Hi y'all

I'm planning on putting together some mods based on The Adventures of Barterman [http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=913655] http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=928849].

I'm still very much in the thinking-it-out-and-poking-around-in-GECK phase, so don't expect anything soon, except maybe a teaser mini-mod. I wanted to create this thread now so I can invite cult members to get their 2 cents in if they want to join in on the fun.


Very loosely, my plan is something like this: BarterMan World will be modular so you can choose what bits of it you want to include, and how much you want his world to effect your character.


BarterMan World - The Man Himself
This will contain BarterMan the Potomac Trader.
The setting is after he has completed his ongoing exploration of the Potomac, and he has decided to settle into the life of a wandering trader, while remaining consumed with his chosen purpose in life of killing all raider scum he encounters.
He will carry some juicy thingumabobs that he has repaired with the finest of parts and they're a bit special - Wee Bertha will be available, for example.
He will of course follow his standard procedure of refusing to trade goods for caps. All trades are barter only.
But he will accept caps for repair - and he's a master of repair. He has also created a collection of special maildrops over time, where he leaves Journal entries relevant to the surrounding area (as a guide to the bewildered). He leaves the odd few supplies in these as well, which he's happy to share with friends. You'll have to meet him and be nice to get the key... unless you're an expert lockpick and don't mind stealing. In which case he will kill you on sight. Choose your alignment carefully.
... Plus other things as they occur to me or you, so long as they don't place any particular restrictions on the player or clash with other mods. Just Barterman added to your world as a wandering trader on the Potomac.
... With lots of little easter-eggy rewards and jokes prompted by the Adventures threads, like a poster for the legendary Feral Undergound gig in Moriarty's last saturday, and That Feckin' Tin Can will certainly make an appearance... the Common Cold might show up... Hot Toddies will definitely be available. Perhaps even compulsory! :celebration:

If you're gonna suggest an easter egg/reward/funny trade item, feel free to PM me instead of posting here if you don't want to spoil the surprise for the others. :whisper:

The idea is that over time, The Adventures of Barterman Journal threads will converge with the Mods to fill in the backstory for how he finishes exploring the Potomac and becomes a trader. And I'll be updating the mod(s) to add appropriate items we come up with along the way, plus new guides to areas as he explores them over on the Journal threads. That'll give the Journal a goal and finish-point for the exploration, which would otherwise go on forever and drive us all mad in the end.


[Edit:] In essence, The Adventures Of BarterMan will migrate into your game. Be afraid...



BarterMan World - Wolfie Baby's Apartment
Add this module, and you do not own the apartment in Megaton - that's Wolfie Baby's and you can't have it. There'll be frugal alternative accomodation available in Megaton.
As compensation for not getting the Apt from Simms when you do his 'favour' - he'll let you use a bed & a locker in his gaff instead, and the locker will have a suitable bonus reward.
If you already own the apt in megaton, you will be unceremoniously evicted and your stuff thrown in a chest outside Wolfie's Apartment.

I have two thoughts then - might even be two alternative modules.
1: Want to get the apartment? Talk to BarterMan, and get ready for some serious travel and head-scratching. He gives you a quest that will eventually earn you the right to take over Wolfie's apartment. You will of course have to follow a ridiculous breadcrumb trail to get the deeds and key. Believe me - you'll earn that apartment in BarterMan World!
2: You can never own the apartment. It's Wolfie's and he's not gonna give it up. However, if you're good enough and smart enough and tough enough, you can gain access to it and rob him blind. Watch out though if you hang around to use the place, he's bound to show up some night extremely pissed-off, and make you suffer.



Barterman World - The NetZone Cafe
There are lots of Moriarty's mods that could clash, so this would be an optional module as well, if I do it.
This would add the "NetZone Cafe" to Moriarty's Pub. Not sure what I can use it for yet, so unless I come up with something interesting/funny/useful I might not do this module at all. I'm still just groping for ideas on this one.



As I said - still in the thinking phase.

Any thoughts?

Can't wait to see this one day the Barterman journals have been a damn good read so far.

Ta GonZo

But I don't think there will be much in the way of long journals in the mod. FO3 badly needs Oblivion-style books you can read fullscreen. Pipboy notes don't really cut it, and audio tapes would be out of character. I suspect one of my trickiest tasks will be to adapt my notes for short text. Without the writing and the gags and some appropriately mad quests (probably involving iguanas and Brahmin dung), BMan would be just another NPC mod.

Some further random thoughts:

There will be a Cult Of BarterMan, led by The Man Himself (to use his official honorific).
You may work your way up the ranks of the cult by performing certain trifling tasks for The Man Himself.
There shall, of course, be an official BarterMan Cult Membership Card as requested by Kaffo.
BarterMan has the Invincible Spot as his constant companion, finishing off the odd raider for him.
Wolfgang's gift of a few caps for Nigel when he really needed some caps is honored by a similar gift for all cult members.

Yay! I always thought a Barterman mod would be awesome. This is going to be awesome, and I didn't know you modded Wolfie. Anyhow, I hope you can do this right with your back disorder, and your work lol, they have definetly gotten in the way of Barterman in the past.

If would offer my help but this mod is not really the type of modding I do, especially cause I can't control NPC's for my life lol.

turn onview sigs

... I can't control NPC's for my life lol.

Yup - that'll be new to me too. But the wiki and forums and lots of mistakes should get BMan moving eventually.
In hieroglyphicons, the process goes like this:
:brokencomputer: :banghead: :read: :facepalm: :shakehead: :twirl: :gun: :brokencomputer:

The chance to meet the myth and the legend out in the wastelands is too tempting. Hope to hear more updates from you soon. If you need help with some of the custom art/graphics just let me know, Wolfie.

You might regret that offer, leeonheart! You could end up slaving over a hot PC - I am already working on my evil plot to shamelessly abuse your generosity. :brokencomputer:

All: new BarterMan journal this weekend - that's a promise. It might be as late as sunday night, but it will be this weekend. I mention it here rather than in the journal thread, 'cos I want to stay in character(s) over there as much as possible.

Hi Folks

I've been poking around in the Geck, putting some bits 'n pieces in place for BarterMan World.

I'll be releasing a very very preliminary mod soon, just to toy with you.

Mostly it'll just be a few silly things to whet your appetite and start setting the scene, but Wee Bertha will be deposited somewhere around the wasteland. BarterMan has been carefully saving all the best parts he can scavenge during his travels, and has recently managed to produce this improved version of the combat shotgun for members of the public. It has a larger clip, faster firing rate and because of those quality parts it will degrade more slowly than the usual dross you find in the wasteland.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get Wee Bertha for free. In time, BarterMan will be selling it from his trade caravan for a rather hefty price. Swapsies only, of course. BarterMan doesn't do caps.

This free edition is available for a limited time only. Get them while they're hot! :gun: It won't be too easy to find, but it won't be too hard either. Balance, remember? B)

You should have it some time in the next week (ish).

Just a progress report...

Work has gotten in the way again - another mini-project has landed on my desk with a tight aspirational deadline that we don't expect to make, but we'd like to give it our best shot.
Actually this is good - in these times as a contractor it's good to get as much work as possible, and we have loads at the moment. Make hay while the sun shines and so on. Plus it's an interesting job with some fun coding to do.

But it has stalled the BarterMan journals I promised.
The good news is that here in Paddyland, friday and monday are holidays, so I'll have four days off to look at the journal and mod, in between throwing a few hours at the project. I'll be doing at least one journal entry and I hope to present you with a wee BarterMan World teaser mod over the weekend, setting the scene, putting appropriate parts of the journal into the world and adding a few jokes and items which may or may not have uses. If you can find them.

Its Times Like This I Wished I Had A Good computer To Play FO3....(Im Missing out on alot of greatness :banghead:

Uuuuhh... it's close. I can feel it in me waters. :whisper:

[edit - tues morning] Sorry folks - having a bit of trouble with that feckin' tin can. It just won't behave itself. :brokencomputer: Should be sorted in a couple of days...

Evening all :foodndrink:

Just popping in to give you the weekly status report on BarterMan World.

As usual real life has kept me away from the wastelands this last week. We're crazy busy at work right now, but as I said before that is a good thing.

I've done some poking around in geck, and I've been experimenting with some new ideas I think you'll like for some Fun in the Sun in Megaton™. So it is all coming along nicely in my head, and I feel like I'm making progress on it. But there's nothing concrete to give you yet in terms of a mod.

I haven't had time to put together a journal entry either, so I'm afraid you'll just have to be patient. That's actually harder to find time for than the mod. I can always fire up the geck when I have a spare half hour and try something out. But I need to have a big chunk of time together to do a journal entry, and that just ain't happening these days.

So I'm going to stop making dumb promises here. I just can't realistically be sure I'll get the time. Poor old BarterMan will have to go on cooling his heels Up Left somewhere for a bit longer. You're likely to see a teaser mod before a journal because of the limited spare time I have right now.

I'll post here or in the journal thread when I have something concrete to present, and I'll drop in here to let you know how it's going weekly-ish.

Hi All

Still nothing much in the way of progress to report, unfortunately. Work is still tying up most of my time.

Leoonheart has been busy though :clap:, so I've some great artwork from her to slot in when I get a chance.

Hiya

Nothing to report unfortunately, except that work is going well. Real work that is, not mod work. :brokencomputer:
I'm hoping to get some time to play with the mod this week.

If there's one thing my work on Rubble city (see sig) has taught me so far, it's that the above statement is exactly what it's like to work in the geck

Except for building...building is awesome...I'd smile but there's no room for emoticons.

Hope it goes well wolfie! :goodjob:

Hi All

As usual - no specific BarterMan progress to report - sorry. Just too busy to do any more than play around with the GECK, learning how to do things that I want to put in the mod.

I've been looking at FOSE, to see what it might offer in the way of functionality, and in the process I realised that I can do a Fallout version of one of my Oblivion mods more or less straight away.

I'm talking about my Oblivion mod 'Gather Ye Rosebuds', which harvests flora and ingredients with a simple spell (link in sig if you're interested). The required functions are in FOSE, so I'm currently working on a FO3 version of that. Soon you won't need to tediously click everything in an area to pick up all that crud, hoping to find a few gems. You'll be able to gather everything that's lying around in one quick step, then you can just dump anything you don't want to keep. I'll be making it ultra-configurable so you can get it to ignore tin plates and the like, or just gather ammo and so on... The options I put in will depend on how much control I can get with FOSE. I specifically want to make it NOT pick up bobbleheads or Nuka Cola Quantums, but perhaps let you know they are nearby...

One thing I can't do with the current version of FOSE is to determine whether taking something will be regarded as stealing, so you'll need to decide that for yourself. Don't try it in Moira's shop, for example or you'll lose Karma and get attacked straight away for being an obnoxious thief. But if that's how you get your kicks by all means go ahead, steal the lot and face the music! Also be warned that you're quite likely to find yourself instantly over-encumbered with all those tin cans suddenly popping into your inventory. So choose your moment...

I have a working version at the moment, but it's too crude and over-powered to release even as a beta. I'd like a few volunteers however, to try out a beta version later this week when I get it a bit more polished and balance it up a bit. Send me a pm if you are happy to test the latest FOSE beta with the soon-to-be-indispensible Gather Ye Crud!

Hope that interests some of y'all...

Here's a question, BarterMan is getting big and famous now, :bowdown: (not like Santa) But so far the BMan cult lives in a Forum, which is all drafty and damp! BMan needs a website, right? I'm not exactly good enough with the coding to make it, but I'm sure one of his followers can do it, right? It could have pictures too! Everyone likes pictures :goodjob:

That would be awesome. Like the Reclaimer webcomic for Halo 3.

i cant make a personal domain site, but weebly lets me make a site free. problem is the site would be like this: www.barterman.weebly.com
if your ok with that wolfie, i can make an account there specifically for barterman, and email you the account name/pass. or you could tell me and i'd edit it for you,
sometimes it is hard to use, i admit. :brokencomputer:

Wolvie haven't posted any updates on the thread for some time now. Does this mean the end for the infamous BarterMan? :cold:

Sorry, I've been mad busy in real life.
And I've been distracted by getting my hands on Broken Steel, finishing the main quest and BS as Wolfhound.

But I am - honest! - getting back to the mod this weekend, now that Wolfhound is more or less finished the game.

Unfortunately yesterday I went to extract the journal entry text from thread one to start reworking it for the mod, only to find that the thread has been dumped.
I never had offline copies of the journal - it was all written in-forum after each playing session, so I'm at a loss what to do about that. I checked with a moderator, and there's no hope of retrieving it.

So I'm going to go ahead for now and work on the other aspects of the mod. Maybe it's for the best - it forces me to come up with new stuff rather than just start by putting the journal in the mod.

So yes, BarterMan World will be coming to a website near you. I'll be tidying up and gathering together various bits and pieces I already worked on and releasing a teaser mod pretty soon, but the main mod will take a while to put together.

PS: I like the new barmaid... :hubbahubba: A self-portrait, by any chance?

Any of you still alive? I am! More or less.. Been back from a long absence but as I see nothing has changed sence I left!

Sorry wrong thread