My Halloween mod

[Vagrant0]

It's getting to that time of year again... Last year I released a mod which went largely unnoticed. This year I'm thinking of adding a bit more to it. Before I do that, I'd like to have some more people play through the version that is currently available to catch any bugs or major issues, or suggest some things to improve the general experience of the mod.

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20390

 

I only have 15 days to do whatever it is I want to do, so can't do anything too spectacular. I already have it planned to add a non-combat game (or try to) and attempt to add a dungeon variation to the mix of combat situations. As the Colored Rooms project essentially fell apart due to not having enough people around to work on things, I will also be including the weapon resources, and possibly a variation of the armor resource so that the work on those parts hasn't gone to waste.

 

I believe that I had designed the mod to allow for the mod to be updated without having to start from scratch when the new modes are put in (new modes check for variables which are already present and get defined by completing existing modes) but really can't remember since it's been a year since I last worked on it. Anyway, give the mod a try, and let me know what you think.

[dezdimona]

I dl'd it to check it out.

[dezdimona]

tried this out...very cool.Atmosphere could be a bit scarier.Took my Lv26 fighter/mage into the town.at first thought it a cake-walk...had to finally take to the rooftops to heal and survive.He got knocked down more times in the 15-20 mins I spent in your mod then his entire 26 lv's.I'm definately going back in

[Pronam]

Same thing. You try to get on top of the roofs and beat them off the roof until you're beaten off and have to run again :). I liked it very much. I played it with a level 16 character, I spend a lot longer in it, about 2 hours almost... I was also as a mage with a blade. It's nice that you can retreat to some inaccessible places when you get overwhelmed. The FPS was quite good as well. But indeed, it was more dark outside when I was finished...

The notes:

The under-craft was named undrecaft. The doors seem a bit glitchy at the left from afar in the undercraft, when turned put the Y coordinates into whole numbers/no decimals it looked a bit better and there was no to a very minor lightglitch at the right.. What scared me the most was that the door still said the the place was reset after I was finished...and there was a tree in the church outside. I was not sure about the reach of the pan, the rest of the weapons were great and a very welcome variation. The same for the enemies, it was fun to notice that you

ran out of luck.

 

[David Brasher]

I have given this file my endorsement. (At least I tried to. The timer stopped me so I will have to come back later.)

 

Cool mod! That was quite a battle! The archers would shoot paralyzing arrows at me, and that was the scariest part because then three skeletons and a ghost could catch up with me and start hacking me apart.

 

The mod worked quite well. The frame rate was about what I would expect. You might want to include more precise instructions on how to begin the mod. The shopkeeper was talking about the Book of the Dead and not making any sense. I think that was probably from some other mod I have.

 

I had one CTD in the bookstore on savegame reload. Like you warned, that action should not be done. In the book in the bookstore, the word "eachother" needs to be divided. There was no paragraph breaks in the book.

 

In the message after touching the book it said "diziness" instead of "dizziness."

 

It might be good to use TES4 Gecko to add silent lip files. "Sanctuary Undrecraft" has already been commented on. On exiting the chapel, a spell with the generic burden symbol was added, or so it said.

 

The second file with the staircase mesh is essential to playing this mod.

 

I got stuck in the porch of Southern Books, but Oblivion is like that, and I probably couldn't do it again if I tried.

 

The book "The Amulet of Kings" in the chapel floats.

 

In the instruction book, there is "suprise" instead of "surprise" in the line, "won't spoil the surprise of the challenges."

 

There is a vertical seam in the city wall behind the chapel.

 

My favorite part was the intense battle, and the way the skeletons were equipped in all possible ways with many types of weapons. I laughed out loud. I played with a level 38 pure mage and never drew my dagger, but did some cheating sort of conjuring with a midas summoning plus one other at the same time. I had SI summonings, ordinary summonings, and a uber-summoning I got as a mod reward. I fled and fled and fled casting fireballs and healing myself so often I was always out of magicka.

 

Great mod! Thanks for uploading it!

[Vagrant0]

Thanks for mentioning the errors, will do what I can to solve most of them. There are additional modes which are available in the other section of the under-croft which I hope to be adding to in the version for this year.

 

I was mostly looking for some ideas about minor things I could add that might make for a better experience. I was trying to keep the areas reasonably clutter-free to maintain decent fps, but can still add some minor things. I will probably block off some of those inaccessible areas, like being able to jump onto the walls so that you remain in valid areas, and probably adopt some sort of penalty for being above a certain height for too long. In reaction to that, I'll probably tweak the health of some of the spawns so that this tactic is less needed.

 

Not sure how I can make things clearer without ruining some of the immersion.

 

About the doors to the outside, not much can really be done about those since I need to make use of the Oblivion worldspace mechanics to completely clear and reset the world every time. Not sure which would be more troubling, popping back through a door you didn't enter, or having doors that don't work.

[David Brasher]

As to the question about what to add to this great mod, my main suggestion would be more connective tissue. More dialog, notes, quest messages, or message boxes to explain how to start the mod, for developing the setting and storyline, and to explain what to do next. I lifted the curse and made it bright and sunny, but then couldn't figure out what to do next. I went outside again and it started to look like a re-run with zombies behind the chapel. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing.

 

But that was sure a long and exciting battle. As you suggested, my level 12 thief would have been toast.

[Vagrant0]

Unfortunately, I don't think any sort of addition will be happening. I spent way too much time trying to get the non-combat mode working. At this point all I've really managed to do was add to the atmosphere of the town by adding a few bits of clutter, add the mentioned items, tweak spawn strengths slightly, block off the walls, and fix some of the more serious issues.

 

Sadly, the game just does not want to allow for a game of Tag. I know, it sounds simple... NPCs just fleeing from whomever is "It", but the AI just doesn't want to cooperate. NPCs need to be in combat to flee, once an NPC is in combat, they don't want to leave until told so, NPCs try to assist eachother, NPCs just stand there, the NPCs don't want to tag the player or eachother, they run out of the active area and get stuck. It's just a mess. I spent a week working on this part last year, and spent a week working on it this year, thought I had most of the major bugs worked out, but the AI don't want to do it. So much for that... It would have been frickin awesome though.

 

With a week left... Most of it I'll be needing to spend for school, life stuff, the remaining things I wanted to do just aren't turning out.

 

So... should I just update with the minor changes, leaving everything pretty much as it is now, and let people enjoy the mod with the small additions earlier, or should I try to throw together some half-assed challenge just so that there is new content? Making more story and all that was just not going to happen, it would take me a few months to get that together between all that I need to fix and change.

[Pronam]

Little late, but why not modifying the aggression (back to 0)(the confidence for all at 0 at all times) added with a stopcombat when they'll start on the find package when they are tagged and the others using the deer-method (100 aggression/0 confidence)? Or did you already try to...

[Vagrant0]

Little late, but why not modifying the aggression (back to 0)(the confidence for all at 0 at all times) added with a stopcombat when they'll start on the find package when they are tagged and the others using the deer-method (100 aggression/0 confidence)? Or did you already try to...

Was one of the first things I tried since the scripted flee actions don't work unless they are in combat. The problem with using 0/100 method is that there is no state to attribute to the 0 aggression, and setting the actor to 0 aggression doesn't stop their current combat/flee activities. What I actually ended up having to do was set the aggression to around 50, and use faction reactions to modulate reactions between other NPCs and the one who is it. But, the same situation existed. Once the faction flipped from the tagger to the tagged, behavior did not change since they were still in combat with the tagger. There were other significant issues, like NPCs still fighting back with 0 confidence, or refusing to flee even when at 0 confidence and in a hostile state toward the player while "it". Not to mention, the tagging behavior just refused to work, so once the player tagged someone, they would either just stand there, keep running in a random direction, or follow the player without tagging the player. Suffice to say, there were too many problems to work out, and with my computer running the way it has been, I can't tell the difference between a non-responsive NPC and a bugged NPC too easily.