LE Pre History Total Conversion

[SenorFreebie]

Let me first preface this by saying that I am both an experienced modder and a veteran game developer and I realise how unlikely this idea is to get any traction, but in a moment of shall we say excitement at the idea and its relevance to the world Bethesda has provided I thought it was at least worth writing some key points about.

 

Basically my idea is as follows. Skyrim's world provides, asides from the obvious signs of civilisation and magic, a pretty decent micro version of Ice age Europe. I always thought a game based on pre historical civilisation could be quite entertaining but this isn't exactly the sort of idea publishers and developers are looking to hear from in house since, well, it's of an unproven quantity if you like. They want sure profits etc. that's why you see so many LOTR-esque RPG's and WW2 shooters etc.

 

Before you yawn at the concept, let me first point out that half of the tasks you complete in Skyrim are examples of what a game like this would provide; hunting creatures, crafting tools, making 'potions'. In order to make an idea like this thrive though you'd need a hook and I'd suggest that this would be survival and advancement in a manner similar to Civilisation.

 

The world could be made quite dangerous for man. Imagine, that as a starting point in Skyrim literally no armour was available, cold weather slowly killed you and your best weapon was some big rock you found on the ground. Then, as an added bonus, your initial communication skills with people from other encampments were so poor the most likely outcome is they threaten you with weapons. Imagine further, that the tribe you're from, like all others in the land progresses slowly in skill but at present it's attrition rate from hunting accidents and attacks by predators was slightly higher then its respawn rate (Thanks Skyrim for introducing children).

 

But by the end you could be running around with a composite bow, leading bands of unified tribes on hunts for the few remaining mammoths... wondering how you'll survive once the food runs out.

 

You could extend the concept from there but it's getting dangerously close to far too ambitious to be contemplated already. I brainstormed for about an hour about how you would change the existing game to achieve all of this and I came up with the following:

 

Again, another preface; While I'm an experienced modder and have seen the range of what has come out of previous Elder Scrolls games I've got little idea what is possible from Skyrim, so in effect, as much as support for my idea I'm asking for experienced Elder Scrolls modders to tell me where I'm within the bounds of what's possible and where I'm not. I want this to be a robust discussion, if it is exists, so please feel free to contribute and when I'm satisfied it's all possible I might try and recruit you to help me make it. I'm a Technical Artist, which means I can script, code and make 3D art and I might be able to find a lot of time for this so this isn't really a 'mod request' as much as it is a concept proposal.

 

Convert:

Buildings; Remove large and advanced, replace cities with tent communities

• 
  * Grow communities at equivalent speed of initial death rate
  * Communities spread advancement amongst each other
  * Communities send out hunting and gathering groups
  

Races; Remove all non-human

• 
  * Language barrier
  
  • * Difference races have a skill each for each races language

• * Similar races have small starting and learning bonuses

• * Language skills mimic persuasion effects

• * Perks per language:

• * ability to communicate without violence being likely

• * ability to trade

• * ability to train

 

* add a new archetype for Neanderthal

• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Neandertaler-im-Museum.jpg/300px-Neandertaler-im-Museum.jpg

• * more health

• * lower throwing skills

• * lower mining etc. skills

• * higher alchemy skills

• * more frost resistance

* Perhaps also Flores hobbit

• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Homo_floresiensis_-_reconstruction.JPG/220px-Homo_floresiensis_-_reconstruction.JPG

• * considerably less health

• * considerably higher stealth

• * Lower speed

• * higher stamina

• * less frost resistance

* And Denisovan hominin

• * Free archetype since little is known about it

Creatures; Replace all magical with non-magical

• 
  * Convert horse as wild creature
  * Affect scale of creatures; eg. shrink skeevers, add ‘young animals’
  * Respawn animals to regions at pace of initial attrition rate
  

Weather effects

• 
  * Low temperature does frost damage over time
  * Clothing trades stamina for frost protection
  
  • * More advanced clothing provides better trade offs

 

• * eg. sheet of mammoth fur, difficult to run in, stops say 70% frost

 

• * while sewed deer skin easy to run in but also stops 70% frost

* Using stamina provides some frost protection

* Introduce natural lightning storms

Alchemy

• 
  * Remove ‘magical’ potions
  * Most produce simply == better food
  * Some long time frame healing, stamina regen potions
  * Some frost / disease / poison resistance potions
  * Some valuable trading potions eg. alcohol, fruit juice
  

Forging, Mining, Tanning & Enchanting changes:

• 
  * These tasks take real game time to complete
  * Quality (reuseability, damage, weight) highly skill level dependent
  * Add some rand to the results
  * ‘initial products’ typically very basic eg. ‘large rock’ ‘stick’
  * Use Enchanting for ‘refined items’
  
  • * eg. limit the uses of refined items

• * examples; spear or hand axe eventually bluntens

* Skills learned can be transferred to NPC’s and therefore communities

* Make tanning more complex

Mineables

• 
  * Flint
  * Rock?
  * Bronze
  

Cuttables

• 
  * Flexible wood
  * Stout wood
  

Tannables

• 
  * Make this field more complex
  

Introduce Trapping?

Trading in ‘home camp’ at 1 to 1 value basis

• 
  * eg. all traders have 0 base cash
  * Items that other camps can’t produce have inflated value
  * Items that they can produce but yours can’t have inflated value
  

Training others returns currency useable only at that camp

Spells: Remove most

• 
  * Leave spells that could be thought of as ‘psychological boosts’
  * Leave spells that help abate disease
  * Add spells to represent Trained skill bonuses
  
  • * Training spells give learning bonuses

Shouts:

• 
  * Remove most
  * Use the remainder like ‘scary yelling’
  * And; Call for assistance / domesticated animal
  

Skinning / butchering changes

• 
  * Output very low without tools, best to ‘drag’ animals or bring people to them to feed
  * Meat expires
  

Diet / sleep requirements

• 
  * Meat increases capacity to learn skills / level
  * Plant food increases stamina regen (from base of 0)
  * Sleep increases multiplier of above from 0 eg. too long without sleep, no skills / stamina
  

Domestication

• 
  * Requires skill tree?
  * Skills at first only useful for hunting eg. mimmicking animal calls
  * Requires stunned / captured young animal
  

Weapon examples (order of advancement)

• 
  * Overall:
  
  • * Sharp weapons cause bleed

• * Sharp weapons blunten fast when striking shield, rock or ice

• * Blunt weapons cause stun

• * Shafted weapons can block other shafted weapons

• * All weapons can break entirely on use, more likely when worn and/or thrown

• * eg. like losing arrows in Skyrim

• * Thrown / fired weapons have on average a high arc by skyrim standards

* Rock

• * Findable

• * Thrown or melee

• * Short range in both

• * Average stamina cost

* Stick

• * No stunning

• * Findable

• * Long range

• * Low damage

• * Low stamina cost

• * Pushing can cause (lighter) prey \ predator to stumble back

* Boulder

• * Findable

• * Thrown or melee

• * Incredibly Short range in both

• * Huge stamina cost for huge damage

• * Cannot be stored in inventory

• * Can’t run
  * Lance \ pike
  
  • * Large damage

• * Long melee range

• * Bluntens slowly

• * Average stamina cost

• * Short thrown range, highly inaccurate

* Hand axe

• * melee only

• * medium damage

• * low stamina cost

• * short range

• * Bluntens slowly

• * Neccessary to cut wood / skin / butcher animals

* Boola

• * No stunning

• * Thrown only

• * large stamina cost

• * short-medium range

• * low damage

• * high chance to cause major stumble

* Javelin

• * Medium damage

• * Long melee / medium thrown range

• * Average melee / large thrown stamina cost

• * Bluntens fast

• * Inaccurate

* Boomerang

• * Medium Range

• * Accurate

• * Low damage

• * low stamina cost

* Returning Boomerang * (bonus only)

• * Distracts animals (provides stealth bonus)

* Shield

• * Same as Skyrim items in properties

• * Blocks almost all damage when struck, turning some into stamina loss

• * Cracks slowly

* Sling & pouch

• * Highly Accurate

• * Low damage

• * Light, findable ammunition, where quality affects accuracy

• * Wears out slowly

• * low stamina cost

• * low arc

* Dart

• * Accurate

• * low-med damage

• * medium thrown / melee range

• * Bluntens very fast

• * medium stamina cost

* Dart Thrower

• * Accurate

• * long / short range thrown / melee

• * low-med / low damage thrown / melee

• * large stamina cost

• * low arc

* Handled Axe

• * High damage melee

• * medium stamina cost

• * Thrown damage variable from very low to medium

• * Bluntens slowly

• * medium / short range melee / thrown

• * Neccessary to cut wood / skin / butcher animals

• * output higher for wood cutting

• * high arc

* Handled dagger

• * Medium damage melee

• * low stamina cost

• * short range melee

• * Bluntens slowly

• * Neccessary to cut skin / butcher animals

• * output higher for butchering

* Flint tips (javelins / darts / arrows)

• * Higher damage

* Detachable head for above

• * If item isn’t broken can be fully repaired by attaching a new head

* Short Bow

• * long range

• * low-medium damage

• * low stamina cost

• * average accuracy

* Long Bow

• * medium damage

• * huge range

• * can’t run

• * average accuracy

* Composite Bow

• * Same as above but can run

Edited November 19, 2011 by SenorFreebie

[WardTheGreat]

I am no modder, but this idea sounds awesome. I hope it works out.

[SenorFreebie]

That's why I got so excited by the concept. Since most of the development would involve just playing around with existing features, and in fact reducing elements, it seems like it's doable until I'm told otherwise. Any suggestions as to what you'd like to see in something like this though?

[Deleted2558536User]

This sounds amazing, and as it is mainly a reduction with partial modification it seems entirely plausible. However the biggest problem would be the integration of new perks, textures and the removal of existing features and landscapes.

[SenorFreebie]

Yeah, the perk tree and behind the game scripting that would be required would be quite heavy to get the right kind of functionality. To 'simplify' the world by simply removing things wouldn't be too hard I imagine but to make crafting more complex or to make models of pre-historical tribes wouldn't be easy. You could lean on the existing game assets a little bit. Plenty of the leathers ingame would be appropriate for this use, but that would leave you with too little variation.

[mrschnuffels]

It made my head hurt reading all that.....but it's a good pain.

[SondreGS]

It sounds like a great mod ;D

[SenorFreebie]

I'm glad someone read it all. It's all just an outline to springboard from so far though, I doubt much of that would remain exactly as is in any likely final iteration. I'm glad you guys think the idea is good, but would any of you have any suggestions on what to add / prioritise / do? Is there any pre-historic animals, for example, that you'd love to see in the game that aren't currently in Skyrim?

 

Some examples that spring to mind; Giant Kangaroos, Terror Birds, Wooly Rhinocerous, Giant Reptiles

[Deleted2558536User]

Well I would suggest you decide on an exact date and location. As these two things can and will make differing contrasts. Such as 250,000 years ago Britain was still joined with Europe, however 50,000 years later a catastrophic flood caused the channel to slowly begin forming. Then we have the dates between 100,000 years where Neanderthals were relatively isolated, however 50,000 years later Homo Sapiens arrived and began the evolutionary, albeit slow, destruction of the Neanderthals. Finally you could push it to 20,000 years ago during a period which likely saw the near extinction of Neanderthals being complete and the dominance of Homo Sapiens arising with the formation of large clans.

As well as this location will be important, Britain, Germany, Spain?

 

All things to think about.

 

I will post more tomorrow, but I need sleep. :P

[ryanwh]

I would totally play quest for fire, the game. I like to think, in a way, the reason a lot of fantasy races crop up so often is because of our muscle memory from back when 4 or 5 kinds of human-like beings were roaming around, before modern human wiped them all out as we're so often want. Edited November 20, 2011 by ryanwh