medEvil Overhaul

[majikmonkee]

I think it's been established already that I've done no Oblivion modding thus far myself (changing hair and faces of NPC's in the CS does not count). However, I did plenty of monkeying around with the code and graphics etc of Wolfenstein 3D, and even managed to incorporate "quest updates" between levels to keep the player engaged. See the pics below from my total conversion, "medEvil"...

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/me5.gif

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/me4.gif

 

Basically, the premise was an early 3D take on Castlevania, minus the Belmonts, whips and the traditional monsters associated with Castlevania games. The hero battled his way through a haunted estate on a journey to save the kingdom of Wisenheim from the Vampire, Count Barcruel, and the sorcerer, Olrox, who was responsible for resurrecting him. The first level was the burned out village under attack by monsters, and the battle eventually lead to the lair of the count in the castle keep.

 

At this point, you're probably wondering what's new about any of this. Well, one of the innovations featured in medEvil, in order to make it more of a "horror mod" rather than just a straightforward hack n' slash FPS, was the introduction of "random haunting activity". Ghosts would appear out of nowhere, harmlessly scare the player, then vanish after a few seconds, doors would open on their own, causing the player to think something was coming for them, and terrifying ambient cackles, growls, and other haunting sounds would happen at random to unnerve the player. Of course, there were plenty of real monsters as well, but they were secondary to the atmosphere of horror the haunting activity created.

 

I guess what I'd like to see would be a mod created with minimal monsters and a real horror atmosphere, and thus far, I've seen mods that sort of creeped me out, but nothing that really had me scared. I don't know if I myself will ever have the talent to put something like this together in Oblivion, but I'd really love to see something similar done by someone with talent. I tried the Crimson Queen, but that crashed my game consistently at a certain point, and it didn't deliver genuine horror so much as genuine nausea.

[NellSpeed]

I think the first thing to do would be to try and determine what factors actually make for horror-- not just jump scares (although they have their place), but actually horror. And then, of course, implementing those factors while keeping in mind players' tendency to do the thing you don't expect!

 

Look at Hackdirt, for instance-- even if Lovecraft is rather over-used. It was a bit too heavy-handed, plus the PC had the option of walking away at any moment; there's a reason why horror movies & stories are often set in areas that isolate the main characters. That sense of not having anyone to rely on AT ALL is what made Hackdirt interesting to me.

 

It also lacked a real sense of risk-- yes, there was a rescue-the-NPC quest, but there wasn't enough time to get attached to the NPC, or even care what happened to them. What if you had had several interactions with the NPC over time? (See also BethForums' Relationship thread.) And, of course, the risk to the player can feel minimal, especially if you're not playing Dead Is Dead....

[majikmonkee]

Yeah, horror that you can confront and conquer isn't that horrifying. It's the unseen and the unstoppable that really build a sense of horror. Last time I did Hackdirt wasn't that scary because I was powerful enough to fight everyone off with ease. In my mod, having eerie ghosts and disturbing shadowy shapes come from nowhere and leave just as quickly was very effective even when I know they were part of the game.

[NellSpeed]

I think it helps to be "unconquerable" or "conquerable, but at a high cost" -- either to the PC, or to the world around them. Knights of the Nine played with this at one point-- not in a horror context-- and I thought it was an interesting approach.

 

Let's say, for instance, that you've got your ghosts pushing their way into the living world for whatever reasons (maybe the Oblivion gates made it easier for things to get through, maybe someone was Tampering in God's Domain, maybe it never gets explained, etc etc etc). Let's say that at first, they're content to just sort of drift around, making people a little tense, but doing absolutely nothing. Then they start watching people-- you're asleep in a rented room, and wake up at 3am to find a ghost just standing there, watching you. Then they start getting aggressive. And people start dying.

 

You're a hero (or maybe you just want the money or the fame or to figure out how to control them for your own gain), so of course you charge to the rescue... but in the end, the only way to permanently get rid of them-- and if you don't, things will only get worse, and worse, and worse-- is to take on a permanent penalty of some kind that will follow your PC around forever (or as long as the mod is active, I suppose)-- a wound that will never, ever heal, a permanent weakness to the undead.

 

This gives us a "conquerable-- but not really" or "at a cost" that might give the mod a sense of genuine urgency and risk.