Character Profile – Jolene

2013-09-25_00002

When I first played GTAV, like any red-blooded male the first thing I did was look for the strip club. After wrestling yourself away from the main story, you find it’s only a few blocks away from Franklin’s house – a tacit admission that I am the game’s target customer. It knows what I want and seeks to deliver it.

The sign outside is unmistakable, searing the sky in blades of electric pink. In typical Rockstar fashion, it’s completely devoid of irony, but at the same time culturally ironic. As in, there is no subtext or double entendre about candy or gold clubs or spearmint flavored rhinos. It tells me there are HORNY GIRLS inside. There damn well better be.

Once inside, the strip club plays like its real-life counterparts – a blur of fake lights, fake boobs, and hollow dreams. The energy the DJ pumps through the speakers is somehow deflating, as false as the room it plays to. This is not a brothel. The brass pole is not your dick. There is no sign to tell you what you already know:

Look, but don’t touch.

Yet like many laws in the world of GTA, even the most sacred of rules can be broken. The text tells me to buy a lap dance. It kindly reminds me to press R2 to touch her booty, but only when the bouncer leaves the room. This is an important distinction. After all, despite being alone with Juliet and Cheetah (which I’m sure is her real name), and being privy to this girl-on-girl circus of flesh, I spent my entire time trying to look past the strippers to pinpoint where the bouncer was. Goddamnit, Cheetah, move your ass out of the way, you’re blocking my view! And even after our friend Mr. Killjoy was spotted, and stripper successfully wooed, I still had to answer to that great bouncer in the sky. The sex, unlike the sign that promised it, is always implied.

Touch, but don’t look.

Like any true patron of Dibella, Jolene is not designed to be a tease. She’s designed to tear down the old hypocrisies – violence good, sex bad – and show that religion doesn’t have to be a gormless, enervating suckfest, at least not figuratively. Religion can be fun, if your religion is about fucking.

Jolene is, in fact, a sex artist. She can turn your knob into a firecracker and paint the universe when it explodes. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like. Jolene knows what she wants, and more often than not, she wants it all. Men and women, beasts and bots, boots and boot-lickers, mages and brutes, cats and dogs, brooms and dusters, meats and vegetables, Daedra and Dremora, witches and hags, priests and Draugrs, midgets and Giants. All of it brings honor to Dibella and pleasure to her. She is what Rockstar would call a HORNY GIRL.

However, much like in GTAV, the sign around her neck isn’t necessarily as advertised. While I don’t have the government on my back demanding I install anti-penis software, I have my own limitations as a modder. I can’t make new animations and nude textures. Nor do I feel particularly comfortable asking Marcy to grunt and make whoopee noises. Much of it will have to be left to the imagination, and by that I mean sex and prostitution mods.

In many ways, for all her proclivities, this makes Jolene no different than her fellow priestesses. The limitations are different, but the result, unfortunately, is the same. Like its more modern cousin, the Temple of Dibella ends up being a tainted oasis, nothing more than a fading mirage in a vast, sexless desert – no matter how hard I tried to make it rain.

3DNPC v3.01 Beta

2013-09-18_00002

This is the beta release for version 3.01. If all passes muster, I’ll put it up on Nexus. This is mostly to test the experimental player bard options and make sure everything is working properly. It also adds a significant number of fixes for version 3 which are listed below. As it introduces a new vampire as well, the Dawnguard patch has also been updated.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that the Hearthfire patch doesn’t require a separate BSA, since the scripts are identical, only the ESP has properties filled and whatnot. The main version never even uses those scripts so I basically made the BSA with HF just to be safe.

To install:

1. Have v3 installed.
2. Download v3.01 Update and install.
3. Add DG and HF patches if appropriate.

3DNPC v3.01 UPDATE (Beta Until Confirmed Stable) 

Dawnguard Meshes v3.01

Hearthfire Patch v3.01

Release Notes:

Voiced Content

New Miscellaneous Quest – Spell it Out for MeCassock in the Winking Skeever in Solitude

Player Bard Options – If you have a flute, drum, or lute in your inventory, or have completed Tending the Flames, you can play a handful of songs with select bards. Having an additional bard in your party, such as Alassea, Skjarn, or Amalee, will result in them joining along in most cases. Still experimental.

If you do not have these items in your inventory and have not joined the Bards College, the result will be less than ideal.

Additional Songs for Alassea and Amalee – Ronja Monto has provided alternate versions of Tears of the Hist and A Warrior’s Life which are unique to Alassea. Anna Castiglioni has added A Warrior’s Life to the list of songs she can play after completing Amalee’s personal quest.

Silent Content – Activate by typing “Setstage 3DNPCenable 1” in the console

Black Robes – Quest that finishes Anum-La‘s story, requires having beaten Bite the Hand that Feeds You.

Marry Alassea  – Once Robber’s Refuge is open for business
Marrying Alassea opens up a bonus conversation and song.

Marry Anum-La – If Black Robes is completed

Bug Fixes
• Players erroneously can start Darkened Steel without first talking to Tikrid in Dawnstar
• Entrance to Shadow’s Gulch not disabled
• Amicus‘ Quest – Bed not teleporting the player back to Ivarstead
Orondil‘s quest dialogue not showing up in the Way of the Nine if you’ve previously spoken to him.
• HF patch repeated dialogue
• “Dialogue Griffith” quest not renamed and does not complete.
• Amalee joining as follower after playing lute when not previously in follower faction
Callen not talking – type “setstage dialoguecallen 2” to enable
Larkspur – “You seem confident with women” loops when talking to female PC
Zajhirra Placeholder Audio Not Named Correctly
• Ange the Song-Bearer no longer wandering. Re-added packages and will be fixed.
Fig and Whig – “Tomato” Scene not playing all the way, 2 packages were placed on top of each other, confusing the AI
Fontaine set to “cowardly”
Rinori dialogue routed incorrectly
Sleeping GiantFjona‘s lute silent when playing lullaby
Raven of AnvilLundvar can only be given the letter at stage 5 of DialogueLundvar and not stage 6

Tweaks
• Per request, Larkspur’s follow options will now only show up if you’ve listened to the relevant dialogue. If you already have, you might have to click through the “You seem confident with women” conversation again or type “setstage Dialoguelarkspur 12” in the console.
• Added “meet quests” to Among the Hist and Rinori to help facilitate start of Vigilance and Virtue.
Isobel store options available in vanilla homes, didn’t want to edit the HF cells just yet.

Trailers and Teasers – Ignar the Lucky

One of the things that didn’t make it into version 3 was the re-write of Ignar the Lucky‘s mage story. In retrospect, I felt it showed way too much concern for his fellow sellswords, and Ignar only cares about himself. So, here it is redone and ready for the next update, with Serithi providing the voice.

As I mentioned before, Ignar was somewhat influenced by Jade, in that I didn’t want another character who felt cursed or encumbered by his odd circumstances. Ignar is someone who embraces his situation, and thinks himself the luckiest man alive, even if the people who work with him feel the opposite.