[WIP] D.E.A.D.L.Y - Preview and Brainstorming

[Sdesser]

[update] With the launch of Fallout 4, I'm sad to say that this mod is no longer being developed. I'll be moving to Fallout 4 related mods once the modding tool has been released. See you in Commonwealth!

 

http://i.imgur.com/FZ4eDCb.png

 

 

--- About ---

Heya!

 

I have started working on a small-to-medium sized expansion mod which eventually (if everything goes right) will feature multiple dungeons, a full featured questline including sidequests, a full sized Skyrim city (playable area about 3-4 times larger than Solitude), unique NPCs, followers, items, spells and so forth. The goal is to alter the vanilla game as little as possible, to make the mod compatible with all the other mods out there. Perhaps only by adding a few loading doors to the original gameworld here and there, while giving the player lots of new content and generally just more stuff to do. Things you can repeat - no boring radiant quests.

 

The main focus of the mod will be the underground city and a new faction that comes with it in addition to new quests, activities, NPCs, items, spells and so forth.

 

The mod will also include an archery system I call D.E.A.D.L.Y or Distinguished Essence Arrow Delivery Logistics for You. Everything you need to know about D.E.A.D.L.Y, can be seen in the trailers below (Youtube Videos). Name of the overall mod is still pending. While D.E.A.D.L.Y is cool and all, I think it should be something a bit more immersive and lore friendly. Perhaps a bit more in-tune with the events and themes of the story.

 

 

--- Latest Entry! ---

 

[04.05.2015 EU or 05/04/2015 US]

I decided to finally make a new development progress trailer.

Still lots to do, but I've also done quite a lot and wanted to let people know what I've been up to

 

TL;DR Work is advancing really nicely right now, but still lots to do.

If you're interested in joining the project, hit me with a message! :smile:

 

--- Old Entries! ---

 

 

[30.04.2015 EU or 04/30/2015 US]

 

Gotten a handful of interior cells for the city central done. Making the more special ones takes a bit longer though. First two I did today, I got done in an hour or two, but the third one took almost eight hours. Note that these times don't really include placing lootables, only statics, furniture and other things that are essential for the buildings meaning ex. placing meats for the meat store.

 

[28.04.2015 EU or 04/28/2015 US]

Been working pretty much night and day since the last post. I'm advancing at a very good pace. Lately, I've been mainly working on interior cells of the city in order of importance. Finished a total of six cells yesterday and today combined, I was going strong in the evening, so I skipped sleep and kept on going. If I can keep this pace up and managing to finish even three interior cells each day, I should have all of them done in a month or so. Add in some more time for building dungeons and the sewer system, quests, unique items and such... I was planning on finishing up before 2016 hits, but with this rate, I should be done in the summer. Also, my friend is meaning to join me on the project next month, so that should speed things on quite nicely.

 

Tomorrow I'll continue to work on interior cells of the city, mainly. I've only scratched the surface on that front.

 

[24.04.2015 EU or 04/24/2015 US]

Been making a lot of progress the last 3-4 days. Major parts of the main quests introduction have been done. First dungeon is also looking pretty good. A lot of finishing touches still needed, but the framework is there and most of the other stuff too.

 

Also been tweaking around with unique items, spells and whatnot. Lots of cool stuff (at least in my opinion) to put in the mod.

 

As soon as I can finish the first dungeon, I'll continue my work with the city itself to make it as polished as possible. Still huuuuuuge percentage of all city interiors are without any kind of items, furniture or NPCs. That's the next big part of the project. Not to mention all the unique interiors that need to be extra nice because of their importance - story wise - and the amount of time the player will probably be spending in them.

 

[21.04.2015 EU or 04/21/2015 US]

- Started working on the star of the mod (NPC called Ilatria Shadowcore). Did quite a bit of dialogue where she explains about her background and such.

- Did LOD on the city exterior. Made a new imagespace for it. Looking pretty sweet right now.

 

Will continue the work on the first dungeon tomorrow. It's roughly fleshed out right now with first few parts mostly done. Second half still needs some serious work.

Might do a quick rundown on the city interior buildings, copy pasting clutter setups from the vanilla game, then improve and customize from there.

 

[17.04.2015 EU or 04/17/2015 US]

Still not dead! Mod is still very much alive, just progressing very very slowly, as I haven't had time to work on it in the Creation Kit. Been coming up with new ideas and added a few small features in it though (which have already been implemented). Much work still required. :smile:

 

[03.12.2014 EU or 12/03/2014 US]

Working on the first dungeon. Entrance room/hall is finished. First actual part is somewhat ready to be NavMeshed and have actors placed in it. Second part is still very much under construction, though a large partition of it is built.

 

TL;DR Work continues!

 

[25.11.2014 EU or 11/25/2014 US]

I've been working on the mod silently just a bit every now and then, but I've started the real work again. The city exterior is pretty much finished. Still might need some finishing touches later on.

Interiors are not done. Just a few of them actually are even close to finished, but I've started working on creating the main quest so that I can have a better idea of what to actually put in the interiors and what to fix / change in the exterior.

Quest making seems to be a lot more complex and time consuming than I expected, but I'm powering through it. Few issues here and there, but hopefully it'll all end well.

 

[28.03.2014 EU or 3/28/2014 US]

The project is officially frozen until the start of summer.

I'm way too busy with my university studies to have any time left over to work on the mod.

If at all possible, I'll continue to work on the project once my summer holiday begins.

Until then, happy gaming! See you all soon!

[17.02.2014 EU or 02/17/2014 US]

I've started creating the interior cells for all the buildings in the city.

This means, only floors, ceilings and walls. Customizing every building for their designated purposes is a whole another thing entirely.

Haven't yet started to work on the sewer system. That comes after all the main buildings in the city are done.

Around 40-50 done so far. How many buildings could you enter in Solitude again?

Here's a small preview of my yesterdays work, all lock icons represent houses I made interior frameworks for:

(No cluttering done indoors yet, but at least I've got the cells made with the interiors to place stuff into)

http://i.imgur.com/zWECUR8l.jpg

 

New in-game pics!

(Click to open up the album with the rest of the pics!)

http://i.imgur.com/Ujnoqnzl.jpg

 

 

 

Here's a picture of the city from Creation Kit (Early stages, taken over a year ago):

 

All buildings are almost placed. Next step would be to place doors, barrels and everything else to make the place look like someone actually lives there.

http://i.imgur.com/4SNcHgwl.png

 

 

 

--- Newest Video Preview! ---

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--- Interested? Why not join in on the action? ---

 

At the moment, I'm working on this project alone apart from a friend of mine helping me with brainstorming every now and then.

If there are people interested in helping with the project, let me know!

Need people with skills in:

- Cluttering (exterior and interior)

- Interior Design

 

- Level designers for dungeons

 

- Quest building

- Script writers (events during quests, features in the city.)

 

If you can do something well in the CK, I need you!

Check below for my concept ideas. If you like 'em, please consider helping out.

 

I'm very much open to ideas if you end up helping with the project! :wink:

 

 

--- Concept Ideas ---

 

 

City Content Ideas:

- General themes: thiefs / assassins / shady people

 

- Four themed ‘Quarters’

- Magical Quarter (mage stuff), Arms Quarter (melee stuff), Rogue Quarter (poisons,

archery…), General Quarter (cloth store, little park etc.)? (Still very much open)

- OR Magical Quarter, Arms Quarter, General Quarter and Park Quarter

- Rogue “Quarter” would be the whole sewer system under the city

 

- Vast and expansive sewer system outfitted for the Rogue Guild(?)

- More refined shops for poisons, potions, daggers, bows, arrows...

 

- Rich people’s houses in the city and/or new houses to Tamriel (More unpopulated zones) that the player can go steal from. Actual riches (valuable, sellable loot). New, more valuable items like candle sticks.

- Magical Quarter to hold those rich people houses?

- Locksmiths Shop

- Sells keys to houses mentioned above for X gold, doors cannot be picked.

- NPC tells the player that new lock technology has been going around

⇒ Why doors can’t be picked

 

- Clothes Store (No armor or weapons)

- Sells some rare armors and pretty much all the basic ones

(- Possible new vendors for custom armor if we get permissions?)

- Prices are a bit higher

- Fitting rooms, young good looking vendors

- Models showcasing the clothes

 

- Brothel

- Quests with humour, but also serious business.

 

- Inn with a real bar atmosphere

- Drunken people during the night

- Brawls & Brawling Corner. Brawl for money.

 

- Portals / Tunnels to main cities (Nocturnal’s Powers harnessed by Dwemer Tech)

- Nocturnal’s statues around the place

- One main hub? (think dalaran portals)

 

- Temple for all deities, but emphasis on Nocturnal and other darker figures.

 

- Dunmer houses and stuff (Dragonborn assets)

 

NPC:s

- Quarters have their own type of “general” NPCs (Mages in Magic Quarter, Warriors in Arms Quarter etc.)

- Will occupy the outside area during the day with other more ‘essential’ NPCs

 

- LOTS of people walking around and doing stuff during the day

 

- Some more shady people come out only during the night

 

- Prostitutes (Custom clothes and textures from somewhere?)

- PIMP’s ==> Quests?

 

- Guards in custom textured Thieves Guild armor (Guards are supadupa powerful)

- Rogues Guild armor(?)

 

 

 

 

--- About D.E.A.D.L.Y Arrow Framework ---

 

D.E.A.D.L.Y: Game changing but NOT gamebreaking!

- DEADLY Archery Framework / system is now finished! Includes 13 different arrow types, 11 of them have three ranks to them (Lesser, Common, Greater - Low, Mid and High Level). Damage, Effect durations and Crafting materials have been tuned separately for all three ranks for all arrows and tested on numerous differently leveled and geared characters.

 

Idea behind D.E.A.D.L.Y (Under the spoiler):

 

 

I've always been a fan of sneaky play styles, no matter the game. Assassinations, stealth missions etc. Great fun.

In Skyrim, I love the mechanics of archery in combo with sneaky type of play (Daggers pwn too!). Archery is fun as it is, but I thought it would be even more fun with a more diverse archery system than just plain point and shoot.

 

Bethesda tried to add some more depth with the poison crafting system, which in reality doesn't work at all. The main idea behind it, is good, but the practicality of the end product is something different completely.

 

Main problems with the vanilla poison system in my opinion:

- Vanilla poisons don't do a thing in higher difficulty levels or at higher character / enemy levels.

- Poison variation is laughably small.

- Usage of poisons is clunky and immersion breaking at best.

 

The goal is to add a whole new gameplay element into archery - perhaps what vanilla poisons were supposed to be - though craft-able arrows with unique effects. Currently we have 6 arrow types ready (See video below) and at least 8 more underway.

These arrows will be usable by both sneaky and combat archers. We'll look into implementing these effects into melee weapons and spells if that seems relevant.

 

Arrows will have multiple stages to their strength. Stronger versions require harder to get materials and more of them. Earliest versions will require materials available to very early level characters.

If everything goes as we're visualizing it, D.E.A.D.L.Y arrows will change the way you play an archer, giving you options on how to approach certain situations rather than just the plain old point and shoot.

 

Maxed out crafting professions? Now you got a reason to keep picking up ingredients. Possible unique combined effects for those with maxed out crafts in the future(?)

Don't care about leveling up crafting? No worries. You can make (most?) of the arrows with no crafting skills or perks. Perhaps at a later point in game, you'll be able to buy them, we'll see.

 

What D.E.A.D.L.Y is NOT:

- God / overpowered items

- Easy win

 

 

 

 

Early concepts for the overall mod:

Full featured underground city ran by various bands of cutthroats

- Will include all possible shops and buildings you could expect from a city

- Designed to be as practical and user friendly as possible

 

Player home built to support all types of character classes

- Spacious but not too big

- Usability will be the priority #1

- Aesthetically pleasing

 

Dungeons that will differ in design from vanilla dungeons

- More emphasis on traps and difficulty

 

Quests to blend everything in the game and to challenge you

- Again, emphasis on challenge, but also story telling

- Art of assassination / thievery and general sneaky theme(?)

- Source of more special D.E.A.D.L.Y crafting patterns(?)

 

Unique NPCs

- New custom voiced NPCs that will live in the city

- No general NPCs. Every NPC should feel like they have an impact on their environment

- New followers with custom voices, should feel like interactive but natural part of gameplay

 

Items

- Items with unique enchantments and effects to make quest rewards feel more rewarding and game changing (NOT breaking).

- Unique item models if we get permissions / artists to make them

- Will try to edit textures my self if we don't get anyone else working on them.

 

 

--- Small Preview of early version of D.E.A.D.L.Y Arrow Framework ---

Here's a little teaser trailer of some features that we're including in the mod:

 

Do keep in mind that this project is still very much in the early stages of development and due to the fact that I'm actively studying at my local University, this might take a while.

 

Thanks to mysticentity and The Creation Kids for the beautiful 'Forever Free' logo

Edited December 10, 2015 by Sdesser

[Nudedragon]

I always found being shot by arrows calming!

 

In all seriousness, this looks quite cool, good luck.

[Sdesser]

I always found being shot by arrows calming!

 

In all seriousness, this looks quite cool, good luck.

 

Thanks! We're hard at work coming up with ideas at the moment. Will keep this thread updated as we go.

 

On that note:

I've added our basic ideas and design decisions to the main post

[Sdesser]

Added custom textures to the first six custom effect arrows. Previews in the main post!

I'm no pro in art or texture editing, but I think they deserved some extra bling.

We really need to find some time to start designing the actual areas / characters / quests...

[Sdesser]

D.E.A.D.L.Y Arrow Framework is now finished! Already started the building of the city. Added very early building phase pictures to the main post. (Click the image to open up Imgur album)

[Sdesser]

Am I alone in this sub-forum nowadays? :mellow:

 

Anyways:

Added a new list of my current concept ideas for what the city would include.

Suggestions welcome!

[Sdesser]

New trailer is up, link in the main post! Work continues.

[Sdesser]

Exterior of the city pretty much intact: New pics!

[Sdesser]

1) Started creating interior cells for all the buildings. Still some to do, along with the more unique buildings, like the center tower, Mage and Arms Quarter Dwemer observatories, Arms Quarter barracks and so forth.

2) Did some cleaning in the Original Post.

 

If you haven't checked the Original Post yet, I recommend you do so :)

[Korodic]

I'd say you're becoming a feature creep. How does this city relate to your hate for the vanilla archery system?