Modding on the Spectrum

Hi,
I'm making a not so modest sci fi lore"destroying" mod for the TESIV Oblivion. It is actually in scope way too big a mod for one person to attempt to make but that hasn't stopped me from wearing myself out going at it anyways.

However I constantly find things to improve and I get these ideas of new things to add all the time. I can spend literally a month preparing a small sequence in the mod that I realize anyone playing it will just experience for 10 seconds and move on to the next thing...

Anyways, I thought I could perhaps post a little bit of info about the mod and the process of developing it here in these forums
Oblivion is a very old game now so all the good mod names are already taken, so right now I have no name for the mod but there is no rush the mod is nowhere near completion yet

It would be so nice if someone with some interest in modding or modding experience found something to comment on, but I will post lots of spoilers that will ruin the fun of eventually playing the mod so read any following posts only if you don't mind spoilers

Content wise at time of writing I assess the mod to be at least one of the 10 biggest mods ever made for Oblivion to this day and since (right now at this moment) none of it takes place in the world of Tamriel or planes of Oblivion I guess it's like a semi conversion mod of sorts though I'm not so concerned with putting labels on it

Have a beautiful day!

Welcome to the forum, A paleofdye n!

I really appreciate that there are still people who bring new content to this old game.

It would be great if you could tell us what the mod is about? Is it a quest mod?

Thank you for the welcome Selene310187!

I would love to explain the mod though for now I'll only cover the introduction part of the mod. It accounts for about 10 % of the content.


The overall concept is extremely scifi fantasy and even borderline lorehighjacking. It will not appeal to a lot of players for those very reasons.

This mod takes on the whole perspective of traditional Oblivion mods, discards every established best practice, and then views everything from a totally new angle and goes to town with a mighty big bang.
What follows might be a bit hard to wrap ones head around but here we go

(I am also referencing VRgames in the following text, but this mod that I'm making is of course not a VR mod,
what is going on is that inhabitants that we shall pretend are living in the city in the mod, supposedly have access to VR games in their native world )


OK so here's the juice:

The premis of the mod is that your pc, (the player character), is not a character in a computer game played by (you) a person in our world per se.
Your character is supposedly a living breathing person in another modern world, who enjoys playing games on the computer at home, just like you and me.
You have a job and after work is finished, you can go home or you can travel to the beach to relax or even take a trip to the big city if you like.

The story has a serious backdrop because the poor people in this particular modern world are living under constant threat of an alien invasion from space.
So in order to escape reality for a few moments, many people turn to computergames and VR for fun and relaxation

One interesting store in the city that you can visit has got a few virtual reality machines on display that your character can try. You can always just pass on by, or you can chose to interact with one of these VR machines. No consequences either way, this part is just there for some extra fun.
Each VR machine will transport the player to a different simulation/demo of a VR computer game,
of course the actual TESIVOblivion game is among those games that the player can chose to engage with, but there are others to chose from as well.
The player can chose to end their adventure in each demo/simulation at any time, at will, and then instantly be back in the store in the city again.

Hope this sounds like an interesting setting for an overly ambitious introduction to a mod

I think that the part I described roughly covers about 10% of the content I made so far and would maybe take about an hour to play through.

Of course there are some very bad things happening to the city after that, and that is really when the fun starts and the story really kicks off... elaborating further would lead us heavily into spoiler territory


The overall strategy I'm following when I'm making the mod is trying to emulate the rules that games of old used to follow a long time ago
like the rules in the first generation of first person shooters or first generation of platform games or first generation sneak'em up games
There will be lots references made and respect paid to the good old games of the by gone pionering era.

So the mod is perhaps kind of an alternate start mod/satire/parody mod with lots of scifi /fantasy comtent referencing lots of old games
and in a weird way, Oblivion is in a way treated as a mod and the actual mod poses as the actual game how is that for weird

Your concept sounds very cool and unique. I like the combination of fantasy and scifi. I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks Selene310187
As soon as I find a moment to spare I will post some videos and show some stuff I look forward to finishing and releasing it some day and then I would be very honored if you would check it out

I should give a little bit of info on where I'm currently at in the development process while I'm here

For the moment I'm trying to connect three villages/towns in the most optimal way.
The idea I'm trying to bring to life is a train ride from the first to the second settlement, then followed by a ride on an airplane to travel to the third and to go the other way from the third town/village I'm thinking boatride.

The trainride might be 30 seconds long or slightly longer, I can always vary the speed of the train to shorten the duration, looking out at the scenery through the windows of a moving train gets old fast (even in a mod for Oblivion) so it can't last for too long.

The airplane ride should be short though. Just taxing down the runway and then take off. After a few seconds airborne, I'll just end the sequence and teleport the player.

The boatride will be equally short, the way I picture it, the player walks onboard the boat, the boat start moving and the player can turn around and watch the boat leaving the shore behind as the boat plunges through the water. Then after 10-15 seconds I'll teleport the player to the destination.

I've done a few test runs of the mechanics behind all three scenarios which went well, so I think I might be able to pull it off.

I made something that looks like a train cart yesterday and today I spend a lot of time putting together something that hopefully looks like an passenger airplane. Haven't started on the boat yet but that should keep me busy for a while

Unfortunately I suck terribly at both modelling and scripting so I am constantly biting off more than I can chew I guess if it ends up looking like something in the neighourhood of something that resembles something similar to an airplane then it's good enough for me 'cause I haven't got the talent to make it any better

A paleofdye n wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 7:41 pmAs soon as I find a moment to spare I will post some videos and show some stuff

That's a good idea!

A paleofdye n wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 7:41 pmI look forward to finishing and releasing it some day and then I would be very honored if you would check it out

Of course, definitely .

A paleofdye n wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 7:41 pmso I am constantly biting off more than I can chew

That sounds so familiar.

well I posted a video of the trainride, thanks for the encouragement Selene31087 !

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/Fn-Dx4KMfQg?si=zTkZj5Amk3YkpON_

the train sequence took just a few days to put together and I guess I overdid it a little, as usual. Rather than 1 minute it now spands over 2 minutes in total, going from trainstation to trainstation. Though in the video the whole sequence is stretched out over 5 minutes!.
This could not be helped I'm afraid, the recording software made the train slow down somehow.
I guess my computer is a bit outdated and therefor the recording software was fighting the Oblivion game over resources which extended the trainride by 3 extra minutes.

So if you notice something familliar looking in regards of textures and design of the metrostations then it's because I'm borrowing quite a few resources for this particular sequence from the excellent old Oblivion mod DukeCity (by sexfoundation and the Duuke TeAm) which can be found at nexusmods. It has the ultimately best textures suited for a modern trainstation and city, so yea, that's why

So the idea of solving that is that in order to play my mod, one must first download and install dukecity, then install my mod which will tap into the stuff that Dukecity is bringing to the table.

I wanted to create a feeling of going on a journey having a few interesting things to see from the window of a moving train. It turned out very similar to how I pictured it in my mind so I guess I'll leave it at that the way it turned out and move on to something else. It's mostly just a smooth ride but the player's camera/viewpoint shakes unintended when passing in or out of the tunnels and I just couldn't get rid of it so I'll just leave it in. I guess trains get a little shaky sometimes

Selene310187 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 11:10 pmSo if you notice something familliar looking in regards of textures and design of the metrostations then it's because I'm borrowing quite a few resources for this particular sequence from the excellent old Oblivion mod DukeCity (by sexfoundation and the Duuke TeAm) which can be found at nexusmods. It has the ultimately best textures suited for a modern trainstation and city, so yea, that's why

Watching the video I know I've seen some parts of it sometime before. DukeCity! It's a long time ago I played this extraordinary mod. This brings back a lot of memories.


What does the hud thing in the train do? Does it track the coordinates of the player?

I like the scene with the shepherd, the sheep and the horses. It contributes a lot to the atmosphere.

Glad you like it Selene31087

the sheep and stuff was fun to put in, I always wanted a reason to design a cowboy and this was it
https://imgur.com/VC9Aj6k


Well the "Hud" is kinda an amputated nif, actually shaped like a round disk but it won't load in Nifscope which will claim that it is broken (shows up just fine in Blender).

In the Construction set it is listed under miscellanious items. Without it in place during the trainride, the player will start rapidly sinking through the floor of the mesh which is why I'm putting up a messagebox warning the player not to grab the Hud


In retrospect I should probably just make the Hud resistant to grabbing. Reason why it is grabbable in the first place is that I used a fuller version of the script in another setting where the player have more control over the vehicle/vessel and after parking and getting ready to excit the vehicle the player in that case then had to actually grab the Hud to be able to physically move outside of the vehicle. In hindsight I definitely should make the Hud ungrabbable in this scene with the train as I'm just teleporting the player out of the train

One more great thing with the Hud being a miscellanious item is that you can attach a script to it so if you have placed the player aboard anything that should be able to be firing targeted spells at things as it passes by, the Hud takes care of such a function just nicely. Which is something I'm taking advantage of in yet another sequence using the same script

The DukeCity mod is so cool so much talent and effort was put into the design of that mod