Personal Notes at Chekov's Place!

Personal Notes

I thought it might be nice just to add some of my thoughts concerning this project. This is only the second mod I have done. Well, actually the third, but I started this one before I did my second one and it has not as of yet been released. I mainly began my education in modding just to tweak some things in the game and in a couple of other mods I always use.

When I first began playing Fallout 3, before I even knew there was a such thing as a mod, I used Dukov's house as a player home on several characters I created. In general, I liked the place but the I felt lighting was horrible (too many "hot spots") and I hated that the damn place was so friggin nasty. I cleaned it up when I used it, but I still hated the rubble piles and file cabinets turned over and so forth. So, after I learned about modding I thought I would try and re-create Dukov's Place, but using MY vision for the place. This is the final product of that effort. It definitely grew into something that I really had no intention of it growing into. At some point it just sort of took a life of its own.

So, I fired up the GECK, duplicated Dukov's cell and proceeded to remove everything in the cell but the basic structure of walls and ceilings. It was now just a basic shell, if you will. As I worked, I began expanding rooms, making them MUCH larger than the original. And one thing led to another, and we get to where this is today.

If there is one thing I have learned from this project is that I don't know squat about scripting, lol. I think I have a decent enough eye for designing a level and "cluttering" the space, but I look at scripts and it may as well be Chinese. To that end, I wish to thank pkleiss from The Bethesda Forums for his invaluable help in fixing the mess I made with the forced greet.

So, where did the concept of the character "Chekov" come from? Well, obviouslly I couldn't call my place Dukov's, so I had to come up with something, and that was it. Dukov & Chekov sort of rhyme, but actually Chekov is a last name while Dukov is presumably a first name. But somewhere during this process, I decided that I would make the two guys brothers and add a little story behind them. That grew into the fully chronicled story now laid out in the mod. Some people will not "buy" into it, maybe some will. It don't really matter to me. I'm far from any kind of veteran or experienced writer but I can use spell check, lol! It's just a story, nothing more.

Ultimately, as you probably know "Chekov" is a character from Star Trek of which I am a big fan. I actually got the opportunity to meet Walter Koenig a number of years ago, and he really seemed to be a very nice guy. He did not seem pretentious, and was very down to earth it seemed.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the home and use it often. This is my way of hopefully passing on some of the fun that other peoples mods have brought to me and my way of saying thank you to Bethesda and the many talented modders out there whom have brought much fun and entertainment to my game!

~ Balok