2003 : Neverwinter nights - First mod.  I was fascinated with the toolkit and the ability to create levels. Fortunately I never published anything (Those first few mods were horrible). However, Neverwinter Nights spoiled me to the concept of traveling companions. I like it when games give me the illusion that I'm still hanging out with real people.

 

2007 : Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines - My first serious modding attempt. I picked it up  from a $5 bargain bin figuring it would be 20 hours of cheap entertainment.  Instead, I fell in love with the game. The dark adult atmosphere was a nice contrast to the teenager-friendly, almost cartoonish world of Neverwinter nights (1 & 2). It had more re-playability than any game I have played since (even now). But I was spoiled to having traveling companions. So I made a companion Mod.

 

Unlike Neverwinter Nights, VTMB didn't have a nice tool kit. I spent months breaking it apart and creating a mod developers guide. With my new found knowledge I created VTMB CompMod . I supported CompMod until 2009 when Dragon Age Origins came out. 

 

2009 : Dragon Age Origins - My first mod was "Spell Shaping". I was frustrated that DAO area effect spells also ensnared companions. While probably more realistic, it prevented me from making character builds that could mirror my (Neverwinter Nights) D&D counterparts. Spell shaping was my Lore Friendly solution to the issue.  

 

Second and last mod for Dragon Age Origins was "Extra Dog Slot".  I used the scripting knowledge I gained from "Spell Shaping" to allow users to bring the Dog companion along as a 5th companion using one of the summon creature slots. Not as simple as it sounds as there are moments in the game where it assumes you have at most 4 companions. But I wrote code to account for those moments and the mod was rather successful. 

 

2012 : Skyrim - After months of developer, I released Amazing Follower Tweaks for Skyrim. Possibly my most successful mod. It has an interesting back story. First, the mod almost didn't happen. I was actually waiting for a game called Rage to release its modding tools, but the tools were delayed. So I purchased Skyrim out of boredom and AFT happened. But it doesn't end there. Originally I titled my mod "Ultimate Follower Overhaul". On April 26th 2012, I went to the Nexus to upload my mod and realized someone else had JUST uploaded a mod with exact same name 2 days earlier.  

 

So I renamed my mod to "Amazing Follower Tweaks", which meant refactoring all the source code. To ensure the refactor didn't break anything, I had to retested. It set me back a total of 3 weeks. But there was a positive. Having to retest everything meant the mod was a lot more stable when it finally came out. Not to say I didn't have bugs, but thanks to dedicated users and their feedback, bugs were quickly identified and fixed. I supported AFT (Skyrim) for two years.

 

2013 : Rage - Rage did eventually release modding tools. I spent several months making a mod called Rage Companion Mod . I created a prototype that allowed me to save a woman early on who was meant to be the companion and love interest for the rest of the game. I even design the romance back story, wrote out scripts and contacted some voice actresses  over at the voiceactingsalliance website to record the parts. However, there was a technical snag. To add my new NPC to the original game, I would need uncompiled versions of all the original games maps. Problem was, the toolkit only shipped with the first level. Once I realized this technical limitation, I abandoned the project.

 

2015 :Dragon Age Inquisition - DAI did so many things right, but also had a lot of room for improvement. Unfortunately, it was not mod friendly. In fact, Nothing Bioware has released since Dragon Age Origins has really been mod friendly. I was back to pulling apart game files and decompiling the engine enough to add changes.  I Eventually came out with some mods: New Experience Table, Invisible Formal Attire, New Influence Table and my most popular contribution : More Loot.

 

The primary issue with Dragon Age Inquisition was that every time they released a patch, it broke all the mods. And they released patches regularly as they developed their own in-house DLCs. It was too much work to maintain so eventually I moved on. 

 

2017 : Fallout 4 -My primary contribution for FO4 was  Amazing Follower Tweaks for Fallout 4. AFT (FO4 Edition) has been my most ambitious mod project to date. It includes some big features that took months to develop. For example, it includes prefabricated settlements that users can purchase. Each prefab took me about a 20 hours to create and the mod comes with 26 of them. I had to listen to every spoken line the game had to offer to develop the backstory and scenes necessary to rescue the spouse. Just those two features alone took nearly half a year to develop and that is before I got to outfits, combat AI and the other multi-follower features Skyrim users would expect from AFT. 

 

Other Fallout 4 mods I released: 

 

Power Armor Hoarder which adds a menu to power armors so you can teleport them back to your camp, or move them between camps. It was originally going to be an AFT ADDON, however I couldn't justify it since it was not a capability directly related to having followers. So I released it as an independent mod.

 

Sleepless Nights, playing AFT, it occurred to me that the camp upgrades were basically useless because by default, you NEVER get attacked when sleeping in FO4. So I made this mode to change that. When installed, you can randomly be attacked in your sleep. So investing in your camps defenses suddenly makes way more sense. 

 

2020 : GreedFall - I enjoyed GreedFall and I didn't feel like the companion system needed much improvement. However, I was unhappy with the appearance of the companions. So I made Naut-E Wares so that I could change their appearance.

 

Greedfall is yet another game with no official modding support. So I spent probably 3 months just cracking the game open and writing programs to make more advanced modding possible. Along the way I created:

 

Modding Tips - Documentation and tools for modding GreedFall. 

Romance Enhancer - Improved/expanded the games romance options.

Map Anywhere - Let you fast travel without having to reach a maps edge.

Warlock- A personal mod I made for myself to make magic combat more intense.

 

Along the way, I realized my own mods would conflict with each other because of the way Greedfall managed overrides. So I made a mod called Mod Slot Support and a Vortex Extension called Better Greedfall Vortex Extension so that Greedfall players could install more mods without conflicts.

 

Present: I'm looking forward to Baldur's Gate 3, Cyber Punk 2077 and Vampire Bloodlines 2. It is unlikely BG3 will need any mods. But if Cyberpunk 2077 is anything like Witcher 3, it will likely need a companion mod. And of coarse I will make some sort of mod for VTMB2, if for no other reason than nostalgia.

 

 

I play games. And if something frustrates me enough, I make a mod to fix it. It really is that simple.  I just happen to have the programming expertise needed to pull games apart and make changes. And my thought is... if this frustrates me, certainly it frustrates someone else as well. So why not release my creations to the world?

 

I modded games before games started including easy to use toolkits. I modded games before the Nexus and its endorsment and donation system. And I will continue to mod games long after Nexus shuts down. (which hopefully wont be any time soon). That said, I really like the Nexus and I really appreciate the endorsements, the thank yous and the donations.

 

 

For those interested in donating, you should know that I have a self imposed policy: All donations received go back into supporting my modding hobby. Whether that involves buying a DLC so I can expand support of an existing mod or whether that means paying professional voice actors and actresses to read lines for a new NPC option I am developing. I may even purchase the rights to use a nice model from TurboSquid. The most selfish thing I might do with donations is put the money towards a new development rig (selfish since I obviously also play games on my development rig).