The Oblivion Bookbinding Mod 63
Via GameSetWatch, an article on the Guilded Lilies site interviewing a unique Oblivion modder. Phoenix Amon has taken on the task of rebinding every book in Oblivion, as well as spell-checking the documents within. From the article: "Q: How much time do you spend modding, and do you enjoy it more than playing games? A: I spend more time modding than playing recently, but I enjoy both a lot. I wouldn't have bought Oblivion if it hadn't been moddable, but that's because I knew from experience that I don't like a lot of Bethesda's game design choices. It's not a deciding factor for all games."
Virtual Librarian (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Virtual Librarian (Score:2)
Come to think of it, there should be a book binding skill tree
Re:Virtual Librarian (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering what was in my library by the time I finished TES III / Morrowind, being a librarian was the most dangerous thing you could do in the game.
(About halfway through the main quest, I had already figured out most of what Dagoth Ur was up to, and that it ought to be a simple matter of reverse-engineering the thousands of pounds of Dwemer artifacts and plugging a few leaky steam tubes in order
Re:Virtual Librarian (Score:1)
Re:Virtual Librarian (Score:2)
Being a Librarian can be very dangerous in a world of magic. In the immortal word of one victim, "Ook!"
Re:Wow... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
She, actually.
And she's really quite cool about it. She didn't think she had the talent to come up with some huge level quest mod, so she picked a small thing that bugged her and is going to fix it. Here are pictures of the books [photobucket.com] so far.
Also, she's got a couple guys to help her incorporate grammer and spelling fixes for the books. If only the original designers would put so much thought into the little details...
But, Some Oblivion residents do use poor grammar (Score:5, Interesting)
The original designers did put the thought in when they purposely used poor grammar in some of the books.
Why does she (and the parent poster) assume that all the residents in the world of Oblivion are capable of using proper grammar?
If she corrects all the grammar mistakes, then a player who reads the books will assume that everyone (who writes) in the land of Oblivion uses good grammer, which is not what the game developers intended. They obviously intended to subtly show the game player the diversity of the educational backgrounds of the NPC's, and to show that even though some of the NPC's may use poor grammar, that they still have a love for writing.
Fie on her elitist attitude! I shall create a mod to add the poor grammar back.
Re:But, Some Oblivion residents do use poor gramma (Score:2)
Re:But, Some Oblivion residents do use poor gramma (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:But, Some Oblivion residents do use poor gramma (Score:2)
Re:But, Some Oblivion residents do use poor gramma (Score:2)
Re:But, Some Oblivion residents do use poor gramma (Score:1)
"The original designers did put the thought in when they purposely used poor grammar in some of the books."
"If she corrects all the grammar mistakes, then a player who reads the books will assume that everyone (who writes) in the land of Oblivion uses good grammer, which is not what the game developers intended."
Go you.
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
For an encore, she's going to fix the grammar and spelling errors in Flowers_for_Algernon and The_Sound_and_the_Fury
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, some other people have already [elderscrolls.com] gotten close to that [elderscrolls.com].
Re:My god... (Score:1)
Modding=Spellchecking? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Modding=Spellchecking? Modding=beautifying (Score:4, Funny)
One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds trivial but the change in gameplay is huge. It is like when you first played Doom and could for the first time tell you where about to pickup a chainsaw because it actually looked like a chainsaw. When you didn't need to be told what was health pack because it was clear.
This is where graphics matter. Not purely the looks but in making the world act like our own. In the real world we can check the spines of the books to see what book it is. We don't have to hover close to it to wait for a popup to tell us.
This mod is going to require a more powerfull machine but in return you can now regonize valuable books. Granted there is no real need in game, just as morrowind didn't require you to use the road signs, but you now can.
TES games are best bought a year later and then you can just mod your own game. It is amazing how much better the user mods make the game. Either I just don't like bethseda's game designer or every modder out there can read my mind.
This however does raise a question, what could be done with a game that is fully open and modders do not have to spend the first few months trying to decipher cryptic files?
Between NWN and TES I am getting more roleplaying then commercial companies seem willing to sell. Then again NWN did seem to kill of the stream of Baldur Gate games. Pity.
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:3, Informative)
Capture The Flag.
Team Fortress
Rocket Arena
To name a few of the more notable things that happened. Yes, like usual I'm refering to quake, which embraced and really founded the modding revolution you hint about. Really, its not even that uncommon in major FPS titles now, not sure why the other genres havn't caught up.
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:2)
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:1)
Quake mods were really top notch
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:2)
Now substitute developer with some super cool game developing/production company whos reputation is going to be made on this game. What kind of blow does it give them when some one else is able to mod it in a short period of time and have the outcome better then thier production. It is al
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:2)
All thre reputations I could ruin !
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:1)
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:1)
Oh, so you don't know why he's know as Super Mario ;-)
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:1, Informative)
The "ancient language" is plain english written in another font. Basically it's like trying to read english in the wingding font.
If you want to really be "immersed" find a way to translate all the chars from the game without refering somewhere else. In Morrowind it was quite easy. I first notice that the included map use one of the symbol on a compas. I tried to see if I was right.... Looking at the map, I saw
Re:One of the best morrowind mods was like this (Score:1)
Wow, never would have realized this (Score:2)
Clever.
Realism (Score:2, Insightful)
more slashdot sensationalism (Score:1)
Re:more slashdot sensationalism (Score:2)
There's a LOT of work that went into this and, going from my time spent playing Morrowind, I could see how this would be appealing. It's simple, but it adds another very nice graphical flourish to the game, and a tiny bit more to immerse you in its world.
knew from experience (Score:2)
Logistically that statement makes sense, but there just seems something wrong about it. Why would you buy a game from a maker whose design choices you don't like?
Re:knew from experience (Score:2)
Actualy he probably knew someone else withthe game and saw what he wanted to change before even getting it. It is like instead of buying a yellow car, buying a red car and painting parts of it yellow to look exactly how you want it to. Like modding, It would depend on if you could paint (mod)
Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:1)
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:2)
I've also read "An Incident in Necrom", probably my favorite TES book, about 5 times.
(...and yes, I have had multiple girlfriends.)
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:2)
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:2)
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:2)
That's a sure-fire way to level like crazy. A good idea in Morrowind where there were no leveled creatures (unless you modded it to add them) but a bad idea for Oblivion.
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:2)
-matthew
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:1)
I haven't modded the game yet (ini file tweaks notwithstanding) as I'm wanting to complete the game as it was released first. I hit on the strategy of dropping my unused skills into Majors and my used skills into Minors.
This has meant that the levels come a lot further apart, and you have a better skill balance against the opposition. There was a couple
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:2)
Don't know what I was thinking - I can only plead that it had been awhile since I played Morrowind.
Pug
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:2)
-matthew
Re:Silly kids, readings not fun (Score:2)
What program? (Score:1)
Devs are people too. . . (Score:1)
Man, what a dork (Score:2)
I was curious to find out more about her modding project, so I asked Phoenix a few questions about what the process has been like for her.
H-Hey there. So you like video games too, huh? M-Maybe I can show you my NES game c-collection. Heh heh heh!
Rob (What, where are you going? Please
Huh (Score:1)
Nonvirtual bookbinding (Score:2)
Also, you should not underestimate the l337ness of librarians -- they are all over the database world, fans of the semantic web, and friends of freedom of speech [ala.org] and even open source [ala.org].
There's even a library webcomic [overduemedia.com].
how about bethesda fix the game first (Score:2)