#[ i finally also installed some big mods to that game-- so it kept me entirely focused. it was like a whole new experience. ] | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

boybandsim · 4 years

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leafeana replied to your post:

WAIT i was just scrolling through your blog cause im hungry for content and saw this again and realized you asked what version i was playing? which i dont remember answering whoops

im playing it on pc! which is great bc then i get to mess around with mods (like the one that gives cindy some real clothing lol) but its also got its downsides since my computer is definitely not a gaming computer, which means graphics take a serious hit and lagging isnt uncommon

im...not sure if its royal edition?? I think windows edition has all the features of royal edition, although im not completely sure. I think luna has a cutscene in Insomnia thats only in royal edition, so once im there ill be able to tell. technically im in Insomnia now but ive time traveled back and it might be a while before i push on to the finale. after dealing with Altissia --> the start of Insomnia linearly i wanted some time to chill with the bros and pretend

everything is fine for a while. it has been a WILD ride for sure and yeah I haven't even started up any of the dlc yet! theres so much content!! ive been practicing playing as the other bros during medium-hard combat which has kept it feeling really fresh too. also its hilarious just blasting bad guys with a bazooka while the other people are in there swinging around swords and knives. and i haven't done any of the crossover quests yet, which seem big and exciting!

ill be forever sad that i missed the assassins festival but theres definitely plenty to do that I'm excited for. and im getting really into the fishing!! charmed is definitely the right word like..its not perfect at all but this game is so genuinely endearing with its characters personalites and development and its themes and music as well and it really does some things SO well.

god okay this is a lot of words. sorry for rambling and for the late reply! no one i know plays this game or has much interest in it so youre getting all my bottled up enthusiasm

PLEASE DO NOT EVER APOLOGISE FOR RAMBLING SEND ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE WORDS AND THOUGHTS AND TALKING ABOUT FFXV DUDE <3333 also literally no worries about late replies or replying at all im forever shit at them myself i get it bro nw nw nw

hell yeah pc is royal edition with a bunch of other shit and the dlcs (bar ardyn) incorporated, dont worry, also i would die for that one cindy in a decent outfit mod i know the exact one youre on about LOL (also i can recommend you some other mods if u like!!)

if i can share some knowledge with you right quick cuz i had the same problem and wouldve died to have someone tell me i went from barely 20fps on a good day to being able to run multiple programs with ffxv in the background; specialk is a very quick install and majorly helped with multithreading; otherwise for the in game options are using low resolution texture pack (assets option); shadows look near visually identical on the lowest option compared to the highest; all nvidia effects can be turned off with no significant graphic change; turning off anti aliasing entirely genuinely makes the game look better for me; i can post my full settings if itll help you and ive also read through a few tutorials for modding around lag so i can try and help you with that, i do get pretty major lag spikes though and frequently find it near impossible to stream/record, but i manage to nail that 60fps on average if im solely running ffxv with a few cut corners like those

also dont blame you with altissia, ngl i boiled through the story rollercoaster right quick after exploring most of the open world before even touching altissia and ended up ignoring all postgame content for starting a new save immediately and replaying just to get that hangout time in the open world that wasnt just go-back-in-time-through-magic-dog. but i feel you so hard dude i just want more of them chilling. literally i have 300 hours in this game already and i know half of those have been using the car listening to tunes LMFAO

yeah the crossover quests are funnn the one with terra wars is sweet and the ffxiv one is SO funny its literally hysterical i was roaring with laughter a couple times!!! and good on you practising i didnt touch any of the extended combat until my third save and yeah honestly if you want to do the postgame menaces those skillsll come in useful, its funny because the maingame bosses arent that hard but the postgame is mental. but yeah i love blowing shit up with proms bazooka it fucking rules nerds can keep their swords

ALSO SAME... i wanna play the promptis date so bad!! i wanna play episode duscae so bad!!! wanna play the platinum demo with baby noctis so bad!! knowing theyll never be ported kills meeeeee. sad & upset but as you say theres so much to do and the dlc honestly offer so much im still finding shit i havent done and ive spent a year playing already

honestly so much of this game for me is literally just booting it to go hang with the guys its really relaxing lmfaooo... hiking around with these goofy dudes. sometimes i just wanna chill with the anime boys. YEAH literally its sweet and charming and then fucking heartbreaking and even though the writing is hammy as hell im honestly so willing to forgive it. not only for the clear amount of care and love that went into specifically building the guys relationship (which anyone knows is the best and most realised part of the game) but the details and amount of lore you can uncover if you take a step and interpret a little. maybe thats too generous a statement for what was an executive nightmare and critically underdeveloped but i grew up on ffxiii and knowing the versus 13 lore and that ffxv was part of that extended canon im satisfied with it being another side to that story and running with that. i think supplemented with its additional content years after release ffxv isnt a complete experience but enough of one to leave an impact or at least it did majorly for me! ive been obsessed.

OMG sorry im nerding too its all good lol just genuinely i love this game and its hard to find people talking about it these days but i really had such a good time and still am continuing to and i love it fuck it ball hard

real shit though it has the best fishing minigame of all time hands down nothing has come close fuck the haters

#readmore for dashboards

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dgcatanisiri · 5 years

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So... Let’s see how this works. We’ll adjust the format as needed if this doesn’t work, but hey, here we go.

Welcome to DG’s Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, I’d like to see them anyway.

Because I have ideas, I can’t get them made as mods, I don’t have time to make them into fic, and they’re never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, they’re tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so it’s not like I’ll ever make money off of them anyway.

Our first installment takes a look at Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic. Obviously, as this game predates the modern DLC model (there was the Yavin market, but that was maybe a grand total of ten minutes tops of content, if we’re generous), so there are some awkwardnesses involved in making DLC for this - if nothing else, when the game ends, it ends, to keep playing, you have to start a new character. On another, there’s the level cap, stopping our leveling up after hitting Level 20. As the game presently exists, that should happen after being locked into the endgame combo of the Unknown World/Star Forge, but adding more content means that cap gets hit sooner.

So understand that we’re assuming that there is the ability to play post-game and a higher level cap, as well as other quality of life style additions (in this case, probably among them are various additions from KOTOR 2, but that’s a subject for another day). I’m also willing to assume that there is content for characters (even if the respective voice actors have passed, retired, or just wouldn’t return), in the same style as modern games. The assumption here is that these DLC ideas would have been written, produced, and published during the active production cycle of the respective games.

As this is the inaugural edition, let me explain the format. There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable (unless it’s part of a hardwired point, like the above mentioned point of no return of travelling to the Unknown World, as an example), and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because I’ve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of ‘this idea seems pretty cool,’ and then gave them more context later on.

And a further note - I reserve the right to come up with more ideas for any given game that I have already written up, naturally. I haven’t decided how I’ll handle that yet, but it’s entirely possible there will later be more ideas.

Okay, housekeeping matters out of the way, let’s get down to business!

The Yavin Excursion

Yavin 4 was the site of Sith Lord Exar Kun’s power base. In understanding more about him and his fall, the Jedi Council believe it may be able to shed light on the fall of Revan and Malak. But the secrets of the Massassi temples hold more than just the ghosts of the past, but a threat for the present...

(Available after Dantooine)

Tack this on to the existing content of the market in orbit of Yavin, I suppose. But the connection to the Tales of the Jedi comic seems like a good starting point here – investigate one Sith Lord to examine the motivations of another, find out why the first guy fell to the dark side, which will hopefully explain why the other guys did.

I see this as both a lore exercise – to offer the players more exploration of this era, considering that the Tales of the Jedi comics have been harder to come by as time as gone on, so allowing some more in depth portrayals of the time – and a chance to kind of approach the question of what drives someone to the dark side. Exar Kun fell by an overwhelming curiosity, Ulic Qel-Droma, his apprentice, fell by a desire for revenge, and later lost his connection to the Force (put a pin in that fact – we’ll be back to that come the DLC for KOTOR 2). Millennia later, Anakin Skywalker falls because of his fear of the loss of those he loves. Two of these people were redeemed, one refused to give up his power.

If anything, this would be a good chance for some foreshadowing of Bastila’s eventual fall (so perhaps this would be locked to before the Leviathan catches the Ebon Hawk), on top of asking the question that later drives KOTOR 2 – what were Revan’s motivations in turning to the dark side? Obviously, this is up in the air from a character perspective (and, honestly, so far as I care, from the player’s too, because I despise the whole “the Sith Emperor warped their minds” BS, and I’m ready and willing to disregard it, even in acknowledging The Old Republic). The first KOTOR never really focuses on the why of Revan’s fall, since Malak is the game’s big bad, and the Revan reveal is a plot twist – since this is DLC, the player would probably be expected to know it going in, so why not explore that, right?

As for what this threat is... I’m a little shakier on this. I’m thinking a Massassi warrior/beast of some kind, the same kind of Sith alchemical abomination we see in the terantatek or hssiss, only a much more powerful end boss kind of thing, a living relic of Exar Kun’s evil (given that, canonically, Exar Kun’s spirit survived to the Jedi Academy novel trilogy, he certainly can’t be the final boss), perhaps fed and kept alive by the powers of the remaining Massassi who worshipped Exar Kun as a god – in this case, looking to take advantage of the Ebon Hawk’s arrival to spread their master’s will across the galaxy and speed his return. Sith alchemy played a part in a lot of the Sith portrayals from this timeframe, and it’s kind of disappointing that KOTOR never really utilized these mutants, just had them as mindless high level bosses.

Vector

The rakghoul plague infested the lower levels of the planet of Taris. When the planet was bombed by the Sith, it managed to escape among the many refugees as well. With their experiences on Taris, facing the rakghouls, the Jedi Council sends the crew of the Ebon Hawk to investigate its spread to the planet Ralltiir – and stop the Sith from obtaining it as a weapon!

(Available after Dantooine)

The rakghouls were just kind of dropped into KOTOR with no explanation – they were a threat as a creature and as a plague in the Undercity of Taris, but no one ever spoke about what the plague’s origins were or where the rakghouls came from. And then along came the Vector mini-series of comics (hence the name for this) that put the creation of the rakghouls down to a Sith Lord, Karness Murr. Sith alchemy, the gift that keeps on giving.

But either way, considering that the rakghoul plague is something that even the Upper City of Taris was concerned about, that clearly says that it could easily have gotten off planet, especially in the panic of the evacuation. And really, with the added knowledge that this was originally Sith alchemy, it’s almost certain that some aspiring Sith would discover this and try to twist it to their advantage.

I pretty much pulled Ralltiir’s name out of a hat, primarily because it’s a fairly common named planet, but with little actually associated with it. It also makes a great place where the Republic would demand an immediate concern, because it’s a Core World and an economic hub. It’s a great place to have a plague that Republic heads would say would draw in the Ebon Hawk, whose crew had familiarity with the rakghoul plague, despite the threat of Malak and the search for the Star Maps.

I also see this as a way to give Mission and Juhani more content – Mission is a hard character for me to really justify remaining with the crew after Taris, given that she’s a teenager, I feel VERY uncomfortable taking her around on what is effectively a commando mission, while Juhani was very nearly hacked out of the game. Both of them grew up on Taris, in the lower levels of the planetary city, where the rakghouls aren’t just a distant threat. So give them this additional portrayal and focus because they’re familiar with the plague, maybe even knew some people who were infected and transformed by it.

The villain would be a Jedi-turned-Sith, someone who had turned to the Sith at some point after being a Jedi historian. A part of me wants to draw on one of the Jedi who would later show up in the Exile’s vision on Korriban, mostly because those were the Jedi we see recruited by Malak, and so less aware of Revan’s face, though that seems a touch much. Regardless, they’d previously acted as a historian, and is driven by the potential power of the rakghoul plague – Muur’s talisman is lost by this point (again, see the comics), but the rakghouls themselves remain, and, while I’m ignoring the whole “the Sith Emperor did it” thing with Revan, I also like the concept of the rakghouls evolving into the nekghouls, gaining sentience.

This is also a way to add a little bit more of a question to the results – do these evolved rakghouls deserve the consideration of being considered more than mindless beasts? Are they at all a continuation of the person they once were? Or are they just violent creatures that need to be put down? Is the guy trying to control them being corrupted by the dark side, or was he always evil?

So the central question here would be asking “what makes a monster?” Is it the mindless savagery of beasts, or the knowing cruelty of intelligent beings, and where is that line?

Sleheyron

The volcanic world of Sleheyron holds a Star Map. The Ebon Hawk and her crew set out to discover the secrets hidden there, but must be cautious, for the planet also holds a group of Darth Malak’s most powerful apprentices, who have, in their isolation from their leader, created their own plan for the fall of the Republic...

(Available after Dantooine)

Sleheyron was planned to be part of the hunt for the Star Maps – six environments are described in the Rakatan ruin on Dantooine, the life-giving worlds (oceanic – Manaan, grassland – Dantooine, arboreal – Kashyyyk) and death-giving worlds (desert – Tatooine, volcanic, barren – Korriban). Sleheyron was the volcanic world, but got cut for time, early enough that there really wasn’t a lot of material that made it out, with the planet just becoming part of Yuthura Ban’s back story. So, hey, free reign to develop something here.

Honestly, one of my big questions is, if Malak was with Revan as they travelled the worlds to find the Star Maps, why doesn’t he do something about the fact that these locations led to the big secret weapon that gives the Sith Empire its power and forces? Wouldn’t he have thought that maybe some form of guard or another would be a good idea? Sure, the Korriban one was guarded by virtue of being in the tomb of Naga Sadow, but the others? Here, we get a chance to have a group of Sith having taken control of this planet where there is a Star Map that can add to what our heroes have assembled (but, being DLC, this isn’t required to take on). They’re specifically there to guard the Map.

This becomes a bit of a game of cat and mouse – how to act before the Sith apprentices (probably former Jedi themselves) can find them, capture or kill them, hand them off to Malak. (Probably also means that this should be a later stage planet to visit, but hey, player choice of direction, right?) How do these Jedi move around a planet while the people in charge are out to get them? Draw on the mechanic from KOTOR 2, where the people on Dantooine recognize if the Exile goes there while a lightsaber is equipped, maybe.

Actually, I’d like to see some mechanic that tracks how much the player uses the Force while wandering around – the more they use the Force, or the more powerful the Force effects they use, the more likely they are to summon Sith execution squads or something. Sort of like KOTOR 2 and Nar Shaddaa, where the Exile’s actions drew the attention of the Exchange and Visquis, only in reverse – the player and company need to avoid catching the attention of the Sith until they’ve raised a rebellion against the Sith overlords, or at least gained enough public goodwill that the Sith can’t just openly take them away and execute them, something like that.

I like this idea because it allows an opportunity to play more with non-violent approaches, alternatives that aren’t “murder everyone because combat gives more experience!” Here, the idea is that you WANT to fly under the radar, avoid combat. And, if combat happens, you also have incentive to not use the lightsaber for a stretch – gives players a reason to put points into blasters or non-lightsaber melee combat, because I don’t know about anyone else, but the second I get a lightsaber in these games, I don’t ever use a different weapon. Here, the player is in the position of HAVING to switch up their play style, or, if they don’t, have to be that much more cautious in their actions here. This is a story piece that hinges on what you do with your words.

The ultimate confrontation with the Sith and the Star Map, in my mind, takes place in a cavern of an active volcano (or maybe one that has been dormant, but, because what’s the Sith without random acts of evilly evil, they’re managing to coax back to life). Here’s where there’s a pretty big question in the construction of this DLC – are we working in the confines of the game engine of the time or with newer, more modern systems? Cuz I’d kinda like something that took place within the volcanic areas of the planet, given that’s what the planet is described as. But I don’t think that KOTOR’s original engine would really be able to explore that to its fullest, given the limitations on it. My big idea would be to have the climax of the planet’s arc have the threat of a volcanic eruption, potentially with the base of operations for these Sith being flooded by lava.

If that is an engine limit... I really have no idea what the alternative would be, but, hey, since this is pie in the sky as it is, why not call for the engine advancement that lets it be a thing, where we have to outrun a lava flow or something.

Echoes of the Past

The strike team that fought Revan is being targeted by Malak’s assassins. The crew of the Ebon Hawk take a journey to the graveyard of the attack on Revan’s ship, the battle that led to the defeat of the dark lord. But the dead don’t rest easy, especially amongst the ruins of the Sith Lord’s vessel...

(Available after the Leviathan)

The strike team that captured Revan is kinda the forgotten element of the game as is. This is a team, and yet we only hear about Bastila’s involvement. Which, sure, she is the member on our squad, she does have the Force Bond with Revan, but... Who were the others? Where have they been during the war?

And it seems like Malak would think of them as a threat period – they were the Jedi who were there to face off against Revan, the Jedi thought they’d have a chance against this great Sith Lord, the leader of the Sith forces of the time. But Bastila is the only one the game ever concerns itself with, and doesn’t even mention if the others lived, who they were, why they were chosen... None of that.

So here we get to explore them. The added bonus is that I see this as a post-Leviathan mission, one that we play with full awareness of our player character’s identity. How much of that awareness we pass on is one thing, and it really allows us to explore the idea “who was Revan before, who is Revan now?” Because that’s going to come into play when dealing with the people who were at one point sent in to kill Revan – sent to kill us, the player character.

I also like the set piece idea of a graveyard of ships, where the characters are walking through the husks of dead vessels – the Harbinger sequence in KOTOR 2 is still a favorite of mine. Granted, this would probably be a bit of a conceptual retread of that part of that game, but hey, why not get some variation of the same old gameplay, right? Plus, it’s different here for the fact that this will have some personal connection to Revan – this was their ship. Did they consider it a home? Just a place?

That leads to the bigger plot element, though. These Jedi know Revan as a threat. They’re going to be suspicious of Revan the whole way through – “are you the Jedi the Council thought you to have become, or are you the Sith we were once sent to kill?” Like I’m sorta thinking this is a case where we’d get these teammates as companions proper now that I’m considering this in detail, and this all builds to the main confrontation. Like we wouldn’t take our Ebon Hawk buddies on this one, but two of these guys.

That confrontation would involve the assassins being revealed to be loyalists to Darth Revan, with their mission having begun with attempting to avenge their fallen Lord, but now, with Revan returned to them, having tested their skill over the course of their luring Revan back to them, they are willing to take up their banner once more, leading to the choice – be Revan, the Sith Lord, or Revan, the Prodigal Knight.

And yes, I know, this is the same thing we see with Bastila later. In some ways, that’s the point. Choosing the light or the dark is not one you make once and are one that path forever. It is a constant, repeated choice, one that must be made, again and again. It’s something that has to been affirmed and reaffirmed, because it will always come up again. Here, it’s just “we offer you power and loyal servants,” while Bastila has the offer of their Force bond – hell, if this were real DLC, I’d say patch in some element to the endgame of Bastila trying to use their bond to lure Revan over to her side on top of things.

What Remains

Darth Malak’s assault on Dantooine was meant to destroy the Jedi. The Ebon Hawk is the one ship that might be able to break the Sith blockade and rescue the people trapped behind their lines, as well as recover irreplaceable Jedi artifacts hidden away at the enclave. And Revan has a need to confront the Jedi Council...

(Available after Leviathan)

This one has always been in my mind as something that, in many ways, we needed to see happen. I look at this as being the necessary confrontation with the Jedi Masters that we need, because they’re using Revan. Revan was reprogrammed to be their weapon against the Sith, and what exactly were they going to do if and when the war was over and they’d no longer had need of Revan?

A mission to Dantooine, done by the ship that could escape the blockade of Taris, to attempt to rescue and recover the Jedi, break the people there out of the iron grip of the Sith, at first does seem somewhat at odds with the portrayal of Dantooine in KOTOR 2, but it still makes sense if you think of the first priority being to evacuate the Jedi and the relics they were saving – the Jedi become the reason that any rescue comes, not the people stuck there. The Jedi and their artifacts are prioritized over the people now under the thumb of the Sith.

Especially if the only real encounter we have is with the Jedi themselves, seeing them in the midst of their exodus, dealing with the Sith occupiers and executioners, all of whom would have once had friends here – I see this also including a Republic military outpost to Dantooine prior to the attack there, because there honestly should have been one anyway (this I chalk up as much to the more limited engine of the game as anything else), and that providing some extra characters to events, which makes it all the more devastating having their former comrades in arms now there to kill them.

As much as this is about confronting the Jedi for the way that they intended to use Revan, this is also an exploration of the divide of Republic and Sith, that those now calling themselves Sith were once the best and brightest of the Republic. Yes, the Jedi failed to come to the aid of the Republic in the midst of the war, but that doesn’t explain the violence these former soldiers engage in against their own people. What made the rank and file Sith soldier agree to this?

That examination of motivation would, I feel, be a part of why the resulting confrontation with the Jedi would matter so much – what drove Revan? What drove the Sith? What drove the Jedi? Because they mindwiped Revan and implanted them with a personality to use them as a weapon. They didn’t “turn an enemy to their cause.” They violated Revan in an effort to use them. When the war was over, what did they really think would happen?

Specifically, we need to confront Zhar, who, given Kreia’s utter disdain for him in KOTOR 2, I get the impression that he was the major proponent of this idea. His actions may have been justified as “for the greater good,” but it always seems like the greatest of morally questionable actions are justified with those words. Do we confront him with rage, forgiveness, or... something else? Because this is a case where I can see both condemning him to death and condemning him to live as a punishment. I could even see this being a case of him bowing to Revan’s judgment, and no option having a light side/dark side shift, because this isn’t about the Force. This is about justice.

Whether or not the Jedi admit it, a life was taken the day they implanted a personality into Revan’s body. The Jedi need to be called out and recognize that they do not have clean hands after what they’ve done.

Revan’s Shadow

Although Revan’s legacy, the Star Forge and the Sith army, have been defeated, there are still questions of Revan’s journey. There was more to it than Star Maps. The crew of the Ebon Hawk reunite on the planet Belkadan to find out more of the Rakatan Empire, and its ties to the dark side of the Force. And along the way, Revan will find more of their lost past...

(Post-Game)

The fact is, we get very little of Revan in the game proper, little about who they were as a person before the fall. This is conceptually to hide the fact that the player IS Revan, of course, but... It creates a lot of little issues for me – I mean, like half of these prospective DLCs are about expanding something of Revan’s motives and past. Obviously, this is a blank slate for the player, because they wanted to leave this open for us to decide, but they DID make a few definitions of who Revan was with the existing content, with the case of the Star Map on Kashyyyk.

And for me, personal identity is a big lingering question for this character – again, I’m choosing to ignore the handling of Revan as a character in The Old Republic, and I’m gonna include the tie-in novel in that, so no one is allowed to say “the novel said [x]!”

This is someone whose entire concept of who they are is in question once they learn that they are a constructed self, created by the Jedi Council as a weapon. Who ARE they? Who have they chosen to be, and, if they could reclaim the parts of themselves that they lost with the Jedi’s mind wipe, would they? Obviously, there’s no time in the main plot to focus on these questions, but I feel like this would eat at them afterwards, leading them to having to find answers. And what kind of friends would the others be if they let Revan do this alone?

I picked Belkadan pretty much because it’s an out of the way planet that has been identified as part of the Rakata’s Infinite Empire, so it made as much sense as any planet to be the site of this. I mean, the involvement of the Infinite Empire is certainly a good option for a place that questions who Revan is.

This would be a place where Revan had gone, after the Mandalorian Wars, a place where they were trying to connect to the Force, to understand the questions – why did the Jedi Council believe they shouldn’t be involved in an existential threat? Why is Revan drawn to these Star Maps and the destination they point to? What awaits them if they go, and what will change about them? What answers are to be found in asking an energy field that can offer no direct response?

Obviously, I’m thinking in terms of finding recordings of Revan, so requiring a voice for Revan – Rino Romano did the little soundbites when male Revan interacts with things, while I don’t know who did the voice bites for female Revan, so they’d be options, or new VA’s altogether. While part of me does want to go forward and make Revan a fully voiced protagonist (because I’m just used to that nowadays), I could accept this as being something only for old!Revan, not present!Revan.

The idea is simply to explore the driving motivations of Revan and decide plainly who Revan wants to be now. I kinda see the ending reach a point of ‘hey, you can reclaim your old memories, you can decide what personality is dominant, what do you want?’ and Revan being able to choose who they will be from here on out.

This is also a good place to require at least Bastila and Carth. Obviously I’m kinda leaning more into the light side ending for this, but... Well, the dark side endings tend to be untenable for future content anyway – Revan as the reclaimed Sith Lord, leading the army against the Republic was never really a viable future, because the Republic had to survive. So yeah, we’re gonna take the easy route and assume light side here. So Bastila and Carth, as Revan romances, would also have a contribution to make, building on the questions of “I’m in love with the person who was Darth Revan, can I accept this?” Like I said, a lot of questions that the game sidestepped, and this one matters for the sake of the relationship being able to continue after the ending of the game.

The Rakatan Prize

The Unknown World – Rakata Prime, Lehon – has become a subject of a great many conversations. Now that the Star Forge is gone, the planet is accessible, and many are eager to investigate its mysteries and forgotten technology. Having had firsthand experience, the Republic has asked the crew of the Ebon Hawk to return...

(Post-Game)

And then, there’s the Rakata. Not that Star Wars isn’t full of ancient empires that rose and fell millennia ago, but this was KOTOR’s contribution. And really, they’re almost superfluous – hell, if the Unknown World were rewritten so that the Rakata had gone extinct, the only thing that really would be necessary would be finding a way into the temple. I kinda think that would even tighten things up a little, especially given how often I’ve hit the level cap before meeting the Council of Elders.

The Rakata are a mystery, and the idea here is to investigate that. Build up the whole element of the Rakata having lost their connection to the Force, and the fact that they’re trying to explore this (because we’re assuming light side against here and that the Elders survived, including the scientists investigating this).

Because this is one of those things that stands out in Star Wars lore, when beings are stripped of their Force connections. Ulic Qel-Droma, the Exile, this is something that is traditionally a case of an individual, not a species.

We also have the remains of a galactic empire to examine here. If a species once ruled the galaxy, it’s inevitable that there are those who would see that empire be reborn. The threat of this DLC becomes this group who aspire to reconquer the galaxy using the mind transfer technology that puts the Rakatan prisoner in that white space box that would allow them to trap the minds of Jedi and other Force users to take their bodies and use them to go forth and conquer the galaxy.

Ultimately, the question’s going to be whether or not to restore their connection to the Force – do the Rakata, a race of dominators of the galaxy, whose humbling by the forces of nature has not managed to truly change them, deserve a second chance, or should they have their attempt to restore their own connections to the Force wiped out, leaving them vulnerable to an inevitable extinction?

Because this is one of the big things with Revan, the idea of redemption, change, second chances. Does Revan extend this chance to these people, people who clearly have more than a few members who have no interest in peaceful coexistence? But if not, do they deserve to be condemned to extinction?

And, as a bonus...

Romance Content – Bisexual Carth, Bisexual Bastila, Gay Canderous, extended Juhani romance

Because Carth and Bastila should be bisexual, and Juhani’s romance deserves to be more proper. Meanwhile, Canderous should totally be an option as well, and yeah, I’m gonna be selfish here and say that he should be gay, rather than bi (because, again, I’m ignoring the novel, there is no wife). Because this means that there’s a favoring for same-sex romances, and that never happens. My list, my way. Star Wars is gay culture.

#dg rambles #dg talks video games #dg's hypothetical dlc #knights of the old republic #kotor

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mahalzevran · 5 years

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DA 20+ Questions

Tagged by @antivan-surana thanks! Tagging @situationnormal @the-dread-doggo @acepavus @aroundofgwent @lakambaeni @kxnways @fuckbioware (no pressure ofc) and anyone who wants to?

The rest is under a read more because it’s long

01) Favourite game of the series?

Origins, only because you got less and less op as a mage as the games went on. I love all the games tbh.

02) How did you discover Dragon Age?

My friend got my sister into it. They kept talking and talking about it so finally I was like “ok lets see what the big deal is” and here I am now

03) How many times you’ve played the games?

I’ve done Origins twice fully, DA2 four times fully (omg I didn’t realize this until now lol) and DA:I just once fully. I have one unfinished playthrough of Origins with a Cousland, and I’m in the middle of maybe two of DA:I. I think I’ve gone back and replayed certain parts of both Origins and DA:I plenty of times.

04) Favourite race to play as?

Elf I guess? Though I’ve only fully played as a human and elf. I’m in the middle of a dwarf playthrough and I’m thinking of doing a qunari one in the future. It might change idk.

I just really liked playing as an elf in Origins so that’s why I got into elves. But the funny thing is, I wasn’t even thinking of playing as an elf when I played for the first time. I wanted to play as a human. I just did it on a whim.

05) Favourite class?

Mage, hands down. Realistically, they’re the most versatile class. They can do range and melee since anyone can learn how to fight with weapons. But the last two games won’t let you so :)

Also, this stems from the fact that I’ve been a harry potter fan since I could remember.

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

In my full, proper playthroughs that I’ve finished, it’s slightly different but still the same basic ideas. Sided with mages, agreed with Anders, etc.

But I am planning to try an evil playthrough in the future so

07) Go-to adventuring group?

DA:O (I have two)

Leliana, Wynne, Shale - the OG crew; they were my main crew in my first playthrough and it was a pretty even party

Zevran, Leliana, Alistair - the elf crew; esp. with Rhian they’re all elves because I saw a theory that Leliana is half elf and I’m down

DA2

It’s a mixed bag. If I’m not playing as a mage, I usually take Anders a lot because we need a healer and Merrill can’t heal. I tend not to take Sebastian as much after I max his friendship. After Sebastian, I take Aveline the least. Other than that I just mix it up. Unless I’m romancing someone, then I take them every time.

I’d love to take Anders, Fenris, and Merrill out more often but I hate how mean they all are to each other (looking @ u bioware 👀)

DA:I

My first playthrough, I mixed it up a lot in the beginning but then I ended up bringing Solas, Cole, and Blackwall a lot near the end for some reason?

I love taking Vivienne, Dorian, and Solas out, especially if I’m playing a mage, because it’s such a pretty fireworks show

In general though, if I’m romancing someone I take them with me almost always.

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

I think it’s a tie between Rhian and Lu.

09) Favourite romance?

To no one’s surprise, it’s Zevran :3

Solas is second because I just really like that angst.

10) Have you read any of the comics/books?

I’ve read The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak, and Until We Speak (because someone gifted me the Omnibus) and The Calling.

I also have Hard in Hightown, which I should probably read lol, and the art book of inquisition.

11) If you read them, which was your favourite book?

The Calling solely because of my mom Fiona and my dad Duncan.

12) Favourite DLCs?

Awakening because I love everyone and its also really funny that Rhian, who is 19 at that point, had to basically babysit people older than her and also run a whole arling.

I love both Legacy and Mark of the Assassin. Mark of the Assassin was really funny (though I hated the stealth part). I love Legacy specifically because when I was fighting Corypheus, both Varric and Anders K.O.’d and it was just me and Carver. It was a special family moment bringing down a whole entire magister together. I also hc that that was canon and it brought Kaia and Carver closer together.

13) Things that annoy you.

I’m gonna talk about the game bc if this is about the fandom, then that’s a whole other thing.

Anders’ writing for one. It doesn’t make sense that he’d approve of giving Fenris back to Danarius. And also that he wouldn’t tell f!Hawke that he’s bi? Then there’s the fact that Anders, Fenris, and Merrill all don’t get along when they have a lot in common.

Anything that was written by Lukas Krisdkjsdhkdk. Aveline, Sera, etc. he did a really bad job.

Also didn’t like that mages got less OP in the last two games.

There’s also the tone-deafness? Dorian, a brown man, saying slavery is ok. And also there’s the dialogue between Solas and Vivienne where Solas supposedly “owns” Vivienne. I think he says something like “may you learn”? Solas, a white person, saying this to Vivienne, a black woman, when there’s obvious colorism in Thedas? I think not.

There’s probably other but I can’t think of them right now.

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

Orlais is too snooty and Ferelden doesn’t season their food. I pick Seheron and Laysh because that’s where the Asians are at.

15) Templars or mages?

Mages

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

Originally, my canonverse was Rhian, Kaia, and Luwalhati. Alden and Bolin were part of an AU. Then Alden finagled his way in there, then I decided to have Bolin in there too. So now i have twin Hawkes and Bolin is part of the Inquisition (if he’s a companion or not, I haven’t thought about)

I have plenty of other OCs that I’m planning on, but they’re currently sorted into a different universe.

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

Pikamon for the Origins mabari. It’s a mix between the names of my two dogs, Pikachu and Cinnamon

Cinnachu for the DA2 mabari, also a mix of Pikachu and Cinnamon.

Lu’s mount is the royal sixteen (hart), which is given to you by Clan Lavellan if you manage to keep them alive iirc, and its name is Luntian, the tagalog word for green which is her favorite color. (In a teen!Lu AU, her mount is the bog unicorn bc she’s an edgelord)

18) Have you installed any mods?

It would be more surprising if I didn’t. How else would I manage to have my characters look like the’re poc?? And also get rid of whitewashing and have some continuity. I usually just do cosmetic mods if it’s my first playthrough. Then I do like “cheats” after I finish the game fully.

Fun fact, I once spent like 2+ hrs modding Origins to have the Zev romance the way I want. I also stayed up until like 5am trying to make Solas look like his concept art lol (it didn’t really work)

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

Rhian didn’t not want to become a warden. She read about them and thought they were an honorable order, but she didn’t expect to ever have a chance to become one. Her goal was to just go up in the Circle hierarchy, maybe even become First Enchanter. Then when the time came, she didn’t really have much of a choice.

20) Hawke’s personality?

Kaia is blue and Alden is purple

21) Did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

At first, I didn’t get what the big deal was with crafting. It didn’t seem fun at all lol. Then I tried it and was hooked. I don’t have them matching, but I do tend to try to match my Inquisitor with their LI in some way.

My usual procedure for armor in Inquisition is like this. I make everyone wear heavy armor and pick the materials that have the highest attributes, not caring how ridiculous the colors are. Then I go to tint them using a guide for each companion’s color scheme. This is the same for helmet but I usually have them turned off or have no one wearing one.

The only exception is Varric, Cole, and Blackwall. I have Varric wear the rogue armor that looks like his DA2 outfit, and Cole and Blackwall wear the Grey Warden heavy armor. I tint the grey warden armor using a guide for its color scheme.

I have Bull, Vivienne, and Cole wear their unique helmets.

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

Rhian - She’d probably want to re-do how she told Zevran that she wasn’t exactly dead.

Kaia - Taken Quentin’s threat more seriously and killed him before he got to Leandra

Alden - He has no regrets

Luwalhati - wouldn’t have taken Sam and Wis with her so they wouldn’t have had to have died in the conclave explosion

Bolin - None, all of his decisions led him to Dorian and he’s happy with that.

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

They’re all at least part Seheron?

I also hc that neither Carver nor Bethany die because Kaia was able to cast a barrier on both of them before the ogre got them. Then they both became Grey Wardens because Carver contracted the taint in the expedition and wouldn’t join the Wardens unless Bethany came with him too.

Another hc I have is that Sebastian didn’t leave when Anders was spared and stayed to help out. But he went his separate way after because he still didn’t approve of sparing him.

Oh shoot, I almost forgot. The most against canon thing I’ve done probably? Rhian didn’t do the Ritual but she did slay the archdemon without dying. Rhian’s an arcane warrior, so when she slayed it, she was partway in the fade. Being partway into the fade was enough for her essence, I guess, to survive it. But she’s not mortal anymore and kind of a spirit now? So she periodically has to chill in the fade because being in the real world takes a toll on her.

25) Who did you leave in the Fade?

In the game, it was Stroud. I killed Loghain and no way is Alistair gonna be trapped in there. Fiona will be sad. So I made Alistair king in the game only, so Stroud was the one that was left.

This is another off canon thing I did. In my actual canon, Alistair is the warden contact. The Hawke that comes to the Inquisition is both Kaia and Alden. Alden brings Fenris with him because he doesn’t go anywhere without his Boo-Boo. Bethany and Carver also come because Weisshaupt was being weird and it seemed like they would be safer in the Inquisition. Lu + her party, Alistair, Kaia, Alden, Fenris, Bethany, and Carver all come to Adamant. Because there’s so many people, everyone was able to escape the Fade. No one is left behind.

26) Favourite mount? The nugs! All of them :)

Though I don’t really use the mounts lol

#tag meme #whew this was really long omg #thanks for tagging though!#about me

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weedsekatzefollowers · 6 years

Text

First of all, an explanation.

WK Followers has been in development for six years. It’s nearly complete, but release is still some time away. Why?

I’d like to start this off by saying that I started conceptualizing this mod as soon as I got my hands on Skyrim back in ‘11. I didn’t have a computer back then (I was still playing on my XBox), so I’d write manuscripts and stories on my crappy laptop. When I got a better laptop a year later, I went straight to work. Skyrim was - just like its predecessors - a wonderful world, full of so much potential, but unfortunately it fell a little... flat... in the story department. I wanted to change that.

But I barely knew where to start. Of course, I knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea how to implement it. And thus started my year-long journey of familiarizing myself with the Creation Kit. Even after all these years, I still find new ways of optimizing things, and this absolutely needs to be done before I can even think of clicking that “Submit mod” button on the Nexus.

Example (it gets pretty technical at this point, so feel free to skip ahead if you rather wouldn’t bother with this):

What you see here is the dialogue view. This is were dialogue’s written, voice files added, and so on. It’s also a prime example of sloppy work. I had watched a tutorial once, followed along with it for a single quest, and then forgot everything essential about it and just went on with writing everything down all nilly willy. Every quest, with the exception of the one I mentioned, looks like this. It’s a single top-level dialogue branch with a lot of stuff cramped in there. Why’s that a problem? Well, I’m sure there’s other reasons I haven’t discovered yet. But what I realized far too late was that some dialogue choices simply would not show up. Once there were more than six choices with a higher character count than 70, you would not be able to see the last three choices in-game. So I watched the tutorial again, and lo and behold, answers are supposed to go into their own branch, like this:

... Which is obviously more overseeable and also doesn’t conjure up any more in-game errors.

(Continue here, if you skipped ahead.)

Right now, fixing this up for thousands and thousands of dialogue lines is what’s eating up most of my time. The Creation Kit is pretty unstable, and breaking up links between dialogue topics makes it crash rather often. Every time this happens, I’ll have to load up my mod again, which can take up to five (!) minutes. It’s tedious work. Also, while I’m doing this, I usually check my spelling and grammar as well. I’m multilingual, and although I’d like to think my English is pretty fluent, every now and then I stumble over the odd little error. Furthermore, I’m debugging quite a lot of my scripts these days. Things break, it happens. People have their computers set up differently, not everything’s going to run smoothly. But once these bugs break my quests or the game, I’m drawing the line. Script bloating? Not under my watch. Fortunately, those troubles are resolved fairly quickly. Then of course, there’s model and texture problems.

Six years is a long time. Popular models and textures came and went, and I constantly changed the looks of my followers. But that was never enough for me, I wanted them to look somewhat unique and true to their quirks, traits and background stories. Well, as it turns out, my laptop had other plans. When it died on me, it took the entire first version of my mod with it, the above mentioned included. I had to start from scratch again. I was heartbroken, just about ready to give up (especially because merging .nifs is a pain in the ass). But after a couple of weeks, I pieced myself back together and began anew. ... That was about the time when I explored the Nexus further and found out more about permissions and asset use. You see, I treated the Nexus like an All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet. I took whatever tickled my fancy and never even thought about asking for permission to use it. And oh boy, was it hard for me to message the mod authors about the whole permission issue. Those people had accomplished everything I was trying to do. I don’t know why, but I kept on fearing they’d reject me because I hadn’t shared anything about my plans yet. I was wrong, of course. Some of them were incredibly nice about it, others less so. But I mostly got what I wanted. That being said though... I still need to get permission for three assets I’m currently using. Two of those authors haven’t been on the Nexus in a very long time. I’ve messaged them on there, but the messages haven’t been read yet. Some time ago I heard there’s some sort of timeframe during which an author has to log into the Nexus. Once these six months have expired without them logging in, you are allowed to just freely take those assets. True or not, under no circumstances am I gonna do that. Once the mod is polished up, I’ll try to reach these authors again. If I don’t get any answers, I’ll simply replace those models and textures. Textures haven’t been optimized yet. ... Which leads to an annoying bug that prevents the facial textures from loading if you have a ton of other high-res textures installed. The entire face appears pitch black, then. Except for the eyes. And scars. And the inside of the mouth. It’s the stuff of nightmares, I tell ya. Unused world building meshes and textures haven’t been removed from the Creation Kit and data folders yet. It’s a big mod. We don’t need unnecessary resources crammed in there. Some dungeons haven’t been optimized yet. ... Mainly because I hate room bounds and portals. No matter how close I line these damn boxes up, it never works out. I’ll get to it... eventually. I want to make sure there’s absolutely no continuity errors or plot holes in my stories. ... Because I’m trying to be as lore-friendly as possible and I can’t stand bad writing. In its time, WK Followers saw three different hard drives. Some data files might be missing. Although I’ve not run into any errors regarding this, I’ll still need to check if this might cause troubles. ... And actually I’m dreading this one the most. Two of my old hard drives are entirely destroyed. Can’t access anything on these and since I was very unorganized back then, I might not be able to recover them at all.

And finally... the mod hasn’t been cleaned yet. I’m somewhat familiar with Tes5Edit. This is no big deal. I simply want to wait until I’m done changing things up in my .esp before I get to cleaning. That’s why there’s no release date for the mod yet. But I plan on giving (at the very least) weekly updates on this blog now. And if you did stick around up until now, well that’s great! Thanks so much for your interest in what I’m doing! Here, have a little sneak peek at what’s coming to your computers soon as a little welcome gift! :)

#Skyrim #WK Followers #TES: V #Developer Journal #Modding

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