[WIP] Dovahheim -- A Player-Owned Town!

[kromey]

The Skyforge weapons aren't all the bad if you never progress beyond Steel Smithing. They're out-classed almost the very instant you do take another perk, though...

 

I'm exaggerating, of course. The Skyforge weapons are actually equivalent to Elven in damage, but weigh less (as much as iron). The armor, though is no different really from iron. My plan is to make the new armors (there will be light and heavy versions) equivalent to or a little below dragon, with the weapons in the vicinity of ebony, although the weight will be closer to steel (as it's actually a new alloy of steel). Still yet to finalize what exactly the stats will be, though, this is just my brainstorming.

 

 

The bank idea is... well, to be honest, I'm not sure what you envision the bank being. There's really no risk to one's gold in the game, so stashing it in a bank seems a mite pointless. I'm not ruling it out, I just don't understand what you're suggesting.

 

 

Income: Definitely in the plans, although more likely to be on a weekly basis than a daily one. Will either be deposited straight into a safe inside the player's home, or else there will be an NPC to talk to (e.g. "Tax Collector") to collect. Or, perhaps into the bank, if I do include that.

 

 

There's definitely side quests in the works. Personally, though, I despise escort quests, which means it's highly unlikely that I'll include any. There will definitely be "hunt-kill" style quests of similar purpose, though -- e.g. a new bandit camp has sprung up and is harassing traders, go kill it.

[NanoCrudele]

btw the idea suggested from choisai, making the quest killing a hard to beat boss would make this good

 

making it non scaling would prevent low level player from achieving the town too early, i found somewhere that exists a code to spawn some npc on an event, you could spawn some soldiers in the boss room and make it so that they were reinforcements sent to you from the jarl

 

alternatively you can decide to simply claim the fort for yourself, the npc spawned were impressed from your strenght and decide to support you and your claim

 

or simply they report to the jarl your strenght, courage and wisdom, and he charges you with the quest of ruling the fort, being his eyes, his ears and his sword when needed

the first method would be interesting since you would have to defend the fort not only from bandit, dragons and whoever whants to fight but from jarl troops too

the second would be the easy way, but less money, less freedom, less everything

 

the downside, someone in this case has to survive the fight to report the fight so you have to flag someone as essential, if you put 6 npc on the battlefield, you could flag essential a couple and the other 4 are normal npc, if they survive they get in the fort with some idle AI like sandbox, or since they are mercenaries they simply go away never to be seen again

 

 

in both situations you have some people to start with your city population, the men who fought alongside you, their families and every single one of them could point someone to be "recruited" like a blacksmith apprentice that worked on his sword

 

with a couple of npc like this you've found a good thane and a steward, brother in arms bond are a cliche but you now have a way to start npc recruiting

 

this post is something i wrote in the old location post for dovahheim, take a look if some idea in this might interest you

[kromey]

All good ideas. However, part of the story line for this is that the jarl doesn't have the troops to spare -- or at least doesn't have the motivation to spare them -- to take down the bandits at Robber's Gorge. If she did, why would she need the player at all?

 

Sure, it would be a spectacular confrontation if a bunch of the jarl's personal guard or whatever joined the fray to help the player take down the bandit leader. But what if the player wants to take a more subtle approach? Slip in the back door (Robber's Cove), murder the leader quickly and silently, then slip out again unnoticed. Would put the bandits in enough disarray to be more easily scattered by even a weak show of strength.

 

I've always disliked when open games like this that encourage all different kinds of play styles have certain aspects that are clearly geared toward one particular archetype (at least without some kind of plot-related reason why possible alternatives aren't available). So rather than forcing the player into a cinematic boss fight (which, I admit, would be pretty cool), I'm just going to leave the boss and the bandits there as-is, and let the player choose how to deal with them -- the front door's there, for the fighter type who just wants to smash straight in, but so's the backdoor for those that prefer that style.

 

And I'm not too worried about the player acquiring the area too early. What's he/she to gain? A couple of safe storage containers in a small camp that "belongs" to the player. In a run-down old shack that can barely keep the rain out. In the middle of nowhere. A bed (that won't even be player-owned, not until the player buys a proper house for him/herself), a table, and a couple of chairs. There is a corundum vein, but then again there's a few of those right outside Whiterun, and there's not even so much as a tanning rack or a smelter around! It's hardly a god item or a cheat we're talking about here, really not even enough to give a level 1 character any kind of significant advantage.

 

As far as getting the upgrades, the initial batch will all be purchased, but we're not talking about the couple hundred it takes to put a few new chairs into Breezehome. We're not even talking about buying Breezehome. The scale of what it takes to build a brand new smithy, for example, is much more akin to buying Proudspire, the most expensive of the vanilla player houses. Want to buy the inn? That costs even more. And that pales in comparison to the cost of building walls intended to repel sieges!

 

So I'm not going to make this any harder than clearing Robber's Gorge in vanilla is.

 

That said, there will be some much bigger, and much harder, challenges the player will face as the Dovahheim storyline progresses. Those of you itching for a Michael Bay-style cinematic fight can rest assured that this mod will deliver (or at least make its best efforts to, sans giant robots fighting in the middle of a big city).

 

 

And BTW, if anyone reading this perceives any anger of even the simmering variety, rest assured it's not directed at you -- I'm in a bit of a foul mood, but not through any fault of anyone on the Nexus. If anything in this post feels otherwise to you, I apologize, I'm trying to keep it out, but I'm not generally known for a well-contained temper...

[arcana75]

Suggestions:

 

1) Make the town an external cell, not like eg Whiterun, but like the homesteads like Riverwood, Dawnstar, etc.

 

2) Make all companions whom you ask to part ways to return to this town. Then they can roam the open outdoor spaces with the NPCs and miggle, eat, lean against posts, etc. Not sure how sleep would be handled though, probably an underground barracks in the Jarl's(?) house (yours).

 

3) As mentioned by others, gather materials or pay gold for it, to help build the town.

 

4) Other than quests, add some dynamism to the town, eg dragon attack, Forsworn raid, etc.

 

5) A really really good player home that has plenty of weapon and shield racks for display. Enough with the storage boxes and display cases. I want to admire all the stuff I collected from my travels. Mannequins are fine but racks are more visually pleasing.

[kromey]

The first release is here! Link has been added to the OP, or just get it from here.

 

 

@arcana75:

1) Definitely! Already doing that, and aside from some building interiors that's how I plan to keep it.

 

2) Hm, good idea. I'll have to look into it, not sure how to accomplish this.

 

3) Yup yup. Some upgrades will be purchaseable, others will require quests (some of which may very well consist of gathering rare materials, while others will be more interesting).

 

4) Definitely happening. Being exterior, dragon attacks are already a possibility. I also plan on bandit raids and other scripted events being part of the evolution of this mod as well.

 

5) There will be enough storage to keep things somewhat organized, which is to say far fewer chests and the like than most player home mods have (which really just put too damn much in, I think!). Weapon racks etc. will be common. Mannequins a little less so, just because I find them a bit creepy, but still enough to display your nifty armors.

[arcana75]

Great job on the first release! Will be watching it from now on :)

 

1) Definitely! Already doing that, and aside from some building interiors that's how I plan to keep it.

:thumbsup:

 

2) Hm, good idea. I'll have to look into it, not sure how to accomplish this.

I'm not a Skyrim modder but did fiddle with Oblivion, Morrowind and Fallout. By looking at the current companion packages like Lydia, should be easy enough to change a nav point to your town? But I think you may need to create all-new navmeshes for the companions to roam your town.

 

3) Yup yup. Some upgrades will be purchaseable, others will require quests (some of which may very well consist of gathering rare materials, while others will be more interesting).

:thumbsup:

 

4) Definitely happening. Being exterior, dragon attacks are already a possibility. I also plan on bandit raids and other scripted events being part of the evolution of this mod as well.

:thumbsup:

 

5) There will be enough storage to keep things somewhat organized, which is to say far fewer chests and the like than most player home mods have (which really just put too damn much in, I think!). Weapon racks etc. will be common. Mannequins a little less so, just because I find them a bit creepy, but still enough to display your nifty armors.

I find mannequins creepy too... the face... Perhaps another, more creative way to show armour. Eg an "invisible" mannequin or a new model that is a wireframe holding up the pieces, just like how our museums today show plate armour. In any case, I find that from my travels, named weapons tend to hold a more special place in my heart than a piece of armour, hence my preference for weapon racks. Armours, perhaps only to display unique shields like the city guard shields. Though a few can't hurt, in reality if you had a whole town to own and play with, instead of a mannequin I much rather have my town guards wear that armour (as mentioned in this thread). Actual NPCs wearing my armours and holding weapons forged by my town, way way better.

Edited February 20, 2012 by arcana75

[arcana75]

Few more suggestions, as I'm really keen on this mod. I would have readily volunteered to help you, except I'm only 30hrs into Skyrim and want to play it through first.

 

1) I found your earlier suggestion thread and one of your earlier requirements is that your town isn't affliated with Imperial or Stormcloak. I think it would be fun to have your town interplay with both factions. Eg raids, or envoys coming over to curry your (my) favour. Just like how sometimes you see the Aldmeri Dominion in some towns. To make things interesting you would have some balancing act to play between the two, as leaning too far towards one faction causes repercussions from the other perhaps down to all-out raids by them. Or you could just play between the two, keeping both happy. I don't think being completely neutral would fit into Skyrim. Independent would be a better word and mercenary at times. Or give the player to one day fly a faction flag at the gate, with real differences to the town either way, eg more Nord/Imperial NPCs, more Imperial/Nord raids, etc.

 

2) The player won't be in town the whole time and therefore putting effort into it (defences, guards, equipment) must mean something than just to look good. See if you can get the courier system working for you (more than it already is), giving you letters from the township informing you of successful defences (and so eg adding some gold into your town coffers) or successful raids by enemy (and so some paid guards are dead, or lost gold in coffers). More losses would encourage you to beef up your town. And the 3rd is a quick alert letter which you could respond to, to participate in the battle. For this I wouldn't mind a fast teleport into town. Afterall Mark and Recall were part of lore and in earlier ES games. Some of this could just be meta-gaming with no real activity ingame, except the intervention option, but it certainly helps with immersion and reminds the player, hey you're still Jarl of the town and there's a town to run.

 

I admit both ideas maybe too early to implement given the WIP nature, so just ideas to toss about :)

[arcana75]

2) Make all companions whom you ask to part ways to return to this town. Then they can roam the open outdoor spaces with the NPCs and miggle, eat, lean against posts, etc. Not sure how sleep would be handled though, probably an underground barracks in the Jarl's(?) house (yours).

I happened to read this bit while reading up on a Skyrim bug:

 

Most followers can become Blades, and will be given a free set of Blades Armor and a Blades Sword. This can be done to up to 3 followers by speaking to Delphine at Sky Haven Temple. After you have followers initiated as Blades, they will no longer return to their home or starting location. They will instead take up residence at Sky Haven Temple, even if they tell you they will return home.

 

:)

[RandomlyAwesome]

-snip-

 

The bank idea is... well, to be honest, I'm not sure what you envision the bank being. There's really no risk to one's gold in the game, so stashing it in a bank seems a mite pointless. I'm not ruling it out, I just don't understand what you're suggesting.

 

 

Income: Definitely in the plans, although more likely to be on a weekly basis than a daily one. Will either be deposited straight into a safe inside the player's home, or else there will be an NPC to talk to (e.g. "Tax Collector") to collect. Or, perhaps into the bank, if I do include that.

 

 

There's definitely side quests in the works. Personally, though, I despise escort quests, which means it's highly unlikely that I'll include any. There will definitely be "hunt-kill" style quests of similar purpose, though -- e.g. a new bandit camp has sprung up and is harassing traders, go kill it.

Well I wanted to suggest a realistic way to collect the income that builds up as you do other things(but i guess the Npc would be allright

one of my ideas when I thought of the bank

-The bank could allow you to direct your income directly into a project/building (like the mines for example) so that things could progress while you are away.

Anyways New ideas:

-a follow up to the idea of companions going to live in your city maybe you could make them join the guards in patrolling and stuff

-Maybe Just Maybe you could make Paarthunax(did I spell his name right?) come live on top of a tower.(though this would probably conflict with a lot of mods)

 

 

Is it me or are my ideas getting sillier by the minute?

[kromey]

Few more suggestions, as I'm really keen on this mod. I would have readily volunteered to help you, except I'm only 30hrs into Skyrim and want to play it through first.

No worries, I don't really play well with others anyway, everything has to be my way or the highway, so other than soliciting ideas and asking for testers and feedback, I'm not really taking on any help.

 

1) I found your earlier suggestion thread and one of your earlier requirements is that your town isn't affliated with Imperial or Stormcloak. I think it would be fun to have your town interplay with both factions. Eg raids, or envoys coming over to curry your (my) favour. Just like how sometimes you see the Aldmeri Dominion in some towns. To make things interesting you would have some balancing act to play between the two, as leaning too far towards one faction causes repercussions from the other perhaps down to all-out raids by them. Or you could just play between the two, keeping both happy. I don't think being completely neutral would fit into Skyrim. Independent would be a better word and mercenary at times. Or give the player to one day fly a faction flag at the gate, with real differences to the town either way, eg more Nord/Imperial NPCs, more Imperial/Nord raids, etc.

Hm, I don't recall stating so definitively that the town wouldn't be on either side of the civil war, although I don't doubt it -- my early ideas I wanted to steer well clear of the whole CW arc, but since then I've actually been envisioning allowing the player to in fact choose to side with one side or the other (adding appropriate banners flying in the city, of course), with all the natural repercussions thereof.

 

However, I do like the idea of the third option, of allowing the player to toe the line of neutrality by balancing aid to one faction or the other, allowing army convoys to pass through the town or not, etc. Could be tricky to work that into the CW arc (I haven't played that one out yet, so I don't know what happens with one side when the other wins), but worth exploring.

 

You also reminded me of another idea I had, which was a whole plot around the Aldmeri Dominion versus Talos Worship. (Actually, I think someone else may have suggested it in a previous thread...) The short version is that the player can choose between aiding the Aldmeri in wiping out Talos worship, giving lip service to the same, secretly abetting Talos worship, or even going into open conflict with the Dominion by openly worshiping Talos.

 

2) The player won't be in town the whole time and therefore putting effort into it (defences, guards, equipment) must mean something than just to look good. See if you can get the courier system working for you (more than it already is), giving you letters from the township informing you of successful defences (and so eg adding some gold into your town coffers) or successful raids by enemy (and so some paid guards are dead, or lost gold in coffers). More losses would encourage you to beef up your town. And the 3rd is a quick alert letter which you could respond to, to participate in the battle. For this I wouldn't mind a fast teleport into town. Afterall Mark and Recall were part of lore and in earlier ES games. Some of this could just be meta-gaming with no real activity ingame, except the intervention option, but it certainly helps with immersion and reminds the player, hey you're still Jarl of the town and there's a town to run.

 

I admit both ideas maybe too early to implement given the WIP nature, so just ideas to toss about :)

Hm... This would be hard to do I think. I do intend on scripted events that happen while the player is present, of course. Not sure how one might handle raids and such while the player is elsewhere, though. I do like it, though, it's a good idea, and definitely gives the town much more life if things happen while the player isn't even there.

 

A hybrid approach that would work pretty well I think would be to occasionally have the player arrive to a scripted battle already underway, or arrive to see dead bodies everywhere and a guard limping up to report about a raid on the town. These types of events should be a lot easier, especially since there are events I can hook into to implement them (e.g. OnLoad(), which fires when the player gets near enough the cell for the game to load it into memory). A simple script that uses a random number generator to randomly pick an event attached to the cell with that event, and of course a random chance for any event to happen at all, could easily do this.

 

I do like the courier idea, too, though. Again, makes the place more lifelike if you're all the way out in Riften doing, I dunno, Thieves' Guild quests or something, and suddenly a courier comes running up with a letter informing you that something happened to your town.

 

Quick quibble, though -- a jarl is someone in charge of an entire hold, not a town. I'm not sure of the lore title for someone governing a town, but so far I've mostly been using "steward" (or just going out of my way to avoid a title altogether).

 

2) Make all companions whom you ask to part ways to return to this town. Then they can roam the open outdoor spaces with the NPCs and miggle, eat, lean against posts, etc. Not sure how sleep would be handled though, probably an underground barracks in the Jarl's(?) house (yours).

I happened to read this bit while reading up on a Skyrim bug:

 

Most followers can become Blades, and will be given a free set of Blades Armor and a Blades Sword. This can be done to up to 3 followers by speaking to Delphine at Sky Haven Temple. After you have followers initiated as Blades, they will no longer return to their home or starting location. They will instead take up residence at Sky Haven Temple, even if they tell you they will return home.

They call that a bug? Huh, I thought that's how it was supposed to work...

 

Anyway, yeah, I know that followers can be recruited into the Blades, which changes where they go home. If that's something built into the follower, though, I hesitate to do anything with it -- it would make my mod incompatible with a whole host of follower mods that are already out there. And, if you can't tell already, I'm awful paranoid about being incompatible with other mods...

 

I suspect it's as simple as moving a specific marker, though. Which is certainly doable without breaking anything, and even means that if you "recruit" a follower into your town, it will still work to later recruit them into the Blades, without anything breaking.

 

Well I wanted to suggest a realistic way to collect the income that builds up as you do other things(but i guess the Npc would be allright

one of my ideas when I thought of the bank

-The bank could allow you to direct your income directly into a project/building (like the mines for example) so that things could progress while you are away.

Anyways New ideas:

-a follow up to the idea of companions going to live in your city maybe you could make them join the guards in patrolling and stuff

-Maybe Just Maybe you could make Paarthunax(did I spell his name right?) come live on top of a tower.(though this would probably conflict with a lot of mods)

Ah, I see what you mean about the bank. It's a bit more complex than I want to go for this mod, though, being my first serious project (take a look at the mods in my sig -- these simple things are the extent of my modding expertise, and now I'm tackling having the player build and develop an entire town!) I do like the idea of investing into your developments, though, to improve upon their returns. Perhaps a moneylender NPC with an office nearby your house (and later inside your keep) could serve in this role, via dialog options. Or, maybe like investing in shop keepers via Speechcraft, just a dialog option on the relevant NPC (e.g. the mine foreman) for investing.

 

Love the idea of recruited followers joining the town guard! I've already stood atop the camp's ramparts and watched Lydia work with my guards to take out some random necromancers wandering down the road, and yet it never occurred to me to make that a more "official" part of the mod!

 

Doubtful I'll do anything with Paarthunax, again for my paranoid fear of making my mod incompatible with others. Maybe a tower-top roost for his younger brother Paul, though? I'll keep it in mind, but if I do go with that it'd be a long ways off, much nearer the end of the mod than the early stage I'm currently in.

 

Is it me or are my ideas getting sillier by the minute?

Keep 'em coming -- all work and no play makes Dovahheim a rather dull place!

 

Never thought of this before, but I'm going to put a bard in the inn -- about as close to a night club as Skyrim gets these days...