A ver 3 of Vilja by me and CDCooley is almost finished, with many new features and an additional questline.
We have been playtesting for over a month, and there are now only some smaller details left to adjust before the mod is ready.

So, if any of you who are using Vilja have thoughts on her or problems with her, please let us know about it.

There will be several new features in the new ver 3. Here's a sneak-peak of one important addition:

http://lovkullen.net/Emma/OB/ScreenShot872.JPG
Yes, you can actually be her companion. She might suggest it, or you can suggest that she takes the lead. She might show you places you've never seen before!
http://lovkullen.net/Emma/OB/ScreenShot883.JPG instead of having a companion always five steps behind you.

More new features:

- Vilja the spellcaster - as a reward for the new little quests included (which should start automatically a few days after you finished the previous one, which was added with ver 2) Vilja will be able to learn how to use a few simple spells. No ranged destruction casting, of course, as you would probably be her first victim. But, she can among other things learn how to paralyze her enemies and how to protect her self better. Once she has learnt her first two spells, she will be able to learn more in a paste you decide in in whatever order you prefer. And, no need to worry, you can finetune exactly which spells you want her to use and which she should keep deactivated.

- Vilja the pathfinder - as a bonus to the "Vilja leads the way"-feature described above, she can also lead you out of dungeons and show you the way to various places - guilds, shops, etc.

- There are also a number of new "roleplay-features". For instance, once her first questline is completed, you can invite her to an evening out or arrange a cozy supper at home. You can thank her if she has been of great help, you can tell her when you give her something precious. She will also occasionally ask for your opinion on more serious and indepth matters, where you can pick choices according to your characters personality (or, of course, the choice you hope will please her). There is no romance included, though. Yes, I know I said I was working on it, but... I wasn't happy with the result. So for now, I cut it out.

- The most extensive work is not 'visible', though... The whole dialog system has been restructured and should hopefully lead to that she now is better at saying the right things at the right times.

That's not all... we do have a few more things up our sleeves. But you'll have to wait for the release-thread to learn more .



EDIT: A link to the current version at Nexus: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28977. Here you will also find more than 200 screenshots of her (mostly uploaded by players) as well as a very long thread with feedback.





P S You shouldn't have to be concerned over upgrading procedures - we have set it up so that you should be able to just replace the esp-file and keep on playing.

Just when I thought Vilja could not get much better you come up with this! It sounds fantastic. I'm not really bothered by the lack of romance, I can see why you'd rather avoid it with Vilja.

Well you've grabbed my attention!

Emma, this sounds great. I congratulate you on pushing the roleplaying boundaries of companions even further--and love the idea of the player character functioning as a companion.

You sure know how to make a companion mod! With Vilja, it is the next best thing to multiplayer you can get. And thanks for her not bringing alot of emotional baggage.

Now, not that I mind having a female companion (married to one in RL ), but sometimes a guy needs another guy to adventure with. If you ever expand your horizons, if you make a male companion to a male character (without the mushy feelings stuff) of the same quality as Vilja, I think it would be of great interest to players. Hopefully you could find someone to do the great quality voice work as Vilja.

It is just that sometimes my RL wife thinks I play Oblivion just so I can hang out with other women :whisper:

This should be interesting and like I the ideas that you and CDCooley has developed for the next version.

But I've a few questions about the features though, let say that you have accept Vilja's suggestion of that her takes the lead instead of you. Is this possible even that you have one or two companions in your tow except for VIlja when she suggest it?

I know there is a mod called http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16960 and my question are quite obvious. Is this mod compatible with the new version? :unsure:


I'm looking forward to the next version of Vilja. Thanks Emma and CDCooley for your hard work on this. :trophy: :celebration:

Yes, more companions isn't a problem. They will continue to follow you while you follow Vilja.



I haven't used that mod, but I can see no reason why there should be any problems. If you teach Vilja new spells with this mod, you can of course not control those spells the way you can control those given to her within the Vilja-mod (i.e. through dialog). But there are no reasons why you should experience any incompatibility issues.



Thank you

Yay! Version 3! I'm so happy!


@ Peter ID (Though Emma, you may be interested too): Thought I'd draw your attention to a rather promising looking companion mod: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31073. At the moment, he requires CM Partners, but the newest version (which I can't link to due to advlt content) has around 900 lines of (unfortunately, unvoiced) dialog, as well as romance options for both genders (which you can end rather quickly in his dialog if you so choose).

Sorry for dragging things off topic I'll be grabbing V3 as soon as it releases.

@EruditeDragon: ...but I can http://www.elderscrolls.com/redirect.php?site=http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35833 to that mod.


Good because I was afraid that must I choose between Vilja and CM-Partners mod.


The only thing I can think of is the scripts in that mod and Vilja, so I suppose we can just hope there is no problem but who knows. :whistling:


You're welcome and that's for CDCooley too.

HEHE! To grab the attention was the intention

And, yes... I AM a shy nord, and both writing and voiceacting romance for Vilja got a little too... personal :blush: . So I tried to make it less personal and then it became boring and dull.





Thanks
Actually, it was sort of a surprise for me when I realized how fun this is, and that also the playtesters have enjoyed it tremendeously. It takes a little while before one accomodates to how to walk together with her in a natural way, but after the first 15 minutes or so, it's very enjoyable to walk by her side and listen to her smalltalking. I never fasttravel in Oblivion, and nowadays, instead of telling her to follow me, I tell her where we are heading (or a place close to where we are heading) and then I let her travel individually, at my side. Also, when I don't know what to do next, I ask her to show me a new location, either in the neighborhood, or I ask her to "surprise me".

As for pushing boundaries... that's the really fun part with modding, isn't it? One thinks "what a shame that this isn't possible..." and then realises that "WOW! It could be if I do like this." Working together with CDCooley also makes a huge difference - he has loads of ideas and all the scripting skills that I lack.

Thank you Emma and CDCooley for expanding Vilja's capabilities even more. Vilja is still the most popular mod in our household, very much looking forward to this release .. I recently had to start a new game with my PC and have resisted temptation to go say Hi to Vilja again, purely because I want to experience this version from the start of meeting again. My youngest still has Vilja as a companion but has not progressed much for the same reason - She knows a newer version was being developed

Edit: Forgot to mention - Also looking forward to the new features, very much like the sound of the ones revealed so far.

Ouu, will you be able to toggle Run/Walk on Vilja?? (I most Allways play the Entire game with the Caps Lock on)

I haven't played the previous version so far, but I'm very happy to hear a new one is coming..

By all the rave reviews I'm pretty sure it's an excellent mod, so thanks for the release Emma

Doh! I should of course have posted a link to the current version for those of you who aren't familiar with the mod. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28977. Here you will also find more than 200 screenshots of her (mostly uploaded by players) as well as a very long thread with feedback.

Thank you . Regarding "emotional baggage"... I wouldn't ever had turned her into a so called "romance companion"... the romance option that was skipped was 100 % optional and was supposed to be toggled in her Options book. But, in a way she still is a bit "emotional" - I bet that if you want to roleplay that way, there should be enough to pretend there is an ongoing romance. But, if you don't want to roleplay that, she is just a sweet friend of yours who happens to be a girl.



A male non-romance companion that I quite like is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9926. He comes with a quest and a story and personality of his own, as well as some interesting scripting. Alas, he isn't fully voiced, only partially.
Also http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10266 is a good generic male companion who you can tailor to your own taste ingame (class, skills etc). And I believe there are good reasons to have a look at Valtierro, suggested by Erudite Dragon. I have just downloaded him in order to take a look later.

So far we have been so busy workingon Vilja as there have been so many features we wanted to implement and new ideas keep popping up all the time. But of course it would be fun to make a male companion with features similar to Vilja's one of these days (although I will obviously not be the one doing the voice-acting ).



You better watch out, then! The moment she realizes how much money you spend on dressing up Vilja, she might suggest that you spend the same kind of money on her outfits ;D




Yes, I've heard of Valtierro, and the things I have heard have been good. He was beta-version until only a few days ago, so I haven't tried him out yet, but am planning to do so, possibly add some interaction between him and Vilja as from the feedback I suspect that he will be a part of many female players' games.

I was just about to do a clean Oblivion install with new mods including yours.

I'm glad to hear a version 3 is to be released soon. So now I might wait until version 3. Any rough or vague idea of what is meant buy soon? Like in a week? A month?

Thanks for your work on this, it sounds like a great mod.

Really like Vilja, so looking forward to the next update.

One suggestion: Could you reduce the number of times she says "I'll kill you you bastard" when she spots an enemy? It gets monotonous after a while, especially in an FCOM game where you bump into enemies left and right! Maybe add another variant aggressive dialog to mix and match!

It's really great that the whole family enjoys her! I wanted a companion that would fit equally well for both genders and for all ages, sounds like if I was successful with this.

With the new version you will get a wide range of new quest comments, in particular also for the Thieves Guild questline, so, of course, not playing too far in the storyline would be a good idea if you have decided on waiting for ver 3 of her. Again, upgrading from ver 2 will be easy, only replacing esp-files, so you could still say hello to ver 2 now if you like.




You mean when she is leading? Yes, you can. Both when she is leading on foot and when she is leading and riding. However, her ability to find and follow pathgrids will be affected if you tell her to run, so if you are in an area with many mountains and statics blocking the way, I suggest you either walk or you lead.

Well, from what I can you use this mod to cast a scripted spell on and actor which adds a spell of your choice to the actor's spell inventory. No scripting apart from what is going on during the spellcasting. So the risk of conflicts should be very minor.

My bold - I saw that mentioned a while back, very much anticipating your adaptation of dialogue to those situations and have similarly only joined the thieves guild but put the questline on hold. Undecided at the moment when Vilja 3 is released as to which direction to take Vilja (or indeed Vilja to take us), but I think Vilja's quests first to mature her character in-game before taking on the Thieves Guild questline might be a good approach.

Let us hope so that's the case.

I'm a bit cautious to be too specific about how soon the mod will be released, but I think it should be safe to say that it should be around in good time before Christmas. It is playtested, proofread, corrected, everything works, but we are fine-tuning some small things and we want it to work well.





I'll look into that comment... heh... in order to record more combat entries, I have to send the family somewhere, throw out the cats and make sure that my new neighbors arent anywhere close to the house . It sounds a bit weird that she's constantly using just this entry in your game - in my game she certainly shows more variety and she does have quite a few attack-entries to choose between.

Hehe thanks for the link, I knew the mod already and the excellent feedback I was referring to was including Nexus's!

I also already downloaded the High Imperial stuff for looks.. I was just finishing several optimizations/mergings etc before finally playing

Well, keep up this great work!

Can't wait for this! Since I'm an Archer now I don't have to deal with companions not being good with bows. Gratz on your progress so far!

I look forward to this update. It all sounds good and more than good. I do hope you are able to include romance options at some future date. Variety is the spice of life as they say. (And this from someone whose extensive relationship with Neeshka last play-through remained purely platonic. As my somewhat elderly and decrepit avatar himself once lamented, "Were I but a few years younger...")

The bit about her comments being better suited the situation at hand reminds me of the one that has me rolling my eyes most often. Being mounted adventures (and shunners of fast-travel), a good 95% of our travel time is spent in the saddle. Yet on numerous occasions following a ride from one end of Cyrodiil to the other, within minutes of dismounting Vilja suggests that we go for a ride since she feels she has been neglecting Bruse. Not a lease-breaker by any means, but it'll be nice if she saves that one for when it's truly needed, or at least waits a bit longer before voicing it.

-Decrepit-

Gosh!! THANK YOU for pointing this one about Bruse out to me! I was 100 % convinced I had cured this mistake once and for all with the release of ver 2, but obviously I have to look through her dialog once more.
I haven't heard her say this line since ver 1, but after the playtest of ver 2 I haven't been using the horses much.

BTW, I'm truly glad that you do like Vilja . I've always read your comments about Neeshka, as she is a favorite companion of mine, and I have understood that the things you like about her are the same things as I like about her. So I have been kind of hoping that you would eventually give Vilja a try, as I felt you might start to like her, too .

I agree with you that at this point there "should" have been some kind of highly optional romance option for Vilja. The thing is that here I'm my own worst enemy... I am a "shy nord" and it really felt so weird to both write and then voice-act romance dialog for Vilja. I had more than 300 entries added when I decided to cut it out for now because I felt the dialog just wasn't good enough... Maybe I'll get back to it later and find a better way to tackle it. I imagine that if there existed a good hug-animation, that would make things a lot easier, as one wouldn't have to put everything into dialog-lines. (However, if you read between the lines, I think you will find a great affection between Vilja and your PC-character already in ver 3, although no romance is outspoken).


EDIT: This is really puzzling... I've been looking through her dialog and i have made searches on Bruse, going for a ride, etc, but there only comes up one dialog entry and it is definitely filtered for Vilja NOT riding. But I know that you didn't use ver 1 of Vilja, so somehow this entry must be popping up also in ver 2. I'll refilter it so that she'll only say it in places where she obviously cannot be on the horseback.... (indoors and in cities)