My First Skyrim Mod

The new game in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim, has been a fabulous success since it’s release a few weeks ago. A true RPG, it is set in the frozen world of Skyrim, home of the Nords. You play as a person who is ‘Dragon Born’ with the ability to generate a range of magical shouts, in an effort to thwart the return of the deadly dragons.

This isn’t a review, as there are a bunch of those on the internet better than I can create. I just wanted to share with you my first game mod for Skyrim. If you’re unfamiliar with mods, or a (HA!) CONSOLE player, then let me explain.

Many PC games have the ability to be modified in various ways. Talented people (and sometimes the game companies themselves) come up with various bits of software which allow a person to extract and modify the game’s files. From simple texture replacers to full blown new worlds and quest lines, mods allow the game to live on well after the original stories have been told.

Personally, I like mods of two categories. First I like fun mods. Importing bits and pieces from other worlds and environments to give myself a bit of a laugh, and just because I can do it. Secondly I like adding things to the world that make my characters life easier. Often in games you have an inventory of items, which you collect over time. You have a weight limit usually, or a ‘slot’ limit, but you can carry items which don’t show on your character’s body at all. You can steal a giant golden urn and it fits in your back pocket… or somewhere. So, I enjoy making things like backpacks to put my stuff in. It just seems more natural to me that way.

Anyway, the first bit of tinkering I’ve done for Skyrim is in the fun category, and it adds in a shield styled after Captain America’s famous red, white and blue shield.

Not a great deal can be done with modding yet, until the creators release some software to allow adding in of additional items. From what I’ve (briefly) read it should be coming some time in January.

Captain America's Shield for Skyrim

My Month In Internet Re-Hab

Chapter One – Broken Arrow

It was a dark and stormy night. Rain was lashing the windows and flashes of lightning were crashing through the sky like …whatever. It was a storm. You’ve seen one before.

The house was hit and lightning knocked out the oven, my TV and my internet. Normally I unplug it, but decided to just turn it all off. There’s a lesson for you, dear reader.

Once the storm blew over I tried all the usual things you do to get Internet working again. Unplugging it, leaving it a while and plugging it back in and so forth. None of that worked and since it was a storm I figured it had struck the cable and knocked it out. My phone was also out, so it seemed the logical answer.

Calling Optus, I spoke to the first of many tech support representatives. He was from the phone support section, and while I was talking to him via mobile, my Optus phone decided to resurrect itself and start working again. He put me through to cable support.

This is where the fun began. Indian Tech Support.

Now… Before you jump to conclusions, let me clear this right up. I don’t get annoyed with foreign tech support because they are foreign. I get annoyed because when you’re trying to fix a problem, you need to be able to understand what the person is telling you, and they need to understand you. It doesn’t make a difference that they are Indian or Filipino or Martian. The same thing would apply if they were speaking in a strong Cockney accent.

It’s just hard to communicate with them. Not racist. End of story.

So, I’m talking to the first guy and he tells me to do all the standard stuff. Unplug the modem, turn off, reconnect and so on. I’m just getting no signal at all from the modem to the computer. At this point, I’m thinking it could be the actual outside cable, the modem, the Ethernet cable or the motherboard. I didn’t have a network card, just on the board.

Optus Guy says that from his end, it’s all working perfectly and there’s no problem. I ask if it’s the modem and he tells me that it can’t be, because he’s getting good signal from his end. It must be my computer.

Fine. It’s not the modem.

The next day I go to work and buy a network card from a guy there for $30. Expensive, but I had no internet. It’s like crack, brother.

At the end of the day I take it home and connect it up, and the card is as dead as a dodo. No lights come on or anything at all. I guess it could be the Ethernet cable…

Next I go to Jaycar, a shop that sells various electronics and such. I took the cable down and they ran it through a tester, which came up fine. I bought another network card and tried again.

Still nothing.

Having nothing to lose I called Optus again, to make sure the first guy wasn’t just on Work Experience.

Indian.

I explain what I’d done last time and that I’d already spoken to them and had replaced the network card and so on.

He goes through exactly the same thing again and tells me the modem is fine. He says to me, “Do you have a laptop to plug the modem into so that you can see it’s working?”

“I don’t have a laptop, sorry.”

“So you don’t have a laptop you can plug it into so you can see it’s working?” He suggests.

“No, I don’t have a laptop.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Can you get a laptop so you can plug it in to see if it’s working?” He suggests.

“I don’t have, or have access to a laptop.”

“If you have access to a laptop you could plug it into that to see it is working.”

I sighed, and reached for a weapon.

“I don’t have a laptop, and cannot access one. Look, I’ve checked the cable and it’s fine and I’ve now used two different network cards. Are you sure it’s not the modem?”

“It is not the modem, It is fine from here.”

I bid him farewell and hung up the phone.

 

Chapter Two – Not Without Supervision

Fallout New Vegas – 40K Mod Progress

I decided to port my Warhammer 40,000 Fallout 3 mod across to Fallout New Vegas.  There’s already a bunch of people who have basically stolen my models and copied them for New Vegas anyway, so I suppose I might as well do my own version.  At least that way I can control how I want it to be done.

It seems the rules of http://www.newvegasnexus.com/allow people to basically use any of your models, meshes and textures without permission as long as they create a new .esp file (the ‘mod’ using the level editor) so long as they don’t include your models in their download.

Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it so there’s no use complaining.

For the New Vegas (NV) mod, I’ve been slaving away making some new models.  In the works are new Storm Bolters, because the old ones had texture issues and new sniper rifles.   I have also made a few vehicles as seen below. The vehicles won’t move or anything, they’re basically static set decoration.   I’ll be making variations of four Space Marine chapter colours and a few variations of each type of vehicle.

I don’t claim to be a master modeler, but I do my best. I know the models aren’t 100% accurate to the Games Workshop versions, but they’re pretty close. Not owning any of the miniatures, I’ve only had to go from some screenshots and pictures from the ‘net.

Blood Ravens Rhino	Black Templars Rhino
Space Wolves Rhino	Ultramarines Rhino
Predator (Unfinished)	In-Game Test Shot
Thunderhawk

I’ve still got a lot of work to do on it, but I’ll update here. When it’s complete I’ll post it in the GAME MODS section of this blog.

Buzz Lightyear Tron

This is awesome.

Created by http://iamclu.deviantart.com/#/d35f8uh

Returning to the old Google Images

If you’re like me and loathe the way that Google has changed it’s image search, this post is for you. Unfortunately you need to be using Mozilla Firefox in order for this to work. There may be ways with other browsers, but I don’t use them and so I wouldn’t know.

Google’s image search used to bring up a bunch of tiles when you search, saying the web site and sizes of the images. They would display maybe twenty at a time, with a 1 – 2 – 3 – NEXT page listing at the bottom. Sure, you had to click through a few pages to find the perfect image, but it was uncluttered and loaded quickly. A few months ago they changed the system to display many more images, and to see more, you’d just scroll down. While that may sound easier, it was crowded and made the images more difficult to see. What’s more, is if you’d click in the search form again but move your mouse away after clicking, it wouldn’t let you type in the search box again.

I searched around the net to find a way to return to the old search, and there were only a few solutions. You could type into the URL and add “&sout=1” but you had to do that for every search. You could also scroll to the bottom and there was a link to return to the old search, but again that worked for just the first search.

Eventually I found a tech blog called http://www.ashout.com and it had my preferred solution. I’ve put it here for you. a-shout contains other solutions if this one isn’t for you.

Install Redirector Add-on for Firefox browser

After installing it, we need to add a small redirect in Redirector add-on. For that open that Add-on and click Option button

Now click Add button which is available below of this add-on

You will see new window, in that enter the detail as given below

In Include pattern enter http*://www.google.*/images?*

In Exclude Pattern enter http*://www.google.*/images?*sout=1*

In Redirect to enter http$1://www.google.$2/images?$3&sout=1

and select Wildcard option and click OK

Now go and search in New Google Image search, it will automatically show result in Old Google Image Search Layout.

Thanks to the developers of the Redirector add-on and to a-shout for the tips.

Shark Boy!

Many years ago, I was in a gaming group who ran a game server for EA’s Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.  It was a multi-player World War II shooter, which was very popular at the time.  The players would run around on various battlefields trying to destroy objectives, or simply wipe out the opposite team.  It was a large part of my life for a while.

As with a lot of online games, there were the players who felt that they needed to cheat or use glitches to gain an advantage.  In Allied Assault there was a glitch where if you made your character jump up to particular parts of the terrain which would have almost invisible holes in it.  If done correctly, the player would ‘fall under’ the terrain and be able to run around invisibly, while still being able to see and shoot the other gamers.  You could get the same result by performing some very specific movement commands with a ladder.  It was not unique to Allied Assault, but certainly annoying.   The player hiding underground could sometimes be seen by their shadow, which looked like a fish swimming under the surface of the water.

Someone, somewhere, dubbed the glitch ‘Land Sharking’.

As one of the games administrators, it was our job to catch people cheating and deal with them swiftly, so that the other guests would not feel disadvantaged and everyone could have an enjoyable game.

On one occasion we caught a land sharker, whose name escapes me due to the passing of time.   Once he was banned from the game server, we were contacted via our forum by a young kid claiming to be the one responsible.  He said that he was just fooling around and didn’t mean any harm, and that if his parents found out he had been cheating in the game, he’d be in big trouble.   From memory I think his parents were also gamers and sometimes came to our server.  If the kid were banned, their computer would be unable to connect to us.  After pleading with us not to ban him, we made a deal.

We immediately contacted the kids parents.

The kid’s parents were actually really cool, and agreed to our plan to set the kid straight and give him a life lesson in how to conduct yourself in a public place.

Since he had a penchant for Land Sharking, we got him to dress himself up as a shark, and crawl along the ground, holding a sign up confessing his guilt and apologising to the PMOH game server.

At this point, most people would have told us to go to Hell, and play somewhere else.  The kid, to his credit, took it on the chin and performed admirably.   His parents accepted the terms, everyone was allowed back on the server and no harm was done.

Where-ever Shark Boy is these days, I wish him well.

Land Sharkers...

...will be punished!

LEGO™ Men!

When I was a kid, I used to play with Lego all the time.  I would spread it out all over the floor and build a lot of the usual stuff, picking through the blocks, building and rebuilding loads of awesome things.  At one point, I was given an old wooden briefcase in which to keep the blocks, and it was great.  My parents hated it, of course.  They’d constantly be stepping on sharp bits or stepping over the sprawling castle I’d build right in front of the tv.  Best of all, the rattle of my sorting through the blocks looking for the right part would drive them nuts.

Well, I’m older now and haven’t played with Lego in years.  I still have the briefcase filled with the stuff in the bottom of my wardrobe, but it has sat there for a long time without being opened.

I do, however, play computer games and I am also a fan of Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  You’d know this if you’ve read any of my previous posts.

Both of those titles have been represented in Lego before and I’ve played (and enjoyed) the computer games of both Indy and Star Wars.  You might think they’re for kids, and you’re probably right, but they’re still mad fun and I enjoyed every last minute.  They also got me thinking about Lego again, after all these years.

While poking around various shops, I was seeing boxes of Star Wars Lego and Indiana Jones sets, but they were all had pretty high prices and I didn’t take the bait.  I really only wanted to pick up a little figure or something to stick up on the top of the computer.  I wasn’t going to buy a $40 dollar set to get just the one item, so I let it lie for a while.

Then one day I discovered a website called Bricklink.  They’re an online community of Lego enthusiasts who also trade in single pieces.  I held off for a while, thinking it was pretty stupid and childish for me to go and buy some Lego at my age.  But screw it.  I broke.

I blame Stig.

If you don’t know, the Stig is the tame racing driver from tv’s Top Gear.  Clad in a white racing suit and white helmet, he test drives all the cars they review on the show.  He also never speaks.  Needless to say, he’s utterly cool and has a fan following all of his own.

Anyway, to me, putting Stig in Lego made obvious sense, and since I was going to plunge back into my childhood in a big way, I’d have to go overboard.

I also picked out the parts for the Indiana Jones figure I’d been playing with in the computer game, and added a familiar pair of TV characters.  Because I was going overboard, I also added the Ghost Busters and in my warped mind, making a badass war hero out of Lego was just hilarious, I also picked parts for Lego Rambo.

Using Brinklink to pick out the parts was a much bigger process than I had first anticipated.  Brinklink is made up of many, many stores all over the world, and none of them have every single part.  I spent hours browsing through plastic faces and body parts to find just the right ones for the characters I was making and laid each brick out in a spreadsheet.

Then I went through the stores and totaled up the stores with most parts, for least amount of purchases and price.  Even though it took a long time, it was fun to do.  In the end I think I got about 9 different packets through the post over a course of two weeks.  Some parts came from Hong Kong and some from France, the USA and the UK.  I later added a set of black flat plates I could stick to the top of my monitor as a stand.

Once the parts were here, and after many strange looks from my Postie, I put the characters together.  Stig is my favourite for sure, followed by Rambo.

Digging through the old suitcase full of Lego I also salvaged parts for Captain Kirk.  I prefer the new style flesh coloured faces rather than the old school yellow, but you take what you get.  There’s something to be said for old school. I made the uniform by printing it onto some mailing labels, carefully cutting it out and sticking it on.  If you look closely you can see it’s a sticker, but that’s how they did it in the old days.  Old School!

I’ve pretty much kicked the Lego habit now, and did what I set out to do. The old wooden box is back in the cupboard again where it will likely stay for another few decades.  Although… A Lego Jack Bauer might be on the cards.  Maybe.

LEGO™ Stig	LEGO™ Indiana Jones
LEGO™ Rambo	LEGO™ Captain Kirk
LEGO™ Mythbusters	LEGO™ Ghost Busters

Game Mods – New Section

I’ve added a new section to this WordPress Blog, called Game Mods.  It’s going to contain the majority of my mods from my old days of playing Elder Scrolls IV™ and Fallout 3™, as well as any other games I happen to come up with along the way.   Most of these are scavenged from my backups and may not have read-me files.  I don’t think they have any missing files, but I can’t be certain. I’m reasonably sure they don’t, but the disclaimer is there.

In other life I was fairly involved with making modifications and add-ons for TES Oblivion™, but grew tired of the constant whining of members of the community over what are essentially free toys for them to use.  Not all people sided with the negative, and a lot of people were great and very supportive.  For me, the final straw and the reason I removed myself from the Oblivion scene was the stupidity and malevolence of the Bethesda forum moderators and one in particular who seemed to have issues with my work.  I could explain further, but those people aren’t worth the time.

I ask that you don’t redistribute my mods on other forums or sites, and that you respect my wishes not to be contacted about them.   They are in my past and I have no desire to work on them again.

JQ - Assassin Quest

Super Cheap Prop – Resident Evil T-Virus

This prop thing is kind of addictive.  I have wanted a decent looking version of the T-Virus from Resident Evil.  I’m not an expert on Resident Evil, so maybe my details aren’t all spot on, but basically the T-Virus is what causes all the people to turn into Zombies and the other creatures that try to eat you in the games and movies.   The ‘proper’ T-Virus canister is more advanced that mine.  It’s got these cool double helix tubes running through the middle of the larger tube.  I thought about doing those by heating some twisty straws but couldn’t find any clear versions.

While browsing through my local thrift store (which is now gone…) I scrounged the few parts I’d need to make my Virus canister.

For the end caps, I found a pack of two “metal containers” which had magnetic stuff on the ends.  What they were supposed to contain is anyone’s guess.  After stripping the magnetic parts off, they were fine.  For the main tube I used a bird feeder, which fit nicely into the containers.  I had to Dremel off the bottom part, but it came out nicely.   The inside tube was the hardest choice.  Given the chance I’d do the twisty tube, but I just couldn’t find anything appropriate and cheap enough.  Sure, I could get them made or something but I’m not THAT serious about it.

Then, while wandering the aisles I came across a pack of 4 inch glow sticks, like they use for raves.  They happened to fit perfectly inside my bird-feeder tube and what’s more, they give an eerie glow that was perfect for my budget T-Virus.   Sure, they only glow for a day or so but they’re so cheap and easy to swap out I can just keep a few packs around to load up when I feel the need to infect some zombies.

All up, it cost around $10.   I could buy a case of these for a bunch of money, and while they are totally excellent, it’s out of my price range.  You can buy me a set if you want.

Here’s some bad pictures of my T-Virus.  I really do need a decent camera.

		Rambo

As a side note, I was watching the Rambo movies recently and I think the funniest part of the series was the section involving Rambo’s glow stick. Click the Rambo pic to check it out at You-Tube.

Warhammer 40K Fallout Mod

I’ve finally released the Warhammer 40K mods for Fallout 3. It took a while because, as I expected, I got burned out on it for a while. It’s just so tedious going into the game, checking it out, leaving the game, changing something and going back in. To make a mod like this, I have to use five or six programs in conjunction, so switching between them can be a pain and is a little draining. Also, I was getting a lot of private messages asking me to ‘just release what I have’. I don’t like to do things half-arsed, so that’s out of the question. When I release mods, they are complete, final and done. Unless there’s a glaring error I don’t go back and revise them again. By the time it’s final, I’m usually pretty bored of the whole thing. I’ve also had experiences before with people stealing my models and including them in their own releases without permission. It really turns you off the whole process.

Anyway, enough bitching. Here’s the final release. It includes various remodeling and re-textures of the Bolt Guns, Bolt Pistols and Plasma weapons and all-new models for Missile Launchers and the much asked-for Heavy Bolter. My favourite weapons are the custom gold versions of each weapon, each with their own name and enhanced powers. I enjoyed getting the Heavy Bolter up and running because that took forever to get right. It was so hard to make. Anyway, you can download the mod from Fallout Nexus. If you grab it, leave a comment and let me know you saw it at WordPress.

Custom Heavy Bolter