Modding Oblivion

When typing the title of this post, I kept wanting to type Morrowind, but really, Oblivion is what I play now, and I never want to go back to Morrowind. Well... I *am* adding old Morrowind lands to Oblivion as mods, but you can't blame me, modding Oblivion is more fun than actually playing it.

Don't misunderstand my statement. I love playing Oblivion, and I still do, with minor cheats and advantages (like my sword, seen in the screenshots). I'm trying to stay away from cheat mods, but there are some neat things to be done, including add Cloud's sword from Advent Children and even my own sword design from Blender.

My sword, again, shown in the screenshots, was my first textured model ever, outside of Poser. In the process of modding Oblivion, I'm learning a lot about Blender, so I'm actually gaining skills for use in the real world. In many ways, Oblivion is just a 3D canvas or playground for me, but, while praising Oblivion is a well deserved practice, I want to quickly say a few things about my sword. It was modeled in Blender v2.46 as a single object (to work properly in Oblivion), and I called it Suiseiseki, based off my talking sword in Syboard Adventures. It has a gray blade, much like Cloud's Buster Sword, and the hilt is a weird, black substance, but it resembles something made of wood. The reason it glows red is it has an enchantment. I honestly think it looks pretty neat for a first mod.

Two chairs broken in just two days!

Just a day or two ago, my beloved red folding lawn chair broke on one corner and nearly stabbed me in the arm. Just minutes ago, my replacement, a green folding lawn chair, which felt much sturdier, broke on the entire front half! Due to the sudden give-way, I wondered why I didn't fall to the ground, and I discovered it was breaking as soon as possible, so I must have got up just in time not to hurt myself.

Anyway, that's $20 down the drain. My Dad bought that chair thinking it would last longer than the red one, yet it ended up lasting only a few hours (opposed to a year), and it broke even more than my weak red chair. Now, I need to find something else to sit on, and I don't want any more lawn chairs.

Blogger screwed up.

I tried out the Blogroll feature a few days ago. I kept getting some weird error pages, sometimes, a 404 error, but I kept trying to use the feature, and I finally go to... for a day.

Now, on my other blog, Search for Video Games, when you look at the top of its menu, it only displays site titles; not their latest post. Also, it has a link to my old webcomic for some reason, even though I already went in and edited it off the list. I was going to try adding a blogroll to this blog, but I keep getting error pages, so I'm sick of messing with it.

Finally got to play TES4.

I thought I'd show some screenshots of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on its highest setting. The game looks gorgeous in my opinion. It looks like crap on the Xbox 360, and it loads very slowly as well, but the PC version, which I started playing yesterday, is always so pretty.

Yesterday, I installed a video card, and that allowed me to play all sorts of neat stuff, including TES4: Oblivion and the Orange Box Games. I started with Oblivion to test the card out, and it worked flawlessly, but I was really more interested in Portal, so I quickly moved on to that. Portal has some odd loading issues, and it actually likes to crash at random times (only done it once so far), but I love the game to death. It's just so addictive.

Before I got my card, I was already playing a very watered-down Half-Life 2: Episode 1, so I will probably get started on that game again in a few days, that's if I can put Portal down for a while. I may also try the Halo trial (again), but I don't think I care much for Halo any more. I played it too much in the Xbox glory days.

All these screenshots are of Oblivion... obviously.

More Free MCR Codes!

I ran out of codes real quick the last time, and people kept asking for more, so here's a chance to win all the codes I have. For the record, that's, at least, 25 codes!

To win the codes, I'm asking you to join Syboard and send me a private message, asking to receive My Coke Rewards codes, and I'll pick one person out of everyone who sends me a private message to win all the codes I've collected. At the moment, I have 25 codes, but I may collect more before this contest is over, so join Syboard today!

Contest Ends: June 24, 2008 12:40PM EST. (That's 5:40PM GMT.)
All entries after that exact time will not be qualified to win. You must have a postcount of 2 (at least) by the time I choose a winner. The winner will be chosen at random by me, FJGamer, and will receive the codes in a private message on Syboard.


This contest is an effort to increase the level of activity at Syboard.net and will hopefully attract some fairly intelligent users. Syboard.net is a video gaming site. We hope you enjoy our message board.

Break until June

I won't be blogging again until June 1st. I just need a break from it. I don't get enough traffic to make my blogs worth maintaining, so I hope my vacation will scare some of you into commenting more often.

Also, click here and watch my new music video!

Weekly Game Bash #6: Lost Games

I'm on time this week! Anyway, I started adding subtitles this week. I just think it helps you to find what you're looking for, even if it's somewhat vague.

In my previous bash, I mentioned a new Zelda fan game, and, this week, I want to cover games lost to the void. To start us off, Nintendo created the Zelda series, which spawned many fan creations, but whenever something good came along, Nintendo bit us in the neck and sucked out all our ideas.

For example, Graal Online used to be a Zelda MMORPG, but Nintendo sued, and Zelda Online became the less popular Graal Online. Soon after that, Graal became a pay-to-play game, because the developers got depressed or something, but the biggest annoyance is the fact that Graal private servers don't last long and are never given much thought. Also, if you want to create an official playerworld, you have to pay Cyberjoueurs. You're essentially paying to work. Make sense?

Another example is how Four Swords came after this 2-player Zelda game. Unfortunately, the creator of the 2-player game vanished, and his site went kablooie.

Yes, it seems a majority of the lost games are Zelda tributes, but another game I miss is the old Runescape. Sure, we have a much more powerful engine now, but I can't find a working RSClassic server anywhere, and JaGeX no longer supports it. This means the game is lost and may never be found. However, if you know of a nice RSClassic server to play, send me the link, because I would love to play it again.

On an unrelated note, I may have more MCR codes soon. I save them up just to give them away. Am I nice or what?

Modeling a Runescape Character

I was looking for a good Blender tutorial on modeling game characters from start to finish, but I didn't find anything helpful, so I'm modelling a RuneScape character in Blender as a learning experience. I already figured out the mirror and subsurf modifiers, and I'm working on the textures now. After fixing the textures for hair and the clothing, I will add a long ponytail and finish the dragoon armor.

AVG 8: Upgrade or Major Annoyance?

I installed AVG7.5 a while ago, always ignoring the advertisements for AVG8. Yesterday, I got curious and installed AVG8. I told it not to install the toolbars for IE and Firefox, however, the toolbar nuisance still came up. I tried to uninstall just the toolbar in Firefox, but I had no luck.

After a quick search for info, I found some discussion from March about how bad AVG has become. I just wish I found this before I upgraded. I searched for a few more minutes, and the only solution seems to be uninstalling AVG entirely and using some other anti-virus software. I'm not going back to AVG7.5, though.

Quick update on my projects: SyA is in stasis until I can spend a lot of time on it and truly concentrate on it, Fantasy Female 9 (Ultimate Character Generator) is also in stasis, and, while my website is vastly improved, I'm still busy working on it. I haven't had time to do much artwork, but I'm setting aside a few hours tomorrow to do some 3D model work in Blender.

Weekly Game Bash #5

This time around, I decided I would 'bash' something I love: Zelda! The "Legend of Zelda" games rather.

I love the third game, "Link to the Past," also known as Z3 or Zelda3. It was apparently favored by others, too, because it inspired Graal Online's creation, and I hear of the game constantly on review sites (Graal and Z3). Z3 had a very addictive musical score, and the graphics had their own style.

However, the game had its flaws, loads of flaws, and most of the flaws were fairly noticeable. The enemies, for example, were extremely dumb. They all either had fixed movement or simply ran after you. Another flaw was how easy it was to find rupees, the currency in the game. You simply had to chop bushes to shreds or blow them up. You could also run straight through the bushes if you had the special boots. The problem with this is that you have an endless supply of money but nothing to spend it on, nothing worth your time, anyway.

Moving on, let's look at "Ocarina of Time," also known as Zelda64. You guessed it, the game was for the console called Nintendo 64. I loved Zelda 64 as well, and the music got even more addictive, but the game had some very, very annoying flaws, and by 'annoying' I meant Navi, your faerie companion. Navi yelled at you throughout the game, even when you did things right. She constantly reminded you that she was tagging along by blurting out words like "Listen!" and "Hey!" Yes, I wish I could kill her, too.

Finally, I got to play "Twilight Princess," also called TP, which is an amazing coincidence, because it actually cleans up the filth that makes the Zelda series somewhat tiresome. It still has you go after a sword, then, a shield, and even a bomb bag, but that's what we've come to expect of Zelda games, and TP gives you that nostalgic feeling like you've been to all these places before, even though the world is completely different. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it could be.

Even in TP, you cut bushes for money. Well, you cut tall grass, anyway. Most people believe you cut bushes in all the games, but really, there are some exceptions, like the first two games. Still, the bush-whacking scene is pretty much owned by Nintendo.

It's pretty hard to find flaws in a game you love, but I can clearly see tons of flaws in the Zelda series, and I love the Zelda series, but the huge flaw is not necessarily a flaw in each game but a flaw in the games as a whole. If you've played more than one Zelda game, you know the stories are not linked to each other, and you know that every time you play a Zelda game, you will start fresh. At the beginning of TP, you were the boy, Link, without any weapons or tools or even a horse, even though you received a horse named Epona in "Ocarina of Time." Actually, they even recycle the names of characters, even the horse you get in TP is named Epona. Seriously, do we care to have the stories or do we want Zelda games to make sense?

For closure, you may want to check out the videos of this Zelda MMO. Graal was called Zelda Online until its makers got into trouble with Nintendo's lawyers. Let's see how long this project lasts... once it's playable.

Rats!

My mouse is wireless. I love it, however, it eats through batteries very quickly, and when the power gets low, it gets painful to use my computer. Suffice to say, I don't have spare batteries, so I'm forced to either use the dreaded ball mouse or rely on my keystrokes. Honestly, I need a mouse to do a lot of things.

Sorry, I'm Late, but I'm Still Alive.

Yes, I'm late with my weekly game bash again, but you guys hardly seem to care, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. Today, though, I found another reason to want a powerful graphics card.

Portal TFV, or "The Flash Version," was a free (but not quite as awesome) version of Portal for us casual gamers with poor systems. It was a prime example of what could be done in Flash, and it still ranks high on my list of memorable Flash games, but I really want to play the real Portal.

Now, they're just teasing me, because I've grown addictive to the theme song, *This was a trial. I'm writing a note here, huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction,* and I've seen some awesome-looking screenshots of a complete conversion of TFV to the real Portal.

Weekly Game Bash #4

This week, since I'm very interested in programming games, I thought I would point out mistakes the professionals have made in their best and most popular games. This isn't as much a bash as it is a quick reference of common game design flaws, and you shouldn't think these games are bad just because I have pointed out their flaws. Try the games if you can.

Just because I'm obsessed with it, let's start with Sauerbraten. Its biggest flaw is the lack of control over what players do. Almost everything is done clientside. This means that you could use as many macros as you like online and get away with it. There is no security. Furthermore, not as much of a flaw as it is a missing feature is the ability to make intersections in the cubes. This feature isn't really needed, but it would make some small tasks a lot easier.

Moving on, I have been playing Sim City 3000 again recently, and I noticed that I couldn't find any way to use the onramp tile. It confused the heck out of me. This is a flaw in the design of the game's menu. There should have been some tooltips or something.

One of the most popular games today is Halo, well, the Halo series. One major flaw in the first game was the lack of online play, and you can fix that by either playing through XLink Kai or playing the PC version of the game, which brings me to the major flaw in the series: The PC version comes out later, but it always has more features. Halo 1 got a very nice level editor and a ton of features you could only find in Halo 2 for Xbox. Halo 2 recently got its PC counterpart, which also got a level editor, which was even better than the Halo 3 Forge. Halo 2 was also visually more appealing than anything before it in the series, and Halo 3 didn't look any better. When you make something exclusive to Xbox, don't port it to anything! And if you do port it, give the extra features to the console version as well.


Half-Life 2. Yep, that game everyone says is awesome but never even plays. I have two issues with this game. First, the system requirements are way too high. Second, why the heck do I need Steam!?

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, often referred to as just Oblivion, is off the charts when it comes to system resources. I can't even run the game unless I fully support DirectX9. There's a feature I could easily support software-side, but Oblivion requires it to be run hardware-side. I can't even turn the feature off. However, I think I may have found a hard-to-use workaround.

One more, Runescape, often referred to as RS, is one of the most accessible online games ever. It can be played through your web browser as long as you can run Java, but there's a major flaw in the accessibility of the free version of this game. If you pay to play, never stop paying, because any pay-to-play items you had will not work in the free version, and your bank will become stocked with tons of items you can't even hold onto until you pay again. The big flaw here is your bank will be overflowed with useless items you don't want to lose, and you'll be forced to stop playing that account until you can go to the pay-to-play servers again.

MU Blue Screen of Death!

Heh, I spent about twenty minutes signing up for G1 to play MU Online. Then, I spent nearly two hours downloading the game and updating it. Then, I played two servers, leveling up a knight and a wizard. When I exited, I saw the blue screen of death again. Just like Forsaken. Only I was in windowed mode this time!

I strongly suggest you stay away from MU Online.

Forsaken Blue Screen of Death!

MU Online must be a great game, because this private server has plenty of players. Nevertheless, I'm the newcomer, and I'm, sometimes, treated unfairly.

I'm contemplating getting the real game, because Forsaken doesn't seem to have all the features worked out. Also, the updates take way too long, and after playing for a short time, I exited the game to have the dreaded "blue screen of death" appear. I restarted WinXP, no data was lost, but I uninstalled some iffy drivers, like the dual-core optimizer. (I really only have one.) I had to be sure WinXP wouldn't crash again.

I'll post screenshots of the real MU Online if I'm able to play it, but Forsaken is still a very nice alternative, and I suggest you try it (if you have broadband).

Weekly Game Bash #3

I had some trouble deciding what to 'bash' this time, so I'll just mention a few random games (or so-called games) I've played and mention why I despise them. To start us off, I'm playing the Forsaken MU server. I don't know if the real thing is as bad, but updates take a while, and I get very impatient, waiting to play for just twenty minutes before the next game of my daily routine...

Live Search Club! That's right! I've been saving my points to get a Xbox 360, which is 25000 points, and I already have over 1100 points. The Live Search games have been pretty hard until yesterday, when I got to play a trivia game with Matt Lauer plastered on it. Matt is never going to be a model, ok!? Anyway, the trivia game is all guess work, but you can earn points real fast by tracking the right answers and redoing each trivia session to get as many points as possible. The reason I hate Live search Club is the insanely slow website. It can sometimes take several minutes to load the simplest of games, like the trivia, and the game itself isn't even very graphical. Also, sometimes, MSN loads instead of Live Search.

Worse than Live Search Club is the game that consumed a lot of my youth, Runescape. No, not Run Escape; Rune Scape. It was great in maybe year 2002, when it was still only a pseudo-3d game, when everything was pretty much free-to-play, however, in 2004, most of the game was pay-to-play, and they simply forced all the old players to either convert to their new game or resort to playing private servers, which were never a big deal, because they never acted like the real game. If you've ever played a private server for any MMORPG, you probably understand what I'm talking about, for example, faster movement, including easy teleportation to every important area of the world, and easily leveled-up characters. In, I think, late 2006, I began to, casually, invest time into the 'members' (pay-to-play) version of RS, because I started getting money from my cousin to play it with him, which proves how lonely you can get playing a massively multiplayer game. I recently converted back to the free version, but all my members items are still on me, so I'm forced to either lose all my hard-earned equipment or start paying that monthly fee again. I rather just not play.

Next week, I will delve into game programming and the faults in many popular games, including Halo, Half-Life 2, and Fable. Please, comment on my bashes, because I thrive on feedback.

Free MyCokeRewards Codes

If you 'play' MCR (or My Coke Rewards), you must know how hard it is to gain points without buying tons of Coke products. Some (if not all) of the promo codes have expired, and most old members have already used them. Most free code sites are flooded and become races to see who can use a single code first for a mere 3-10 points.

I plan to help you guys out. You see, I had several hundred points saved up on my account, but my points actually expired due to my inactivity or my time away from the internet, so I gave up entering codes. However, I have tons of 3-point codes left, anyway, so if anyone wants a set of ten (10) codes, I'll send you them by email. Each person who comments on this blog topic will receive ten 3-point codes via email. Just post your email or have it available to me via your user profile.

Weekly Game Bash #2

In the past few years, I've started to consider Halo my favorite first-person shooter or FPS. It was the first FPS I played on Xbox, and few games in its genre ever topped it, on consoles or PC. It was presented as an exclusive Xbox game, which made it very alluring for most Xbox owners. Seeing the "Only for XBOX" stamp on the case made me think, "Oh, a game the PC gamers will finally miss out on!" Obviously, that theory didn't hold true, because a version for PC was developed, and it was much better. I regretted buying the Xbox version of the game.

Then, Halo 2 was released for Xbox owners. Wow, did it suck major balls compared to Halo PC... but I still enjoyed playing the campaign stages, even if the story was complete crap, and I still play Halo 2 online today, well, sometimes... when I'm not playing Sauerbraten.

I know, I know I've mentioned Sauerbraten constantly. That's just further proof of how awesome it is. It even beats Halo 3's Forge, which was hyped to be a marvelous level editor. Forge was, instead, a spawn point modifier. Granted, it has better gameplay backing it, being Halo 3 and all, but Sauerbraten can be played constantly, day and night, never running out of challenges for you.

A quick note: I know I was a few days late with the second video game bash. I'll post another bash topic in about three days to make up lost time.

VB.CSK (or OMG! Virus!)

I was offline most of last night and today fixing and cleaning my computer. While I was in class, I let my D drive defragment. Yesterday, I updated my virus definitions and boom, a virus appeared. The infected files were some dodgy items, like keygens and software cracks, but wow, I've had those files for over a year without any anti-virus utility finding them. They were definitely viruses, though; not falsely identified infections.

The free version of AVG anti-virus is what caught the viruses, so you may want to get the program for yourself if you're putting a lot of software on your computer from untrustworthy sources. Still, I don't try the commercial products. They may work more efficiently.

GED stands for Getting Everyone Disappointed

In the past, I've used quite a few name meaning generators, but they were all basically bad versions of an acronym generator. What's funny is I had to think up my own acronym meaning for GED, even after trying many acronym generators, because nothing they generate sounds appropriate.

Moving on, my life is full of disappointments. I was forced out of school (too much violence), had to be home-schooled (or risk failing the same grade for a few years), and when I was 16 years old, I wasn't considered a student at all, so I was dropped from the education system against my will. Later, I joined a GED program in Kentucky, but it was shut down for some reason, possibly budget restraints, so I didn't get that done.

Now, I have a chance to get my life turned around. I enrolled at Project Learn in Tennessee. I was amazed at how stupid some of the other students were, and the teachers were all amazed that I didn't graduate high school, so once I've worked out when (and where) I can take the test, I will, most likely, get my GED diploma/certificate thing. However, I'm still wondering what's left between now and the test. There are a lot of hoops I have to jump through before I complete the stage of my life I call the "Evil Education Environment" or EEE.