Content Consumer

*yays all Kermit like (floppy hands and all)* You're back! And just as I am starting a new Skyrim playthrough after leisurly strolling through the Movaje Wastelands. Good times.

Well, maybe I'm back, maybe not. Depends on how things go. May I draw your attention to:

 

 

NEXT: Chasing Reflected Soundwaves (sometime in the next decade, judging by how quickly I've been writing so far)

It's not entirely in jest, unfortunately.

But I'm happy you're happy!

Yep, it's been a long time, but to make up for the wait, this is probably the shortest damn entry to date.

On the one hand, I feel a bit guilty for loading down Carlotta with a bunch of junk she'll never be able to sell. On the other hand, apparently "never" is a short time indeed, because the very next day she'll have a completely reset inventory. My guess is, she just passed the whole bunch along to someone else, who will revel in their good fortune until they too notice that it's a bunch of trash, whereupon they'll sell it to yet another person, thus participating in the Great Cycle of Economic Life, passing around twelve tons of garbage like some great big metal-and-hide hot potato. Six months from now, I'm going to be wandering through Solitude, and Taarie will come up to me and try to sell me some bloody iron and fur armor, and I'll be all like, "hey, I recognize this shit!" and proceed to laugh until my keyboard is awash with drool.

The circle of thorns looks more like stars to me. I'd suggest either an actual circle of thorns, i.e. vines with actual thorns, or even some sort of weird barb-wire effect (pm attachment).

If you take a look at the banners and signs in Morrowind, you'll notice that they're all over the place. It looks like the first letter is the largest (and often colored), and subsequent letters follow a simple placement pattern.

The upshot is, not only is it acceptable to use nonstandard layouts for letters, it's practically compulsory in some venues.

I love the expression on his face. A sort of sardonic half-grin, half-grimace...

"Yes, I do, in fact, know exactly what's behind me. And no, you can't have any."

Ah, Skyrim. Will you ever stop amusing us?

Is there a problem with your HDT? Those feet are embedded in the ground.

EDIT: Now that I look at it, so are Welynn's feet. Not HDT, then... just Skyrim.

It has felt sort of empty. Few comments, few updates, few questions, few answers.

On the other hand, few trolls.

Do people really think that [Allure] breaks immersion? I never heard that one before. Oh well...

I've only read one person complain about [Persuade] and [intimidate] but I've seen a couple people not liking (Sex) IIRC on sex-starting dialogue options.

Na, man, I hear ya. I understand some people's argument that seeing a skill work reduces immersion - i.e. if I see the word "allure" in the dialogue, it takes away from it - and I do agree, to a point. But it's nice to know that your character build actually matters - hiding everything behind the scenes makes it seem like that's the only way it is.

Fallout 2 (and maybe Fallout 1? Never tried being stupid there) had a system where the dialogue would actually change quite dramatically depending on your stats. High intelligence characters would have very different interactions with NPCs than low intelligence ones.

p.s. Maybe it's just bad jpg compression making the kerning look off, but is there a space between "wasn't" and "talking" in dpv_pretty_vacant_crazy_person?

p.p.s. How did you get allure to work properly? I tried to get Frea to work off perks in Reward Your Followers, using the hasperk() dialogue condition, but it never actually worked (i.e. I had the perk but she wouldn't use that dialogue, as if I did not have it). I had to switch to skill levels.

Ooh... [Allure] looks intriguing.

My problem with vanilla dialogues (well, one of my various problems) is how the persuade, bribe, and intimidate options work.

It never seems like they do what they're intended for. I mean, I have yet to fail a persuade check with almost anyone... and those I do seem specifically designed to prevent it. Like, the Caught Red Handed quest in Riften - one of those guys (can't remember which right now) will only work with the Intimidate option, regardless of your speechcraft level, relationshiprank, etc.

I seem to remember reading that it's because of their combat AI settings... the "aggressive" or "cowardly" flag or whatever. Like, some dev had a bright idea and merged the two systems in a way that makes perfectly logical sense, but the interaction just didn't pan out.

I dunno, maybe it's just happening to me... but when you can [persuade] 95% of the NPCs in the game if your speechcraft level is above 25, it seems a bit broken.

Can't wait.

Is this going to be a part of Pretty, Vacant by chance?

Too bad the Daedric font doesn't have any punctuation.

You're evil, you know that?

Well, I mean not one generation per line, but apparently if you add line(s) in you'll need to regenerate the SEQ file.

Had some people having problems with Reward Your Followers mod, turns out that might have been the issue all along.

I just barely found out (yesterday?) that the SEQ file had to be re-generated whenever you add a new line of dialogue. Once is not enough.

Not doing so will still allow the dialogue, but you have to save, exit, and reload to get it to work.

I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the developers did this.

And tomorrow we will all fly to work on giant purple hedgehogs.

 

 

And this despite all my dialogue suddenly turning itself off for no immediately apparent reason.

The CK is wearing a gag. Remove it and it'll be fine.

Very true, all of it.

In fact, how do we know they aren't talking? Intermittently or constantly?

If their capacity for vocal speech isn't in doubt, then perhaps it's their willingness.

Perhaps they only speak among themselves... they might consider speech with a mortal to be demeaning, only to be exercised in the direst straits, or when directly ordered. We may assume that the only races to communicate are the Dremora, Saints, and Seducers, and thus assume that a humanoid shape is a general prerequisite for speech, but this may only be a sort of species-centric conceit on our part. This quote:

 

The Dremora refer to themselves as 'The Kyn' ('the People'), contrasting themselves to other Daedra, whom they consider unthinking animals. 

(from Varieties of Daedra)

Could well be a cultural conceit, not necessarily a biological limitation. It could be that the humanoid daedra are among those who consider mortals as semi-equals - of a lower order, but still high enough to be worthy of speech. The Dremora, in particular, may venerate mortals as being (nearly) as capable as themselves in the arts of magic and war. The Mazken have always seemed to be more sympathetic to mortals, while the Aureals seem to take an Altmer-like stance toward "lesser races" - they are to be used as necessary, discarded when unneeded, and taught proper manners when appropriate.

Or, perhaps they (going back to Daedra as a whole) normally speak telepathically and thus have no reason to use an auditory language - the squeaks, grunts, squeals, shrieks, and growls normally emitted could well be the simple exhalation of the lungs past the voice reeds, much as you or I would grunt or gasp if we were struck.

Or perhaps they speak all the time, it's just in a language we don't understand. Aside from varying scripts such as Falmer, Dwemer, Daedric, etc. (that amount to nothing but replacement ciphers for a 26-letter alphabet, actually), there's nothing to say they don't have their own languages. Giants in Skyrim, for example... I'm of the opinion that they do talk, just their own language that sounds similar to vaguely word-like grunts. They're not grunts at all, but an actual language that we cannot understand (or possibly, hear - their words are low-pitched enough that subsonics could be involved).

The lore is complex and manifold, but it is also full of holes... some deliberate, some merely the result of oversight or accidental self-contradiction. Really, you could come up with any sort of justification for any sort of talking animal you want.

 

 

these are highly intelligent creatures and accomplished sorcerers.

Eh?

They're not completely animalistic (in Daggerfall they wandered around in heavy armor wielding an axe)...

But I've always thought of their poison/lightning/fire breath attacks as an innate attack, not a spellcasting sort of thing.

Is there a book I haven't read that says they're sorcerers?

There's an entry point to the dreamworld through the Markarth temple? I didn't know that...

Or is it based on the sisterhood?

This is nifty!

I know it's a very small nitpick, but...

 

 

Divines! They're already found him

re = ve

Excellent work as always. Keep 'em coming! 

That's it!

The executioner overheard the guard tell you to give him some head and misunderstood!

Boy, is his face red!

 

 

I have forgotten his name. Isn't that terrible?

Yes. You are a horrible person for doing that. Nobody should ever forget whatshisface.

 

 

ignoring the three heads that still sat in the basket in front of me

Well, didn't you get lucky. When I was about to be executed in Helgen, all I got was a little basket, barely big enough for one head... and it was already full.

I don't know what they were planning on doing... just letting each subsequent head roll around? Maybe get picked up by one of the village children, used as an impromptu football?

Putting a little basket like that in front of the headsman's block just shows poor planning, in my opinion. The executioner should receive a stern dressing-down from Tullius. If he hadn't been charbroiled, that is.

 

 

And let's say that for arcane metaphysical reasons there has to be another sentient being participating in the rite. Magical vibrators and trained animals might slow the counter but they can never actually reset it.

How about this - it's not her orgasm that's important, it's the other person's orgasm. Or both together.

A vibrator cannot have an orgasm (though that's an interesting idea too), so while it does keep her occupied, it doesn't do anything to prevent the cataclysm.

And it has to be a playable race because... well, they are called the ten "sanctioned" races, after all, so there's like a mystical connection between a playable race and the effect.

EDIT: Now I can't find the link to "sanctioned" races... but I swear I heard Hermaeus Mora say that (and not "sentient" like the UESP says)...