Guilded Lilies

(Wo)Man's Best Friend: Fable 2

Game developer Peter Molyneux is in the news for storyline innovations for the upcoming game Fable 2, which has no official release date but is expected some time later in 2007.  In last Friday's BBC article Molyneux announced that one of the new goals of the game would be to create an emotional connection between the player and game elements.  Peter Molyneux is building love into Fable 2.

I would like to say two things briefly before getting to the heart of this post:  First - that I am happy to see that there will be an option in Fable 2 to play as a female character. The lack of this option has kept me from playing the original Fable game, although I have been very curious about the elements of character development used in its design.  Second - it is also nice to see a developer speaking so strongly about the importance of story.  Molyneux had this to say in a recent GamePro.com interview:

"My ambition is to really just tell a really compelling story. What I keep saying in our meetings is that we have got to think more like storytellers and less like programmers."

There is still a great deal of difference of opinion about the importance of story in games, but since my views fall clearly on the side of storytelling, I am eager to see how this will be explored in Fable 2.

The thing that I find most interesting about the incorporation of love into the design of Fable 2 is one of the ways it is being implemented.  The main source of this emotional connection will be the love and devotion you feel from your character's pet dog.  Here's what Molyneux had to say about it in the BBC article:

"We have spent an enormous amount of time and effort to make something that feels real. I want you to make you feel it is a real dog. I want you to feel something when you play a game; that's what this feature is about."

Your character's dog will be replacing the UI map in the game, acting as your guide through the game world.  Your dog's appearance will be unique to your character, and it will change as your character changes based on the choices you make in the game.  Here's more detail of your dog's function in the game, from a GameSpot UK article:

"One of the most intriguing things about your pet dog is that you'll have no direct control over it whatsoever, while almost everything that you do will influence its behavior. When you're walking around, he'll rarely stray too far away from you, but he'll actively explore the area and, in doing so, he'll draw your attention to points of interest and anything that has changed since the last time you were there. Furthermore, when he senses danger, he'll move ahead of you and start barking and growling to alert you. Your dog will be your guide through the free-roaming world that Fable 2 takes place in, and he purportedly performs that duty so well that Lionhead has seen fit to do away with the first game's minimap."

I find this to be a very compelling idea, and will be interested to see how this is actually implemented in the finished game.  I may have to wait a while longer to get a chance to play this game on my PC, since Fable 2 is being released first on the Xbox 360, but it is definitely something I would like to experience playing.

This seems like such a vast improvement to me over the role that dogs have in Oblivion, that I just have to mention again how impossible it is for me to understand that the Bethesda development team would think that gameplay which includes regularly having to kill dogs, even if they are bad dogs to begin with, would be a good design decision (see my previous post on this HERE).  Since Molyneux has identified the relationship between player and dog as one of the main ways in his game to generate the feeling of being loved - the feeling of unconditional love and devotion that is present in that relationship - then Bethesda's oversight seems even more glaring now than it did on release.

PS:  There is an Oblivion pet mod called "Cheydinhal Petshop", created by Lady Eternity & Proudfoot, which allows you to have a pet in Oblivion that levels along with your character.  I haven't tried it out yet, but it is listed among the featured Oblivion mods in the April issue of Computer Games magazine.  Additionally, for a very simple fix that eliminates the need to kill dogs in Oblivion, try my "No Bad Dogs" mod available HERE.

Celebrating Oblivion Mods

The post over at PixelRage called 13 Oblivion Mods That Should Not Have Been ("that should not have been mods that is") has been making the rounds of gaming blogs. There are some great looking mods on that list, and I am looking forward to adding a few to my Oblivion playing experience.

I was very happy to see that Tycho over at Penny Arcade felt that the Oblivion Book Mod by Phoenix Amon was overlooked on that list, saying:

"Conspicuously absent from that list was Book Jackets: Oblivion, a project I've mentioned previously that gives every in-game book a unique cover, an undertaking which I am prepared to call the apex of human endeavor."

High praise indeed, and I'm very happy that her mod will get even more appreciation due to the high level of readership they have at Penny Arcade. All her creativity and hard work certainly deserves the recognition.

Equally kind is the short piece over at the Official Shrub.com Blog adding my Oblivion Equalizer mod as number 14 to the list.  Since the Oblivion Equalizer took a total of 5 minutes to make compared with the untold hours a mod like Book Jackets: Oblivion, it is funny for me to think of it in the same category with all these complex mods.  But looking at it from the point of view of something that shouldn't have needed to be modded - at least from the perspective of women gamers - puts the focus on the inspiration that got me into modding Oblivion in the first place.  Thanks to Tekanji for her recommendation!

Oblivion Book Jacket Mod Now Available

Phoenix Amon has announced the release of her anticipated "Oblivion Book Jacket Mod" today, and it is now available to download.

Download the Standard Res Version (26 Mb): HERE, and HERE.

Dwonload the High Res Version (92 Mb): HERE,  HERE and HERE.

Read the release thread on the Elder Scrolls forum HERE for more details.   More download sites will be added, and I will update as the links become available.

As Phoenix was putting the finishing touches on this much anticipated release she took time out to answer a few questions:

Guilded Lily:  What is the official name you are giving this mod?

Phoenix Amon:  Book Jackets: Oblivion (to distinguish it from my Morowind version and additions that I may do for the earlier TES books that have been added).

GL:  How much time do you think you put into this modding project, or would you rather not think about it?

PA:  Well I guessed when I was starting that it would take a little more than 3 months based on the time I'd spent on the Morrowind version and the added complexity of Oblivion's graphics. That turned out to be accurate. In terms of hours, I haven't a clue. :)

GL:  Were you surprised by the response to your mod on the Elder Scrolls forum while you were working on it as a work in progress?

PA:  Very. I didn't expect to get so many responses.

GL:  You have said that you wished you had waited to announce the mod on the forum until it was closer to completion, but do you think that the interest generated was helpful in providing encouragement for such an ambitious project?

PA:  Considering how long it took to complete the project, I think if I'd waited until it was half done to announce it there still would have been time for a lot of people to see the WIP threads. But I would have missed out on some great suggestions too, so I'm not sure which way would be better.

GL:  Now that the Oblivion Book Jacket Mod is complete, do you have any plans for additional mods, or will you be taking a break?

PA:  I do want to relax and play the game a bit. I've been asked to contribute books to a few mods in progress and to make covers for those Morrowind and Daggerfall books added by mods. For the Morrowind books, I want to try creating new meshes to fit my old textures rather than doing the textures again.

I am very happy to have this mod to add to my playing experience in Oblivion, and it represents an opportunity for a big increase in enjoyment based on a relatively small aspect of the original game design. Additionally, I will have the pleasure of seeing one of my original Celtic knotwork designs that Phoenix incorporated into the design of the Children of the Sky book cover included in the mod.

If you are playing Oblivion, you owe it to yourself to add this mod to your playing experience.  You will see why Ashley Chang, producer for Oblivion, had this to say about Phoenix Amon's Oblivion Book Jacket Mod:

"This is one of the most creative mods I've ever seen."

Thanks to Phoenix Amon for all the time and effort put into making this very creative mod -  it is sure to become one of the "must have" Oblivion mods available.

You can read my original post about the mod (when it was still a work in progess) HERE.

Wrought Into the Texture: Photoshop CS2

Lately I find I am spending most of my spare time working on building my game creation skills instead of playing games.  My interest in modding The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has spurred me to translate my otherwise specialized computer skills into something more useful for game design.  I am interested in learning 3D modeling, and have downloaded a free student version of Maya 7, but I am presently working on learning how to create 2D textures for use with 3D models using Photoshop.

Textures are something that I never gave much thought to with all my game playing.  Their presence is essential to the look and feel of any gaming environment, but additionally a well designed texture avoids drawing too much attention to itself.  In the games I have played the textures have succeeded in creating a seamless experience of immersion in the game world they adorn, and so I never paid much attention to them.  Now that I am learning how to create textures I am much more aware of their use and design in games, and have spent most of my time playing games lately simply wandering around in the game worlds to see how they are textured.

I was ever so fortunate, thanks to the kindness and generosity of my brother and his wife, to receive a full version of Photoshop CS2 for my birthday.  I was thrilled to get the box in the mail, and have done little else but work with Photoshop since the software arrived - hence the dearth of posts on GL recently.  Before loading up CS2 onto my system I used Photoshop Elements, and the difference is vast.  I can't get over all the things I can do with CS2, and I find that when I imagine wanting to do something a particular way, there is an intuitive process already built into the software to get it done.

I have been following the tutorials in the book 3D Game Textures: Creating Professional Game Art Using Photoshop, by Luke Ahearn.  This is a beginner's level book, and as such, has been very helpful for getting me up and running in learning how to use Photoshop to achieve great results.  I have worked through about half of the book so far, and recommend it to anyone who is starting out like I am.  The book has a few rough spots in the tutorials, which may be due to my inexperience, or the small differences between Photoshop CS (which is the version the book was written using) and CS2.  Being a visual artist by trade, I would like to see more pictures in the book as well.  Overall it has been a wonderful guide for me, and has really added to my general Photoshop skills in addition to the specifics in creating game textures. 

The title of my post comes from the following quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"All that is in the world, which is or ought to be known, is cunningly wrought into the texture of man, of woman."

Due to my present mindset involving game textures, when I read this quote I thought that if you insert the word virtual before world, you also end up with an appropriate way of looking at the role of texture artists in the design of game worlds.  I have a new appreciation for texture design in computer games from learning about how it is done firsthand, and have gained another level of enjoyment in the game worlds I spend time exploring.

I am looking for a more advanced book on game texturing as a follow-up to this one, and would love to hear any of your recommendations.

So Many Virtual Books: Oblivion Book Jacket Mod

In my travels on The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Forum I recently found a post on a modder's work in progress to replace all of the 300+ in-game book jackets (that are a little ho-hum) with dynamic looking covers. This may at first seem like a frivolous mod, compared with mods that create new quests or fresh dungeons to crawl through.  Judging from the response in the forum from those following this project it is clear that this is far from true, as this has become an anticipated release within the Oblivion modding community.

The Oblivion Book Jacket mod was first announced on the forum at the end of April.  Since that time there have been hundreds of replies to the forum posts about this mod, with well over ten thousand viewings. The mod creator is Phoenix Amon, a thirty-something modder who has been active in the modding community for a while, having created a similar book mod for TES III: Morrowind. 

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.  Here are the results:

Guilded Lily: How long have you been modding games, and TES games specifically?

Phoenix Amon: I honestly can't remember. It's been years. Most of what I've done has been for my own use because I have a bad habit of starting projects that are too big to finish. Book Jackets for Morrowind was the first large mod I released for any game. That started out as something for myself, and I didn't decide to release it until I was about 50% done and sure I could finish.

GL: Do you see this as a hobby, or do you work in the game industry or want to work in the game industry?

PA: Definitely a hobby. I don't have broad enough talents to work in the industry, and I think being trapped into someone else's concepts would bore me anyway. I've always enjoyed art but I'm not very good at it. Modding gives me a chance to be artistic in a small way.

GL: How much time do you spend modding, and do you enjoy it more than playing games?

PA: 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.

GL: What got you interested in making mods for Morrowind/Oblivion?

PA: Seeing what other people were doing. I'd find 4 mods that each had something that I liked and some other things that I didn't, so I started trying to put together all my favorite parts. Then I got caught up in the "playing with legos" aspect of it. Making 3D art is fun, but it's more fun when you can feel you're walking through a house you built yourself.

GL: You are about halfway completed on the book jacket mod - do you have a sense of when you will release it?

PA: It'll be at least a month, could be 2. After I finish the graphics I'll still need to do some polishing. And 2 very kind guys are working on proofreading all of the game books for me, so I'll need to re-import some of the text. There are a lot of spelling and grammar errors in the books and my mod will not be compatible with any other mod that corrects them, so I want to combine those features.

GL: Do you think that as a woman you approach modding any differently than your male counterparts? Do you see modding as a way to make games more enjoyable to play as a woman?

PA: I think women are people-pleasers more often than men. That's a bug in my system, at any rate. So in this case where I made the mistake of announcing what I was up to so far in advance, I'm going to be including a bunch of alternate designs to try to please a wider audience. That's not unique to being a woman, but probably somewhat more common.

I don't think there's any type of mod that universally appeals to women rather than men, but there are probably some types that fill gaps more often noticed by women. For instance I think when NPCs in a game lack any form of personality, women will be more likely than men to be bothered by it. Mostly, though, I think mods make games more fun for individuals by allowing them to tailor their own experience.

GL: Do you find that male modders on the forums are surprised when they learn you are female?

PA: Sometimes yes, particularly in the gaming communities where I've been more on the technical than the artistic end. But it surprises me when they're surprised because I'm always aware of lots more women doing the same types of things.

I enjoy sharing what I've learned, and a lot of times where I do the teacher routine and then people find out I'm a women their response is, "So that explains the patience!" Which it doesn't; I'm not patient, I'm greedy. I want what they are going to be able to create after they learn how to use the tools. ;-)

GL: Do you have any suggestions for modders just getting started with the Oblivion CS?

PA: Download other mods that do different things and pull them apart to see what they're made of. Like everything else, it's easiest to learn by breaking something. ;-)

GL: Is there anything specific you would like to say about your mod or modding Oblivion in general?

PA: Hm, freeform… um… About my mod I'd like to thank everyone who's taken the time to make comments more thoughtful than "That's awesome, dude!" It's hard to find people on the net to give an honest critique on a work in progress or finished project. Sometimes I don't agree with people's comments and sometimes I don't have the talent to incorporate them, but I really appreciate getting thoughtful feedback in all cases.

About modding for Oblivion, I'd like to encourage people to keep making small changes. It doesn't have to be grand in scope to be a great mod.

Thanks very much to Phoenix for taking time away from working on the book jacket mod to answer my questions.  I know I am not alone in anticipating the release of this Oblivion mod, and will post links on the GL blog once it is available for downloading.

Until then you can follow the development of this project on the Elder Scrolls forum with the current thread HERE, with previous forum threads HERE, HERE and HERE.

You can view all of image files Phoenix has posted to the forum at her PhotoBucket album HERE.

UPDATE 7/15/06: The Oblivion Book Jacket mod is now available - read more HERE.

Oblivion: It's a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod World

Oblivion Modders are in the spotlight for the moment for their role in introducing nudity into the game experience. As you may have read, the ESRB has changed its rating for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:

"from T (Teen 13+) to M (Mature 17+) due to the presence of content that was not fully disclosed when the game was originally submitted to ESRB for rating."

The general misunderstanding about the reasons for the ratings change has even caused some to blame Oblivion modders.  The change in rating has certainly put Oblivion in the news, with the ESRB deciding that the game deserved a higher "blood and gore" warning than it initially received as well as the addition of a "nudity" warning to the game's M label.

Your average Oblivion player on the PC does not have immediate access to naked women running around in the game at will, and for anyone playing on the XBox 360 this isn't a possibility under any circumstance.  It takes the addition of a downloaded file to access the nude content in PC version of the game.  Initially this would seem that the ESRB is punishing Bethesda Softworks for something a modder did to the game, and many have responded to the news about the rating change in this way - finding it to be unfair to change the rating based on what someone does with the game after it is released. There is another layer to this issue though, due to the fact that the skin meshes for the nude mods, although not immediately accessible, are actually included with the game as released by Bethesda. 

Here is what the ESRB has to say about the ratings change in their press release:

"The pertinent content causing the change in the ESRB rating involves more detailed depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating of the game (the game already carried a Blood and Gore content descriptor), as well as the presence in the PC version of the game of a locked-out art file that, if accessed by using an apparently unauthorized third party tool, allows the user to play the game with topless versions of female characters. The locked-out topless skin was found by ESRB to exist in a fully rendered form on the game disc, but is not accessible in the Xbox 360™ version of the game."

This is confirmed by the creator of the topless mod (read the full forum post HERE) who had this to say about the mod:

"In the process of trying to create a nude skin for Oblivion, I found Bethesda had already done all the work for me. They just covered it up with underwear afterwards."

It seems that the ESRB doesn't like it when games ship with hidden content, especially when that content falls under a more restrictive rating and has the potential to be accessed once the game is in the consumers hands ("Hot Coffee" anyone?).  Bethesda's response is to accept the new M rating, saying:

"We will not contest the ESRB's decision to re-rate the game as Mature, nor will we change the game's content to keep a Teen rating."

But they add this:

"There is no nudity in Oblivion without a third party modification. In the PC version of the game only - this doesn't apply to the Xbox 360 version - some modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game. Bethesda didn't create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion. There is no nude female character in a section of the game that can be "unlocked." Bethesda can not control tampering with Oblivion by third parties. Bethesda is taking steps to ensure that modders can not continue to hack into Oblivion's art archives to create partially nude figures."

From the point of view of someone working on mods for Oblivion this reads as a little less than forthright. The modding software that Bethesda makes available for Oblivion functions on several levels, with the simplest mods working something like a 3D Lego kit - snapping pre-made pieces together to make different versions of a house for example.  A more sophisticated level of modding involves changing the meshes of those pieces using a third party utility, like the one used by the nude mod maker to swap out the nude mesh for the mesh with underwear in place.  Yes, it is true that you need a third party utility to access the nude character meshes, but this is the same type of utility (a BSA extractor) that is needed to access any of the meshes in the game not just the nude one.  Bethesda is calling this process "hacking", yet any number of mods being discussed and created by forum members on the Bethesda sponsored modding forum use the same extraction utility as the nude mod.  These modders are not being identified as hackers, nor are they being discouraged from using the "third party tool" to create their mods.

It is difficult for me to believe that the folks at Bethesda didn't realize that modders would be extracting the nude meshes to mod Oblivion.  This is not anything new to modding an Elder Scroll game, being basically the same process used to mod in Morrowind, so it is difficult to believe that Bethesda was unaware that these artwork meshes would be put to use.  The folks at Bethesda should have known that this would be among the earliest of mods created for Oblivion, if based only on the previous experiences with the Elder Scrolls modding community.  It seems silly for them to categorize modders as hackers and try to point the blame for this in their direction.

The nude meshes for Oblivion are pretty tame - we are not talking about balloon size bazooms or overly sexualized character models that are a part of other "Mature" rated games.  The ESRB may be overreacting a bit, but developers like Bethesda should know better than to be surprised by their concern over hidden content after the Grand Theft Auto re-rating incident.

The majority of Oblivion modders will keep having a great time doing what they do best - working to improve the game playing experience of their favorite RPG.  For most that means ignoring the silliness of nude mods and creating compelling new game content that other dedicated Oblivion players will really enjoy, extending the life of Bethesda's creation until the next game is released.

Oblivion Mod: No Bad Dogs

Thanks to the quick response to my previous post by Kat of The Geeky Feminist, I now have a fantasy world full of non-aggressive canine companions. I followed these easy directions using The Elder Scrolls Construction Set:

1. In the Object Window, go to Actors, Creature, Dog.
2. Double-click CreatureDog.
3. Click AI.
4. Look for Aggression under AI Attributes. Set it to 0.
5. Click Save, then OK.
6. Save your mod as usual.

And now I have good dogs in Tamriel!  I didn't change the disposition of any of the separately named dogs in the game, in case they function in some more specific ways to their individual places in the storyline.  I loaded the mod and went back to where I met the previously aggressive killer, and he was sitting pretty, wagging his tail and being a very good dog indeed.  Good dogs definitely get a biscuit.  Barbara Woodhouse would be so proud.

I haven't had a chance to see how this mod works in the long run, but I will let you know if anything strange should arise due to the dogs' new outlook on life.

If you are interested you can dowload the "No Bad Dogs" mod HERE.

Thanks very much to Kat for her help!

Bad Doggies in Tamriel

Okay, before I start this post I want to make something very clear:  I wouldn't actually want anyone to think that I might possibly maybe be saying something negative about the loved and revered game Oblivion.  I don't want there to be any confusion about this post  since it has been made very clear to me (through an earlier post) that anyone suspected of criticizing Oblivion will be taken out behind the local Fighter's Guild to be fed to the goblins.  I am only making an observation of one small aspect of Oblivion's game design.  If we understand each other I can now begin.

Here's my question: Does it make me a whimp because I don't want to have to kill dogs in order to play this game?  I know there are bad doggies in the real world, but I have always been more of the mind of Barbara Woodhouse on the subject, in that there are no bad dogs, only bad owners.  In Tamriel it appears that there are LOTS of bad dog owners.  Bandits aren't generally good people, so it make sense that they might train their dogs to attack intruders, but there isn't any circumstance real or imagined that would make me want to attack and kill a dog in the name of having fun.  For some reason I can objectify all the other characters in this game but the dogs.  Plus they yelp when you kill them.

I have been avoiding bandit lairs in the game to avoid the unpleasant task of having to dispatch the bad man's best friend, but that's a big chunk of the game to sneak past and leave unexplored.  I have tried finding a way to avoid killing them, by using magic spells to turn them away, but they are victims of their persistent AI.  My magic skill level is low and the spells don't last long enough, so they always come back to attack me again.  I suppose by the time I get 3/4 of the way through the game I will be able to paralyze them for a long enough time to get past them, but until then I'm not sure what to do.  The result of this aspect of the game is that I am spending too much time while playing thinking about dogs; where they will be, how to avoid them, how to keep from having to kill them; which is cutting into my over-all enjoyment of the game.  These bad dogs are distracting.

By this point you must think I am the world’s fussiest nit-picker when it comes to Oblivion.  I will explain by saying that I am very interested in how games are designed, and so I find it fascinating that sometimes the seemingly small design decisions can have the potential for creating a pretty large experience of making the player disconnect from the game.  Oblivion marks a grand step forward in RPG game design - the visual improvements alone are remarkable.  The addition of Havok physics to this improved visual reality makes for increased realism (and at times some laughable results) when killing NPCs.  Perhaps it is in part this increased realism that is making it hard for me to kill the dogs in the first place, since there isn't the usual buffer of technological fakeness to remove me from the process. 

I am interested to know if other people feel this way about having to kill dogs on a semi-regular basis while exploring the lands of Tamriel.  I would also like to know if anyone has found a good solution to NOT killing the dogs, so that I can get back to really enjoying this otherwise fabulous game.  I am trying to figure out how to modify the game to address this issue, but I still need to learn more about how the NPCs are programmed before I will know if it is possible.  I imagine that I should be able to program the dogs to be non-aggressive somehow, and that doing so wouldn't upset the balance of the game.

Enthusiastic Oblivion fans please take a deep breath and slowly exhale before leaving your comments.  It’s time for walkies now.

4/22/06 UPDATE: Read the follow-up post HERE.

The Oblivion Equalizer

Gamers With Jobs: Press Pass has a new post up that addresses the issues of gender inequalities in Oblivion with Bethesda's Pete Hines.  Adam LaMosca, the author of the post asked Hines about the issues raised on the Guilded Lilies blog about character design stats, as well as the post by The Geeky Feminist on the representation of character races in the game manual.

Hines said that the difference in starting stats between the sexes was done to create "more choices for the player."  Please read the full post HERE.

Hines' responses to the questions make sense when the end goal is to design a game for male players alone.  The emphasis on male character artwork is explained as having been done with that in mind.  The bias exists because the game was designed with men in mind as the main audience.  The artwork bias then is the result of the larger bias, that Oblivion is not a game that women will want to play.  That bias can itself become a self-fulfilling prophecy in a cycle that goes around and around without any certainty of where it began.  Do women not want to play games like Oblivion, and so the game is designed for men, or do women not want to play games like Oblivion precisely because it is designed with only men as the target audience?  The answer really is that LOADS of women play Oblivion, so the designers should have kept that in mind when considering design elements that directly apply to gender.

I think the main issue here isn't so much what the numbers are when you start the game. I believe that men have much more fluidity when it comes to choosing the gender of their RPG characters.   I have nothing but circumstantial evidence to go on, but judging by my experiences online, men have a very high comfort level with playing female characters - I could almost go so far as saying that they prefer playing female characters.  I think it is safe to say that men are in general more comfortable with playing characters that are female than women are of playing characters that are male.   I think that for men, when facing the choices of power design advantages where the statistical advantage is something they are looking for, the gender of the character is a secondary consideration.  For women, having to choose one over the other is a choice we would rather not be forced to make.  What Hines sees in the starting stats difference as offering more choices for players may in fact translate into offering less choices for women players.

Thanks very much to Adam LaMosca for going to the source with these questions.

My final note about his post has to do with the mods offered by Beider in my original post (which GWJ offers a link to).  These mods change the stats to either all female (meaning the male is made the same as the female) or all male (vice-versa).  I have made a mod, which I have dubbed The Oblivion Equalizer, that equalizes the genders, with both having the same points (320).  You can download that mod HERE.  This mod eliminates the power design advantage, so it is no longer necessary to design a character based on statistics alone, allowing for the freedom to create an equally skilled player of either gender.

I will add that I am having a great time playing Oblivion, and the ability to mod that is offered with The Elder Scrolls Construction Set only enhances my enjoyment of the game.

Modding For A Better Future

I began working with the Oblivion modding software over the weekend.  The Elder Scrolls Construction Set has a very workable interface, and after a little time spent learning the navigational tools I was piecing together a dungeon I could call my own.  The fact that the Oblivion modding software has such an easy to use interface got me thinking that women gamers need to do more modding.  Or more to the point, if we as women gamers are interested in seeing changes made in the games we play then maybe the best thing we can do is start making changes ourselves.

I have read again and again that more women are needed to work in the field of game design in order for gender inclusive games to get made.  If the game design industry is similar to other types of male-dominated fields, then it is likely that it will take some time before women will begin to be employed in larger numbers.  It could be a while before there is a larger willingness to design games without the elements that operate as barriers to women players.  In the meantime, maybe the best way to express our concerns is through the modification of games.

In addition to providing a more personalized game playing experience, modding software gives the players a forum for expressing ways in which game play can be enhanced.  In a way, modding is a deeper level of beta testing – where the players get to express changes in the overall design of game functions in ways that may not have occurred to the original developers.  Game developers like Bethesda follow what modders are doing to their games and the possibility exists that some of these improvements could be incorporated into future game releases.  It is this possibility that I see as offering the greatest incentive for women making their own game mods. 

My earlier post about the gender inequality of starting stats for Oblivion characters started some discussion about using the TES Construction Set to change the figures.  Kat from The Geeky Feminist provided the following information in her recent comment:

1. Start the construction set.
2. Go to File, Data, and double-click Oblivion.esm so it has a checkmark next to it. Click OK.
3. Go to Character, Race, and you'll see the stats for each race. Go down the list, typing in the new base attributes for each race. Click OK when you're done.
4. Go to File, Save, and name your plugin. Exit the construction set.
5. Start Oblivion and click Data Files. Double-click your plugin so it has a checkmark next to it. Click OK.

That's it. :)

It’s a very simple thing, but now we know how to affect a small change to our gaming experience.  There are other changes that can be made, and other games that can be modded, so the possibilities are limitless.

I will follow-up on this post as I find more information. In the interim I am interested in hearing from women modders out there.

You can access the download for The Elder Scrolls Construction Kit HERE.

There is a TES CS Wiki website HERE.

There are a few Oblivion forums that deal with TES CS, when I find one that looks good
I will post a link.  Feel free to recommend a good one in your comments.