacking a party of four when you're unarmed isn't bright. Who knew?
Note on the corpse from "the master"; who mentions that he will absolutely not reveal the location of the castle. Fuck you, too.
Creepy guy is for some reason carrying this amulet:
Which has nothing to do with his character, or class; or the story. It's just a fat buff with an over the top shield for its own sake, apparently.
Return to beleaguered town, report results; find out that in my absence, there has been an attack. Shock on my part, I assure you. Another girl kidnapped, town protector hurt bad, "they went to the north".
Well thanks for narrowing that down, Skippy.
There's also a mention that there's nothing to the north except the mountains. I want to note that this is patently untrue. Malada is due north of the town; and there are numerous other ruins, caves, and so forth clustered in the area. "Not pertinent to my story" does not equal "nothing".
So, we strike out north. Across the lake, we're attacked by random (but obviously mod-added) enemies. These must be the mysterious warriors I heard about.
They wipe the floor with my companions. Being the sneaky and quick thinking so-and-so I am, I exploit the AI's limitations and jump onto a rock; where I can rain death onto the enemies with impunity. Well, impunity until they start slinging lightning bolts every two seconds. Warriors with high destruction skill. Nice. My silver bow isn't working; so I swap out for something I picked up for special occasions in my favorite store - a Goddess Black bow that does 20pts shock per hit. To top it off, I add some health draining poison. They still take a half dozen arrows a piece, and end up nearly completely draining the enchantment on my bow. I barely survive the lightning storm, but eventually prevail.
Climbing down, I wonder at their toughness, and open the console. A quick click and GetLevel command returns a value of 35. It's going to be one of those days...
From there, I used some profanity, and decided to skip the other parties that were doubtless laying in wait on the straight-line path north from the town I had been on. Instead, I swing wide to the east; around Malada, and come into the mountains off the beaten path. In this manner, I saw no other bands of uber-warriors.
Eventually, I spy a city map-marker on my HUD. Moving closer, it turns out to be a castle. Coming in from the side, I apparently not only subverted the fighting I was supposed to do on the way; but missed the trigger to have the person in front of the castle talk to me. She eventually did; giving me the standard fantasy spiel again. You must be a great warrior to have survived the trip here! (No, Lady; I'm just smarter than a box of rocks and know how to avoid ambush sites...) You must help us! Lord EvilGuy #666 is making us do horrible things and we can't stop him because of our stupid and pointless yet non-binding traditions!
I of course agree to go inside to the safe room and hear her out. Long-lost sub-species of elf; last of their kind; live forever because a Goddess granted them eternal youth as long as they constantly have random sex with each other...
...Wait, what? No... I did read that correctly. Okay, I'm pretty sure I've seen this hentai before...
LordEvilGuy! is a vampire, who took control of the clan and is using their ZOMGSEXMAGIC to gain immortality and ultimate power. (Aren't vampires already immortal?) Okay, now I know I've seen this hentai before! If you remove the vampire aspect, I'm pretty sure this was the plot of Bible Black. Except, you know, they were in a high school and not a magical fantasy land. Then again, for schoolgirl outfits and stockings, I think it's a worthwhile trade in venue...
...Sorry, where was I? Oh, right.
Again, more of the standard spiel. The eeeeeeeeeeevilvampireguy is currently sleeping, but will awaken soon, and I am the only one who can kill him by attacking before he has a chance to feed... et cetera et cetera. Again: play pretty much any D&D module and you'll have read it all before.
Rescue the captives so he can't feed on them, then attack and destroy him while he's "weak". Got it.
Directions to half the castle ensue. This is another problem with the lack of quest markers. Our author did not see fit to append the directions to the quest journal; so if you don't take notes or have a good memory, you get to wander aimlessly looking for the correct part of the large castle. And if you do take notes, take them fast. You have eight seconds worth of silent sound file before the wall 'o text vanishes. This probably isn't a big deal if you have the time to play the quest straight through in one sitting; but if you have to save the game mid-quest and come back later... well, good luck.
Rescue captives. Last one is locked in a sex-chamber with a vampire; running around like a chicken with its head cut off - presumably to avoid being bitten. Kill vampiress... captive keeps on running. This makes it very hard to successfully engage him in conversation to get the little retard to follow you out. I was tempted to simply shoot him. It's hard to run with an arrow in your femur... but I didn't figure the quest would take kindly to me not rescuing everyone.
Return captives to head-sex-elf, who says she's going to hide them somewhere until the fight is over. I guess it would be too much to get to use one as a human shield in the boss fight, huh?
What? When have I ever claimed to be anything but evil?
Another wall 'o text ensues; this time regarding the final battle, where and when and I need to hurry and more directions that aren't committed to my damned journal...
This time I'm ready for it, and am actually paying attention to the wheres. It's still convoluted, as the boss battle takes place three floors up, and across the castle. Couple this with the fact that companions fail to follow through the cell-change doors correctly (more on this later), and I had to backtrack about six times to recollect everyone who had gotten stuck or lost on the way across.
We reach the ambush site, and LORDEVILGUYHAHAI'MSOBAD! is already waiting there for me. Some talky-talky and pointless bravado; and the fight ensues.
It seems LORDEVILGUY! has some goodies added to him. One of them is a staff that knocks down and paralyzes everyone in a twenty foot radius. And he uses it, over and over, until it's completely out of charges. No damage; just endless knocking you all down. Interrupting attacks, stopping spells in mid-cast... Urgh.
Once he runs out of charges for his stick of annoyance, the girls have had enough and decide to cram that thing so far up where the sun don't shine that our vampire friend will be tasting Minwax. We whip his undead ass from one end of the floor to the other.
...He doesn't die. Somehow, he has infinite health, infinite mana, and an unending supply of master-level summons and shock spells. Tesla would be proud. Since he's throwing these things all at me, and every five odd seconds, sheer weight of numbers eventually gets me; as I fail to dodge one too many of his endless spells.
I die.
So, fine; I reload, and try again - this time I pull out all the stops. We gon' get medieval on his ass. I summon in a full party of six companions, make sure everyone has weapons that bypass immunity; break out my Goddess bow - and have Branwen recharge it, the rest of my cold arrows, a case of health-draining poison, and pull on my bladeturn hood.
The fight begins anew; with much the same opening results. Again with the staff of pissing me the hell off +5. Once he runs out of paralyze charges, the companions get serious. Four of them back him into a corner in the stairwell and proceed to beat, cut, and zap the holy living shit out of him for five straight minutes. I add my magic bow and poison to the deluge.
He. Never. Dies. EVER. Five solid minutes of pinned-in, pure abuse; and his health will never drop below 10%. Still, he slings infinite shock spells - at the end, it was to the point that we were killing his constant summons as an aside; not even breaking stride.
Eventually, I get sick of the shit. He can't beat us, can't escape, can't even knock any of my companions unconscious anymore. He just won't die for some reason. I use a kill command in the console. That took the wind out of his sails. Cheat at me, bitch, and I cheat right back.
I save; close the game, and pop open the Construction Set. This I have to see. Why would six sets of immunity-bypassing weapons backed up by spells not kill him? Why did he keep auto-healing?
In the CS, I found the why. LORDEVILGUYZOMGI'MBADUKNO is a cheat boss. Of the LOLUCANTKILLMYGUY variety.
Now, the first thing I notice is 666 base health and magicka. Fuck me; this tired gag again?
Okay, LORDEVILGUY! is bad, we get it. The 666 health and magicka are actually the base values, if you look. This means they're further adjusted by the endurance and intelligence scores. You can see in that shot, that his adjusted magicka is over eight hundred. Really, if you're going this far over the top; you may as well run it up past 9000 and make the Dragonball joke. It wouldn't be any more lame.
Looking over other areas, we also see that "The Master" is non-scaling, level fifty.
Really? Why wasn't there a mention of this being a high level quest in the documentation? I skim the comments section, and see that the author says he does mention it. I read the readme closer. There it is. A mention that it's for high level characters, and that his level thirty-five character with cheat equipment had trouble killing the boss. Where is the information? Near the end, between the changelog and credits. Who the hell puts a warning about character levels between the changelog and the credits? No sane person puts important information at the bottom; nestled snugly between the two least-often read subjects in readme history.
Back to LORDEVILGUY, though.
You can see here LORDEVILGUY!'s spam spell, good for 110pts per hit.
Here's the total spell list. Charm spell... for some reason... spam lightning, spam summon; full vampirism; and a set of custom abilities specifically for THEMASTER!
Oh, yeah. Double-speed, constant fire shield, resistance to magic; and health and magicka that regenerate eleven and seven points every frame. Totally not cheating at all.
I take a look at LORDEVILGUY!'s equipment.
Oh, look; his robe gives five more points of health regen every frame. That brings him up to sixteen. No wonder he wouldn't die...
Then of course there's the ring...
The other ring...
The amulet...
And his staff-of-pisses-Nos-the-hell-off-+5.
Seriously. This? This is one of the greatest examples I have ever seen of how not to set up a boss. There is challenging, and then there's LOLITROLLU! Guess which this is. This is a case of the author wanking over how great his characters are, and nothing more.
When I first got a mod by the name of Enchantment Mastery - which lets you enchant one item multiple times - I made a sword that had three or four grand-level damage enchantments on it at once; totaling like sixty points, on top of the normal damage. If you had a weapon like that, I think you could take the guy out; especially if combined with an engine exploit of using 100% chameleon on armor to get sneak bonuses on every attack. But... base game items, and normal play tactics? No way in hell.
So, ZOMGTEHEBIL! killed, I return to the head-pointed-eared-slut. Seems that by killing LORDEVILGUY! I am the new head of the clan. Seems LORDEVILGUY! became leader by killing previous leader, as well. Really, they need to get a new selection process. May I suggest pulling names from a hat? Roshambo tourney? Hey, I know! Sex contest. Anyone who can outlast the entire clan gets to be in charge. Problem solved. Or just hang up a sign that says "No Vampires, no necromancers" out front.
Amongst lots and lots of talkie-talkie and exposition, there is the information that I may now take any of the clan members I like as companions; they have merchants and trainers; and there's some talk about teaching me the live-forever-sex-magic stuff.
I want to note here, that while the quest itself is Godawfully cliche and boring; the dialogue is quite well written. I noticed no spelling errors, no missing punctuation; and the back story is very well fleshed out - the author even came up with a justification for stealing the term "Tantric" for the sex magic.
There's also a book in the castle library that even goes so far as to explain the theories behind it, and notes specific positions and techniques. If I hadn't flipped through a kama sutra years ago, I might have thought it was an original work.
From the build-up in the documentation, comments, and in-game text, I was expecting the elves around the castle to be really cool.
I was mistaken.
The talk about adult content refers only to dialogue; and that you can ask the elves to strip. There are no animations included, and no actual sex options that I could find in either the game, or by looking through the dialogue in the CS.
As companions, the elves suck. You cannot access their inventory; so they can't get better equipment, can't get repairs, can't get a staff recharged, and so on. They just follow you. If you want, they can ride a horse - but being as I don't use horses in Oblivion, this option was pretty pointless to me.
As for their around-the-castle lives; again, I didn't see the sort of things that people went on about. The elves bathe in the basement at night, and hang out in the ballroom/bar getting plastered and dancing. They strip naked when they go to bed. No naughtiness anywhere that I saw. I never found any options to do any "learning" of the magic, and though head-slut alluded to the player being able to take her as a permanent, live-in lover, I never saw the option come up.
There are references to the elves "learning" new skills as they travel with you; so perhaps this is something that only comes up after a certain amount of time.
As well, I bummed around the castle for two game days; and no matter what time of the day or night I caught the elves, no one was ever willing to sell anything or train me. Even when the blacksmith was behind his counter, he wouldn't open a merchant screen.
Now, I've talked a lot thus far about bad things in this mod, and there are a lot.
I want to mention the good thing, and what makes it worth putting up with the asinine quest and useless elves.
The castle itself, is GORGEOUS.
It is huge. There are tons of alchemical components to pick, dozens of storage containers, respawning food stocks, a small private bath for you; as well as the larger pool-type tub that the clan uses. There is a ballroom and bar, a library, stables. All the elves have their own bedrooms. The head elf has an office. There's a throne for you to sit on.
The curtain wall has a path that leads clear around the castle.
And of course... there's the view from the terrace outside the player's bedroom:
As it a player home, it is outstanding; and has all the storage, display, and bumming-around amenities you could ever want. The alchemy lab is well stocked; there are spell-making and enchanting altars; and you can open and close the portcullis at will. The elves do have a daily schedule, and even if it isn't as perverse as their being a sex cult would suggest... it does lend a sense of life to the place. Guards guard; one patrols the road near the castle on horseback; the head-elf works in her office; the smith works at his forge; the librarian tends the books; the alchemist experiments.
The castle is well removed from the cities, and in a location that lore-obsessed players should find little fault with.
It is a bit of a cheat, in spots. The altars, for example. Beyond that, in the library you'll find a stock of varla and welkyd stones for free. The alchemy lab has a free set of master-grade apparatuses. The lab also has containers similar to the one for the head of the mages guild - that duplicates components. The smith has a stock of elven weapons that are free to take. Once the quest is completed, there is little to interfere with you simply hanging out, collecting the infinitely restocked items, and selling them for massive profits. The castle is self-supporting and requires no actual work or input of gold on your part.
Now, we've got the views. The storage. The feeling of being in an inhabited castle.
I'm still probably not going to keep it in my game. Why?
For all its beautiful design, careful placement in the world, and small army of potentially naked wemmenz roaming about; the castle has one major flaw.
It is not companion friendly.
First and foremost are the doors I mentioned before. The stairwells in the castle are transplants; inlaid sections of ruin:
Now, this would be okay - and indeed, I applaud the author for making such a solution work - except that in several places, they're too tight:
They're so tight near some of the doors, that the pathgrid doesn't function correctly; and companions won't follow you through the doors unless you position them perfectly beforehand. Even if you do, if you have four or more in tow; at least one will always get left, or stuck.
In addition, the teleport-markers on the doors are too close. Since followers spawn into the new room behind you, this setup tends to deposit them behind the door; where they can't get to you. The only way to even tell they're there half the time is to use a console command to switch to wireframe view. Because they're behind the door/wall, a TCL command won't help; since you can't click on them through the wall. The only fix is to either go back and forth through the door until you roll correctly and they don't get stuck, or to TCL yourself through the wall; toggle their clipping, and then come back out. It is a massive pain.
On top of that, for all the space; there's virtually none for followers of your own. There are two "guest" bedrooms, and the bed in the master bedroom will sleep two. If you want somewhere to sleep, that's three you can leave there, max. There are also precious few idle markers in the castle. CMs that I left there ended up doing nothing but wandering, and weapon training.
On the whole, if you're a player who likes "epic" quests to defeat "evil"; downloads every overpowered god weapon you can find on the Nexus; and don't keep companions, you'll love this mod.
For players like me, though... it was a colossal waste of my time and energy. Three stars out of five. It obviously had a lot of work put into it, but the story is just too cliched; the characters thin and not compelling, and the "adult" options aren't - if I have to use outside mods like Lovers to get the stuff in there, then why go to the trouble of getting the castle, instead of just filling up another place with companions? The followers aren't upgradable at all, the merchants don't appear to work, and it's not even suitable as a CM base of operations. I'm willing to give an extra point to the mod just because of the author's attention to spelling and punctuation. That's fairly rare these days. Without that, it'd be a two. Lastly, either give us the option for quest markers, or take the time to note at least the bullet points of where we need to go in the quest journal - not everyone gets to play a mod straight-though, and I hate when games make me take paper notes.
Tinkering
In the course of playing about with Oblivion the last couple days (and to make the NPCs look less like crap in that mod I mentioned reviewing) I've revisited the technique whereby one edits the Oblivion.ini file, to remove Facegen texturing. This, for those not familiar, reverts all NPCs to the base skin textures of their race. No skin tone, beard, flush/blush, eyeliner/eyeshadow, et cetera settings. It's just the basic textures.
This has been hit and miss in the past. It doesn't work well on base game NPCs. I don't think Bethsoft even gave NPC creation the 'ol college try - they just hit random face a few times on each NPC and broke for lunch.
However, I'm lately running Colourwheel's excellent Oblivion Overhaul, which handily removes the suck from the vast majority of female NPCs. As well, I'm more interested in my own character and companions than some random NPCs on the street that I pay no attention to.
So, I re-set the ini setting; intending to limit my evaluation to characters specifically set up to work with it; while ignoring the others.
The results were... encouraging...
You can see Branwen here in the getup I normally make her wear, wig and all. I removed the nekomimi, and replaced them with the black rose necklace there. Very nice.
I started a new game last night for various reasons I won't bore everyone by going into; and this is Branwen as she appears from her default inventory. You can also see the Realistic Water mod's effects in the background, there. Still looks damn good.
And this is Caridwen, also in her default look.
A trip through the Goddess store helps immensely... but they're certainly not half bad on their own.
This last one is one of the screenshots from my upcoming review... but in the inventory tab, you can nonetheless get a decent look at what it did to my own character.
The face wasn't designed for non-texturing facegen, but it didn't come out too bad. In the new game, I've since re-run the facegen specifically with the texturing off, and optimized it better for the new environment.
I think I'll be keeping it this way, at least for the foreseeable future. Should probably dig up screenshots of Viconia and Saerileth, too; they turned out fairly improved, as well.
This has been hit and miss in the past. It doesn't work well on base game NPCs. I don't think Bethsoft even gave NPC creation the 'ol college try - they just hit random face a few times on each NPC and broke for lunch.
However, I'm lately running Colourwheel's excellent Oblivion Overhaul, which handily removes the suck from the vast majority of female NPCs. As well, I'm more interested in my own character and companions than some random NPCs on the street that I pay no attention to.
So, I re-set the ini setting; intending to limit my evaluation to characters specifically set up to work with it; while ignoring the others.
The results were... encouraging...
You can see Branwen here in the getup I normally make her wear, wig and all. I removed the nekomimi, and replaced them with the black rose necklace there. Very nice.
I started a new game last night for various reasons I won't bore everyone by going into; and this is Branwen as she appears from her default inventory. You can also see the Realistic Water mod's effects in the background, there. Still looks damn good.
And this is Caridwen, also in her default look.
A trip through the Goddess store helps immensely... but they're certainly not half bad on their own.
This last one is one of the screenshots from my upcoming review... but in the inventory tab, you can nonetheless get a decent look at what it did to my own character.
The face wasn't designed for non-texturing facegen, but it didn't come out too bad. In the new game, I've since re-run the facegen specifically with the texturing off, and optimized it better for the new environment.
I think I'll be keeping it this way, at least for the foreseeable future. Should probably dig up screenshots of Viconia and Saerileth, too; they turned out fairly improved, as well.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Companion Mind
Got a post to the NCCS file entry this morning, asking about whether it was okay to change companion classes; what it would do, et cetera, et al, and yea; other pretentious psuedo-Latin on my part as well!
Now, if you're the author of said comment, relax. This isn't going to be one of my mocking posts.
Reading the comment, the thought occurred to me just how little most players understand how classes and companion behavior in general work in New Vegas (and the other Gamebryo games as well) so I thought I'd take everyone on a little tour.
Hands and feet inside at all times; no flash photography, and any injuries you receive are not the legal nor fiscal responsibility of NosCo, Inc. Don't make me release the NosCo Legal Department (which is primarily made up of demons with automatic weaponry, just for the record).
First of all, probably... eighty to ninety percent of companion NPC behavior is controlled by a combination of their currently running package, and the AI settings. The AI settings are fairly straightforward. Aggression, bravery, energy, warn/attack radius, assistance.
Aggression is exactly that. Normal (unaggressive) NPCs only fight to defend themselves. They will also fight to defend their friends and/or allies, if you've set their assistance value to allow it. NPCs set to help no one will never defend another character. Aggressive NPCs will attack known enemies (as determined by their factions) on detection. Imagine it as the NPC seeing the red tick on their radar, and taking the fight to the enemy as soon as possible. Very Aggressive NPCs attack on sight anything that is not a friend - the filthy Neutrals were probably planing something, anyway. Frenzied NPCs are batshit psycho; and attack everything that isn't themselves. These settings apply at all times, regardless of the package type running. Aggressive NPCs will still attempt to kick the holy living shit out of any enemies who appear, even if they're having lunch at the time. Energy actually does very little. It controls how often a sandboxing NPC gets bored, and goes to do another task. Warn/attack settings are used in the guard package; and specify a radius that the NPC will attack any trespasser they detect inside of.
Packages give the NPC a general idea of what they should be doing at the time. Call it a purpose in life. Purposes include things like following someone, eating, sleeping, traveling between two points, guarding an area, and "sandbox". Sandbox is a general "day to day life" package; that includes wandering, eating, sleeping, and doing general stuff. For a companion, the two most common packages are follow and sandbox. Everything else tends to be special purpose. Following is exactly that; their purpose in life is to stay within the specified distance of you. Sandboxing will have them live an illusion of a normal life. Wandering a cell, sleeping, eating, using idle markers (note here: anytime you see an NPC do something while standing up other than walking or combat, odds are good it's an idle marker - a special marker that tells the NPC to play a specific set of idle animations). While following, sandboxing, whatever; remember that the AI settings still apply. If following you, and a character appears who is part of a faction that is flagged as an enemy of the companion, odds are good they'll attack - independent of whether the character is considered an enemy to you.
As you might have guessed, Factions also play a role in NPC behavior. A few factions are hard-coded in the engine - there's one that has the NPC play "general idle animations" at all times (you can see this one in NCCS, since I add it to all my companions, as well as the templates; it makes them seem more alive, by scratching, picking their noses, fidgeting, and just generally doing small random stuff that most of us do in day to day life; the other hard coded faction is a no-combat faction, and is intended for characters who are not to engage in combat under any circumstances. Needless to say, I don't use that last one. Most factions are simply what one might call "clubs" - like when you were a kid. Clubs have friends, and they have enemies; and joining one forces you to abide by those affiliations. Actually, street-gang might be a more apt analogy... but I think I'll stick with clubs, since it seems a bit more innocent, and less like your companions will later be indicted on drug-smuggling charges. (It wasn't me, honest! I was just a lookout! The others were the ones smuggling Buffout to the boyscout troop!)
Now, thus far we've looked at what you might call autonomic functions. Things like package, AI data, and Factions tell the AI engine how to make a character behave in the absence of specific instructions. Think of it as automatic behavior; things that require no further input on your - or anyone else's - part. There's another type of behavior: the specific.
Specific behavior is controlled by scripts, and trumps all others when the script runs. This, of course, is the script attached to the NPC themselves - what I call the Companion Script. Quest scripting can also apply; but is less efficient for a number of reasons, and is not widely used for behavior.
For modders like me, the Companion Script is where the magic is. It's what separates "just another companion" from "holy fuck this is so cool!" These scripts can be as complex or as simple as the author likes. Some specific behavior that you normally see would be not letting the companion engage in to-the-death combat with the player. A block of specific behavior that I personally like, is the self-healing code - that is, the NPC will heal themselves with stimpaks when they get wounded or crippled. Bethsoft's devs are fond of having their companions fully heal via magic every time combat ends.
One of the specific behaviors I added for Lillian was that whenever she begins her "at home" package, she takes off her stealth suit, and puts on a set of normal clothes. When the sleep package kicks in, the other clothes come off, and a nighty goes on. 'Cause really, who wants to sleep in stealth armor?
The companion script is also where other types of behavior live; like stopping combat, and going to heal the player when they're wounded beyond a certain point. I've recently worked out the code for automatic switching of combat styles on the fly; to make the NPC "decide" how to fight at a certain time, or in a specific situation.
Really, if you can imagine it - and the engine has a function to accomplish it - you can get your companion to do it with their on-board script. If you wanted to (and had the appropriate idle animations from a third party) you could set up a companion to automatically engage you in a celebratory tumble every time combat ended. Note I've never actually tried that; but I know enough about the scripting involved to know it could be done - inconvenient though it would doubtless prove once the novelty wore off.
Lastly, we come to the Class. Why did I save the class for last? Because it has almost nothing to do with behavior. Class influences one thing, and one thing only about NPC behavior: which weapon they'll equip first if they have more than one. This effect is caused by the tag skills: normally, an NPC equips the weapon that they can do the most damage with first - and that is determined by the relevant weapon skill; which is in turn determined by whether it's a tag skill or not. Beyond determining which skills get point-preference, the class determines whether an NPC is willing to offer services - whether they'll buy/sell, repair, and train. Note, I don't think FO3/NV actually use the train function anymore; but it was widely used in Oblivion. Outside of that, Class is really only good for one thing: linking to a combat style; because the engine doesn't have a check for which combat style is running, you can "link" the two, and set up your scripting that if the NPC is using a melee class, they should be switched to a melee style, and so forth.
And that, boys and girls, is how your companion "thinks". Of course, some instances will result in one part being more or less important than I've stated - based on your own creation techniques and scripting style and all - but this is a pretty good outline, at least as I've experienced NPC behavior since starting up modding for CM in late '06/early '07.
Now, if you're the author of said comment, relax. This isn't going to be one of my mocking posts.
Reading the comment, the thought occurred to me just how little most players understand how classes and companion behavior in general work in New Vegas (and the other Gamebryo games as well) so I thought I'd take everyone on a little tour.
Hands and feet inside at all times; no flash photography, and any injuries you receive are not the legal nor fiscal responsibility of NosCo, Inc. Don't make me release the NosCo Legal Department (which is primarily made up of demons with automatic weaponry, just for the record).
First of all, probably... eighty to ninety percent of companion NPC behavior is controlled by a combination of their currently running package, and the AI settings. The AI settings are fairly straightforward. Aggression, bravery, energy, warn/attack radius, assistance.
Aggression is exactly that. Normal (unaggressive) NPCs only fight to defend themselves. They will also fight to defend their friends and/or allies, if you've set their assistance value to allow it. NPCs set to help no one will never defend another character. Aggressive NPCs will attack known enemies (as determined by their factions) on detection. Imagine it as the NPC seeing the red tick on their radar, and taking the fight to the enemy as soon as possible. Very Aggressive NPCs attack on sight anything that is not a friend - the filthy Neutrals were probably planing something, anyway. Frenzied NPCs are batshit psycho; and attack everything that isn't themselves. These settings apply at all times, regardless of the package type running. Aggressive NPCs will still attempt to kick the holy living shit out of any enemies who appear, even if they're having lunch at the time. Energy actually does very little. It controls how often a sandboxing NPC gets bored, and goes to do another task. Warn/attack settings are used in the guard package; and specify a radius that the NPC will attack any trespasser they detect inside of.
Packages give the NPC a general idea of what they should be doing at the time. Call it a purpose in life. Purposes include things like following someone, eating, sleeping, traveling between two points, guarding an area, and "sandbox". Sandbox is a general "day to day life" package; that includes wandering, eating, sleeping, and doing general stuff. For a companion, the two most common packages are follow and sandbox. Everything else tends to be special purpose. Following is exactly that; their purpose in life is to stay within the specified distance of you. Sandboxing will have them live an illusion of a normal life. Wandering a cell, sleeping, eating, using idle markers (note here: anytime you see an NPC do something while standing up other than walking or combat, odds are good it's an idle marker - a special marker that tells the NPC to play a specific set of idle animations). While following, sandboxing, whatever; remember that the AI settings still apply. If following you, and a character appears who is part of a faction that is flagged as an enemy of the companion, odds are good they'll attack - independent of whether the character is considered an enemy to you.
As you might have guessed, Factions also play a role in NPC behavior. A few factions are hard-coded in the engine - there's one that has the NPC play "general idle animations" at all times (you can see this one in NCCS, since I add it to all my companions, as well as the templates; it makes them seem more alive, by scratching, picking their noses, fidgeting, and just generally doing small random stuff that most of us do in day to day life; the other hard coded faction is a no-combat faction, and is intended for characters who are not to engage in combat under any circumstances. Needless to say, I don't use that last one. Most factions are simply what one might call "clubs" - like when you were a kid. Clubs have friends, and they have enemies; and joining one forces you to abide by those affiliations. Actually, street-gang might be a more apt analogy... but I think I'll stick with clubs, since it seems a bit more innocent, and less like your companions will later be indicted on drug-smuggling charges. (It wasn't me, honest! I was just a lookout! The others were the ones smuggling Buffout to the boyscout troop!)
Now, thus far we've looked at what you might call autonomic functions. Things like package, AI data, and Factions tell the AI engine how to make a character behave in the absence of specific instructions. Think of it as automatic behavior; things that require no further input on your - or anyone else's - part. There's another type of behavior: the specific.
Specific behavior is controlled by scripts, and trumps all others when the script runs. This, of course, is the script attached to the NPC themselves - what I call the Companion Script. Quest scripting can also apply; but is less efficient for a number of reasons, and is not widely used for behavior.
For modders like me, the Companion Script is where the magic is. It's what separates "just another companion" from "holy fuck this is so cool!" These scripts can be as complex or as simple as the author likes. Some specific behavior that you normally see would be not letting the companion engage in to-the-death combat with the player. A block of specific behavior that I personally like, is the self-healing code - that is, the NPC will heal themselves with stimpaks when they get wounded or crippled. Bethsoft's devs are fond of having their companions fully heal via magic every time combat ends.
One of the specific behaviors I added for Lillian was that whenever she begins her "at home" package, she takes off her stealth suit, and puts on a set of normal clothes. When the sleep package kicks in, the other clothes come off, and a nighty goes on. 'Cause really, who wants to sleep in stealth armor?
The companion script is also where other types of behavior live; like stopping combat, and going to heal the player when they're wounded beyond a certain point. I've recently worked out the code for automatic switching of combat styles on the fly; to make the NPC "decide" how to fight at a certain time, or in a specific situation.
Really, if you can imagine it - and the engine has a function to accomplish it - you can get your companion to do it with their on-board script. If you wanted to (and had the appropriate idle animations from a third party) you could set up a companion to automatically engage you in a celebratory tumble every time combat ended. Note I've never actually tried that; but I know enough about the scripting involved to know it could be done - inconvenient though it would doubtless prove once the novelty wore off.
Lastly, we come to the Class. Why did I save the class for last? Because it has almost nothing to do with behavior. Class influences one thing, and one thing only about NPC behavior: which weapon they'll equip first if they have more than one. This effect is caused by the tag skills: normally, an NPC equips the weapon that they can do the most damage with first - and that is determined by the relevant weapon skill; which is in turn determined by whether it's a tag skill or not. Beyond determining which skills get point-preference, the class determines whether an NPC is willing to offer services - whether they'll buy/sell, repair, and train. Note, I don't think FO3/NV actually use the train function anymore; but it was widely used in Oblivion. Outside of that, Class is really only good for one thing: linking to a combat style; because the engine doesn't have a check for which combat style is running, you can "link" the two, and set up your scripting that if the NPC is using a melee class, they should be switched to a melee style, and so forth.
And that, boys and girls, is how your companion "thinks". Of course, some instances will result in one part being more or less important than I've stated - based on your own creation techniques and scripting style and all - but this is a pretty good outline, at least as I've experienced NPC behavior since starting up modding for CM in late '06/early '07.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Realistic Water for Oblivion
Recently went on an Oblivion spree, adding some new mods. In the Nexus' hot files slideshow on the main page, I noticed a mod by the name of Realistic Water. I've tried water "fixers" or replacers before, and always been underwhelmed. They either come out pretty crappy, or murder my FPS in a manner that would normally demand a trial be convened at the Hague.
I'm pleased - if surprised - to note that Realistic Water fits neither criteria. It does improve the looks; and did not make a noticeable hit to my framerate.
All in all, success.
If you're in the market for such a mod, I can recommend this one.
I'm pleased - if surprised - to note that Realistic Water fits neither criteria. It does improve the looks; and did not make a noticeable hit to my framerate.
All in all, success.
If you're in the market for such a mod, I can recommend this one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)