As I was gone from modding for quite some time (because of illness in my family) I know *exactly* what you mean. .

I'm thoroughly enjoying my old addiction, and don't think I would be happy at all for a 'cure' for it.

Then I have some really good news for you, Phaedra

Heneri will play a vital part in the bonus quest line you'll get with Vilja ver 2 - a quest line that will take place after you have finished the original one. And you will also be introduced to some new relatives of hers!

I'll forward your words to my son, who voiceacted Heneri - I'm sure he will be happy to hear that you like her.

Hooray! :celebration: Your son did a really good job on her voice. :goodjob:

Ah yes. I used ruin for ages before I got SI in Feb 2009. The game also got an extra patch after SI so maybe that affected it.

So that's why Heneri spoke in a falsetto! (There's some females named Charlie, although it usually is an abbreviation for a name like Charlette.)

Edit: I mentioned elsewhere that your English pronunciation of a couple of words (Vivec, alchemy) sounded incorrect. Please don't take offense. I was just trying to help your future projects.

Oh, the son actually voiced two male characters in the Vilja-mod, too, so he hasn't only been speaking in falsetto!

And I'm quite grateful that you pointed out my pronunciation errors to me, it's very useful and helpful .

Don't stress yourself over it... People IRL make pronunciation errors all the time, why shouldn't Vilja? Part of her charm, actually ... and while a more perfectionist PC might feel inclined to correct her, it's not really worth it--she's usually off on another subject before he could get a word in edgewise. :talk:

Thank you Emma,
I do recognize we have a lot of common points even if our opinion vary on companion usage. I see companions in a more generic aspect to accommodate a more general player taste and to serve a particular roleplaying in Oblivion. Specialized and story driven companions do not attract me in my gameplay style. I can give you examples of "very popular" companions (Ruined Tale, Legacy, ... Suteric_Dreams romance characters) who never made it in my setup.
I give you example of my current character which is Assassin (stealth character); with CSR I created four companions:
One Imperial Class "Healer"
One Imperial Class "Warrior"
One Wood Elf, "Hunter"
One Breton, "Mage".
I tested all these characters in fights during all the preceeding weeks and I found the most suitable to my character in the Mage Breton !!!

Now if I look at Vijla, Neeshka or Rhianna Redux, what are their class? Are they coming with a set of pre defined spells?

What I look for is a "normal NPC", a character that can fit a lot of rolepalying situations without being overpowered or underpowered or hyper-tweaked.

You know, your words put a big smile on my face, because it reminds me so very much of someone... I see that you registred here in 2007, so maybe the name Grumpy doesn't ring a bell for you...

Grumpy invented the warp-system that all modern companions are based on, both in Morrowind and Oblivion. Grumpy built the first companion templates for others to use, Grumpy made a number of Morrowind companions to cater for various player styles.

He was my closest friend in the ES-community, and I have no idea how many hours we spent on msn discussing "unique" companions with personality versus companions that had so little dialog that the players could roleplay them any way he wanted.

Grumpy would have grinned when he read this and then he would have said: "See there, this clever man agrees with ME!"

Alas, Grumpy passed away in june 2005. Shortly after the release of the only companion where he played part in fleshing out a personality - Thief Companion Constance for Morrowind.



That was on a side-note, but I still wanted to mention it. Because even if I personally enjoy working on 'unique' companions with personality, I both understand and appreciate your point of view. And if I have to choose between a half-done 'fleshed out' companion with a personality or dialog that i don't particularly like or a 'neutral' companion where I can make up the dialog and the personality in my own mind, I definitely prefer the neutral one.

In Morrowind, I always had some of my companions and some of Grumpy's in tow, and in Oblivion, I have found Neeshka (and possibly Rhianna) to be the best equivalents of a Grumpy-companion. So, it's generally me, Vilja (who pvssyrs my ears off) and Neeshka (who is cool and silent but with a little background story that I can choose to use or not use in my roleplay). In my next game I'm going to try out the Dating Mod, not because I particularly want to date a npc but because it's, just like Companion Share and Recruit, an opportunity to interact with the game original npcs.

As for your questions:

Neeshka's class is fighter - you can switch between melee and ranged. She is IMO well balanced, but offers a few services that I find a tad bit overpowered an not in character, so I don't use them. I.e. she can heal you without being a healer, she can recharge your magical equipment, fletch arrows for you (fletching arrows I find matches her character quite OK). but these are optional features so I dont use them.

Rhianna is a mage, but she doesn't really use spells apart from healing (from what I have seen, that is... I haven't used her so much ingame). Instead she has a staff that makes her, well, quite powerfull. But if you put the staff in a container, she won't be... (it's the original Rhianna, haven't used the Redux one)

Vilja is a nord alchemist, which means she is a decent fighter as well. The only spell-casting she uses is for healing - nords are better with an axe than with a spellbook. No extra powers are delivered with her, but later on she will have practiced enough healing to offer some healing for you as well. She has some simple services that are not intended to be over-powered - she'll make simple potions if you give her the right ingredients, she'll go shopping for you but you rarely get things that are worth more than the money you gave her, she'll make you an outfit if you give her a cloth but it's no fancy stuff that you can sell to get rich, it's just there for the immersion. Although she has a story on her own it's not 'forced' on you... parts on it she'll do, herself, as you travel, other parts you have to help her with, but it's up to you to decide where, when and if.

I think that your Breton Mage is probably a better choice than any of these if you play an assassin character. (although the new version of Vilja will have one major advantage... you can fully control her combat behaviour so that she won't rush ahead when you want to sneak). Rhianna I don't know well enough to have a real opinion on, but I think that both Neeshka (if you can disregard her optional services) and Vilja (if you can live with that she has a predefined personality and background) can fit a lot of rolepalying situations without being overpowered or underpowered or hyper-tweaked. Non of them are romance companions, and they won't force you to play the game 'their' way instead of yours. If you get tired of their company, you can leave them behind indefinitely, and just return when you have use for them for a while.

I think you should give them a try

BTW... I recently added two new companions to my group - Valeria and Vincente. I think they might be what you are looking for, as you can tailor their class ingame and they do not come with any story. I have however not tried them out long enough to have a real opinion on how powerful, well-functioning etc they are. And then of course there are the CM Partners, but I'm sure you use them already.



PS ...Grumpy eventually admitted that he, in spite of his opinions, always had at least one of my companions in tow, together with his own.

P PS ...One reason why I think you should actually give Vilja a try: I don't think there exist any companion for Oblivion that resembles of her. I.e. she has very little in common with the "very popular" companions you are refering to. It's like saying that you won't like football because you played guitar once and didn't like it much. If you see what I mean.

*sigh* I miss grumpy.....he revolutionized Companions for Morrowind all to this day, the both of you brought such zest to Morrowind...lora craft..AH im goinna tear..., thank you emma for gracing oblivion with your work :cryvaultboy:

Thank you for your kind words

Although... to be fair, Grumpy never was much involved in Laura Craft (which he was quite contented with, as he didn't particularly like romance companions ). We worked together a lot and always discussed our mods with each other. But we didn't work together all the time. With Laura, the warping was based on Grumpy's work, but it was another excellent scripter, The Other Felix, that implemented most of Laura's other scripted features, including how to set up the kiss animation.

(Hehe, can't even imagine what Grumpy would have said if I had suggested he should help out with a companion kissing animation... I'm sure it would have made me laugh until I had cried, though... )



...

I hope what I posted in my previous post, about companions like Ruined Tails and Viconia, didn't come out wrong... The reason that I don't use them in my game is not that I don't like companions with a story by other authors, it's just that for various reasons, these two have so far not fitted into my gameplay. I tried out Ruined Tails, and the mod placed a burning inn on top of my abode. When forced to choose between my new companion and my dear old abode I must confess that I was heartless enough to ditch the companion and keep the abode :blush: . As for Viconia, I play a female woodelf, Viconia thinks I'm a male and she wants me to court her... That perspective didn't fit in with my PC-character. I'll try out Ruined with my next character, and if I ever start a male character, I'll try out Viconia as well.

Aye I know Laura Craft was your work, it just hit me as nostalgia to be honest recalling your companion mods

Regarding bow/arrows issue: from my observations companions stop shooting arrows when they commanded to wait or wander and have bow/arrows equipped. Heres an example: My companion has bow/arrows equipped and she follows me. I ask her to stand guard or wander, she does so. If I ask her to follow me after that I'm 100% getting the air shooting bug Only cell change will cure this. The same happens when she's in guard or wander mode and she gets attacked. Swoosh, swoosh... Nothing shoots

Now what prevents me from getting this is having my companion have any weapon equipped EXCEPT bow/arrows before starting combat. So in an example above when she wanders with equipped sword or whatever, and gets attacked, she switches to bow and actually shoots. I've played like that for a total of ~20 hours and never got this nasty bug.

Well, I thought maybe this will be useful. Maybe you can make Vilja prefer swords, maces etc and equip bow only when needed?

And my huge appreciation for your work on Vilja. Thank you.

Thank you for that very interesting piece of information, RebelMax!

May I ask what kind of companion you are using? CM Partner? Because it does not match what I have seen in Vilja, which makes it even more interesting. With Vilja, it seems that it's more when something interrupts her that she tend to stop using arrows - it can be a healing spell, or an attack or hit scream or her automatically switching target.. Also, whenever I access her inventory, she tends to top using arrows until we have changed cells. There is some interesting posts on this topic in the wiki, but there they are discussing original oblivion marksmen, how they stop using arrows when they have been sleeping/should be sleeping, so before the original release of Vilja, I spent lots of time moving around her ai-packages, hoping that that would help. But, it didn't.

The most notable thing I have heard of is that two people who don't have Shivering Island also rarely see this problem with Vilja. So I have started to think that SI is somehow involved, and Torrello's post also indicates this.

This is one of the problems I would love to understand and find workarounds for. If you have anything further to add, please be very welcome to do so. Even if we don't solve it now, comparing situations might help along the road.

I'm using Viconia (heavily tweaked by me), who with Vilja, if I get this right, have the same "parent" - Neeshka. Or rather was using, downloading Vilja now


Hm, these actions never provoked this bug for me. My companion doesn't use magic though, so can't elaborate on that. But here's what interesting: when Viconia joined my character, she preferred bow/arrows all the time and, as you've said, switched to them whenever I accessed her inventory. But after, I don't know, 5 hours of play she started to prefer her shortsword. After that I've never seen the bug occur. I still can't understand what made her change her mind. Today they want this, tomorrow that... Girls are girls even in computer games


I have SI installed. Just for the record


It bugs me from the very start of me using companions. Hope that at least some kind of workaround can be implemented.

Ah, Rest in Peace Grumpy, the man with the funny avatar and username that belied his friendly disposition and kind heart. I think he would be glad to know that his memory lives on in your companion mods and all the innovations you and he made with companion mods. I know I definitely used some of his work in Morrowind, and I enjoyed having your Morrowind Children fill the streets so MW cities didn't feel so empty and joyless - though I always worried about that elf girl balancing on the edge of the archway in Balmora (I tried to tell her to get down from there, but she ignored me! The Nerevarine!)


What if I play guitar because I tried football a little and didn't really like it? j/k
I have been keeping an eye on the progress of Vilja and kind of waiting for the ver 2 to be released. I don't think my "main char" Valkar would get along well with a talkative headstrong Nord woman even though he is a Nord and a warrior himself, he is a laconic barbarian-type (very Conan-esque) who would probably reply with "Woman! Are you only silent when you sleep?!?" or something equally offensive.
That said, I have been tailoring a mod list for a new character (leaning towards Breton mage or Dunmer spellsword) for whom she would probably provide an interesting contrast (and good protection) for.

Can't wait to see it finished. I have been looking forward to a companion that has their own personality and your relationship can develop as you go along (not necessarily romance, but something in the way of story arc) or the could become mad at you, glad to see you when you've been separated, etc. One of my all time favorites was Bastila, the female Jedi from KOTOR, I like how those companions (esp KOTOR II: Sith Lords) reacted based on the choices you made.

[quote name='RebelMax' date='08 June 2010 - 05:08 PM' timestamp='1276031315' post='16021058']
I'm using Viconia (heavily tweaked by me), who with Vilja, if I get this right, have the same "parent" - Neeshka. Or rather was using, downloading Vilja now [/quote]

Nah... Viconia is using Sonia's script. Vilja ver 1 is an extensively reworked version of Neeshka. Vilja ver 2, which should be released within 3-10 days, will have a very much different script. Although CdCooley, who has been reworking her scripts, say that upgrading between the versions should work fine, I suggest you take it a bit easy right now... Try out Vilja ver 1 by all means, but keep a Vilja-free save for the soon arriving ver 2. That way you'll know that you won't be suffering from any upgrading issues .


[quote]Hm, these actions never provoked this bug for me. My companion doesn't use magic though, so can't elaborate on that. [/quote]

Vilja doesnt use magic, either (apart from healing herself, of course). But I thought Viconia did use a chameleon spell which she casts on herself just before charging? At least Saerileth and Stoker Wolf do this. Maybe it wasn't added to the Viconia, as she is newer?

[quote]But here's what interesting: when Viconia joined my character, she preferred bow/arrows all the time and, as you've said, switched to them whenever I accessed her inventory. But after, I don't know, 5 hours of play she started to prefer her shortsword. After that I've never seen the bug occur. I still can't understand what made her change her mind. [size="1"]Today they want this, tomorrow that... Girls are girls even in computer games [/size]

Yup, girls are evil even in computer games . I think that you told her to use ranged, and that she did what you told her. Then you stopped gaming for the day, and when you reloaded, Viconia probably reverted to her default class setting, which should be melee. Tell her to use melee and then tell her again to use ranged - that will probably make her use her bow. You probably have to repeat this each time you reload the game. (I'm just guessing here, my guess is based on general companion behaviour)



[quote]It bugs me from the very start of me using companions. Hope that at least some kind of workaround can be implemented.
[/quote]

I'm going to show this to CdCooley. I'm not sure how burnt out he is by now . As I posted somewhere earlier here, what we are releasing now is rather Vilja ver 4 or 5 than Vilja ver 2, as the rework and the addons are so thorough. I think we are a little bit too exhausted to cure a so far uncurable problem with this version. However, I'm pretty sure (like 110-150 %) that I will continue to tinker on her after the release and that there will be updates later on. And if CdCooley is up to looking into this problem after the release... Well, maybe he will have some new ideas about what can be done.

Yeah, it's a good idea to put this bug aside and do more interesting things. Modding should be fun, hardly anyone can call "fun" poking in Oblivion's quirks.

Played some Oblivion. Oh wow she talks a lot Damn it, I'm sold. Uninstalling current Vilja and waiting patiently for the update. Thank you again for your work.

LOL!!! on Vilja already being off on another subject

I agree with you... my english will never be perfect, so it's better to decide it's 'part of her charm'. Although it is a tad bit embarrassing that a Morrowind veteran like me actually pronounced Vivec wrong... :blush:

Wow! Vilja was the only companion I used, but not anymore! As soon as version 2 is out I'm definitely going to add more companions to watch their interactions! This is so exciting. Thanks so much for working on this wonderful companion.

Can you tell me which companions are fully voice-acted that she will interact with? Also, do you plan on adding interaction with Ruined Tail? Not really a request, I"m just wondering.

I must say I've never had any archery problems with Vilja. I just thought it would be more realistic if companions used up the arrows they're given. However, if it's an Oblivion limitation then there's nothing do be done about it (although I'm convinced Ruin used his arrows)

What has bugged me about various companions is the insistence on giving them the LLgold item in their inventory, causing them to increasingly have more gold. I was dissapointed the find Vilja has this too
My problem with it is where is this money coming from? A little immersion breaking, but also, there is far too much money in the game. Several mods I use rebalance this somewhat (like OOO's increased costs and Enhanced Economy's pricing and item/gold removal)

When I was using Viconia, I used the CS to remove the LLgold but it still continued to grow. By the time I uninstalled her, she had something rediculass like 27k! Imagine if i'd used a gold is inventory item mod! She'd be unable to move!

Yeah, the problem with that system is it seems to take a D&D "everyone's a hero" point of view where all the NPCs you can companion up with are assumed to have the "level-appropriate" amount of gold similar to what the PC would have at the same level, but the way Oblivion's economy looks (without any special mods to improve that) then in that case, why does every merchant still have like 500-1000 gold max to barter with? If they were your companion, then they would suddenly have thousands more gold pieces. So are the merchants just stingy? But still, where is all this phantom wealth in Cyrodiil?

On the contrary, I like to think of the PC as being special in that sense... He/she lives a "charmed life" and has the right talents to succeed and thus is able to amass enough wealth to become quite powerful in Cyrodiil. I can't picture him/her as an "everyman" with many others like him running around Tamriel with horseloads of Daedric armor to sell and owning houses/manors in every major city. This image contrasts too greatly for me with the fairly stagnant, "small-town" feel of Beth's Cyrodiil. If the world was cluttered with faceless NPCs like Arena or Daggerfall, with thousands of virtual miles of wilderness littered with dungeons and caves, and hundreds of towns then I might believe there could be all these great adventurers out there trying to make it big.

One of my peeves is that my companions are always independently wealthy, don't have to be paid for their trouble, never have to eat, never buy equipment/houses or spend money on anything, so their gold is meaningless - just there waiting in case the pc wants to just confiscate it (in which case the companion wouldn't mind and would probably soon spawn thousands more in gold next time their stats/inventory was refreshed!

I would actually prefer companions to either have to be paid a wage/retainer/share periodically or, in the case of friendship, would just be relatively poor (and resent having the PC loot their inventory) and would only have gold that the player would give them or maybe some equivalent amount of "pawn value" for their loot. It would be cool if there was a separate part of their inventory for "loot" that they would "cash in" automatically on the next town trip. Maybe everytime you traded items to an NPC as "loot" or "treasure sharing" they would check to see if any equipment was better that what they currently use, and if not, it would go in this "loot bag" to be cashed in later. Perhaps gifts or special items could still be given to them in a different manner if the player wanted them to keep it (i.e. a special set of armor or amulet, etc.).

However, I don't know how many hardcoe RP'ers like me there are out there who would actually use companions that cost them money! To me, it would seem more realistic, though. But that's just my ramblings on that subject. :shrug:

The poor friend is what you'll get with Vilja 2.0. Although if you're upgrading from version one she might continue to spawn gold, I'm not sure because the leveled gold is one of the early changes I made to my copy. When I started talking with Emma about a new version that was near the top of my list of suggestions. She'll now start with exactly 231 gold but the only way she'll ever get more is if the player gives it to her. (That starting gold is just about what you need to upgrade her to leather armor and less that you could have gathered as you exited the prison, so she's pretty poor.)

She'll happily spend your money on shopping trips if you let her. But she only buys items, she doesn't sell anything. Given the quality of some of the junk she comes back with it's for the best. She'd probably trade in that Daedric warhammer you gave her for a new rake and 50 strawberries.

In the new version she'll periodically ask you to give her some cash. How much she wants depends on how much you have. She won't be happy if you don't give her a decent amount. (Although it would definitely be cheaper to just tell her no and then bribe her back to happiness with some strawberries.)

Yes, this was something I was completely unaware of! All other companions I had seen had levelled gold, I just added it to Vilja ver 1 without thinking over the long-term concequenses. Glad you realized what would happen! Uhm... why did we give her 231 Gold and not 230? :laugh:



That's unfair! She wouldn't ever do such a thing! She'd probably trade it for a nice dress, a new necklace and 50 strawberries. And possible a potion of Fortify Personality for you. (Or maybe she'd just give you two strawberries.)



Hmph!!!! That's not a way to treat a lady! :banghead:

In Morrowind, I never go anywhere without at least one of his companions around. And Spot, of course, the wolf companion!
I know that Balmora elfgirl too! She surely doesn't seem very well behaved! And she definitely doesn't respect authorities! Maybe falling of that archway once will teach her a lesson! (Sad that there aren't any children in Cyrodiil yet)




Oh, that's fine! You can actually do exactly what you say here, although I think the sentence is something like "Can you please keep quiet". She won't get happy, but it's nothing that a bunch of strawberries cannot cure. Actually, to most of her questions there are replies suitable for, well, less chevaleresque characters like your Valkar. But don't expect *her* replies to those to be very chevaleresque either!



Yes, Vilja should have enough personality and show enough emotion to fit into what you are looking for. Her longterm responses to your behaviour could be better tailored (strawberries tend to make her forget most evil deeds), but that's something I think I'll have to work on for the next version - we have now added so much already that I think at least I am on my way to lose track of what has been added and what was there in ver 1.

Oh, and on a side-note... it's not that often that I see someone posting that was registred in this community before me. But it's quite nice . Cheers to good old 2002!