» Sun Jun 10, 2012 7:44 pm
As one who does utilize it, it seems to me that when they developed it, they could/should have seen where it was employed in the modded games and done quite successfully. Such as the works of Emma and Grumpy.
Two things that made it extremely successful with the modding of the late Grumpy, who gave us "Companion Share" in Morrowind and Emma, who gave us an indepth mod that featured Morrowind's first marriage and an indepth character in choices for the spousein The White Wolf of Lokken Mountain( Laurenna for male PC's, her brother Wulfren for female PC's). These should have been the model for what we did get.
Companion share for the companion and marrying characters should have been just a bit more free. Remove the limitations of them being hard wired for non/light armor/heavy armor and I feel many would be happy. If for no other reason than the aesthetics of how their spouses would look for certain situations. Companion Share mod in our older games made this great, because I could effortlessly give the character fine clothing for meeting the King, armor for battle, or swim clothes or not for dips in grottoes or sea swimming.
As it is in Skyrim, where rings snap to fingers and necklaces, this was a step in the right direction. That we cannot change the clothing but for a few is another. That some when you tell them to sit can actually pull out tankards, bread, and other realistic things was done well. That we cannot really add to that inventory successfully would be an improvement. Fix the companions and spouses to a full Companion Share, and much of the disappointment would be less.
Increase the diversity of who can be married. That so many of the ethnicities were overlooked is just poor, given how many really enjoy their Mer and beast peoples.
In Morrowind, Emma the modder made a full mod where you earned the right to marry your spouse by freeing her peoples from tyranny and her brother from magical enslavement. Her dispostion grew or faltered depending on your choices and your actions, and she also made it so that you just couldn't "bribe" your way into good graces with gold or gift. If you tried, her dispostion would immediately drop and she would chide you for the action. This was realistic and very good modding.
There were also unlocked aspects of a life with her character, that were only unlocked once you wed her or him. This could also be employed for Skyrim. While you couldn't have children in her mod, you did indeed "adopt" two children who were distant relatives from her late father. These were also handled excellently as they possessed the same scheduling and companion share. Feed them, play with them, take them adventuring, and even tell them to go to bed, and they did.
I noticed watching Skyrim spouses carefully that when you marry your spouse in Skyrim, they develop a pattern and schedule.
They will go to different chairs...stir the cook pot. Fiddle with the Alchemy lab and at approximately 11:57 PM, they come upstairs or down and after a "Hello my love." if you are in proximity, they will go to bed on their own. This could be expanded to include their former jobs or even new ones. For those that took fighting wives and husbands, at least they thought to make them quasi-unkillable since they do walk home after the ceremony and after following the spouse fresh from Riften, I noticed that they immediately are at the mercy of the fauna and denizens. They just don't "Fast Travel" home to your new environment. They walk it. Perhaps they could make it so that they utilize the same cart and horse system that is there? Limit the risks, if one will.
The child generator is a good idea, even if the child options are limited at the moment given their almost unilateral look. Perhaps after a Skyrim year, you get the option to instigate the child menu, where a scrolling image of all the available children in the game are there, and you just pick the one that matches what you'd settle for, and get an option bar to give them a name. SInce all the children have varying dialogue, you could for marrying PC's, be given full dialogue to the children of choice. Since they also seem to enjoy their own path of action, aside from assignable tasks, let them do what they already do. Watch them run the streets or have fun. We don't have to have it super detailed to have them grow and such, since we ourselves in the game do not age. But the option to have one or more would fill those rather large and empty manors with more life.
Employ facets of the mod from the past, "The Holiday Mod" where every so many days and weeks, the towns would celebrate an Elder Scrolls lore friendly holiday and the towns changed according to the type of holiday. This would help also with the spouses since birthdays and remembrances will extend the role playing.
I noticed already that certain people in the game will ask you about items you discard. I dropped a chunk of silver ore in Windhelm to prepare to transmute another, and the gal working the forge ran to snatch it until I snatched it first. She then said "Ha, that was close...guess you wanted it afterall." Add more of this to all NPC's. If I drop a gem on a table for the tavern folk, let them snatch it and say thanks. Leave something for your spouse or child, the same could be done with the existing dialogue alone. The Sarethi farm woman already has a grasping animation movement, so this could be given to all for that purpose.
As for it being in the game altogether, at least is serves a minute purpose for those of us that enjoy that sort of thing. Not like the orphanage that doesn't allow adopting. Or an entire land of thieves that aside from killers on the roads, you never see a thief pinching anything. Only when you join them and do it. Even that could be added occasionally. You get a message to come home and your spouse informs you that your home has been robbed. More quests, and could even include tie-ins to others.
