@Ravenslight I wanted another shorty, but I see that Beamdog are also shorty haters, so I'm taking it into my own hands. Which is why I'm stalking this thread.
@Ravenslight I wanted another shorty, but I see that Beamdog are also shorty haters, so I'm taking it into my own hands. Which is why I'm stalking this thread.
Yeah! I would love to see more of those as well. Any chance he is going to be romanceable?
I For example (no disrespect to the creators of it) the Saerilith mod kind of took over my story when I installed it.
I disagree, I do not respect the creators. They have disallowed all talk (complaints) about the fact that she's a jailbait fantasy. They have put it beyond scrutiny... THAT DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM.
But ya know, the funny thing is, I don't CARE about the age thing. This is a world where you should have weapon skills by this age anyway and be preparing to venture.
No, the age thing doesn't bother me in the slightest: if you want your ephebophilic fantasies... go ahead. MY problem is just about everything else! And I'd be okay with the authors being pretentiously smug and self praising... if they weren't censoring things.
DON'T! Never censor criticism of your mod. If Saerileth being 15 bothers a lot of folks, make her 17 or... NEVER MENTION AN AGE EVER! Seriously, it might make the mod enjoyable (if you're blind to bad writing) but that's low.
Never shut yourself out to criticism. A Modder who does pretentious things to make their character a special snowflake and doesn't consider fixing said problems when confronted by those problems and would rather hide is bad; they're not creative, they're insecure whiners... and I won't respect them!
@Ravenslight Leaning towards 'no' at the moment, I'd be willing to change my mind by popular request mind you but ... there are reasons why I've currently got it at friendship path and no romance. Fudge it, I'll PM you about him if you want me to. I'd be interested to see what you think.
@Ravenslight Leaning towards 'no' at the moment, I'd be willing to change my mind by popular request mind you but ... there are reasons why I've currently got it at friendship path and no romance. Fudge it, I'll PM you about him if you want me to. I'd be interested to see what you think.
What is this? You're not letting males Romance your Halfling Male Cleric/Thief? A friendship path!?
I For example (no disrespect to the creators of it) the Saerilith mod kind of took over my story when I installed it.
I disagree, I do not respect the creators. They have disallowed all talk (complaints) about the fact that she's a jailbait fantasy. They have put it beyond scrutiny... THAT DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM.
But ya know, the funny thing is, I don't CARE about the age thing. This is a world where you should have weapon skills by this age anyway and be preparing to venture.
No, the age thing doesn't bother me in the slightest: if you want your ephebophilic fantasies... go ahead. MY problem is just about everything else! And I'd be okay with the authors being pretentiously smug and self praising... if they weren't censoring things.
DON'T! Never censor criticism of your mod. If Saerileth being 15 bothers a lot of folks, make her 17 or... NEVER MENTION AN AGE EVER! Seriously, it might make the mod enjoyable (if you're blind to bad writing) but that's low.
Never shut yourself out to criticism. A Modder who does pretentious things to make their character a special snowflake and doesn't consider fixing said problems when confronted by those problems and would rather hide is bad; they're not creative, they're insecure whiners... and I won't respect them!
Though I understand your frustrations with some modders, I will continue to ask that we not get into naming specific mods and modders in this thread. They are not here to explain their own work. I’m not interested in this turning into a bashing of anyone’s work or opinions.
@Ravenslight Leaning towards 'no' at the moment, I'd be willing to change my mind by popular request mind you but ... there are reasons why I've currently got it at friendship path and no romance. Fudge it, I'll PM you about him if you want me to. I'd be interested to see what you think.
@SionIV Minor correction, my Halfling Vampire Male Mage/Cleric/Thief.
EDIT: also pansexual
Wow, he sounds interesting. I was just curious as I have a little Halfling character planned for a play-through and would like a possible romantic interest for her when I do. I wouldn’t want you to change your vision for him.
@SionIV Minor correction, my Halfling Vampire Male Mage/Cleric/Thief.
EDIT: also pansexual
Wow, he sounds interesting. I was just curious as I have a little Halfling character planned for a play-through and would like a possible romantic interest for her when I do. I wouldn’t want you to change your vision for him.
@SionIV Minor correction, my Halfling Vampire Male Mage/Cleric/Thief.
EDIT: also pansexual
Wow, he sounds interesting. I was just curious as I have a little Halfling character planned for a play-through and would like a possible romantic interest for her when I do. I wouldn’t want you to change your vision for him.
*Whispers softly*
I think that was a joke.
Oh really? (grin) whoops… But he did sound interesting.
I'm not trying to call them out, I'm trying to say that the point is never to put your mod above criticism. REAL criticism... ANY criticism.
I am quoting and paraphrasing this from another site completely unrelated to modding, but it fits only so well:
'Saying you don't want blind praise because it doesn't help you is bunk; you don't want blind praise because it's ungratifying. You want people to point out what you specifically did right. You don't want people to tell you that you're great, you want them to tell you WHY you're great, just like anyone else with an ego as fragile as yours. And, of course, the only negative criticism you'll accept is from people who still like it, but jut wanna nitpick something or other.'
THAT, is my point. I can accept a modder who fucks up and respect the effort, but I'll never respect someone who shuns out dissenters.
I'm not trying to call them out, I'm trying to say that the point is never to put your mod above criticism. REAL criticism... ANY criticism.
I am quoting and paraphrasing this from another site completely unrelated to modding, but it fits only so well:
'Saying you don't want blind praise because it doesn't help you is bunk; you don't want blind praise because it's ungratifying. You want people to point out what you specifically did right. You don't want people to tell you that you're great, you want them to tell you WHY you're great, just like anyone else with an ego as fragile as yours. And, of course, the only negative criticism you'll accept is from people who still like it, but jut wanna nitpick something or other.'
THAT, is my point. I can accept a modder who fucks up and respect the effort, but I'll never respect someone who shuns out dissenters.
I can respect the point your trying to make. It is always good to be open to constructive criticism. We can learn and grow if we allow ourselves to consider things from someone else's perspective. Unfortunately, when the criticism becomes angry and demanding, it is natural for people to just stop listening.
Leaning towards 'no' at the moment, I'd be willing to change my mind by popular request mind you but ... there are reasons why I've currently got it at friendship path and no romance.
I'm guessing from the random likes on this fairly boring post that people support a friendship but no romance NPC mod. :P Too many romancable NPC mods methinks.
Let me explain. See, pleasing yourself is nice, but while you don't HAVE to please an audience, it really, REALLY doesn't hurt to actually do so. In fact, it's only a benefit.
Let the NPC lose an argument with another NPC or be outwitted every once in a while. Don't make them stand out too much and revolve the world around them.
I'll give you an example of a masturbatory mary sue: Chloe.
IMHO, she's more under the radar than her 'equal' Saerileth, but she suffers from issues of her own. First and foremost, she's not compatible with Dungeon BeGone, which is really lousy because that place just gets boring after a while.
She introduces herself in the wind genie's lair, and soon pipes up a lot! She has something to say about the djinn. Fair enough... the dryads? ...okay?
... the dialogue keeps coming!
And then things get... bizarre! If you want to palm your face, be a female protagonist (tall I believe) and have Chloe, Aerie, Jahiera, Viconia and Nalia. Yes, there's a very special party banter for this sextet, and I do mean 'sex.' If you want to watch character butchering, have Keldorn struggle with his lust for what clearly is a cliche 'any girl that moves' lesbian because it fits his character so well.
But throughout all of this, the tone is that Chloe is in the right, and is awesome and has 25 dex and 2 magical (eventually +6) weapons.
So... complete subject change: DON'T NERD OUT!
This is common to see with Elf NPCs, most notably Kivan and Xan. Remember how much they elfed themselves out in BG1? I do, it went something like this:
It was short and satisfying! In their modded versions, there's elf language, a romance only available to elves for Xan, and a bunch of elf lore that... seriously, WHO CARES!
Kivan at one point in his banters figures out, long before you might even go to Spellhold, that Irenicus is an elf... seriously?! We're going that route of spoiler? My immersion, man!
By comparison, 1Day NPC Gareth does namedrop Spellhold, but he has no other information on how to get there, let alone any clue where it might even be... I'll talk more about NPCs I like in due time.
He also interjects in banters. All Aerie and Jaheira want to do is chat about pretty hair... who invited you into the conversation?! Stay out!
Xan, on the other hand is just... overcomplicated. Sure a boosted Moonblade is nice, but the romance is just too convoluted. What ever happened to just talking? The racial restriction is a bit saddening, and there seem to be so many possible ways it can turn out.
WHAT IS IT WITH ELVES HAVING OVERLY COMPLEX STOTRIES?!
Despite the flaws of these mods, I don't hate their makers. I don't even dislike them in the slightest. They're not shutting out critics, and they obviously care about trying to write good stuff when not overwhelming folks with so much ELF.
Anyways, I'm done alienating myself from 98% of the community... so I'll end it here.. for now.
I'm guessing from the random likes on this fairly boring post that people support a friendship but no romance NPC mod. :P Too many romancable NPC mods methinks.
Personally I liked it because I'm taking the same approach when it comes to my NPC mod (Yeorg). In my case its because I couldn't write romance dialogue if my life depended upon it and frankly I'm not sure it would be the right direction for the character anyways (especially since for the moment this is just in BGEE).
It really puzzles me when people feel they have the right to try to force modders to see the error of their ways. When it comes down to it, a modder has the right to put anything they would like to in their mod. It is their endless hours of work that was put into it, not mine. I am grateful when people take the time to mod and then let me benefit from their work, for free.
I think it is wonderful if a modder tries to include content that I might like, but do they owe it to me? No. If they choose to write an NPC with purple skin and a fetish for feathers that is their business. If I feel fetishes for feathers are disgusting, I won’t use their mod.
I have never felt the need, and certainly not the right, to tell them that they did it wrong, and should conform to what I would like. Have I ever played a mod that I found unappealing or lacking what I would most like to have in my game? Absolutely. More then once, I assure you. I simply uninstall it and try something else that might suit my taste better. Mods are not content we pay for. They are content someone has kindly decided to share with us.
Dwarves and elves in fantasy are quite brutally stereotyped, especially in Forgotten Realms.
Considering Scottish people arent usually that short, why the hell are all dwarves from Scotland?? Also, is it suspicious they are often greedier than Scrouge McDuck? ALSO SCOTTISH?!
Elves suffer more from being inexplicably the best at everything, despite their civilization being 'in decline', unless they are Drow, then they are just the best at everything and live under ground. If the elves were half as good at everything as their fanboys think, they'd have deposed Ao and installed Corellon. Bah!
It really puzzles me when people feel they have the right to try to force modders to see the error of their ways. When it comes down to it, a modder has the right to put anything they would like to in their mod. It is their endless hours of work that was put into it, not mine. I am grateful when people take the time to mod and then let me benefit from their work, for free.
I think it is wonderful if a modder tries to include content that I might like, but do they owe it to me? No. If they choose to write an NPC with purple skin and a fetish for feathers that is their business. If I feel fetishes for feathers are disgusting, I won’t use their mod.
I have never felt the need, and certainly not the right, to tell them that they did it wrong, and should conform to what I would like. Have I ever played a mod that I found unappealing or lacking what I would most like to have in my game? Absolutely. More then once, I assure you. I simply uninstall it and try something else that might suit my taste better. Mods are not content we pay for. They are content someone has kindly decided to share with us.
I wholeheartedly agree, but being a bear of little brain paraphrase it into two easy to remember phrases:
It really puzzles me when people feel they have the right to try to force modders to see the error of their ways.
Ehh. You have the right to write whatever you want, sure, but if people take issue with what you write, you're not immune to criticism. If you're going to write something that completely ignores lore and is a misogynistic mess that would look out of place even in the Middle Ages, I should be able to let you know that you need to rethink some things.
I wholeheartedly agree, but being a bear of little brain paraphrase it into two easy to remember phrases:
There is no such thing as a bad book.
Every television has an 'off' button.
I don't quite agree. (On both points, because I think something like Twilight has no redeeming qualities and does actual societal harm. I'm not going to be silent on that fact.)
I don't think there's any such thing as a bad *concept*, necessarily, and anything can be enjoyable depending on your tastes, but there is a difference between good writing and bad writing. Taste is subjective; quality, though, not nearly so much. I may prefer, say, RA Salvatore to Charles Dickens, but that doesn't mean I think it's better. Because it's really not.
Censorship is bad, both of the original work and of criticism thereof.
@dunbar I have read some pretty bad books, and even refused to finish reading others due to sheer awfulness. Some I see no reason to ever read.
But I must agree, one can turn a TV off. I often have to do this now. Caught a nasty case of that feminism bug going around. Side effects include making some movies so offensive I refuse to watch.
It really puzzles me when people feel they have the right to try to force modders to see the error of their ways.
Ehh. You have the right to write whatever you want, sure, but if people take issue with what you write, you're not immune to criticism. If you're going to write something that completely ignores lore and is a misogynistic mess that would look out of place even in the Middle Ages, I should be able to let you know that you need to rethink some things.
I wholeheartedly agree, but being a bear of little brain paraphrase it into two easy to remember phrases:
There is no such thing as a bad book.
Every television has an 'off' button.
I don't quite agree. (On both points, because I think something like Twilight has no redeeming qualities and does actual societal harm. I'm not going to be silent on that fact.)
I don't think there's any such thing as a bad *concept*, necessarily, and anything can be enjoyable depending on your tastes, but there is a difference between good writing and bad writing. Taste is subjective; quality, though, not nearly so much. I may prefer, say, RA Salvatore to Charles Dickens, but that doesn't mean I think it's better. Because it's really not.
Censorship is bad, both of the original work and of criticism thereof.
I agree that you have the right to express your opinion. But when you say, “I should be able to let you know that you need to rethink some things.”, it starts feeling more like “You need to think like I do about this subject.”
Well, I have to agree, there is much on TV that I personally think has little redeeming value. Still, I can turn the channel and let others who enjoy that sort of thing watch it.
Deciding what is good writing and bad writing is again, subject to personal opinion. I have a dear friend who loves the fantasy genre, but thinks Tolkien’s works are highly over rated. I strongly disagree, but feel no need to make him see the error in what he personally finds enjoyable.
When it comes to modding, unfortunately, to often I have seen what started out as constructive criticism, turn into browbeating when the criticism was not agreed with.
thing like Twilight has no redeeming qualities and does actual societal harm. I'm not going to be silent on that fact.)
... I love you! You get it! You hit it nail on the head!
When little girls read and idealize think guys should fawn over you as you wallflower through life, you get a regressive society (50 Shades is worse because it promotes that abusive relationships are okay as long as he's hot and rich.)
That's where I get mad: does it promote a terrible moral or ideology? Saerileth does, as it flies against a lot of what the game stands for, such as how sometimes there's a lesser choice of two evils in order to achieve good things, and that if someone cheats on you even slightly, you should literally die of heart failure and breakage, because if not, you're not as awesome as Mary Sue... so go die of heartbreak you useless tweens.
Chloe does: it's okay to be a raging creepy lusty lech if you're a sexy voiced lesbian demigod... not a double standard at all! It's not like she's subtle about her lesbianism. Yet Keldorn's seen as an ass for lusting at her?! NOT A DOUBLE STANDARD!
Now, maybe if the mod didn't try to keep painting these characters as in the right all the time...
Kivan's mod does this right to a degree, with him being wrong about things such as his extreme vengeance shtick.
Or if you want to make characters who do promote bad ideologies and have the narrative agree with them, MAKE THEM EVIL!
In short, one needs to think about the implications of their characters and what messages one might garner from them.
The unfortunate Dwarves are all Scottish, Hobbits all speak with a twang of an irish, welsh accent and elves speak the queen's english, is based on Tolkien trying to accentuate differences between the races, yet mimic the real world. He even had the Rohorrim speak using old english, tracing their linguistic routes through saxon to old german. Why copy Tolkien in a forgotten realms setting is the real question to be asked.
...
Anyway, what I would like to see in a good NPC mod is.
1) A gnome necromancer/cleric. 2) Mummification. 3) A temple to Cauli with a vegetable patch.
Comments
But ya know, the funny thing is, I don't CARE about the age thing. This is a world where you should have weapon skills by this age anyway and be preparing to venture.
No, the age thing doesn't bother me in the slightest: if you want your ephebophilic fantasies... go ahead. MY problem is just about everything else! And I'd be okay with the authors being pretentiously smug and self praising... if they weren't censoring things.
DON'T! Never censor criticism of your mod. If Saerileth being 15 bothers a lot of folks, make her 17 or... NEVER MENTION AN AGE EVER! Seriously, it might make the mod enjoyable (if you're blind to bad writing) but that's low.
Never shut yourself out to criticism. A Modder who does pretentious things to make their character a special snowflake and doesn't consider fixing said problems when confronted by those problems and would rather hide is bad; they're not creative, they're insecure whiners... and I won't respect them!
EDIT: also pansexual
I think that was a joke.
I am quoting and paraphrasing this from another site completely unrelated to modding, but it fits only so well:
'Saying you don't want blind praise because it doesn't help you is bunk; you don't want blind praise because it's ungratifying. You want people to point out what you specifically did right. You don't want people to tell you that you're great, you want them to tell you WHY you're great, just like anyone else with an ego as fragile as yours. And, of course, the only negative criticism you'll accept is from people who still like it, but jut wanna nitpick something or other.'
THAT, is my point. I can accept a modder who fucks up and respect the effort, but I'll never respect someone who shuns out dissenters.
Dude, I didn't ask you! I demanded it!! *Holds CrevsDaak at gun-point while he codes*
Let me explain. See, pleasing yourself is nice, but while you don't HAVE to please an audience, it really, REALLY doesn't hurt to actually do so. In fact, it's only a benefit.
Let the NPC lose an argument with another NPC or be outwitted every once in a while. Don't make them stand out too much and revolve the world around them.
I'll give you an example of a masturbatory mary sue: Chloe.
IMHO, she's more under the radar than her 'equal' Saerileth, but she suffers from issues of her own. First and foremost, she's not compatible with Dungeon BeGone, which is really lousy because that place just gets boring after a while.
She introduces herself in the wind genie's lair, and soon pipes up a lot! She has something to say about the djinn. Fair enough... the dryads? ...okay?
... the dialogue keeps coming!
And then things get... bizarre! If you want to palm your face, be a female protagonist (tall I believe) and have Chloe, Aerie, Jahiera, Viconia and Nalia. Yes, there's a very special party banter for this sextet, and I do mean 'sex.' If you want to watch character butchering, have Keldorn struggle with his lust for what clearly is a cliche 'any girl that moves' lesbian because it fits his character so well.
But throughout all of this, the tone is that Chloe is in the right, and is awesome and has 25 dex and 2 magical (eventually +6) weapons.
So... complete subject change: DON'T NERD OUT!
This is common to see with Elf NPCs, most notably Kivan and Xan. Remember how much they elfed themselves out in BG1? I do, it went something like this:
It was short and satisfying! In their modded versions, there's elf language, a romance only available to elves for Xan, and a bunch of elf lore that... seriously, WHO CARES!
Kivan at one point in his banters figures out, long before you might even go to Spellhold, that Irenicus is an elf... seriously?! We're going that route of spoiler? My immersion, man!
By comparison, 1Day NPC Gareth does namedrop Spellhold, but he has no other information on how to get there, let alone any clue where it might even be... I'll talk more about NPCs I like in due time.
He also interjects in banters. All Aerie and Jaheira want to do is chat about pretty hair... who invited you into the conversation?! Stay out!
Xan, on the other hand is just... overcomplicated. Sure a boosted Moonblade is nice, but the romance is just too convoluted. What ever happened to just talking? The racial restriction is a bit saddening, and there seem to be so many possible ways it can turn out.
WHAT IS IT WITH ELVES HAVING OVERLY COMPLEX STOTRIES?!
Despite the flaws of these mods, I don't hate their makers. I don't even dislike them in the slightest. They're not shutting out critics, and they obviously care about trying to write good stuff when not overwhelming folks with so much ELF.
Anyways, I'm done alienating myself from 98% of the community... so I'll end it here.. for now.
When it comes down to it, a modder has the right to put anything they would like to in their mod. It is their endless hours of work that was put into it, not mine. I am grateful when people take the time to mod and then let me benefit from their work, for free.
I think it is wonderful if a modder tries to include content that I might like, but do they owe it to me? No. If they choose to write an NPC with purple skin and a fetish for feathers that is their business. If I feel fetishes for feathers are disgusting, I won’t use their mod.
I have never felt the need, and certainly not the right, to tell them that they did it wrong, and should conform to what I would like. Have I ever played a mod that I found unappealing or lacking what I would most like to have in my game? Absolutely. More then once, I assure you. I simply uninstall it and try something else that might suit my taste better. Mods are not content we pay for. They are content someone has kindly decided to share with us.
Considering Scottish people arent usually that short, why the hell are all dwarves from Scotland?? Also, is it suspicious they are often greedier than Scrouge McDuck? ALSO SCOTTISH?!
Elves suffer more from being inexplicably the best at everything, despite their civilization being 'in decline', unless they are Drow, then they are just the best at everything and live under ground. If the elves were half as good at everything as their fanboys think, they'd have deposed Ao and installed Corellon. Bah!
There is no such thing as a bad book.
Every television has an 'off' button.
I don't think there's any such thing as a bad *concept*, necessarily, and anything can be enjoyable depending on your tastes, but there is a difference between good writing and bad writing. Taste is subjective; quality, though, not nearly so much. I may prefer, say, RA Salvatore to Charles Dickens, but that doesn't mean I think it's better. Because it's really not.
Censorship is bad, both of the original work and of criticism thereof.
But I must agree, one can turn a TV off. I often have to do this now. Caught a nasty case of that feminism bug going around. Side effects include making some movies so offensive I refuse to watch.
Well, I have to agree, there is much on TV that I personally think has little redeeming value. Still, I can turn the channel and let others who enjoy that sort of thing watch it.
Deciding what is good writing and bad writing is again, subject to personal opinion. I have a dear friend who loves the fantasy genre, but thinks Tolkien’s works are highly over rated. I strongly disagree, but feel no need to make him see the error in what he personally finds enjoyable.
When it comes to modding, unfortunately, to often I have seen what started out as constructive criticism, turn into browbeating when the criticism was not agreed with.
... I love you! You get it! You hit it nail on the head!
When little girls read and idealize think guys should fawn over you as you wallflower through life, you get a regressive society (50 Shades is worse because it promotes that abusive relationships are okay as long as he's hot and rich.)
That's where I get mad: does it promote a terrible moral or ideology? Saerileth does, as it flies against a lot of what the game stands for, such as how sometimes there's a lesser choice of two evils in order to achieve good things, and that if someone cheats on you even slightly, you should literally die of heart failure and breakage, because if not, you're not as awesome as Mary Sue... so go die of heartbreak you useless tweens.
Chloe does: it's okay to be a raging creepy lusty lech if you're a sexy voiced lesbian demigod... not a double standard at all! It's not like she's subtle about her lesbianism. Yet Keldorn's seen as an ass for lusting at her?! NOT A DOUBLE STANDARD!
Now, maybe if the mod didn't try to keep painting these characters as in the right all the time...
Kivan's mod does this right to a degree, with him being wrong about things such as his extreme vengeance shtick.
Or if you want to make characters who do promote bad ideologies and have the narrative agree with them, MAKE THEM EVIL!
In short, one needs to think about the implications of their characters and what messages one might garner from them.
...
Anyway, what I would like to see in a good NPC mod is.
1) A gnome necromancer/cleric.
2) Mummification.
3) A temple to Cauli with a vegetable patch.