Skyrim Overhaul Dev Diary 01

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Category: Giskard's Blog

Last Updated on Sunday, 13 May 2012 13:50

Written by Giskard

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Every time I write Diary I keep seeing Dairy, so this a Dev Dairy for you Milk Drinkers lol.

Anyway welcome to the first Dev Diary for the Skyrim Overhaul, a mod that will revamp most of the game world without actually editing anything that the Navmesh bug can break. Which I admit is going to limit what I can do but there is plenty of other stuff I can focus on and there is no reason why I cannot bring my quest making/Script creating talents to bare on the humble overhaul idea just as I did for the Cyrodiil Upgrade Overhaul for Oblivion.

Currently I am cloning the Draugr really for build new custom leveled lists to avoid most conflicts, its a lot of extra work most overhaul makers do not bother with but I find a few days spent cloning stuff now saves me months of incompatibility issues after release. So this extra time spent now, saves time later.

Edit: Too 4 hours of work to do just the Draugr in the end. 4 hours work most overhaul makers do not bother putting in at all. Yet these where 4 of the most important hours spent on an overhaul.

This is the most boring part of overhaul creation btw, endless lists of forms that need copying and renaming. YAWN.. still it separates the men from the boys because this is a necessary stop for avoiding problems. Those who take compatibility seriously always clone the items they intend to edit. Only editing defaults when they have little or no choice.

Btw did you know Draugr means Animated Body of the Dead in old Nordic, or "one who walks after death" in Icelandic. See what you learn when you read this blog. Lots of useless information :)

Wight is an English Word meaning living sentient being, so aq Draugr Wight is "one who walks after death" "living sentient being". Lol... Guess Bethesda did not look up the meaning of both words :)

RPG games have changed the meaning of Wight to soul sucking bad guys, so I guess we can ignore this little error.

Still I could call Draugr Wight's, Sentient Death Walkers, it would be more accurate than Draugr Wight and say basically the same thing in 1 language instead of borrowing from English and Nordic and making mistakes.

The Draugr are the single biggest category of NPCs that need editing, there are literally hundreds of them, what annoys me is they all look the same so what are all these variations for. How many of you have noticed any real differences between Draugr of the same level except male and female differences ?

Yes, exactly my point.... lots and lots of extra work right there.

I am using the SKO_ Prefix for all my edits to make it easier to find them but when dealing with 100s of SKO_ files, finding a template to switch a cloned NPC over too is actually hard and error prone. So I renamed all the templates to AAA_ then added them to the SKO_ NPCs before changing AAA_ back to SKO_. Its proven to be a real time saver and more reliable too.

I should also add that I am only cloning the ENC NPCs and Creatures, those are the ones used in normal spawn points so none of this will effect quest creatures or NPCs. Only default spawns will be effected by these changes.

Another thing I found whilst doing this is the Face Presents used at the start of the game when creating a new character so I am going to see if I can expand those to include many more presents. The game currently has that everything looks the same feel about it, lots of people inter breeding with their mothers and fathers to create entire races that look related to each other. So I'll try and add some variety to the player presents early on, if it lets me.

Once the NPCs and Creatures are cloned and working, I'll create some leveled lists to hold them, I am thinking I may series of standard leveled lists and set them up so they support the player character at various stages of the player characters development. For example level 1 lists might support the player up to level 10. Level 2 lists might support the player from Level 10 to level 20 and so on.

Then when I add them to the official spawn lists, I'll use mostly level 1 for early levels, with the odd level 2 thrown in for a nasty surprise. Then at a slightly higher level, there will be more level 1 spawns and more level 2 spawns and the odd level 3 spawns. Then at a slightly higher level than that, there will be a lot of level 1 spawns, a good number of level 2 spawns, a normal amount of level 3 spawns and the odd level 4 spawn.

This way when a level 1 baddie spawns in the late game, there will be more of them than in the early game. So you still face low ranking baddies, but they gang up on you in the late game. And early on you have a chance of meeting a baddie thats slightly harder than you are as well as baddies of the same level that you would expect to meet.

Thats what I am thinking anyway.

So far I have made ZERO changes to any of the stats of the creatures of NPCs so they are default right now, its just the number and composition that will change at first. Later when I got back and tweak them, the cool stuff will be added.

I will need lots of volenteer beta testers for this first esp in the Skyrim Overhaul, its going to need to be tested properly in a real game over a period of weeks so you "I'll test it at the week end types" are not going to be much help to me. This will need installing and leaving installed during a full game.

Fileplanet gets archived

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Category: Giskard's Blog

Last Updated on Saturday, 12 May 2012 10:32

Written by Giskard

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Fileplanet is being archived. This means no new submissions are being taken and whats left will be held in a kind of statis bubble from now on. Archived sites tend to stay the way they where on the day they where archived so you can expect the same news and the same files to remain on the site for as long as it remains open.

Sad news but then again Fileplanet and the related planet sites have all been under performing of late, their software is just not suitable for hosting mods for multiple games. The number of logins for their sites is messy and those running the sites have been asking for changes for years and not getting any. 

So we may see Fileplanet return under a different name with brand new software and a brand new system later if this is part of a new upgrade to the entire system. OR we may be seeing the end of the IGN hosting network. Since IGN is a huge organization, I would expect something else to appear to take over from Fileplanet at some point. 

Regarding the 900 megs of Fallout 3, Fallout NV and Elder Scrolls Oblivion mods I have uploaded there. I have no desire to test drive another mod hosting site only to have various trolls interfere with my uploads and my accounts as happens on a regular basis within the Elder Scrolls community. So once they are gone, they are gone.

I believe given the state of Skyrim, most of Beth games are about to go down the sewer anyway so I doubt anybody will miss these mods in a few years time. We will all have newer things to enjoy.  

If a site out there that hosts mods and does not let trolls interfere with a mod makers account exists or work and I get certain assurances about the safety of my work and my account, I may consider using that site as my primary download spot for my Fallout and Oblivion mods. But I am not actively looking for such a site.

I am currently looking at a change of direction for my Elder Scrolls modding, but thats for a new blog not for this one.

Skyrim too boring to play

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Last Updated on Friday, 11 May 2012 11:52

Written by Giskard

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Following on from my Skyrim too buggy to mod blog from last year, it seems like all my predictions for Skyrim have or are coming true. With no fix for the Navmesh bug and Beth no longer producing regular patches now they are working on that Xbox DLC, we have little hope of seeing the Navmesh bug fixed at all it seems.

On Steam, Google and other places, people are already getting bored of Skyrim, 350 hours seems to be the rough average for the hard core players before they finally give up and go and play something else.

Whilst we wait to see if Beth is ever going to fix the bugs so we can make mods for their game, this site is dying a death as less and less people show any interest in Skyrim. It has become a matter of survival to drop Skyrim and move on to other pastures. Which makes me wonder what other sites supporting TES exclusively are doing about this. Will they still be around in 5 years time at this rate.... or will Beth have to release constant series of cheapo cash cow TES releases to keep people interested without mods to do that for them for free. Reducing the value of the series like to players, EA does to their games.  

All of which reminds me strongly of Fallout 3 and Fallout NVs life spans, they all died around the same number of hours because of the same unfixed bug stopping modders from adding more longevity to those games.

I think 350 hours is a good number of hours for Bethesda games, but since we know you can add a zero to end of that if you add mods to the mix, its a real shame to see it go this way.

Without mods most Beth games stay a talking point for average players for 3 months at most for most people, after which the games just drop off cliff, you never hear about them after that.

Oblivion and Morrowind kept in the news for years, even a decade for Morrowind because of cool mods being released all the time but both those games had a working editor with no navmesh issues to worry about. They used the pathgrid system which does work with mods, not the Navmesh system that does not.

Sadly we are already at the point where any Navmesh fix will come too late for most players and modders, they have already moved on. Beth have waited too long and killed their own game dead for most players. Some may return for the DLCs but many such as my self have no plans to invest in DLCs when we brought the game to mod it and cannot do it because of bugs.

Many users decribed the reason they kept playing Oblivion for 5 years as being because of my mods. Well it seems like your not going to have that for Skyrim.

I am already looking around for new games to mod whilst keeping some new Skyrim project ideas running just in case Beth do fix it. But right now my minds on Sins of the Solar Empire Rebellion which is great btw and Guild Wars 2 which is looking very good indeed.

Guild Wars 2 is rather expensive at about £50 but its one of the few MMOs where you buy the game once and play it for free. Other payment models I liked are the monthly fee with the game being a free download this is good value for most players who do not play games for longer than 3 months unless they really like them.

Having to buy the game and pay a monthly fee like WOW users do seems a little cheeky to me. Especially since a monthly fee is less than £10 and usually if an MMO is crap, all you have lost is 1 months money. But if they charge for the game too, you lose £30 but typically get the first month free. Personally I consider the buy the game and pay a monthly fee method to be a show of no confidence in their game so they want to get as much money out of you early on as possible because they know your not going to stick around for long (usually).

I also like the play and download for free but buy in game items as upgrades method. This allows you to invest as much as you like in your game or as little as you like. But when you cannot get a good basic game without paying for upgrades then I think its a bit of a rip off, they might as well charge a monthly fee because a bottomless money pit is not a popular idea for anything, least of all games. This side of MMOs whilst cool, really need to settle down in to a clearly defined workable system. Currently its still in flux.

But anyway... this year we have seen a lot of good games released with more on the way.

Without mods, Skyrim is just a standard light weight RPG that raises expectations higher than its ability to deliver on its promises. A little like a woman with a padded bra or a guy with a sock down his pants.

I gave in to my site users last year for Fallout NV and allowed it to stand despite its bugs, but I have not felt right about that decision, it sends the wrong message to developers and says its perfectly okay to release seriously bugged games. 

Clearly its not.

So this year Skyrim will not be on the game of the year list, it has been disqualified for being too buggy to play, it will be the policy of this site from now on to automatically disqualify all games released in a very buggy state from any game of the year vote.

I'll use the time it takes to fix any release day issues as a guide, less than 1 month = fine, more than 1 month = disqualification since the issues are more serious than simple release day jitters.

And that will be the only message we sent about Skyrim come September.

Far from rewarding Bethesda for releasing a game in such a mess, we will be expressing our displeasure at the way these things have been handled, I find I may make the Buggiest game award title "The Bugsada Award" since Bethesda make the buggiest games I have ever seen.

Seriously.... and they are getting worse.

I may even draw up a history of Bethesda Bugs in detail before than to show you just how bad things have gotten and why they are getting worse for Bethesda games.

Short version, its because they are not fixing the bugs reported to them so they turn up again in future releases. Things have gone downhill a lot since Morrowind and its not hard to demonstrate.

Just ask any merchant what time he was supposed to open in Skyrim or use the Wait feature in oblivion a little too quickly. Same problem... not fixed and thats a player issue, wait until you get to the modding issues.... OMG!

Bethesdas future games may not work for anybody at all at this rate.

Even now 6 months after release Steams Skyrim forum is still full of reports from people who cannot even get the game to load, or have other issues caused by the new scripting and quest system that is error prone by design.

So Skyrim is disqualified from our game of the year vote for being to buggy. But expect to see it in the Bugsada Award Category that reveals some of the worst games for bugs releases over the past 12 months.

Other games fair better, and have proven to be very stable at release time.

Some lack polish but are great fun such as Risen 2.

Others like Sins of the Solar Empire Rebellion looks exactly like the original Sins from from 2008 but have added elements that the original needed badly. Making it highly addictive today. They are calling this a X4 Strategy game btw. The wiki for X4 games describes these games as ""explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate" which makes sense, that is what most games claiming to be X4 do.

Btw the new Sins is moddable too :)

I might have to dust off my 3d modeller programs :)

European Escalation is also a good game and got a good reception from players, though not really my thing, I prefer Ruse. Not to mention Tropico 4, the best City game available right now.

So far this years been a very good year for games on the PC. So its a good time to look around for newer material and let the cripples to die from what ever bug turns out to be fatal for them in the end.

I have seen several major developers go under after rehashing the same material or releasing buggy games. Bethesda are making all those mistakes, its just a matter of time before the Bethesda Buzz wears thin on their victims... sorry I mean customers. Its so hard to tell what we are to them some days.

One thing I do now is if they cared about their customers they would fix all the bugs quickly before moving on to DLCs. Which is what they have done.

Also unlike Sword of Stars Developers who also released a terribly buggy game, Bethesda have not apologized for the state of Skyrim. Where as Sword of Stars Developers did and promised to put it right and have done. They released their game around the same time as Skyrim and even gave early customers free game content as part of that apology.

So which company wants our custom and which one thinks its so big it no longer has to care what we think... you decide.

Reply to Greg about load orders

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Category: Giskard's Blog

Last Updated on Monday, 07 May 2012 08:04

Written by Giskard

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I am going to reply here to Gregs email about load orders since it may help other people.

Programs like Boss tend to give out a lot of bad advice to players and that usually leads to modders like me having to clean up their mess when things stop working and the players turn to me for bug fixes for issues my original mods do not have. Which is why i do not use boss or trust the team who make it. They create more problems than they solve.

People should be encouraging modders to make mods that have no load order specific requirements, mods that can work at any point in the load order regardless of the type of mod it is. But tools like Boss and those who use it encourage modders not to care about such things, which is why so many conflicts occur.

For example, given the choice between editing a dog in the game or copying it and editing the copy, most people edit the default dog and create a problem that needs BOSS to sort out. I encourage people to think twice about doing that and to always look at making something custom to their mod to avoid load order issues. Which is why my load order doc opened your eyes to some problems.

Steam Workshop has a good system involving BSAs and ESP files that makes it easy to block, override or delete content. But certain things like texture and mesh replacers can be installed loose, safely and cause very few problems, these usually do edit the defaults so only one of these mods should be used at a time.

Unfortunately the other types of mods are down to the modder and whether he chooses to be lazy and edit the defaults or does it properly and copies the item he wishes to edit first and then uses the copy. There is no way to know if a modder does that but if a modder is seen to do that once, the chances are he is like me and does that as standard.

The guy who made Midas Magic works this way for example, it does not matter what mod he makes, you know he has a safe way of working. Once you find a modder that does work that way, you should be fairly safe using his stuff, but the rest is hit and miss because far too many people use BOSS as a reason to not design mods properly. So I am afraid as long as people encourage folk to use Boss to get around these problems, there is no incentive for modders to learn to make mods properly.

As for house mods, these are the most basic form of mods and should rarely conflict with other mods, when a house mod does it usually means it was made without thought or consideration of other mods. Sometimes because the modder is a noob and just didnt know about it, and some times because the modder did not care.

Most house mods will work find with other house mods installed but beware it is classic noobie territory and noobies do make some mistakes. All you can do is report the issues to the modder and allow them to learn from those mistakes.