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

[kromey]

You meant "looks like WE are fine" kid. Your mod does not take precedence over mine and I uploaded mine first. I was just asking that you not expand onto the same spots I did for conflict reasons as well as letting you know I was not going closer to where your mod is located even though I am adding more to mine.

EDIT: Sorry, I somehow missed your apology. Snipped the irrelevant and inappropriate ranting.

 

Here's the final word I'll say on this: I do genuinely appreciate mod authors bringing to my attention conflicts or possible conflicts between my mod and theirs. Sometimes these conflicts just won't be resolvable to either of our satisfactions, though, and that's just the way of it -- not all mods are compatible. Other times, however, there will prove to be no issue whatsoever, and neither author has to make any changes -- as was the case here. When there is a conflict that can be resolved, however, I will make every effort to accommodate the other mod in all good faith. I do hope that mod authors continue to bring potential conflicts and issues to my attention -- as jet4571 and the author of Warzones have (EDIT: Sorry, my bad, it was a user of Warzones, not the author, that raised the possible conflict) -- and I will continue to act in good faith to work with them and do my best to be a good modding citizen.

 

Hmm i got some ideas but i dont remember if they have been said before.

 

1. name your guards. i mean give them.nicknames that you chose. lorevice that vould not be a problem as people get nickname and with that it is easyer to make your "elite guard" and maybe make it so that the ones with nicknames will be companions. 1, 2 or 3 no.more as they will be the lords bodyguards.

I'm terrible with names. Can't remember them, can't come up with names for new characters -- I'm just terrible. So don't hold out much hope for this one.

 

That said, though, I do like the idea.

 

2. hall of the dead with names on the tombs of your citysens that have died.

Could be problematic. For named citizens, there's only a finite number that can exist, since they all have to be created from the get-go. (The guard nicknames idea faces the same issue.) This means that if too many of them die, your town is no longer populated at all. While realistic, it means that one dragon attack, or a bandit raid gone bad, can wipe out all the effort you've made to develop your town into something awesome is trashed in an instant, and you're left with one very expensive ghost town.

 

That being said, though, I intend to be very sparing with the Essential flags. Still need to do some testing on it, but I believe I can flag the citizens to respawn -- so they can get killed by that dragon or that bandit raid, but give it a month (or whatever the respawn time is) and they'll be back.

 

3. maybe a public bath or hot springs (magic made)

Love it! But why does it have to be magical? The Romans had quite good -- and dead simple -- central heating systems for their baths. The tech level in Skyrim seems to be at least on par with Ancient Rome, so why not totally mundane?

 

4. As it is bound to come dragon riding mods why.not a dragon platform ((dragonstable) where you can land.

I'll look into this when those do start to come along. There's flat land and nearby hilltops that could be used in a pinch, and there's already a "dragon crash" marker just north of the camp, so it's certainly landable already. Still, no reason I can't make it easier on the dragonriders of Skyrim!

 

5. dragon gravejard (like you place dragon.bones in.a chest inside a tomb.and.then.some days later it wil.be a dragon.skelleton there (like 5-10 for each skeleton) it would not conflick a

lore as you as an lord can get tour servants set the skelleton together. (hmm.maybe.if you add a throfy room this could be a part of it)

Hm, interesting. Dedicating that much space to a dragon skeleton could be problematic, though, but certainly not impossible.

 

6. an epic tower

Dovahdeim (Dragon's Keep) is a planned future upgrade for the town that will give the player a pretty nice tower. Dunno if it will meet your definition of "epic" (or even mine), but let's see what happens and revisit this one then, eh? :thumbsup:

 

Stumbled upon a work-in-progress called Castle Thuum.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZtZaN9txUU

 

I must say it looks fantastic and is a great indication of how things can be done to realise an external cell player hometown.

 

Comes with working stall merchants, recruitable townguards and a dragon fountain :)

Oh that's awesome! A lot more monolithic than what I'm planning to do here, but certainly a good source of inspiration if nothing else!

Edited February 28, 2012 by kromey

[Kezza921]

Hey I hope that the programming is going well I have a few new ideas:

1. A sparing partner so that the player can up there melee skills

2. Dog Kennels so that the player can train a dog from scratch or keep there current dog there

3. Build a council to help with the running of the hold (e.g. Head of the town guard, Hold Mage, Other Advisers)

4. Have random events that appear now and again that the player has to do something (e.g. A necromancer has moved into town and its to much for the town guard to handle so that player has to go back and find investigate and find the necromancer)(Not all of these random events can be bad things some may be good things)

[arcana75]

Any progress since 1st release? Capturing Robber's Gorge simply isn't enough to pique most people's interest in a "player home" mod. Would be good to know what next steps you're working on right now. Your wiki doesn't really say much.

 

Here's another idea (and I'm sure you're totally swamped with them now which is why it's good u let us know what u're working on specifically) is a Dovahkiin Museum. Afterall this is the Dovahheim, the Dovahkiin Town. The museum collects individual exploits of the Dovahkiin, complete with tour (like the guy in Wildhelm). This could replace the trophy hall in the Jarl Hall. Some exhibits (unlocked based on progress?) could be:

 

1) Thane Town shields.

2) Named dragons killed with miniature dragon models.

3) Guild Leader trophies.

4) All the named weapons the faction leaders give you for every town conquest, like Axe of Whiterun.

5) Maybe number of Dwemer Centurions taken down.

6) Daedra gifts collected.

 

2, 3 and 5 could be displayed like Fallout 3's Bobblehead display table. 1 could be at the back wall with 4, nice weapon+shield display combo using the Shield Rack. Most of this could just be that you put the item into a container and a script scans the box and duplicates the item onto the display case or wall, as a non-interactable object. IIRC Fallout 3 (or New Vegas?) had a working Museum mod that spawned static objects based on the player's exploits.

 

Hmm found the mod in fallout3nexus: http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2857

 

This Mod adds a Museum that will add displays as the player plays the game. The entrance to the museum is located behind the boarded up house directly West of the Springvale School(Map Marker added to ease travel back to Museum).

 

Inside there is the main area at the end of the hall. This room contains trophies for completing quests, discovering locations, and a few random events. These displays are updated as you play the game. For those who are mid-way through a character(and if the script doesn't do what it supposed to do) there is a terminal inside the museum that allows for manual activation of any exhibit, or a complete reset of the displays.

 

The supported player activities list is extensive. In fact now that I look at it, it's far more than I'd expect as I wrote above, as it tracks skills, quests and a whole lot more. Will be fantastic to have but the scale of it will be an entire separate mod itself and it's better you focus on the town building aspect first. Maybe some modder reading this will take up the challenge.

[Korodic]

So... the things I've read on here is ... >.> Good job Kromey. As for the discussion of conflicts, I saw jets apology. But common, there is no general rule of thumb. If you create content in vanilla you are auto conflicting with someone eventually. Nobody will know what everyone else is doing. Your plans do not take precedence over the modder who wants to make his mod the way he/she wants it to be. Of course I stay away to avoid conflicting, but it is a design choice. That's what it all comes down to. Of course authors can work around conflicts but they don't need to tailor it in any type of fashion. That is my rule of thumb, that doing anything to vanilla areas is a risk to potentially being overshadowed by a possibly better mod due to conflicts (I'm saying this in general, I know because I was in the same situation in FO:NV where I built my base entrance where one guy built a whole world mod off of So I just picked up my base and moved it.). :thumbsup:

[arcana75]

kromey, was thinking about how the town is placed in an external cell and that Radiant AI does things to the world when the player is around. I've personally seen some interesting things happen in the world, like bears fighting with frostspiders, Imperials fighting pitdogs, dragons fighting mammoths and giants, and the occasional Stendarr against a spriggan.

 

I am wondering if you would or could make Radiant AI work for you instead of creating scripts and quests to generate activity. I have no clue how Radiant AI works, so just a thought. I once saw on a Skyrim loading screen a town being mentioned and saying how it sits on a trade route. I was wondering if the game was hinting on possible Radiant AI behaviour if you visited the town, eg bandit raids. You do occasionally stumble upon a wrecked wagon or cart along the roads.

 

I once encountered a raided wagon complete with strewn stuff and 2 bodies, with a note that led to a camp, which led to a trail of dead adventurers and a cave. Really cool immersive stuff, though I don't know if that was Radiant AI in action, though iirc no actual quest was generated. BTW the wagon is just south past crossing the Dragon Bridge from the town.

 

Would be cool to just let Radiant AI setup a roaming band of 3 bandits (instead of the usual 3 Stormcloaks/Imperials) and just let them walk into town and trigger a fight with the guards.

Edited February 28, 2012 by arcana75

[kromey]

Hey I hope that the programming is going well I have a few new ideas:

1. A sparing partner so that the player can up there melee skills

2. Dog Kennels so that the player can train a dog from scratch or keep there current dog there

3. Build a council to help with the running of the hold (e.g. Head of the town guard, Hold Mage, Other Advisers)

4. Have random events that appear now and again that the player has to do something (e.g. A necromancer has moved into town and its to much for the town guard to handle so that player has to go back and find investigate and find the necromancer)(Not all of these random events can be bad things some may be good things)

Sparring partner might be hard to do, but would be easy enough to add in later, once things are more developed.

I'll look into the dog kennels notion, I've never actually used a dog in the game myself because they seem pretty useless, but if there were a kennel that could train them up to be more effective in combat...

The council's kind of implicit. Initially there's just Fryssa, a steward to the Jarl of Hjaalmarch (conveniently a steward of either one, depending on how the player resolves the civil war...), but I fully intend to have a more direct steward for the player him/herself, right there in Dovahheim, as well as a (named) captain of the guard. More advisers certainly wouldn't hurt, though (unless they're annoying...).

 

Definitely planning on scripted events taking place. The pissed-off friends of the original bandits come looking for revenge; the workers in the nearby mine start disappearing, as do the people who go looking for them; bandits start raiding caravans elsewhere along the road; the Forsworn feel threatened by the build-up of a military fort right on the border of the Reach; and much, much more. Some will be smaller things (like a necromancer having moved into town and causing problems), some will be bigger (a full-on siege of the town, complete with pissed-off giants and their mammoths trying to smash down the gates), and some will be beneficial (a new metal is discovered that makes lightweight, super-strong armor and weapons possible). The scripted events and the quests will be more the centerpiece of the mod than the town itself, at least as I envision it.

 

Any progress since 1st release? Capturing Robber's Gorge simply isn't enough to pique most people's interest in a "player home" mod. Would be good to know what next steps you're working on right now. Your wiki doesn't really say much.

I did just put out version 1.1, which isn't really exciting -- a couple of small bugfixes (the camp no longer shows up as "Cleared", and storage in the bandit chief's shack is now safe) is all. I'll readily admit the wiki isn't as forthcoming with details as I'd like it to be. I'll follow up shortly with a post detailing what I'm currently working on/planning, though.

 

Here's another idea (and I'm sure you're totally swamped with them now which is why it's good u let us know what u're working on specifically) is a Dovahkiin Museum. Afterall this is the Dovahheim, the Dovahkiin Town. The museum collects individual exploits of the Dovahkiin, complete with tour (like the guy in Wildhelm). This could replace the trophy hall in the Jarl Hall. Some exhibits (unlocked based on progress?) could be:

 

1) Thane Town shields.

2) Named dragons killed with miniature dragon models.

3) Guild Leader trophies.

4) All the named weapons the faction leaders give you for every town conquest, like Axe of Whiterun.

5) Maybe number of Dwemer Centurions taken down.

6) Daedra gifts collected.

 

2, 3 and 5 could be displayed like Fallout 3's Bobblehead display table. 1 could be at the back wall with 4, nice weapon+shield display combo using the Shield Rack. Most of this could just be that you put the item into a container and a script scans the box and duplicates the item onto the display case or wall, as a non-interactable object.

Not a bad idea. Probably something I'll put on the back-burner for now, though, as scripting the unlocking of all of these objects would be a massive undertaking, especially to make sure that it would work as expected both for people who will unlock them after installing the mod, and for people who have already unlocked them.

 

kromey, was thinking about how the town is placed in an external cell and that Radiant AI does things to the world when the player is around. I've personally seen some interesting things happen in the world, like bears fighting with frostspiders, Imperials fighting pitdogs, dragons fighting mammoths and giants, and the occasional Stendarr against a spriggan.

 

I am wondering if you would or could make Radiant AI work for you instead of creating scripts and quests to generate activity. I have no clue how Radiant AI works, so just a thought. I once saw on a Skyrim loading screen a town being mentioned and saying how it sits on a trade route. I was wondering if the game was hinting on possible Radiant AI behaviour if you visited the town, eg bandit raids. You do occasionally stumble upon a wrecked wagon or cart along the roads.

The Radiant AI is a bit overblown, really. And by that I mean that the marketing guys got hold of it and really ran with it, to the point that folks expect far more out of it than it can actually deliver. The reality is a lot less exciting: Radiant AI simply allows for things like factions to fight amongst each other or just NPCs to do their thing (even when they're not on the screen), as well as it powers the Radiant Quests which, while sounding equally impressive, are little more than a random number generator tied to a bit of logic to determine where to spawn quest items the player has to retrieve (or quest targets the player has to slay).

 

I once encountered a raided wagon complete with strewn stuff and 2 bodies, with a note that led to a camp, which led to a trail of dead adventurers and a cave. Really cool immersive stuff, though I don't know if that was Radiant AI in action, though iirc no actual quest was generated. BTW the wagon is just south past crossing the Dragon Bridge from the town.

Yup, I've found that too. It's created by the designers, though, not a product of the Radiant AI. It's details like that, though, that makes me love Bethesda games so very much -- you're exactly right that little things like that make the game more immersive, because it really gives you the feeling that things are happening in the world even without your direct involvement. It's my hope that I can capture even just some of that same feeling as I develop my mod.

 

Would be cool to just let Radiant AI setup a roaming band of 3 bandits (instead of the usual 3 Stormcloaks/Imperials) and just let them walk into town and trigger a fight with the guards.

This I've already seen. I actually have a save game that I've been using for testing where the timing is just too perfect -- I can fast travel to Morthal, get the quest from Fryssa, dash on over to Robber's Gorge, sneak past the guards and slay the leader, return to Fryssa, accept stewardship of the camp, and then fast travel back to Robber's Gorge to watch the guards patrol for a minute or two before a pair of necromancers walk in and get shredded.

 

On another instance I saw a couple of vampires spawn somewhere north of the camp and then come up to the cliffs behind it, and again the guards reacted, although AI pathing failed horribly and neither side could do anything at all to the other.

 

However, both of these events, as cool as they were, relied upon the designers having placed spawners for these guys in the world nearby. Many of my scripted events would be similar -- spawn a few bandits just up the road, and have them walk toward the camp until their respective AIs detected the enemies within the camp. Bam! Instant bandit raid!

 

All of that being said, I certainly have no intention of doing anything that would prevent the totally random encounters I've seen already from continuing to happen; those and more. Rather, my scripted events would be in supplement to them. With all my dismissal of Radiant AI, it nonetheless does result in some neat events in the world, and I have no intention of getting in the way of that; that being said, however, the random nature of Radiant AI means that you could spend weeks or even months hanging out in and developing and expanding Dovahheim, and never see a single encounter. What fun would that be? Scripted events not only ensure a minimum level of excitement, but they're the only way to give plot to the otherwise pointless random encounters.

[kromey]

Okay, here's the promised progress/status update:

 

First, I released version 1.1 yesterday. It's pretty unexciting. Two small bugfixes -- the "Cleared" flag no longer appears on Robber's Gorge (I'd prefer to just make it go away once you acquire it, but so far all my efforts there have failed), and all storage within the bandit leader's shack is now safe for the player to use.

 

Second, I want to apologize for the horrid state of the wiki. I always come up with grand schemes to organize things, and then they always fall through due to my innate laziness. However, in this case, it's also due to some uncertainty on how I want to proceed (more on that in a bit).

 

Thirdly, as I mentioned in the mod's comment topic, a friend of mine just introduced me to Dwarf Fortress. I've lost uncounted once-productive hours to that thing, including pretty much my entire weekend (which is really the only time I have to work on my mods and play Skyrim). :wallbash:

 

 

Now, we come to the plan for the next update. Frankly, I'm uncertain how I want to proceed. My plan has been for each "episode" to include 3-5 upgrades, plus any relevant quests and events. I never got around to planning what order they'd become available in, though. I did, however, intend for the first round of upgrades to keep the area a small camp, still called Robber's Gorge; the more I think about it, though, the more it makes sense that the guard barracks really should be in that first round of upgrades, but I want to change the name to Dovahheim once the barracks are bought so that I have fewer Hjaalmarch guards roaming around to be replaced by Dovahheim guards. At the same time, however, calling a place "Dragon's Forge" when there's no forge anywhere to be seen doesn't make any sense to me!

 

So here's what I'm thinking will happen: The next update (hopefully to be released this weekend) will include 4 purchaseable upgrades:

1) A guard barracks

2) Horse stables

3) Blacksmith

4) Wall upgrades

 

A little more detail on each of these:

 

The barracks: Contrary to my former plans, this building will not at this time add more guards to the camp; instead, a later upgrade (probably in the next mod update) will allow the player to hire a captain of the guard, and at that time a) the name will be changed (if it hasn't already), b) the Hjaalmarch guards will be replaced by Dovahheim guard, and c) more guards will appear (probably a total of 5-6). The purchase of the barracks will likely remove all but the larger tent in the camp, and will be situated against the eastern wall of the camp (and may, depending on space needs, push the wall eastward a bit).

 

Horse stables: Pretty simple concept, really. Will include 1-2 horses the player will be free to take, and an NPC to tend to the horses while they're stabled. Unsure where it will be placed yet, I'll have to tinker a bit with the area.

 

Blacksmith: This will be nestled in among the rock outcropping that forms the base for the western tower. The barricades there will likely be removed, and it will probably include a small defensive wall since it is outside the camp's walls. It will be a one-stop shop, including all the amenities you can find at the blacksmith next to Warmaiden's in Whiterun. Will include a new blacksmith NPC (who will likely also be a trainer for the smithing skill, and/or a merchant of smithing ingredients and some basic arms and armor).

 

Wall upgrades: Nothing too fancy yet, just some taller wooden palisades to make the main camp a little more secure. May or may not include walkable ramparts, I'm unsure of that yet (and unsure yet of how to deal with navmeshing terrain and structures that won't even be in the world at first/will disappear from the world later). (Note: The walls I deem the least important of these. If it comes down to a choice between delaying release and releasing without a wall upgrade available, I'll do the latter, and then release a smaller update to add the walls.)

 

With any luck, I'll have some teaser screenshots up early in the weekend, and a 2.0 release by the time Monday rolls around. If I can keep myself away from Dwarf Fortress long enough to work on it, that is... :whistling:

 

Edited to add: I've updated the wiki to include more of the ideas and suggestions I've gotten, as well as to include some detail about the near future plans for the mod.

Edited February 28, 2012 by kromey

[capnjpants]

I wish I had the time/talent make something like this. I started making something that I was envisioning to be a king's armory where gear is displayed as both trophies and in useful positions to switch load outs if necessary. My vision was to eventually have it added as an addition to a mod of the type you are building, but after spending hours just putting the cell together, my dreams became somewhat deflated. Anyway kudos for the progress.

 

More to the point, here are some ideas that I had brainstormed during my daydreaming.

 

The ability to recruit/rescue elite level characters that would provided modded services. The idea is that through some activity these elite NPCs have become indentured or swore fielty to the the player and provide services to the kingdom. I was thinking that the abilities of these NPCs should scale with the kingdom's treasury. So collecting and storing more ingredients would in a sense 'fund' the activities of the elite alchemist, ore and bars stored would scale the blacksmith, etc. Gems stored would scale all elites. Some examples of the elites would be:

a) a blacksmith that would give you the option to equip your guards with better gear, perhaps provide the player with a few unique weapons.

b) an alchemist that would provide potions that cannot normally be crafted and are more potent.

c) an enchanter that can put an enchantment on your guards' gear and add a third enchantment to the player's gear.

d) a banker who would undertake the responsibility of dispersing gold to have more housing or walls built. This would scale to the maximum amount of gold which you have deposited into your treasury.

 

The motive behind these changes is to give player's a reason to horde resources which seems to be a natural product of games that depend so much on exploration and discovery, so rewards should be given for building a suitable treasury for you kingdom, and the kingdom should display its wealth in this fashion as well.

[kromey]

Excellent ideas, capnjpants.

 

a) Already plan to have the blacksmith offer the player a (probably unmarked) quest to retrieve X amount of Y material so that he can smith new gear for the guards. Probably a couple of different iterations of that, actually, e.g. upgrade them from steel to ebony, then ebony to dragon.

 

b) I've been toying with this idea myself. The thing is that I've found the game's alchemy to be so unrewarding and just downright boring/tedious that I've not gotten far into it at all, so I've no idea what would make good additions in this regard. If you have any specific suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I do know that my assassin would love to have access to some more potent poisons, for example.

 

c) Also in the works. Thinking it could be as simple as each guard's weapons have a random elemental damage enchantment, with the level linked in some way to the player investing in the enchanter. Haven't worked out the specifics of this one yet.

 

d) While I like the idea of the town growing on its own and being governed by an NPC the player invests in, it's not really what I'm shooting for here. In this mod, the player talks to an NPC and buys new things for the town directly, which kind of obviates the need for a banker (at least as you describe it).

 

The town will definitely benefit from the player investing his/her wealth into it, and if I have my way the results will be very impressive indeed (and require a stunning investment of gold, not to mention the time for the various quests). Hording per se not being the goal, except for hording (and then spending) gold, of course.

[arcana75]

While alchemy may feel unrewarding in TES games, the premise of quaffing or eating something to gain an effect or boon is nearly limitless. The potion is just a pretext to activate an effect.

 

Once you get around that, potion effects can easily surpass what vanilla alchemy can achieve, eg temporary lycanthropy, flight, dragon form, immolation (fire cloak by explosions), super speed and strength (think Asterix!), permanent boost to HP/Magicka/Stamina, etc. Limited only by imagination really.

 

So the ability to get uber potions from the master alchemist is a grand idea. It just adds quite abit of complexity to the mod if new effects are considered since you'll need to add scripts.