The Bureau - Massive sci-fi mod proposition

[Feltorn Von Dentai]

Alright, this probably won't start until the creation kit is released. Keep in mind this is all bare concept right now.

 

The mod would be likely called "The Bureau" (although that name may change) and would definitely not be lore friendly.

 

It would require all downloaders' to own Fallout: New Vegas, to give you all an idea of what I'm planning here. This mod will have modern clothing, and guns, and New Yorkers, and possibly Skyscrapers (or, one skyscraper, at least.)

 

STORY:

 

The Bureau would be about an organisation of "Dimensional Regulators", an interdimensional syndicate dedicated to maintaining quantum harmony. Just hum-drum, everyday stuff like stopping all of reality from being devoured by a morphic rift, keeping the different planes of reality from colliding with eachother, and trying to find out how to get Th'Kan'Ker blood out of a tailored suit.

 

The Bureau was secretly founded on earth (that is, our earth) in 1929 and has since been evolving all the time. The current date would have course be 2012, on earth anyway, and the Bureau has discovered that the dimension housing the planet Nirn is doing something to interfere with the rest of the Hypercosmic Collective (basically speaking; everything, ever.) A detachment of agents has been dispatched to Skyrim, on the continent Tamriel, which is where the disturbence apparently orginates. But these agents face a rather large problem.

 

Agents of The Bureau are not allowed to physically interfere with anything that happens in any dimension but the one they come from, and the last agent from Nirn (a man named Tarhiel who went largely unnoticed in the grand scheme of things) died many years ago. That means it's recruiting time, and who is a better candidate than the legendary Dragonborn? After accepting to help The Bureau, the Dragonborn will undertake an adventure unlike any that has ever been seen in an Elder Scrolls game before.

 

Also, did we mention you'll get to kill a dragon with a flamethrower?

 

Because that's totally going to happen.

 

FEATURES:

 

As I have already mentioned, people who wish to download The Bureau will first need to own Fallout: New Vegas, for quite a big reason: This mod will use models, textures, sounds and animations from that game.

 

With this mod, you will finally be able to roam the lands of Skyrim sporting a flashy suit, sunglasses and a 12 gauge shotgun. Deal with bandits Dirty Harry style, and use new forms of, ahem, "magic" learned from your new dimension hopping friends.

 

Not only this, but my hopes are that The Bureau will feature a long quest line full of intrigue, subplots and a bit of humor, and hopefully, multiple endings. Along with this, a whole host of new, (hopefully) fully voiced NPC's, new items with new animations and features, etc...

 

It's a big undertaking, I realise, and if anybody wants to help, it will be more than appreciated!

 

GOALS:

 

1) To add "modern" weapons, clothing and items along with several "sci-fi" inspired magic abilities for mages. We're talking firearms, modern melee weapons (duel wielded Cold Steel carbon fibre machetes' anyone?) and Matrixesque reality-bending powers.

 

2) To add a whole host of fully voiced NPC's and (possibly) some new monsters.

 

3) To introduce a new, long-running quest series with multiple endings.

 

TECHNICAL CONCEPTS:

 

Some of you may be wondering to yourself "well this sounds great and all, but how do you plan to do it?"

 

The answer is, really, mostly based on speculation right now.

 

It mostly depends on the capabilities of the upcoming Skyrim mod toolset, because I am definitely going to need it to even start this mod.

 

But when it comes to guess-work, all that will need to be done is importing some models, animations and textures from Fallout: New Vegas into Skyrim. Seeing as Skyrim uses an upgraded version of Fallout's engine, this will hopefully not be too much trouble.

 

Once I have all the visual stuff, models, textures, items and the like, and have them all rigged up to work with Skyrim, it will simply be a matter of introducing them into the game with new statistics, based off current in game weapons. For instance: guns will use the bow and arrow mechanic, except the arrow will use a bullet model, have no arc and move 9999 times faster, and will cause the weapon to perform its specific animations. Reloads may be tricky, but hopefuly the upcoming mod tools will make room for some new scripts. From there, the quest will be made in the way all quests are made for Bethesda games.

 

But that is all just speculation at this point. I'll need to wait for the construction kit to be released before I can give some solid ideas on how to actually make this happen.

 

ENDING NOTES:

 

As you can no doubt tell, this mod would be no small task. And while I'm willing to give it a try on my own, any help anybody wants to offer will be gladly accepted. The more, talented people we have working on this, the better.

 

So yeah, that's my proposition, thoughts?

Edited December 31, 2011 by Feltorn Von Dentai

[huntsman2310]

Sounds very ambitious. Also I think the way you want to use Fallout New Vegas might be illegal.

[Feltorn Von Dentai]

Sounds very ambitious. Also I think the way you want to use Fallout New Vegas might be illegal.

 

Yes, I thought there would be some concerns about that.

 

As I said, everybody who plays this will need to own Fallout New Vegas. That is the one solid sticking point.

 

As in "This mod will straight up not work without Fallout New Vegas".

 

My plan is to actually use the Fallout NV directories to get the models and animations. As in Skyrim will draw directly from the Fallout ESM files.

 

There may be some custom textures and such, but they will not work without Fallout NV.

 

Not sure how to do it, but I'm sure its possible seeing as they both use the same engine, its just that Skyrim's engine is more advanced.

[The Bluejay]

Sounds very ambitious. Also I think the way you want to use Fallout New Vegas might be illegal.

 

Yes, I thought there would be some concerns about that.

 

As I said, everybody who plays this will need to own Fallout New Vegas. That is the one solid sticking point.

 

As in "This mod will straight up not work without Fallout New Vegas".

 

My plan is to actually use the Fallout NV directories to get the models and animations. As in Skyrim will draw directly from the Fallout ESM files.

 

There may be some custom textures and such, but they will not work without Fallout NV.

 

Not sure how to do it, but I'm sure its possible seeing as they both use the same engine, its just that Skyrim's engine is more advanced.

 

Yeah, thats illegal. You're not allowed to port assets from one game to another at all regardless of whether you own both of the games. It's just not kosher.

[ALittleBird]

This seems really promising. Not really the medieval-kinda style of the TES of course, but I like the story behind it all. Seems convincing enough for me.

But you using stuff from Fallout New Vegas, I don't think that's going to work. You mean, like the guy above me said. Porting assets from one game to another, I don't think that will be appreciated.

But I sure hope you work it out. Because this is something I'm definitely looking forward to.

[Feltorn Von Dentai]

 

Yeah, thats illegal. You're not allowed to port assets from one game to another at all regardless of whether you own both of the games. It's just not kosher.

 

Not even using the method I have proposed?

 

It's not about simply owning both games, that wouldn't be enough.

 

I intend to make it so that it is impossible to run this mod without both of them installed.

 

I'll make two seperate .ESMs if I have too, for both games.

 

If you think I'm suggesting we just rip the files out of one and stick them in a new folder for everybody to download, then you're sorely mistaken.

 

I know enough about modding to know that sort of thing doesn't fly. That's why this mod, essentially, wouldn't even touch the NV content. It would use it, but it would draw directly from it, it would be impossible to run the mod without it.

[Sunnie]

I don't think you realize there have been quite a few changes from FO3/NV data to the new CE fkyrim uses. Data file types may be similar but I suspect that doing what you are proposing here will require quite a bit of the NV assets to be converted, and those converted assets would be required to make the mod work. Thats still porting assets from one game to another unless those assets are also found in the data files for the target game (like finding 75% of the FO3 assets in the NV data). Last I looked, pretty much no assets from FO are in the Skyrim data.

[The Bluejay]

 

Yeah, thats illegal. You're not allowed to port assets from one game to another at all regardless of whether you own both of the games. It's just not kosher.

 

Not even using the method I have proposed?

 

It's not about simply owning both games, that wouldn't be enough.

 

I intend to make it so that it is impossible to run this mod without both of them installed.

 

I'll make two seperate .ESMs if I have too, for both games.

 

If you think I'm suggesting we just rip the files out of one and stick them in a new folder for everybody to download, then you're sorely mistaken.

 

I know enough about modding to know that sort of thing doesn't fly. That's why this mod, essentially, wouldn't even touch the NV content. It would use it, but it would draw directly from it, it would be impossible to run the mod without it.

 

Tying the mod to both games is legally squiffy - see Morroblivion. If any assets from Skyrim end up in NV, or vice versa, then it's illegal.

Really the only practical way of doing that would be making a Skyrim mod with one half of the mod, and a NV mod with the other half, and the only content shared between being the custom content.