Woah, What happened?

I'm still around, yes. In fact, I'm actually rather active over at Creatures Caves. However, you wouldn't know that by looking here, judging by the lack of posts for roughly two months. 

I don't think I need to say that it was the result of a hiatus. However, this hiatus was a particularly nasty one; not only was my will to do anything Creatures-related sapped, my will to do anything productive was sapped. But fortunately, I'm working on getting myself out of this rut and will hopefully get my motivation back soon. 

Unfortunately, the timing of the hiatus couldn't be worse considering that the CCSF is just around the corner. What I originally intended to do was make four genetic breeds (two grendels, a norn, and an ettin) and a metaroom. What actually got done was one extremely simple genetic breed and a metaroom without flora or fauna. For what's probably the biggest event of the Community, you'd think I would be more driven to actually get this stuff done in time.

However, while my actual submissions to the CCSF may be a little disappointing, that may not be the whole story. If I can manage to get all my ducks in a row by the time the CCSF starts, I may release a thing or two here over the course of the CCSF. That is a very big if, however - it's just as likely I won't get around to making anything more than I've already made.

On a final note, I really need to be more realistic here. Seriously, how many times I said I'd do something on this very blog and then have absolutely nothing come of it? Too many. 

Metaroom Review: Veridia

After a month and a half hiatus, I'm back at college but ready to get back to Creatures. I'm trying to set up a wolfling run, but I've found that my taste in both agents and metarooms has gone completely OCD and therefore I'm finding it extremely difficult to come up with something I'm satisfied with. So rather than mess with that, I decided to review one of the most popular metarooms around: Veridia, by Soliloquy and Liam (and quite a few others).

When Veridia is first injected, two things immediately jump out: the place is gorgeous, and the place is very empty.

I'll comment on the presentation first. Veridia, graphically, is very beautiful. Apart from some smudging around the walkways taken from C2, it's one of those places you can stare at for hours and not get bored. I wouldn't say it's as atmospheric as Aquamind or the Oasis, but if you're looking for beauty you'll certainly be satisfied here.

The graphics have the bonus of making the task of finding appropriate agents for the room a little easier. At the very least, there's plenty of background flora to put patch plants on.

Now onto the emptiness. Soliloquy had the intention of making Veridia a large, customizable expanse not unlike the Biodome. For the most part, it was a success. Veridia's one of the best rooms to use with the Garden Box, due to all the background flora for patch plants and wide expanse for other plants.

However, my main criticism with this room ties into to the fact that there's nothing in there to begin with (besides CA emitters, elevators, etc.).

These walkways are certainly pretty and help fill up what would otherwise be empty space, but for practical purposes they might as well not be there. The only level in the room that is actually fertile is the lowest level. Couple this with the fact that the Garden Box patch plants and a ton of third-party potted plants tend to just fall past the walkways, and creatures in here have absolutely no reason to go up into the canopy. Sure, you could cover the walkways with vendors and toys, but why should a creature go up a floor to use a vendor when it could stay on the ground level and find food without any extra effort? It doesn't help that the elevators are derived from the C2toDS elevators and therefore lack pull scripts (and therefore tend to confuse the heck out of creatures), and that there's no CA links to start with (though that's rectified with Amai's Magic Words Room Edits).

As a result of all this, I really don't find myself enjoying Veridia as much as other people. I do like the place, don't get me wrong, but having only one level that's really open to customization is a bit of a turn-off.

Summary: Veridia is a great metaroom. It's beautiful, creature-friendly (despite the elevators), and goes hand-in-hand with the Garden Box and Magic Words Room Edits. However, its attempt to be a customizable metaroom really falls flat when you consider the fact that it has one fertile level. Your creatures will enjoy being in here, but don't expect them to want to go up to the upper levels anytime soon.

Final score: 7/10

Aquanornia Update #2

So I decided to run a Maraquan Grendel wolfling run to enjoy my recently-created fixes...and found out the hard way that they, and presumably other norn-bodied grendels, have trouble navigating the lowest floor of Aquanornia Revamped once they're adults. In light of this, the metaroom has been updated again.

It's available from the C3/DS Downloads page as usual, or you can get it directly here.

Two posts in one day, whoo. \o/

Dabblings in BD....

....Have resulted in something usable.

If you've ever used Trix's Maraquan Grendels, you may have noticed the issue adolescent and older grendels have with their arms. If you haven't noticed it, the issue is that the lower arm tends to detach at the elbow and that the grendels seem to pick things up with their wrists as opposed to their hands.

Being as OCD as I am, I found it to take away significantly from my enjoyment of the breed. The thing is, there used to be a fix for this issue made by Trix herself. However, she forgot to upload it to her server when she updated her website, and as a result it was lost forever. I didn't have any luck finding it, so I instead decided to dive into the BD files and fix the issue myself. It was tedious, but the result?

I succeeded in recreating the fix, and therefore putting the Maraquan Floating Arm bug to rest. If you found the floating arms as annoying as I did, then you'll find this fix will drastically improve the breed's presentation.

Download the Maraquan Grendel Arm Fix!

Another Year, Another Birthday

As the title says - today is my 21st birthday. That means I'm finally free of the last bit of legal prohibitions - I can now drink alcohol, etc. Does that mean I will drink alcohol, etc.? No (alcohol has more cons than pros as far as I'm concerned).

I wasn't going to miss the chance to release a breed this year, if the crapton of releases that came before this one are any indication. I could have made a jab at my newfound ability to drink by making a breed revolving around alcohol, but decided that a serious breed would be more worthwhile. Unfortunately, this is where I break the streak of aquatic releases. Instead, this breed is more suited for an ocean of a different sort - the sea of outer space, as a passenger aboard of the Capillata.

Corny metaphor aside, the W-Runner Grendels are simultaneously a breed designed for wolfling runs and a breed designed for Docking Station. They have the advantage of being able to follow smells and navigate doors and lifts from birth, unlike normal creatures who have to wait until childhood. In addition, they do not get homesick and love using portals. They're more even-tempered than normal grendels to prevent their anger from getting in the way of their survival, but if you think they're completely friendly you're sadly mistaken.

Download the W-Runner Grendels!

And speaking of portals, you may be wondering how there's an open warp portal behind the grendel up there when the DS server has been offline for who-knows-how-long. Here's your answer....

These altered warp portals let your creatures travel from place-to-place in your world, while simulating the appearance and feel of the warp jumps of lore. 

Do note that there's a bug with these: if you have a closed portal in the same world with open portals, your creatures will sometimes get warped to the closed portal. It doesn't happen often, though, so hopefully you can live with it until I can figure out just exactly what's causing it. 

Download the Offline Warp Portals!

To end this post on another corny philosophical note: the way these grendels jump through the warp they love so much symbolizes my anticipation and worries for the future. With any luck, I'll still be here next year, bringing you yet another breed to enjoy. Time will tell, though....