And (I hope I don't get this wrong) could I make the animation in Maya 2014 and never have to use Maya 8.5? Or is it a necessity?

The plugin that you linked on the original post from our wiki gives you the ability to do everything within Maya 2014, no need for 8.5.

The plugin that you linked on the original post from our wiki gives you the ability to do everything within Maya 2014, no need for 8.5.

Every time I load something in Maya 2014 it loads sideways like this:
This makes it difficult to line up weapons and hands. Know any way to fix it?

Every time I load something in Maya 2014 it loads sideways like this: (Image removed from quote.)
This makes it difficult to line up weapons and hands. Know any way to fix it?

Last point HERE.

Last point HERE.

I keep getting this error when I try connect j_gun to the first joint from anim rigging: // Error: line 0: Too many arguments.  Expected 2, found 0. //
It works just fine if I select just i_gun, but when I select j_gun and the model, it doesn't work and that's that the tutorial showed: Cod5 Custom Gun / Animations Tutorial - ( Part 2: Animation Rig )