[WIP] The Abysmal Odyssey

[Septim741]

Once you begin, you can never turn back...

 

The Abysmal Odyssey

 

The shadows are rising, shrouding the world in death and despair. Death has come to our world, whether we welcome it or not. And with it comes the evil, ghostly Wanderers, spirits of the void and emptiness. They will crush all life, and destroy the world as we know it. The end has come. If you have any sense within you, you will acknowledge the hopelessness and give in to despair. If you are a fool, then you will ask me if there is any hope. And I will answer thusly. No, there is no hope. The only way to stop such an onslaught would be to destroy the Anchor, the greatest Wanderer of them all, and the only thing that holds them bound to our world.

 

How would you destroy this Anchor? First, you must reach her. There is a road, long and broken, enveloped by darkness and guarded by death. It is a long road, full of challenges. You would face hills and mountains, rivers and chasms before the end. You would face the Wanderers, thousands of them, guarding the way to the Anchor. You would face the epitome of death. Then, when you reached the end of the road, you would conquer this evil that plagues our world. You would face the Anchor, the darkest, deadliest entity in existance. This would be the only way to stop the incursion.

 

But it is not possible...

 

Or is it? You would find out, in the Abysmal Odyssey.

 

This mod would add a new quest. Simply put, you must destroy the Anchor. But it is never so simple, is it? First, you must conquer a huge road, a path over "hills and mountains, rivers and chasms." This path should be several dozen miles long, hopefully three times the width of Cyrodill.

 

More details to come. Questions or feedback? Remember, this is a WIP, and the details are not set in stone.

[TheTerminator2004]

This sounds pretty good, if you have the time to do it. When it's done, I expect I'll write one of my reviews for it too :)

[Septim741]

It'll be one of those things I work on here or there, and it comes out finished in a month or eleven. ;)

[SlythersALT]

That sounds like a great topic. If you ever need help with anything, just PM me or something. Maybe there can be something I can do to help. :happy:

[Vagrant0]

One issue I can think of would be issues with setting up the actual worldspace. A worldspace can only be so long. And it can only be so long before you notice problems with things like LODs. Even LODs have a maximum distance before they get loaded. Even though you might be able to mask it with darkness and haze, you should probably avoid overly straight passages. You'll also need to break up the whole road between several worldspaces if you want to avoid too many curves along the main path. Using gates, caves, and other structures can work well for this. Also think about how you want to link this to the rest of the world, or is this a TC?

 

Another would be trying to limit the usually free roaming player. Even if you have a canyon with steep sides, people will want to do everything they can to see what's over that side. This means either using alot of collision boxes, or giving the player an ability which just instantly kills them if they go over a certain height. Regardless, you'll probably want to make actual terrain outside the canyon just so that there isn't that whole sense of nothingness. You may also want to add some minor branches to the road so that things aren't so linear. Making one long linear path, no matter how many things you stick immediately along it, can get boring. If the player doesn't have to get side tracked, or go back quite a bit before being able to go forward, people may end up just running straight through as fast as they can.

 

As for ideas, use the environment and the road itself to your advantage. You know where the player will have to pass though, you can script ambushes and other neat stuff there. Remember, the more plannable the situation, the easier it is to script.

[Septim741]

All good suggestions. I've had more than my fair shar of fun with collision boxes in my own mod...

 

I've had numerous ideas when it comes to making "levels" in Oblivion. More often than not the first thing that springs to mind is an isle with damaging water, but it doesn't always fit. So I am going to do as you've suggested. There could be about ten or so worldspaces, each with a unique envirinment, all linked by caves. There could be several more caves along the way, maybe some easter eggs... Bottom line: very good idea that certainly beasts the hell out of making one huge worldspace in the CS.

 

Thanks!

[Vagrant0]

All good suggestions. I've had more than my fair shar of fun with collision boxes in my own mod...

 

I've had numerous ideas when it comes to making "levels" in Oblivion. More often than not the first thing that springs to mind is an isle with damaging water, but it doesn't always fit. So I am going to do as you've suggested. There could be about ten or so worldspaces, each with a unique envirinment, all linked by caves. There could be several more caves along the way, maybe some easter eggs... Bottom line: very good idea that certainly beasts the hell out of making one huge worldspace in the CS.

 

Thanks!

You should probably stick with mountanious environments. It forces fewer routes between points, and can offer enough variety to keep things interesting. Even a simple broken bridge could end up adding a new element to the quest since you'd have to define something which the player would have to cross, but can't simply jumpt down. This could lead to some fun where the player has to slowly make their way down one face of the canyon going through caves and passages, working their way to the bottom, and then back up. Or finding another way to cross. You can use kill boxes so that the player will die if they try jumping down, or flying up. You could also make the path snake along a side of a mountain overlooking a valley or sea. The player may never enter the valley, but it would allow for a change of sorroundings and allow for some spots where the path can become narrow, death on one side, sheer face on the other. Landslides could make this sort of thing even more fun. They tried to do this sort of thing within oblivion gates, but it really didn't work for Bethsoft. The encounters were uninteresting, and the environment too cluttered. See what they did wrong, and do it right.

[Septim741]

I've had many thoughts along that line. But one of the highlights, especially for me when I'm developing the mod, is to create new an unique environments. One of my best and most enjoyed talents is, in fact, creating new environments and completely different feelings inside a mod. In Oblivion Expanded, for example, I am making extremely narrow crags among huge mountains in the frozen world of Vereman.

 

So you can bet you'll see plenty of new landscapes and skies. If anything, that alone should be one of the best parts of the mod.