Wrye Musings

Contents

•  Gaming Business

•  ES Community

•  Licenses, Etc.

•  Etiquette

•  Forum Archives

•  Oblivion

•  Wrye Bash

•  Cobl Mods

•  Oblivion Mods

•  Oblivion Tech

•  Morrowind

•  Wrye Mods

•  Team Mods

•  Hosted Mods

•  Notes and Utils

•  Wrye Mash

Monkey God of Modding

About Wrye Musings

Wrye Musings primarily hosts my Morrowind and Oblivion mods, utilities and tech notes. Morrowind players should jumMost viewers will find the Wrye Bash (Oblivion) and Wrye Mash (Morrowind) utilities to be of most interest. However, you'll also find several other minor and major mods here – several of which are considered to be must have by many experienced players.

 

In the future I may have a small amount of material on the gaming business. (No, I'm not in it, but I'm considering it.) See Gaming Business for that.

 

About Wrye

Wrye is the famous Monkey God of Modding (for Morrorwind and Oblivion games that is – Wrye has to maintain a pose of some humility or the other gods get on his case). His earthly form is that of a Japanese Snow Monkey. He likes to hang around in mountain springs along with all of the other snow monkeys, surrounded by his harem of "Lara" monkeys. For more info (and the all important Zookeeper's Warning) see Wrye@UESP.

 

PS: The name is Wrye, like "Rye"!

 

Status [12/5/2009]

I'm retired from Oblivion and Morrowind modding. I am considering going into the gaming business, but not in the usual way. Rather I'm particularly interested in what I call "mega modding" – a business model built specifically to foster/reward very heavy modding. I plan to post more about that later – just as soon as I beat World of Warcraft. (I.e. five years form now. ... Well hopefully sooner.)

 

News Flash: World of Warcraft is very addictive! Especially to somewhat obsessive monkey gods. I'm not sure it was a good thing for the hot springs managers to add internet connected, waterproof high rez PCs at the hot tub. Well, probably I'll slow down once I have all 9 of my characters to level 80, with fully leveled professions, etc.

 

Project Status [12/5/2009]

I'm very pleased to see that several of my long time projects are being carried on by other folks now that I have retired. My immediate plan is to continued to host docs here for those projects. I would like a more permanent open source project management solution. Which I will work on as soon as I beat World of Warcraft.

 

Site Status [12/5/2009]

I'm in the process of rebuilding the site. Main slowdown at this point is that I need to update all of the mod doc files to point to the new site and then upload them to one of the favored mod download sites. And of course, world of warcraft playtime!

 

 

Gaming Business

Gaming business notes.

 

Mega Modding

I'm interested in what I call "mega modding" – i.e. very large scale mod friendly gaming. From my brief experience in attending the Austin Game Developers conference, modding is something that is very poorly appreciated in the gaming business. It seems that very few people in the business realize how large modding can be. Which means that there's a large business opportunity that has been largely untapped. More on this later.

 

Austin GDC

For the lunch and beer crew (and other folks) that I met at the Austin GCC...

 

The page below is geared towards Oblivion and Morrowind mod players, hence it is lacking some background information that is well known by these players.

 

The main point that needs to be communicated to an outside audience is that mods are not simply minor tweaks or re-implementations of well known themes. Rather, mods for these games provide a vast expansion and improvement over the the original game world. In short, a "normally" modded Oblivion installation provides a 2 to 4 times content expansion over the original game.

 

Such a large expansion is not achieved simply by an aggregation of separate contributions, but rather is the result a large integrative effort involving the development of special libraries, several complex integration tools, and careful community organization. Rough analogies can be made to creation of large open contribution projects such as linux and Wikipedia.

 

To explain this a bit further, I think that I'll need provide a brief tour of a typical modded Oblivion installation, and cover the tools and community efforts that lay behind that. I'll have that posted by Friday 9/25.

 

If you would like to check around before then, then you might check the TesNexus Top 100 Lists, Official Oblivion Mods Forum, dev/akm's Mods, UESP: Recommended Mods.

 

In the mean time, it was a pleasure meeting you and thanks for dropping by my web site!

 

..Wrye

 

Oops: That's a bit dated. I still need to write that up, but I won't have time for a little while.

 

PS: Our buddy Jorge is now employed at Obsidian. Gratz man!

 

ES Community

Mod making/playing community issues: Etiquette, modding "politics" and some miscellaneous history.

 

Licenses, Etc.

Cathedral vs. Parlor

•  Cathedral vs. Parlor Metaphor

•  Arguments for Open Distribution and Open Modification licenses.

•  Proposed Open Modding License (OML)

 

Wrye Modding Licenses 1.0

•  Standard licenses for modders.

 

Etiquette

Somewhat Acerbic Modders Dictionary

•  A somewhat acerbic categorization of various types of modders, forum members and other community phenomena.

 

How To Be Ignored

•  Are forum members showing a distressing tendency to reply to your posts? Fear not! This short guide supplies many hints and inside tricks for keeping those pesky posters from interrupting a long series of posts on your part!

 

How Not to Make a Request

•  How not to request changes and features for my mods and tools.

 

Forum Archives

Britney is Darkflame?

•  It was suggested that Britney is actually the notorious DarkFlame. My thoughts on this, and a brief exchange with Britney before the thread was deleted.

 

Oblivion

Mods and tools for the Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion.

 

Wrye Bash

Wrye BashTips and FAQs (UESP)Download (TesNexus)Discuss (ESF)Recent Changes

Wrye Bash is a Swiss Army Mod Tool! I.e., it does a bunch of stuff, so it's kind of hard to categorize! However, in general, it does two types of things:

•  Install/Uninstall mods from zip, rar and 7z archives.

•  Manage Oblivion mods and savegames in a general way. E.g.:

•  Sort rename, reorder, preview, etc.

•  Load savegame masters

•  Separate savegames into profiles.

•  Provide a few special purpose functions. E.g.:

•  Import NPC levels (useful for Oscuro's, Francesco's and similar releveling mods)

•  Import PC face from one game to another.

•  Fix the door/flame animation bug that occurs around 200 hours.

•  Now managed by PacificMorrowind and Raziel. Docs posted here may be out of date.

•  See download site for latest docs and news.

 

Mods Tab

 

Cobl Mods

Common Oblivion (COBL)Download (PES)Download (TesNexus)Discuss (ESF)Recent Changes

•  An esm library of shared resources for Oblivion modders and players.

•  Includes:

•  Alchemical Sorter

•  Clock and Denock

•  Lore Books

•  Tamrielic Ingredients

•  Salmo the Baker

•  Tarnsman's Beer!

•  Luggage

•  Options Menu

•  Etc.

•  Translations

•  German by ThreeD (up to date)

•  Russian by Koru_Reikon (v 1.38)

•  Now managed by Haama. Docs posted here may be out of date.

•  See download site for latest docs and news.

 

Salmo the Baker (Cobl)

•  Salmo the Baker (Cobl) is now (as of Cobl 1.33) included in the Cobl distribution.

 

Real Hunger, Cobl 1.6.1Download (TesNexus)

•  Cobl version of Real Hunger.

 

Oblivion Mods


Wrye Morph

Combat Fumbling 06Download (PES)

•  No more casually scrolling through your menus while being attacked! This mod causes you to fumble (i.e., be paralyzed) if you spend more than a few seconds in menus while under attack.

 

Knights of the Nine Patch 02

•  Obsolete! Use the Unofficial Official Mods Patch instead.

•  Fixes the start of the Kynareth quest in Knights of the Nine.

 

Landmarks, w Wells 1.11Download (TesNexus)

•  Expands PhoenixAmon's Landmarks by adding landmarks for Ayleid Wells.

•  Translations: Français

 

Must Train 0.03Download (PES)

•  Now you must train in order to level up. Aka, yet another approach to levelling.

 

PC Sleep Disrober 0.03Download (PES)

•  Causes PC to undress while sleeping. Aka. PC Sleeps Nude.

 

Power Exhaustion 0.01

•  Obsolete! Use Cobl + Wrye Bash's version of Power Exhaustion instead.

•  You can now use (Vanilla Oblivion) greater powers at any time. But use them too frequently and you'll suffer serious harm or death.

 

Rational Names 2.04Download (TesNexus)

•  "Rationalizes" names of books and magic items to more descriptive, easily sorted and distinguished versions.

•  Note is an extension of Moho's Ranked Spells (which it replaces) and makes use of DoofDilla's excellent recolored/retextured potions (meshes/textures not included – download separately.)

 

Salan's Cellar 0.09Download (PES)

•  A moderately nice pocket dimension in the Imperial Tower style with plenty of storage area. Balances uberness of pocket dimensionality somewhat with penalties for use. Must be at least Apprentice level mage with some fame and a moderately strong constitution to use.

 

Summon Bed 0.01Download (PES)

•  Summons an attractive double bed to player's current location. (If that location is not a major city and player is not in combat or trespassing, and if player is at least moderately wealthy!)

 

Wrye Leveling 07Download (TesNexus)Discuss

•  Wrye Leveling removes usage and training based skill leveling altogether and replaces them with an all-at-once level up based on your ability to pay. (Under the theory that gold == experience.)

•  For each levelup, you have a fixed number of points to spend on attributes and skills. Attribute points can be spent on any attribute, regardless of what skills. I.e. no power leveling.

 

Wrye Morph 29Download (TesNexus)Recent Changes

•  Warning: Complicated! Experimental! Uber! Prone to Conflicts! For Advanced Players Only!

•  Allows the player to morph between an unlimited number of forms, each with their own race, gender, stats, class, factions and equipment. New forms can be created from scratch or copied from existing npcs.

•  When doppelganging, you can choose to physically replace the original, moving to their current position and taking over ownership of their items and cells.

 

Wrye Shivering 0.08Download (PES)

•  Adds a relocatable pair of portals to take you from/to the Shivering Isles after completing the main SI quest. Park one outside your favorite Tamriel home and the other outside your favorite Shivering home! No more commuting problems!

•  Makes both Brellach and Pinnacle Rock visitable (minus Knights of Order).

•  Misc. additional tweaks.

 

Wrye Shivering Death 0.05Download (TesNexus)

•  Improves the death avoidance/recovery award that you receive at the end of the Shivering Isles main quest.

•  Death avoidance is now a permanently active ability (rather than a spell), and will succeed almost all of the time.

•  Not overbalancing though – expect a long walk. In the nude. Through hostile territory. Try not to die again. :)

 

Oblivion Tech

Technical Notes

•  Find my Oblivion technical notes at: UESP: Oblivion Modding.

 

Programmer Resources

•  010 Editor Files – ScreenshotDownload

•  These are pretty dated, but some might find them useful.

•  Scripts and templates for the 010 Hex Editor.

 

Morrowind

Balmora to Fort Frostmoth

Mods and tools for the Elder Scrolls game, Morrowind.

 

Wrye Mods

Wrye World 0-04DownloadImages

•  This is a set of mods that provides, well, a lot of very cool stuff...

•  Erika's Outlet: A one stop shop in Seyda Neen with dynamic stocking/unstocking (i.e., you determine what inventory is displayed).

•  Luggage: A very deep chest that sort of follow you around. It likes pubs, Mage Guild Halls (if you're a member) and Great House Strongholds (if it's your stronghold). An alternative to transportable containers that doesn't require any special actions on reload.

•  Portal Orbs: A set of teleport points covering 33 locations in Vvardenfell.

•  Homebound: Teleport immediately to your great house stronghold.

•  Icarian Flight: A scripted spell that allow you to leap tall buildings and huge swathes of land in a single bound. This is the best way to get around Morrowind.

•  Mystica: A new magick system designed to provide very easy access to scripted spells.

•  Mystica Books: Support for books with dynamtic contents.

•  Enhanced Clothing ESPs: New versions of some popular clothing esps that makes them work with Erika's Outlet, fixes bugs, and modifies names to make items easier to find. (See also Wrye Patches below.)

•  Modding Resources: Deep containers, utility scripts, frame counters, GMST Vaccine, etc.

 

Wrye PatchesDownload

•  Ever been annoyed by having left and right gloves separated in inventory? Or by trying to remember whether it's "Ring of Khajiit" or "Khajiit Ring" Or by having scrolls appear right in the middle of your book collection? Or by having polysyllabic "ex" words as distinguishers of clothing? Or by having no clue as to what "Rusty Key" is used for? Wrye Patches is a "name replacer" that fixes all of these problems and more!

 

Team Mods

Less LoreDownload

•  Adds "not local nolore" tests for a number of generic responses.

•  Removes generic responses that the user is likely to already know and which don't add to the atmosphere of the game.

•  Expands on ManaUser's NoLore mod.

 

LGNPC KhuulDownloadDownload 1.16

•  I did the 1.1 to 1.16 edit on this mod. (Mainly spelling and grammar with a little added background, dialog, etc.)

•  Contribution to LGNPC project.

 

LGNPC Seyda Neen 0.32Download (PES)

•  This is an extensive rewrite, updating, and extension of Joe Stevens' class LGNPC Seyda Neen.

•  It add less generic dialog to most of the NPCs in Seyda Neen as well as a small social quest.

•  Upgrade to Joe Stevens' classic dialog mod.

 

LCV Wolverine Hall 01-04Download

•  Joint project by Princess Stomper and Wrye.

•  This is a medium sized expansion of Wolverine Hall, the Imperial Fort on the southern edge of Sadrith Mora.

•  Features include:

•  Added housing and improved schedules for all NPCs living and working in Wolverine Hall.

•  A trader with a wide selection, and a local tavern with a rentable room. If you have NOM installed, then you'll be able to rent the room for periods up to 120 days.

•  Public baths... Just the place to unwind after a long day of hacking, slashing and arguing with your faction boss!

•  Additional mods are required! Read the help file!

 

Living Cities of Vvardenfell Version 03-13Download (PES)

•  This is an update of Helios' classic scheduling mod. It adds schedules for many of the NPCs in Morrowind and locks doors at night.

•  Major Changes

•  Complete Script Regeneration: All schedules (except for Training scripts) are now generated from the source text file, which is included with this release. Script generation and import is performed by the Import: LCV Schedules function in Wrye Mash (v0.39 or later).

•  Idles fixed. NPCs should move around a lot more now.

•  Nighttime sleeping responses just about everywhere.

•  Recent Changes

•  LCV Schedule Markers. Schedules change in public buildings in Balmor and Seyda Neen.

•  Sleep/evening lighting.

•  More towns. (Pelagiad full. Others lighting only.)

 

NOM 2.13-01Download (PES)Recent Changes

•  A small upgrade to Taddeus and Nymeria's awesome Necessities of Morrowind!

•  New/Improved

•  Dialog spell checking and a little grammar/structure cleanup.

•  Use utensils in place as well as inventory.

•  New fixed grills (replaces miners grills in the world).

•  Better water sensing for bedrolls and campfires in interior cells.

•  Misc. script cleanup and hopefully a little performance gain.

 

Sri Alchemy List Patch 0-01Download

•  Patches Srikandi's Alchemy Bloodmoon to not use scripted leveled list commands.

 

Hosted Mods

BSA Browser 0.5Download

•  This is Argent's BSA Browers, which is a java gui wrapper around Ghostwheel's BSAPack command line program. Since both Argent and Ghostwheel have now departed the scene, I'm hosting this combined tool here.

 

French Maid OutfitDownload

•  French Maid Outfit by Drakron. A while back, I agreed to host this when Euro-Morrowind went down. Then Drakron put it on Tesmods. Months later, that was down too, so I put it back. Lo and behold, it seems to be my most popular download (and that's when the only public link was in a BB Clothes forum topic!)

•  Note: Check out Wrye World too. Erika's Outlet in Wrye World sells the French Maid outfit as well as other popular clothing mods.

 

ROV World 0.01Download

•  ROV World by Rodrigo Vinholo extends Wrye World by adding homebound locations for Caius Cosades House and the three vampire lairs.

 

Notes and Utils

GMST VaccineDownload

•  Prevent GMST contamination from every happening!

 

Wrye Modding Notes

•  This is a semi-random collection of advanced modding observations. This is not an introduction - it's more like an addenda to existing guides such as Ghan Buri Ghan's Morrowind Scripting for Dummies.

 

Wrye Notes: Doubling Explained

•  This is a long document that explains why doubling, deleting happens and how to deal with it. It's long and will scare newbies! You've been warned!

•  The curative programs proposed in this doc are partially realized in Wrye Mash.

 

Wrye Demo 0.06Download

•  Chronological Ordering: Ajira's Mage's Guild quests and Larrius Varo's "little story".

 

Wrye Mash

Wrye Mash 84Download (TesNexus)DiscussRecent Changes

•  Major Features

•  Prevent Doubling! Mash is the only tool with the ability to prevent doubling and related reference errors.

•  Repair All: Mash is the only tool with the ability to automatically repair references on game files. And it deletes orphan contents, and "debris" globals, npcs.

•  Manage Mods, Save Games and the Load List: Rename, duplicate, hide, and reorder mods and save games.

•  Import/Export Dialog: for easy spell checking and editing.

•  Merge Leveled Lists: Merge and resequence leveled lists.

•  Ref Removers: Remove troublesome references from a save game.

•  Ref Replacers: Replace one set of refs with another. NOM that Mod!

•  Doc and Journal Browsers: Easily review the docs for any mod and/or the journal for any save game.

•  Manage Replacers: Easily apply and remove texture, etc. replacers.

•  Repair World Map

•  Minor Features

•  Mods: Convet to esm/esp, sort records, generate schedule scripts.

•  Saves: Extract map notes, remove selected references and other records.

•  Copy the masters list to the clipboard for forum posts, etc.

•  Groups: Organize your mods by groups (Fix, Quest, Gameplay, etc.)

•  Recent Changes

•  INI Tweaker

•  Savegame screenshots.

•  Savegame profiles.

•  Help button.

•  Misc. tweaks.

 

   Wrye Mash