198 replies to this topic

[Shredator]

My signature is just a quick photoshop I mashed together, put in as an image. If you want to use it, put http://img39.image shack.us/img39/4479/siggy2b.jpg into an image URL in your signature. (remove the two spaces from the middle)

For modeling, it depends on what you're familiar with, able, and interested in making. If you're experienced with making costumes, I could definitely use help on that front. Simple gear and steam oriented machinery, working and nonworking, can be put in the lab, dungeon, and city. General sections of dungeon, like the on Corthian posted on page 4, but there will be plenty of room in the dungeon for other styles. We still need buildings for the city as well, it really just depends on what you'd like to make. You can either just create whatever you'd like, or I can assign you a project with a little reference material in a category you'd like to work on. Whatever you'd prefer really.

Story is my first project of the day though Sam, give me a few hours and I should be able to get something posted and sent to you.

[Raathas]

Take your time buddy, I'm currently ill, so I have all the time in the world!



ONE THING I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS MOD HOWEVER -- THERE WILL BE NO GUNS!

[Shredator]

Sorry about that, in writing I've learned I had entirely more ideas to develop than I thought I did, making it take way longer than I thought it would. I'm not sure if I'll be called in to work today, but if not, I should be able to finish soon. Right now a lot of story ideas and snippets are still being developed, ideas are really what are needed right now. If you think of any characters you'd like to reside in the city, small quests for any such residents, or if you just brainstorm a list of names, it would be of a lot of help.

Don't worry about guns though, I wasn't planning on them being part of the story or culture of the city. They're interesting to make and really part of steampunk, so I'd gladly include them in the item store if someone wanted to model a few, but they're not a big part of the mod.

Edit- As an example of what I mean
I'm imagining an NPC in the village that's obsessed with clocks, little clocks all over his house. Clocks aren't as useful as the machines and contraptions many of the other residents of the village are creating though, and he decides he wants to help improve the city too. So, rather than having the clock mentioned in the first post in the center of the city at the beginning of the mod, you instead help this NPC design, collect parts, and build it. In the same way there could be other quests with other residents helping contribute to and build the city, allowing the city to look that much more interesting by the end of the quests. Simple as that, we have a new NPC, a quest, and a small graphical update to the city- all very usable ideas.

[Tibato]

Oh hey, I was really hoping you'd say you want ideas.

I've been trying to get myself attached to a mod project so I can actually accomplish something instead of just fiddling around with dungeons for my own amusement. I'd love to put together some spare buildings, spare caves, etc., especially if you could give me any neat items or creatures to play with.

Additionally: I fancy myself something of a creative writer, and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to do dialogue, story scripting, or character design. Give me something to write and I'll see what I can come up with, or failing that I'll try to think of something amusing by the end of lunch for you.

Edit: Looking at your spoiler for the story progression, I definitely have some interesting ideas, and if I can talk with you and get any better sense of the history or general story/surroundings that you had in mind - if any - then I can start writing to your specifications. If you have the notion "I want to do something steampunk with these few central main characters but past that it's pretty flexible," then I can work with that, too. I think history would be great fun to write.

I don't know what you were planning on this, but one of the things that was lost from Morrowind that really killed me was the steampunk feel of Dwemer ruins and Sotha Sil's clockwork city - which, though kind of cool in concept, was I think a little lame in its final execution. Deep, steel-reinforced trenches into forges built on tops of underground lakes of fire, rooms so hot you take damage in them, rooms so dark you need a torch to be able to see, rooms so deep underwater you can't tell which way is up anymore. There's a lot to romanticize in the kind of life that would come from having to make your home in a place like this, and a lot of romanticism to disabuse people of, too. I would happily write miner's journals, histories of the city, etc. Furthermore, if this is a city that existed in the past but was destroyed - that is, all this technology was lost - I don't think it would be too amiss to add some books to the regular, contemporary Oblivion world detailing that civilization, what happened to it, etc. If you plan on making it possible to go back and forth between the times (which I think is important), wouldn't it be great if some of these puzzles required that you go gather data out of books that don't even exist yet? And further, amazing if you could visit this mine as it existed hundreds of years on the future to get a sense of what needs to happen there in order for you to progress, or so you can get an item that was otherwise inaccessible at the time? I don't know, I personally would love to be able to open up the mine after its having been either closed off or just unexplored for all those years, and see how time has taken its toll on all those fantastic man-made creations your mage dreamed of. Sorry, I'm spouting, but I think there might be something worth having here?

Did you end up getting any names for towns/cities/characters? And on the more modding-related end, has anyone just laid out a portion of coast with a few ordinary houses yet as sort of a preliminary setup for the gateway (contemporary Oblivion) village? If you have coordinates where you want to put that and nobody's made it yet, I could throw together a few hovels, neaten it out a little, and then let other people clean it up or make other changes to it as they saw fit. Whatever works.

Also, Corthian: you stuff looks really, REALLY wonderful. Are these objects that can be used in the standard construction set? If so, I'd love to get my hands on them and play around with it a little.

[Shredator]

Hey Tibato, I'd love your help. I can definitely relate, part of my reason for wanting to do this is to create things larger and more memorable than I'd be able to on my own.

So, welcome to the team! What skills are you capable of, and what would you prefer to work on are the questions which come to mind. We can use help on both dungeon design, modeling, the writing you mentioned, and pretty well anything else you'd like to help with. Dialogue, story, and character design are all open for writing still.

Speaking of story though, I'm making a lot of progress, and should be able to post it soon. I may just edit it onto this post.

[Tibato]

Hey Tibato, I'd love your help. I can definitely relate, part of my reason for wanting to do this is to create things larger and more memorable than I'd be able to on my own.

So, welcome to the team! What skills are you capable of, and what would you prefer to work on are the questions which come to mind. We can use help on both dungeon design, modeling, the writing you mentioned, and pretty well anything else you'd like to help with. Dialogue, story, and character design are all open for writing still.

Speaking of story though, I'm making a lot of progress, and should be able to post it soon. I may just edit it onto this post.

I've done a limited amount of dungeon designing and such in the construction set, and I can build a room, modify the attributes of existing objects and NPCs, make paths, etc.; basically, everything that's not scripting, modelling, sounds, etc. I can't do any of that, so past making a few "filler" dungeon rooms, or basic layouts that other people could flesh out, my time would probably be better spent writing and leaving the in-depth technical modding to the very talented people you already seem to have found. (though I'll happily get in on that and fill in cracks where I can if people can give me a quick run-down of the "how").

I just edited my post with a few suggestions on things I might want to add. I'll try to come up with a few characters; some shifty miners would probably be needed (people who were scared of the antagonist but didn't know how to balance the potential threat of an evil mage against the very real threat of starving to death without their livelihood), a couple of people with tower-of-babel like ideas of what mortals are capable of (the mage from contemporary Oblivion sounds like one of these), etc. I'll try to think up a few characters, maybe factions, etc., and if you have a history that needs fleshing out (or establishing), I can get on that, too.

[Shredator]

Do you happen to have ventrillo and a mic? I can setup a room for everyone to use to talk about the mod, if there are enough mics among us. With as many ideas as you've brought up, it would probably be easiest to address them in real time.

A lot of your questions and ideas are actually addressed in the things I'm writing now, so I think I'll post the characters who's bios I've worked on with this post. Both towns do still need named, and most of the names I use are just quick-inserts to make it easier to write their bio.


Alright, Characters first, story second. As always, everything is subject to suggestion and change. The character profiles reference a few things from the story, which will be written afterwards, but hopefully everything will make sense after you've read it all.

Spoiler

Layla- Layla is the female mage spoken of in the first post. Over the 200 some-odd years the Old Town falls to ruin, the old machinery, ideas, and remnants of the old lifestyle become lost and forgotten. The exception to this lies in Layla's grandfather, who was interested in the then dying steampunk lifestyle and collected bits of machinery and books written in that time period. Layla, like everyone else, left this remnant history alone until she was in her mid 20s and already a mediocre mage. As she begins researching the literature and artifacts her grandfather had collected, her perception begins to change and help her see things from new angles, leading her to new breakthroughs in magical study. As she gets further into her research, though, she realizes the introduction of magic to the Old Town was what led them away from the creative ideas she adores and is torn on the merits of the magic she's studied her entire life.

Cassandra is the makeshift leader of the steampunk village, a young woman in her mid 20s. Despite being young, she realizes the research, creation, and creativity of the Old Town aren't enough to fuel life and takes a loose charge over the people. The only true warrior of the village, she leads hunting parties and helps to defend the village from the occasional monster using her custom built bow. She has long red hair (styled after the character's hair on the right in this image) and wears long, white leather clothing. She alone worries about the sealed mine, as the rest of the village is caught up in it's own creative world, and knows that metal supplies are becoming limited and something will have to be done about it soon. In the quest line, as you're progressing through the mine, she will enter the mine and be murdered by the antagonist, which will be one of the significant events of the plot.

Edgar is one of the oldest members of the village, and considered one of the most eccentric. Much of his life has been devoted to creating a mechanical robot able to think on its own, for which he's constructed hundreds of bodies without success. The residents of the village consider him crazy, but can't deny his mechanical genius. The antagonist will later steal his designs and put souls into them using soultrap, as part of the dungeon and story.

Ken & Carrie are and engineering couple, whos passion it is to envision and build vehicles and various modes of transport. Somewhere in the village there will be a large workshop, one of the largest buildings in town, which all of the residents use collectively (since it doesn't make sense for everyone to have big and complicated machinery in their houses). Ken and Carrie are the owners and operators of this workshop, and with it they engineer some of the most ambitious projects in the Old Town.

Louis was the foreman of the mine before it had to be closed, mining was his passion, and since he has felt unfulfilled. In the meantime, Louis helps the townfolk in forging and moulding custom machine parts and constructs the heavy machinery, which can be found in the workshop.

These are only a few of the NPCs that will be present, I'm hoping for at least 15 to reside in the Old Town. If anyone would like to write for new characters, (a format like this preferred- who they are, what they do, and why they do it, as well as quests they may be involved with and interesting aspects to their personality. Writing characters before writing them into a story really help flesh them out and make them believable) that really helps the mod's story progress. Also among the NPCs I'm planning are Reye the clockmaker, who I talked a bit about in the previous post, and an author who is in the middle of writing a book (which you may find in Layla's lab, among the things her grandfather preserved).

You mentioned writing history for the mod in your post, Tibato, so the various books, manuscripts, and papers collected by Layla's grandfather may be perfect for that. The book written by the author NPC will also need to be written, a draft version for Old Town and a finished version in the history collection

Edit- No location for the starting village has been picked, but just about any empty space on the coast will work. If you have any specific place in mind, I'm definitely open to suggestions.

[Tibato]

Neat. I don't have Ventrillo but I can get it, and I do have a mic. Hopefully I'll be able to have a conversation about this sometime today, but not immediately; I'll do my best if I'm online in the near future. I'm also available for chatting using AIM or Gchat if that's convenient.

I like the name Oldtown, actually, but it probably won't work very well because it seems like something a person wouldn't name a city. I once tossed around the name Gearmantown (gear man town) for a steampunk setting, assuming that if you have family names that originate from occupation, a person who manufactured gears and the like (which would actually be a difficult thing to do, probably) might be called a gearman, and if such a person founded a settlement, etc. Personally, I like the ring of it, but I'll play around with other names a little bit.

I'll happily try to write some history from Layla's grandfather's journals, etc. I like the idea that those might serve as foundations of texts that later become distributed around mage's guilds, crazy people's houses, and the contemporary town.

Edit: I'll poke around the coast and see if I can find anything useful, but unless I'm wrong some of the only coast on the map is north of Anvil, so that might be a good place to look. I think that's a mountainous area too, if I'm not mistaken, which would make it ideal for a mining town.

[Raathas]

It would be better to use skype
just have a conference call!

And i'm picturing a small village, cobbled streets, victorian tall gas lamps, buildings wooden frames with brick walls, clocks in the tops of the houses...

There is a shopping mall thing near my area that looks very steampunk... the best image i could find was this:

http://www.altfashio...cksoutside1.jpg

I'm growing more and more attached to this project

[Tibato]

skype I have, and I support that endeavor.

also, yes, I could see that working pretty well with all the brick and cobble and such. Definitely good luck to whomever ends up playing with textures.