Unique deadric realms?

[Goujoe]

Alright, so I may not be entirely well versed in the lore pertaining to the deadric princes or the planes of Oblivion, but one thing that always bugged me about it was when one undertook the quests for the deadric princes that required going to Oblivion (Peryite, Boethia, and I believe one or two others), it always seemed to be the SAME oblivion. This bothers me because A: Here and there it mentions the Plane*S* of Oblivion, implying that there are multiple realms within Oblivion. And B: I may be mistaken, but isn't the Shivering Isles a plane of Oblivion ruled by Sheoggorath? The Isles certainly are nothing like the fire-and-brimstone hellscape that makes up the Oblivion that is attacking Cyrodil (which I assume is specifically Mehrunes Dagon's plane, as it fits him quite nicely), but fit ol' Beardy quite well. So what about the other Princes?

 

My point is this: I would absolutely love to see a mod that redoes the places you are sent to by the Deadric Princes to actually FIT the prince who sends you there. Peryite is the prince of pestilence, which has nothing to do with lava, burning skies, giant metal torture devices, or anything else that makes up the place he sends you. However, what WOULD be appropriate for Peryite might be a realm filled with zombies and other disease-ridden creatures, fetid air, and a much more subtle mood of suffering and pain then what one finds in Dagon's neighborhood. Same goes for the other princes that send you to Oblivion, have them send you to THEIR Oblivion!

 

Just how tough might this be for someone to work on?

Edited December 14, 2010 by Goujoe

[Goujoe]

Well, now that I've gone and browsed through a bit of lore on Oblivion, it seems that my assumptions about multiple realms within it and those belonging to the deadric princes being shaped in the manner of their choosing is entirely accurate. So now I just have to wonder, did the Elder Scrolls team just... not bother to follow their own lore? I suppose that's a question that a lot of fantasy and sci-fi fans ask of game/book/movie/etc creators. Though the difference between many of those other situations and this one is the wonderful magic that is modding! So, anyone interested in putting the effort into remedying this? It would certainly be nice to see some creative interperetation put into this. Edited December 14, 2010 by Goujoe

[Pronam]

It's 'one of the planes' they posses. Planes can be considered as worlds and apparently bethesda didn't bother making too many different they all use the same tileset. They can be in different dimensions.

Peryite angered as his followers tried to summon him and in the process they cast themselves to a plane/dimension.Boethia's realm could just as well been an arena, but honestly a lava-area looks fit as well.

 

Basically they got out easy of it lore-wise as the princes simply shaped, formed their dimensions and do posses more than one. Out of costs they probably sticked it to one tileset :P.

[Shadowfen]

Peryite is the prince of pestilence, which has nothing to do with lava, burning skies, giant metal torture devices, or anything else that makes up the place he sends you. However, what WOULD be appropriate for Peryite might be a realm filled with zombies and other disease-ridden creatures, fetid air, and a much more subtle mood of suffering and pain then what one finds in Dagon's neighborhood.

 

So Peryite's Realm would look something like Black Marsh with zombies? :)

[Goujoe]

It's 'one of the planes' they posses. Planes can be considered as worlds and apparently bethesda didn't bother making too many different they all use the same tileset. They can be in different dimensions.

Peryite angered as his followers tried to summon him and in the process they cast themselves to a plane/dimension.Boethia's realm could just as well been an arena, but honestly a lava-area looks fit as well.

 

Basically they got out easy of it lore-wise as the princes simply shaped, formed their dimensions and do posses more than one. Out of costs they probably sticked it to one tileset :P.

 

Well, I suppose that makes some sense. Though you have to admit it still seems fairly boring.

[FlexXGopnik]

 

Peryite is the prince of pestilence, which has nothing to do with lava, burning skies, giant metal torture devices, or anything else that makes up the place he sends you. However, what WOULD be appropriate for Peryite might be a realm filled with zombies and other disease-ridden creatures, fetid air, and a much more subtle mood of suffering and pain then what one finds in Dagon's neighborhood.

So Peryite's Realm would look something like Black Marsh with zombies? http://www.thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/smile.gif

 

So if i use the Constuction set and i do not want to make new stuff i should use the stuff near Leyawin?MAybe i will have time for it in sumertime!!!

[ladyvoldything]

Resurrecting this ancient and long-dead thread to express interest. Boethia and Peryite using the Deadlands has always bugged me.

[Fiore1300]

Resurrecting this ancient and long-dead thread to express interest. Boethia and Peryite using the Deadlands has always bugged me.

 

Thanks for bumping. So I've been thinking a lot about this topic lately. Not of Boethia's and Peryite's dungeons in particular, but concerning Oblivion Gates as a whole, which seem to have some problems. As far as I can discern, there are a few common complaints about the Oblivion Gate dungeons. For a sampling, I've seen and heard people describe the Oblivion Gates as boring, repetitive, too red, an aggravation, a pain, a nuisance, and a chore. This... isn't a good state of things.

 

Oblivion Gates operate with a certain element of randomness not present in other areas and dungeons in the game. There are 100 fixed locations where Gates will appear, 90 of which are random, and of those 90 potential locations, up to 50 gates will spawn. All of the randomly spawning gates (and a few fixed ones) use 1 of 7 random worlds. Caves in these random worlds choose their layout from 6 possible caves, and the central keeps choose their layout from 5 possible keeps. So together (7*6*5) amount to some 210 combinations. The trouble is, people don't get excited by all these possible combinations. Who cares if World 1 is paired with Cave 2 and Keep 3 if the player has already experienced those dungeons, perhaps some of them even recently? I feel this is a source of the repetitiveness that many players feel when closing Gates.

 

To that end, Oblivion Gates need greater variety. This can be accomplished any number of ways. I'll try to from least to most difficult, as I see it.

 

1) Expand the pool of random worlds, caves, and keeps. Have a script track the layouts a player has visited to make it more likely a player will encounter new layouts in the following Oblivion Gates they enter. I feel this solution would go a long way to keeping things as close to vanilla as possible while improving the sense of variety.

 

2) Remove the randomized element and create entirely handcrafted Oblivion Gates, replacing randomized gates with handcrafted ones as they're completed. This could operate something like Unique Landscapes, where different modders contribute new dungeons. There is more room for creativity certainly, with greater opportunity for quests, scripted events, and truly unique layouts. Alternatively, you could create one large Deadlands realm (ala Shivering Isles) and then connect all the Gates to that one landmass.

 

3) Randomize further. Instead of choosing between prefab keeps, caves, and even worlds, toss them out and make a truly randomized system where no two dungeons are alike. Have the game link tile sets together in new ways and somewhat randomly place items and spawns. This is very scripting/coding heavy (if its even possible with our current tools) and bugs will likely be common, but it'll draw in people looking for unique layouts and legendarily rare items and spawns.

 

Aside from these three potential routes, there is another chance for variety in producing different biomes for the Oblivion Gates that might be present in any of these solutions. A lot of people have brought up the complaint that the dungeons are oppressively and overwhelmingly red. Now you don't really get similar complaints about other dungeons types which generally share the same color pallets between them (like the white-and-blue Ayleid ruins), so this might have less to do with a lack of variety and more to do with red itself. Nonetheless, I think we could introduce variety here. As an example, I propose four different potential "biomes" for the Oblivion Gates: Fire, Famine, Flood, and Fissure. Basically these biomes would offer different color pallets, lighting, scenery, and perhaps even traps and enemies. Based on Dagon's power over natural disasters, Fire would be most similar to vanilla - a red volcanic hellscape. Famine would be based on a desert with browns and oranges. Flood would be locked in a perpetual hurricane. Very wet with dark colors, lit by lightning strikes. And finally Fissure would be a mostly subterranean kind of dungeon, a bit of a mix of the other biomes. Earthquakes would frequently shake the dungeon, and things like rock fall traps might be common.

 

That's all I have to say about the topic at the moment. This isn't really a request, or an announcement, or anything. Just playing with ideas in my head and interested in what more experienced modders and players have to say about what they think the most promising route(s) would be. I'm also open to hearing any other complaints people have with the Oblivion Gates, or anything they themselves would like to see.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Fiore1300

[Oblivionaddicted]

I like your ideas even if I love the vanilla Oblivion planes the way they are since I essentially come there to fight and red-dark coloration matches well the daedras' insanity.

[Fiore1300]

I like your ideas even if I love the vanilla Oblivion planes the way they are since I essentially come there to fight and red-dark coloration matches well the daedras' insanity.

I appreciate the complement. For the record, I love the vanilla Oblivion planes too. Its just that I've seen so many complaints about them, and valid complaints at that, makes me sad others don't enjoy them.

 

To elaborate on the biomes bit:

 

Fire Biome: Like I said, most similar to vanilla. Flame Atronach more common than other varieties. Not much to elaborate on.

Famine Biome: This is based on the "deserts of rust and wounds" mentioned in the commentaries. Its freezing wasteland, sandstorm or hail weather if possible. Frost Atronachs are more common here, Hungers are also present perhaps. I can imagine new traps that disintegrate weapons and armor.

Flood Biome: Dark water replaces lava fields. Caves are often flooded, water dripping from the ceiling. Weather is a roaring hurricane with frequent lightning. Perhaps some new vegetation would be needed to help sell it. Storm is the most common variant of Atronach. New traps probably needed, not sure exactly what to do here.

Fissure Biome: Like I said, largely subterranean dungeon, in deep crags (sky visible above) and caves. Lots of traps - gas, crumbling bridges, cave ins, abyss drops. Frequent rumbling from earthquakes. Mix of other biomes, with lava and acid and water. Maybe feral daedra, like spiders and clannfear, are a bit more common here? Also, this biome might have the highest chance of encountering another gate that leads into another part of Cyrodiil.