r4y30n Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 I recently read an article about Star Wars: The Old Republic (Article Here) and it mentioned companions that can go on their own quests and bring back loot as well as taking items to town to sell and bringing back the cash. I feel like we have (or will soon have) all the tools to accomplish something similar with Skyrim. We have couriers that can find us out in the wilderness, spouses pay us a cut of their pay, the rest shouldn't be too tedious to work out. It would make marrying a warrior type a little more realistic/rewarding than them suddenly becoming owner of an invisible shop and it would give house carls some real work to do when they're not at your side instead of just moping around your house. If your companions speech skill is higher than your own they could even come back with more gold than had you gone to the market yourself! So basically you would end up with a few new conversation options with house carls, spouses and other companions which they might refuse depending on their class/status: Sell Loot, in which they will take items from you and, after the transaction, leave you to sell your goods at the nearest town. They will then return to you wherever you may be, perhaps a day later, and pay you what they got (possibly minus a fee for their trouble) then follow you again as if they never left. This request would be most likely to succeed with a house carl or spouse, someone more inclined or obligated to do more menial, non-combat tasks. Quest: An option for mercenaries, house carls and warrior spouses this would send your companion away on a quest to bring you loot. For balancing, they probably won't return for a few days, maybe a week, and items brought back shouldn't be unique. Value of loot would ideally be level-dependent. For a more in-depth twist, maybe the companion should write to you about the loot they found and you can tell the courier delivering the note to send back either a request to come back to you with the loot, trade it all at the market and return with the money or return home, etc. Actually, a mail system could be a sweet addition in and of itself... Having the option to write to any companion to join you from any major city would be a neat feature. Long story short, this mod would be all about expanding a companion's capabilities and usefulness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manmanman Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 +1 That would be so great. The game also does have capabilities of writing notes by itself. (Such as how your name is written on assassination contracts). Then you would have it specialize depending on what the follower achieved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyrimDarling Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 +1Man that sounds so awesome! I'd love to come out from a cave, half dead and find my husband sent me a note or a health potion, a little thinking of you please don't get yourself killed. :D I wouldn't mind if the courier just left it outside. care packages would be awesome, especially if there were a couple of variable notes. maybe they send you a cold home cooked meal and tell you off for not being home for a while. Having followers and housecarls do their own thing would be so great. in oblivion if you get that expansion with the pirates ship house thing, and fully upgrade it you get a pirate crew you can send off on missions so that should be do-able in skyrim right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipperken Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 Nea bad, but frankly I prefer to see a good Companion/Romance Mod first...Maybe like the one in DAO, where you can talk for hours about their lifes they led, the things they done, their ideas and beliefs, where you could make out and even have sex, maybe. Where you can begin an in-dept relation (friendhip, love) with others.One could, as example, become a good friend towards a housecarl.One ALSO should do "maintenance" to hold this relationship intact, such as giving a present, or having a chat, or well, make out... Well, in fact, this idea of your could easely be implemented in it....Would even make sense! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billyro Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 Nea bad, but frankly I prefer to see a good Companion/Romance Mod first...Maybe like the one in DAO, where you can talk for hours about their lifes they led, the things they done, their ideas and beliefs, where you could make out and even have sex, maybe. Where you can begin an in-dept relation (friendhip, love) with others.One could, as example, become a good friend towards a housecarl.One ALSO should do "maintenance" to hold this relationship intact, such as giving a present, or having a chat, or well, make out... Well, in fact, this idea of your could easely be implemented in it....Would even make sense!Would be good, but that will probably only happen once or twice, until the next Vilja or Willow is made. I believe that it would be possible to have this "romance build up" but it would be generic... Well, either way it would still rule. The default marriage SUCKS! I like all these ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r4y30n Posted December 30, 2011 Author Share Posted December 30, 2011 The real issue for making more detailed conversations, interactions, etc with spouses and other NPCs is the lack of audio... If you really wanted to make a mod to deal with that you would need to find someone to do studio-quality voice acting for everything a character says, new and original, so it would all be consistent. Obviously the time and effort involved increases dramatically when you want to cover all potential spouses, new spouses not originally in the game, etc. Now, don't take my pessimism as a lack of support, I think such expansions could be awesome if done right, they would just be daunting in their complexity and resource intensiveness, solely because it is not a software-centric project. How far did people get with these kind of mods in Oblivion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyrimDarling Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 How far did people get with these kind of mods in Oblivion? there are many meantioned in romance mods requests Esteris says: "For Oblivion, I think it was RTT and Ariana Trudeaux at least. I think there's been one for Viconia de'Vir as well. There has also been a friendship mod I enjoyed very much called Dremora Companion."blaydon lists these: Constance, Laura, WitchGirl, Julan, Vilja , Saerileth, Viconia DeVir. although that is under elderscrolls 3 and 4. check out my request. I think it's viable alternative and much less work. basically on the topic that I touched on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r4y30n Posted December 30, 2011 Author Share Posted December 30, 2011 Yes, what you've mentioned earlier would be cool. Care packages, etc would be neat but wouldn't such a mod be that much better with direct personal interaction? You could even reuse a lot of the dialog for responses, such as Lydia's sarcastic, "I am sworn to carry your burden..." if you tell her to go pawn your stuff at the market, etc. I suppose it could probably be put together in stages... As for the pirate crew under your command, that would be pretty sweet. Maybe have a lieutenant or some such under your command who has the rest of the crew under his command? Could be soldiers, too, but I digress... :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyrimDarling Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 I was thinking that while all these more advanced mods might take a long time it would be relatively quick and easy to make the care-package separately and in such a way that it would contribute to but be stand alone. would you mind replying under the third link in my signature? I'm trying to get more interest in this. I can contribute to it as a writer but unfortunately I've never modded anything ever. I only just decided to do anything more involved than download mods :D I think I'd only really need one modded but I'm not sure. Practically everything is in the game already. should be able to work along side any future romance or independent companion mods, which I'm looking forward to. Thing is the pirate crew was an official esp data pack for oblivion. I think it would be possible to get animations from it and probably their voices, or you could try get some new voice actors, and you'd more than likely need someone to do re textures. If you put up a modding request I'll support you... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipperken Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 There is/was a rather big mod like this (for romance) created for Morrowind 3 and expansions.You could basically befriend/marry all that was not hostile, you actually had to work on the relationship, it had a marriage concept, quite something for back then.Maybe use this as a guide?Strip it, see how it works, get some ideas from it, I mean... it can be done... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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