Morrowind Mod:Morrowind Modding Legend: Fliggerty

Article Originally written by Gstaff, and hosted on the Bethblog.
Original Post date: Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Introduction

When I initially asked for suggestions for future mod interviews within our forums, it was brought to my attention that I should open up a similar thread within the Morrowind boards. Within a a few days, it became clear to me that we should probably do an interview with Fliggerty (real name Cody Erekson) for all of his contributions to the community — including the hilarious “Mostly-Mini Todd Howard” mod (which Todd actually found quite amusing).

A resident of Logan, Utah, Fliggerty works for a phone company. As he put it, his job is to “tell people that they do, in fact, have to pay their phone bill even though they don’t remember placing that long distance call.” If you don’t see him coming up with new content for Morrowind this month, you can probably attribute that to the fact that he’s a self-professed “Halloween Nut.” Last year, he actually ran a haunted forest. If you want to see more of his mods, you can always check out his site Fliggerty’s Morrowind Mods.

Anyhow…on to the interview.

Interview

Gstaff: You’ve got a pretty good reputation within the Morrowind modding community, what inspires you most about modding?

Fliggerty: I like being creative. I can’t draw or dance or sing, but modding lets me create what I can envision.

Gstaff: Morrowind’s been out for quite some time. What do you like about modding Morrowind over other games, like say, Oblivion?

Fliggerty: Morrowind is my game. I’m familiar with the characters and the places. I know how much of the “behind the scenes” stuff works. I fell in love with it when I fought my first mudcrab a month after it was released. I never had the same sense of wonder when I played Oblivion, and as such I never had a desire to mod for it. In a nutshell, I like modding for Morrowind because I really enjoy playing it.

Gstaff: How long do you plan on modding for Morrowind? Any other games that you have an itch to mod for?

Fliggerty: I intend to mod for it until the Dwemer return. Other than creating an occasional map for a C&C game, I’ve never done anything akin to modding before Morrowind. I don’t see that changing anytime soon, but we’ll see how I like TES V.

Gstaff: On Planet Elder Scrolls, some of your mods are denoted as Fliggerty and Friends. Want to give a shout out to any of your hard-working friends?

Fliggerty: Yes, absolutely. There have been literally hundreds of people I owe thanks to (no exaggeration!) Those who have made great resources, those who have compiled good stores of knowledge, and those who have contributed directly to my projects. I have to make a thanks to some in particular though. First of all, Bryss Phoenix has been a great friend and wonderful inspiration. If it wasn’t for some of the early discussions we had about the future of our modding, I’m not sure I’d still be doing it.

I also need to mention all of those who have worked on MWSE: FreshFish who made it, CDCooley who improved it, and the current dev team DarkSecond, GrMcDorman, AnthonyG, and RyanDog. My name certainly doesn’t belong on that list, I contributed only a fraction in comparison to those guys.

A lot of my stuff would have been useless without models for me to add scripts to. So I am always in debt to those who lend their artistic ability to me. A few of note are Kittybrod, .blake, Mainframe, Phijama, and Wasabi. There really are a lot more, and I hate the fact that I don’t have the time to mention everybody.

The last group I owe a thanks to is everyone over at Fliggerty’s Morrowind Mods. We have a lot of fun there, and a lot of ideas are shared and built. Long story short, I couldn’t mod on my own. I tried that for a while, and it just didn’t work.

Gstaff: What is your favorite mod you’ve worked on for Morrowind?

Fliggerty: I have to say the Blasphemous Revenants is my personal favorite. It was the project that really got me involved in the community, and also was the catalyst for really learning how to script with MWSE. Plus it’s a lot of fun to play!

Gstaff: Are there any mods you wish you could make changes to, and if so, what would they be?

Fliggerty: All of them. I don’t think I’ve ever perfected a mod to my satisfaction. Specifically though, I want to rework all of the dialogue in Vvardenfell Druglord, it’s a mess. I haven’t been able to bring myself to jump into it though. Perhaps soon I will.

Gstaff: Let’s talk about your “Mostly Mini-Todd Howard mod.” What was the motivation to make that mod?

Fliggerty: This has a fun story. I posted a thread talking about replacing the default error marker mesh. People were throwing out random ideas of what we could replace it with, harborgolfer suggested replacing it with a giant Todd Howard head (which I did.) It kind of snowballed from there. He mapped a picture of Todd to a head mesh and sent it to me. I put together a series of screenshots where I used the head mesh in a variety of places. I made Fartodd, put it on Big Head, and finally made Mostly Mini-Todd. I eventually decided that it would be fun to make a companion that had some Easter Egg-esque features. So I put that mod together and incorporated Ma’iq the Liar, and also introduced some other characters such as Rolf the Uber.

Gstaff: Do you have a follow up mod planned?

Fliggerty: I’ve been working on a series of weapons. I’ve also been deciding if I’m going to make “The Return of Mostly Mini-Todd” or not. What does Todd Howard think I should do?

Gstaff: Do you have any advice you’d like to give to fans that want to begin modding?

Fliggerty: Impossible is nothing. I was once asked if I search the forums for the word “impossible” to get my mod ideas. I don’t have to, there’s so many things that people have been asking for since Morrowind was released that have been said can’t be done. Like More Quick-Keys, or Oblivion Style-Spellcasting. So don’t listen to nay-sayers. Especially for those small mods that have already been done a thousand times. You have to start somewhere.

Gstaff: Any desire to begin work in game design?

Fliggerty: Oh, I didn’t realize this was a job interview. My resume can be found on Planet Elder Scrolls. Actually I would love to do game design. I’m not a very good programmer, but obviously I’ve done well enough with modding to make up for any lack I have there.

Comments

(as of 15:29, 21 October 2014 UTC)

Tobias said on Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 2:35 pm:
Fliggerty as a dev? That would be kinda cool actually, I love his works, even though there are some which I cannot get to work.

Thanks for another great interview.

HeyYou said on Wednesday, October 10, 2007 at 9:32 am:
Allright!! Flig is famous! Or, more famous than he already was…. When are you moving to Maryland?

Darksecond said on Wednesday, October 10, 2007 at 4:35 pm:
Yay, me is named in article :P congrats Flig!

Aorawn said on Wednesday, October 10, 2007 at 11:26 pm:
Hey, that’s my picture you used at the top! Ironically, I now hate that screenshot…

I have the honour of being able to call Fligg a friend. I used to do plenty of bug-testing for him, mainly because I had a knack for breaking things :)

Earth Wyrm said on Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 1:45 am:
I’ve had the pleasure of hanging around Fliggerty’s forums, doing not-much-particularly-useful, for a while now. It’s fun to look at Fliggerty’s releases, even though I rarely mod for or play the game myself these days – he’s always working on something ‘impossible’ and proving it otherwise; sometimes I’m forced to wonder whether the Morrowind Game Engine is his best friend or his worst enemy.

Bryss Phoenix said on Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 10:18 pm:
Well I have to say that this is immensely pleasing as Fliggerty definitely deserves any amount of publicity we can give him. He has benefited this community, and myself personally in more ways than I think we are even aware of. Thank you!

Bethesda, you’d have a prince of a game dev in him. Cheers!

skydye said on Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 2:28 am:
Nice to see Bethesda doing interviews. Yes Fliggerty you earned it. If I just knew 1/100th of what you’ve forgotten about modding. I’d Be somebody.