Mikka's Modding Project!

[Leoshi]

More ideas you say? <Opens Ideas Crate #45>

 

1) Who would have the strongest reaction to Llarina de Avuel and Herbert Downes chatting at the same time right next to his/her ear? (Inspired by Sticky from Fallout 3, gods I hate him!)

 

2) Joana about to punch Mikka Miya because her (stolen) pouch of candy was stolen.

 

3) The PC finds Antonio laying on the ground, unconscious and unmoving. (No breathing, no pulse)

 

4) Who would have a great time obeying a disembodied voice commanding him / her to hurt you? Please use Matter the Mad Hatter as the name of the voice.

 

Sorry that most of my suggestions are more social in nature than showing off the personalities of your students.

[Mikka]

More ideas you say? <Opens Ideas Crate #45>

 

1) Who would have the strongest reaction to Llarina de Avuel and Herbert Downes chatting at the same time right next to his/her ear? (Inspired by Sticky from Fallout 3, gods I hate him!)

 

Probably Aaran. He's the one who most values quiet time. Louise, for all her faults, would just walk away, but Aaran would feel socially obligated to spend time with the people chatting in his direction while being driven completely crazy by the talking oh god the never stopping talking.

 

Not sure if I can use this exactly, but it would probably be worth it to do an event with Avgust and Aaran around a similar subject- Aaran and Cyrus have nothing in common, but can get along okay despite that, but Avgust drives Aaran to strange temper-tantrums, attempts to throw himself out windows, threats to set things on fire, and general insanity. Which is a shame, as Avgust is actually pretty cool.

 

2) Joana about to punch Mikka Miya because her (stolen) pouch of candy was stolen.

 

Different then her punching Aaran for once, so I approve. I mean, poor Mika Miya. I can actually possibly use this... poor Miya. She doesn't get beat up enough.

 

3) The PC finds Antonio laying on the ground, unconscious and unmoving. (No breathing, no pulse)

 

That would be bad! If only I could figure out a reason for it. Hm. Maybe he pulled an Everwine and trapped himself in a book. That would be sort of a call back to something else someone else does...

 

4) Who would have a great time obeying a disembodied voice commanding him / her to hurt you? Please use Matter the Mad Hatter as the name of the voice.

 

If you could actually convince Antonio that you are somehow the New Gods talking (for some strange reason) directly to him, you could probably convince him to do <i>anything</i>. You'd have to be pretty convincing, but it would probably be funny.

 

Louise would be like "SHUT UP STUPID VOICE I AM THE MASTER OF MY OWN DESTINY RULES ARGGH". Miya and Aaran might be naive enough to fall for something like that, in their own respective ways.

 

As for who would have the most fun hurting me... I think they all probably want to hurt me for how their represented. "WHY DO YOU NOT SHOW ME AS BEING PERFECT. Stop writing about my bad parts!" Characters are never nice to their creators. Or at least, my characters are never nice to me...

 

Not sure I could use that, though. I'll have to think about it.

 

Sorry that most of my suggestions are more social in nature than showing off the personalities of your students.

 

Hey, I just love suggestions. <3 And I can work with it, I can!

[Mikka]

I just want to whine a bit about mods taking forever to publish. I want to run some quick tests on the Vendetta AI, as I adjusted it, but the Modtools decided it was going to take the whole entire day to publish and seriously, it's at 24%. It's been running the whole day while I was out drinking and chocolating! Why can't it be done by now?

 

:(

 

It also means I can't write events, either. Grrface!

[Legate of Mineta]

LOL! If it makes you feel better, it takes about 10m to publish, for the Y2 content and tools.

[Mikka]

I have to admit, I am very much looking forward to that.

 

Then again, I'm really much looking forward to Y2, period, so that's probably not too surprising.

 

Still, it's good that the wait times were cut down by so much. Well done to your coders!

[Mikka]

Alright, I have to give up on this. It's still trying to make the mod, and I have work I want to do on it today. Bad mad tools.

 

So that means their Vendetta scripts are going to go basically untested, but the only one who you'll be in a Vendetta with for long is Louise, and hers is the one I didn't touch. So I'll just hope that Antonio doesn't suddenly spontaneously combust or something in his attempts to break the vendetta, and continue with making events.

 

Aaran's adventure is on hold because I said if I went over my deadline working on extra adventures, I would forgive myself. So I'm abusing my technicality here. I'll add in a few extra events today and tomorrow, and do his adventure on Wednesday- and if it slips over to Thursday, that's alright. My intent is to send the file to the team on Thursday.

 

(I assume I send the .amm, as then they can see what changes I made, rather then the .mod, as the .mod you'd have to play through and hope that events triggered and stuff. Legate?)

[Mikka]

I wrote an event for Louise and an event for Miya that are for female players only that hint (depending on the options chosen) that they feel affection towards your character, though that affection is only thus affection, hopefully setting them up properly for later years as romance options for female characters. I'm a bit less sure how to do something similar with Aaran and Antonio, though. So I might just not. Aaran already shows extreme loyalty towards your character, be they male or female, so I think I'll just say that's that, and Antonio can just be holding his cards closer to his chest or be completely unready to care about romance in any fashion yet- no matter how mature he may act, he's still just an eleven year old boy after all, and eleven year old boys generally aren't exactly on top of how they feel romantically about people.

 

(No offense to any eleven year old boys reading this.)

 

 

I actually got a PM asking me this question: what am I doing after I finish these students? The answer is working on adventures that while they're not the main characters of, they have a large part in. While Aaran is a lucky bugger who gets his extra adventure included in the mod, Louise and Mhadi will star with your character in the Swordsmaster of Mineta (an adventure about fencing in a game system with no fencing- but it'll work, trust me), while Miya and Antonio will join Catherine, Luti, Tabin and poor, poor Noemia in the Play's the Thing.

 

Here's a piece of the horror you have to look forward to:

 

It’s a story, at it’s core, about a Sky Pirate and a Princess. They meet at a dance and fall for each other, but then they don’t meet for years. Much later, the Sky Pirate- now the Captain of his own ship- is acting against the Princess’s father, who may or may not be a Tyrant, depending on how sympathetic the director thinks the audience will be to Sky Pirate’s. The Princess and the Sky Pirate meet then once again, as war breaks out around them.

 

The Princess is served by her loyal Bodyguard, who has loved her silently for as long as he’s served her, and her loyal Handmaiden, who’s loyalties become suspect over the play. The Sky Pirate is accompanied by his crafty First Mate, and the thoughtful Navigator, who the critics say the only person in the play with any lick of sense. Then there’s the other pirates, the Princess’s father and younger sister and guards, a bunch of soldiers, and some civilians.

 

The plot is basically that the Sky Pirate and the Princess love each other, but can’t be together, because the Sky Pirate is acting against her beloved father. The First Mate tricks the Bodyguard in to thinking that the Sky Pirate is only using the Princess, and the Bodyguard challenges the Sky Pirate to a duel in which he dies. The Princess, grieving, blames her loyal Handmaiden for her Bodyguard’s death.

 

The Handmaiden, who had since then been loyal, goes to the First Mate, who she secretly loves. The First Mate loves only power, though, and desires the Princess in order to gain more of it. He tricks the Handmaiden in to poisoning the Princess in order to get the Sky Pirate out of the way so he can become Captain of the ship. The Sky Pirate finds the poisoned Princess, and thinking her dead, throws himself off his ship. The Handmaiden kills herself in grief of what she’s done. The Princess wakes up, learns that her beloved and her Handmaiden are dead, and then kills herself too. Then the Navigator kills the First Mate for his part in the tragedy, then pilots their now empty ship to ram in to the King’s palace to finish their war against the man who may or may not be a tyrant, dying as the curtain falls.

 

It’s either the most romantic, heartrending, and painful play in existence, or the most stupid, irritating, idiotic waste of ‘art’ that has ever been produced. It’s really hard to be neutral about it: you either find it a beautiful example of the extent love can drive us, or you think it’s a play about morons acting at their worst and making stupidly bad decisions one after another.

 

And you’re going to direct your fellow first years in to performing it with the city of Mineta and tons of parents as an audience. May the Gods help you.

 

 

[CremePudding]

LOL! If it makes you feel better, it takes about 10m to publish, for the Y2 content and tools.

 

I wonder how much time it will take to port Year 1 to the Year 2 engine, because the more I hear it the more I think Year 2 will be a better starting point for the whole series compared to Year 1...

 

========

 

Are you still interested in events? I was going to make a semi-festive suggestion of Miya handing the player a red packet while getting it blatantly wrong (i.e. It is always married people handing it to non-married), but I just spent 3 days perfecting the art of projectile vomiting and ca

[Mikka]

Poor Creme! I hope you feel better.

 

 

That's actually a good idea, but I'm not sure I'll get it in. Maybe as a later event added another day. Right now I'm doing the 'OMG DEADLINE I HAVE A DEADLINE I THINK I'LL RUN AROUND AND PANIC OVER IT RATHER THEN ACTUALLY WORK' dance. It's a very awesome dance. Takes a lot of practice, but I've gotten very good at it in my old age of twenty five.

 

omgdeadlineahhhh

 

How did today come so soon life isn't fair someone messed up my calendar I swear-

 

Right.

 

Just trying to... get things done today. Checking over things, making sure they're not broken, adding little things, panicking, and all that. Need to finish the FORBIDDEN DOOM adventure. Need to add some more exits for Louise's adventure. Need to not panic so much.

 

With any luck, tomorrow I'll be able to say "Yep, it's finished". Or at least Thursday. So... wish me luck.

[Mikka]

I finished the rather short Mastery adventure, in which all you really do is make Mastery rolls, but well, um... Mastery! It's the part of this mod I'm the least sure about. It might suck horribly. It might do things that Mastery can't do and thus not make any sense. It might just be weird and out of place. I don't know.

 

Now it's just like, "Gah!" I suddenly have tons of ideas for events that of course aren't going to make the cut, because tomorrow I go out with family anyway so I don't know if I'll really have time to write and I do want to try and be finished-finished tomorrow so I can hold to my original deadline.

 

But I guess there has to be a time when you just say "It's dead, jim". Or it's done. Whatever. Otherwise you end up with feature creep and the project spirals off and continues forever, much like an 800 and some page Exalted fanfic that's not even halfway done yet that I may be working on. Ahem.

 

 

Trying to do some quality checking, but it's really hard to do that on your own work when you haven't had a good break from it, I've found. Your eyes just bounce right over grammar and spelling mistakes and you've been reading and writing your own work for so long that the quality is all just 'blah, I wrote this'. It's much easier to edit for someone else then it is to edit for yourself.

 

But anyway, tomorrow this will be done. Which is a bit sad, but sort of a relief at the same time. I've been working on these brats for quite a while. Time to move on.

 

(And buy Dragonborn.)

[Mikka]

So.

 

It's time to buy Dragonborn.

 

Can I have a 'hell yeah'? Or at least a 'yay'? It took forever, but it is, for the moment, done. Things may need to be fixed and changed and set on fire, but I'm done with it for the moment.

 

I'm currently sending it to the team, to see if it can be used as content in a DLC. If that's not possible, I'll release it as a normal mod. I'll post a separate release thread if it comes to that, so you don't need to keep following this thread anymore, though I'll be sad to see it die. It lasted a whole ten pages! It was a very good thread.

 

Things and characters changed a lot throughout writing this, and it's a bit amazing how some traits described on the first page never made it in and some things completely went their own way. I guess that's how all writing goes, though: I never stick to outlines (Antonio's Adventure is the absolute closest I got, and he skipped two steps and added two extra ones in instead). I hope everyone will still enjoy this, even if it didn't turn out exactly how I planned.

 

I am so very, very thankful to every one of you who commented in this thread, sent me PMs, helped me with portraits, and somehow encouraged me to keep working. I really couldn't have done it without you guys- I would have given up in a sulk of things being too hard and confusing and not gotten anything finished. Thank you most sincerely: have free internet hugs, if you're in to that sort of thing. If not, have some free internet cookies. They taste like air. Very delicious.

 

...Yeah, I'm just being silly now. So okay, sincerely and from the bottom of my heart: thank you all. Thanks a ton.

 

 

We'll see how this project goes and where it takes me. I'll probably do some adventures and events for the Writer's Corner, but maybe I'll end up working on four more students. I already have some ideas... and making students is actually more fun then it looks. I did promise to write a tutorial on it one of these days, didn't I?

 

 

Um. Cheers, everyone.

[Legate of Mineta]

Hell yeah!

[MadHatt]

Here's a "Hell Yeah"

 

Characters and stories really rarely end up as we plan them but I think they're pretty great. Can't wait to play it. Congratulations on finishing it and hope there are more adventures and students ahead.

[Mikka]

Thank you both. Most sincerely, thank you both.

 

 

An update on where I currently am:

 

I'm currently working on a project due on Saturday, but it's really difficult and my current schedule is unfortunately packed (...I feel like all I do is talk about wine and people on the internet are going to think I'm a horrible alcoholic (...well, I did have like, five glasses tonight...), but I won wine in a gift raffle last time I was out and about visiting wineries and now I have to drive five counties over and pick up the silly wine, not to mention help my dear mother shop for a car and finish my regular work). Wish me luck on that. I'm definitely going to need it, if I'm going to finish it on time. Time can be so constraining!

 

I have two things I would like to do before Year Two comes out (sometimes I think it's far away, and other times I think it's just around the corner): finish the Play's the Thing adventure and create two more students. The problem with the first one is mainly just laziness... I need to sit down and simply work on the adventure and thus get it done, rather then doing the five million other things I'm likely to be doing at any given moment. As a refresher, that's the adventure where Antonio, Catherine, Luti, Miya and Tabin put on a play while you direct them and things explode in your face repeatedly. It's sort of overwrought and incredibly over-dramatic, but such stuff usually is.

 

Two more students, I have ideas for- a Mordivius (...when am I going to learn to spell that collage right? Seriously, after the amount I've played this game... oh well, I blame the wine) boy and a Durand girl. That would leave three students choosable by those desiring a same-sex romance for either gender, which Bioware tells me is the perfect amount and everything I ever learned about video games comes from Bioware. They would not be particularly hard to do- I think I've basically figured how making new students work now- but they would need art. Art I have no ability to make, because I am about as artistic as your average drunk twenty-something that has no real life outside of the video games she plays. Ahem.

 

So, that's another request: if you know of a bored artist, send them my way. I'm leery to start building the kids without having an artist involved, as it's likely I'll end up sitting on them forever unable to do anything with them if I don't get help from an artist. So, yeah. Seriously. Need Gud Artz. The making characters is easy: the making portraits is the mythical, confusing, difficult thing, at least in my perspective.

 

First comes this weekend's hard project, though. Which is as I said, difficult. We'll see how that goes.

 

And I still never got the time to buy Dragonborn. Bah, I say, bah! One of these days...

[Leoshi]

Wow.

 

Mikka you are one busy person aren't you?

 

Two more students? Mikka the busy bee you just love typing yes? Perhaps help from deviantART? I have only seem some things there but why not?

 

Dragonborn. Ah Dragonborn, too pricey for a DLC but too tempting to hold it off.

 

Edit: Oh and you still can't spell Morvidus (Ha!!) right is because you called us Morjerks!

[MadHatt]

And here I thought you'd be busy with Skyrim. Slight non-spoilerish advice for Dragonborn, whenever you eventually get it: have some unused dragon souls aside for it. Three or four should do it. Believe me, you will need them until you finish the main quest. Trust me on this one.

 

I hope the Morvidus boy isn't a werewolf....really hoping. And normally I'd say no one should get their inspiration from Bio (I think I subconsciously have something against them) but considering how interesting the students seem to be, I shall reserve all judgement until I play them fully. My favourite romances seem to either be mods (which are extensive things) or Obsidian made, which, to be fair, are reaaally depressive. Avellone does not like happy endings.

 

For art, I'd also suggest deviantART. I once tried to draw a student. Did not end up well. He looked like he had some sort of allergic reaction and a fake tan, besides. Horrifying. Any clues on how you'd like them to look?

[Leoshi]

Bioware. Tough subject here so I'll say one thing about their romance. It feels forced. Done.

 

Obsidian on the other hand, superb writing, terrible ending for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Veronica from New Vegas seems to be a pretty good inspiration for Mikka.

 

And MadHatt, what do you mean save a few dragon souls until the main quest is finish? It's not like someone is just going to steal the souls from me when I get Dragonborn right?

[MadHatt]

Obsi also did some pretty cool romances in KotOR even if they were left somewhat unfinished (I was thinking of Atton, poor fellow). Ooo I approve of Veronica even if I'm a Boone fan (good gosh, could that man shoot!) so most of the time I spent around the Mojave were with him. But he seemed to have enjoyed his romance so...

 

Oooh nooooo, Leoshi. Whoever could steal your shouls from you? Of course not! Why that would be rude. But, pack some with you, just in case. Also, bring Arvak or another modded horse. The place has no other horses. The rascals.

[Leoshi]

MadHatt,

 

A Boone fan? Well, if you like someone stealing your kills from you. There can only be one sniper on the team and that is me darn it! *Cough*

 

And if the original Morrowind didn't have horses what did you expect? And besides I prefer Oblivion's horse riding, First-person and easy turning.

 

For Arvak I have mixed opinions. On the one hand, a flaming undead horse. On the other, that death noise.

[MadHatt]

Ah, another sniper. Well, I sneaked around everywhere and shot before he did so, it was all good. I had so many stealth perks, I moved faster like that than while running. I did have quite a couple of serious heart attacks while walking casually whistling "Jingle Jangle Jingle" down the street and in steps the death animation of some ant.

 

I also prefer Oblivion riding. The only thing I have against Arvak is that ....it looks so uncomfortable. I mean, damn, those vertebrae look like they just poke in all the wrong places and ouch. And to be fair, Morrowind had levitation. If I'd have gotten that instead of the awful dragon rides, I'd have been happy.

[Leoshi]

MadHatt, we have too much in common. I am proud to call you my Muthsera.

 

Now that you have mentioned Jingle Jangle Jingle and Arvak the undead horse -

 

Edit: Storm happening so had to logout quickly

Yes, Muthsera not Muttsera.

 

Anyways,

 

I got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle

(Jingle, jangle)

As I go ridin' (my undead horse) merrily along

(Jingle, jangle)

And they sing, "Oh ain't you glad you're single"

(Jingle, jangle)

And that song ain't so very far from wrong

(Jingle, jangle)

[Legate of Mineta]

I think you mean muthsera.

[MadHatt]

Haha, I'll have that song stuck in my head for days now. But Arvak deserves a mention. Such a good horse. Needs more pillows though. Loads of pillows.

[Mikka]

Honestly, I like Obsidian's games, but I can't really say much for them in the way of romance. All of their romances are basically unfinished- KOTOR2, NWN2, Alpha Protocol, New Vegas- with the one exception of Mask of the Betrayer, which did have two complete romances. Unfortunately, they sucked. Well, I didn't mind Safiya, but she got a lot of hate with the male population which was who she was aimed for. And I can not understand why anyone would even put up with Gann, much less romance him. When your boyfriend constantly talks about how much better looking he is then you are, that's a clue that you could probably do better, in my opinion- I mean, even if it's true, it's just one of those things you don't say.

 

Bioware, on the other hand, has been writing complete romances since Baldur's Gate II. Oh, they've been hit or miss certainly (Anomen, anyone- so bad that five million mods for male romance interests were born in his wake (Trivia! Baldur's Gate II modding is where Mikka started her modding 'career' (ha ha), though she used a different name she's never going to in a million years share)), but they have a history of writing complete character arcs that Obsidian doesn't. Obsidian has a major fault in not completely finishing their character storylines due to publisher pushing the games out faster... an understandable trait, but one that disgusts me. KOTOR2 was a brilliant three-quarters of a game, but the last quarter was so horrible I am enraged at myself for even buying, as it's so unfinished. I don't support buying unfinished games.

 

(Which is different then a finished game that's ending just completely sucks, like Mass Effect 3. I'm enraged at myself for buying that mess, but for a completely different reason.)

 

(The unfinished game is also some of the problem I have with Skyrim. I like Skyrim horse riding, though, but I usually choose to just run around so I can harvest everything in sight. I think it's a bit smoother then Oblivion. But I have personal issues with Oblivion- it was so different then the jungle that Daggerfall and Morrowind described it as being like that no matter how wonderful the questing was (and save for the Dark Brotherhood, Knights of the Nine, and Shivering Isles, it wasn't that wonderful) I probably would have been disappointed. Right, my complaining. Anyway, I'll save some Dragon Souls when I finally get around to Dragonborn. I actually already got spoiled on the whole plot, darn it. Silly Xbox users putting spoilers all over the 'spoiler' forum instead of sticking to the 'Dragonborn spoiler' forum and moderators not moving them, bah.)

 

As for werewolves and Morjerks... what I'd do with Cuán (if his á will even work in Academagia- do á's work in Academagia? I think ï's, do, so I don't see why an á wouldn't...) is the same thing I did with Aanan and Miya. For year one? Cuán's a kid who's good with wolves, similar to say, how Hector is with owls. Why is he good with wolves? Maybe he is a werewolf, if the Academagia doesn't already have a werewolf student planned for year two- there was talk about one (someone suggested one, I did an 'Ooo I want to make one!' squeal in my head, and the Legate said [redacted] and maybe in later years). Maybe he's just talented. Maybe his family sacrifices their first born daughter to wolf spirits each generation in turn for the ability and he'll be after your character to help him save his sister in later years. I can come up with a lot of reasons for a boy to be good with wolves.

 

It's sort of like, is Aanan's fate broken? Can fate even be broken? Aanan says his is. Great. Maybe it really is! Or, more probably, Aanan is being Aanan and has something crazy in his head and isn't going to be dissuaded from it no matter what proper astrology says. Or Miya says she's from fantasy-Japan. Maybe, even likely, she is. But maybe Creme's right, and she's actually from fantasy-China. Hell, maybe she's from the fantasy-India like place that is talked about in a lore somewhere (well, that or fantasy-Thailand, anyway). Or maybe her family line has been in the air smuggling so long that any sense of what country they were originally 'from' is long gone and Miya is making up everything as usual. In year one, does it really matter? Probably not. Mysteries for later years.

 

As for portraits... DeviantArt Artists generally want money, which is the one thing I don't really have to spend. I can't pull off comissions right now- money is too tight. (I know, I talk about money being tight in one sentence then I talk about going off and drinking wine la la visiting wineries in another sentence. Let's just say I allow myself more money for that budget then I do for my writing/hobby budget, okay? ) With any luck, people would be willing to collaborate on portraits on the forum. Around five of us worked on Louise, and by the end, we managed to get a girl that actually didn't look that horrible, as much as I moaned and groaned about the portrait. If we played with it together, I'm pretty sure we could probably get something going on. Unfortunately, Academagia doesn't have quite as much traffic these days as it did way back then.

 

As for looks- Cuán, if you couldn't tell by the name, is Irish inspired, but he has the more severe look (that runs in my family, actually) then the stereotype- the utterly straight black hair, porcelain skin that burns more then anything(he can join Aanan in hiding from the sun, I guess), and lack of nice bouncy curls or freckles. Cat(arina) is from Mineta, and has black curls that she tries to keep in order with barrettes or a headband and fails miserably with. I don't have too much of a 'perfect' picture in my head, as I tend to find artists prefer more freedom then 'this must be exactly like a portrait I have in my head' details these days. I just need art, I don't need something from my head perfectly transcribed in to art form, if that makes sense.

 

 

 

...This is a long post. La de da. Still writing stuff. I promised I would do a tutorial on how to mod a student in another thread long ago- I don't know if anyone would be interested in that anymore, but I'll try to do that this week (next Sunday, maybe?) as I have time.

[Leoshi]

*Slaps Mikka with a wet napkin for saying Morjerk!*

 

I won't argue with you about Obsidian and romance because everyone has their own opinion. But then I never cared much for romance anyway so I can't say much either.

 

And a werewolf for Morvidus? What about the other werewolf in Hedi?

 

Why not vampire in Morvidus who has to drink blood once in a month. The PC discovers some animals with bite marks on them but no fatalities?