SugiuraMidori

I'll just cover this since it's what I do for a living and have a degree in xD Photoshop and I have a hate-hate relationship with each other, and I have learned that GIMP hates me for having 2k+ fonts installed (prev. hobby required it, so hush) so I can't comment about textures and meshes. 1) Since it bugged me the most... C# is Microsoft's answer to Java, not C++ ;) C++.NET is Microsoft's attempt to give you a smooth transition in language-transition from C++ to C# by mixing in all the common elements of C# but requiring you to still have to manage your own code whereas C# will do it for you (so if you hate pointers, C# is your friend). Although, you can also write managed C and C++ code through Visual Studio (so my boss mentioned but I personally don't know how to do this). 2) If you've never programmed before, Python is and has been hailed as the best beginners language out there. The tutorials are numerous, and you can see what your program does as you code it instead of having to re-build and re-compile every time. You can actually type out the program line by line in the interpreter to see what happens :) Despite what others say, if you've got a good grasp of logic and puzzle solving (can you solve a Sudoku or jigsaw-puzzle in record time?), learning a programming language isn't that bad. There are sites out there that list each and every command you can use, and often Googleing for "Language + Do_This" (e.g. C++ print to cmd prompt) type things gets you a ton of hits and functions on how to do something, usually in many different ways. However, what is needed here is such a listing of what is and isn't allowed by the structure of TES5. Once you get the idea of how code is formatted and basic logic, all it is is knowing functions, just like any spoken language (know how to string words together and all you need are the words to make sentences, which can make paragraphs.. etc. etc.). From what little I've seen on the USEP wiki for Elder Scrolls, syntax is similar to that of C (structs, pointers, semi-colons, etc.) and knowing C will never hurt you because once you know one language, you can easily pick up others since it's the same process. Also, it is good to look at what others might have written in their *.esp files as you then learn some functions, formatting, and logic and you get to see something that you know works (unless it's bugged, in which case, looking at it is obviously bad). Beyond that, as mentioned, it's all personal preference on editing tools. If you really wanted to, you can use notepad to program, it's just text till you wish to compile it.

This breaks one of the cardinal rules! Never feed on the dead or continue feeding after the heart has its last beat. Do you not remember what happened to Lestat in Interview when Claudia tricked him into doing so? Yeah, he kicked the bucket... well as much as one can when you're immortal. However, as I mentioned, feeding on them while they're still alive and walking around as a way to kill them? Yes please :) I want to stalk my victims with my fangs, not with two health-leeching daggers used to simulate such.

Well.. there are also some caves, specifically the one I go to at level 2 (Broken Fang Cave) that have a "Master Vampire" in them, no reason they couldn't turn you as normal. From my limited amount of gameplay and exploration I've run into two possible "insertion" points for such a quest/occurrence. Of course there is the town that is "plagued" by one and you end up having to fight the master and all his thralls and at that point you could, as an option, have him force you to join him as repentance for exposing him and the girl in town or have to kill him off in "self defense." --This could be clan 1? Second place is Dark Brotherhood questline, there is a spot you have to kill a couple vampires at a mill ("Hurn and Hert"? I believe they are) and when you come back, Nazir mentions something about having been turned "unless that was your goal all along" and possible removals. So (and as I tried to get turned by them and it was impossible without a way to disarm them) that could result in Babette making some witty remark as well and offering you join her? -- Clan 2? I believe there's other spots where such could be inserted--as there are many other caves and likely quests--and these could contract it. --Perhaps a clan 3? However, adding a new questline to the game seems a bit much (though I guess it is a mod.) If you wanted to make it easier to implement, just tie a clan to Imperials and a clan to Storm Cloaks and let those sides be your choice as it already has to be made in game at some point, right? Then you simply assign the other various vampires around the world to one of those sides instead of nuetral/hostile vampires as they are now, thus sharing already established code for side friendly/hostileness (like approaching a fort for/against your faction). Additionally, along the lines of the DB quests, you are given a "cave" at the end of it with torture victims that could certainly be blood supplies ;) No reason not to add a coffin in the master bedroom or somewhere in that massive place for yourself and Babette (she needs a real one) like the lady in that town has in her basement. The thrall idea sounds interesting but we run into issues of when you're dungeoning and take too long (some of these places are huuuge after all) and exit into daylight. Without the thrall you couldn't fast-travel and would have to quickly re-enter and wait until sundown and then again, only have ~12 hours to get to another safe place. It might be easier that the companion you hire is said thrall that does that job rather than someone in a house. Was talking to a co-worker today that mentioned the werewolves (as he is one) have a nice crit-clip that illustrates them ripping off the victims head in a "satisfying crunch". It would be, and I have been constantly frustrated due to the lack of it, nice to feed on people standing/walking around as well. This could be used as a "physical back stab" attack and would count for feeding as well as killing them. I am thinking of the animation/effect that is done in Assassins Creed series where you can stab someone and keep moving without anyone noticing. This could be a way to drag someone into an alley and do so (Babette mentions doing this so I'd love to as well) and either kill them or leave them alive (an option during feeding?). I have gotten the throat-slitting animation for dagger backstab numerous times so it shouldn't be too hard to do something similar. All for now I guess, back to Skyrim :)

Wasn't aware they actually took shade into account in the game for anything other than lighting and that it wouldn't be accessible from a modders side all too easily. If that is so, then I guess that makes that stupidly easy to make use of and interesting when it comes to the partial shade of foliage. I've only read Interview and like 1/3 of Lestat (as far as Anne Rice goes) but have seen Queen of the Damned, so I can mostly gather what you refer to ;) (not sure what VPBV means for instance) Yes, I agree, vampires need to be done better... I've yet to see a game where they're done right at all, and this being such a wonderful game in regards to its openness is a perfect place to do so. Also, I'd like to see the silver weapons in game that are meant to kill undead really well (from the Cairn dungeon Companion Quest with the Silver Hand?) to instead be targeting of, and destroy, those nasty wolves :) So, since there is flying and wall walking in Anne Rice's novels, are you planning to implement that and if so, how? ;) Also, Anne Rice's vampires, at least from what I recall in Interview HAD to sleep in a coffin, and travel by one, during the day, even if there were the early risers/late sleepers like Lestat. You would then have to take into account what fast travel and travel via the purchased carriage would do and limit the player to only night-time play (problem when stores are only open 0800-2000!). I vaguely recall Oblivion made such limitations to fast travel during daytime, but that was only if the journey started at night, not when it would also end. Thus limiting distance of fast travel to a days distance would be a better representation. That's why I didn't want to implement such things as it starts to make the game almost too difficult to play at all. Additionally, how possible is it to "modularize" segments of the mod such that perhaps an individual could have an option to pick which legend/series/etc they take their attributes from (no Twilight allowed on principle)? I'm used to programming that would make such insanely easy but I've not looked at what language is used for Bethesda games and what is entailed... hopefully it's not some dreadful self-made language like CounterStrike has or something obscure like WoW's use of Lua. Either way, I'm willing to shoot back and forth idea's, be it on forums or other rapid-chat median.

Additionally.. we have 10 fingers so why can't we wear 10 rings? or at least 8? And why would you be restricted to wearing one necklace, I've worn multiple many times, so do others, it's just silly not to be able to.

Nope, no more sun damage, now they just dont regen mana/health/stam. Soon as the kit comes out i plan on "revamping" all pun intended, by adding sun damage back, make it so nightvision/bloodvision is mixed in with a sort of like fang mode (toggled), that increases movement speed and stealth (witch will continually show the black smoke effect/aura from the sneak perk) also i think its gay that vampires get weaker when they feed, so i want to redo that and make it more rational by making you force beast mode at level one with lower stats, and as you drink progress up to level five (with all the stats spell - minus the negative npc reactions) as it makes more sense for a vampire to be able to hide there true self when well fed. If any modders want to get in and help i would love it, i have a lot of ideas, and minimal scripting knowledge...enough to make some stuff i want not enough to make it all though As soon as I know how to do this I totally plan on making vampires a little more realistic according to the myth's, books, and some movies on the subject (if you want sparkling fairies go somewhere else). Sadly, from what I've read thusfar, we need the creator mod to make things happen differently at night than at day and stuff? As far as the damage in the sunlight goes, this can't happen until we have a way to differentiate between being in the shade or being out in sunlight, as you shouldn't be burning and taking damage if the sun isn't actually hitting you, just be weaker in general. I set a rule for myself in game to try to hop through shadows and 'rest' at each junction as that's all I can do at this point. I agree with you on the leveling up as you feed and being weaker/starved when you haven't done so recently. Not sure how to keep a proper balance on this though. Just for fun, going to list what I'm planning/want to do and maybe someone with more knowledge can tell me if it needs creator mod or not. If not, I'll get to work on it (learning how, doing, testing, etc) I did modding back in Morrowind with the Construction Set and I'm a programmer, so it shouldn't be a stretch. 1) Feeding should be progressive, not an all in one reset like it is now. The more you feed the more levels you can progress, feeding on the same npc multiple times at once wouldn't count and a second/third time could wake them (depending on your level of pickpocket -- yes, pickpocket not stealth, as you need to be able to "touch" a person without waking them). The healthier the target (the rich and children -- Jarl's, the nobility in Solitude castle, etc and make children feedable--the orphanage in Riften is a good example) could give 1.5 while older people and beggars would give very little satisfaction like 0.5, others would be a normal 1.0. Feeding cross-race (humans/elves/argonians/cats) should also provide minimal returns. 1.5) Feeding often in a town should begin to set a town on alert (people noticing others being sick from blood loss, bite marks, etc) to the point that if you do it so many times in a month you could be "suspected" by the guards due to your complexion and arrested on those suspicions. They'd likely use jailtime as a test of proof in these times before sentencing/death, as if you were worse off and/or didn't eat your "human food" by the time you left you'd be incarcerated. For fun and amusement, people could start hanging garlic and/or various religious symbols on their doorways in said town. 1.5.5) This is just a guess, and easily the hardest thing of all to implement, but feeding on criminals should lower your bounty for a given town while feeding on good citizens should increase suspicion level. This is best referenced using Maven Black-Briar as an example, we all know she's evil in her heart with the ties she holds, so she shouldn't count against bounty. Someone like a Jarl is viewed as good and would cause more suspicion. This would require "advance" knowledge of who is evil and who isn't throughout the game, and I'm no where near far enough in to judge this. 2) Vampire strength/stamina ... I prefer the parts from myths were vampires don't need to breathe (so get "breathe underwater spell" permanent), have unlimited stamina, increased strength and speed... these are all manipulated through the stamina stat. However, daylight should revert a vampire to essentially human status, thus weaker during the daytime. So the idea would be (and I know we could tap into the same script trigger that is used for the "Your vampire blood boils in the sunlight." mechanic) to have basically unlimited stamina when well fed and down to perhaps only double normal when you are worst off while nighttime and just what you would have were you not a vampire while it's daytime. Increasing the stamina like this would then effect your carry capacity and run duration but we'd need to also increase run speed based on feed level. This would add the challenge for the player of dungeons being an unlimited carry amount and then they step outside into the sun and suddenly can't move from their burdens :) 2.1) The ability to jump higher and fall safely from higher should also be taken into consideration. 2.5) The harder part, and perhaps far too imbalanced thing, would be to increase your dodge chance on getting shot at by arrows and/or make it so, in top condition, you could "catch them from the air" and add them to your inventory. This could make proper use of the 'slow time' perk that is currently in the archery tree. 3) Vampire health ... obviously immune to disease and poisons, but there should be a slight increase to health as you should last longer in a fight (that doesn't involve fire). This would have to have a basis on your relative age as a vampire so perhaps you get 0.1 hp a day boost (multiplied by the feed level of target and applied only once) or something slight and unnoticeable. Here we'd also have, again based on feed level, you take damage while in the sunlight. If you're well fed it can be like now with just no regen, while unfed you begin to take more and more damage. As vampires also have accelerated healing, this would have to be applied with a heightened health regen rate at night/in shade. 4) Vampire magicka ... I know the big thing in books/movies lately is that vampire each have a 'unique' special ability, as that seems ridiculous and I actually don't think vampires should be able to use magick at all as they're unnatural and the forces of nature rebel against them, it should cut down your magicka by significant amounts, maybe even to nothing during the day. 5) Vampire speech/intimidate/persuade ... it is given in more places than I can count that vampires are usually, at the best of times, quite a bit more beautiful than their original human selves. Additionally they all have either, depending on what it's called in any specific story, Compulsion or Glamor, in which you can force someone to do your bidding or forget something, etc. These can be reflected in the speech perk tree (replace the 'better prices with opposite gender' crap) with perks that give such an ability. This could then be used on guards as an alternate to paying or going to jail or during those times when you're given options to persuade, intimidate, or bribe. 6) Vampire vision ... the spell they have going now is great and all but as you and others mentioned, they should be able to detect aura's/life as default (partially due to hearing). However, these abilities should only work at night or in dark places and be unavailable during the day. Additionally, perhaps making use of the 'eagle eye' perk from archery should be a spell that can mix with these. 7) Vampire hearing ... the only thing I can think of here is to add, when poorly fed, a sound of peoples heartbeats that gets louder as you're less fed. Otherwise, even with my sound at normal levels I hear footsteps and whatnot just fine. A change, though, would be that no one should be able to sneak up on you as you do hear their heartbeat. 8.) Vampires movement through homes ... I love the idea of a vampire requiring an invite to enter a persons home; however, this could end up being impractical. The closest I can think on this is keeping track of which NPC's have given you a quest that you need to talk to them in their home (as is done in Whiterun when you're to talk to the old lady about her kid). Then, all homes that you have no invite to are locked with "(Requires Key)" restriction and normal when you have the invite (day and night). As businesses are public places, they can act as normal. Additionally, anyone you're friendly with we could assume would invite you in using their disposition towards you as the gauge. Additional Notes: I don't think vampires should have any shape-shifting or flying abilities, so don't even think about it. They're still affected by physics and don't have wings. In some myths, vampires are affected by garlic, so drinking a potion made with it, or eating it raw or anything made with it, should severely weaken you; however, this should be optional. I might have forgotten a thing or two but hopefully this gets people thinking. Just saying "contact me, I have ideas" isn't going to get anyone anywhere as that takes effort and time ;)