Tuesday 26 August 2003

Pic of the day: Fancy clothes and ebony armor ... warrior and lover, Laura Craft brings the elation back in rELATIONship. In your dreams, darling.

Fight, kiss or evade?

A more prosaic title would be "Laura Craft Romance Mod for Morrowind", which is indeed the piece of software I installed. Well, that and incidentally also "Dynamic Magicka Regeneration". And I also made a new (male) character to go with her. Since Laura is a substantially enhanced version of the "Breton Girlfriend" mod for Morrowind, I dubbed my custom class "Boyfriend". This seemed like a good idea until a few hours later in Balmora, when one of the local merchants, a burly cat- guy, decided to address me by my class rather than by name or race as is common... Anyway, Boyfriend is basically a warrior type with non-innate magic (alchemy and enchantment).

Laura is also a warrior. You have to go to her house to find her, location is described in the read-me file. After an initial conversation, you can ask her to follow you, and she will (at least unless you have a really bad personality, I haven't tested that). But before you do that, you should probably explore her house with her. She will give you some hint which would lead you to find her heavy armor. She is supposed to wear that, not you. She will definitely let you know that. There is some light armor there too if you bother. She already has a high-quality sword, and a long blade skill of 60.

There are several companion mods already, and the game itself has companion ability built in. In the original game, this is only for the purpose of you escorting people, but even so they will join in attacking whatever you fight – and typically either get themselves killed or hurt you in the process. Tribunal offer a sword for hire, but Laura is substantially more advanced. Her path finding is smarter, she has increased jumping and running skills, and a warp mode in case she gets stuck. At the beginning of a fight, she will stand back and summon an ancestral ghost, then cast spells of destruction with narrow focus on the enemy. No big fireballs here. Well, at least not yet. Presumably her spells will increase as her skills do. She will not use her sword and armor until her magicka runs out, a reasonable tactic if you ask me. You can discuss tactics with her before the battle and decide on some details.

***

Laura does not level up in the classical sense. She studies. If you pay for books, she will study a wide range of skills. You want her to be able to summon more substantial aid? Shell out for a stack of conjuration books. You want her to heal herself? Buy restoration. No wonder it is called a "girlfriend" mod ... the money sure gets wings! Just kidding, dear... But since I am already accustomed to showing my love through buying textbooks, I find this approach nice.

Laura's strength is already maxed out, which not only means more damage with each sword stroke, but also that she can double as a pack horse. Always nice when you start to find some heavy bits of weaponry around those daedric shrines.

I prefer to repair my own armor, but with Laura around that's not really necessary. She'll do it faster. If I had known, I would have one more free slot in the primary skills to use for something else ... there are plenty of other ways to max your strength. [EDIT: This is Just Plain Wrong. Sorry. It turns out that the girl carries around a bunch of hammers, but expects her boyfriend to do the actual repair for us both. Realism strikes again, I guess!] She can also teach 3 skills (this is the maximum in Morrowind) but these are skills that will go up by themselves anyway: Running, jumping and blocking. So I don't really see much point in that. Another more original benefit is Jimbo, a reptilian pet you'll find in her basement. He seems eager to follow the two of us around, but I did not let him. I guess he could be useful against rats, but I would rather not pit him against the Dark Brotherhood assassins that sneak up on you in Tribunal.

Laura also has utility spells like levitation and water walking, so within reason she can follow you to places otherwise unreachable. You should talk with her before you start flying and water walking, and let her know what spells to cast. Still, she does not operate in cheat mode ... she can drown, fall to her death (although her acrobatic skill helps a lot) and of course she could be killed by a powerful enemy. So don't sit back and let the girlfriend do all the work – you have to think about her needs too!

***

Speaking of which, Laura is a lot more than just a companion. She has a relationship with you, and if that is good, she may sing for you, dance for you, presumably something else on which the documentation is rather vague. All of this depends on her attitude toward you, and here is no place for bribes and intimidation, the usual skills for such things in Morrowind. No, you have to develop another set of skills. Like remembering which flower is her favorite, and pick one for her every now and then. Then you have to guess what special day it is ... is it an anniversary, birthday, or some public holiday? Being a guy, your only hope is guessing ... and if you guess wrong, your relationship plummets like a cliff racer shot with shard arrows and an enchanted bow. No special dance for you! You'll find yourself picking flowers like mad ...

Laura is a lot more aware than most NPCs. She keeps a diary over her study progress, but she will also tell you if you ask. If you talk to her in certain places, she will make comments that are entirely appropriate to the location. [EDIT: Almost too appropriate ... in the cornerclub in Balmora she will be happy to share some Mazte, a local drink; such an event will improve your relationship points. But in Pelagiad, if you try to talk to her inside the Halfway Tavern, relationship points will go down, as she makes jealous comments about the catgirl staring at you. This is bound to confuse those players who have never conversed with said catgirl deeply enough to discover that she does indeed have romantic designs on male players at least. I would not have noticed if not for the newsgroup. But Laura knows.] And in the right place, if your relationship is right, she will give you quests that will bring your relationship further. Or, as happened to me with the "special day" quest, make things worse. I have no idea what the other 16 quests are ... but I just might tell you someday. Laura has definitely come to stay for a long time.

***

There was a moderate slowdown in frame rates when she was following me around. (I will refrain from the obvious jokes about shackles etc.) There was no increase in crashes, though: If anything, the system seemed more stable than before. That makes no sense, neither technically nor otherwise, now does it? ^_^ Hey, put down that longsword ...