I have noticed people talking a lot of "endings", as if we are all packing up our bags and going home. The truth is, support for 1 game was dropped. Putting things in the correct context, that is actually the only real change this week. The troublesome child has been expelled.

And the huge effort made on that childs behalf is now over, freeling me up to invest my time in other more rewarding things. Only the expelled child has lost anything and its hard to feel sorry for a child that was given every chance to behave and ignored every warning given.

So such talk around the Guild is not very appropriate nor accurate, because we are continuing as normal. Only the Elder Scrolls support has ended.

It is normal for some to leave and some to take their places, its the natural cycle of life online for modders like my self. Old friends go, new friends arrive, sometimes we meet again in other communities and talk over Xfire and sometimes our lifes change so completely, any contact we have is brief because we no longer have anything in common.

Mechstorm was hosted by such a friend for 4 years after we stopped having anything in common, so the nature of friends change too.

The other thing is, players may expect me to make 20 mods for the next community because I made 16 for oblivion, and expect me to do better and better in each. They may wish to compare past and present projects with each other. But that would be a mistake because past projects are not worse than my Oblivion Projects. The Cyrodiil Upgrade was not my best work. And future projects will be exactly what they need to be and no more.

Meaning a new set of ground rules for modding future games will be created as a guide for me and that means the bar by which my new mods are measured will shift and no longer apply to older mods.

For example, tools, mod cleaning, dirty mods, where the measure of oblivion mods because thats the measure the trolls created to bash other modders work. That measure only applies to oblivion mods. Now that side of the site is dropped, those measures no longer mean anything.

For example, I may decide RUSE needs a better AI, and work for 6 months on a new AI and that AI probably will not work with any other AIs because multiple AI support in game is rare. Also such a mod is hardly glamorous, its not going to get me noticed no matter how good it is. AI mods are made people who's names nobody can remember yet that is my speciality. I have made them for years and whilst people do enjoy a better game, ask them who made them and they will not know.

For example I was the maker of the Third Law AIs for Dark Reign 2 and Supreme Commander, who remembers that ? Nobody. That is the nature of AI work. So by the measure of important some place on oblivion mods, the moment I decide to make an AI, I have failed. Even before any work as been done. Yet people will not play their games without my AIs, they become that important to them.

So if people speaking of endings also do comparisons, then I will have to do better that I did in oblivion to satisfy them. But by their own measure of success, my Oblivion work would have been a failure by my Freelancer and Dawn of War measure of previous years and those would have been failures compared to my Mechstorm measure, and Mechstorm would have been a failure compared to my Oblivion measure.

Each out does the other because none can be compared to the other because they are different in critical areas that makes every game I mod unique.

For example, any mod made for Mount and Blade Warbands would break when a patch is released and would probably not last long for that reason. But may shine brightly for a few months before burning out. That would be a unique aspect of Warbands.

Another example are these

My best AIs where my last generation of Mechwarrior bots at Mechstorm and my Supreme commander HAL AI.

My best Cell decoration was my Ringworld solar system for Freelancer and not anything made for oblivion. My solar system inspired some of the X3 content by egosoft. Sol in particular. And if you flew around the ring, you would reach a point where a 3 moon eclipse took place. Very beautiful to see.

My best 3D model was the Babylon 5 Thunderbolt made for my Freelancer mod, hostile universe.

My most supported game is Mechwarrior 4 because of the hung amount of material made for it. Including guides and tutorials as well as mods.

My most integrated series of mods was the Cyrodiil Upgrade for Oblivion for reasons most of you know.

The game in which I made the most quests was Oblivion.

So how do you compare the quests to a B5 Thunderbolt, or a Mech AI that cannot be told from a real player in game from a Solar System called Ringworld ?

The Guild has moved dropped support for 1 game, but as a modder I have supported many games over the years and gone on to make good mods in the next game. Always something different, always attracting a new audience.

Some see the modding of a single game as the start middle and end of a modders life, for me its just a step in my modders life. All I have done is claim the stairs a little higher, next time I mod a game the experiences of all the steps that went before will make me even better.

Thats how this works.

So this is business as usual for me, only those who do not know I have been modding for 30 years and have only known me for the past 4 years would assume, this is an ending. I think this why the gulf between the advice my friends gave me and the advice oblivion fans game me has always been so huge.

My friends known I can easily mod other games and will mod other games and wonder why I stuck around modding oblivion for so long. Oblivion people wrongly assume, without Oblivion I am nothing. When in fact with Oblivion I was deeply unhappy because of the trolls. So now I have moved on, its not a change for me, its just how I have always worked.

New games replace old games, that is it.

Friends change of course, new people replace the old crowd, this is part of a modders life and to be expected. Those leaving now are being sent on their way with warm friendly comments and an understanding they are welcome to return in the future any time they want.

Old hands that remember how I modded older games so when the next new crowd moves in and things I only mod their game, the old hands can say, nope, he mods other games too, this giskard guy gets around.

I stated last month that I wanted this site to focus more on guides tutorials and various media content rather than downloads. And I said I wanted users to come here for that content primarily. Well it seems I have achieved that goal.

With many users are arriving here via Google for Mount and Blade guides, which are now becoming known around the net and linked too from various forums including steam but also clan sites and other sites. Then we have Fallout guides and Dragon age guides which all are bringing in visitors too. Dragon Age was bringing in the kind of visitors I wanted all along.

You see a site that supplies guides and good advice to modders has more resources left over for the fun stuff than a site that focuses on downloads. So I have fixed resource usage issue already and switched the site in to a content driven site within 2 weeks of trying and I was not expecting that to happen this quickly.

I mean its been 2 weeks and its working already.

So much so I think a clear and bright future can be seen a head if we simply continue to supply those guides.

Like so many other things, I found a good guide tends to be recognised as such. Whilst many people with good gramma and spelling skill think they can write guides, in the end the ability to spell correctly turns out to be a secondary consideration for guides and tutorials, especially tutorials because the primary skill is the ability to explain things clearly and simply.

If you have the ability to explain complicated computer stuff to a noobie in clear easy to understand language, then you have the skills needed to be a good guide or tutorial writer. That is the key skill and its not are common as you might think.

I must admit, I like Kevin Costners films, especially The Post Man. I think it appeals to my character.  The idea of destroying everything and rebuilding anew, holds a strong appeal for many of up - especially Apocalypse fans.

For some weeks now I have wanted to watch the Post Man again and after watching The Road recently that feeling became even stronger. The Road offers a gritty look at light during the years immediately following a nuclear war. The Post Man takes it a decade or so beyond that. Both films show abandoned buildings rather than destroyed cities - but both films offer a different interpretation of what life would be like and I think both films have it right.

I find it interesting to watch another persons view of such a future and just absorb it for a while.... it gives me ideas. Such as a postman mod for fallout! A simple idea that solves may problems, including city life and wasteland encounters and providing new roleplay experiences.

It can be hard envisioning how mods can build up a game like Fallout until you realise its all the same in the end, a medieval town or a nuclear wasteland, they all need the same things to bring them to life. A city in Cyrodiil needs the same things as Megaton or Rivet City. The difference is, one is more modern but less industrial due to the fallout.

Thinking along those lines makes me realise how much can be done with the fallout games to bring them to life and I am glad to see the polls indicate many of you want the same things I do.

Okay so your here, I hear you, 38 votes for fallout is kind of hard not to hear lol. Still such a strong vote in favour of 1 game is good. But I will not be forgetting Warbands, love that game.

I trust you listened to the Audio Blog today which was cut short due to builders banging outside, well some things I did not get the chance to talk about include some of the smaller locations that could be revamped such as the temple in megaton, the museum in Rivet city and all those other places. Fallout 3 is a fine game and adds so much detail that but I specialize in that sort of thing and can do the same for the areas Beth missed.

Even the Kingdom of Dave could be made more functional.

The number of large and small projects here that are possible leave me with not enough time to do most of them before the next Fallout game appears but since I like modding, it will be nice to keep my hand in.

The main areas i see as making the biggest difference to the game is not the big Brotherhood of steal mods but the smaller ones for megaton and other places, adding extra layers of detail to the shops, bars and special locations. For example, letting you work as a handy man in the megaton water works. Meeting up with friends in the local bar at night after a hard days work. Going hunting with other citizens for food or repelling raider attacks as part of the cities defences.

You see where I am going here, there are plenty of good ideas to work on, ideas have never been in short supply around here :)

Only time to make them a reality :)