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Mikka is Making More New Students! Also, a tutorial about that.


Mikka

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So. I decided that because six is an utterly charming number and because Bioware has taught me that three is the charm, I am going to make two more students.

 

(For those of you who don't usually hang around in the modders unite forums, I already made four of them. They'll be released... sometime soonish? It's worth it, I swear. Try to trust me. :))

 

Because I have another project going on for something different, they likely won't be made in the flurry of activity that I finalized the other four kids in- to be blunt, this is going to take me more then two weeks. However, it certainly won't take me the five million years it took me to complete them. I'd say they'll probably be done this March, maybe early April. A month sounds about right.

 

As you might know from reading my other topic, the purpose of these two students is to round out the characters in the game by giving options for gay or lesbian characters to romance in later years, something the base game didn't have. In year one, however, romance is out of the question and interests of these two, and my sole purpose is creating interesting and fun characters to cause chaos and mayhem with. I hope to succeed with that. My goal is to create characters that are interesting and fun no matter what orientation your character is, and characters they'd like to become friends with. Or become hated rivals with and utterly destroy, if that's more to your speed.

 

These two students are named Caterina ("Cat") Caro and Cuàn Gallagher. Maybe by posting that, they won't have their last names changed- I've already changed them around twelve times now.

 

I'll post more about them further in the thread. For now, Cat is an ambitious tomboy from a wealthy background that has dreams far beyond her abilities that finds herself in Durand, and Cuàn is a brooder who seems an odd fit for Collage Morvidus, being more bookish and inside-focused then most in his Collage. Together, they may fight crime. Maybe.

 

I am making this a new thread, rather then using the old one, because I am trying to keep this thread on topic focused around the new students. The other thread is the nostalgia thread where we talk about old video games and goof off. It's a fun thread. Come join us if you so desire, but please try and use this thread to talk mostly about the two (or, for the hell of it, six- if you have any questions about the other four, might as well toss them in here for now) students I'm making. Or your own students that you're making, if you're going down that route. I'll cheer you on. :)

 

The next post (...unless someone is quick with the post button and interrupts, darn you!) in this thread will be the tutorial on how to make a new student for this game. It's going to take me some time to make this tutorial, so please bear with me. It'll be a work in progress.

 

 

So far progress on this mod: Zilch. I have ideas, and I have the bases on which we'll build the portraits on, but other then that, I have nothing. It's another work in progress. We'll change that soon.

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So. How To Make New Students for Academagia, or something like that.

 

To start off, you need three things- the Mod tools, the mod AMO, and the mod base. You can find the first two in this thread. The mod base, which is named Mod Base 3 despite being Mod Base 4 (something to tease the Legate about, I suppose) can be found here. Download them all in to one folder, and there you go. You have the necessary components for making your mod.

 

The first thing you're going to want to do is go up and hit Create Mod. Name it whatever. (I name it 'Two Newbies', as I am not very creative.) Click yes to creating a new file. Then open Mod Base 3.amm on the next screen. This means any changes you make are not being saved to the Mod Base 3 file, they're being saved to the Two Newbies (or whatever you called your mod) file. This means if something goes seriously wrong, you always have Mod Base 3.amm as a backup to start from, rather then needing to download everything again.

 

Got that settled? Good.

 

Take a look around the modbase, if you haven't before. Click on everything that looks interesting. Pay particular attention to the AI-tabs, the Personality tab, and the Student tab. That's where we'll be mostly working.

 

You might notice after doing this for a bit that students are basically made up of tables. In the Student tab, it controls how often they roll on each table, and then in the AI-tab it controls what they do when they roll on that specific table. Students are, as I said, made of tables.

 

So!

 

 

Step One - Make Up Your Character

I am not going to tell you how to make a character. How I, personally, make characters is an arcane ritual that involves sacrifices to Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn... ahem, sacrifices to the Elder Gods, lots of chocolate and wine, and some occasional screaming temper-tantrums. I am almost positive however you make characters will be a sane and orderly ritual compared to how I do it, and I wish you all the best in that.

 

I can say little things, though. I base my characters off of what I know- Cat, who I'll be mostly using as an example, is a combination of my own personality traits, traits of my ex-girlfriend, and traits of a character in a roleplaying game I played a long time ago (with major differences... starting with he was male, and ending with he had the blood of dragon's running through his veins, which, er, clearly, Cat does not). I compare my characters to other characters- in this case, to my own Louise and Antonio and to the game's Prudence and Tulia, and I make adjustments to Cat's personality to make her more unique from them. I find a flaw to make that character's core and build a lot of her conflicts around it- in her case, Cat is horribly naive and idealistic, and doesn't see the world as anything but black and white. I try writing in-character pieces in order to get a bit more of a handle on how the character would talk. I even walk around the house trying to walk the way I think they would walk, but that's just my way of method acting.

 

It doesn't really matter how you make a character- just make one. Most importantly, make a name. You'll need a name.

 

 

Step Two - Faking Out Tables

This is an annoying step. Basically, what we're going to do is fake out the student tab in order to enter our student in the game by adding fake tables in order to allow the student tab to close. As you can't properly fill out tables without having the student entered in to the game without tables, but you can't properly enter a table without a student to link to.

 

So go to the Student Tab. Click Add New.

 

See those red exclamation marks? We can't hit 'save' and put our student in to the game until those are all full. So start with the easy stuff. You know your student's first name and surname, right? Might as well set their gender, too. And their college. Set the collage by clicking the green plus sign and selecting Durand (or whatever college you want).

 

Ability and Clique Ability don't have red exclamation marks next to them, but I've gotten crashes when I try to save the student without filling them out, so click on the green X. Here's where the faking out part comes. Click on any ability. It doesn't matter what, it's just temporary. Then okay it. Do the same with Clique Ability.

 

(Cat, for instance, has Eyes in the Back of your Head as an ability, and Fading Ink, Blotter as a clique ability. They're just temporary stop gaps. Don't worry about it.)

 

You need to do the same for the personal AI table, the Interests AI table, Goal AI table, Studies AI table, Vendetta AI table, and personality table. So click the green plus sign, and choose any student. Doesn't have to be the same student each time. Just pick random tables, and give them to your poor student. They'll get their real tables eventually.

 

See how all those exclamation marks are gone? You can now hit save. Do so.

 

If you created a mod right now, your student would be in the game if you used that mod. They'd have no portrait or description, no adventures or events, no abilities of their own, no familiar, and no sane tables to work on, but they would be in the game.

 

Not a bad second step, huh?

 

 

Step Three - Actually Filling in the Student Table

 

Go back in to your students tab by double clicking on it. For right now, we're going to ignore the first page. We'll come back to it when we actually build our tables. Check over to Attributes.

 

Students have a wide grouping of Attributes. Most students have a few stats- sometimes even four- at one. Then sometimes a student (hello, Zoe!) zooms away with 8 points in an Attribute. Cat is not intended to be a prodigy of any kind, though: she's just a fairly typical girl with a pretty rich background. I leave her insight, luck, and finesse at 1, representing that she's not very wise, lucky, or dextrous. I raise her Intelligence to 2, representing that she's smart enough to pass her classes if not do much more about it. I move Fitness and Charm to 3, representing that she has a good constitution and charisma. Then, finally, I put Strength at 4, representing that she is unusually and startlingly strong for a girl her age.

 

Description? That's the short thing you see when you click on a student- the one paragraph biography. Personally, I'm leaving Cat's for later, but you can fill this out now. Just try not to make it too long. That's my failure with it.

 

Secret Description is never used in the game, but a few students have them anyway (offhand, check Rui for one, and Joana for another). They often offer glimpses in to the characters motivation, and you can think of them almost as notes to the Academagia team or the fans of your mod. Cat doesn't have enough secrets to deserve a Secret Description, but Cuàn might.

 

Physical Description, Personality Description, Action Description, and Ancedotal Description aren't used. Leave them blank.

 

Clique Names is what your character will name their clique if they're the one to start it. I have an incredible hard time with these. For now, I just put down 'The Honored Few', as Cat would name her clique something sort of stuck-up and grandiose. I'll probably change it later.

 

Gift Preferences? Never used in game, but all the other students have them, so I set them up to. What you'd want to do is choose an Item Type that your character would like to receive as a gift. 'Weapons' are not a direct option, sadly, as that's what Cat would likely want the most. So, failing that, I choose 'Cosmetics'. Yes, if you can't hand her a sword, she'd rather you hand her lipstick instead. Cat's just that sort of girl.

 

Classes! This is one of those important stuff. Obviously, a student can only take six classes, and two or three of them are already chosen for them by their College (in Cat's case, that's Botany and Negation). I like to give the student some chance of passing their classes, so I look to her other good stats- Fitness and Charm- and decide she can take Athletics and Incantation, and Rhetoric. That leaves one left, so I choose Enchant. She won't do very well in the class, but it fits her personality to want to know how to enchant weapons.

 

Skills! Basically, you just pick skills your character would start with, and add them to this tab. In general, students in the game don't have enough skills that you'd need to scroll to see them- they only have the blank white space filled in. On the other hand, they can tend to have skills at five or so. I generally make skills at a lower level, but I add more. Adding too many skills is one of my banes, and something I'm trying to get better at it. So I fill in Cat's skills- she's generally good at physical things and some charming things, not so good at magic or mental things.

 

(The Value is the level the student has in the skill, by the way. So 1 means they start with skill level one, and so on.)

 

You can put things in the Spells, Items, and Phemes tab if you wish, but all other students leave them blank, so I'll leave them blank as well. If your student was especially skilled or magic or has some sort of prized item they carry around, though, that's where you would show it.

 

Finally, we have the visualization. That's the portrait. Cat's portrait isn't done yet, so we'll leave that empty.

 

That's basically it for the Student tab, save for the first page of General information that we'll come back to later. Well done for getting this far!

 

 

Step Four - The Personality Table

Click the Personality tab. Click on a few students for examples. Then Add New and put in a name. For me, that's Caro, Caterina.

 

What to do with the stats on the first page... from my understanding, they're mostly not used. Prosecution Chance, Blackmail Chance, Reinforcement Bonus, and Emotion Bonus can safely be left at 0. Only Erraticity and Confidence are used, and honestly, I don't really know what they're used for.

 

(Hey, I never said that I was a genius at this- just that I can guide someone along.)

 

I believe Erraticity is the chance they'll wake up one day and say 'Screw my tables, I don't feel like doing that today, I'm going to do something different' and Confidence has something to do with the amount of times they'll repeat an objective while failing at it before they give up and stop doing it, but I wouldn't want to be quoted on that.

 

So the way I'm currently going to fill this out? I'll think of a character who is similar, virtue-wise to Cat. That's Tulia. Then I'm going to steal her values and use them for Cat's own. 5 and 7, just like that. There we go.

 

Dominant Attribute should be an easier thing to fill out. That's simply the attribute your character finds most important (and the one that is likely the highest for them). As I'm doing some physical girls, mental boys deal, Cat's is Strength.

 

The Description and Prerequisites tabs are left blank. So then we have the Personality Preferences.

 

Personality Preferences basically allows you to fine-tune the personality that you'll make in the other tabs. It allows you to make small adjustments to their personality, encouraging or preventing them from doing something.

 

Let's look at Cat. Cat is not a bully. She thinks bully's are horrible meanies who should be deeply ashamed of themselves and who have no honor. So I click Add New, and put -6 as the Value. That means she has a negative six chance of picking up a Bully skill. Or at least, it will mean that, once I put that in as the effect.

 

(PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION HERE. YOU WILL DO THIS STEP FIVE HUNDRED TIMES.)

 

Effect - Create New Enity. Name - 'Bully', or whatever skill you are using. Effect Type- <i>Expand</i>. (For almost everything, you want Expand. You might occasionally use Add or Increase, but Expand is what you normally want.) Magnitude - 1. Subject - Skill Step, Parent Skill, Selection of Parent Skill, Bully, Choice of Skill ([Expand]Expand Subject/Skill Step/Parent Skill/Selection of Parent Skill/Bully (Skill)/Choice of Skill). Target -

 

(Breakkkkk, more another day)

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I added a bit to the tutorial, but it's sort of scattered information. I'll add more before the days end.

 

So, um, look!

 

cat_5.pngCu_n.png

 

These are the bases MadHatt made for Cat and Cuàn, that I will very likely be basing their final portraits on. I would like a few changes made to them, though, and I absolutely beg for help on this. I am horrible at editing portraits. I don't even have an image software installed anymore. I need help!

 

For Cat, make her skin slightly more olive- a bit more 'Italian girl who likes the sun' then she currently looks. Add a bit of color to her eyes- maybe blue? Give her lips a tiny hint of more pink, as she uses cosmetics.

 

For Cuàn, give him color. Make him look a bit less like you-know-who, possibly by moving his face up on his head a bit further (that could make his hair hang in his eyes a bit, too, which was sort of the idea that appeared in my head when I first pictured him). Give his eyes a bit more green.

 

All in all, they are fantastic starts, they just need a bit of work. So I kindly request that if you have any skill at editing images- no matter how small- you take a peek at this and see if you can do anything. As I said, I am hopeless at this. I'm a writer, not an artist. So I would appreciate help from all corners, and would be very thankful if anyone wants to take the time to do this.

 

So... um... please. :)

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Caterina Caro is not nicknamed Cat for cat-like behavior (she would be better compared to an overgrown puppy dog), or for having a cat familiar that she’s always seen with (she has a ferret, actually, and she’s not all that close to it). Cat is called Cat simply because her parents realized back when she was a toddler it was a lot quicker to shout “Cat, no!” to try and keep her out of trouble then “Caterina, no!”.

 

Cat, of course, does not think of herself as a troublemaker. She is a graduate of the Safaviore Officer’s School, and believes there’s only one way to do things, and that’s the Safaviore way. The Safaviore way is always honorable, always gentle(wo)manly, always has time for distressed maids and misters, always organized, always two-steps ahead, always a stickler for rules, and unfortunately, always nosy.

 

Is something going on? Cat simply has to be involved in it. She lets nothing escape her watch, and if drama and chaos are going on, it’s almost a fact that she’ll be right there in the middle of it. She likes to think she adds a reasonable and mature outlook to such things, but that’s not really true. Cat is far too prone to jumping to conclusions and reacting without having the full story to be considered ‘reasonable’ and ‘mature’.

 

What she is, honestly, is a spoiled little girl who models herself on legends of heroes and adventurers. She dreams of becoming the Captain of Mineta one day, and pointing out that generally Mage’s aren’t exactly considered for that position just falls on deaf ears. Even more importantly, the Captain of Mineta is expected to make compromises and hard decisions- something Cat is completely incapable of doing.

 

Her world is completely black and white, filled of good guys and bad guys with no room for debate (in general, College Durand are the good guys and College Aranaz are the bad guys, but there may be a few exceptions). She’s still young, and it’s hoped by her parents (and her teachers) that she’ll learn to compromise in time, but right now Cat is prone to reacting overdramatically and ridiculously when something doesn’t go the way she thinks it should go.

 

To her friends, Cat is supportive, careful, always willing to put everything down to help, and protective. To her enemies… well, Cat is more prone to lecturing then anything else, but she is something of a fencer as well as a duelist, and she’s not afraid to put those skills to use to teach people the ‘correct’ Safaviore way to act.

 

This can really make her a headache to deal with, and even those close to her have to worry about acting ‘proper’ enough so she doesn’t suddenly decide they’re dishonorable and not worthy of her time. Still, those who can keep her close find they have a skilled strategist on their side- for all that Cat might hate dishonorable people, she is surprisingly good at predicting what said dishonorable people are going to do next.

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It’s no real news for a Morvidus student to get along better with animals then they do with people. Cuàn Gallagher is just simply an obvious example of it.

 

He’s quiet; one could even call him stoic. He doesn’t react to much of anything, whether it’s compliments or bullying. He’s an loner who never makes efforts to make friends. He likes animals, but he doesn’t become any softer or easier to talk to when he’s around them, subverting that trope. Generally, he spends most of his time reading. He’s surprisingly book-smart, but he never lets anyone copy his notes or helps anyone with homework.

 

Most people are of the opinion that he is extremely boring. Cuàn finds that a bit distressing, but not quite enough to change.

 

The son of an overbearing mother and a henpecked father, Cuàn learned early on that there’s power in words, but even more power in staying silent. He’s incredibly patient, and despite his smarts, relies on instinct. He is incredibly good at choosing the exact moment to act or say something, and he does have some notoriety for asking piercing questions that people don’t usually want to answer at exactly the right (or wrong, depending on whether you’re being targeted or not) moment. That’s generally seen as another strike against him- if he’s not being boring, he’s being irritating. For good or ill, people usually just leave him alone.

 

The few people who get close to Cuàn note that he’s a rather creative soul with something of an overactive imagination: to amuse himself when he’s left alone, he tends to make up stories about people and their motivations that go from interesting to hilarious. He’d probably make a good writer, but his mother would never allow it, so he never bothers putting words on paper. He’s very sensitive to what his mother desires, and generally doesn’t go against her. It’s the same with his fiddle playing (and it is a fiddle, not a violin- that’s one of the few things he’ll get in arguments about): he’s skilled with it and has fun with it, but as it isn’t something that would be approved of, he holds little attachment to it.

 

All in all, Cuàn is generally just thought of as a quiet boy who probably holds secrets, but who’s secrets wouldn’t be quite interesting enough to bother to ferret out. He’s around when you’d expect him to be around, and generally nowhere to be found when people are being loud and troublesome. He’ll probably never get a detention in his life, which is just another thing that people find a bit irritating about him.

 

He is, perhaps, a bit predictable. And I really can’t talk about him as freely as I do Cat, as he does have some secrets.

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I am somewhat talking to myself, but that's okay.

 

I finished doing Cat's tables and getting her in to the game- I only need to put in her skills. That leaves me around one eightyth done, or some ridiculous figure like that, but it means I am half done with the stuff I find boring and tedious. I just need to put Cuàn in to the system, and then I'm on to the fun stuff of writing adventures and events.

 

That'll probably be a while from now, though, as I need to do some other work instead. But it's nice to have some progress.

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heh from the description I'd say there is a bit of Cuán in me, perhaps mostly when I was younger, but some things change slowly.

 

That said, while I am quite white, or pale even, I'd still get some holy water and a cross or something if that boy attended together in some classes. :P

 

 

 

Mikka, an idea if you want to stress that he isn't one to get detention, then you should let him have one with the player. Wrongfully in both cases (to some degree) where he perhaps comments (perhaps embarrassed so) that it is his first detention (I'm assuming most players - not just mine - experience detention a few times during their stay at the Academagia). Adventure might be to clear his name...

 

 

As a side note, I've never been sent to detention, but I've been sent out of the class because me and a few others were disruptive to the class. We had been laughing at some joke, and trying to stop just made it worse. All in all, me and two of my best friends got sent outside for 20 minutes due to a substitute teacher that couldn't handle a three kids laughing. Had I been alone I'd most certainly felt it unfair (I still do, slightly, but the fun we had playing outside of class made any anger null and void), and I'd defend my innocence had I been wrongfully accused (Which I wasn't, but just saying).

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I think I do, too. I was incredibly awkward in my preteens... ah well.

 

Yeah, with all the discussions on his paleness, there really needs to be an event where he gets almost staked or something. I'm pale, too- Irish and Polish, meant for plotting revolutions in dark bars rather then fun in the sun, my mother would say- but... he's white.

 

That's a good idea for an event! I don't think I'd do a full adventure out of it, but I could definitely work it in to an event. And yeah, I think almost every player gets a few detentions in their gaming time. With the silly teachers being so strict about class skipping, it's hard not to. >.>

 

I was once asked by a teacher to clean the tables, and as I had cleaned them the day before, I refused. She told me that I'd be sent to the back of the lunch line everyday for that, then I told her I didn't care, because I brought my own lunch. That's probably the boldest (and brattiest) I've ever been in my life. I got three days lunch detention for it, but I just read through it, so it wasn't too bad.

 

Shoot, I'm off topic.

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Ha! Leave the poor kid alone. I'm working on it :P Although...I'm tempted to make him paler just for the comments....(yes, it was a possibility - I think Photoshop is possessed, btw) No worries, no worries, he'll be gaining some colour and more shadows soon.

 

I don't get detention?...Except that adventure where you get detention. I tend to stay clean because of the illegal items.

 

What would be Cat's reaction to introducing her to the Captain? ..Poor Captain.

 

Edit:

 

A non-stakable Cuan. Just slightly tanned. And with more hair. His eyes are blue, if you look close, but I'm not sure I can make them more visible without using some outlandish colour or have them take over half his face.

Cuan_non_staked.png?noCache=1363454196

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Cat with a bit more colour in two versions. I figure you could mess with it more or tell me what you'd want differently because I keep coming back to it and then eventually I'd have a fit and delete everything. I do that. I also have a feeling that they look reaaaally different in my computer compared to how they do when I post them. Can't explain it.

 

Cat_with_more_colour2.png

Cat_with_more_colour.png

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Okay, it took me too long to post in this thread. Cuàn finally has some color, and Cat has some color, too- I'm not sure if I'll use the first or second portrait at the moment, but I'll definitely use one of them. Thank you so much, MadHatt. :)

 

Here's a question, fans of the game: looking at the portraits, can you automatically and easily see what character they were based off of? That's the hurdle that needs to be cleared when it comes to portraits- they need to look different enough from the base game characters that you can look at them without going "woah, twins". For me, they don't look that much like their bases that it's distracting, but I am in a biased position. I would appreciate input. :)

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I wanted to have some news for this holiday, but I don't have much time, so I'll make this quick.

 

I started entering Cuàn in to the base. His Personality, Studies, and Vendetta tables are done. That's still three tables to go- three long tables- but it's a start and some progress, at least. Yay.

 

Still thinking about what their abilities will be. So far, I've avoided any clique ability that raises your attributes, but I think I might go back on that for Cat. No one else in game raises Strength, do they? Hm. Cuàn's clique ability, I'm still at a loss for.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This should probably be in this thread:

 

Cat takes Athletics, Botany, Enchant, Incantation, Negation and Rhetoric. All of them were taken by choice, so she's happy with her selection. She wouldn't have minded taking Revision, for it's healing ability, or Dialect for it's ability to help her build the arguments she uses in Rhetoric, but even she would be forced to admit that at the moment, six classes are her limit. See, even though she lectures people for talking in class, she spends a lot of her class periods listening (not talking! so it doesn't count as hypocrisy, you see?) to the latest gossip and passing notes. She does okay in her classes, if not spectacularly. Athletics is probably her favorite, but Enchant is up there- somewhat oddly, Enchant is her worst class. She finds it very interesting, though.

 

Cuàn takes Astrology, Dialectic, Grammar, Music, Revision and Zoology. Grammar and Dialectic were assigned to him by whoever first interviewed him who was somewhat disturbed by his terseness and tendency to leave pronouns out of sentences. He tolerates them, anyway. The only class he has issues with is Music, actually- he took it because he likes playing the fiddle (it's a fiddle! not a violin! Katja plays the violin!), not because he cares about Notation or anything, and certainly not because he wanted to learn how to play the lute. He does well in his classes, though, even though three of them are primed from bad attributes, because he studies a lot and he's programmed to try and get extra credit. He'd like to have taken Negation, too, but he didn't have much choice. Zoology is predictably his favorite course, followed by Revision.

 

Right. Seems to belong here a bit better.

 

 

Cuàn is now officially in the system with all tables accounted for. I've moved he and Cat to a Word Document, too, so it's easier for me to proofread, it's more likely to be accepted when I send it in, and I have a backup if my mod decides to suddenly get corrupted because life hates me. Retyping everything in to word took some time, but eh, I sort of worked on Project at the same time.

 

What Cat and Cuàn are missing, modtools-wise, is descriptions (the hardest thing I find to write because I find it difficult to be terse enough... my descriptions end up double the size of most students descriptions and then I struggle with cutting it down), their familiars, and then their three abilities. Then it's just writing events and adventures, which is the fun part.

 

I'll try to work on familiars and abilities tonight, but who knows if I'll get it done. Still, it's an attempt.

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These may change at a moment's notice. Seriously, a moment's notice.

 

 

Caterina (“Cat”) is a proud alumni of the Safaviore Officer's School, and she seems to find it something of a disappointment that the Academagia isn't more like it. She sees herself as a noble gentlewoman of war, and is constantly badgering others for failing to live up to the expectations she sets on herself. In practice, that just means she's constantly challenging people to duels, both fencing and magical. She forgets all about ideals and responsibilities as soon as she hears a piece of juicy gossip, though.

 

 

Eulalia is a respectable ferret. Unfortunately, that means she isn't a noble steed, a ferocious war dog, or a fierce bird of prey. All things she would rather be- for if she was something different, something worthy and useful in battle, Caterina might notice her.

 

Caterina does not mistreat her familiar. It's more that half the time she forgets her familiar even exists. Absorbed in her studies of strategy and tactics, a familiar who can offer her nothing of use in such fields is a familiar wasted. Eulalia often sits on her Mistress's shoulder unnoticed, waiting patiently for the moment Caterina will look at her and request something of her, but such moments are few and far between.

 

So Eulalia has decided she will become the world's first War Ferret. She practices fighting and memorizes all the strategies and tactics Caterina looks over, and so far, no pair of socks has been able to stand up to her wraith. Soon, she thinks, it will be time to move on to more difficult prey.

 

Perhaps gloves.

 

 

Cuàn is a bit of an odd one. He likes books more then people, and animals more then books. He seems to always be reading if indoors, or tracking down interesting animals if outdoors. He's a true loner who doesn't seem to have any close friends at all, and he doesn't seem bothered by it. He usually fades in to the background unless you're specifically looking for him. Despite all that, though, he seems to be constantly surrounded by strange rumors. People tend to find him a bit mysterious.

 

 

Corey is a wolf. An actual wolf. Most people are of the opinion that he is the coolest thing about Cuàn Gallagher.

 

Corey does not disagree with this. He is Cuàn's savior and confident, and he expects to be acknowledged. He paws through the center of hallways and glowers at humans- even Professors!- to move rather then move himself. He dismisses all other familiars- even the birds, the cats, and the dogs- as prey and looks down at them with effortless disgust. He considers the whole of the Academagia grounds as his territory and makes it clear that the Academagia only stands because he and he alone allows it to.

 

And yet despite all his pompous words and deeds, he remains attached to the rather ordinary Cuàn- who in turn, treats him with an odd deference and respect, as if Corey's claims are true rather then mere blabber.

 

That causes people to be slightly unnerved. Just slightly.

 

(I decided I need a jerkish familiar, as everyone else has rather nice familiars. Well, Fanuco is sort of on the edge, but he's a jerk with a heart of gold type deal. Corey's just rude.)

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Familiars and abilities are done.

 

What's left?

 

Two duel adventures.

Two regular, long, student adventures.

Fourteen events.

 

Then these two will be done. I will submit them to the Academagia Team to see if they want them, but I'm unsure if that's likely considering I already bombard them with four crazy people already. If by rare chance they are accepted, though, you'll see them in whatever DLC the team feels like putting them in. If they aren't accepted, I'll release them as a normal mod when DLC 16 is released (as Cat has an event that refers to Aaran, and I may put other references in).

 

These two will be done by the 27th of April. I hope to be done with them sooner, but I have work and a Project that takes priority. But... I'll try my best to get them done sooner, because, well, I've been working on them for long enough and getting things done sooner is good, right?

 

Let me know if you want any spoilers of any kind, and I'll try to oblige. This thread is like, empty besides me talking to myself. That makes me feel awkward, so, yeah. If you have something to say, please say it. :)

 

(Oh, and after they're done, I'll finish that tutorial up there. Though really, the paragraph telling you how to expand skills tells you all you need to know. You just sit and expand skill steps repeatedly. THAT IS ALL YOU DO WHEN MODDING NEW STUDENTS. ...I may be exaggerating slightly.)

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I had the girl I call my niece (she's close enough for me <3) test out the AI. She got them both in vendettas, and reports they're both meaniechu's and jerkface's once set off. Of course, as I didn't write the duel adventures for her, she's now stuck with them in vendetta mode and ruining her day... um, oops. ;;

 

But yeah, neither of them are really nice in vendetta mode. Which is sort of just as planned.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alright. So. Update.

 

I can no longer type in the modtools. I can still do anything else with them, but I just can't type in the main text, success text, or failure text boxes. I don't know why. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to force the tools on to my mother's laptop and see if they'll work for me there. If they do, then problem will be solved and none of the rest of this post matters.

 

If the laptop can't take the modtools, though, which is what I'm afraid of, then I have another option.

 

Right now, I can still write for Cat and Cuàn. I can still write out their adventure and events and put it in my handy word document. I am going to do that, and then submit the word document to the Academagia team and see if they want it. If they do, then, well, yay. I have my doubts that they'll actually want these two, though (although I keep hoping), so there comes part b of this plan.

 

After I finish writing everything out, I'll need someone who would like to see this mod get put out do a favor for me: copy and pasting in to the modtools. Basically, I'll give them the document with all the main text, exit text, success text and failure text. That person will in turn copy and paste the events and adventures to the .amm file and put the words in to the mod. Then, I'll take the .amm file back from them and fill out the actual coding, which is something the mod tools are still allowing me to do that the moment.

 

This is a round-about, sort of backwards way of doing things, but it's the only way I can currently see for this mod to be released, and I don't want to abandon it now. So, yeah. This will likely take a bit longer to finish then I had hoped. The writing at least will be definitely done by May 8th, but it may not get finished this week- I am still working at project on the same time. When the mod is actually released will depend on if the Academagia team takes it, or if I can find someone willing to do this copy-paste mess for me and how long they take on that and then how I do with the coding. I am trying to get it to you as soon as possible, but seriously, as this event proved, something always comes up. I can't control the modtools suddenly deciding they hate me.

 

So that's where I am now. It's not where I want to be, and I apologize sincerely for the delays in this project. I'll try to do better.

 

I want to move all talk of Cat and Cuàn from the other thread over to here, so here I'll say: have any ideas for events? Throw them out. They're what I'm trying to work on right now.

 

 

Oh, the duel adventures are written. Cat is very rude in hers.

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Alright, so the modtools don't work on my computer. They don't work on my mother's laptop. I still keep getting the inability to write in any of the boxes.

 

They do, however, work on the tiny miserable little computer in my grandparent's basement.

 

What does that mean? It means I'm back in business. Can I get a 'hell, yeah'?

 

I'm going to write the mod on my own computer, and then go over to my grandparents each day next week or whenever and copy the students in to the mod and do the coding (or I'll do the coding back at home- it doesn't really matter). This is again a sort of round-about method of doing things, but it'll work, and that's all I care about. So Cat and Cuàn are still on for progress and will appear sometime or another, and all is well with the world again. Huzzah.

 

 

...I swear, I am never doing anything with the modtools again after this!

(And by 'never', I mean 'not until year two'.)

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  • 1 year later...

So. You know. Hey.

 

Remember this topic?

 

I lost most of my old Academagia documents (and sadly, a lot of my saves- though I still have the two I did RP's with!) in a computer crash a while back, but today I was drive searching, and I found my 'TwoNewbs' document hidden in the shadows of my G drive.

 

And I looked at them and realized, 'they're almost done'. Almost all their random events are complete, as well as their duel adventures: all they really need is adventures and a touch up from me on the random events written so long ago that myself cringes to read them now.

 

As I think the Academagia team is fed up with me (and how long it is taking me to write Miya's year two adventure >.>), I doubt these two would get released as a DLC, but if people are interested, I could always release them as a mod. This would lead to one complication: if you play the mod with them in it, you will probably not be able to play a year two game with that save file until I release the mod for year two. But it probably won't take long for the modtools to be released in year two, and I can work quick when I need to.

 

So my question, to all of you: would you be interested in a mod that added two students to the game? I need to, you know, finish this silly Miya adventure that's taking up all my time, but I could pretty easily then go to work on these two and get them released.

 

Just putting it out as a question. Don't worry, I won't be offended if you say you aren't interested. :)

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  • 4 months later...

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