volnaiskra

Thought provoking in a good way or a bad way?

Hmm, those are very good points. I guess there are more non-plant ingredients than I initially remembered. Especially if you count the fungi.

I was researching Bosmer lore for my mod, and something really bewilders me. I don't actually take lore as seriously as this post might suggest, but still, I found this odd. The Green Pact wikia page writes that "Bosmer cannot kill, injure, or eat any vegetation", and that they are "forbidden to harm plants...for their own betterment". Meanwhile, the Skyrim Alchemy wikia page explains that "Bosmeri...gain a +5 boost to Alchemy at the start of the game". What the hell? The Bosmer are actually given an advantage in an ability that revolves around killing, injuring and consuming plants for personal betterment?! That would be like a vegetarian being extra skilled at hunting, or an Orthodox Jew getting +5 healing from all pork products. I struggle to see this as anything other than a slip-up from Bethesda. If someone can see a way that these two things don't flatly contradict each other, please enlighten me... :D

Skyrim modding will definitely be decimated when Fallout 4 comes out, but by then the modding database will be so well fleshed out that it won't matter much anyway. Most of the important bugs and questionable design choices will be fixed (if they aren't already), and there'll be more fantastic quest, companion, immersion and player home mods than you'll know what to do with. There'll still be many mods being made for Skyrim though, I'm sure. They'll dwindle to a crawl once Elder Scrolls 6 comes out though. Having said that, you should definitely try Fallout 4. It will be FANTASTIC. Each to their own, of course, but I struggle to see how you can love one but hate the other. The games are so similar - the main difference is the setting. The freedom, the questing, the mechanics, the style of storytelling, it's all very similar. The Fallout games are a little more tongue-in-cheek, while the Elder Scrolls are a bit more serious...but also a bit more corny. You aren't the only one. It was one of the most beautiful games I've ever played (after a liberal dose of mods of course). Trekking through that lonely, hazy, yellow-green world is still one of my fondest and most atmospheric gaming memories.

A lot. It creates a moral spectrum and allows the player to inhabit that spectrum as they please (and dealing with the consequences), rather than measuring it with some simplistic "karma" system. Acting nobly should be its own reward. In Skyrim, it is. Dungeons. So far, just about every single dungeon I've seen has been designed wonderfully. Some are beautiful, some are haunting, some are modest....almost all feel different. The environment. A game set entirely in a super-cold setting could have been very monotonous, but Bethesda outdid themselves with finding and rendering so many forms of beautiful cold landscapes and tying it all together The dual wielding system. It's better with a gamepad, but even without one it works well, and the endless combinations make you wonder how action-RPGs ever got by without such a system. The scope. Obviously the modability

Most of this is probably obvious, but anyway... Something that feels like a natural extension of the game. It doesn't matter how much work and talent went into the mod: if it feels radically different to the rest of the game, it'll break immersion and I'll probably hate it. Some examples of immersion-breaking elements: maaaaaaassive dungeons that are much longer than anything else in the game, hugely overpowered rewards, or dialogue/journals that are way too long because the author forgot that not everyone loves the sound of his voice as much as he does. Basically, exercise design restraint: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Keep your own voice as invisible as possible. It's ok if the mod has a strong tone, but that tone should come from the subject matter and the characters, and not from your own writing/design style. I downloaded a quest mod the other day that started off by getting you to read an in-game note that said "Hi! Thanks for downloading this mod by xxxxx! Have fun!". Bloody hell, I can't imagine a worse way to start off your mod. Some other examples of an author's voice being too intrusive are: books/dialogue written in too contemporary a style; bad grammar, spelling or punctuation; houses/locations being decorated in a vastly different style to vanilla locations (unless there's a good story-related reason for it of course); Story. Even if it's not very long or has modest rewards, I'm likely to most enjoy your mod if it doesn't just feel like a mechanical process (intro, combat, reward), but introduces some interesting characters into the game (either directly via NPCs, or indirectly via books, journals, abandoned interiors or other clues) Nuance. Often the smallest details are the most memorable, because they activate the imagination. I can't remember whole swaths of the main quest in Fallout 3. But I can still remember coming across a skeleton lying next to a locked door next to a book about lockpicking. I spent hundreds of hours in Oblivion, yet I can't remember much about the story besides that it had to do with demons or something. But I still remember the feeling I had when I found a dead traveller with a note from his daughter in his backpack, urging him not to set out on that dangerous expedition. The story in both this instances was implied rather than directed, which meant that my brain had to automatically fill out the details, which in turn caused me to become more immersed in the gameworld.

I love women. I love their looks, I love their personalities. I chose to spend my entire life with a woman by marrying her...I never would have made such a long commitment to a man. Likewise, if I'm going spend 100+ hours in a game, I'd prefer it to be with female company. The choice seems natural to me. Having said that, it makes little difference in a Bethesda game, especially if you play in first person. I barely notice my character in Skyrim anyway, unlike in a fully-voiced Bioware game.

I generally try to protect the underdog wherever I can. I try to avoid violence wherever possible, unless I see someone oppressing/killing someone else, in which case I'm quick to exact justice on them with the wrath and fury of a fanatic. So, I kill bandits when I see them, and I free prisoners and kill their oppressors. Same with Thalmor if I'm feeling game. I also take special pleasure in stalking and hunting the hunters, and seeing them resemble their own prey as they run around blindly in their final moments while I pop them from the bushes. I also set those painted cows free by killing the farmers who are leading them to their death. If I see hunters attacking wolves, I'll kill the hunters. But if I see wolves attacking hares, I'll kill the wolves. I know the wolves gotta eat, but so do the hares...on my watch, it's the hares that get to eat. I'm a keen alchemist, but I generally use only plant materials, and leave the butterflies and fish alone. Though more than anything, I play it by ear, rather than sticking to any rules religiously. I like Enatiomorph's philosophy, but that kind of role playing is not for me. I've almost never replayed an RPG - I do whatever feels most right to me at the time, so if I replayed it, I'd just end up doing almost the same things anyway. Rather, I do one very long, very thorough playthrough that leaves me feeling fully immersed and satiated.

But you'll compress the loose files in a ZIP or RAR anyway, which is bound to have a similar filesize as the BSA Loose files have a few advantages too. Firstly, BSA files get overwritten by loose files, so your mod files are less likely to get overwritten by some other mod. Secondly, it makes it easier for users to troubleshoot/delete/modify parts of your mod if they wish.

Locational Damage approximates it, but it's not quite like VATS. There's no zooming or pausing, or precalculated probability of hitting various areas.

I believe the Golden rule of descriptions is that they should benefit the users first, and the author second. One of the beautiful things about Skyrim modding and the nexus is how community-oriented it is. People go to great lengths to help each other out, offer guidance, share the fruits of their labours, etc. It's a very selfless and communal atmosphere, which is why the nexus is such a wonderful place. So, in that spirit, your descriptions should concentrate on the users' needs ahead of your own. That is, keep it clear, honest, well structured, and succinct. If I've just been browsing dozens of mods, I'm not going to have much patience for mod descriptions that make it hard for me to judge and understand them. If I have to waste time reading through a whole bunch of hyperbolic fluff or self-congratulory rantings, I'm gonna get annoyed. That stuff doesn't help users one bit, so they're going to lose trust and respect for you and your mod if you subject them to it. Don't give me marketing bulls***, give me the facts. And give them to me upfront. However, if you ARE respectful to your users by being succinct, honest and factual, then I don't mind a bit of showboating. I don't mind if you praise your mod, or even compare it to other mods. You could even make explicit comparisons to my mod to show why yours is better and I wouldn't mind.... As long as it's true, you do it respectfully, and that it's clear you care about users getting the best experience, and not just your own ego.

Yeah, I also don't know how you came to that conclusion. The vast majority were interested about the idea, and many of those were positively excited about it. And to be honest, the couple of people who were against it came across as stubborn control freaks and Luddites. The thing I really took from reading that X thread was just how insanely craptacular the current system seems to be for them: many mods missing or dead, or hosted on someone's horrible clunky personal site somewhere. Mod listings, comments, questions and update notices all buried in forum threads, requiring people to waste time digging through it all. I can't believe people put up with a crap 'system' like that, much less that a few people even defend it. Makes me realise how lucky we are to have the Nexus! @vastias: If you want to change your username, you can always email a moderator. I did that (I hated my username and didn't want to carry it with me to my grave since I'm also a lifetime member)

@silent jokester: you've gotta be kidding...

@Deathtoheaven731: Nah, there are plenty of things that can still be improved with NMM. I think they're correct to keep calling it a beta. The interface could still be more intuitive and logical (eg. a red X button means two different things depending what tab you're in), it gets confused when installing a mod's optional esps (it thinks you're trying to overwrite the mod with an older version), it has no search/find function (if a mod isn't intelligently named, and it's buried in a mod library of 200 mods, good luck finding it), it doesn't let you remove ESPs from your "plugins" page without removing the whole mod (annoying when a mod has 10 variant esps and you want to install only one and discard the other 9), etc. etc. etc. It has thousands of issues in the official bugreport forums, and for a small minority of people NMM doesn't even work. No offence, but I'm glad the NMM creators have a different understanding of "pretty polished" than you... ;) That's the reason NMM is already so good, and that's the reason it will one day be so much better.

Thanks guys. This thread also helped me. If anyone comes here in the future with the same problem, please tell us: do you have flying cars yet? Also, this is what I got to work, in a nutshell (more details in threads linked above) -there has to be a quest (any quest) that links to the book in the Quest Aliases tab. -If the book is on an NPC, that NPC also has to be Aliased in the Quest Aliases tab, and has to be listed HIGHER than the book. -The actor should be "specific reference" (then select forced reference and double click the npc in the render window) -The book should be "create reference to object [select your book from the dropdown], "create In", [select the alias of the npc in the dropdown]. Check "uses stored text" and "stores text" -if the actor starts dead or might die, check "allow dead". -don't manually insert the book into the NPC's inventory. This Alias stuff should do it automatically -You can use more than just the player's name. You can also get gender-specific pronouns (he, hers, herself, etc.). See here for details.

Bought a lifetime membership a while ago and have always been glad I did. Keep up the good work :)

Anyone?

I don't think we're talking about quite the same thing. I also don't buy the notion that if what I'm saying is correct then suddenly all game designers are going to set their games in Lilliput. That's as ridiculous as saying "if AA decreased performance, then games would never use AA". Actually, it's a little bit more ridiculous than that. It's ridiculous? If the smaller the polygonal objects are, the better the performance, then game designers would scale their 3D models way, way down, and the game designer would just have to place the camera closer to the models. Two completely different things, bud. What you're saying makes no sense. Unlike in the physical world, "size" in the virtual world is relative, not absolute. They are relative to the camera. If all the game's polygonal objects become small, and then designers place the camera really close, then the polygonal objects *are no longer small*, because their "smallness" or "bigness" only has meaning in relation to the other elements in the engine (most notably, the camera). Maybe an illustration will help: *I'm* saying I have a game engine like this: XXXXXXXXXXXX and I wonder whether there'll be an improvement if I do this to it: XXXXxXXXxxXx *You're* saying, "no, because if you take XXXXXXXXX and turn it into xxxxxxxxx but then magnify it so that it becomes XXXXXXXXX then you're back where you're started, and you've made no difference. We agree there, but what I'm talking about and what you're talking about are actually quite different things, even though it might not initially seem that way. See my above points about SSAO, AA, shadowing and lighting to see why it's more complicated than you make it out to be. Anyway, I'm not discussing this with you any more. If you're not convinced, let's just say that I'm wrong and you're right and move on.

ah, good. Thanks :)

Thanks, but there's nothing there about scaling that I can see. It's all about kits with predetermined snap-to abilities so I don't think they'd recommend scaling in that section in the first place. Ok, I'll try alt-S and other things Woah, noone said anything about double size. I'm just talking about a difference of 10-15% to make elements from one kit fit better with elements from a different kit (eg. shack stuff mixed with some mine stuff). And actually, I'm shrinking not enlarging. Of course you're right about resizing from the beginning. Although of course you still need to resize every new type of element you introduce (floor, wall1, wall2, ceiling, frame1, door2, etc. etc.) which is a pain. Plus, as in my case, I didn't really know what exact size I needed the shack to be until it was mostly completed. Anyway, I managed without the feature. It seems like there just isn't this feature in CK, which strikes me as a little bizzare. But then again, it is Bethesda, so maybe not that surprising. Oh well. Thanks for the responses.

Polygons yes, and textures almost definitely yes (there perhaps exists a theoretical possibility that things like anisotropic filtering would become more taxing on larger models). But what about lighting and shadowing? A large object will cast a larger shadow, which will affect more objects below it. And its increased size might mean that there's more SSAO, lighting, and reflections to apply to the screenspace. And possibly more AA processing because of its bigger edges. I'm sure in many cases the fps difference would be 0. But I'm also pretty sure that in some it would be more than 0. I guess what I'm wondering is how much more, and how often. I don't think we're talking about quite the same thing. I also don't buy the notion that if what I'm saying is correct then suddenly all game designers are going to set their games in Lilliput. That's as ridiculous as saying "if AA decreased performance, then games would never use AA". Actually, it's a little bit more ridiculous than that.

It's been almost a year, yet still there doesn't seem to exist a mod that lets you ride mammoths. I kind of would have expected this to be one of the first mods to come out. :blink: Has anyone tried it?

While working on my current mod, I sometimes scale things up or down slightly for aesthetic or practical reasons. I wonder whether this has any impact on fps. I guess a scaled-up object has the same amount of polygons, but it still requires more pixels to be calculated. Also, I can imagine that lighting, shadowing and texturing on a bigger version of an object might often be more complex than on a smaller version. Does anyone have any more educated answers/speculations about this? Would frequent up-scaling (SLIGHT upscaling - I'm not talking about making sky-scraper sized barrels) of objects have a noticeable reduction of FPS? Or, if I'm building a whole bunch of buildings in an outdoor area, if I make everything a little bit smaller would that make the mod run smoother?

Do you mean I should hold down Ctrl while holding down S to scale? Or do you mean I should use Ctrl to select multiple objects, and then just use S (on its own) to scale? Because I've tried this, and although I can move and rotate the shack as one whole, when I scale it, each piece scales on its own axis and separates from the others.

I have a shack I've constructed out of individual pieces (wall, roof, etc.). I have them all selected together, so I can move the entire shack around in one go. But when I try and scale the shack, each piece scales on its own vertex, and the pieces immediately start separating from each other. How can I group the pieces of the shack together so that CK treats them as a single object? I searched on the official documentation site but couldn't find the answer.