Places in the North unhidden, here are my plans for it.
Slightly clickbait-y title, my apologies.
I've been on a bit of a hiatus from Skyrim after some... unfortunate events between me and the Beyond Skyrim team which resulted in my parting ways with them. I've got nothing on them though, they're a neat bunch and they've got some cool shit cooking. But I digress.
Places in the North was my first project ever. I really like designing locations and exterior level design. So I'm reopening the case, as it were, and this time I'm armed with easily three times the skill level I had when I started originally. Places being my first mod and all, it's a bit shoddy, especially in the presentation department.
So I'm going to rebuild the mod from scratch, and redo every location I had by hand. I'm going to make use of some custom assets on the Nexus, and also navmesh everything right. I also want to include more NPCs and maybe even some small quests. My "mission statement" and premise is on the mod page: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/64151/?
And as I did the first time, I'm going to throw things out to r/skyrimmods. What do you guys want to see? What sorts of locations, NPCs, content? I've got a lot of interesting ideas myself, but I'm always open to new ones, and feedback of any kind. And if you want to maybe help me take screenshots or get into quest scripting, shoot me a PM, I could use your help. :)
Posted May 6, 2017, 4:17 AM UTC
I'd love to see some "ordinary" locations. Maybe a solitary Nord living out in the barrens of skyrim. Or a criminal trying to make a new life away from the guards of a hold.
My favorite locations are those with more than meets the eye. Understated details, with just enough for a player to imagine a past to a place. It's rewarding for the player to to notice connections in the world. Implied or inferred, not overstated or ever directly referenced.
For example, maybe two Nords, one a deserter Stormclock, the other an Imperial, with the same last name, living on opposite sides of Skyrim because of a family fued. Or, in one hold - a burned down shack - with skeletal remains. Then, maybe imprisoned in a bandit camp nearby, the sole survivors, imprisoned or worse.
Whatever you decide, I'm looking forward to it and am sure it'll be super. 😁
Ordinary locations? Yeah, I'm definitely going to do quite a few of those. There will be NPCs with dialogue and stuff too, with unique backstories. The criminal idea is a pretty good one!
And yeah, the whole "more than meets the eye" is something I want to do more of in the new iteration. Short of doing actual quests, some of the best storytelling is just actually storyshowing. For instance, there's "Troll's Ford" in the current mod which is referenced by the Legate in the Imperial Legion camp nearby, Fort Pinemoth. Once you go there, there's a small story to uncover. (It'll be better in the new version though!)
As for connections, there's some of that as well, both implied and told. I like to actually do this a lot with in-game books, which rewards the player for actually reading. There'll be a wide variety of books in-game that connect my locations both to each other and to existing places in Skyrim, and detail the history behind them as well.
You're already ahead of me! For mods, I prefer "storyshowing" to full blown quests. I'm a writer myself, and I've often been overambitious in my stories. Past pieces would have been greatly improved with smaller scope and more love on the small details. With the number of mods ending like Lufthraan did, I hope more creators eventually shift to the amazing type of work you're doing. Seems more rewarding and achievable.
Edit: The books sound sweet
My other project is a small-scale quest mod that's kind of taking the Places idea and upping the ante a bit. It adds effectively a new region to the game, with new places to visit and dungeons to explore, but also a small (3-4 quests) story that's not too expansive and is pretty self-contained into the area in question.
That's super neat. Is it difficult to create a new region?
Not related, but have you ever looked at how Dark Souls presents its story and such?
I still have to play it! Could never get the first working on my PC, so I'll likely skip to DSII.
I've heard good things of the story, I gather it has the vigentte style encounters I described?
Oh, and it would be great to have a modular version when it's all finished. Whiterun crossroads unfortunately conflicts with some of the skyrim "bridge mods"
I'll attempt to do that, but I've no idea how to do that nor how worthwhile it is. It is in consideration though.
Regarding modular versions, as an author I feel it's more important to make the mod the way I want, then let the community patch accordingly. Split it up if it suits you but really don't stress it if not. I feel it's more important to get your whole mod out the door, functioning as you intended, and if that means one esp, so be it. Having said all that, modular setups that can be easily merged are a godsend, but then you will likely need a master file and the plugin count is already plus 1.
Re your actual mod, I really enjoyed your original and I also really liked how you took rarely used vanilla encounters and brought them into skyrim. e.g. The rocket man stone in the marshes - The broken cart near Falkreath. Small touches like that, love it and mods that add points of interest in the overworld, great stuff.
However, if you really want your mod to gain traction towards the upper echelons of the Nexus, imo, quests are the way forward. Eye candy is one thing, wrapping a story around it that adds extra hours of gameplay, that really is top drawer material. Think of Moon and Star for example - not a massive mod but it's done really well and I'm confident you easily have the ability to create stuff of the same calibre.
Whatever you decide, good luck.
Yeah, that was pretty much my thinking as well, regarding modular versions/MCM toggles and stuff. I want to get some locations, quests, and VO finished before I try to add the ability to turn certain locations on or off, or make it modular.
Places will have quests, at some point, but I have another project in the works that's more like a traditional quest mod.