Review: Maids II Deception
I completely and totally uninstalled Maids II, simply because once you get past the death of Kasia (basically the main character) the story's pointless.
Too much exposition, too much conversation, a great guide for TV Tropes (including sexy killers, nerfed character -in that your character is captured at one point and has an amulet placed on you that strips you of spells, shouts and perk abilities-, dangerous nympho, damsel in distress, the secret war -because for some reason the plot of Maids II is far worse than Alduin or Miraak or even the Volkahar vampires-, there can be only one, against impossible odds, and others), a disconnect from what we would see as risk-reward (sometimes the risk is not even there and we're awarded with 50,000 septims, other times we're facing impossible odds and we're given 2500 septims), the Golden Maidens (the sexy killers) are practically one dimensional, and there's no options to convince people to join your side.
Also, many of the names feel like they were ripped right from Resident Evil. The main bad guy organization is called -get this, in a high fantasy setting no less- Project Purity. Meanwhile, the other organization which I dare say isn't the good guys, is called Serenity's Sirens.
It's made perfectly clear that the Golden Maidens are well trained killers, infiltrators, manipulators and all around love sex. All but one, Xara who is the newest member. Xara is very standoffish and hesitant when it comes to both killing and sex. But no option is given to try to get her out of the Golden Maidens. By the time you have to fight the Golden Maidens, Xara is one of the members you have to kill, not being given a chance to get her out.
There's also a Dunmer woman who you have to make the choice of leaving at a checkpoint or taking with you. If you leave her at the checkpoint, she's the only survivor of an attack and due to the fact she was already mourning a massive attack and slaughter of Serenity's Sirens sisters at Fort Pazarath, this attack drives her insane (there's another trope). She eventually gets killed wanting revenge when she's sent out with the player character to infiltrate and gather information about the movements of the Heroes of Nirn (merc organization hired by Project Purity). If you take her with you, she reveals she wants to leave the Sirens and join the College of Winterhold. There's a really good chance if you've gone through the College quest line and that you've become the Arch Mage, she'll be excited to learn this and look forward to joining the College. Which never happens because she's still sent out on the aforementioned mission and killed.
The Dunmer woman and Xara are just two of a small handfull of characters that were treated very poorly. These were the interesting characters of a sea of one dimensional characters.The only one that really has potential outside of those ones who doesn't get killed off is Freya. Who is just... she has a very demented view of things. She flirts with your character, and if you flirt back there's a good chance you and Freya could end up in bed together at some point (which is fine, apparently, because the one character that the mod was promoed as having a massive romance with was Kasia and she ends up dead at the end of Act 3).There's also a massive disconnect in the economy created in this Maids II world and the rest of Skyrim.
I already explained that many of the quest rewards are in the thousands of gold. One can only assume your given that so you can turn around and use it in the brothel (oh, yeah, the Euphoria Palace is a brothel which is just a front for a highly trained military force in the middle of Skyrim that for some reason the Stormcloaks, Imperials and Thalmor just ignore). One night with a lady of the evening in Euphoria Palace costs at least 4500 septims.Conversely, the Flower Girls mod adds prostitutes to the major holds around Skyrim. All of whom only charge 25 septims.Granted, those prostitutes don't have a fancy room, a brothel mistress, guards or any of those. But still, that's a huge leap.
As far as the game mechanics go, there's too many times when control of your own character is just taken away from you. And it isn't in a cutscene which I could be okay with. It's just taken away for more exposition.The new zones that mod created as well are far too big. They don't need to be that big.And there's several areas that were made which are never used. And the number of load times in order to complete a mission and receive the quest reward is ridiculous.
Example, finishing the quest Escort mission, you have to go to Markarth (one load), go into the Temple of Dibella (second load), go back outside and patrol the city (third load), get knocked on the head and taken captive where you awaken on a ship (fourth load), then go back to Skyrim proper just south of Dawnstar (fifth load) and travel to a location just south of Morthal, which forces a load (we're onto six now), then you have to return to Euphoria palace (which would be a seventh load by fast travel or you could run all the way there... did I mention the Palace is south of Riften, so it's on the other side of the map from this quest location), enter the palace (seven or eight), go into the lower dorms (eight or nine), go into the basement (nine or ten), go into the dining room (ten or eleven), and finally go into Matari's Mediation Chamber (eleven or twelve).
This could have been cut down a lot by making cells smaller and joining certain cells. As an example, the main lobby of the palace could have been smaller and the two pubs connected to the lobbies could have just been doors that close behind you once you enter (one of the two pubs you never go into at all during the entire mod, so you could just have one pub). The basement area, which connects to the Grotto, the dining hall (and Matari's chamber), the armory and the catacombs could be cut down as well. The basement itself serves zero purpose save for a place to load into. The Grotto is an exterior area, so it would have to be it's own cell, as with the catacombs as it has it's own textures (using assetts from the Nord Ruins). But the basement, armory, dining hall and Matari's chamber could all be one cell without any loading whatsoever.
This is constant throughout the entire mod, as most areas you go into are way too huge. The town of Jonestead, for example is an underground town built into a mountain. There's about ten buildings in there which includes home for orcs, warehouse, watchtower (really, you need a watchtower in an underground cavern?!?), town hall, home for bretons, home for Khajiit, home for dunmer, home for Redguards, home that really has no purpose and the Pinder home.The Pinder home is the one you interact with the most. At one point, you have to liberate the town and by doing so enter every home, defeat the two guards and rescue the one captive there.
This could have been done way easier by just having a small group with everyone in the town held captive in the town hall. That way, instead of being disconnected from the story with constant loads (one load for entering and one load for exiting), you have one load into the town hall, an epic fight with the mercs, and rescuing the captives, then moving onto the Pinder home to rescue Marcus.
Finally, onto one gripe I have with this mod that centres around the main promo, which is the romance of Kasia Pinder. The mod author has made it nearly impossible to romance Kasia. This goes back to the risk reward kind of thing, but you're never given a clear view of what would work for a good romance option. While Friendship Points (really? Friendship Points?) are handed out without really doing or saying anything, Romance Points (see previous) are given sporadically. What would have been better (if you were really married to using a points system instead of just using a system similar to what Flower Girls uses) is allowing some options to give 1 RP others to give 2 RP and if you say something wrong, you lose 1 RP. But no, you're just given 1 RP no matter what if you say the right thing, but say the wrong thing and you lose 10 RP in one shot.
The final word, it's a mod that has a lot of potential but misses the mark on a lot of things. From grandiose exposition, too hours of conversation (which was way too much), to the over use of stereotypes and the janky game mechanics, it really hurt the enjoyment of the mod. If people are looking for a good quest mod, I'd suggest the really well done and sort of lore friendly Clockwork which has both an LE and SE download at Nexus. Another that's really good is an LE download based entirely on Terry Pratchet's Discworld. It is a monumental mod that covers everything from Going Postal to many of Pratchet's well known works.
Ultimately, Maids II Deception was a sex mod that had a massive adventure that came with it. And if you really want that, just get Caesia as a follower and the Flower Girls patch, and just go adventuring. Or Seductress Faye, a follower built for Flower Girls. Those two follower mods would work better than Maids II tried to do.
