Delusions of Grandeur

[Sultericdrums]

Don't let Lore Fans hold you back. Just look what Aoikani and his team did with Forgotten Realms, the Underdark. There's one huge project that did get done and is still going strong. I wrapped my companions around it to give people a reason to go through it and I did things I didn't think I could.

 

Also on the subject I'm currently transcribing the entire Lord of the Rings quest for the MERP team. When done I will have a full transcript of the dialog in the books, modified a bit for copyrights, and in the form of quest stages and how they are triggered. Talk about an ambitious project! It will get done though, even at the expense of an Underdark Saga Part IV if I have to. I haven't agreed to do all of it...yet. It will take all of the team to accomplish. Dialog first with dummy NPCs, then I can pull in races, items, and scripting as needed/available.

[Relativelybest]

Yeah, overboard is common. I see too many neophyte modders that show up with grandiose plans and no possible way to accomplish them all in one lifetime. They usually get discouraged fairly quickly by the magnitude of the task. Start simple. then build on it. Lay out a long range plan, and start buy making a simple mod. Then when that one is working, make another that will work with or complement the first. Make a larger mod that incorporates the first two - allow it to grow as far as you can. But when it's no longer fun, let it go. When you find yourself making mods because your fans demand it, and not because that's what you want to do. Find a new game.

 

Heh, I actually always try to start simple, since I know my limitations. It's just that it always runs away from me. Can't help it, really.

 

I absolutely feel your pain.

In truth, most of my mod ideas never got, and never will get, off the ground at all simply because they're just too awesome. I make little bitty things all the time, and I do mean little bitty, but the really good stuff is simply beyond my wildest hopes.

 

For example, one major mod I planned was an epic of little odd discoveries all over Cyrodiil which led to clues and to more clues and to a search and finally to nothing less than finding the lost tomb of St. Alessia. Naturally, that sort of thing would make a lot of people very upset, ( imagine someone finding the body of mohammed or Jesus ) especially considering the curse on the tomb's seal... long story short--> civil war in Cyrodill, with everyone suddenly getting a re-assignment of factions so they'd choose sides and fight! The player's job would be to somehow get everyone to calm down and solve the mystery of the can of worms this opens, after which everything would return to normal, pretty much.

Yep, I fully share your problem.

Now all I want to do is let the player, as Champion of Cyrodill, build a sprawling estate, over time, via several quest stages during which the player does important stuff facilitating that construction. Piece of cake, right? LOL! Oy vey.

 

Yeah, see, it's kinda like that.

 

Also, nice questline concept you have there.

 

Both of these are actually really GOOD ideas, and both of these are actually do-able.

 

I have no doubt all my ideas are doable, at least going by what I've seen around here.

 

It's more the sheer scale of it all, and the fact that my mastery of modding doesn't even allow me to create a basic dungeon, let alone what I actually want to create.

 

It's good advice from everyone, :yes: but I'm going to go in the other direction here. :devil: It all comes down to why you are modding. If you are modding solely because you want to release things, then it would be best to stick to the simple things.

 

On the other hand, if you want to make changes or add content to the game because you yourself truly desire these changes, and you will do it for yourself and releasing will only be an afterthought. Then that changes the equation. :)

 

I'm afraid I'm a bit of both, though. My drive for modding is the same as my drive for writing, or craft, or doing anything creative: I have an urge to create something amazing, and I want to create it for me to give to everone else. I want to make exactly the kind of mod I know I would myself love to play, in hopes that other people will also love to play it. That way, what I create from my own desire can bring joy to others.

 

So you see, I can't in good conscience say I'm doing this for myself.

 

 

One Advice hasn't been given yet:

 

Refine your Ideas!

 

Take a little Look at your thought process; you probably have some Idea and then your Mind builds it up until it's so overblown that you come to the realization that you can't possibly make one tenth of your "Vision" real.

 

I'll take one of your Ideas as an Example, making the Talon Company more menacing.

 

For anyone not familiar with Fallout 3; the Talon company hires Mercenaries to assault the Player when he has good Karma, i.e. plays a good guy and doesn't kill everyone.

The Mercenaries can spawn somewhere the Player zones to and assault him.

 

 

You could just scale their Skills up a bit, so that they'll do more Damage. Give them more HP or something. Should be easy enough, you'll be punching Numbers.

It may be tedious to balance it, so that the Talons aren't too strong afterwards but with the right Balance the Player will curse a bit whenever he sees the talon guys.

 

Actually, by "menacing" I meant more of a aestetic approach. Better uniforms, more striking appearance, that kind of thing. The idea was that they'd have different ranks, and the higher up you got the better equipment and more intimidatings looks they'd have.

 

Don't let Lore Fans hold you back. Just look what Aoikani and his team did with Forgotten Realms, the Underdark. There's one huge project that did get done and is still going strong. I wrapped my companions around it to give people a reason to go through it and I did things I didn't think I could.

 

Also on the subject I'm currently transcribing the entire Lord of the Rings quest for the MERP team. When done I will have a full transcript of the dialog in the books, modified a bit for copyrights, and in the form of quest stages and how they are triggered. Talk about an ambitious project! It will get done though, even at the expense of an Underdark Saga Part IV if I have to. I haven't agreed to do all of it...yet. It will take all of the team to accomplish. Dialog first with dummy NPCs, then I can pull in races, items, and scripting as needed/available.

 

Incidentally, while I'm not an expert on the Elder Scrolls setting, I strongly suspect my proposed questline would dance a flamenco on the established Lore until it looks like a tortilla.

 

Yeah, I've pretty much always considered canon to be a suggestion at best. :thumbsup:

[grmblf]

I'm afraid I'm a bit of both, though. My drive for modding is the same as my drive for writing, or craft, or doing anything creative: I have an urge to create something amazing, and I want to create it for me to give to everone else. I want to make exactly the kind of mod I know I would myself love to play, in hopes that other people will also love to play it. That way, what I create from my own desire can bring joy to others.

 

So you see, I can't in good conscience say I'm doing this for myself.

It's not very common to find such sincerity among modders, and only for this I'm giving you my advice again, but notice that there's nothing wrong about what you've said here. No modder would have made a quest mod if modding entirely for him/herself. What an stupid thing, playing a story that you know perfectly. Btw, modding entirely for the community leads to no good, but normally it's a mix of both, simply you enjoy what the community is making and you in return make something else so others could enjoy it as well. That's what make a community.

 

 

I have no doubt all my ideas are doable, at least going by what I've seen around here.

 

It's more the sheer scale of it all, and the fact that my mastery of modding doesn't even allow me to create a basic dungeon, let alone what I actually want to create.

Don't you think it's quite incoherent pretending to do such amazing stuff without any basic previous knowledge about the matter? Not for being amazing yourself your mods will be amazing too if you don't put little effort in them. Modding for Oblivion is relatively easy as you're given all the needed tools, a wiki full of tutorials and several forums, like this one, to ask all your questions, but you need to put something from your part as well. Modding is not like making a painting, you won't make a mod in a moment of inspiration, it's rather another kind of creative process that requires a lot of patience.

 

 

Heh, I actually always try to start simple, since I know my limitations. It's just that it always runs away from me. Can't help it, really.

Every idea you might have will exceed your capabilities until you decide to learn modding. Start with the Beginner's Guide and make the suggested tutorials and more that you'd like. Make them as described, and then re-make them applied to your mod, see what changes, fill the gaps, and expand them as you like.

 

 

Actually, by "menacing" I meant more of a aestetic approach. Better uniforms, more striking appearance, that kind of thing. The idea was that they'd have different ranks, and the higher up you got the better equipment and more intimidatings looks they'd have.

This is a very different thing as it will require some knowledge about 3d editting and texturing. I suggest you to start with things that can be made only in the CS (quests, NPCs, races, etc) and once you know how these things work then start modelling if you want.

 

 

Good luck mate! I hope to see some mods from you in the future if you finally decide to go into modding.

[Relativelybest]

It's not very common to find such sincerity among modders, and only for this I'm giving you my advice again, but notice that there's nothing wrong about what you've said here.

 

Of course not. I wouldn't be able to create anything if I believed that.

 

Don't you think it's quite incoherent pretending to do such amazing stuff without any basic previous knowledge about the matter? Not for being amazing yourself your mods will be amazing too if you don't put little effort in them. Modding for Oblivion is relatively easy as you're given all the needed tools, a wiki full of tutorials and several forums, like this one, to ask all your questions, but you need to put something from your part as well.

 

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not good at learning about modding in the pace required of me. The lesson five steps ahead always looks more interesting.

 

Modding is not like making a painting, you won't make a mod in a moment of inspiration, it's rather another kind of creative process that requires a lot of patience.

 

Speaking as someone from a family of many artists; you would be surprised just how rarely art is produced "in a moment of inspiration." In fact, I'm willing to call that a myth.

 

Every idea you might have will exceed your capabilities until you decide to learn modding. Start with the Beginner's Guide and make the suggested tutorials and more that you'd like. Make them as described, and then re-make them applied to your mod, see what changes, fill the gaps, and expand them as you like.

 

Way ahead of you.

 

This is a very different thing as it will require some knowledge about 3d editting and texturing. I suggest you to start with things that can be made only in the CS (quests, NPCs, races, etc) and once you know how these things work then start modelling if you want.

 

Oh, I wasn't going to make everything from scratch. Some would have been borrowed from other mods (with permission, of course) or modified from vanilla material. At the most I'd do some retexturing, but that was actually the one thing about modding I seemed to understand and be relatively good at.

 

Of course, that mod won't be going anywhere in the forseeable future, since all my notes is on an HD I can't get to due to the computer collasping from viral attacks. (Coincidentally caused, most likely, from all the programs and stuff I downloaded in order to get into modding.)

 

Right now I just want to learn how to build a castle in Oblivion.