The Sunday Discussion - IceCreamAssassin - Author of "Legacy of the Dragonborn"

[Arjisaj]

In response to post #45788870. #45798700, #45799680, #45800530 are all replies on the same post.

sleepytigereyes wrote: Did you forget follower mods? We don't seem to get any credit at all but they are in so much demand and yet we are left in the dust.

icecreamassassin wrote: Did who forget follower mods? BlindJudge? This is only the second Modder showcase interview that's been on Nexus.

and what the heck do you mean "We don't seem to get any credit" follower mods dominate the hot files almost all the time and 90% of the time they are just some plastic looking eye candy with no real depth to their character. Only once in awhile does one come around that has some real substance and feels like they really belong in the TES world. Too many look like a fashion magazine (or worse) IMO.

And frankly as a player and as a mod author (just my own opinion) followers just get in the way, both in game and when I am searching online for solutions to other completely non follower related technical issues (searches erroneously return follower how to info left and right, it's so obnoxious).

That said though, despite my personal feelings on followers, I appreciate the work you put in, because having added follower functionality to several characters in Legacy, I know how much work it is.

bigdeano89 wrote: Can I just correct you op please? SUPER followers are in demand, like Inigo, Arissa and Sofia, ones with backstory, depth and custom voice packages. Like Ice says, "eyecandy" superfluous followers are most certainly not, they are a dime a dozen on Nexus frankly.

The rest I agree wholeheartedly with Ice on. Sorry, but you put in the work you get rewarded, and eyecandy followers arent much work to make imho.

Elta1 wrote: I am going to have to agree with icecreamassassin and bigdeano. I know that making follower mods is difficult but recently they have been on the Hotfiles all the time. And personally I get sick of the vanilla voiced followers that drown out a lot of the followers that are voiced/quested.

The Discussions are new and eventually an author of follower mods will be interviewed.

And I do feel that apart of the reason you do not see as much "credit" to follower mods is due to the shear amount of them that have popping up. Most with the same amount of quality to the mod, that they dont stand out as much.

Generic cute girl followers with no story or personality beyond being "cute" or "hot" drown out the very few follower mods even worth looking at.
I'm sorry, but when you just churn out cutesy-girl after cutesy-girl, you won't get recognized.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying these types of mods are inherently bad, but expecting praise and recognition from the larger masses is just not really feasible.

As for being "in so much demand", that would be a rather small crowd of players, compared to the massive amounts that look for quest mods, new land mods, and overhaul mods.

I hope that this, along with what others have posted, will clear up your confusion about the issue.

[Farvahar]

In response to post #45781490. #45783850 is also a reply to the same post.

Farvahar wrote: I really enjoy mod authors' perspectives:

You stated that you wished Bethesda supported mod authors more, and you gave answering questions as an example:

what questions could they answer for you?

what would be your ideal support from Bethesda?

Considering how much money they make indirectly from modders, they should do much more, and even pay modders for what they do. I question why they rely on modders to fix bugs, and do not just incorporate those fixes in the base game, for instance. Why not make Legacy of the Dragon born an official DLC and allow all parties to benefit?

I am waiting on Legacy for my first and perhaps last play through of SSE. I will kick a few bucks your way to help out.

icecreamassassin wrote: Well the main thing is that bethesda sort of just dropped the CK in our laps with next to no primer on usage just like they did with the original. It's mostly the same but has some key quirks and critically lacking functions that make us all scratch our heads. I wasn't lucky enough to get into the CK beta, mostly because I think my browser was having issues and wouldn't submit the request form and I came on kinda late anyways, but from what I heard, a lot of authors who were personally invited to the beta asked several questions about functionality and work flow and features and never got any responses from bethesda.

So first and foremost I feel like they need to do a better job of documenting the CK and it's functions and provide some level of support, especially if they are going to be directly profiting from mods like they are with console ported mods. It also is evident they don't care because they aren't willing to have an open discussion with anyone about it. They basically just make their own minds up and often without any good data to back their choices (as was evident with the paid modding fiasco on Steam).

It would be neat to have Bethesda draw high end modders into making new DLC's for them for some cut of sales, but the idea of porting an already successful mod TO a paid DLC probably would not work well for the community. Not only would bethesda 100% require the mod to be pulled so they could sell it, but there would be very little stopping people from sharing the free version that was circulated before. I think Alex Valekey (sp?) had the right idea with making a mod as a showcase or resume and then hopefully be brought in to work on new things, but bethesda is stuck in an old paradigm of the gaming industry; They have a vision that they want to convey and a plan in place that is one part creative design and one part business plan and they haven't realized that they could build a model around the modding community that could revolutionize the life cycle of games.

They wouldn't even have to control much, just set up a donation system of their own where they require all mod sites that offer a donation option to then switch to using their portal and have that portal offer one time and sustained donations to specific authors and they take a FAIR cut and in turn they provide ample support for the tool which gets them that revenue stream. Then when they identify a talent they can offer a job, recruitment to special paid DLC projects or any number of other things. could be neat. The result is that they would have a much large pool of talent to draw from, more ideas to help shape functionality and ways to spark ideas on their end. Allowing your product to have a main vein that is carved by your core development team where you set canon and then allow the product to grow in that development by including the community in it's growth in a very real way would be amazing.

I think the main reason they leave the game in the state it's in and let the community fix it is because any game title has a specific development schedule. Unlike with modding, where we do it whenever we have time or feel like it on a largely open schedule, a game company has set deadlines, so they end up having to cut features, cut corners and even cut quality sometimes in order to make those deadlines. They have an entire manufacturing and distribution hierarchy all lined up and expecting to do their work when designated by the company. So those deadlines are very much set in stone. They set these based on their budget, based on their labor pool, and the manufacturing and distribution schedules of the 3rd party companies involved. If a product ever gets delayed officially (like Diablo 1's 6 month setback years ago), you can bet they end up paying penalties or higher rates to 3rd party producers of the packaging/software/etc. Anyways, going on a tangent I guess :) Bottom line is that there is only so much they can do. I've been working on Legacy for almost 3 years now and largely on my own and there is no way I can find all the bugs myself, so I rely on others to point them out. Imagine that for an entire game. They have lots of eyes to look at it but ultimately, not everything will be caught until it goes out to the public.

And thanks so much for the praise and support, it means a lot :)

Thanks for all you do!

[flamingsora]

In response to post #45788870. #45798700, #45799680, #45800530, #45809045 are all replies on the same post.

sleepytigereyes wrote: Did you forget follower mods? We don't seem to get any credit at all but they are in so much demand and yet we are left in the dust.

icecreamassassin wrote: Did who forget follower mods? BlindJudge? This is only the second Modder showcase interview that's been on Nexus.

and what the heck do you mean "We don't seem to get any credit" follower mods dominate the hot files almost all the time and 90% of the time they are just some plastic looking eye candy with no real depth to their character. Only once in awhile does one come around that has some real substance and feels like they really belong in the TES world. Too many look like a fashion magazine (or worse) IMO.

And frankly as a player and as a mod author (just my own opinion) followers just get in the way, both in game and when I am searching online for solutions to other completely non follower related technical issues (searches erroneously return follower how to info left and right, it's so obnoxious).

That said though, despite my personal feelings on followers, I appreciate the work you put in, because having added follower functionality to several characters in Legacy, I know how much work it is.

bigdeano89 wrote: Can I just correct you op please? SUPER followers are in demand, like Inigo, Arissa and Sofia, ones with backstory, depth and custom voice packages. Like Ice says, "eyecandy" superfluous followers are most certainly not, they are a dime a dozen on Nexus frankly.

The rest I agree wholeheartedly with Ice on. Sorry, but you put in the work you get rewarded, and eyecandy followers arent much work to make imho.

Elta1 wrote: I am going to have to agree with icecreamassassin and bigdeano. I know that making follower mods is difficult but recently they have been on the Hotfiles all the time. And personally I get sick of the vanilla voiced followers that drown out a lot of the followers that are voiced/quested.

The Discussions are new and eventually an author of follower mods will be interviewed.

And I do feel that apart of the reason you do not see as much "credit" to follower mods is due to the shear amount of them that have popping up. Most with the same amount of quality to the mod, that they dont stand out as much.

Arjisaj wrote: Generic cute girl followers with no story or personality beyond being "cute" or "hot" drown out the very few follower mods even worth looking at.
I'm sorry, but when you just churn out cutesy-girl after cutesy-girl, you won't get recognized.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying these types of mods are inherently bad, but expecting praise and recognition from the larger masses is just not really feasible.

As for being "in so much demand", that would be a rather small crowd of players, compared to the massive amounts that look for quest mods, new land mods, and overhaul mods.

I hope that this, along with what others have posted, will clear up your confusion about the issue.

there are few follower mods out there i actually love or enjoy/appreciate. im not into the eyecandy hot/sexy looking followers just like all op have said. ones taht stick out for me are cerdwen, inigo, arrissa, mirai, sophia (despite how unlorefriendly she can be sometimes), and the recent ambriel...some of these followers i hope to see hit sse soon...they are very much needed.

i myself want to make a follower similar to the above but i have to start small like ICA said...so for now my mod just tweaks an exisiting boss fight...and yus i want to make him into a follower with an in depth friendship/rivalry system similar to arissa but have as much dialogue and unique peronality like inigo. ill get there someday. :)

[sleepytigereyes]

In response to post #45788870. #45798700, #45799680, #45800530, #45809045, #45818235 are all replies on the same post.

sleepytigereyes wrote: Did you forget follower mods? We don't seem to get any credit at all but they are in so much demand and yet we are left in the dust.

icecreamassassin wrote: Did who forget follower mods? BlindJudge? This is only the second Modder showcase interview that's been on Nexus.

and what the heck do you mean "We don't seem to get any credit" follower mods dominate the hot files almost all the time and 90% of the time they are just some plastic looking eye candy with no real depth to their character. Only once in awhile does one come around that has some real substance and feels like they really belong in the TES world. Too many look like a fashion magazine (or worse) IMO.

And frankly as a player and as a mod author (just my own opinion) followers just get in the way, both in game and when I am searching online for solutions to other completely non follower related technical issues (searches erroneously return follower how to info left and right, it's so obnoxious).

That said though, despite my personal feelings on followers, I appreciate the work you put in, because having added follower functionality to several characters in Legacy, I know how much work it is.

bigdeano89 wrote: Can I just correct you op please? SUPER followers are in demand, like Inigo, Arissa and Sofia, ones with backstory, depth and custom voice packages. Like Ice says, "eyecandy" superfluous followers are most certainly not, they are a dime a dozen on Nexus frankly.

The rest I agree wholeheartedly with Ice on. Sorry, but you put in the work you get rewarded, and eyecandy followers arent much work to make imho.

Elta1 wrote: I am going to have to agree with icecreamassassin and bigdeano. I know that making follower mods is difficult but recently they have been on the Hotfiles all the time. And personally I get sick of the vanilla voiced followers that drown out a lot of the followers that are voiced/quested.

The Discussions are new and eventually an author of follower mods will be interviewed.

And I do feel that apart of the reason you do not see as much "credit" to follower mods is due to the shear amount of them that have popping up. Most with the same amount of quality to the mod, that they dont stand out as much.

Arjisaj wrote: Generic cute girl followers with no story or personality beyond being "cute" or "hot" drown out the very few follower mods even worth looking at.
I'm sorry, but when you just churn out cutesy-girl after cutesy-girl, you won't get recognized.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying these types of mods are inherently bad, but expecting praise and recognition from the larger masses is just not really feasible.

As for being "in so much demand", that would be a rather small crowd of players, compared to the massive amounts that look for quest mods, new land mods, and overhaul mods.

I hope that this, along with what others have posted, will clear up your confusion about the issue.

flamingsora wrote: there are few follower mods out there i actually love or enjoy/appreciate. im not into the eyecandy hot/sexy looking followers just like all op have said. ones taht stick out for me are cerdwen, inigo, arrissa, mirai, sophia (despite how unlorefriendly she can be sometimes), and the recent ambriel...some of these followers i hope to see hit sse soon...they are very much needed.

i myself want to make a follower similar to the above but i have to start small like ICA said...so for now my mod just tweaks an exisiting boss fight...and yus i want to make him into a follower with an in depth friendship/rivalry system similar to arissa but have as much dialogue and unique peronality like inigo. ill get there someday. :)

Thank you for your input and putting up with my own criticism, sometimes I get carried away. I digress, and hope that I did put a bug in the ears that would like to hear what others have to say. Certainly nothing personal. I am enamored by so many modders out there that can do so much like house mods and outfits/armors for example and get so little credit for all the hours and hard work.

Please, accept my gratitude. It's been a pleasure. :D Edited December 20, 2016 by sleepytigereyes

[Mygar]

Awesome interview! I've been around Legacy since (I think) version 11, left Skyrim and came back later to find the great piece of art it is. Everytime I know someone plays Skyrim I tell them about this great mod and now that I'm playing a full vanilla SSE I sometimes feel the itch of not going back to Solitude to display stuff and becomes like a missing-home feeling. It's truly a great mod, try it out and it'll stay in your load order forever!

[ZDP4711]

In response to post #45781170.

icecreamassassin wrote: Hey thanks guys! Super excited about the interview. Didn't realize he had posted it :)

And yes, Legacy will eventually be making it to SSE once SKSE64 is up and running.

Good to hear. Hadn't heard of this mod till now; and migrated over to SSE, for 4K stability. :D

[Deleted3624098User]

:D:D:D

[shamiro1]

I'm really impressed about this. I've been a huge fan of skyrim, but have never heard of this mod. Too busy tinkering with FO4 Settlements atm, but definitely going to come back to skyrim soon. ^^ And will give this one a try

 

[lol706]

how do i level up

 

[bigdeano89]

In response to post #45985765.

lol706 wrote: how do i level up

Any youtube video or, you know, playing the game for more than 5 minutes will tell you that...