PROJECT MASARU

[chris 07]

What is project masaru you ask, its simple. This mod will add a brand new island, a world space really, the shape of japan and it's inhabitants, ninja's, samurai's, and of course the townspeople. The ninja's and samurai's have a couple clans and are in constant war with each other, it'll be your job to join one clan and wipe out the rest for total control of the nation. Included with this mod are new weopons designed exclusivly for ninja's and samurai's, building, armour, flags, and much more. There will be a main quest and several mini quest's to do. If you want more information please check out our mini forums at HS, Here's a link.Miniforums

 

Another thing to consider if you could mod is the oppurtonity to join, we currently need: Mesher's, texture's, and scripters (maybe).

 

People currently on team: Chris 07, hey thats me, I am the team leader and I do anything that I can do and make sure that the other members are doing good jobs.

Ninja Lord666:Quest writer, he's making all the quest's, I make sure that they're good.

Dr. Dume: Concept Artist, exterior's, interiors, new worldspace.

Arch.chaos: Concept Artist, exterior's, interiors, new worldspace, and help's gives us idea's (in other words he does research)

This is based on the time that they joined not importance.

[Peregrine]

What is project masaru you ask, its simple. This mod will add a brand new island, a world space really, the shape of japan and it's inhabitants, ninja's, samurai's, and of course the townspeople. The ninja's and samurai's have a couple clans and are in constant war with each other, it'll be your job to join one clan and wipe out the rest for total control of the nation. Included with this mod are new weopons designed exclusivly for ninja's and samurai's, building, armour, flags, and much more. There will be a main quest and several mini quest's to do. If you want more information please check out our mini forums at HS, Here's a link.Miniforums

 

Another thing to consider if you could mod is the oppurtonity to join, we currently need: Mesher's, texture's, and scripters (maybe).

 

People currently on team: Chris 07, hey thats me, I am the team leader and I do anything that I can do and make sure that the other members are doing good jobs.

Ninja Lord666:Quest writer, he's making all the quest's, I make sure that they're good.

Dr. Dume: Concept Artist, exterior's, interiors, new worldspace.

Arch.chaos: Concept Artist, exterior's, interiors, new worldspace, and help's gives us idea's (in other words he does research)

This is based on the time that they joined not importance.

 

Unfortunately I can't yell at you for not reading pinned threads, because someone de-pinned my thread on this subject: http://forum.gamingsource.net/index.php?sh...=26095&st=0

 

Now go read it, and understand why your project is doomed to failure. The most obvious flaws:

 

1) Starting a project requiring tons of new models and textures without any artists. What are you going to do if no 3d artist decides to take pity on you and donate their time? You're screwed, and all the work you've put into it up until that point will be a waste.

 

2) Making a large scale expansion with three people. You don't count, "project leader" for so few people isn't a job. What you really mean is you're going to sit back and offer vague ideas, while hoping that someone else does all the work.

[chris 07]

1) If no one wants to lend a hand then I know someone on HS who could do it, it'll take a while but it'll get done.

2) I'm still not sure a big it'll be, I doubt that it will be too big but even if it is, the lack of people shouldnt be a problem due to the fact that I'm not trying to make something complicated. I completely trust the team that I have so I'm not troubled at all.

[Peregrine]

1) If no one wants to lend a hand then I know someone on HS who could do it, it'll take a while but it'll get done.

 

You do realize that "take a while" is the understatement of the century, right? Have you even stopped to think about just how many custom models you'd need to convert Oblivion to a Japanese setting? You're talking about massive amounts of buildings, probably a lot of plants/landscape details, new armor, new weapons, new random statics (furniture, misc items, etc). That's easily hundreds of models and textures, all done at a professional level. Someone who isn't even interested enough in your project to sign up officially is NOT going to be able to do this. You're going to need several skilled modelers and texturers who are willing to devote a lot of hours to this project.

 

Just a point of reference: buying the models from a professional (turbosquid, for example) would probably cost you thousands of dollars. Get used to this idea, every artist I've ever met has more than enough projects of their own to fill all their time/desire. To get them to work on your project, you're asking them to put aside something they want to do, and that means money. So when you (or someone else) inevitably posts the usual "you're a greedy selfish ******* Peregrine!" comment, throwing $15/hour at a few forum people is the cheapest way to do it.

 

 

2) I'm still not sure a big it'll be, I doubt that it will be too big but even if it is, the lack of people shouldnt be a problem due to the fact that I'm not trying to make something complicated. I completely trust the team that I have so I'm not troubled at all.

 

I take it back, this is the understatement of the century. What you're talking about is as far from "not trying to make something complicated" as you can possibly get without scrapping Oblivion completely and making your own game. You're talking about a full-size expansion, something that takes a team of professional game developers months to create, and then sells for $30 a copy.

[chris 07]

Its not going to be that big. It might be done in a couple months. Im not doing a overhaul or a TC for heavens sake! I know what I'm doing otherwise I wouldnt have done this in the first place.

[Peregrine]

Its not going to be that big. It might be done in a couple months. Im not doing a overhaul or a TC for heavens sake! I know what I'm doing otherwise I wouldnt have done this in the first place.

 

No, you don't have any clue what you're doing. The custom models alone are months of work for a devoted expert, if you want to make it look anything like a Japanese town (and lets not even think about how that time increases if you want more cities). And you're planning on doing it with a single person who isn't even committed enough to officially join your team. Then add in tons of time building it in the construction set, making all of your quests, writing countless lines of dialogue, playtesting and bug fixing, etc, and you have a huge amount of work to do.

 

This is a problem I see far too often. People get their idea to the "omg this would be awesome!!!" stage, and don't stop to think about just how much work is involved. This is going to end in one of four ways:

 

1) You get tired of going nowhere and give up. This is the most likely fate.

 

2) You finish the mod in name only. Meaning all Oblivion-default buildings in your "Japanese" town, non-asian NPCs with names like "Ninja 001" and no dialogue, quests that don't go beyond "deliver item A to NPC B", things like that. Eventually you'll look back on it and wish you'd never published such an embarassing mess.

 

3) You actually get serious about this, putting together a large and well-organized team, creating a clear design/feature document, hiring the specialists you don't have, etc, and several months and countless difficult hours from now you produce something decent. Of course this would probably qualify as a miracle, and convince me that there is a god after all. Take a look at my profile quotes and guess just how impressive a miracle we're talking about...

[chris 07]

I choose three. Either way I'll get this done. I dont have a ton of meshes and textures.

[Vagrant0]

Its not going to be that big. It might be done in a couple months. Im not doing a overhaul or a TC for heavens sake! I know what I'm doing otherwise I wouldnt have done this in the first place.

While I would tend to agree with Peregrine on you underestimating the amount of work required, you may be able to cut back on some of it by getting permission from people who have made Akavir styled items. You're still going to need your own staff of 4 or 5 artists who know the style to do anything more complicated than smaller villages with vaguly appropiate meshes.

 

Even if you have something to start with, it is still a massive task to do a worldspace like this properly. Even if you could get your hands on a topographical map of Japan, you still have scale issues given the whole 4096x4096 (128 = roughly 6 feet) cell area with 100x100 cells per quad. Nevermind the fact that you'll want atleast a 5 cell wide buffer between any where reachable and the edge of that quad. Even if you only did one island, you'd likely have problems at full or even half scale.

 

It's nice to dream, but until you've actually sat down and thought specifically how you plan to do this, you won't get many capable people interested. Even after you have, capable people still probably won't come along. This is still a major task.

[Peregrine]

I choose three. Either way I'll get this done. I dont have a ton of meshes and textures.

 

Why am I such a mashochist about this? Why do I keep trying to beat common sense into you people instead of sleeping?

 

 

THINK ABOUT THIS BEFORE POSTING. Stop dreaming, sit down, and make a list of every model you need to do this right. Here, I'll even start it for you:

 

For ONE CITY:

 

*Major buildings (ninja base, samurai castle, etc): 10 buildings, conservative guess (or fewer, but larger and more complex). These have to be done well, they're the focal point of your quests, and will be one of the most obvious things your players see.

 

*Custom interior cells for all of these. There's no cheating here, landmark buildings will have distinctive layouts, so you'll need a different model for each of them.

 

*Minor buildings: 5-10. Things like common houses/low-end shops are easier, you can get away with using the same model several times, as long as you have at least some variation.

 

*Minor interiors. Again, one per building, but that interior/exterior pair is probably going to be used several times. And they're also probably a lot simpler to make.

 

*Furniture/other interior architecture: 10-15 items, conservative guess. Fortunately these are pretty simple models. More is better, of course.

 

*Misc statics (food, books, etc): easily 25-50, depending on how much you borrow from Oblivion. These are simple models, but critical to making your city look like a living world. Again, more is always better.

 

*Weapons: probably 5-10 (katana, short sword, etc), depending on how many unique quest items and variations you want to make. These have to be done very well, since you're going to be spending a lot of time looking at them up close.

 

*Armor sets: at least 2-3, if not more (assuming one ninja, one samurai). Remember, each armor set is 5ish separate models, and these need animation rigging.

 

*Landscape details: I don't know, but the more the better. Oblivion's European fantasy landscapes don't match Japan very well, so you'll need to make plants and stuff. Expect to make 3-5 variations per species, especially for larger trees... clone forests look horrible.

 

*Animals: again, Japan is not Oblivion. If you want to do it right, you'll need animals, and maybe monsters to fight. These are difficult, since they need full animation rigging, and not many people can do this (I am not one of them).

 

 

 

Now add this up. To do it right, your "simple" city is needing 100+ models as a conservative guess. Lets assume I'm a very nice person, and decide to do all of them for you... I could probably average about one model a day, between all the other things I have to do. So over three months from now your models will be done, and you can finally start working on the CS side. If you decide to skip these things, it's going to look like a default Oblivion town with "Guard 001" changed to "Samurai 001". And guess who's actually going to be impressed by this... nobody. If you aren't going to do it right, don't even bother.

[Septim741]

I choose three. Either way I'll get this done. I dont have a ton of meshes and textures.

 

Why am I such a mashochist about this? Why do I keep trying to beat common sense into you people instead of sleeping?

 

 

THINK ABOUT THIS BEFORE POSTING. Stop dreaming, sit down, and make a list of every model you need to do this right. Here, I'll even start it for you:

 

For ONE CITY:

 

*Major buildings (ninja base, samurai castle, etc): 10 buildings, conservative guess (or fewer, but larger and more complex). These have to be done well, they're the focal point of your quests, and will be one of the most obvious things your players see.

 

*Custom interior cells for all of these. There's no cheating here, landmark buildings will have distinctive layouts, so you'll need a different model for each of them.

 

*Minor buildings: 5-10. Things like common houses/low-end shops are easier, you can get away with using the same model several times, as long as you have at least some variation.

 

*Minor interiors. Again, one per building, but that interior/exterior pair is probably going to be used several times. And they're also probably a lot simpler to make.

 

*Furniture/other interior architecture: 10-15 items, conservative guess. Fortunately these are pretty simple models. More is better, of course.

 

*Misc statics (food, books, etc): easily 25-50, depending on how much you borrow from Oblivion. These are simple models, but critical to making your city look like a living world. Again, more is always better.

 

*Weapons: probably 5-10 (katana, short sword, etc), depending on how many unique quest items and variations you want to make. These have to be done very well, since you're going to be spending a lot of time looking at them up close.

 

*Armor sets: at least 2-3, if not more (assuming one ninja, one samurai). Remember, each armor set is 5ish separate models, and these need animation rigging.

 

*Landscape details: I don't know, but the more the better. Oblivion's European fantasy landscapes don't match Japan very well, so you'll need to make plants and stuff. Expect to make 3-5 variations per species, especially for larger trees... clone forests look horrible.

 

*Animals: again, Japan is not Oblivion. If you want to do it right, you'll need animals, and maybe monsters to fight. These are difficult, since they need full animation rigging, and not many people can do this (I am not one of them).

 

 

 

Now add this up. To do it right, your "simple" city is needing 100+ models as a conservative guess. Lets assume I'm a very nice person, and decide to do all of them for you... I could probably average about one model a day, between all the other things I have to do. So over three months from now your models will be done, and you can finally start working on the CS side. If you decide to skip these things, it's going to look like a default Oblivion town with "Guard 001" changed to "Samurai 001". And guess who's actually going to be impressed by this... nobody. If you aren't going to do it right, don't even bother.

 

Thanks Peregrine, and while we appreciate that you will sit on your a$$ and spend time with us and the project, somehow, I get the feeling that you're not helping. So, how about we do something constructive.

 

In rebuttal, Chris is a fine modder, and he knows what he's doing.

 

Chris, I know you've seen my exteriors, so you know what I can do. Would I be of any help to you there? Also, I can do retextures (and MAYBE original textures) pretty decently, so if you need something in that category, you know where to find me.