Dheuster

So I was reading that Bethesda announced their DLC today and has begun accepting requests for Beta-Testers. I thought it would be cool to sign up to get a jump start on creating some Mod content that is compatible with or expands upon the upcoming DLC (or at least accounts for the DLC assets). But you have to create an account on Bethesda.net to sign up. I was reading over the legal agreement and well... it seems like you basically sell your soul to them in order to get that account. Any lawyers reading this that can make sense of it? I'd love to sign up , but seems like their legal jargon basically gives them royalty free permission to steal your User Generated Content (UGC) if you create an account there.... I guess the question is, does UGC extend to mods? "...by submitting UGC or creating UGC on any portion of the Services, You acknowledge and agree that all such UGC is the sole property of ZeniMax and You hereby assign and agree to assign to ZeniMax all such UGC submitted by You. To the extent that ZeniMax cannot claim exclusive ownership rights in such UGC by operation of law or pursuant to the assignment noted above, and to the fullest extent permitted by law, You hereby expressly grant (or You warrant that the owner of such UGC has expressly granted) to ZeniMax and its licensors, licensees and designees a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, paid-up, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable right and license to exercise all rights of any kind or nature associated with such UGC in all formats and media, whether existing now or in the future, and You agree not to assert or enforce any moral or similar rights You may have which may now or may hereafter be recognized, and all ancillary and subsidiary rights, in any languages and media now known or not currently known. You further grant each user of the Services a non-exclusive license to access UGC and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such UGC as permitted through the Services, including, but not limited to, Game functionality."

I know people have proposed this and there is even a mod that already lets you START as a ghoul. But I want something a little more seemlessly integrated and Lore friendly. Problem is, too much of the game hinges on you being shaun's parent to just have you spawn into the wasteland as a random ghoul. So here is my proposal.. Feel free to steal as I know I wont have time to impelment myself. At the beginning, instead of your spouse hanging around, waiting for you to lead the way to the vault, they steadily make their own way (walking pace) with or without you. And the elevator takes off when they get there... with or without you. If you linger for too long, you get left behind. But you dont die either. You get a massive radiation overdose when the bomb goes off and you are turned into a ghoul. You gain a custom perk that caps your your strength and charisma at 5, but grants a luck boost of 5 and permanent radiation resistance. Alternative start... The game starts with YOU leading a hired Kellog to the entrance of vault 111. After Kellog messes with the controls, you step on the elevator with him and begin to descend (believing your wife and child already dead, but maybe some descendants?) Only scientists and synths teleport in and kellog knocks you unconcious. You wake up in the cryo-pod across from your wife. Game now continues as before... (mostly). Properly implemented, this alternate start could be installed but still totally optional depending on the players actions at the beginning of the game. A few minor dialogue checks would need to be added, but that is about it. You are still old. You still "emerged" from a vault. You still didn't know about the Cryo Pods. But racial conditions would need to be added to some of the dialogues. For example, BOS would become a non-option. And some reply options would need to be removed when talking with the Mayor, Piper, Nick or human companions (For example: You already know it was Kellog that took shaun). It would be unlikely that human companions would show interest in you beyond friendship. And of coarse Feral Ghouls would only attack you if you attack them first, or if you travel with a non-ghoul companion. But a LOT of the main story could remain intact. And you wouldn't need to invent a whole lot of dialogue. This would mostly be an exercise in removing dialogues that no longer make sense.

This could probably get included with a realism or difficulty mod, but I also like the idea of a stand-alone. Here is the idea: Settler beacons let settlers know where you are but guess what... It also lets raiders, gunners, synths, assaultrons, aggressive robots and super mutants know where you are as well. So I would like a mod that significantly increases the probability of attack when you turn on that settler beacon. Bottom line: Better make sure your settlement is fortified and has adequate defenses before you flip the switch. On the other hand, you probably wont get attacked UNTIL you flip the switch, so you have time to get those defenses up. At night, a large group of badies moving towards your settlement will attract less intelligent, bigger, meaner wasteland creatures like Ghoul herds, Deathclaws, and even Bohemiths. So if you leave that beacon on at night, you have about a 1 in three chance of a major battle with multiple enemies come nightfall.

In skyrim, we could change NPC appearances by altering the NPC race. For example, if you turned your companion into a Vampire, their appearance changed. Bottom line: There was a technical way to change appearances. A way of overriding the NPC's default racial skin, eyes and hair. If GECK includes a similar mechanism, there should be a way to "upgrade" anyone's eyes/vision at the right doctor and for the right price. Even the player. I'm actually hoping there is a way to send NPCs to the facial reconstruction guy.

I'm about 95% certain I am going to do this in my companion mod. I doubt there will be only 1 way to save your spouse, but the easiest/default way I am thinking of right now is that you bring Robot Curie to the cryo-pod. Curie... which is a travelling Mechanical doctor companion complete with hacksaw and lasers, shouldn't have an issue repairing a chest wound and saving your spouse there on the spot. The challenge wont be saving your partner in a realistic manner (and early on if you focus on the right skills). It will be creating the commentary and interactions that should take place throughout the game if your spouse is present. (and fixing a few dialogues where you refer to your dead spouse). I could also see the protagonist asking many doctors throughout the wasteland for help. Some will simply turn you down, others may be willing to help in their own way. (Amari may not be able to save your spouse, but might be able to upload their mind into a synth for example... and if that is the case, there is no reason it has to be the original gender...) Finally, in the wasteland, you and your spouse may not agree on all things... especially the fate of your son. So I could see this leading to some very cool, emotionally heavy choices and disagreements. Of coarse if your spouse is in a synth body, you may possess an unfair advantage.

Modding is fun because it is a hobby. Keeping it free also limits the stress I feel in regards to support. Money sounds great, but it wouldn't be steady and it probably wouldn't be enough to make a living on. And even if it was, I don't know how this would work tax wise. Is Valve going to take on the tax paperwork burden for each paid mod author as if they are an employee? People live in a lot of different places with a lot of different tax requirements. I just don't see this working at a large scale. Maybe a few dozen "elite" authors and mods at most. Certainly not the scale we see here at the Nexus.

It doesnt say it in the mods title, but this mod removes hair, hats and masks from several characters. You have to hit the config button: http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonageinquisition/mods/199 Maybe this was the mod you were referring to?

At first I thought it was horrible... then I realized that all the css infromation was cached in my browser. SHift + Refresh and now it looks nice...

In the Whitewolf Universe, vampires are tied to biblical stories and thus the condition is not treated as a disease, rather it is sort of a sacrificial curse. That is why people can drink Vampire Blood in that universe and not become vampires. I suspect the True Blood Universe uses a similar lore as Suki can drink Bills blood and not become a vampire. Rather vampire blood has healing powers and yes... gives humans a high. In that universe, Vampires also do not appear to get a "high" from normal humans, but Suki's blood is different because she is not actually a human. This is the idea I am trying to bring to Skyrim. The Dragonborn may look like a Nord or an Argonian or a Khajiit, but they have the blood of a dragon. They are not a normal human. So whether vampires normally get a high when feeding or not doesn't really matter. The question is, what happens when a vampire drinks Dragon Blood.... it is not even clear if Dragons were around when the first Vampires were around, so it may simply be an unanswered question. As for the embrace, for some reason I saw it more like lyncanthropy. When you become a werewolf in Skyrim, you quite literally drink Aela's blood. Which implies it is the presence of werewolf blood in YOUR body that transfers the disease. Not simple physical contact or even the swapping of saliva (if it was that simple, why not just kiss Aela/Serana). And if the condition was simply magical, then why make the embrace required at all? Why not have a touch based "Make Vampire" spell? So in my mind, it is the presence of Vampire Blood in YOUR body that transfers the condition. And that makes sense to me except the fact that vampires can give you the disease with the drain health spell. But I think that is a result of game mechanics and not so much actual lore. That is, it was much easier to take an existing spell, make it red and be done with it, rather than spend money and time making proper vampire attack animations. Thanks for the responses, I will sit on this till the weekend and then make up my mind. And yes, I hate the Twilight Universe as well.

Thanks for the response. So it sounds like the idea of a victim's blood affecting the vampire is more or less unexplored in skyrim lore. (Which is fine by me). I realize the universe includes Morrowind, Oblivion... there are a lot of games and I assume books based in the universe. I am not versed in the Universe and its lore and history, but if there are no well known examples that would contradict the idea, I am cool with that.

I am making a mod that lets players marry Serana (almost done actually). It is good quality, but it is also not very deep or involved. A few conditions, about a dozen new conversations and a wedding ceremony. Well, as I am splicing audio together, a cool idea has occurred to me, but there is a question of whether the idea is Lore Friendly. Idea: So the dragonborn has unusual blood (used to open the doors of the blades sanctuary for example). So... if a vampire gets a high when they feed, and it is somehow tied to the quality of the victims blood, what would happen if a vampire drank from someone with special blood like the Dragonborn? If I were to guess, I would say it would give the vampire an extreme high. In the Whitewolf Universe, humans that drink vampire blood get a heroin like high that leads to obsessive, irriversable addiction and subjugation after about three feedings. These humans are called Ghouls. So I am thinking something similar, only with the tables turned. My idea is this... make the dragonborn's blood very addictive to vampires. Some event (dragon attack?) will cause Serana to enter a bleed out and tell the Dragonborn she needs blood to recover. Whether the Dragonborn is human or vampire, they feed Serana their own blood which is like the first dose. This will start a quest and a line of commentary which will ultimately lead to Serana's salvation or subjugation. Either way, she will be willing to marry the dragonborn when it is over thanks to this event. SO here are the questsions/potential lore snags: 1) Is there any existing skyrim lore that supports or contradicts the idea of Vampires getting a high from the dragonborn's blood? I am mostly worried about contradictions, but if this has actually been explored in other text, it would be awesome. 2) Both Serana and Harkon may embrace the Dragonborn. Which puts a possible snag in the idea as it begs the question, why no one noticed before? In some story's, the process of embrace is spelled out (like in HBO True Blood series), but I don't think this has been addressed in Skyrim lore. If anything, I would assume an embrace would be biting and pushing the vampires own blood into the victim. It wouldn't necessarily involve drinking the victims blood... though it could. 3) If the player is a vampire, does it make sense to let Serana feed on the player? Can vampires feed on other vampires and does it quench the same thirst/need. Is it simply taboo, like cannibalism, or will only fresh blood do? The way I see it, Dawnguard introduced blood in a bottle so what is the difference between that and stealing another vampires blood from their veins? This isn't a deal breaker, but I am much less likely to bother with the additional work if it is only applicable to human players playing the Dawnguard line. Any responses are appreciated.

Hmm.. I believe I have a solution. If I replace the default nude texture with a texture that contains a bikini... then even when people use my mode to remove the "armor", they wont see anything offensive. (Possibly more erotic, but not offensive). Of coarse if a user decides to install a nude mod AFTER my mod, they will just clobber the texture and the birthday suit will become more revealing. I think this is the best way to go. Thanks to those that gave me their 2 cents.

So I made a mod that allows fine grained control over what female followers wear. Similar to other mods, only I match up clothing to NPCs personalities and I include a "Birthday Suit" item. http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5681 The mod itself doesn't actually come with any textures. It comes with an edited nif file, based originally on the female steel armor. I simply used Nif Skope to select and remove the armor, exposing the defacto Barbie doll model + skin underneath. If a user has installed a nude texture upgrade, the birthday suit will allow the user to see it. However, if they haven't, they will see the defact nude skin that comes with the game. It has no detail and reminds me of a barbie doll. So the question is: Does the mod and the "birthday suit" consitute nudity? A picture of a barbie doll with no clothes on... would that be considered adult content on the internet? Personally I feel like I should be able to remove the adult content flag from my mod, but I thought I would put the question to the forums and see what other modders think.