Bear with me here: Immersion for popular custom race mods;

[Spiralunix]

OKAY here goes. Geeez. Took me more than an hour to type this up.

 

I know this isn't youtube and moronic immature people aren't allowed to run rampant with the insults, but still, there are a lot of mean people out there. So before I begin, some disclaimers for the judgmental and mean spirited out there:

 

I post not just for myself but also because I know thousands of people would LOVE a mod like this for their favorite custom races. It is not your job to tell me of the practicality or quality of my ideas. I am aware that I ask a lot and I am aware that it is probably not possible in one game. I am allowed to dream, and who knows, maybe some of what I want can be derived and some decent mods could still be made by those up for the challenges I propose. In short, don't mock me, patronize me, or in any other form insult me for this post.

 

Today in the last hour my mind has been on overdrive with ideas for custom races and how to make them seem as real a part of the Oblivion world as any khajit or wood elf; the shorter term for this is immersion I guess. It was inspired by a very very VERY beta mod called Sunderworld designed for the Siren and Triton race that I downloaded a few days ago.

 

I have added so many custom race cm partners hoping it would make it feel like these races are a real, genuine part of the world but it just isn't enough for me. Each vanilla race of Tamriel has its own complex history revealed in dialogue and books, personality traits, beliefs and customs, talents, strengths and weaknesses,etc. Creating generic one dimensional cm partners of custom races isn't enough for me. But, that is all I am personally capable of creating. When it comes to more complex things like creating land, houses, scripting for quests and dialogue and adding custom objects into the game, I am not capable of that. Wish I was so much, but my personal and professional life does not allow for the no doubt many hours needed to study and learn the art of successful modding.

 

A realistic and doable (for modders, not me! lol) way for this immersion to be accomplished that I have envisioned is towns for each of my favorite custom races designed around what the race is and the stats and specs of the race if the modder of the races lists/adds any, with all of the basic additions that vanilla towns have if it applies. Obviously a wood dwelling, reclusive, spiritual dryad race may not be interested in a fighters or mages guild, for example, or any aspects of more modern, civilized type living like a book store... or maybe they would? Who knows. So many different ideas about lore out there for each different race. Some races probably have very specific diets as well or diets tailored to the environment they prefer to live in, or you could come up with your own ideas about what food each race prefers....

 

Anyway, generally a town, with:

- at least one shop available having race related items available; i.e. clothing, weapons, books, spells, ingredients and potions, etc

-a few Cm partners available in town from the race

-cultural practices/regimens in town unique to the race such as custom race rituals, songs, religious practices, hobbies/actvities, etc

 

And that's it! That is the basic of the basic, all the I really want and I would be one satisfied...customer.

 

Things COULD get more complex and interesting than that I guess with town/race related quests, involved story lines and race histories, and custom voice acting among other things, but I am more than happy with generic vanilla dialogue and sub titles for any custom dialogue. I know for sure I would be asking way too much to add dialouge to vanilla npcs concerning custom races and it isn't important to me to have that, so tis okay. I want a general feel that these races are a mystery, living rather secluded and separately from "civilized" Tamariel anyway.

 

Okay, now specifically the races that I really, really want to see in my game with these towns are:

 

Flying, sky dwelling races: I.E Avariels and arimers. City in the sky! No real specific ideas as to how I want the city to look really, just that with the info the modders provided especially about the Arimer race, they are especially cocky and self absorbed and believe they are superior to all land dwelling races. Avariel race can be rather animalistic in their regard/value for life, but maybe a storyline could be added where they have advanced beyond this, who knows. Take these ideas and let them lead you where they may, I am very open to whatever with this race. Just want to see them with their pretty faces and pretty wings in my game!

 

Sea-dwelling, water breathing races: I.E Aquamers and Sirens/tritons. City in the sea! Aquamer is my favorite race of all of them, and the mer folks rock too, of course. I don't really have any specific ideas for what a town should look like or what customs/rituals/beliefs/etc would be good here. I don't know much about mermaid lore other than they like to sing men to their deaths and um... The Little Mermaid doesn't count I guess. Pity. Lol just kidding. Oh wait hey, I thought of something. I guess water dwelling related pets and summonable creatures would be neat. Dolphins, orcas, octopuses and the like. Sea related diet and sea related food/ingredients for sale, obviously. Guess it would make sense for houses to be built out of available sea resources and not brick and wood, lol.

 

Wood dwelling, nature oriented races: I.E Dryads and spriggans (Yams spriggans, maybe even friendly versions of the "more human like" creature spriggan mod here, Luchaire's Dryads, and Xenius' dryads). Um, city in the woods! LOL contradictory I know. Well, the general lore is that these races are closely bonded with nature, pretty much a part of nature itself. I envision rituals, practices and beliefs tailored to this lore. Ritualistic prayer sessions, chanting sessions, etc in praise of the Goddess Mother Nature. Some would imagine these creatures as more akin to animals, afterall, animals are a vital part of nature too, but I see them less as primitive and animalistic and more... spiritual, loving, enlightened beings. I also imagine that they are as wild as the woods; very fun, light hearted, free spirited people. If they feel like dancing, they dance. If they want to sing, they sing. No inhibitions. That is my vision of dryads and spriggans. Plenty of wild animals, insects, birds, etc wandering around the town with no fear would be appropriate, as well as townfolk interacting in a loving, affectionate way with animals and plants pretty much constantly. Again, living structures, food, weapons, armor, ingredients, etc should all obviously have a very nature/natural oriented theme. As natural as possible and as little modern elements as possible. I think a fire pit in the middle of town would be awesome where people gather during certain times of day to sing, or dance, or tell stories, like the tribes of our world :).

 

Underground or dark dwelling races: Night elves, moon elves, and deep elves! All of these races are by Xenius, but more recently another version of the night elf has been released that I really like more than the others (the one that has the sun elf race released with it). The author has added a bit of a history to the moon and deep elves and some lore, and I haven't gotten any specific ideas yet about where to go with that, I just know that I want to see these elves immersed in my game

 

Beast races/Magically created races/cursed races/evil/sadistic races: I thought it would be fun to have a sin city of sorts in the game where the lowest of the low go: races cursed by the gods/daedra, vicious beast races, rouge races magically created by evil wizards or Daedra gods for various intents, and generally just dirty, low life people or thrill seeker people looking to live on the wild-side of life. It's a sin city, where anything can happen and everyhing does, go with that! I imagine an... well w*ore house, for lack of a better term (sorry), necromancy everywhere, strip club, slave trade, black market, fight club type deal, pirates, vampires, etc etc ECT the whole kit n kaboodle. Of course the locals are very rough edged in various ways. Races that fall under this category that I have downloaded and especially like are:

 

Priority: Wolf elves, dwarves, Ainmhis, Wolvens/Vexends, Tang Mo, Khajit, Orcs, Dark Elves, Argonians, Vampires, Dark Seducers, and of course, DAEDRA

Secondary: Nirn Felidae, Slof's Snow Leopards and Clouded leopards, Hell Cats, Tabaxi, Dreamwalkers, Persocoms, Advent Child

 

I know there are some races out there that are even better suited to a town like this that actually resemble monsters or demons, but I didn't download any of em ad don't remember what they are calledmso that is why they aren't mentioned

 

 

Whew. That's it. I do have close to seventy custom races installed so if you know of a town or quests created for a custom race, ANY custom race, let me know. Chances are good that I have that race lol.

[Slawter500]

Hmm

 

For the sea dwellers you could (with permission) use bravil sea domes, add more of them and add the custom races NPC's and give them some AI routines i.e walk around, dance at 10pm

 

There is defnitley a city in the air, I use a mod with a floating city above IC, adding NPCs to this would be fine with creators permission.

 

Underground would be relatively easy to create, all though its quite likely it would end up looking like a cave.

 

It all seems quite doable, but it would be ALOT of work for it to be new and fresh

[RandomArt]

I'm fairly sure there's a dwarven city resource out there...

 

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15171

 

Not sure how much that'll help.

[Spiralunix]

YAY Randomart you made my day. my boyfriend kept telling me about this fricking dwarven city and I couldn't find it.

 

Slawter500: I found a city in the sky too, and what is great is that it is still empty I think, the modder hasn't added any npcs. I thought about trying my hand at a sky city at the very least since something is already available and I wouldn't have to start from scratch (which as I have said isn't possible for me lol). But I have tried adding npcs to modded houses and I couldn't see them pop up in TES Construction Set, just the vanilla cities. Are they supposed to show up? I know how to add ai behaviors with cms somewhat... well okay not really, just that the option is there and how to access it.... I am sure I just can't type "in dance at 10 pm" to the list of ai and get it to work, right? It can't be that easy. Then even with using available cities I still don't know how to add a merchant or change building textures/meshes to the themed kind that I want....I doubt that unless some experienced modder gets excited about these ideas as I am that anyone will help me tackle such projects....:(. Maybe it really is time to learn how to mod myself. Which means these projects will never see fruition. :confused: Seriously, if anyone out there likes these races too, likes immersion, and wants to make even one of these cities, please, please let me know! I guess I could start experimenting and learning in the meantime, but seasoned modder could do so much more than I

[grmblf]

I don't use to play custom races precisely because I value immersion, and most of the races come without a decent history and def there's nothing that makes them fit into lore nor Tamriel daily life. What achives that are, as you stated, NPC's comments and books. So you don't really need any CS skill to make all the important work for this mod, write down all the stuff and sure some experienced modder will show up to pack it altoghether if you've gotten permission from authors.

[Slawter500]

Alot of the work has been done, but it would still be pretty time consuming.