lgpmichael

Along with all the other ****ing annoyances of steam, I hit this one that made me have to reinstall. I am using the LG passive 3D (yay lighter glasses, no batteries, like at the cinema) so this may not happen on other types of 3D, but just in case. I started Skyrim in 3D mode, and ran it for a few minutes. Unfortunately the skybox is too close (again, like in Oblivion) and the effects such as the annoying blood splatter on the screen doesn't look right, and the stupid immersion breaking kill moves where it takes you out of 1st person into 3rd person also looked wrong. Ironically the things that annoyed me most about the game are the things that didn't work (I am so hoping I can mod them out within about 90 seconds of the tool coming out) But anyway, enough of that. I decided that even though I'd spent a small fortune so I could play Skyrim in 3D, until these things can be fixed, I cant play it like that yet. So, I started Skyrim without first loading up the 3D system. And behold, something that steam does has now detected I have 3D, and so FORCES it into 3D. I am thus stuck in 3D until I reinstall. This isn't a Skyrim issue, as this is all about preloading different directX libraries, and happens before Skyrim starts, so steam is the culprit. This was workable while you still had direct access to the Skyrim exe, but as of last patch (which seems to have fixed precisely nothing) you dont get that any more so a reinstall is the only way to go. So, if you are thinking of trying out 3D, maybe take a backup, or something. I don't actually know how steam is messign it up, so I don't know a fix, sorry. Maybe if someone knows, they can post a reply. Sorry if this post seems quite angry at the whole situation, but I am. All of these problems caused by Steam are problems because Bethesda decided to treat honest customers like criminals. If they actually think this will prevent one person pirating the game, they are insane, all it does is make the people that actually pay for the game a little more angry, and that's stupid. I'm an honest customer, I also work in the games industry and I've WRITTEN games DRM that actually works and does NOT treat honest customers like criminals, and it drives me nuts when this kind of stupidity happens. For any other game I would have taken it back for a refund by now.

Do you know anyone - anyone at all - who finds it in any way more fun - to go in a straight line. Maybe you should instead start yourown forum where what people want to discuss caters to your needs specifically...

I have to say, you'll all hate me for this... But I did just go out and spend a small fortune on a new box JUST for Skyrim, and I can play it maxed out graphics in full 3D, with no slowdown {:-) 6 core i7 2xSLI GTX 580 12GB memory on an SSD drive {:-)

I'm seeing a lot of people hating a lot of things, but I havent seen anyone mention this... Ive been in about a dozen tombs/caves/dwemer ruins and Ive noticed in all that time I have only ONCE had a genuine branch in a dungeon. Other than that one time it has been completely linear, go in the door go to the end, no side turns, no forks, just one room leading to a corridor leading to a room and so on and so forth. Occasional small siderooms with some swag in them, but no genuine choice. I have to admit to being MASSIVELY disappointed with that. When they said they had a whole team doing level design, I thought we were in for good things, but wow, those level design people were overpaid. Even if they worked for free. A single path does NOT make a level design. Im hoping Ive just been unlucky, but I have a horrible feeling that this will end up being standard.

Agreed. Ive worked in the games industry for 12 years now and I had to actually impliment a DRM system a few years ago. We're a small company and with some tracking we worked out that for every game we sold, 3 were being played from pirated copies. It was the difference between profit and a loss for the company, not just big company making EXTRA money. The DRM was based on 'innocent until proven guilty' If it couldnt connect to a server, it let you in. If it couldnt prove you had done anything wrong, it let you in immediately. No messing around assuming you were the bad guy 'do you really own this... no really? Are you sure? Bend over and prepare to be probed, just in case'... If it ever proved you had a dodgy copy, it locked it out so badly that even a reinstall was impossible, without reinstalling the whole computer It doubled sales, it wouldnt stop the person DETERMINED to steal it, but it did what it was needed to - and the customer was NEVER locked out or inconvenienced. And thats how DRM should work. Good for the company but NEVER difficult for the customer.

After uninstalling and reinstalling, it is now getting further. I just don't like DRM that assumes you are guilty until proven innocent and so can lock you out when IT makes a mistake.

Bought the physical copy, first out of the store with it. Get home, install. Press play in steam *yuck, why steam* 'This game is currently unavailable. Please try again at another time. HOW unimpressed am I right now. My first experience with steam and it locks me out of a game I own before Ive even played it. Let me express how unhappy... FURIOUS!!

I had the same problem, I just released my mod yesterday, 8 months of work. However I kindof had to release before skyrim because of some of the plot themes in the game, so I didnt have much choice. But I expect that people will still be playing it next week, just, not as many. Kindof sucks, but thats life. I plan to make future mods for Skyrim though, this will be the last oblivion mod I make.

If you like new and interesting ways to die, you'll like both of the quest side-branches, they each have a number of quite spectacular deaths that I won't spoil for you by telling you in advance {:-))

Hehe yeah, thats a good point, it DOES kill a low level character, Id forgotten that! {;-) If you're quick, you can grab hold of the sides of the hole on the way down and break your fall {:-)

Ive now added it to the TES Nexus database http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=40950

As I mentioned earlier, it definitely isnt the script. I replaced the script it should use with one that was: scn scriptname begin gamemode messagebox "test" end As a test, and it started firing when I walked far enough away and then walked back. It is an issue where the script seems to have not attached itself to the NPC, and then when you move out of local cell range, and then back in, it seems to load properly.

My guess is it is probably related to the riderless horse, I expect the rider died right on the edge of the cell, and maybe his weapon was on the edge and caused a cell load issue... At a complete guess. Of course, saying this, now Im paranoid is *is* my bug {:-) Does it go away if you disable my mod? and come back when you re-enable it?

This is actually an issue with the oblivion engine and nothing to do with the mod (*phew*), you can save and reload and it will likely be gone. It is apparently caused by a carryable object being *right* on the edge of a cell when it loads, and there being some kind of collision between the object and the landscape when it tries to load the landscape. It can happen pretty much anywhere. Hooray, hooray for bugs that arent mine! {;-))) Thanks for the report though!

THE HOLE Now released One day, walking quietly along a road in Cyrodiil, you feel the ground shake beneath your feet. You keep your balance but an imperial legionnaire up ahead of you falls from his horse to the road. An earthquake. Unusual in this area of Tamriel. What can have caused it? Before long you feel another tremor, stronger than the first. You almost lose your balance this time, but across the region many others are not so lucky. Before long, talking to people, you can get an idea as to where the focus of the quakes is. And as you travel to the area, you start to hear rumours of something strange going on. The Hole is a quest mod for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. It stretches the capabilities of Oblivion's game engine in ways no other mod has, with new never before seen environments and a plot-line that takes you to other realms, other times, and other realities, with warped space-time causing untold harm to the world. Solve the mystery, and you have started the quest. Once you know what is going on, you must prepare the world for the biggest change it has ever faced. But before you can warn the world, you must discover for yourself what lies ahead. The Hole has multiple branching quest lines, with your actions determining how the story unfolds. A number of side quests, red herrings, and major choices will mean that you can play the game again and have a completely different ending than before. Not just a few words different in an end sequence, but different dungeons, different quests, and a completely different ending. Make the wrong choice, and you could undo the work of Martin Septim, and lead yourself on the road to evil. With 14 hours of game play in its main branch, and another 6 hours available if you play other branches, this is not a small mod. 15 major new dungeons Several non-dungeon based quests 2 new worldspaces 30,000 lines of script code 3,000 lines of fully voice acted dialog Each dungeon is designed to do something new, something never been seen before in Oblivion. The whole game is Lore friendly, in fact it is very deeply rooted in the Lore of the game. This has taken me 9 months of my life to create, and I was hoping to have it ready well in advance of Skyrim, but now, well, OK you have four days left to play it {:-) I really really do suggest people play it before playing Skyrim. Download it here Please do leave comments here. I'd like to see if people like it or not. I'll add it onto TES Nexus tomorrow, till then, you'll have to download it from its current location.

Well, I am now awaiting the last 9 lines of dialog, and the release should be ready. Hopefully Saturday sometime.

About 40, as I was testing for mod compatibility - but it isn't that. Other NPC scripts were running fine, quest scripts at 5 seconds gap were running fine, it was just this one NPC. Left it there for an hour to check it wasn't time related, and the script didnt start firing. This is also a new NPC, not a mod of an existing one, and so there should be no mod mucking about with it that shouldnt or anything...

Hooray, always good to hear someone is interested in playing it {:-) The 20 hours took me about 5 months of modding, pretty much 8 hours a day, and has around 30,000 lines of script code. The last 3 months Ive been busy with getting voice actors together, testing, bugfixing, and testing with other mods. Better cities made me cry as it made life quite hard, but Ive worked round it now {:-) Its a bit disappointing because after about 12 people volunteered to voice act, only a small number actually turned in their lines, and so much of the voice acting is done by four people and a bit of tweaking with pitch and tempo for different races. However the plan is to have other people get lines in later and release updates, so, I'll be happy if that happens {:-)

Hehe, yes they are! I got let down by a voice actor at the very last moment, literally with release due on saturday, friday night I got the mail saying 'sorry, I wont be submitting my lines afterall' - so Ive had to scrabble around to get the female Nord voices done. It was a shame cos the original actor was a great likeness to the original oblivion voice, and the replacement is a stock actor who really sounds not much at all like, but is willing and able to do a lot of lines and quickly. So, Im just finishing the editing of these lines now, and Im really hoping to get a release within the next 48 hours. Crossed fingers {;-)

It isn't the script or the AI packages. The same script and AI package work when the player moves a couple of cells away and comes back. The same script and AI package, The package is a travel to editor location, nothing special clicked, as the NPC was just supposed to stand there and ignore everything. (Ive fallen foul of the continue if near issue before, it isnt checked). The script was pared down to *nothing* except a messagebox in a gamemode, and I knew I was far enough away when the messagebox suddenly appeared, It was 100% reproducable. The script itself is fine. It is like the script wasn't loaded with the NPC. In testing I added an on activate block which was ignored, but after moving away, it worked when clicking on the NPC later. The AI package has no conditions, the entire purpose of the NPC is to stand still in one location, so that is its only package, and it has no conditions... It is - odd.

So, Im just working on a few finishing touches to the my mod (which will now be delayed till tuesday or so) and Im trying to sort a bug I have an NPC that isnt running their script. They are running their AI packages correctly, some of which depend on script variables, so the script is there, and its variables are known, but the script isnt running its gamemode block, and when clicked on, it isnt running its activate block either Now, if I move away from this NPC and then go back, their script starts to run just as it should do. I expect Ive got far enough away that it has unloaded and then reloaded the NPC. Anyone else ever seen this issue? Even better, anyone have a solution?

OK what I did to make this work, for an npc to heal other NPC's in his group: First when I detected the need to heal, I put the NPC into a new package, telling him to approach the healing target. The package is a travel package, and is set to must complete, and defensive combat. Then I run stopcombat on it as soon as the evp is done. In effect this makes the NPC stop whatever fighting he is doing, and walk to the heal target, ignoring others that he may want to attack, which makes him forget the spell. It doenst stop him getting distracted if someone else attacks him, unfortunately. He then happily walks over to the target and casts the spell, even in the harshest of combat. I did it as a script on the npc instead of a quest script. This runs much more frequently.

Are you sure the NPC has enough magicka, remember spells dont cost what they say they cost in the CS, they cost a formula based on that and the actors abilities and luck etc... http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveled_Spell_Notes Also they will need to have the required level in the spell ability. Your script looks OK to me, mine isnt really suitable for an example to paste, as its about 200 lines long, and does more than just healing {:-) Try setting the actor to have 100K magicka or something, and 100 ability in restoration (I assume its restoration based), and see what happens.

It shouldnt be a problem as far as I know, Ive only ever extended it though instead of changing the mod itself. But there is nothing special about the mod that means it shouldnt be moddable, to the best of my knowledge. The CS loads it just fine, so it understands its content. The question is, were you using vista/win7 and if so had you installed in Program Files, if so, modding is hard. If thats the case you need to reinstall oblivion somewhere that Win7/vista doesnt see as a protected location, personally I use c:\games - and it should work just fine.

I never found one. I ended up writing a script that periodically checks allies HP, and then tells the NPC to go cast the appropriate spell on the appropriate target if the HP falls below a certain level. Worked well.