Noob TES modder: how hard is it to do these things?

[Yacobs]

I have an idea for a sort of first person RPG-ish game and, since I have no time to actually program it, I figure I could make it a mod. Since the Skyrim mod kit is coming out this month and it's a popular game, I figure that'd be a good place to do it. I have some questions about whether the TES mod tools can relatively easily handle this stuff, though.

 

1) It would be a standalone world. You can't travel to the main Skyrim areas.

2) It forces you to start as a new character. You cannot use your Skyrim character.

3) It would have lots of scripted sequences. Think the Skyrim tutorial sequence with the Dragon but maybe less complicated. I know Skyrim can handle scripted stuff but how intense can it get and how hard is it to do?

4) I want to prevent the player from using quicksaves, instead using Autosave at certain junctures (I want to force the player to live with his choices). I wouldn't be surprised if this is impossible.

5) Can I easily disable interface elements for immersion purposes? Like deleting the Shouts and Spells entries from the character menu?

6) The village it takes place in would change drastically over time. Houses could burn down, etc.

 

Any thoughts?

Edited January 6, 2012 by Yacobs

[David Brasher]

My answers are based off of TES CS for Oblivion. We assume that the Skyrim Construction kit will be the similar, but who knows?

 

(1) Easy to prevent travel (unless gamers cheat and use console codes.) Time consuming to build a new world.

 

(2) Not hard to make the mod only available to those who start new characters.

 

(3) Lots of scripted sequences are difficult and time consuming to make. Then after you make them, you spend the following years receiving bug reports from gamers about the less-common bugs you never encountered in play-testing. Expect to be releasing bugfix update after bugfix update. And then there are the compatibility issues with popular mods. Better recruit a sound engineer, some voice actors, a modeler, and a scripter.

 

(4) I expect that you cannot disable any sort of saving because this is hardcoded.

 

(5) Using the construction kit, it is likely very easy to remove starting spells from a character or prevent a character from acquiring new spells while playing. It is likely a bit more difficult to do it by console code. It may be impossible to change the user interface so that part of it no longer exists. Like you could easily make it so you have no spells and shouts in your menu. But it may prove impossible to make it so you don't even have a menu.

 

(6) The village already changes a great deal. You see it in three states: ( a ) a nice pretty little place before the dragon comes ( b ) a burning mess while the dragon is attacking and the Stormcloaks are fighting the Legion ( c ) a ruined town infested with bandits. The transition from b to c would be done with enabling and disabling. Not a hard thing, but possibly time consuming and tedious. It is possible that the transition between a and b was done with worldspaces rather than enabling and disabling. This approach could not be used by a modder unless you wanted to convert an open city into a closed city or some such thing. But that would look odd.

Edited January 6, 2012 by David Brasher

[Yacobs]

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

 

(1) Easy to prevent travel (unless gamers cheat and use console codes.) Time consuming to build a new world.

 

I don't want a whole new world. It would take place in one village with maybe some surrounding area. I just don't want the Skyrim world to be available or even appear on the map. Sounds reasonable in terms of workload, right?

 

(2) Not hard to make the mod only available to those who start new characters.

 

Can I force a pre-defined character?