Hello everyone,

This post will be about several things, I think. Foremost is my little Toybox - or maybe trashbox, but toybox sounds better. It contains all my little half-finished mods - the ones that I simply never got to work right or where I ran into a brick wall halfway through development. Or just didn't feel like working on anymore.

That little toybox is http://www.wuala.com/Reneer/Upload/. It is totally unsupported - please do not ask me to fix bugs, or even expect these mods to function properly. For once, there is no ReadMe for people to not read.

In short: If what you are looking for is game stability, ignore the above, since it isn't what you're looking for. If, however, you want to take a look at what might have been, dive in. Just don't come crying to me if you load these mods into the game.

Also, if you see a diamond in the rough and really want me to work on it a bit, let me know. These can also be considered Modder's Resources, if they want to look through some code that is in desperate need of commenting.

On to the second point of this thread:

As many of you know, I've been modding Oblivion for a long time now. It was easy enough to do while I was doing my undergraduate work, but now that I'm doing my Masters / Doctoral work, time has become something of a luxury for me. The fact that I am also working at a small office as IT guy every now and then also takes a bite out of my free time.

In light of all this, you will see a poll up above. It offers some various options on what course I should take. Now, even if all of you choose a particular option, that doesn't mean I won't ignore you all and simply do what I want instead. But, I have always written mods for you, the community. It has given me great pleasure over the years just to hear a simple "Thank you" every now and then. Though I also think I'll need blood-pressure medication because of all the people that don't read ReadMes or follow directions.

So, that's it, really.

Also, this is not meant to be a "Thank Reneer" thread - I appreciate the sentiment, really, but I do want this thread to be somewhat productive. So, if you want to thank / flame / whatever, at least mention what direction you think I should take and why, or if a particular mod in the toybox strikes your fancy. And if really all you want to do is send me a thank-you, a PM / email (word!) would be appreciated.

Edit:
List of Toybox contents and short descriptions:

I voted "other".

You should do what makes ya happy. You have some WAY cool stuff out there in the world, and I always look forward to seeing what you will come up with next. Continuing development on the Guard Overhaul would be my first choice though. Vanilla guards are a pain, and most unrealistic. RGO adds a LOT to the game, and is always a part of my load order.

Oh, and, just out of spite.....

Thanks for your hard work you have put into your mods.

Updated the Toybox - found some more mods / ideas hiding away in various folders.

I'm very intrigued by the contents of your "toybox," but I'm afraid without descriptions for each of the ESPs, I'm too wary of the consequences of activating any of them. Could you not include some sort of key to what everything even is?

As for your work in general, I've been meaning to try quite a few of your mods, given your exceedingly high reputation and the interesting elements in all of them. You've obviously contributed quite a bit to the community, but everyone should always be more than welcome to come and go as they please. I feel like moderators don't like hello/goodbye threads because of this. You have no obligation to be here; the only reason you are is because it's your own personal hobby. If you don't have time, you just put it on the back burner. When you have time again, you come back. Not that I can really compare what I do to you, but that's what I've always done, and it's worked out quite nicely. This isn't a job, and you should never need to explain yourself. And the community would love to have you no matter what the explanation may be.

Matthew_Kaine said it perfectly. It's a hobby. If you don't tine or its not fun, you us nothing.

I will checking out the toybox. I need something new to work on.

Certainly. Though honestly I wouldn't recommend activating any of the mods in a save-game - if you really want to see what they do, either create a new save-game or simply load the mods up in the CS (with OBSE).

1. The Jokes folder contains one mod: A joke mod that actually has a "ReadMe" of sorts. The mod simply changes the name of containers at random when the player looks at them.
2. Ren Carry Mod is the test file I used to create my Corpse Carry spell in RGO. Not sure if the implementation works.
3. Ren Housing Mod is my unfinished work on making houses ownable by the player (there are two copies of the ESP, one in the root and one in the Ren Housing Mod folder).
4. Ren Interior Script - I think I actually released this one a long time ago. Eh. Basically it's a whole bunch of quest scripts that allow the player to figure out which interior cell they are in. This was back before OBSE had any functions to do the same thing.
5. Ren Mind Control is a mod where the player is able to "take control" of an NPC and walk around and activate objects and such. I got bored with the idea after a while and had been working a lot on RGO at the time.
6. The Movie Camera mod is what I used to create http://www.youtube.com/user/reneerbot?feature=mhum#p/u/3/OLCs8RhW6rk.
7. ReneerConversationMod.esp is a mod I started to write that would allow the player character to "talk" to NPCs (like NPC-NPC interactions).
8. ReneerFlyingCastle.esp was a go I had at creating a moving, flying castle.
9. ReneerMaskMod.esp was an idea I had where the player would put on a mask and new NPCs and objects would appear - as if the player was looking into another world.
10. ReneerNoVoiceMod.esp was a dummy ESP. Could probably be removed later.
11. ReneerRelationshipMod.esp was my go at creating a Romance mod - where you could romance anyone in-game (within reason). My hatred of creating Oblivion dialog was what killed this one.
12. ReneersDoubleJumpMod.esp was my go at creating a "double-jump" - so that the player could reach new heights, etc.
13. ReneerShadowMod.esp was a test mod where static objects would be changed into Activators - and theoretically they would then have shadows.
14. RenExploitScript.esp was me testing out various CTD issues and such. Do not run this one if you value your save games.
15. RenHouseMod.esp was when I thought about creating a house mod - didn't quite work out.
16. RenHousingMod.esp - see #3.
17. RenMoveCameraMod.esp - updated ESP file.
18. RenTestingMod.esp - just a mod where I tested out various in-game changes.
19. RenThirdPersonMod.esp - this was my implementation (which worked rather well) of a third-person mod. It works, but is glitchy / buggy.

This isn't so much of a good-bye / hello thread as me simply asking the community what path I might take. I'm not going anywhere - I just have realized that I have a small amount of time to actually do any modding, and thus my mods have suffered somewhat as a result. For example, I used to release a new version of RGO every month or so like near clockwork and the releases there have been slowing down ever since 2.5 (which, as a complete recode, I am still proud of).

I voted "other," because perhaps you are clever enough (well, you're clever enough, but are you interested?) to tackle a {REQ} that I've had for a while and not found any takers (perhaps it's not as interesting as I think it is, but I think it is!)

Gauntlets as weapons for unarmed combat.

Every other weapon skill has associated weapons (duh) that have damage-dealing stats. The idea here is to create a damage-dealing stat for gauntlets (instead of the armor stat they have). So, an unarmed-skill character could up the damage dealt by wearing, say, spiked gauntlets or steel gauntlets or what have you.

It would be neat if all gauntlets, when equipped with no other weapons equipped, had a damage stat that came into play when attacking unarmed. A little less neat but still pretty awesome would be if there were created certain gauntlets that were recognized as weapons instead of armor, so that an unarmed-skill character could seek them out in order to enhance his combat prowess. (Ooh. Sounds like a quest mod now.)

Then, you're unarmed combatist could choose knockout-type gauntlets, more lethal bladed gauntlets, or even silver-studded gauntlets for those otherworldly opponents. And, of course, the weaopn-gauntlets would be poisonable as other weapons are. (How about a silence-knuckle-sandwich, Mr. Conjurer?) Monk characters made viable!

In any case, Reneer, I enjoy your existing mods and would be thrilled to see some of your toys become tools (Double Jump and Flying Castle appeal to me the most).

Personally I'd rather RGO be updated than most of these, otherwise #3 and #5 sound like I would enjoy using them the rest are kind of meh for me.

There is actually already a mod that accomplishes what #3 was meant to do. #5, not so much.