OldGrizz

In some online environments, I'm known as "Old Grizz"... sometimes for the sheer weight of the Ages I carry and sometimes for being prickly and opinionated. Here, of course, I intend to be sweetness, light, and bring reason to the hurly-burly of sharing how to do mod creation. In this wiki, I'm probably not going to develop great new techniques or break new technical ground. My wiki contributions may turn out to be spelling, editing for clarity, and encouraging consistency.

I started in computers when "programs" were entered using plugboards with heavy cables going from point-to-point (refer to black-and-white photographs in the Wikipedia of old-fashioned telephone switchboards). Data was on Hollerith cards (aka punchcards) assembled into decks. I remember seeing my first hard drive -- a steel platter about two feet in diameter in a sealed case with a glass top so you could watch the elegantly engineered arm with a single head slide back and forth rapidly. It might have had a capacity of a kilobyte or so. I do not miss those times. Today, I build my own PC's every year and end up with too many around the house because I can't bear to get rid of the older ones. Grandsons/daughters get some of the more recent ones.

I've done some light-weight modding in Mount&Blade (where there are ini files for a thousand variables and other files that have script language that can be modified and played with the right triggers during the game). But I've had the most fun with some mods I d/l and played around with in Oblivion. Now I've started learning Skyrim modding using the CK in a more serious way on the TES Alliance site. I'll work it parallel to Bethesda's site I suppose.

Actually, I'm mostly an active gamer rather than a programmer -- although there was that dark period in my life when I worked as a dBase II and dBase III programmer. I've done some beta testing over the years and found some things no one else on the team encountered because I don't think linearly. And there are those who would argue I don't think. Currently playing Skyrim (replay 3), Mass Effect 2 (replay 3), Witcher, Oblivion (countless hours), and Mount&Blade. Waiting for ME3, so that justifies a quick runthrough of ME2. Or not.