So like.

You're going through scripts in the game, doing some editing and what not.

You can see the different styles of the people who made the scripts. Certain people use certain variable naming conventions, capitalization conventions, certain consistancy, and so on. And, some traits stand out.

And then you see a style in the game itself which... you feel like you've seen before.

That person's style seems to be identical to a very sharp but, sort-of occasional, modder who has in fact helped you with an advanced scripting task you couldn't write the core code for yourself.

And its like... hm?!?!?! And it makes you wonder. It would make sense, at least!

Script? The only ones I've really noticed are J Sawyer's ones (they're signed! I wonder if I could ebay them?) and the Euclid's C-Finder scripts, which are notable for being absolutely baffling.

Hey, neat script, you're right. Have not seen those functions before sorta.

ScriptName EuclidsCFinderSCRIPT; checks preconditions for firing. swaps the gun's screen texture in event of a failure to meet them. Spawns a stream of target pointers at the reticle, which the targeting visual effect will align to.short bTargeted;BEGIN OnFire	if (VMS03.bRetargetComplete && VMS03.nPowerConfiguration == 4)		SwapTexture player "##Screen:0" "weapons\1handpistol\EuclidScreenSuccess"		if (Player.IsInInterior == 0 && Player.GetInWorldspace Lucky38World == 0)			set bTargeted to PlaceAtReticle EuclidTargetPointer 1 0 EuclidPointerRange			if (bTargeted)				set VEuclidQuest.fTimer to 5;				StartQuest VEuclidQuest;							set VEuclidQuest.bEnablePointer to 1;			endif		else			SwapTexture player "##Screen:0" "weapons\1handpistol\EuclidScreenFailure";			player.additem ammonvarchimedesii 1		endif	else		SwapTexture player "##Screen:0" "weapons\1handpistol\EuclidScreenFailure";		player.additem ammonvarchimedesii 1	endifENDBEGIN GameMode	if(VEuclidQuest.bEnablePointer)		set bTargeted to PlaceAtReticle EuclidTargetPointer 1 0 EuclidPointerRange;	endifEND

It's...interesting piecing together the history of some of them. Finding the artifacts left over or being baffled by the flow control. Some groups of scripts I wonder if I'm seeing different people writing them or seeing an evolution in a particular scripter's work. There's one in particular I came across that was amazingly huge and primitive, but was done elsewhere much more elegantly. I was tweaking a couple this weekend when I said screw it and just started over with my own flow. Then I came across one that looked like it had been written by me in my KCAS days. I was a bit surprised.

Stealth dev alt(s), I wonder?!? We need something like a handwriting anolyst but for code, someone who could compare/contrast Editor ID and variable nomenclature as well as capitlisation/beta commenting characteristics, whether they use spaces or tabs to indent/if they indent at all, etc... Still, if there were devs disguised as modders, maybe they're secretive about it for a reason(s). Does make sense though that a developer hooked on Gamebryo/scripting would spend some of their free time modding, but it could just as well be that a developer's style has directly or indirectly influenced this modder's.

I know in Fo3 you can definitly tell between at least 3 or 4 distinct scripting styles. Its kinda cool.

Well, I was more referring to the fact it's spread over about 5 different scripted items, and has some really trippy design decisions (if they just added a persistent reference for the 'reticule', they could cut out about 1/4 of the scripts).

It'd be pretty interesting to find out if there is a Stealth Dev, but then I assume they have a Stealth Account so they don't have to identify, so that'd kind of defeat the point.

There's certainly a few styles that I could recognize... Well, two styles--that of Cipscis and my own. I don't know what the rest of you buggers have going on.

* stares at Pelinor *

Okay so anyway .... the devs who would be among us would have to keep it the heck quiet. It would be too much attention and ... noise and ... distraction and ... just a whole lot of mess. And people would expect the world of you, kinda. But coming in as just another modder, you'd get treated as face value. Having people take you for *you* and not some miscellaneous fact about you has a lot of value.

I seriously doubt that anyone would be a 'stealth developer'. What would be the point? Also, if you helped develope the game for 13+ hours a day, would you really want to go and mod it in your spare time after its release? I know I would'nt. I think some people (like me) just use similair methods of scripting. Hell, I could look at a few scripts in FO3 and I would say it looks like I wrote them, but we all know I dont work for Bethesda or Obsidian. :ninja:

This is starting to remind me of a game of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_%28role-playing_game%29. Which one of us is the Commie Mutant Games Dev?

Jorge Salgado also signs a lot of his scripts. I believe he also did some modding for oblivion, which can be found on the tesnexus. The mod is called Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul

Never heard of it.

Wormgod wasn't shy about his modding back in the day. Dunno know what happened with that.

Google found it.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15256

75,000 downloads. That's quite a few.

It's one of the (two?) biggest/best-known mods for Oblivion, or at least was at one time. Plus the dude was mentioned several times in interviews and other press pieces for being a modder-turned-developer.

Kind of sounds like someone forgot their pills if they think there's some secret Bethesda leprechaun going around sprinkling nuggets of wisdom to a select few modders.

It's an Obsidion leprechaun not a Bethesda one .

This was a joke.

...yeah, "I believe [Oscuro] did some modding for Oblivion, you may have heard of him" is kind of understatement of the year.