In an effort to keep the clutter on the official thread to a minimum, I've decided to start a blog to post development updates in and leave the thread to discussion about the actual upcoming mod. The best part about this is that we're free to make as big a mess as we want and not have to worry about cleaning up (hurray!). Anyway, down to business, shall we? Let's start off with some news.. let's start with the bad news first because they suck.

The Bad News

As most of you already know, in the past following weeks the team has been preoccupied with their own projects. Unfortunately, Frostbrand is currently swimming in enough work to sink an aircraft carrier, and thus no progress has been made on the core of the mod such as the perks, the UI he's been working on, or the spells we've been coming up with. Rangedphoenix has been focusing on working on his own mod and been making some significant changes to it. However, without Frost, there really isn't much any of us could do as he's the one leading the team currently.

I myself have been busy irl as well, but things have calmed down a bit for the time being and a bit more time to work on the art assets more consistently. I will continue to do so until something changes within the development team or irl. As it stands, Frost isn't scheduled to return to active duty until early to mid spring. For the time being I will likely the only one working on Call of the Wild until then. Things will be moving at a crawl for a while.

The Good News

Before Frostbrand took off, we spoke about the art assets and what we would like to see in Call of the Wild. We both have a pretty good picture in terms of what we want the jewelry and piercings to look like. Making it happen is another story, but more on that later. Frost also designed a good deal of the new exciting spells and abilities we'll be seeing in-game. Some of them will be sexual in nature, but most will not as we need to keep gameplay functional during combat because... well, somehow masturbating in the middle of combat doesn't quite seem like a very good idea. Right? Spells in Call of the Wild will mostly revolve around debuffing your opponents by means aging them (draining/absorbing their stamina), enhancing your sex appeal temporarily to reduce their combat effectiveness (seducing/mind controlling), limiting their mobility (sprouting plant growth and holding them in place or slowing them down), or turning them into sex-deprived zombies whom are too horny to continue fighting. There will be some spells which cause direct damage in the same sense as the Destruction school of magic, but the main focus of Call of the Wild is to supplement the five basic schools of magic in Skyrim. Chances are we'll probably be overhauling these schools as well to bring them up on par with the new subschools.

The Future of CotW

Until Frostbrand is returned to us from the evils of responsibility and academia, things will slow down, but continue moving forward nonetheless. As is stands, there is no planned release date but my best guess is that we'll have something by at latest the end of summer for everyone to play with while they wait for the rest of the mod to come out of the oven. My primary goal right now is to finish the first set of jewelry for the Ferocity subschool of magic, which emphasizes damage spells and combat skills (one handed, two handed, etc). After that's complete, chances are I'll probably dive into the first set for the Allure subschool, which focuses will likely be a hybrid of the Restoration and Illusion schools of magic but with a twist. I'll also be working on new tattoos exclusive to Call of the Wild. These will be built from scratch, as I had planned to do with my Tribal Body Tattoos mod I released a while back here on LL. Following in its footsteps, they'll be full-body tattoos with a modular build and will also be of tribal design.

Q&A Session

"But, but... Johnny, why do tattoos have to be tribal? Why can't they be something else as well?"

Ah, such a fine question you have there! I'm making them that way because I feel they would be the most appropriate style given the druidic theme and lore of CotW. Another reason is simply because I like that particular art style. I may include something non-tribal, but that will likely be kept to a minimum. Within CotW's lore, there will also be a good reason, but we'll talk more about that on the next entry though.

"Johnny, Johnny! Will there be bestiality support after all?"

Frostbrand and I have spoken some over this. The short answer is yes. The long answer is yes, but to an extent. There will be only contextual bestiality, meaning that only if the lore calls upon it. For example, some of the rituals you'll be able to perform will require exotic ingredients.. and by exotic, I mean bear semen or even better, DRAGON semen (exciting, isn't it?). While you could theoretically extract it from their corpses, where would the fun be in that?

"Oohhh shinies! Can you release some of the jewelry that's currently being worked on? Pweeeeaaase, Johnny?"

Chances are that I might, but I want to release an entire set for completion's sake if I do. Once the first version of CotW's alpha is out though, they will no longer be availble as a separate plugin. The goodies I'm working on were meant to be exclusive to Call of the Wild.

"Hey Johnny, doesn't that ____ belong to the ____ mod?"

Yes. Some of you may be aware that we'll be using resources from other mods out there. I have secured permissions from several mod authors to use their meshes and/or textures in CotW. However, I'll eventually be replacing most of the art assets with completely new ones made from scratch as my knowledge of 3ds Max improves and allows me to do more of. There are a few things I've been trying to get permissions to, but have not been able to either find or contact the author.

The Shinies!

And finally, the section some of you have been eager to see: the shiny new pics of stuff to come. Please keep in mind that some of these meshes don't have a proper texture yet. Some of them still have skinning issues, so you may notice that it clips with the body a bit and whatnot. Others may be the pictures of stuff which is still in the pipelines and are still raw, clunky, distorted, and more than likely not going to look the same when it's done. Also, the stuff in the pics are modeled for the 7B Bombshell body. Eventually I'll adapt them for UNP & UNPB though.

If you're an author and you see something from your mod in any of these pics and don't approve of this. Let me know and I'll take it down. No questions asked.

So without further ado...!

Note: Everything beyond this point is NSFW!!

These are a few prototypes of the Ferocity navel piercings, nipple ring, and new armbands. The armband is really just a modified version of the Angelika necklace. Last pic is something I've been working on lately.

Tracy is uh... testing the male Ferocity cock piercings and cock tattoo. Not really sure how penis tattoos will work but... yeah.

Modified the Angelika necklace (again) to fashion some anklets. Also added a pinky toe ring to the bangle anklets set. (shown using Gizmodian's textures)

Fashioned the bangles into a choker necklace. (also using Gizmodian's textures.)