Realism, Immersion, and Lore Mods

[ripple]

The problem is that while Bethesda makes pretty game engines (that are clearly aging), they don't know how to tell stories. The plot, quests, and NPC dialogues in Skyrim that make up the 'soul' of the game seem petty and bland in comparisons to the rich tapestry of political intrigues, moral ambiguity, and social commentaries you'd find in games like 'The Witcher 2.' The cities in Skyrim will never feel alive because the game can't rendered more than a handful of NPCs on screen before it becomes unstable. That's also why there is no 'civil war', just 'civil skirmishes.' NPC motivations are completely transparent because the developer saw them as ultimately just unmemorable trainers, traders, and quest dispensers, rather than real people with real motivations, needs, and personalities.

 

There are some mods that try to remedy this. 'Interesting NPCs' is definitely one of them and I highly recommend it. 'Populated Cities' address the consistent 'de-population problem' that has plagued every Bethesda game using the gamebryo engine.

[SkoomaBoy]

The current engine Skyrim is by fact based on Gamebryo but does not really have anything to do with what it used to be. I've personally worked with Gamebryo myself, the way you're evoking it, it would be sum up identifying the newest Unreal Engine to its early verions by the fact it's based on it. Though you forget the fact Skyrim is an Open World game and it has nothing to do with games such as the Witcher II which remains an Alleyway in therms of world structure, a context that allows maintaining such illusions like making really small samples of a world "believable" and of course a storyline that wouldn't envy the intrigue of a Shakespearian play. But, you're right on your main purpose, Bethesda are pretty bad at telling stories and generating a true depth around their lore and characters, the whole world remains orchestrated around the player itself and the characters remain simple means to accomplish its very goals. We can always dream of a mix between concepts of The Witcher II, Skyrim, Mount&Blade and The Guild II? Such a mix would be illegal, I wouldn't put my head out the window anymore. Edited January 1, 2013 by SkoomaBoy

[ripple]

  On 1/1/2013 at 1:20 PM, SkoomaBoy said:

The current engine Skyrim is by fact based on Gamebryo but does not really have anything to do with what it used to be. I've personally worked with Gamebryo myself, the way you're evoking it, it would be sum up identifying the newest Unreal Engine to its early verions by the fact it's based on it.

 

You are right, I should have been more clear.

 

  Quote

Though you forget the fact Skyrim is an Open World game and it has nothing to do with games such as the Witcher II which remains an Alleyway in therms of world structure, a context that allows maintaining such illusions like making really small samples of a world "believable" and of course a storyline that wouldn't envy the intrigue of a Shakespearian play.

 

There are a number of relatively minor things they could have done to make the main stories more compelling. They actually tried to do it in Fallout: NV (although not successfully). One is to just improve the writing by hiring writers who are literary majors rather than computer science majors. The NPC dialogues in this game are just mind numbing. Mods like 'Interesting NPCs' have shown that there are players who are attentive to 'lore' who can do much better. The other is that the PC's interactions with most of the jarls amounts to doing one quest to becoming thane then toppling them or preserving their positions of power as part of the 'civil war' questline, when all of these people, not just a couple, should be the main actors in Skyrim's 'game of thrones' with more involved roles and less transparent motivations (which is something we did get in TW2). Shifting alliances between factions don't play into the game as much as FNV, and it's a step backward. Racial tension and intolerance was portrayed reasonable well through dialogue and a major quest in TW2. Skyrim developers wanted to show that the Stormcloak's recruiting propaganda and ideological platform for their call to violent insurrection relies significantly on the sort of xenophobia you'd find in ultra-nationalist movements of our world, but did virtually nothing to actually impress that upon the players in game. The developers also rely too much on overused fantasy stereotypes: real thieves don't live in sewers. That's just silly. I can see the thieves guild reduced to squatting in the sewers with skeevers, beggars, and crazies when they are being actively hunted and exterminated by the city authorities. Listening to some member of the thieves guild in Riften talking about how the Ragged Flagon was decorated in gold and silver in the guild's 'glory days' made me fall out of my chair laughing. It's no wonder they are so hunted when they clearly have no clue how to blend into the population. Real 'thieves guilds' are not people in specially designated 'I am a criminal!' uniforms walking around calling themselves members of a 'thieves guild', but a 'tailors guild', a trading company, any seemingly legal enterprise backed by smiling nobles and charitable merchants who are themselves the masterminds of the organization. So in spite of the fact that Elder Scrolls has rich lore and is a very unique setting, few things ever really stand out as unique and everything of interest with respect to lore is condensed into the in game books that--I dare wager--most players don't read.

 

These are just some of the numerous indications I got that the developers put much more thought into making fireballs look spectacular rather than telling a story or creating immersive (urban) environments. :)

 

On a side note, as far as 'bringing cities alive' go, what Bethesda needs is an engine that can render urban environments and populations like 'Assassin's creed 3', something that can coordinate AI for more than a handful of NPCs without choking,

 

  Quote

We can always dream of a mix between concepts of The Witcher II, Skyrim, Mount&Blade and The Guild II? Such a mix would be illegal, I wouldn't put my head out the window anymore.

 

Yeah....me neither.

Edited January 1, 2013 by ripple

[SkoomaBoy]

  On 1/1/2013 at 2:02 PM, ripple said:

  On 1/1/2013 at 1:20 PM, SkoomaBoy said:

The current engine Skyrim is by fact based on Gamebryo but does not really have anything to do with what it used to be. I've personally worked with Gamebryo myself, the way you're evoking it, it would be sum up identifying the newest Unreal Engine to its early verions by the fact it's based on it.

 

You are right, I should have been more clear.

 

  Quote

Though you forget the fact Skyrim is an Open World game and it has nothing to do with games such as the Witcher II which remains an Alleyway in therms of world structure, a context that allows maintaining such illusions like making really small samples of a world "believable" and of course a storyline that wouldn't envy the intrigue of a Shakespearian play.

 

There are a number of relatively minor things they could have done to make the main stories more compelling. They actually tried to do it in Fallout: NV (although not successfully). One is to just improve the writing by hiring writers who are literary majors rather than computer science majors. The NPC dialogues in this game are just mind numbing. Mods like 'Interesting NPCs' have shown that there are players who are attentive to 'lore' who can do much better. The other is that the PC's interactions with most of the jarls amounts to doing one quest to becoming thane then toppling them or preserving their positions of power as part of the 'civil war' questline, when all of these people, not just a couple, should be the main actors in Skyrim's 'game of thrones' with more involved roles and less transparent motivations (which is something we did get in TW2). Shifting alliances between factions don't play into the game as much as FNV, and it's a step backward. Racial tension and intolerance was portrayed reasonable well through dialogue and a major quest in TW2. Skyrim developers wanted to show that the Stormcloak's recruiting propaganda and ideological platform for their call to violent insurrection relies significantly on the sort of xenophobia you'd find in ultra-nationalist movements of our world, but did virtually nothing to actually impress that upon the players in game. The developers also rely too much on overused fantasy stereotypes: real thieves don't live in sewers. That's just silly. I can see the thieves guild reduced to squatting in the sewers with skeevers, beggars, and crazies when they are being actively hunted and exterminated by the city authorities. Listening to some member of the thieves guild in Riften talking about how the Ragged Flagon was decorated in gold and silver in the guild's 'glory days' made me fall out of my chair laughing. It's no wonder they are so hunted when they clearly have no clue how to blend into the population. Real 'thieves guilds' are not people in specially designated 'I am a criminal!' uniforms walking around calling themselves members of a 'thieves guild', but a 'tailors guild', a trading company, any seemingly legal enterprise backed by smiling nobles and charitable merchants who are themselves the masterminds of the organization. So in spite of the fact that Elder Scrolls has rich lore and is a very unique setting, few things ever really stand out as unique and everything of interest with respect to lore is condensed into the in game books that--I dare wager--most players don't read.

 

These are just some of the numerous indications I got that the developers put much more thought into making fireballs look spectacular rather than telling a story or creating immersive (urban) environments. :)

 

On a side note, as far as 'bringing cities alive' go, what Bethesda needs is an engine that can render urban environments and populations like 'Assassin's creed 3', something that can coordinate AI for more than a handful of NPCs without choking,

 

  Quote

We can always dream of a mix between concepts of The Witcher II, Skyrim, Mount&Blade and The Guild II? Such a mix would be illegal, I wouldn't put my head out the window anymore.

 

Yeah....me neither.

 

I agree on pretty much everything, the Civil War in Skyrim lacks of credibility, aswell as its actors, I personally never did take the Stormcloak side because of the ridiculous caricature Ulfric Stormcloak represents, I aswell found myself dieing out of laugh reacting to the cheesyness of Ulfric's sentences "I fight, because I must" awww, Braveheart, is that it? General Tullius, even though he lacks a true personality has a taciturn behaviour which in some ways is supposing a bit embittered state of mind of an old General who lived fighting for the Empire in its most difficult wars (The Great War, probably the Redguard insurrections aswell), in the end, he can't wait going back to Cyrodiil, as he doesn't really like the Nords because he takes their sense of honor as a totally hypocrit reason for war and I share this kind of opinion, Ulfric is a man of passion, Tullius is a man of reason, between them there's a huge gap, Dreams or Reality?

 

I aswell agree on the new standards in therms of game mechanics the recent Assassin's Creed III has brought for the future, the towns are just delicious, and the battlefields impressive, and you're right, this kind of thing is not possible in Skyrim even though I'd love to say it would.

Edited January 1, 2013 by SkoomaBoy

[DreamKingMods]

Let's see...

 

For non-combat, economics-oriented mods, you could look at Jobs of Skyrim and Katixa's Ciderhouse.

 

For populating Skyrim, take a look at Immersive Patrols and/or Travellers of Skyrim. Definitely also Interesting NPCs for populating towns.

 

New lands and provinces always take time, but there are some very promising big new lands mods that will hopefully be released in 2013, and I know several provinces are being worked on as well. For now, you could look at the Wyrmstooth new land/quest mod, which while still in development has gotten a lot of praise for what's there already.

 

Edit: somewhat off-topic, but Fallout New Vegas was made by Obsidian, not Bethesda--that's why the feel is different from a typical Bethesda game.

Edited January 2, 2013 by DreamKingMods

[Tank0123]

Thank you all for posting. I actually did get Interesting NPCs beforehand; the mod is so absolutely wonderful and completely immersive -- I often wonder how I missed these characters in vanilla Skyrim, only to realize that they are a part of the mod.

 

I have Populated Cities, which is good. I have Warzones as well.

 

I think, though, what I'm truly looking for is a mod that is like the Skyrim equivalent of Oblivion's Better Cities/Better Landscapes (ie this made the lands much more interesting, as it added farms and populated forts, etc). I want to see more manned forts that just those captured in the Civil War -- and the cities are simply tiny.

 

However, there is a big problem with such a mod. From what I can gather, modifying the interior cities to fit more buildings is close to impossible -- apparently, the landscape underneath each city is one consistent tile or something, I don't even remember. Point is, it's going to be bloody hard, as there's already very little room to add in extra buildings anyway. I suppose they could expand into the hinterland, which would make sense from a realistic/historical standpoint; most of the structures inside the city walls are old, and only the essentials.

 

I would install Whiterun Market, but I think it might be causing some crashes. Then again, that could be anything at this point considered how bugged up Dawnguard has been for me (don't even mention the Forgotten Vale, that was an absolute horror story).

 

I'm going off track though. Whoever mentioned a mod like this earlier, I look forward to it. Will be tracking,

[DreamKingMods]

I'm really hoping for a Better Cities-type mod eventually, too. Nothing really comes close yet, but here are a few that may scratch that itch a little:

 

(Note that not all of these are compatible with each other, and I haven't used all of them--I just like to keep track of my options.)

 

- Nernies City and Village Expansion

- Solitude Dock District

- Solitude Expansion

- Better Docks

- Dawnstar Expanded

- Dawnstar Indoor Market

- The "Places" collection from ThirteenOranges

 

It's all kind of piecemeal at the moment; but then, Better Cities originated in the same way.

[lowenz]

Up!

 

A question about ThirteenOranges.

Why his works are no more on nexus?

 

Sea of Ghosts too is now disappeared.

Edited March 5, 2013 by lowenz

[lowenz]

  On 3/5/2013 at 12:11 PM, lowenz said:

Up!

 

A question about ThirteenOranges.

Why his works are no more on nexus?

 

Sea of Ghosts too is now disappeared.

Up! Anyone?

[artificialsloth]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12977

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15501

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32535