LE What Skyrim needs: Banks, Brothels, Boats and Gold Sinks

[gurufabbes]

Hi everyone,

like many of you, I've been playing Skyrim for a while. It is my most played on Steam and probably overall next to Mass Effect. I feel the need to make this short tribute: Bethesda brought us masterpiece in the form of Skyrim. The Modding Community however has made Skyrim the greatest RPG of all time. The modders have kept this game young and have brought it closer to its full potential.

In keeping with this, I feel the need to provide my honest imput to the community by telling them what I think the game lacks and what would bring it better, what features I am looking for and that I am sure others are as well.

The Elder Scrolls series goes back a while, and I believe the classic Daggerfall got many things right that the developpers of the modern Morrowind and successors have not caught up with yet, for various reasons. A few of my requests therefore trace their roots back in this game.

Banks: Quite ironically, the Elder Scrolls never brought this great feature back. Nor however did the Skyrim Modding community. Let me explain: The classic Daggerfall had branches across the major cities, each providing the options of taking out loans, buying houses, exchanging coin for bills of exchange. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Banks

In Morrowind, a talented modder brought us the bank of Morrowind which brought us these features back and more (link http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/mad_weather/indybank.htm): depositing money with regular interest paid in small amounts.

I am sure the first mod that will spring to mind to refute what I've said would be the Bank of Skyrim mod. This however is nothing of what I've described. One bank tellar haunting the Jarl's estate (there isn't even a physical bank) is not what I had in mind, and is not what I think the community would have wanted either. Nevertheless the nifty feature of spending gold in investments of different risk levels is a good idea that should be kept.

Therefore, how about a good Skyrim bank mod along these lines?

Brothels: The protests will come at this request. To clarify, I am not suggesting anything along the lines of *site not allowed*'s selection (which incidentally does not have one either) nor anything of the ridiculous nature of the "Animated Prostitution" mod. What I would suggest would simply be tasteful mod of the likes of "Prostitutes of Skyrim" (fade to black) with well written dialogue, various options, a quest or two.

Perhaps it should be set up like an inn a la Morrowind's Disela's House of Earthly Delights. Numerous mods such as Fallout 3's Quo Vagis (http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/19305/?) show that the talent and balance is there to make a good mod of this kind.

Precedents in Vanilla Games such as Neverwinter Nights (the best example so far), Dragon Age and Fable make this a missing feature in my honest opinion.

This optional feature would add much to immersion in my opinion, rather than be a tasteless perverted porn mod.

Boats: Daggerfall had them. Skyrim's waterways and open North Sea cry out for them.

I don't doubt that it's possibly the most challenging to bring in, but no doubt the demand is still there. The sublime joy as in Daggerfall, of buying one and setting to sea, passing the bridges and passes on the way, would indeed give impetus for more island mods (how about some tropical islands for a change!) and associated quests.

Daggerfall again set the standard in features that we should try and head back to.

Alongside boats, perhaps adding some balance mechanics such as costs and dangers to them would help.

We need boats! Vikings had them! They're strewn across the game yet noone sails them.

Gold Sinks: Without even adding game breaking cheats or mods, there is still this eventual problem that many of us run into eventually: accumulating too much gold, eventually more gold that can possibly be spent. There has to be better solution for this, and indeed there already have been some great mods that have helped deal with this issue.

No, I am not referring to game overhauls that make everything more expensive or decrease drops by enemies, which are not the type of solutions I was looking for.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37774/? Notably, this Real Estate mod by which property can be bought for large amounts of money and provide rent and other perks. As a bonus, why not have additional mods build on this dynamic by increasing perks and advantages to owning certain properties? Maybe extra quests?

This is a mod that got it right and provided the game with larger long term replayability.

I needn't post the link of the next one: Real Needs and Diseases helped provide use for this money with needs such as hunger, sleep and thirst.

We need more Gold Sink mods like these, with projects, investments that help stimulate higher level and richer players.

Thank you very much for reading, and please feel free to let me know whether you agree or disagree with my requests, as well as name which ones you would have included.

Edited February 8, 2015 by gurufabbes

[jb1110]

I am intrigued by the bank idea. Maybe I'll play around with it to see what I can do...

[Boombro]

There is mods for all this and more than one.

[gurufabbes]

There is mods for all this and more than one.

 

Then please post some links.

My honest thoughts are that they do not, not according to the descriptions given.

[Shanannigan]

Simple Taxes http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57239/? is a good one that makes you have to pay taxes on property and horses, and adds bounties if you refuse to pay them.

 

I like the bank idea a lot. I think a loan system with consequences for unpaid debts would add a lot of dynamics. Perhaps have very high security on the banks with the ability to rob them for theif characters.

 

I think everybody would love boats, and it's something that has been discussed quite a bit. As far as I know it doesn't seem to be very possible in Skyrim's engine.

Edited February 9, 2015 by Shanannigan

[gurufabbes]

Simple Taxes http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57239/? is a good one that makes you have to pay taxes on property and horses, and adds bounties if you refuse to pay them.

 

I like the bank idea a lot. I think a loan system with consequences for unpaid debts would add a lot of dynamics. Perhaps have very high security on the banks with the ability to rob them for theif characters.

 

I think everybody would love boats, and it's something that has been discussed quite a bit. As far as I know it doesn't seem to be very possible in Skyrim's engine.

 

Indeed.

 

I meant to mention that one but forgot when I rewrote this post after losing it when the first post failed.

The Taxes mod is great and is what I had in mind for good, plausible gold sinks. Though it would only go so far, with a yearly or monthly payment.

 

I refuse however to believe that Skyrim's engine can't handle boats with all the other script extenders that I've seen. It would however take some work.

 

Anyway I hope these ideas get taken to heart.

Unfortunately I'm not a modder, but I see the tremendous effort by the modding community and hope that they will direct their efforts in these directions. The demand is most certainly there.

[Boombro]

I didn't test banks, didn't seem handy that much.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17985/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56319/?

 

Not a full Brothels, but something, I also didn't test it.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37031/?

 

For money, it all about role play really. If you are going to take everything and strip every bandit. You will end up rich son. Try to limit the way you get money by your skill set.

 

My thief knows gems, pottery and jewelry cost. But weapons and armors take a lot of space and seem worthless.

My orc knows armors and weapons, but gems, pottery and spell tomes are out.

My mage know spell tomes, enchanted items and staves. etc.

 

I have runs sometimes with no alchemy or restoration so I buy healing potions.

 

Try honed metal npc crafting too.

 

 

For boats, there is two types, real time and fast.

Edited February 9, 2015 by Boombro

[gurufabbes]

I didn't test banks, didn't seem handy that much.

http://www.nexusmods...im/mods/17985/?

http://www.nexusmods...im/mods/56319/?

 

First was mentioned, the second looks interesting, but is only based in one city.

 

Not a full Brothels, but something, I also didn't test it.

http://www.nexusmods...im/mods/37031/?

 

I mentioned this one too.

Not what I had in mind, given in the description, though along the right lines.

 

For money, it all about role play really. If you are going to take everything and strip every bandit. You will end up rich son. Try to limit the way you get money by your skill set.

 

Shouldn't have to do that. If it's there, I take.

 

 

For boats, there is two types, real time and fast.

 

 

Particularly real time is what I was suggesting. Fast travelling is less needed in this game, though it could be brought in to pin point an area in the sea to go to.

 

A boat or small ship that could double as a very small player home and also is capable of fast travel.

 

 

Funnily enough we've seen ships in action, moving, as in the beginning of the Dragonborn quest. 1:26

Edited February 9, 2015 by gurufabbes

[Boombro]

Here you go for the boats http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31377/?

[OpenWorldAddict]

I didn't test banks, didn't seem handy that much.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17985/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56319/?

 

Not a full Brothels, but something, I also didn't test it.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37031/?

 

For money, it all about role play really. If you are going to take everything and strip every bandit. You will end up rich son. Try to limit the way you get money by your skill set.

 

My thief knows gems, pottery and jewelry cost. But weapons and armors take a lot of space and seem worthless.

My orc knows armors and weapons, but gems, pottery and spell tomes are out.

My mage know spell tomes, enchanted items and staves. etc.

 

I have runs sometimes with no alchemy or restoration so I buy healing potions.

 

Try honed metal npc crafting too.

 

 

For boats, there is two types, real time and fast.

 

The creator of this thread all ready mentioned Banks of Skyrim. The other one looks intriguing, but I don't think that is what he had in mind.

 

What the game needs in not 'A Bank' but a banking system.

 

I, too, loved Indy Bank mod for morrowind. What that mod did is not add 1 bank, but a number of banks to the cities of Vverdenfell. You could walk into any bank and use the banks features, like depositing and withdrawing money, taking investments, and more.

 

The greatest part was that you could deposit money in one city after a very good adventure that netted you a lot of loot to sell. Then hours later you could be in another part of the land, low on health and running to the nearest city only to discover that you had no money to stay at the inn. No problemo, just make a quick trip to the bank to make a withdrawal, and now you can afford the inn.

 

Oblivion also had a banking system 'The Bank of Cyrodiil'. However it handled things differently. Instead of having a bank 'building' in each of the cities, there was a central bank in the Imperial City market district. Then through the cities of Cyrodiil, the modder added banking functionality to many of the merchants. This had the same effect, you could deposit your money in the Imperial City, then withdraw it in Anvil.

 

This is what Skyrim needs, and I believe the second method (the way it was done in Oblivion) would be the better of the two for Skyrim. So, there should be a central bank (like in Solitude, the capital of Skyrim), and then throughout the cities of Skyrim there should be merchants who have banking functionality.

 

As far as brothels, I want to take this one step further and say Skyrim needs arenas. There was one arena on the island of Vverdenfell in Morrowind, there were two arenas in Cryodiil in Oblivion (one was destroyed by the assault on kvatch), and now there are now arenas in Skyrim.

 

Oh, and as far as gold sinks are concerned:

Inns should be more expensive (depending on where you are)

carriages should be more expensive (depending on how far you have to go)

 

Also there should be rentals:

Home for rent

Horses for rent

Equipment for rent

Small boats for rent

 

Other money sinks could be:

Purchasing a large ship with crew and maintenance expenses.

Purchasing a castle with staff and maintenance expenses.

 

There is also Herijarchen Farm and Windstadd Mine, two build-it-yourself business mods. I believe you do have staff that have wages to pay in those mods. If the author of those mods is willing, it would be great if he did some more.

 

Those are just some ideas.

Edited February 9, 2015 by OpenWorldAddict