The Road to Devourment Remastered

The Road to Devourment Remastered

by Iasiney

Vorephiles were hungry for more so they finally go something that may satisfy those appetites. Recently, Schaken mods took over development of Devourment Male and Female from Galmar. Now, the mod will come with a new name of Devourment Remastered.

Schaken himself is working on this mod with Jobobby04. Schaken had this to say about Jobobby04 that, “His expertise in most programs are far beyond mine.” However, Schaken will be doing the most work with Jobobby04 helping out if needed.

Everyone is wondering what Schaken will be doing to the mod. Schaken had this to say, “My goal is really not to remove anything, but to add.” Yet, he will be fine tuning the code and making the core of the program more stable. He said he plans to add a big debugging system and that, if anyone finds bugs, then they can easily follow along and he will be able to communicate using his website to streamline talking with the bug reporter.

Now, Schaken hopes to improve what the regular user will see especially in the overall speed of the mod, “Right now, I greatly improved the dialogue options and how they are handled. The game reloads the plugins, but really loads scripts on call, so I try to put as much work in the plugins as possible.” Schaken said. He went on to explain how each dialogue was calling its own script rather than efficiently narrowing it down to a few. The way things are going to be with each script’s particulars will be less strenuous on the engine, he pointed out.

So, anticipations for the first release of the beta are rampant. Schaken reported it will be released November 20, 2020.

“It will basically be the same thing everyone has, except with the debugging I put in, which is enabled in the MCM, plus anything I find while I’m in there that needs work that’s obvious, and the dialogue fixes, with proper source codes that are much easier to read, and up to date so other modders can finally have a reliable source to work with and make mods for the new "Devourment Remastered", Schaken spoke.

The preliminary particulars established, most would want to know where to get a copy of the beta when it releases. Schaken explained the full mod will be hosted on his website  https://schaken-mods.com/  but that the beta can be acquired from Github and as he says, “...with a caution that some things [may … be currently] being worked on, and some things disabled, possible bugs. I will try to keep the main mod 100% bug free, with a beta version being worked on as we go.”

That set aside, why is Schaken even doing this some have asked. To that, Schaken says he enjoys it. He originally joined the Devourment community to get a feel for it and see if he wanted to get involved with it.

“Its been a really rocky start, but the community as a whole has been nothing but super welcoming and helpful, and the previous owner (Galmar) has been like a best friend to me already, I feel im just helping a huge group of good friends, making this all worth it,” Schaken added.

The question on some minds has some warning about feature creep. That is as Wikipedia and Schaken say is, “Excessive ongoing expansion or addition of new precluded features in a product, especially in computer software, video games and consumer and business electronics.” Yet Schaken assures that he isn’t going to put things in the mod but more to enable to possibilities of putting things into the mod.

“There is a group wanting to add a perk tree for example, I think that would be best for a mod Add-On that I plan on helping make happen as well. But without the proper framework setup, it wont be able to happen. This is where my work will be most appreciated, making anything possible to plug and play with this framework,” Schaken explained.

Well then, some questions could arise about those that have made a mod that uses the previous Devourment Male and Female 1.2.7 and whether it will be compatible with the Devourment remastered. Schaken said definitely and that he will add switches in MCM to turn off male and female [predators] respectively.

“So I think a lot of things will still work, but i am sure others wont, and i will help anyone who wants it to be able to update their patches to work with this. I think being closed minded with a framework like this is the fastest way to watch it die, And I am not looking to see that happen,” Schaken pointed out.

Devourment enthusiasts may ask then about helping out. Schaken said that the best help everyone can give is in debugging and reporting bugs and continued to say, “Usually if people will just speak up, I can fix it. If no one reports anything, I wont know its there. pretty simple.“

As a veteran modder, Schaken weighted in on his time doing that. The old has finally left the way for the new as he put it. The whole modding scene a few years ago was much more toxic and where everyone was in battles over frivolous envy.

“More recently i hear more gratefulness, kindness, and respect than i have ever heard, and this [really] encourages me to keep helping everyone,” Schaken moved on to say.

His old discord server has his golden rule, it is that if he did something for you, be kind enough to stay around and repay it by helping someone else out that needed it someday. “Then my main discord became a place where people go just to get help, its a beautiful thing, I love it,” He commented.

Yes, but how many mods has Schaken worked on. What are the numbers?

“uhhh... honestly over 1000.. I have at least 100 on my PC that i just didn’t like so i never released, some I got distracted and never finished. If i cant put my heart into it, i know others wont be able to love it either, so it gets dropped,” Schaken responded.

The follow up is on the body and outfit changes. While Schaken has things in mind for that, the plans are not set in stone. Yet, when asked about what his plans for that might be he said he will have to consult with his team further because not much can be changed.

This might not be satisfying to most so going back to what’s been on the discord server so upon being asked about the details about using high poly bodies he acknowledged that it is possibly going to be an add-on. His team has a redesigned body they use. Upon which, he technically explained it:

“Instead of the hands and feet having so little poly, and the body having an almost maxed out poly count, we have designed a style that the feet part actually ends at the thighs, instead of the ankles, and the hands part has the entire arms in it instead, making the amount of poly to be much further evenly proportioned. From there we took it another step and the head is now just the face, and the body has included the back of the head, which allow us [much] better [detail] on the face instead of having to focus this needed poly count on the neck and back of the head. “

This would possibly tax some machines that already struggle with Devourment Male and Female he admitted but that it would look much much better.

Overall, though, Schaken expressed he wants to get the core nuts and bolts with the mod smoothed out before he works on add-ons such as the graphics. He is adding simplicity [of the core of it] over a bunch of extra add-ons.

The screenshots of the sneak peak are here:

http://schaken-mods.com/mods/Schaken/UploadImage/OutfitStudio_x64_FxGVmsaSjl.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/606327692609978369/757766802704040046/unknown.png

http://schaken-mods.com/mods/Schaken/UploadImage/NifSkope_CrPivK3pHT.png

http://schaken-mods.com/mods/Schaken/UploadImage/NifSkope_QkwKcrfkV6.png

Schaken commented on those screenshots that the “the female muscles is just a slider. but shows how much more detail we can [...] get in there.”

The mod requirement for sure are much smaller and Schaken says, “There was a serious miscommunication, Most of those mods have no reason to be a master.

There was also a script on the mod that was calling for another mods script that was in a BSA, so you had to have it or this script fails. The sad part is the script as being called for no reason at all, It literally had no purpose.. So i removed that part.” Yet, he is impressed with what the community has done so far with what spaghettiness the code was for the community. He said it is a masterpiece but you can see where others added or removed parts and that’s where it becomes crap.