Me the Modder

Since getting Skyrim, I've started to learn bits and pieces about modding.
Anyway, looking back at the Mods I've done, I can quite happily see that I've progressed from knowing literally nothing about the CK to knowing quite a bit.

Anyway, here's a little picture showcase.

Firstly Dremora Assets.

I'm happy with the way this turned out. It isn't really a mod, just assets. The horns are vanilla, just moved around. The detail maps are higher resolution, and I've made 3 more based on the original. The eyes I made myself, based on the vanilla texture (the alpha channel is vanilla, the rest isn't)

Second is just a quick Race mod. Velothi Race - The True Chimer.

Basically the Altmer, with altered ears. That's pretty much it. Their racials are purely destruction magic boost. May change it so that one of them is ancestor guardian (Like the Dunmer in Oblivion)

Thirdly is Orc Eyes Alternate

My first purely Aesthetic mod. I really liked the way it came out. The reason I made this was that I use Natural Eyes, but their Orc eyes aren't lore friendly, so I made my own.

Fourth is Female Orc Horns

The males have horns, so why not the females? Honestly, this one's a little wonky. The .tri files that morph them to the brow are for the male, so I had to make some fixes.

Fifth is Deep Elf Race  - The True Dwemer

Really happy with the way this one turned out. need to do some updates for the Racial Compatibility, but that should be a doddle. Their base is the Dunmer, but with altered ears and new eye textures. Their racials involve turning all automatons in an area into allies (perhaps a bit overpowered, but it only works in Dwemer Ruins.)

And Finally Snow Elf Race - The True Falmer

On the left is their standard look. On the right is with Ethereal Elven Overhaul.

This is the one I'm spending the most time on at the moment. I really like the way they look. Their abilities are frost flesh and frost resistance. The player can also smith armour and robes.

Link to my nexus profile is on the top right >

right now, I'm pretty much living and breathing Elder Scrolls, but haven'tactually played it since I ran through the Falskaar DLC sized mod.

Anyhoo, time to get back to editing that chapter for An Elder Scrolls Saga.

Red Faction: Armageddon

So I pretty much played through this in 2 sessions, and overall found it to be the poorest game in the series. I know it has been a number of years since it was released, but finally got a boxed console version for quite cheap.

First off, I have been an RF fan since the first game, which was an FPS. the fact you could tunnel using GEO mod was really fun. It was a unique experience.

Now, I didn't particularly like RF2 and found RF: Guerilla to be too much of a departure being a TPS. RF:A is similar to RF:G, but is a linear space monster shooter.

Anyway, onto the unique game mechanics. First up is the use of the Nanoforge, which is simply press left trigger to rebuild objects. novel idea, but not well used in my opinion. It does lead to the fact that no platform is safe, as it can be destroyed beneath you, meaning you have to rebuild it, which I did like.

As for the combat. it wasn't anything special. Mostly killing massive amounts of alien creatures, which is the only thing stopping this game from being an hour long. There are no puzzles to solve, not that I can remember, it's just shoot everything in sight.

In honesty it was quite boring.

There was only few saving grace's, one of them being a strong female character called Kara, who SPOILER was killed near the end in a moronic asinine (and open for interpretation) way, making the rest of the game feel even worse. It was kinda expected, but I felt she shouldn't have just been stabbed by a tentacle (or whatever it was) and dragged off the cliff.

In fact it irritated me so much, that I wrote a first chapter for a fan fiction where she survives. Probably won't upload it to FF.net unless I finish it, but as for now it has quelled my disappointment of an already lacklustre game

I absolutely loved the first Red Faction. I hope that now Nordic Games (I think that's who owns the license now) make it an FPS and take it back to its roots, which was far better than what it became.

Starship Exeter: The Tressaurian Intersection

The Tressaurian Intersection has been released. A decade after the wrapped up shooting, and about six years since they released act three, they finally went and finished it. It was shot in standard def, so no HD option is available.

Anyway, my thoughts without spoiling.

The acting is pretty good throughout. There are parts here and there that could have used an extra take or two (Mainly with Jimm Johnson/James Culhane, who played Garrovick). The effects are trying to recreate the 1960's feel. What I get from it though is that this is what TOS trek would have looked like with a bigger budget.
The sets are flawless, and the story is engaging and VERY TOS. That's a plus for me. There is an issue with act one being quieter than the rest.

What is obvious is that a lot of love went into this. Especially if what I read about the temperature in the studio is true. You can tell on a few of the actors as they're really sweating at times.

Anyway, as far as fan films go, this is probably among the best.

Edit: The following was added on May 11th 2013

Just re-watched TTI again. I have to add more to what I wrote above.

This is the only TOS fan film I have seen that feels 'right'. The acting may not be perfect from beginning to end, but it doesn't matter because I am able to lose myself in the story of what's going on.

Productions like Phase II and Continues just feel like facsimiles of TOS, due to them recasting Kirk, Spock and McCoy. No matter how well Vic Mignogna can impersonate Kirk in Continues, or no matter how much a like Doc John in Phase II, they'll never be Kirk and McCoy.

As I dislike reading Elder Scrolls stories that feature the Dragonborn, I'm starting to feel the same way about TOS fan films that use the original characters, or where we meet the ancestor's of future characters in the other shows (Tasha Yar's Grandmother in Phase II B&F). I've seen Kirk and Spock in TOS, give me something else. Also don't use stunt casting to try and draw me in.

This is where Starship Exeter's second episode really did it right. They don't have any familiar actors, or characters (Chang was in their first episode which I thought wasn't particularly well done), and they don't mention the Enterprise or Kirk, even though Garrovick has a tenuous connection with them.
His uncle died while commanding the Farragut when a young ensign/lieutenant? Kirk was unable to fire on a cloud creature. You also have the fact that Exeter's previous crew were all killed, and Kirk was the one that found it in orbit of the planet that promised 'eternal youth' with the demented Captain Ronald Tracey.

I feel other fan films would have shoehorned the mentioning of Kirk and/or the Enterprise in, but it's not needed.

Ten years it took to get this out of the door, and I must say that it isn't disappointing. Not in the slightest.

One Year On/Original Sci-Fi fic/ESS/TUToT/future posts

Prepare for the scattergun of a post that follows.

ONE YEAR ON
It has been one year six days since my first post. My last post was actually on the exact day, one year later.
I'm glad that I started this blog. It's become somewhat of an online diary, because as I read through it I can see everything that I've done in the last year, and it makes me feel somewhat accomplished in regards to my writing. How I've gone back to fix a story, only to then go back again because I've progressed and seen that it still needed work. It also cements my mindset at a certain point, and perhaps I'll look back and wonder "What was I thinking?"

ORIGINAL FIC
My OF is going quite well thus far. There are already things I know I'm going to change on my second draft. One thing I made sure I did from the get go was add diversity in both ethnicity and gender. One of my leads, if not the lead is African born and my second is Hispanic. Heck the first character I introduce is the President of the Planetary Union and he's Arab.
The premise of this story has been done before, I'm not going to pretend that it's a new idea. My goal though is to be more involved with the people of the story, to see different perspectives from people in different areas. Though mainly it's military/government/and a little bit of civilian. (though I'm thinking of expanding this in draft 2)

AN ELDER SCROLLS SAGA
I'm happy with the way this is progressing. I'm sticking to releasing the Prologue/Chapter 1 in June. Whether it's the beginning middle or end of June is another matter.

THE UNTOLD TALES OF TAMRIEL
This is a cool little community page on fanfiction.net started by someone by the username your.daily.dose.of.fanfic. I'm a staff member (Albeit a rather useless one) along with SuperGreG and also Augustinian Frog. The community's goal is to find decent original fiction set in the Elder Scrolls universe that isn't just a novelization of the games or that feature the playable characters of the games.
I'm hoping that someone comes across this, who'll take some interest (After-all I myself have found gems after reading random blogs).
The-Untold-Tales-of-Tamriel (I'll be making a proper post about this later if I remember)

FUTURE POSTS
I may expand this blog, or I may make a new one where I'll be maybe reviewing books I've read or albums I've heard. This is all a maybe though and is far from set in stone. I also was going to say something else here, but forgot while writing the rest of the post. D'oh.

Elder Scrolls Online - AKA Why I'm Not Buying

First off here's a link to a review by Angry Joe. Second I haven't played ESO. All I have to say is based on several opinions that I have heard.

It outlines pretty much all of my fears of why Elder Scrolls doesn't work in an MMO space. The commentary of how you're sneaking and then another player comes in hopping about like an idiot, or going to the cave to kill spiders on a side quest only to find other players standing around farming them. It just breaks immersion. You're so aware that this is a game that you can't become wrapped inside the world, cannot become immersed.

Full price plus the subscription model isn't worth it. Not when Skyrim and Oblivion can offer such better experience.

Another thing, is apparently how the loot works. It's on a first comes gets it. Essentially whoever gets it first has it and everyone else has to wait a minute or so till it respawns. Dumb. I don't want to be doing a quest to find a guy called "Mr Snuggles" runs in hopping about like an idiot, grabs all the stuff then runs out. It'd really irritate me.

If it ever goes free to play, then I may take a look, but to buy something that is barely an ES game and is an average MMO just ain't worth it.

Edit: Holy moly. This post was made one year after my very first post.

An Elder Scrolls Saga Part 3 and Other Stuff.

ESS: Of Tooth and Nail
I have the outline, and I've begun to write part 3 of my Elder Scrolls fanfic. Already I can tell that this is going to be massive with huge amounts of characters in all different locations all doing different things. I might actually burst through the 100,000 word mark (so far my stories are from 70,000-80,000 words [approx])

In a way, this marks the end of a trilogy, even though it's not the end of the story. The end point is really just yet another start. Will it be of another trilogy? I'm not sure, but I already know the gist of book 4, and what it will entail.

Original Fic
I'm also writing an original fiction. It's sci-fi set in a universe I created. My earliest document on this is 25th March 2012, and some of the ideas began well before then. Writing fan fiction was a gateway into this, writing my own story, that I actually own. Playing in other people's universes is fun, but at the end of the day it belongs to someone else, and I can never really claim any ownership for it, apart from the original characters I created, but they are so entwined in those owned universes that the two are integral.

So far I'm trying to write 1000 words a day, though sometimes I go over that by an extra 400, but other times I struggle to get as many as 1000.

What this means is that I will be spending less time on my fan fiction, yet I do still enjoy writing for them, so they probably won't stop, just slow down.

An Elder Scrolls Saga: Old Wounds - Breaks 80.000 Words.

Trivial for some, but not for me.
Right now, I'm writing my Trek fiction, but on the side, I'm updating ESS:OW. Just adding in a few bits of detail into the chapters and correcting mistakes (Possibly adding new ones while I'm at it)
Last chapter I updated was 17, which knocked me over 80,000 words. (Though it's actually less, as I've got the chapter number at the start and at the end of each chapter I have  the date it was updated)
Still, I have 9 chapters left, then I'll move onto Dagger in the Wind.

On further news, my Trek fic is nearing the end. The next chapter will feel a bit like wrap-up, but the chapter after I hope will be a bit of a surprise regarding what happens. Then it'll be wrap up, and a slight teaser regarding what comes next. (I've got a lot of arcs that I want to get to)

After my Trek story is done, then it'll be onto An Elder Scrolls Saga: Of Tooth and Nail. After that, I'll probably go back to trek, as I don't have any urge to return to my Fallout series.