Because I couldn’t find whatever was causing this – Helseth’s dialogue was filtered correctly – I added a result to Helseth’s line whereby when he tells you to leave Calvus outside, it switches the variable MercenaryNear to 0.

Of course, this takes no account of whether the mercenary is with you or not, so the more unscrupulous player could theoretically bring Calvus into the fight – but better that than have the player permanently unable to fight the king’s champion or remove the line and risk the player inadvertently cheating in the match. I’ll just have to rely on your honesty for that one. I’ve done the same for Calvia and included both .esp files in the updated file which is up at Planet Elder Scrolls.

Now that the user has confirmed that the fix works, it’s safe to upload this to other sites – I’m sure I’ll get around to mirroring this at some point, but feel free to do so if so inclined (remembering that you’d be responsible for it if I update it again).

Talking of which, I was notified today that Softpedia have uploaded some of my mods to their site, but thus far they appear to be some of my smaller Oblivion mods. I’ll admit that I’m not terribly familiar with their site, so I’ll take it as a reminder to have a look and see what treats I can find.

http://princessstomper.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/silorn-manor/

(click to enlarge)
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1. Installing the Plugin

To install the plugin, unzip the .esp file into the Oblivion/Data directory

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2. Playing the Plugin

Extract the Textures, retaining their filepaths, to your Oblivion\Data folder.

Just delete them to uninstall.

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3. Save Games

This should have no impact on savegames

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4. What It Does

A very simple, imperfect mod to change the map’s road names from “Blue Road”, “Orange Road” etc. to “Bruma Road”, “Leyawiin Road”, etc. The road name reflects the destination.

This is my first attempt at altering the game’s map so it’s not perfect, but I thought I’d share in case anyone else found it useful.

This is a texture replacement for the in-game inventory system: it does not alter the game itself in any way.

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5. Credits

Bethesda Softworks

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6. Usage

As per Bethesda Softworks EULA. Please ensure that the file is kept intact with its readme, and that if you upload it that you ensure you have the latest version.

You are actively encouraged to upload a better version if you can get the text to look right! Don’t complain to me about how you can do better, do better!

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After reinstalling the game again and yet again losing any progress, I suddenly knew how to make the mod work. You can blame Korana for this, because I got the modding itch while poking round her excellent Millstone Farm mod. I got the idea for this one from my Oasis house mod for Fallout 3 – the way to make the player feel like they are high up in a tree, whilst still allowing a stable, functional village base. I also knew where to set it, after falling in love with the Sercen ruin during regular Oblivion gameplay.

Sercen is the manor directly opposite the White Tower, just on the water’s edge. It’s the first thing you see when you exit the sewer system after escaping from prison at the start of the game. It’s also infested with respawning bandits, and filled with traps and secrets, making it the ideal challenge for the player without any additional work from me.

I just added a door to one corner, and a short “Sercen Lower Level” cell, which has traces of “daylight” and plant growth, and a hidden door leading to the village.

The village interior-as-exterior cell is a short hall of the Ayleid architecture, opening out to an open “village square” that is rather long and narrow with five terraced buildings in the Ayleid style. It’s on a wooden platform (an enlarged bridge piece), through which trees are visible below and above to give the sensation that it’s all resting on branches of giant trees. (I had some fun with my first test: I still had Natural Vegetation plugged in, which makes everything supersized! I couldn’t see anything at all because of the size of the branches!)

When you look up, you see foliage cover, and some inaccessible walkways to give the impression that the village is much larger than it is.

At the bottom of it all is the Shivering Isles gateway island (so, yes, the mod will require SI), so that when you look down you just see green-upon-green. Then there are densely-packed, enlarged trees to fill the leaf cover that you can see through the slats on the bridge. I’ve put trees right into the buildings so you see the leaves hanging down over the top. The “trunk” parts poking through bits of architecture in the village square are mossy logs turned on their sides and covered with ivy and creepers. Because these Ayleids are more integrated into Cyrodilic culture, I’ve kept the flame-lights yellow, rather than the pale blue they were in Silorn Manor (where the Aureal bloodline is stronger).

For the “lore” of the village, I’ll be expanding on the in-game books I wrote for Silorn Manor, basing it on this paragraph:

In 1E 2812, it was decided that the village was becoming crowded, so Lord Thadon of the Ranaline line moved with his household to the Imperial City, along with any villagers who had expressed an interest in seeing more of the world outside. There had been many visitors to the capital to witness the coronation of Reman II, so he reasoned that the presence of strangers would pass unnoticed. According to correspondence received by the new Lord Eldamil of the Palonirya line, his suppositions were correct. It is thought that some of the Thadon clan integrated into Cyrodiil society, eventually rising into the lower ranks of nobility, whereas others tired of city life and formed other concealed Ayleid settlements.

Now that I have most of the “exterior” complete (I need to add doors and fix a couple of glitches), I’ll now follow the same process as I did with Silorn: spend a good few hours writing the backstory and sketching out who lives where. I always like to do it this way, rather than just stick a few buildings in and then fill them, because then you make functional houses: a farmer will have a totally different sort of house to a priest. I have to think about what sort of services the village will need, whether they’re regular visitors to the nearby city, and accordingly what sort of things I have to include. For example, I probably don’t need a clothes shop if they regularly pop to the Market District to do their shopping – but they’ll still definitely need a “corner shop” and a pub.

How many services they require dictates how large the interiors are. If it’s just a dormitory suburb of the Imperial City, you can get away with eight or nine inhabitants living in smallish houses. If it’s a self-contained town, I might have to divide those five interiors into apartment blocks and have maybe 20 residents and a lot more shops.

Note: I had to lift up the room markers and then replace them when I was done, so I guess the mod changes slightly more than it could possibly need to, even if the player won’t see that. It’s not intended for permanent use anyway – just a seasonal novelty – but it all seemed to work fine for me.

DOWNLOAD from Nexus

Well, I figured that rather than continue to sit on it, I’ve uploaded version 2.0 of Homes To Let. I’ve not tested it, because I don’t play Morrowind any more, but figured that if you wanted to play with it or tweak it or frankly do whatever you want to do with it, you should have the opportunity to do so. Download it from Planet Elder Scrolls.

Fallout New Vegas
A Repair Bot
by Princess Stomper

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I often found myself with broken gear and not knowing where or how to get it fixed. I figured that in a world with so many robots, there would definitely be robots programmed to fix anything that is broken, including the player’s gear.

This mod adds 14 “Mr Handy”-style robots to the game in various locations (near most major settlements) that wander around. Each is called “Mike the Mechanic”. Each has a “coin operated repair function”, meaning that when you click on them, the repair menu appears.

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Fallout New Vegas
Jacobstown Expanded
by Princess Stomper

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1. Installing the Plugin

To install the plugin, unzip the .esp file into the Fallout New Vegas/Data directory

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2. Playing the Plugin

From the Fallout New Vegas Launcher, select Data Files and check the box next to the Jacobstown Expanded.esp file

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3. Save Games

This plugin will not invalidate your old saved games. If you save your game while this plugin is loaded, you may encounter error messages when you reload the saved game without the plugin. But you will be able to continue on with the original game.

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4. What It Does

A small, simple mod to expand Jacobstown by adding interiors to the four boarded-up bungalows. This mod does not affect the exterior or the Lodge.

Adds:

- A general store
- “Bob’s Bistro” – a bar-restaurant
- A player home
- A barber shop (with face selection and hair menu)

To avoid messing about with dialogue, the added mutants/robots are scripted to bring the menus directly up.

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5. Credits

Bethesda Softworks

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6. Usage

Subject to the terms of Bethesda’s EULA. There is no restriction on the distribution of my mods so long as they are kept intact with all their files and the readme. If you do upload or redistribute the mod, you take responsibility for ensuring that you have the latest version, and of uploading any subsequent versions of the mod that are released.

DOWNLOAD from Nexus