The Evolving Society Mod

[exanimis]

It would be nice if these farmers grew some new ingredients. If this farming is going to take place on an island it would also be nice if there was some sort of a farmers market, an outdoor market with almost anything for sale. You could have furniture makers and blacksmiths selling their goods as well.

 

 

Hey, that's an idea. A flea market :biggrin:

[wasder]

i have a Decent stoyline idea!

 

You travel to the land to find the king dead. A bitter power struggle begins between his sons and you get caught up in it. You end up realising they're all power-hungry bastards and go out on your own. However, your deeds serving one of the sons has given you fame, and people follow you.

[bshaeffer]

Is there a need for a storyline/lore to get from the beginning to the end?

I would say most people like story threads woven into their deeds.

Story hints can assist players who do not quickly develop plans of their own.

Finding out why local things exist the way they do can be interesting and provide advantages.

A storyline need not dominate, but loosely connected themes might help.

I prefer storylines that act as guide ropes rather than rigid tracks.

 

Maybe there are milestone events that happen at certain points of development.

Maybe other events are on timers and (hopefully) you are prepared.

Maybe you can delay or hasten various events.

 

I'm sure people here could add rich layers to the island experience.

[QQuix]

Hi, again.

 

First of all, let me thank you again for the contributions. Every single word will be considered when the time comes.

It would be nice if you keep the ideas coming while I work on the technical stuff.

 

Speaking of which, I am about to finish the first building block: the Farmer script.

I think it came out quite good and I will upload it tomorrow (I hope), after I finish the tests.

 

A little teaser for you:

 

The farming cycle is composed of three seasons: Planting, Tending and Harvesting

 

1-In the Planting season, the farmer goes to each spot in the field and plants a young, small strawberry bush

2- In the Tending and Growing season, the farmer goes to each and every one of the plants and the plant grows. At the end of the season all plants are full size.

3- The Harvesting season is self explanatory, I suppose.

 

The script turned out quite complex as it controls almost every single movement of the farmer.

And it is quite parameterized to make it (sort of) easy to change things like season duration, number and length of the rows of plants, size of the field etc.

 

I will let you know when I upload it

 

A few sample pictures of the seasons:

 

 

[Khet]

Very nice QQuix! Very nice indeed! Also, you're welcome to check out the beta of me mod. I only had one other person aside from my self able to test it before play but we've caught all the bugs for the MQ. Right now I'm in the process of setting up the Prosperity and it'll be fully working next version. But, enough about my mod (download link is in sig if you want to check it out to prevent similar story arcs)

 

Few things.

 

First off, how large is the space you're working with? That field there looks a little large to me, even if it's meant for a large world space. But, that all depends on how big the city will be at the end... but maybe have a progressive growth to the farms? At first, just a tiny plot of land with a few rows (maybe 2x4 at MOST), then a slighly larger one, this time with a fence added, and finally the full blown version (the one in your screenshot)

 

Personally I'd feel that would be a better approach than suddenly having a huge farm for a small settlement. Generally, farms were barely any larger than what the family needed. Any surplus (if any) would then be sold to others, but the main point was to sustain their own family. That's why farmers were so poor, it wasn't a very reliable profession, but they grew their own food.

 

 

Keep up the great work QQuix, and maybe once you release your mod I'll ask nicely (read: beg) to let me tear apart your script and steal parts of it for my own mod!

[QQuix]

Khet, you wont need to beg, or even ask. Everything I do, I release as modders' resource.

 

And, for being planned as modders' resources from the beginning, I try to make my scripts as adaptable as possible.

 

In this case, the field in the pictures is about 1200x1600 units.

 

But the size of the field is determined by two XMarkers at the SE and NW corners, so it is easily adaptable to whatever size is needed. The number of rows and columns are parameters in the code.

 

It would be possible for a modder to code some additional script to change the XMarkers positions and the row/col values dynamically to get the progressive effect you mentioned.

 

I was thinking along the line of some external factor affecting the speed of the farmer, e.g., an unhappy farmer would work slowly and would not fill the field at the end of the season, or would take longer to fill the field.

A progressive, dynamic field size would be a good alternative. I will keep this in mind.

 

I will check your mod after I release this one.

[Khet]

Really? You seriously need to teach me some of these things. I didn't even know it was possible to use Xmarkers the way you did! Oh, and check your PMs.

 

Don't really have anything else to add, but I'll be keeping a close eye on this topic and tossing in any input I can think of for each update of yours.

[QQuix]

Took me a little longer than I expected, but I uploaded the farming esp here.

 

It is mostly a visual thing, but the script may be of interest for other modders.

 

Let me know what you think and of any suggestions you may have

 

And the link above is to a TES Nexus entry that I created to hold all my 'proof of concept' esp's. The Realistic Farming is the second one.

 

[EDIT] Just noticed that the The Evolving Society initials are TES. I am tempted to release a few versions in a quick succession: TES1, TES2 . . . I bet this mod will get a lot of attention when it gets to TES5. LOL

[bshaeffer]

Maybe you've already thought of this or even don't like the idea, but...

What about rotating each plant randomly when it is placed?

I've found doing that (and a modest tilt) make plants look a bit less digital.

Minor size variations can make groups of the same plant look fairly natural.

 

I offer these suggestions only to make a complex script more complicated.

=)

[juderodney]

I had an idea for a story posted on the forums, but no one seemed interested in it. After looking at the mod you want to create, I figured I could adapt the story to here:

 

As Champion of CYrodiil, the members of the Elder Coucil become concerned over the possibility of your influnce in choosing the new emperor, or even becoming emporer by fomenting a popular uprising! In order to get you out of the way, despite High Chancellor Ocato's reassurances, to "reward" you the lordship of the island. The problem is, although the island is technically still part of the Empire, there hasn't been a ruler there in 200 years! As a, result the population is very small and could be resentful of such a change.

 

Some things that could be done is the people at first start with a disposition of 0 toward you. Also this could add not just the development of the island but of a place for you to live - like a manor or even a castle! Train guards to keep the peace, develop the economy, etc...