Ranokoas Recycling Overhaul

[Ranokoa]

[Warning - Can possibly be the biggest spoiler of all time eventually]

 

I am currently in the process of making a mod in which intends to recycle ALL unused, one-time-use, or just no longer useful areas of the game for continual play and renewed purpose. My aim is to make every place, every item, every anything that CAN be recycled and reformed or renovated into continual play, be done so.

 

Places such as Pale Pass, or Applewatch from the Dark Brotherhood questline, etc etc. They at one time served a purpose but are now just "there" and eat up quite a bit of space in the world. Whilst this does mean that I will be forced to make EACH recycle a separate ESP in order to refrain from changing and screwing up someone's questline before it gets past that part, it also means that there will be many new added hours of gameplay to enjoy, revisit and use these old places for a new purpose.

 

A lot of these places will be player owned depending on what their former purpose was, such as Applewatch. The player killed the family, the farm is just "there", so why not take it over? I will NOT be 'improving' or upping in value any of the potential player owned areas that are "free", but rather just making them player owned. Other places will have new merchants, families with lives, fresh new victims for assassins to stalk, learn their schedule and kill (At which point the recycled will be recycles and turned player owned) or even have new small towns etc etc. It will all be simple but each one will have their own unique "spark" or reason.

 

My goal is to hit EVERY place possible, however, I can not remember completely the entire list of places that are now just "there", especially since it's been quite some time since I actually played the game, rather than modding it. So this is where the request comes in.

 

I am hoping that this project can be achieved and completed with the help of the community by having people simply state areas in which are now just "there" with a bit of detail. Example:

 

Applewatch: North west of Bruma, formerly the house of a family of victims for the Dark Brotherhood questline, now empty and just "there" after their deaths. It is a small farmhouse.

 

Give enough detail in order for me to know exactly what it was, where it was, and what it was used for and why it no longer is useful and is now just "there".

 

If everyone that can pitches in I will be able to reform all of the old junk that no longer serves a purpose and hopefully add many new hours of gameplay. This project will take me quite some time to complete, especially since I have other larger ones such as Fort Death, however, I do have quite a bit of time on my hands as well. I do NOT intend on adding new questlines or making a team for this project. If you wish to contribute and help further than stating certain areas in which can be recycled then send me a Private Message with how and what you want to help with and your skills. It is unlikely I will accept the help as I really really just want to avoid any possibility of developing a "team" for this. Not because I "want credit" but more or less because I just don't want another large project that can not be put on halt for a week at any given point. >_<

 

For every specified place you guys tell me I will continually come back and add them to the list. Right now it's morning (for my sleep schedule at least) so I can only remember so much off the top of my head.

 

List:

1: Applewatch - North west of Bruma, small farmhouse, used in questline in Dark Brotherhood to kill a family. Now vacant.

2: Night Mother's grave - In Bravil, useless and unaccessible after certain point in Dark Brotherhood questline.

3: Blackwood Company Headquarters - Used as a housing for an opposing fighting company for Fighter's Guild questline, empty after its purging.

4: Abandoned House - In Anvil. Idk if this ever served a purpose, if it did I was unaware of it the entire time.

5: Temple of the Moth thingy - Used for Thieves Guild questline, kinda useless after it's done. Forget location but easy enough to find.

6: Any and all caves visited inside the Mages Guild questline that are "one time use" areas.

7: Marie Elena - Parked inside Waterfront District. Used as first Dark Brotherhood questline, completely useless after.

8: Beginning Sewers - Although revisited in Dark Brotherhood questline to kill Valen Dreth, it still is empty, "there" and useless after.

9: Pale Pass - North.. east? of Bruma - Nice questline useless after.

10: Repurpose Velwyn Benirus

11: Shetcomb Farm

12: Make three main Oblivion Gates used as a continuous battlefront with repeating quests.

13: Open up some Oblivion Gates to be accessible with logical justification.

14: Reuse Mythic Dawn Cave - Possibly legion takeover miniquest

15: Separate optional Kvatch use. Maybe not redo whole city but make useful.

 

 

PS: To those who help a LOT with places that need to be recycled I may or may not show my appreciated through Kudos, depending on how detailed, informative, and quantities of locations there are, considering that it would help me substantially. I, personally, get more enjoyment out of modding then playing, so you would be helping my entertainment, which is kind of what the Kudos system is for (vaguely) when it comes down to it (very very very vaguely).

 

Be well, sleep well, fight well, live long.

~Ranokoa

[JCP768]

Are you looking for any suggestions on what to do with them? Also, any chance of doing stuff with abandoned NPCs? Take for instance:

Ursanne Loche; her husband dies, and she spends the rest of her life saying:

"please, I need a little time to myself."

You wouldn't even have to change her, maybe just have a "caring brother-in-law" that lives with her shortly after Aleron's death. Perhaps a single unvoiced line about how he feels obligated to look after her, and a subtle hint that he might be interested in something more.

 

There's also Velwyn Benirus who moves at the end of his quest, I think he does nothing but loiters around the King and Queen Tavern.

 

And I'm sure there's plenty of other NPCs who turn into brain dead props after their quests are over, or they just disappear completely for no reason.

 

Speaking of him... Greyland is another one time quest location, that becomes useless afterwards

The Shetcombe farm house is also abandoned.

Francois house( gets taken over by the thugs that he owed?)

Summitmist manor, and... most of the dark brotherhood areas really...

Aren't those two Alyeid ruins involved in the fighters guild quest line a lot more bare than most others?

The whole Water's Edge settlement gets purged in the fighters guild quest line.

[David Brasher]

Whilst this does mean that I will be forced to make EACH recycle a separate ESP in order to refrain from changing and screwing up someone's questline before it gets past that part

 

I don't know if I agree with this. I think it would be a lot better to only have one mod instead of dozens. With clever CS work and scripting, you can wait to open up areas until the quests are done with them. It can be done so that they are reusable, but don't become reusable until after they have been used once.

 

After you beat the main quest, you can't go to Oblivion gates anymore. I sort of like Oblivion gates and start to miss them after beating the main quest.

 

There are three Oblivion gate worldspaces which are only one-time use. The Kvatch gate, the Gate with the Knights of the Thorn, and the Battle of Bruma Oblivion gate. I think it would be great if those Oblivion worldspaces or ones similar to them were included in the mix with the six or seven random Oblivion worldspaces that you see over and over as you close gates.

 

I think it would be cool to go to Mancar Cameron's Paradise again.

 

Someone who plays a thief made the suggestion that one of the towns should be made to be thief friendly. He steals everything of value that is loose and everything that is in containers. The stuff in containers respawns, and he can go steal it again. But the loose stuff is gone for good. It would be cool if an area was set up so that thieves could have loose items to steal over and over.

 

The cave full of Mythic Dawn people by Lake Arrius could be reused somehow.

 

Kvatch has fires that never go out, and refugees that never return home. There is nothing to do in Kvatch after your first visit.

 

Your mod idea is rather attractive.

[Ranokoa]

Yes, I do intend to do NPCs and such as well.

 

As for Kvatch, I will keep that relatively untouched but definitely separate ESP because of Kvatch rebuilt. I will do something with it though.

 

As for alyeid ruins, fort ruins, etc. I do NOT know if I will ever touch any of them but if I do they will be the last thing I touch. Simply because they are rarely revisited anyways, even if there is a reason to.

 

Oblivion Gates I will do something with possibly. Maybe the main three I will even have a small "infiltration" of Imperial Guards setting up camp and a continual battle with a repeating quest, but most other "random" ones I doubt. Maybe later after initial release.

 

As for separation goes, there WILL be merged mods, such as Northern Regions, Southern Regions, etc etc etc. so people can bundle up, and even an all together one. Making them into one mod that detects certain things before initiating them will definitely be done, but the VERY last thing, and after release. It will more or less be a patch, simply because it adds a LOT of mod time to an already "ganna take forever to complete" mod.

 

After a good nap I will add all those ideas to the list and revise the description a bit to include everything, not just locations.

 

Mankar Camerons place is definitely ganna be done. No doubt. I'll tackle Pale Pass first, but because of the close relation of the two in use and style it goes without saying it's going to be revisited. Anything that is a one time use like Oblivion Gates WILL have some logical explanation in game on why they continue to exist even after their stabilizing factor was removed. I am very good at, for lack of a better term, Bull bleeping in a way that makes absolute sense. I can justify quite a bit, almost anything, out of thin air off the top of my head, and especially if I take time to think of it.

 

Keep em coming! I am loving the ideas so far.

 

Be well, sleep well, fight well, live long.

~Ranokoa

 

PS: I will Kudos the two of you, your ideas and constructive criticism opened a total "OH YA" page in my mind. I'm excited just thinking of it!

[Pronam]

You might want to contact argomirr about this. They have started a similar project, they quit working on it a while ago but it should add some pieces. Actually andy, but I don't know if he has the files yet.

[Ranokoa]

Really? He did? A project to recycle ALL aspects of unused and onetimeuse areas for further gameplay and repurpose?

And agromirr of all people... very big co-inky-dinky. I'll ask him bout it, if he is starting something like this I'll abandon this mod project. I hate working on non-original ideas.

 

Be well, sleep well, fight well, live long.

~Ranokoa

[Pronam]

It's not too familiar actually, it's actually just done at a lot of other places and done in a different way. But repopulating and recycling are quite similar don't you think...

[Ranokoa]

Not quite. Although there will be repopulating involved, it will be a relatively small part in comparison.

[Pronam]

Indeed, if you take it literally :P. However, the similarities taken you could work on top of theirs. They did put some work at it, they'd love to see it released even if there is not added to further. They had a subforum on scrollwork but that one got hidden.

[Argomirr]

Yup. RPC aimed to fill up the houses that were left empty after the related quest had been completed. Unfortunately the project didn't really take off; some peoople did join but they simply disappeared. Andy got busier as well, so eventually it was just me working on it, but I couldn't possibly do all that by myself since we decided every house would be redecorated as well. We did finish a couple of houses and I worked out a nice script that would make new people move in after a random time, but there's still much to do.

 

I'd still love to see the project released though, but right now it's in no shape to do so.