Modder's Interview: The Wanderer
How long have you been modding and what was your first complete mod?
If you count making level maps for Doom then probably the best part of 25-30yrs
But my first Morrowind mod was the “Dark Brotherhood Control Ring” which was originally released on PES way back in 2008, it allows the possibility to turn their attacks on and off at will. I believe it’s still the only one that does that… but still, all the others are far more popular!
How do you approach modding? (What inspires you? Do you have a specific workflow?)
Hmm… I usually tend to just get crazy ideas and write a short description of it and post it to my back burner.
Occasionally those ideas bear fruit and I start writing more details. Sometimes that develops into the start of a mod. Then often it will just evolve as I start working on them.
Take my release “Cloud Storage Warehouse” which started out as just a Lua coding exercise and the idea just sort of grew out of that… I had thought, already written a similar mod for Oblivion, which I never released, so most of what was needed to be done for it was already in my head.
Cloud Storage was my Mod of the Week in November
What’s your favourite thing about modding?
That’s easy… creating something from nothing :) then being able to sit back look at it and say “I made that.”
What’s your favourite mod that you’ve made so far?
Hard question to answer. I like all my mods of course.
For a player home in Morrowind though it would have to be “The Wanderer’s Lodge”, that’s why I chose it to upgrade to be compatible with my Cloud Storage Mod.
Is there a mod you are especially proud of?
That would be the one I’m currently trying to finish off… so not released yet, and that’s L’Space… there is just one main code problem that needs to be solved and it should only then take a few weeks or so to finish and release. Drac has been trying to help with that but it is frustrating both of us. I actually started the mod years ago but then left off to go play and mod Oblivion, Fallout, Skyrim and Cyberpunk for around the last 10+ yrs,
Are you working on a mod these days?
Yes… far too many. My back burner has ideas falling of the back :D
L’Space is still my top priority though, there is another modders resource I’m working on this time with DietBob, that’s some way off though.
I’ve also got an idea for a sort of not-quite-a-quest mod I’m toying with which could be ready before the end of the year.
Another I’ve wanted to do for some time is now looking more likely now I know about Lua code, but that one is unlikely to materialise till next year though.
Can you tell us about a couple of projects you have on your back burner?
One of my backburn mods is a Vampire, Werewolf and Witches mod. The idea behind it is it is to be based on events that would take place before the main game started. It’s been written in a way so far that it is quite generic so not yet game-specific. Maybe TES VI :D
I have written a lot for it and the mod is fairly well designed and laid out in a Coogle flow map.
But again it’s one of those mods that I need help with to finish, mainly writing quest for it. Although the overall storyline is there.
Another is a dungeon/cave system based, loosely, on a series of litrpg books called “The Chaos Seed” which I really enjoyed reading.
Not sure if you can see it very well in the image but the cave entrance is a skull carved into the rock face.
This was going to be quite complicated to implement using just MWSE scripts but I’m hoping using the Lua extension will now make it easier.
No real quest involved with this one, more of just a challenging dynamically changing dungeon crawl.
How much do you play Morrowind, not counting playtesting?
I don’t think I’ve actually played Morrowind since before I left to go off and play other games over 10yrs ago.
How did you discover Morrowind?
I’m not sure exactly… before I did I was playing Doom (I-III), Diablo (I-II), and games like that.
I think Morrowind had been out about a year before I came across it while just looking for a new game to play, but I do know that once I started and discovered its modding I was hooked.
What makes Morrowind special for you?
It’s probably just that it was the first real RPG I played on the computer, I’d been into RPG board games for a long time before that though.
Any RPG board game you'd recommend?
My all-time favourite board game has to be Talisman, with all the expansions of course. Not played it in a very long time now though.
Then there was Hero Quest, I created a lot of my own add-on stuff for that one. I’ve actually seen that one on sale on the internet recently for around £100!
And of course, almost any of the Dungeon & Dragon games are worth playing, if you can find a good Dungeon Master to host it that is.
What are the mods you simply cannot play without?
I’ve been away from Morrowind for years so I’m still trying to work out what new stuff is out there, but one of the first I installed this time around was better bodies and the heads, armour, and clothes to go with it, so I guess those and ones like MGE XE and UI Expansion are also a must.
Are there any underrated mods that you really enjoy?
You mean apart from all my own mods :D
Do you play other games?
Not currently but will probably play Starfield as soon as it comes out.
And by the way, what's the story behind your user name?
Ah yes… ‘The Wanderer’ that came about from playing Diablo. I just liked it and it stuck… I managed to use it on most of the gaming websites I frequent, but I have had to use a few variants over the years.
My avatar on most of them also represents the way I see it… A Druid walking with a staff… but not all sites allow animated gifs. I would love to have it as an in-game animation for my character to use though.