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If any of this is even possible (which I'm skeptical about), wouldn't it make for a much more satisfying experience to simply allow them to form parties of 4-8 people and leave the NPCs and quests as they are (perhaps with some difficulty scaling to account for the extra players)? I don't think the Elder Scrolls world works as an MMO (which is why I don't care for ESO), but would be perfect for small party cooperative play. For example, the dragon hunts could be 4-player missions. Larger dungeons and treasure-hunting quests could be 4-8 player PvE missions, while Civil War skirmishes could be added as an 8v8 or 16v16 PvP mission, with some kind of system for matchmaking. Perhaps larger groups (up to 20) could share an instance when you're in a non-hostile environment like a city, but attacking NPCs and other players would not be possible. Beyond that, you just have chaos, where everyone is an adventurer and the experience is simply not immersive.

Back again with a few updates. After having many problems with my previous landmass design, I decided to scrap it for one that did not make use of such extreme elevations. I also re-oriented it so that it would better fit the area of Black Marsh in which it is meant to fit. The same districts I described in the original posts are more-or-less still included (I added a Khajiit neighborhood called New Pelletine in place of the Meric Quarter, since Soulrest is closer to Elsweyr than any Elven province, and would likely have been flooded with refugees after the Dominion took over there). The layout looks like this: I'm still wrestling with GeoControl to get the erosion patterns to look good, and I'm still having issues with height and scaling, but overall this design came out a lot better. I was able to get a functional landmass, which is a start. For shits and giggles, I decided to throw together a very rough mock-up of what the poor neighborhood, "The Dregs," might look like. I mostly put it together to get a sense for the height scaling, and I doubt the final version will look anything like this. One thing I did like about this was that I could make open houses by using the "destroyed" versions of the Skyrim farmhouses. Open houses were something I wanted to play with, as I think this makes thievery a much more dynamic enterprise... but I digress. To give a sense of scale, with my current landmass, the area shown here is basically the western tip of the western-most island. In my opinion, it's WAY too big, so I'll be reviewing a smaller version soon. For now, here's a peek at what I've put together. As for how the player will reach Soulrest, until some of the more sophisticated story stuff is implimented (which I'm not even thinking about much at this stage), I will probably create a way for the player to reach Soulrest by boat from one of the major cities in Skyrim or Solstheim. That way, if quests are never implemented, the player will still be able to visit Soulrest. One last thing... I am looking for help on this project, mostly level designers and modelers at this point, but anyone who wants to take part is welcome. If anyone is interested, shoot me a message!

Thanks for the input guys! Right now, I think I'm going to treat Soulrest as a stand-alone. This will give me more freedom with the story. I've thought about this a lot. Compared to normal ES games, Soulrest will probably not be as combat-heavy. There won't be any areas that are purely hostile or purely civil. You might walk through a neighborhood and get jumped by an enemy gang, but depending on your standing with other factions, you may have to fight, or simply seek shelter in a part of town ruled by their rivals. There will probably be a greater emphasis on speech, bartering, and stealth, as well as crafting skills. I honestly have no idea how balanced this will be without tweaking the leveling/perk system (which I don't intend to do). This could make for a really awkward prequel. For some, arriving in Skyrim as a level 15 character who has maxed out enchanting and speech but can't swing a sword to save his/her life might play weirdly. Also, I may introduce some spells/powers that are gained via consumption of Hist sap, which might overlap with "support" Thu'um abilities like Become Ethereal. I have considered some options that would allow the player to visit Skyrim as a non-Dragonborn character, but for now, I'm putting that in the "maybe but probably not" pile.

I would definitely be interested, insofar as Skyrim's vanilla game mechanics allow it. I hate to be a shameless self-promoter, but I'm working on a mod (see signature) and I think there may be a place for a platformer-type dungeon. It's set entirely in a single huge city, but there is a massive ruined temple and underground city that I'd like to try to create, and it might be perfect for what you're describing. I'm trying to experiment with the gameplay possibilities of Skyrim, and I've always had an interest in bringing back more "classic" types of dungeons, with an emphasis on movement, traps, puzzles, physical obstacles, and true"boss" fights (that is, puzzle-oriented combat). Let me know if that interests you. And either way, good luck. Would love to play through whatever you come up with!

So, the landmass creation is coming alone slowly but surely. I've gotten a handle on using TESAnnywn, though I still feel like getting the water height to be right is more-or-less just guesswork. I've decided to simplify the landmass some for now, as this process has revealed that my original concept was a bit unnatural or "geologically impossible. While I work on that, I wanted to pose a question to anyone out there that's reading this: Which of the following would you like to see most from a mod like Soulrest? 1.) A totally stand-alone story that takes place at the same time as Skryim (circa 4E201). The Player Character cannot go to Skyrim (without using the console). 2.) A story that is set BEFORE Skyrim and serves as a sort of "prequel", wherein the Player Character eventually leaves Black Marsh and goes to Skyrim. 3.) A totally stand-alone story that takes place AFTER the events of Skyrim. I'm leaning towards 1 or 2. Scenario 3 presents a few challenges in terms of lore, but is interesting from a writer's point of view. Let me know what you all think!

I followed the tutorial. Everything was looking good in GeoControl 2: Applied some filters to make the terrain look more natural (height exaggerated here for the sake of illustratration). But when I use TESAnnwyn to convert my heightmaps to .ESPs, I'd get this: I continuously tried to compress my heightmap to have less and less contrast, hoping it would smooth out, and while that improved things a little, it was still extremely buggy. I'm guessing something went wrong with TESAnnwyn, or I messed up a step. Or it's a bad tutorial. In any case, I took a hand-drawn map and turned into a 3D heightmap... didn't know how to do that yesterday, so I'll count this as a small victory. I'll be back at it later, but until then, if anyone knows what went wrong here, give me a shout!

I've been following this guy's tutorial so far, which explain how to create heightmaps. If I understand correctly, the author claims that the entirety of Skyrim would be generated with a heightmap of 3808x3008 pixels. I compared a few fan-made maps of Tamriel to get a sense of the scale, and Black Marsh is roughly the same sizes as Skyrim. In any case, to make a long story short, I figured my city's heightmap would need to be no larger than 256x256 pixels. I have no idea if I'm doing the conversions right, but we'll see. My heightmap so far: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-sYl6D2vzUSk/U7nNQCurxzI/AAAAAAAACHs/vte1dTznXww/s751-no/HeightmapTiff2.tif Now to plug it into GeoControl and see what I get!

I'll definitely take you up on that. I can write stories until I'm blue in the face, but building quests isn't something I've got much experience with. Everything from SMQO that I did involved tweaking existing quests, so I am familiar with how they're set up, but I'm usually terrified to mess with scripts because I've broken my game a few times that way. Right now, I'm looking into a way to create a heightmap in Photoshop so I don't have to hand-craft the entire worldspace using the landmass editor. I found a good tutorial, so hopefully I can get that out and maybe even have a few pictures up by the end of the day.

@Matthiaswagg Thanks! To answer your question, I'd not really proficient in anything except story writing and music/audio stuff. I've toyed around with voice acting but don't own a proper mic yet. I've also messed around with scripts and tweaked a few existing quests, but beyond that, I'm a total noob.

Soulrest: City of the Dead aims to create the eponymous city of Soulrest in the province of Black Marsh. It will be playable as an "alternate start" type mod, allowing players to create a new, non-Dragonborn character*. This mod is a bit of an experiment in Elder Scrolls gameplay. Most TES settings allow players to explore vast expanses of wilderness, but feature cities that are modestly-sized at best. TES IV's Cyrodiil was quite large, but its Imperial City only had about ~190 NPCs. In contrast, the idea behind this mod is to create a single, massive, exclusively urban landscape, to which the gameplay will be confined. The player will not have access to any wilderness areas. As a result, nearly all of the players encounters will be with “persons” rather than creatures. There won’t be any caves or bandits, but rather, street gangs and their hideouts. I considered several locations before settling on Soulrest. I wanted the feel of a diverse and bustling port city. At the same time, I hoped to create an environment of poverty and decay. Lastly, I wanted to recall the alien and unwelcoming atmosphere of Morrowind. Soulrest, flanked by two massive rival empires but ruled by isolationist Argonians seemed like the perfect fit. Finally, as an alternate start mod, I'd like to give players a rare opportunity -- to play as someone who isn't [explicitly] special. It is my intent to create a story that operates at the level of "human" interaction, rather than some grand epic carried out by a divine hero. This doesn't necessarily mean it won't be a story worthy of the Elder Scrolls, but I'm going for a different feel. The large, all-urban environment and "down to Nirn" story should create something that feels like equal parts TES and GTA. *The player character may be Dragonborn, but not know it. In the event that this mod permits the player to travel to Skyrim, he/she may eventual realize that destiny. As such, Soulrest would serve as a "prequel" to Skyrim. Design Very little is given in the way of information about Soulrest, much less any other part of Black Marsh, so I've taken some liberties with the design of the city, including the geography, demography, and politics. Generally speaking, I prefer to depict the Argonians as less primitive, so my rendition of Soulrest will not be a modest swamp village, but a grand city to rival any other. I've drawn inspiration from many real world cities, such as New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Kowloon Walled City, Lagos, and many others. However, the "shape" of the city was inspired largely by this artwork by Noah Bradley: The following map provides a rough idea of the topography and layout of Soulrest: Note the street grids in the Lower Ward, which should provide some sense of scale. By itself, this area is probably roughly the size of Whiterun and far more densely constructed. For more details on the layout, see the following: More details coming soon.

The fact that i forgot about Bosmer voice types just shows how much i know about anything ... That idea of yours about modifying existing voices doesnt look bad,but from what you described seems complicated for someone like me,definitely dont consider making a tutorial,just make it,it could help people with more knowledge and skills than me,and who knows,maybe i even get better and use it myself ... fat chance ... Oh and ,just an idea,you could (or anyone else) make a program where all of that would be possible to be done on one place,cutting sentences and putting them together," tweaking the pitch, duration, and inflection of each syllable".Just an idea,dont throw me in Chaurus pit for it :tongue:...please dont...i am really scared of those things :unsure: ... Hm,maybe there is something like that already,but either way,just wanted to put it out there ...the idea of a program not the Chaurus pit ....dear god ,no ... Haha, I'm not very good at teaching or describing things, so I'm hesitant to make a tutorial. However, if any of my mod projects ever got off the ground, I'd need to teach my team how to assist in the process, so maybe I will :D And I suppose you make a good point that alot of the steps in my process assume that modders know the basics for audio editing. Ableton and Melodyne are both professional audio projection programs, so they have a bit of a learning curve. Your idea for an all-in-one program isn't a bad one, but I'm no programmer, and even basic audio editing software is pretty hard to make. Of the two, Melodyne is probably the one that has most of those features built in. It is a program used by music producers to tune up vocal takes and fix the musicians' timing errors. In any case, I won't throw you into the chaurus pits for the suggestion... they freak me out too :D

I have looked into this myself, and also for software that can emulate vocal timbres, but I haven't found anything out there. Honestly, I know there are companies that do great work with this, particularly for people who lose the ability to speak (like Steven Hawking or the late Roger Ebert), but most of these fall pretty short and they sure as hell aren't free to download. I've been developing a technique for voicing NPCs that involves using existing dialogue recorded by Bethesda, chopping it up and carefully editing it phrase-by-phrase, word-by-word, in Ableton Live, then tweaking the pitch, duration, and inflection of each syllable with a program called Melodyne. In order to know if a phrase, or partial phrase, or even just a single word already exists as recorded dialogue for a given VoiceType, I export the dialogue via the CK into a text file, copy/paste it into an Excel file, then use the search features and filters in Excel to find what I need. This is pretty time consuming, but it's quite effective. If you choose to go this route and would like more specific instructions on how to do anything I've described, feel free to send me a PM. I might even consider posting a tutorial. Another thing you could consider is using a different VoiceType for your Altmer warrior and seeing if you can't create a basic follower that way. The VoiceType used by most Altmer males doesn't have any dialogue for follower NPCs, but the VoiceType used for Bosmer like Faendal does. You could set your character's VoiceType to whatever Faendal uses (can't recall off the top of my head), then create any custom dialogue you need using the technique I mentioned above. Or, as many have suggested, you could find one of the many talented voice actors on the Nexus and see if they'll voice your character. I don't know much about creating and fleshing out custom VoiceTypes though, but I'm sure there's a tutorial around somewhere for that.

Perhaps, instead of trying to improve the existing bounty quests, you could create some higher level non-radiant bounties that bring in bigger pay but require more proof, more work, and perhaps have some backstory. Consider the quest to help Solitude stop the Potema cult... it is kind of like an extended bounty quest. Surely the other holds have their own antagonists or problems, ones that might be better suited to a character who as already become Thane and is looking to do more complex quests. I have a very well-developed story for such a quest for Whiterun, and it has lots of room for expansion. It's related to the story development I did for my SMQO mod, but was cut due to lack of time/resources. If you like Game of Thrones, it will certainly scratch that itch, as it is quest related to the politics of Skyrim. Let me know if you're interested in something like that.

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've checked in, so I thought I'd post a quick update and reply to a few of the more recent posts. As for our progress, there isn't much to report, other than to say that JibstaMan, myself, and the rest of the team have been working on a Blades-related side project for the past few months. Jibs is a bit tied up with school at the moment, so things there are at a stand-still. That project is a bit hush-hush though, so I won't say more than that. With all that said, SMQO has been at a standstill. Personally, I'd like to continue developing my ideas for the Dragonsreach expansion, improved Lydia, better pacing on the introductory quests, and what-have-you... I'm ready to go with stories written, and I've worked out a solid process for voicing vanilla characters as necessity demands. I just need someone who can script and do some of the more complicated CK work to help get it off the ground, as I've definitely hit a wall in that department. My ideas have gone through numerous re-writes, which means I have lots to draw from... so we can make it as simple or as crazy was we want. If anyone is interested in helping me there, please post, PM, or email me! Originally, we had some stuff written for this. We created an entire faction that would serve as an alternative to the Blades if you choose the "Dovahfahdon" path, since the Greybeards are more of a support group and can't help you fight Alduin or the dragons who follow him. Ultimately, it got cut, along with a lot of other stuff. Instead, we came up with a quest with for convincing the Blades that Paarthurnax and the "friendly" dragons can be trusted. Not sure if that'll ever come to fruition, but there you go... Thanks! The release may be a way off though, unless we can get more people involved. Shoot me an email/PM and let me know if you're interested in helping out in any way... we're always welcoming new blood! If you have any questions, ask away :geek: That's all I've got for now. Thanks for all the kind words and suggestions!

@clubsauce Don't let the lack of computer talent hold you back. I certainly haven't got any :D Everything I've learned how to do (except basic audio editing) is something I learned AFTER deciding to make this mod. If you've got dedication, a bit of free time, and the will to learn, I As far as voice stuff goes, at this point, I'm mostly looking at what I accomplish by manipulating existing lines of dialogue for a given VoiceType. For example: Jarl Balgruuf, Ralof, and tons of other NPCs use of the voicetype "malenord," which has over 1200 lines of dialogue. Anything said by anyone with that particulary voicetype can, in theory, be said by Balgruuf... and since I have experience with audio editing and access to software like Melodyne, I can splice sentences together, re-pitch words, change inflection and duration of syllables... all without recording any new audio. I've also found a handy way to export spreadsheets from the CK that tell me each audio file's name, and gives me the contents as searchable text. All I have to do is think of a phrase I want a character of that voicetype to say, search for something like it, modify as needed, and drop it into the game where it needs to go. In other news... I've actually been invited to beta-test Elder Scrolls Online. Like an idiot, I waited until one hour before the tests begin to create my account and start downloading, so I probably won't be playing until tomorrow. However, I'm looking forward to seeing some parts of Tamriel that I haven't seen before. Still haven't picked an alliance/race yet... thinking of going with an Argonian, but I'm almost tempted by the Dominion, since I'll get to explore territories that haven't been seen in any other TES game. Thoughts?