Zephyr102

You guys rock. This thread is pure win. The HAL idea really fits for some reason. I'm partial to the original red, but the blue is a nice touch- kinda makes it more site-unique. Problem with the Fallout robots is that they don't reflect the other two sites (Morrowind/Oblivion and Dragon Age); HAL is kinda... game-neutral. Now if we can just get Site Bot's opinion on this... I mean, sheesh, 8.6k activity points, 70+ posts a DAY and he can't even come to see his own thread... oh, wait.

Good point on the pricing- you'd think less materials would mean less money out of our pockets. But with greed being what it is, things rarely seem to work that way. :| The euro deal makes even less sense- not setting up a computer service to account for exchange rates is just lazy.

Ouch- I probably wouldn't have ANY of my Direct2Drive-type games if I had to work at those speeds. @ the indie convo- Audiosurf and Gary's Mod are two of the best things I've ever bought for under $10 a pop. Replay til your thumbs fall off, then learn to play with your toes. :P

Wewt, methinks that did it! Poured in an assortment of gems in varied stacks, and all were charge/swapped with one cast! I was wondering how to use the getitemcount command, and now I know. :P Will definitely credit you in the readme- thanks! Update: Link!

@ Hickory: No luck- it won't do anything if I put multiple gems in. :| @ David: Looks like it would work, tho I'll save it for a last-ditch fix in case I dun find anything that can do it in one cast. Still hunting for a way to make the script repeat itself immediately/each frame til done, or a way to get a count of each crystal type and swap that many instead of one at a time.

Personally, I've seen some ludicrously low prices when Steam has a sale. I got The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition for $7.49, and Lost Planet and Mirror's Edge were $20 each- same price as (or in some cases, less than) the store. And to top it off, the Orange Box comes with three games and two HL2 expansions for $30- I paid that much just for FO3:GOTY. That's not to mention all the low-buck indie games and free mods that are as awesome as anything one would find from big-name producers. (PS: Anyone with HL2 must play Nightmare House 2- best horror mod since Gates to Aesgaard) As for Black Ops, its a new game- everyone charges $60 state-side. It sucks, but that's life, not Steam.

Will debate ya on the Windows thing- while XP is and likely always will be somewhat of a PITA, my dad's new Win7 laptop has done very well in the months we've had it. Can't stand the overhyped, overpriced Apple gear, and have been biased against them since Macs gave me headaches in school. As for Linux, while I haven't learned how to run my game library thru Ubuntu, it saved one of my hard drives last year, so it still gets my respect. Anyway, back on topic, folks! @ OriginOfPain- 2: The only 'spam' I get is the window that pops up when I start Steam, and one box to close is hardly 'spam' in my book. Sometimes I actually find some decent sales, too. 3: Will give ya that one- would like a way to pick my own directories, especially with non-Valve games. 5: As far as I can tell, Steam itself isn't that big, taking up a mere sliver of HD space compared to the games themselves. 6: I've run Mass Effect with and without Steam, and noticed no performance issues either way, which leads me to believe it's hardly a source of performance issues for the (or at least my) average gaming rig.

I'm working on a soul gem charger, inspired by the device from the Shadowcrest Vineyard mod (which my computer hates, unfortunately- it's an awesome home). My charger is based on the operation of the vanilla altars used to create Black Soul Gems, but with a new location and a new script designed to fully charge any empty soul gem. http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6561/wellofsouls4.th.jpg So far, I've got it working, but it's rather crude. To test it, I put two of each soul gem in the container, fired a spell at it, then found that it had only converted one of each gem type. Another spell finished the job, but I'd like the script to replace all of the gems with just one cast spell, if possible. Here's the script so far- ScriptName DJZWellScript ;For charging soul gems via the well of souls. ref self Begin OnMagicEffectHit ;For every empty Soul Gem in the container, swap with appropriate charged gem. set self to GetSelf cast MGAnchoriteAltarSpell self if ( GetItemCount SoulGemEmpty5Grand > 0 ) removeitem SoulGemEmpty5Grand 1 additem SoulGem5Grand5GrandSoul 1 endif if ( GetItemCount SoulGemEmpty4Greater > 0 ) removeitem SoulGemEmpty4Greater 1 additem SoulGem4Greater4GreaterSoul 1 endif if ( GetItemCount SoulGemEmpty3Common > 0 ) removeitem SoulGemEmpty3Common 1 additem SoulGem3Common3CommonSoul 1 endif if ( GetItemCount SoulGemEmpty2Lesser > 0 ) removeitem SoulGemEmpty2Lesser 1 additem SoulGem2Lesser2LesserSoul 1 endif if ( GetItemCount SoulGemEmpty1Petty > 0 ) removeitem SoulGemEmpty1Petty 1 additem SoulGem1Petty1PettySoul 1 endif End As my thread descrip suggests, this is my first time working with Oblivion/FO3 scripting, so any help would be golden.

Agreed, I have a foot-high stack of PC game discs. Some of the older ones don't need discs, but some still do, and I hate digging thru that stuff. Dun need to do that with the Orange Box, tho. :P As for auto-updates, I haven't had any desire recently to NOT update my library. Aside from Garry's Mod, I haven't seen much third-party content screwed over by updates, but then I also only bought FO3 and Oblivion about a year in, so they were already patched-up GOTY Editions. One thing mentioned was install directories- this I can agree with. I have Steam (along with its library) installed on one partition of my main hard drive (which is getting a bit full), and a lot of big-@ss non-Steam games on my second partition, including the first Mass Effect. I'd like to get Mass Effect 2 Digital Deluxe Edition due to the extra stuff, but that wouldn't allow me to install it on the same HD partition as the prequel. So I may end up tracking it down in stores, cuz I sure as hell ain't DLing it from Gamestop- I tried that before with another game, the download was a nightmare. On that note, Walmart is fulla crap- they want $50, while GameStop and Steam are only asking $20. That $60 collector's edition looks awful juicy, tho...

What limits? Please do elaborate- one-liners don't really tell me much. @ RZ: I kinda agree with the 'requirement' bit, especially on non-Valve games. F:NV's case does seem a bit odd to me, but it makes me question the folks at Bethesda and Obsidian more than the folks at Valve. And since my experience so far with Steam has been good, it prbly affects how I look at the issue.

@ Ub3r True enough- in the past, if my computer's connection was down for whatever reason *cough*PARENTS*cough*, it made it a pain to install stuff like Mass Effect or Prince of Persia (SP-only, but with online activation). Steam and its various games can run offline, tho it's somewhat stubborn about it at times. I dun see why a CD key shouldn't suffice for store-bought copies, and I do disagree with Steam being required for NV (a non-Valve game, which is why I was a bit surprise as mentioned above). As for DRM/copy protection, it seems to me, the only people who hafta worry about it are the same people who inspired it- pirates. They're also why the game industry leans so hard towards consoles. My entire library is legit- I refuse to be part of the problem. @ Jim Indeed, no noticable performance hit- I use it with several non-Steam games for the overlay/browser. Keeps my desktop nice 'n clean, since I have 'em all in a menu. And I hopped on the HL2 bandwagon a bit late, so I didn't experience that particular debacle. Haven't had many issues at all, come to think, unless I forget my password. :| And I'da never found the indie awesomeness that is AudioSurf if it weren't for Steam.

Would love to see Dark Forces and Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight remade. The Kyle Katarn legacy still stands in my book as the absolute best Star Wars gaming series ever made, even over the likes of KotOR and Force Unleashed. Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy were fine games, too, but they run and look good enough to not need remakes. :P Need to get Crimson Skies running again. Had some fine dogfighting, it did, but it seems to hate WinXP. Looks like someone above this post knows what MW is supposed to stand for- MechWarrior! MW4:Mercs was epic- my two squads versus the Steiner hordes, turning a snow-covered mountainside black with charred debris.... Good times, good times... Only other classic I miss is a Game Boy game- Pokemon Silver. Gave it to a friend when Sapphire came out for GBA, and haven't seen another copy since. -.-

Ever since F:NV came out, I've been hearin' a lotta mixed feelings about Steam. Having played HL2, and thus having utilized Steam, for several years before NV's debut, I had personally come to like it- stable and reasonably fast game purchasing and downloads, easy and free updates, launch management and in-game overlay. And best of all, it's a free, tiny download. Then came along NV. Mind you, I'm still waiting for the price to come down and some bugs to be fixed, but I still follow the game's progress to an extent. I wasn't too surprised there would be a Steam version- both Oblivion and FO3 have them, if I recall. I was somewhat surprised to learn that Steam was a requirement, tho not really disappointed, given my good experience with Steam in the past. Which is why the furor over Steam has me confused. It seems the FOMM and OBSE guys have adapted well enough to the new platform, as well as the rest of the mod community. And I haven't heard of any legitimate in-game issues arising as a direct result of Steam- it seems a rushed release and a naturally-unstable engine (at least in my experience- Morrowind, Oblivion, and FO3 are the games that taught me to quicksave early and often) are mostly to blame. So what's all the commotion about? I dun mean to start any fights, and I ain't aimin' at anyone in particular. Just wanted to pose the question that's on my mind.

Think what it means by 'overwrite original files' is that if you had any similar mods/meshes/textures previously installed, or if you've unpacked the stuff in the Oblivion BSAs into the Data folder for whatever reason, its files will overwrite them. And as long as you have the disks (or Steam), you can always get the vanilla stuff back. As said, with Robert's Male, there are several options for musculature. You won't hafta worry about... lol, 'butt floss' either, the briefs are fairly conservative. And if ya wanna get rid of the thongs, HGEC's lower underwear has a good amount of coverage, and is textured to look somewhat medieval. Plenty of armor/clothing available for both, too.