Steampunk Oblivion - Recruiting

[Shredator]

Interested in working on a creative and compelling, medium sized mod to expand Oblivion's borders to new horizons? I am too, but there's too much to do alone- interested in lending your skills to accomplish something amazing?

(This is a very long thread by the way. Oh, and it also has pictures. Yes, I know pictures make the page more difficult to load, that's why I've kept them small)

 

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/1142/steampunkleia.jpg

(others concept art used the express possible costumes as well as the style I have in mind)

http://img256.imageshack.us/f/steampunkleia.jpg/

 

Mod Overview

-Beginning

-Areas

-Creation Format

-Questline

 

Recruiting

 

Overview-

The mod (working title) Steampunk Oblivion will include (assuming completion):

A new city, Unnamed (open to suggestions), made of illogical Steampunk-styled buildings

A puzzle-based and story-tied underground dungeon, using old-style rpg puzzles not yet seen in Oblivion

A fleshed-out cast of characters (10-15, most likely), with completely unique costumes, hair, and dialogue

A simple, small city like those appearing around Oblivion already to start from

An overworld dungeon with respawning monsters, for material collection

New steampunk outfits, which may be earned by the player

An involving storyline

 

Beginning-

Steampunk Oblivion will start in a custom but simple village, styled after the small villages around Oblivion. Filled with normal and unassuming NPCs, with some custom dialogue, but largely meant to be common. The one thing that sets this village apart is a rusty metallic building set on a slightly-isolated rise apart from the rest of the buildings. The building will be tall and circular like an old and broken windmill, yet made of the aforementioned rusty metal in contrast to the regular wooden structures of the village. The building will be strangely crumpled towards the inside, like an aluminum can, with small rays of light escaping cracks in the structure. I'll cover it more in the storyline, but it is a building that was a windmill hundreds of years ago, worn over time, then largely destroyed in a strange experiment by its resident mage very recently (which the village NPCs will talk about, though they're unwilling to investigate further, as they weren't very trusting in the mage's experiments to begin with).

 

Areas-

(Unnamed) Village

Basic and uninteresting, made to contrast the steampunk city as well as begin the questline. Simple wooden structures, small gardens, a few roaming animals, and NPCs that either want a simple farming lifestyle or are student mages. The broken windmill I spoke of stands on a small hill overlooking town, a ring of no vegetation outlining it from the edge of a small forest. The entire village lies on the coast, with the broken windmill facing directly out to sea.

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/261/villagez.jpg

(basic layout. Building size is also fairly insignificant here, as that's not really planned yet)

 

(Also Unnamed) Steampunk Village

Contrasting the regular building style of the village, the steampunk village (I'll call it old town from here on) uses a mesh of various Steampunk themes- cogs, buildings made of pieces of old structures and machinery, gold and copper garnishing hardwoods, victorian-punk style clothing, and so on. The Old Town lies in a basic circular shape, with the windmill still standing above everything else facing the sea (at the bottom, I've attached a basic concept sketch of one of the windmill's arms, which are built of various scraps of metal). Building design is impractical on the border of illogical, with cogs, pistons, and small moving parts active around the village. NPCs roam the village dressed in what I can only call the steampunk style, and if I or someone willing to join is able to create creatures, a few simple robots will pace the village un-aggressively. The Old Town is the central hub of the mod, and is meant to appear teaming with life, creativity, and a DIY optimism. The Old Town is set around 200 years in the past in the same location as the village, yet the only building that survives the years is the windmill. As demonstrated in the pictures, the more recent construction have over time moved away from the windmill's remains. In the very center of the town is a mechanical clock, a concept of which I've sketched and attached at the bottom (I'd like this clock to align with the Clocks of Cyrodil, if someone knows how to do that).

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/4267/oldtown.jpg

 

(Really, I haven't come up with any names at all, please feel free to suggest some)

Puzzle-Dungeon

The puzzle dungeon will contain much of the storyline's combat, as well as the antagonist's lair. The dungeon is an old mine which (as do all mines in RPGs) becomes infested with monsters. The clever but overly-extravagant people of Old Town devise a complex system of keys, locks, and puzzles enclosing the various rooms and halls of the mine, effectively sealing it forever. Should we be able to, the dungeon will be filled with various new and custom monsters- otherwise, probably just retexed monsters from vanilla Oblivion. The mine will have a simple structure- a relatively straight path straight to the bottom for the final boss, with branches coming off from various points of the main path away to dead ends (which will contain stronger monsters and rarer materials, some completely unique to that room). Simply, think of the vein structure of a leaf to get the idea. This dungeon will be one of two main locations for collecting materials, which are used to create steampunk items and costumes for your character. Color and shape coded keys and doors will litter the dungeon, as well as the occasional puzzle, which will allow further progress into the dungeon as they're completed/keys are found. The main branch will be directly tied to the main quest, but the branches will be possible to complete as soon as they're reached. Doors in the dungeon will have moving parts and visible locks, true to the steampunk style.

 

Overland Dungeon

Like the puzzle dungeon, the overland dungeon will be a place to collect materials for the creation of items- however, you will collect cloth and leather skin here, as opposed to the metals of the mine. All of the monsters will respawn as the dungeon is reloaded, and each monster will have chance drops of various materials (the percentage based on rarity, but no chances too cruelly low). Flaxes of various cloth can be picked from plants throughout the area, with many of the common material plants and few and difficult-to-find rarer plants for the more valuable collectible outfits. Now that I think of it, this area feels in essence much like the grasslands area of the first Monster Hunter (PS2) game.

 

There will probably be a few smaller areas, but these four are the location for the majority of the mod.

 

Creation Format

As mentioned, the two dungeons will be locations in which you can collect a number of materials to create items. A storekeeper in town will explain that only a number of people live in the town, and there's never been a need to craft clothing for more than request (leaving no extras for sale). However, if you see outfits you like, the storekeeper would be able to recreate them assuming you bring them the correct materials. Materials will come in four varieties- Animal Leather, Woven Cloth (which can be spun from collected flax on a wheel within town), Metal Ore, and unique items.

 

The shop should be able to show a basic list showing the name of the outfit and the required materials, for example-

Pilot's Outfit - 3 Linen - 1 Tough Leather - 1 Copper - 2 Glass Lenses

 

Many of the outfits would be quite simple to collect for and create, but the best will be very difficult- requiring the drops of high level enemies and the solving of the most difficult branches of the mine dungeon, as well as items received from sidequests. This would hopefully create a value to them, making a player need to play the mod to obtain outfits (I'd hate to have someone miss out on the story), and also create very cool outfits which are an accomplishment to obtain. Most mods if not all have the items instantly available upon download, and though the items could be dropped from the CS to the game effortlessly, I think many players will enjoy legitimately earning a few rare trophies. I'm not a scripter, and I'm not sure how difficult a store of this format would be to create- if you know scripting well, a little enlightenment on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

 

Questline-

The storyline is still in development, subject to change, and all of that jazz. Also, if you intend to play the mod someday but aren't planning to help develop it, you may want to leave the spoiler closed so the major plot points are still a surprise when this is released.

 

The story will begin with rumors of a strange magical experiment which occurs just hours before you arrive, happening in the inside of the broken windmill and appearing to pull the entire building towards a light portal inside. The mage (female) who normally lives inside the windmill is a curious sort to the villagers, but loved none-the-less. She's been missing since the incident, but the locals aren't familiar with magic and are too afraid to investigate. Naturally, a wandering adventurer would be willing to investigate a little magic, right?

 

Of course they would! After getting the first quest by speaking to the locals, your character enters the broken windmill. Inside are alchemical tools, various unrecognizable magical gizmos, and of course, a bright white portal in the very center. Curious and fearless as you are, you hop through the portal to find yourself inside an entirely different version of the same windmill- instead of the magical workshop from before, now you're in a strange version of a working windmill- moving cogs creeping along one of the walls and the traditional rotating pillar in the center. You exit the windmill to find yourself for the first time in the Old Town, with a cutscene to show off the strange new atmosphere if I'm able to find a way to create one.

 

(I'm rubbish at coming up with adequate names, as you've noticed, please hop in and suggest any that come to mind for the places I've described or for NPCs in either village (both male and female))

 

You search the village until you find the mage the villagers told you about, safe and sound. She then tells you the basics of the plot so far- She is a rising magician, but she's been over time becoming less fond of the state of the world. Specifically, she thinks that the use of magic has made life easy, taken the creativity and struggle out of living, and left the world with a race of people afraid to challenge and grow beyond their own comfort zone. She dreamt of a past time, before magic came to this specific part of Cyrodil, when men and women created spectacular contraptions out of the most simple supplies- fantastic contraptions made for both love and necessity, all of which she'd read of in ancient books. Using her unique way of handling magic she's famed for, the mage was able to create a time paradox and transport herself to this world, where she intends to stay. You have the option to try and talk her out of staying, but are unable. Oh well, vacation time?

 

You're again free to roam the village, as you may as well enjoy this strange opportunity to visit another time. Talking to a specific NPC or two reveals the problem of the sealed mine, which has become unsafe to enter. Not to worry, the monsters cannot escape, but the lack of a source of metal has also stunted many projects and hurt progress. Unlike the creative members of the village, you are familiar with combat, would you help clear up the mess? You're given a your first key to the mine, and may enter at your leisure. Around the village will also be a number of small quests, more of which will also open up with the main storyline, but only the mine quest furthers the story. You can now work your way through a few of the first simple puzzles and fight a few monsters. The storyline continues when you reach a room on the main branch filled with little mechanical spiders, which gives you a new quest and a new entry to your mine quest. The new quest will lead you to find out that one of the residents of Old town have been tinkering with such contraptions for years, convinced that life can be brought to a mechanical body, but has never had enough remote success (eventually you learn the models were stolen and completed by the antagonist, a mage also from your time, you gave them souls using soul trap, which you can later learn to do).

The story continues in that basic format- you run into unpassable doors in the main passageway of the dungeon, and you increasingly need to get to the bottom, as something is clearly not right. The various doors are opened in different ways- a missing machine part to a puzzle is missing, you help a village member recreate it so you can fix and solve the puzzle... a door's key has been ruined in an accident, you help the villagers construct a ram or some such that can break through that particular door. So on, the villagers come together to help you fight deeper.

 

Throughout the main progress you'll run into the antagonist a few times, and in each you'll get slightly more information as to who he is- sometimes given freely, other-times devised from small clues he gives that help your character and the mage find who and where he is in your time. You reason that killing the evil mage will prevent his corruption of the mine and his attempts to destroy the village (you'll find out about past attempts, before he released monsters into the mine, through the story). Finally, you can piece together his identity, which I'll need to come up with later (previous archmage, who secretly worked to corrupt the mages guild in order to capture the emperor's throne. He was discovered, almost killed, but managed to escape and hasn't been seen since or some such). You work with the mages guild in your time to locate the antagonist and raid his base, he escapes in a portal which closes behind him, but you're able to learn more about him and his plans from the books left in his hideout. His journal says a number of things that don't make sense, largely about the mage who you've been working with to unravel the mystery in Old town. His books tell of her being a great mage, the greatest ever known, who overthrew him and the corrupt mages. She was offered the then vacant seat of Archmage, but refused, preferring to work and study free of such obligations. You take this information back to the original mage, who theorizes that the antagonist's tinkering with time changed the progression of history- the corruption of the mages guild, her becoming a powerful mage, and the antagonist's defeat had no longer happened, or had not yet happened. Why was he attacking the Old town though? She reveals that among the things retrieved from his hideout was a key, which she guesses is the key to the final room of the mine. His having it makes it likely that's where he's been hiding all along, and where he had been summoning monsters to destroy the Old town. Defeat him in the past, and he will never corrupt the mages guild nor destroy Old town- time will be restored to its intended path.

 

You enter the final room to find it filled with monsters, an ambush to greet you. You fight your way through and kill the antagonist, then return to the surface (wasn't that fight epic?).

 

You talk to the good mage again, she congratulates you but tells you that you both must return to your time- the antagonist's tinkering with time had nearly destroyed the future, time must be left to progress correctly. You are told to say your goodbyes to the friends you've made there, then need to return to close the time portal. One of the people you talk to apologizes first, inexplicably, then hands you an amulet. They tell you that they were unable to help them, their curiosity raging, and that they'd been experimenting with the time portal. The culmination of this tinkering was the amulet, which held the power of the portal and would theoretically let the user move between the two times (this will allow you to return to the city to complete the sidequests, as well as create/collect any costumes you'd like).

 

 

 

The story isn't yet fully developed, and will change and grow to both fill in the gaps and edit what's already there. Of course, the story is open to suggestions as well, and will change as needed.

 

Finally, Recruitment-

Animator- Many simple animations are going to be needed, as the city and dungeon will have many small moving parts- cogs, pistons, steam pipes, and so on. If we're unable to find anyone, I may be able to cover this one.

 

Modelers- Modeling will be my main area of focus, but there will be a lot to do. At least 10 outfits, 5 buildings with interiors, basically unique meshes for most of the mod.

 

Scripters- Perhaps most essential to me, I need talented scripters to help create the quests as well as the item store and all of the little intricacies in-between. Clever scripting will also be required to make working puzzles for the dungeon, very important!

 

Set Designers- Knowledge of the CS as well as a good sense for environment to help create the locations, cities, and dungeons.

 

Puzzle Design- Many oldschool RPGs had puzzle dungeons not unlike I've described- clever puzzles are essential to a challenging, unique, and an enjoyable oldschool dungeon. Puzzles from the simple to the mind-bending will be needed!

 

Writers- The fleshing out of the main quest, writing of clever sidequests that laugh in the face of go-and-collect quests, and literature to help bring the Old town to life will all be needed. I'd like to read, edit where necessary, and approve all of the writing for the mod to ensure it remains with the attitude of the mod. The main quest will have darker moments than what I've written so far, but I'd like humorous, clever, upbeat, and perhaps more serious sidequests to help keep the player busy and give the NPCs depth. Anyone can write, and all are welcome to chip in with a little high-quality writing to help create this world.

 

Texturers- I'll admit, texturing has always been my Achilles heel in mod creation. Help from textures able to create new textures for finished meshes as well as re-texturers to create different versions of monsters and outfits within the mod.

 

Voice Actors- Voice isn't currently planned for the mod, but I'd love to have them if enough are willing and equipped to lend their voice to our characters.

 

Artists- Concept art is of huge benefit to all of the members of a modding team, giving inspiration, reference, and a solid theme for everyone to work from. Ability to sketch, charcoal, pastel- anything! A dedicated artist can single-handedly define the appearance and continuity of a mod, game, or movie... needless to say, I'd love your help!

On the same note as Artists, marketing art goes a long way too! If you're experienced in making banners, signatures, and such, your help would go a long way. A simple signature to show involvement with the mod can increase public knowledge of our work, as well as attract more talented individuals to contribute as well!

 

Beta Testers- I greatly appreciate any interest in beta testing, as it confirms the ideas within the mod sound fun to you as they do to me- though it will be a while before anything needs testing, I'd love to have your enthusiasm towards these ideas involved in testing down the road!

 

 

I'm sure I haven't covered everything, and really modding ability of any and every kind can find a place within my and your ideas for this mod. Please, if you have time, dedication, and ability of any kind I welcome your talents!

 

Finally, if you know of a good place we can talk about progress and needed work on the mod (a small, preferably free forum of some kind), and possibly an effective way to trade files between members, I'd appreciate the input.

 

 

If you've made it to this point in the thread, then I'm thoroughly impressed- that's a lot of reading! If you've thought of ideas or suggestions for the mod, or would like to join my team to work on it personally, don't be shy about posting! Without posted interest, this thread, the mod, and the ideas with it will likely die away forever. Please contribute!

[Corthian]

I have a few resources left over from my own abandoned Steampunk mod. I might be able to help you out. I have a few outfits and weapons done. Here are some of them.

 

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic 4

[Shredator]

I'd definitely appreciate the help, your finished meshes will certainly have a place within the mod. In your offer to help, do you mean help by contributing your old meshes, or would you like to help create new content as well? Thanks!

 

To be honest, I'm very worried about this mod going the same way as yours, all I can do now is keep pushing it until something starts moving.

 

 

TLDR version of my first post-

I'm working on a moderately large Steampunk-styled mod, occurring mostly in a plane separate from the rest of Oblivion. Many Steampunk costumes, as well as other Steampunk items such as Corthian's Pic 2, will be featured in the mod to be earned by your character, as well as Steampunk puzzles, dungeons, and a central city.

 

I'm looking for help developing this mod, and am looking for modders of every type and ability interested in helping out.

[kieranfoy]

@Corthian: Dude... want.

[Genzel]

While I am not very interested working on this, I do have an almost finished Dwemer battle rifle you could use. It is based on the Scar N battle rifle, but I decked it out in steam pipes, gears, and dwemer symbols.

Some pre-textured pictures:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/7925d686617144

http://www.imagebam.com/image/5124a886617159

http://www.imagebam.com/image/d9aeba86617172

 

Since I am very inexperienced in texturing, I am wanting to rework that aspect. Right now, the textures are colored very similarly to dwemer armor in Morrowind.

Only thing that isn't finished is the collision, sometimes it just wont work for me.

 

I also feel like it needs more nick-nacks and more of a clockwork feel.

 

EDIT: Got it textured and it has collision now:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/e5ec4286655438

http://www.imagebam.com/image/e93cf286655439

[Corthian]

I might be able to make some stuff. I have done a whole lot of armor and weapons and stuff before, so I really want to try making buildings and creatures. I don't want to mess with the CS at all. I work better when I focus on one thing. Also once we have made some progress we really should post the progress on the official Beth Forum. I might take a crack at that windmill thing.

[Shredator]

Great! I'm glad to have your help in this. If you manage to figure out creatures, it would help a ton. Custom creatures are said to be the hardest part of Oblivion modding, and really set apart a good mod.

 

I know the basics of the CS, but I'm hoping someone more familiar with it will offer their help as well- scripting is well out of my current knowledge. We can look forward to a post on the official forums as well, you're right, sooner than later I hope.

 

As for the windmill, were you thinking of the Steampunk version, or the magical lab version? I did a quick concept mesh a few days ago of the Steampunk version, though I didn't get a ton done with it. Here it is, if that helps you with your version at all.

 

Edit, here are a few more costumes I'm considering if any of them look particularly fun to make

http://img193.imageshack.us/i/steampunk.jpg/

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3268/steampunk2.jpg

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/1246/steampunk3.jpg

[Corthian]

Here is pic of the Windmill. WIP 1

[Shredator]

Looking good, it's always interesting seeing one idea made in another's perspective.

 

I'm going to be unavailable for about a day- getting my wisdom teeth cut out. Hopefully it'll be a good excuse to be left alone for a few days to get a few things done on my side.

[kieranfoy]

Trust me, the drugs will make you want to do nothing but sleep.