thomthom Posted June 18, 2011 Author Posted June 18, 2011 The most recent work I have been doing is involved in the "long march" section of the mod. Specifically what was discussed earlier in one of the threads about a "camp" option for the slaver, rather than just a straight out march. I have added a portable tent that the slaver can plop down at the right places and added some features to the tent. I have the rudimentary cart pulling (horse drawn not slave drawn) working fairly well so that will sneak into the next release if I can find a good reason to use it.  The big hang up on this right now is the way point system I put together for the slavers. Its just a bug in my path finding that I need to work out and fix, but it has been persistent. Again, I know that I could have achieved the same behavior with somewhat static packages/locations/etc but I think being able to have arbitrary camp locations will be the best solution of all.  I do not have a release date in mind yet, as I still have some bugs I want to clear up before I send it out. If there is one thing I don't like it is seeing people find bug that I knew were there already. So to keep myself happy and feeling rewarded, I wont be releasing until I am ready. Â
marrow12 Posted June 18, 2011 Posted June 18, 2011 If only the entire video game industry shared your thoughts.
fg109 Posted June 18, 2011 Posted June 18, 2011 If you are still having trouble figuring out the way point system, how about just using the static packages instead? If you make them point to a reference, then you can move the reference around to the arbitrary camp locations to change the slaver's destination. Wouldn't that make things a lot easier?
Nightwynd Posted June 18, 2011 Posted June 18, 2011 Oh god, I could kiss you for this thomthom! Â This mod sounds so awesome it makes me giddy. I am looking forwards to your next release! <3<3<3
jengolobo Posted June 18, 2011 Posted June 18, 2011 Oh god' date=' I could kiss you for this thomthom! Â This mod sounds so awesome it makes me giddy. I am looking forwards to your next release! <3<3<3 [/quote'] I second this....
ronttu Posted June 19, 2011 Posted June 19, 2011 If only the entire video game industry shared your thoughts. Â Or even a small portion, eh?
Guest Donkey Posted June 19, 2011 Posted June 19, 2011 If that was the case oblivion would have never been released. Bethesda is known to release buggy games.. I have not seen one game from them who has been bug free.
brewmasterhal Posted June 19, 2011 Posted June 19, 2011 Valve and Blizzard kinda apply that design philosophy. They both release games fairly seldomly, though...
animatorg545 Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 thomthom it seems to me that now it is a high time to load on a site that you have already changed in a fashion that we could test and make offers.
Dusk_ Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 thomthom it seems to me that now it is a high time to load on a site that you have already changed in a fashion that we could test and make offers. He'll upload the next version when he feels its ready. I highly doubt any cajoling is going to speed up the process.
scatcat101 Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Man, whenever I try to take a break from Oblivion someone goes and makes an awesome mod like this. I keep gettin dragged back, lol. Â Nice work on this so far, lookin forward to the next release!
Ragged Robin Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 I just want to say the following here so that folk who are getting impatient with thomthom might stand the situation he probably finds himself in. I speak as a sculptor, so I think I understand the basic principles involved in the creative process which are fairly universal: Â A creator/artist starts a project with a finished work in mind. It usually involves pushing the boundries of his/her abilities further than any previous project undertaken. Only when he/she is satisfied that the look, feel, and quality of the work is good as it can be, will he/she release that work to the public and not one moment before. The work may go through several tweaks after release, but unless the work is, at least satisfactory to the artist, it will remain in "the workshop". It is for we who are the audience to wait patiently until it is ready, if not perfect. There is noway that anyone can ask, bully, cajole or influence an artist or craftsman in their work. There is always the risk that you may actuall irritate him/her enough to cause them to abandon the work altogether (personal experience - I have a very low tolerance of impatience) Thomthom: I, for one, will wait until you are satisfied with your work.
Renax Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 the womens heads are invisible, and nothing happens at the auction house, we're just standing around....
MrPanda Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 the womens heads are invisible' date=' and nothing happens at the auction house, we're just standing around.... [/quote'] Â That's an MBP++ issue. Try installing it and it should correct the missing face and "no action". http://www.loverslab.com/index.php/topic,16.0.html
Gorgon Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 About the impatience, I will gladly wait for year until Thomthom is satisfied with his work and will release it, but it would be nice to know about the work progress, like which feature has been finished, what is he working on right now... not every minute, but at least once a week, or once a 2 weeks, or once a month, so we can see the progress, know about any hardships of his great work and support him with warm word, or even a bit of advice if he would accept any. Â EDIT: If I may make a suggestion, I personally would like that player is somehow able to defend from slavers and somehow prevent capture, and that the player is able somehow to escape (may be differently difficult whether player is dragged in chains or trained at auction house etc.) - so this mod is at least basically playable.
brewmasterhal Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 EDIT: If I may make a suggestion' date=' I personally would like that player is somehow able to defend from slavers and somehow prevent capture, and that the player is able somehow to escape (may be differently difficult whether player is dragged in chains or trained at auction house etc.) - so this mod is at least basically playable. [/quote'] Â I dunno about being able to prevent it, but escape is one of the main features he's been working on...
thomthom Posted June 20, 2011 Author Posted June 20, 2011 I have to agree with Ragged Robin about an author and their works, and this would definitely be the limits of my previous abilities. My friends who are also programmers such as myself, can't understand why I would abuse myself with a primitive/crippled scripting language like Oblivion/Fallout :/  As it stands right now, I feel as though my previous releases were more teaser-demos than anything. I think one of the major feedbacks from people were lack of dialogue/content/quests/etc, so rather than hear that again.... I have (un)fortunately found myself creating more and more content to show off the features of the mod. Creating content will always be the time consuming part of any game/mod development. I can, however, provide more regular status updates, but I am prone to getting annoyed with continual nagging (I don't think ANY of that has gone on or happened yet).  Most Recent Development Info - MtM has continued perfecting the collar scripts to a degree that I would have never expected. - The waypoint/camping system for slavers is finished and working (see full description below) - The auction system is finished although not as polished as I would like. I want to add more dialogue, etc, etc. - Slave carts are partially implemented (horse driven) (see details below) - Pluggy will be a requirement of the next version for some HUD updates I have been tweaking on (blindfolds maybe?) - Messed around with particle system to try and implement a leashed effect (still working on this, lots to learn in that panel -- Anyone know of a good explanation/tutorial of the particle system?) - Added some new and awesome meshes that have been linked in this thread and provided by GSBModders (You rock!) (Future releases might result in needing vipcxj's high heels system) - Worked out a small program to hopefully allow batch changing/removal of MBP dependencies. (Some people like it, some don't... and some people, me, use MBP with XEO)  WayPoints To help with the weird world pathing around the Imperial City, I have added some waypoints for Slavers to use for navigation. When the slaver starts the journey to take the slave to market, s/he builds an array of all waypoints between the start and the dest, then selects and builds a route based on those available waypoints. As the slaver reaches each waypoint the route is recalculated. Something special happens though when the slaver reaches a waypoint.... camping.  Camping The slaver will place a portable tent (look around on tesnexus and you will see the portable tent/houses/pocket dimension mods) and enter it. The player follows and is chained to the floor to wait (similar to Wendoyln's waiting script). The slaver then proceeds to sleep/eat/sex/read for a few hours while the player waits. At this point a few different things might happen (and some others too, but I want them to be surprises). The brief is that while the slaver sleeps the player might be able to form an escape, or perhaps help may arrive in an unlikely way, or maybe things just got much much much worse. Once the slaver wakes and is done resting, the player is unleashed and they will continue on their journey.  So please be patient, good things will come in time. Â
Chase Roxand Posted June 21, 2011 Posted June 21, 2011 Woo, camping system! I'm glad you went with that. It's a lot of work, but it'll make for an incredibly immersive experience. I hope that with all of the content you're adding, that this will still be an easy framework to work with in terms of other modders being able to use/tweak this mod for their own separate mods. Also, if I use the functions from the last public version, will it all be horribly broken in the next version? I'd just be using the enslavement/release functions.
idonotlikeusernames Posted June 21, 2011 Posted June 21, 2011 Woohoo.... looks like updates for two of my favourite mods are in the works. Â Also about blindfolds, while they would indeed look nice on your avatar I'm less enthusiastic about a blindness effect. In computer games there will most likely always be a difference between what your avatar experiences within the game and the viewpoint of the player and speaking strictly for myself as a player I'd like to be able to see what my character experiences even if said character is (temporarily) "blinded" within the game. Â Anyway keep up the good work Thomthom and Chase. Â Â
thomthom Posted June 21, 2011 Author Posted June 21, 2011 Woo' date=' camping system! I'm glad you went with that. It's a lot of work, but it'll make for an incredibly immersive experience. I hope that with all of the content you're adding, that this will still be an easy framework to work with in terms of other modders being able to use/tweak this mod for their own separate mods. Also, if I use the functions from the last public version, will it all be horribly broken in the next version? I'd just be using the enslavement/release functions. [/quote']  Odds are, yes a lot of the scripts have been reworked and heavily modified. To speed my development a bit, I havent been splitting the framework and the quest like I originally intended, but that doesnt mean we can't split at a future release. The framework I have together right now I think is pretty reusable, for any number of other mods/quests/etc.  Since I wrote that last post a few hours ago, the only thing I have been working on marking the wheels of the cart rotate correctly (speed,etc). See.... its the little details that I obsess over  Â
brewmasterhal Posted June 21, 2011 Posted June 21, 2011 Also about blindfolds' date=' while they would indeed look nice on your avatar I'm less enthusiastic about a blindness effect. In computer games there will most likely always be a difference between what your avatar experiences within the game and the viewpoint of the player and speaking strictly for myself as a player I'd like to be able to see what my character experiences even if said character is (temporarily) \"blinded\" within the game. [/quote']  I kinda agree with this. I would rather see something like a change of character animation when blinded instead of a blurring or darkening effect. Based on what you've done and said so far though, I'd be willing to bet that you've probably got a really cool idea that I've never thought of to implement this visually.
lurkerfrombelow Posted June 21, 2011 Posted June 21, 2011 Most Recent Development Info Thanks for the update, it's all looking very awesome from here. Can't wait to try it out. I especially like the camping feature, both as a showcase of helplessness, and for the random events which will no doubt add to the excitement and replayability of this mod. I agree with others in that an actual all-black HUD effect to simulate blindfolding usually doesn't work very well (since we lack the sensory input our character would use to guess what is happening). I'm confident you'll come up with something good though  Looking forward both to hear more news of development, and exploring the next version released of course. I'm personally hoping for incremental releases with less additions as opposed to less frequent but big releases. This is just a personal preference though, and you should of course follow the release schedule you are most comfortable with ;D  Keep up the good work, you're fulfilling a lot of dreams & fantasies here.
thomthom Posted June 21, 2011 Author Posted June 21, 2011 Before I go to bed for the night....  http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TZEIO9I9  enjoy  P.S. Thanks to GSBModders for the Cart mesh, it needed a few tweaks like rotation, and the yoke was a bit off, until I figure out how to get two horses pulling (never). I think I need to tweak a bit more in blender/nifskope because the luminosity(??) is off and the textures always look bright even when fogged in. Â
GSBmodders Posted June 21, 2011 Posted June 21, 2011 Damn you ThomThom, anticipating this mods release is going to kill me. That cart animation looks fantastic, I cant wait to see the rest!
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