LE Alternate Start - never thougth before

[cirkularka]

An IDEA popped in my head latelly that i think deserves a mod.

Imagine if you go thru Helgen at the beggining but instead of being the dragonborn you are just a citizen of Helgen.

Somehow you manage to escape Helgen ( Thru a short storyline ) and you can also see the dragonborn ( like when he is about to get his head choped off )

While the time goes by the dragonborn progreses thru the main storyline ( not you are a citizen ) you can hear rumors ( you know taverns, guards and so on )

After that is done he just randomly appears around the world killing dragons with a few of his followers.

What do you think?

 

[GrimyBunyip]

An IDEA popped in my head latelly that i think deserves a mod.

Imagine if you go thru Helgen at the beggining but instead of being the dragonborn you are just a citizen of Helgen.

Somehow you manage to escape Helgen ( Thru a short storyline ) and you can also see the dragonborn ( like when he is about to get his head choped off )

While the time goes by the dragonborn progreses thru the main storyline ( not you are a citizen ) you can hear rumors ( you know taverns, guards and so on )

After that is done he just randomly appears around the world killing dragons with a few of his followers.

What do you think?

Making new start mods involve unraveling the helgen start quest, which is notoriously messy as I've heard.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9557/?

You're probably best of asking the maker of Alternate Start.

 

I personally wouldn't want to work on a mod that messy to only change a few minutes of gameplay.

[Gerandirr]

This was brought up before.

From what I've read posted by experienced modders, the game is hardwired to assume the pc (player) is the dragondborn.

Many not main quest related quests, hundreds of dialogue lines and interactions with NPCs would need to be rewritten, voiced or simply removed.

It just doesn't worth the hassle.

Sorry.

[cirkularka]

I get it... Sorry but it seemed like a good idea at first. But if would tend to do a mod like that how many hours of modding am i looking at ( i am begginer)?

[Petemichaelbabicki]

You're looking at hundreds of hours.. and it would be extremely messy as someone already pointed out.

 

The main problem is that you'd have to start removing and changing existing quests (quests in Skyrim are also used for dialogue, among other things). This would result in ruining existing save games for yourself and others, and lead to many frustrating CTD. I'm not saying it couldn't be done.. I'm saying it would be so frustrating and painstakingly slow, you'd quit before you ever finished it.

 

Still, if you're dead set on making this mod, then I won't stop you; I'll even point you in the right direction. The main thing you'll need to learn is how quests work in the CK.. you can find some basic and advanced information here; http://www.creationkit.com/Bethesda_Tutorial_Planning_the_Quest

[Nudedragon]

It's an idea I had already. Right when I thought of it, the mod Alternate Actors hit the Nexus hot files. It's not the same, but it's a much cleaner way of accomplishing something similar.

 

Honestly, I think the idea you posted would be wonderful. It's just... we're talking about half a years worth of modding, probably.

[Petemichaelbabicki]

Okay, I'll give you (or whoever wants to tackle this mod) some insight into the easiest way to do this.. or at least how I would tackle it.

 

The Dragonborn

 

The idea of having the Dragonborn going around completing quests and so on is actually rather easy.. just time consuming. You make a character, place him in the world, then set up a tonne of packages for him to perform in a set order; for example; have him travel to Riverwood, stay there for a day or two, then on a certain date have him move over to Whiterun to speak with the Jarl.. all along you could have the main storyline quests being completed as he does them (just remove the notification, so the player isn't constantly updated on his progress).

 

Once the Dragonborn has gone from Riverwood > Whiterun > Bleakfalls Barrow > High Hrothgar (or whatever order the main quest goes in), and completed all that, you could have him wandering around or actually seated at a home somewhere?

 

All of the Dragonborn stuff is very simple, with very little papyrus. Just time consuming... and you as the player would be able to see him at certain locations.. though he'd have no dialogue.

 

The Problem

 

How people interact with you is the problem. There is SO much dialogue that is Dragonborn specific towards you, that it would take forever to remove it all.. I take my hat off to anyone who manages it, but.. for those of you who love pain and misery; here's the best way;

 

Go into your Character > Quests tab and go through all the dialogue trees.. anything that seems Dragonborn-ish, simply remove it.. or if you're feeling creative, you can set conditions up for each branch, so that instead of saying these lines to you, they would say them when in close proximity to the actual Dragonborn... though messing with vanilla dialogue quests almost always ends in tears, and what seems simple, creates complex and unpredictable problems; (I made a vampire child who shared dialogue with Babette, and although my vampire spoke perfectly, Babette went all silent on me, then suddenly out of nowhere began talking again).

 

Anyway, thought I'd share my method. I might have made it appear a lot more simple than it really is. You should definitely do your quest research before attempting this mod.