Grimora the Campaign Setting

[elvendros]

The Grimora Campaign Setting

 

 

Welcome to the new home of the, Grimora Campaign Setting

an adventure campaign setting. A world in which flying airships

and magic are common place. War hangs in the balance, and a

civil war never seen before like this hangs by a thread. Nations

vi for war, and the heirs will stop at nothing at marking out there own empires.

 

Join the empire and attempt to keep it together, or join a resistance and aid in

its complete destruction. You can do anything you want, but remember in Grimora

every action has its consequences. The world is waiting.

 

The Grimora Campaign Setting was a book I created for the use of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting a Dungeon's and Dragon's game.

My website: http://www.grimora.com

 

Paizo's website for Pathfinder:

 

http://www.paizo.com

 

The idea is to create an entire working world using the Oblivion Engine, and if possible use it either for a MMO, or have a coop option?

[Telyn]

You can use Oblivion to do a full conversion, such as the MERP team have done. You cannot use it to create a whole new game, with MMO feaures. This is intentional by Bethesda. Also, the engine it used is not designed for multiplayer. Now, there have been attempts to make Oblivion multiplayer over the internet, a mini MMO as it were. You can Google and find one. Last time I saw it, they had a version that would let them connect to each other, but they were still struggling with some very basic issues. A perhaps more realistic possibility would be for two people to be able to cooperate from the same computer. There is a thread about that here.

 

The basic and fundamental issue with trying to make the Oblivion game into an MMO is that single player games are not designed as clients. Nor does the Oblivion game have a feature to host friends. It has no server features, intentionally. It would be illegal to somehow turn Oblivion into a server, for obvious reasons. I don't think it's possible anyway. There is a persistant rumor that Bethesda is working on an MMO of its own. If they are, it wouldn't be based on the old engine.

 

Oblivion isn't open source. Any attempt to make it a server or standalone single or multiplayer game would result in legal action if you succeeded.

 

Good luck with translating your campaign into a mod or full conversion, though. It sounds interesting.

[elvendros]

Again, it was only an idea. One of the idea's I suggested was to create a single player game that would lead into an MMO. However this is what I forgot to mention in my last comment, was I'm looking for some good Modders to do just that. I have purchased an office studio for this idea, located in Anaheim, California. I purchased 5 Dual Core P4 2.4 Ghz systems, with 4 GB DDR3 Ram, Creative Labs Audigy x2 soundcards and 1.5 GB DDR3 Video Cards, to create the game, each with 19" widescreen flat LCD's.

 

It is my hope that I could find 3-5 volunteers to create an article of partnership to see this project off the ground. The office will be stocked with all the junk food needed, and the equipment to see it through.

Edited March 19, 2011 by elvendros

[Telyn]

Wow. If they're really making their own MMO, they probably won't want to be competing with a game based on their own product, but it sounds like you have a lot of money to invest in this, so worth trying to license then. Good luck.

 

Ah, Anaheim, Fun place. Spent a lot of time there at one point.

[LHammonds]

Your idea or at least your implementation plan sounds flawed at best and makes me think twice about the legitimacy of this offer.

 

#1 - As a business, you cannot hope to make any money off an Oblivion mod. It simply is not allowed.

 

#2 - Are these paying positions? You said "volunteers" but if that means not being paid, you are limiting yourself to just people within driving distance and probably only off-hour work schedules since most modders already have day jobs and school.

 

#3 - As an implementation plan to use Oblivion as a launchpad to a different MMO, you are wasting time and resources working on the Oblivion engine. What you create in Oblivion won't translate well into whatever MMO engine you plan to use. It would be better to pick an engine that will do both so you don't waste development time creating two completely different games and having to re-train your "team" to use a different engine for the MMO.

 

#4 - Oblivion is an aging engine and if you wanted to showcase something as a freebie mod before an MMO version is created, you might be better off planning to implement it with Skyrim's engine. However, if you are needing this done asap, Oblivion modding is at least "established" with a strong suit of tools and tutorials.

 

#5 - You mentioned a physical office and 5 computers yet completely side-stepped the most important part of a development team....the software workflow. Are you providing a 3ds Max environment where everyone needs to know a specific version of 3ds Max or is this Blender-based or a hodge-podge setup that is no different than running it like individuals working remotely toward a similar end?

 

#6 - You did not mention skill sets required. You said 5 computers so I assume 5 people. Are you thinking in terms of 1 modeler, 2 graphic artists, 1 animator and 1 level designer?

 

EDIT: I saw your other post about this same subject. You are not going to get the blessing from Bethesda to create a stand-alone game based on the Oblivion engine. The only tool they provide is the Construction Set...which just allows you to create .esp plugin modifications. All the other tools were created by the community such as NifTools (NifSkope, Blender/3ds Max/Maya NIF plugins), OBSE, pluggy, etc. which is not something you can use and make a profit from it. Also, you cannot create a "stand-alone" game with the Oblivion engine.

 

If you plan to make money from it, you really need to look at a product geared for that...such as the Unreal Development Kit.

 

LHammonds

[elvendros]

Well you make all good points. I wasn't actually thinking of making money, actually. The idea would be to make money one day, but I was thinking of a complete modification, with a beautiful single player idea. Get people really interested in the world, and when that happens, work with another engine, and then go from there. As for 3D Studio Max, hell, I don't think I've used that in years. I design web based applications, and applications for Android and iPhone.

[Telyn]

Just a suggestion. You already have iPhone app experience. Your campaign world is not specific to Oblivion, and as LHammonds has said, it is an aging engine. The iPad still lacks a lot in the way of decent single player rpgs. I have tried all of them I could find and the best is still pretty inferior compared to the quality PC and console players have come to expect. The new iPad is faster and improving as a game device. iPads are multiplayer capable. I would go iPad and see if you can talk to this guy: http://blogs.forbes.com/oliverchiang/2010/12/08/iphone-game-evangelist-leaves-apple-to-start-his-own-company/ (or his replacement, if you'd like to try to get some support from Apple). Jobs clearly intended the iPad to compete with both FB apps and consoles. Apple might be a lot more receptive to your ideas than Bethesda. If you are determined to use the Gambryo engine and do a full conversion, then I wish you the best, but I think it would be a bad business decision at this point in time. Here's the philosophical question. Would you rather be one of the first or one of the last to do something? Both are valid answers.