I'm working on an idea for a little house mod, and was thinking about putting in a very short bit of questing to gain access to the house. As I floated that idea around in my head I started thinking up a back-story to explain the origins of the house and the fate of its previous tenants. I think I can do a decent job of writing it up, but if I did and it turned into more than a few pages of journal scraps, would many people bother reading it?

Certainly. Just spread several pages(pip-boy messages) across the quest, each containing a few paragraphs. It's done in vanilla, it should work well.

Yes. It adds immersion. People hunger for it

This.

And the players that aren't interested can ignore it. What I wouldn't do is make the backstory mandatory, but enjoyably and creatively introduced in some way. Just sticking it in a terminal or something isn't very provocative. Although, having some kind of quest to win the house sounds like a great idea. But the story can be woven into that somehow.

Yeah, the biggest problem I'm facing in mentally planning this is how to spread out the story so that it's not just in two big chunks. I don't plan on doing anything involving pip-boy messages or quest markers, out of a combination of lack of know-how and a preference for not always having an arrow telling you where to go.




Well, I don't know if I want to make it completely effortless to get into the place, quite frankly if someone wants it bad enough they can console their way in.

I should probably mention though, the background to your Willow mod is one of the things that's recently inspired me to try my hand at this, even if it's just something simple like a house and some journal pages. A little bit of that and The Survivalist from Honest Hearts is probably what got the ideas going. Sort of makes me wish I had some voice-acting talent. :thumbsup:

I didn't mean to suggest it should be effortless to get into the house. I meant that the quest and the backstory don't necessarily have to be the same thing. The quest is what the player must do to get the house. The backstory runs in parallel and is added along the way and is a voluntary journey of discovery for the player that wants it. I don't know if I'm making much sense.



You may have voice-acting talent you don't know about if you've never tried doing it before. I'd never done anything before Willow. I just decided to buy a mic and try to do it because I wanted to be able to write whatever dialogue I wanted

I think I get what you're saying... make it so that the player CAN run through the quest to get the house without actually getting into the back-story. I'm not sure how I could pull that off without compromising the "unmarked quest" feel that I want.



I just might give it a try. :goodjob: